Responses to the Mixed Tape Post from Marty and Wei

Okay, so I wasn't the only one who thought that the cassette/USB stick combo was the coolest thing since sliced bread. I was flattered that Wei used this post as a point of departure for his own experience with mixed tapes. His post can be found here.

Marty, who is a sound engineer, gave me an education into why vinyl just sounds better, and NO it's not just because I'm old and nostalgic. His comments are quoted here in full:

Love the photos.

Yes mix tapes were a difficult music to assemble. For me it was always getting the spacing between songs uniform through out the Cassette tape. I actually think that it was more difficult than pro tape in having to cut and splice tape to assemble a bumper reel for a show. Watching a pro cut and splice tape in the studio on the fly was an art.

Doing all that work was something special when you gave it away. Its that gap between handy craft of “see what I baked or built for you.” It was the first real technology you could make yourself. And give away. It also represented a lot about you in your taste in music. Like the generation before us old people. You would go to someone’s library to look at what books they liked and collected to understand the type person you were encountering. Upon completion you generally knew if you would be interested, and what type activity from the book titles alone, i.e., do not discuss politics or religion, but this could be good sex.

So it was with my generation with Albums. First encounter with someone and you really couldn't wait to see what albums they had. You could sit and share your music with someone and in the sharing know the type of relationship you could expect from the conversation and selection. There were always surprises. Like, “Oh Broadway show tunes how uh unique.” Yes, I had both versions of Jesus Christ Superstar—Movie and Musical. Still today one of my favorite music scores. Of course Tommy and Hair. Listing to an album today you can hear the warmth of the music we could listen for hours. You would never get tired of music. This brings me to my point finally.

Digital Music. Without getting too technical. Humans can hear in the frequency range of 20Hz to 20,000Khz count from 20 all the way up to 20,000 and you cover the bass up threw mid and to the high treble Freq. Digital music is sampled at 48 or 44 Khz on DVD and CD. Your speakers are reproducing these sampling Freq, Digital Hash, and you are being bombarded by them as you listen. Famous English sound console designer Rupert Neve said these sampling Freq were bad and dangerous to listen to music with. If you remember Punk Rock started about the same time. He related the sampling Freq to a whole generation of angry youth. I noticed it one day in how quickly i was fatigued when listening to a CD and how quickly I tired and stopped listing. I attributed it to age but I remember listing to albums all night and then again the next day.

I now put music on the computer and record it and listen back at 96Khz high enough I do not think my speakers can reproduce Sampling Freq. I can listen longer and enjoy the experience more. Listen to an album, yes pop and clicks but I never tire of the warmth and smooth sound of vinyl.

Isn't that what you share with a friend? George Massenburg said again recently we may in the future, look back at this period in music and wonder. No wonder music was lost in this 44K /48K MP-3 period. Its just terrible to listen to. He is a big advocate of bringing quality back to recording sampling in the 192K 24 bit and above range. Its expensive but it’s what I remember about why I enjoyed recorded music.

Thanks Wei and Marty!

The Mixed Tape Grows Up

I was at a party last week and had a hilarious discussion with a bunch of music lovers who were all old enough to have fond memories of mixed tapes. And yes, I know that CD compilations and iTunes playlists serve the same function. Symbolically, however, when it comes to the blood, sweat, and tears involved in using music to pour out your soul to the object of your affections, the digital versions pale in comparison. It used to take hours, if not days, to put a proper tape together. Stacks of LPs and 45s at the ready, along with a notebook to jot down possibilities in terms of tracks and to note tape counters so that "The Song" could be found easily when that special someone wanted to play it over and over and over again . . . Of course, I do not mean to suggest that selecting songs for a CD compilation or an iTunes playlist is a straightforward matter,* but the act of putting the mixed tape together--beyond the selection of the songs--was quite a bit of work.

I have received quite a few excellent compilation CDs and digital playlists over the past few years, but they were gifts from friends who were keen on introducing me to new music, for which I am always very grateful. It's been a long time, however, since anyone made me a mixed tape. And even if they did, what would I do with it? I haven't had a tape deck in ages. And to be honest, most of the guys I've dated recently are happy to just buy CDs for me, for which I am also grateful. So it's been a long time since I've experienced that giddy feeling I used to get when a guy reached into his pocket and pulled out 90 minutes of affection that took him forever to get just right . . .

. . . until Monday:


Now seriously, how fucking cool is that?






So yeah, it's still digital, but what it lacks in the effort involved in actually putting the music onto the USB stick is more than made up for in the design. Oh, and the music selection is fantastic, too. Okay, it's slightly stalkerish, but fantastic nevertheless.

Naja, falls Du irgendwann hier landest, nochmals vielen Dank.





*I'll give everyone the benefit of the doubt and just ignore iTune's Genius ;-)

September 26, 1983

Aside from the fact that this was three days before my 23rd birthday, more importantly, it was the day that an all-out nuclear war was narrowly avoided.

We are all familiar with the images--from comic books and films--of the superhero calmly diffusing a situation that threatens to destroy life on planet Earth. This is the stuff science fiction thrillers are made of, with "fiction" being the operative word here.

Well meet Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov.


Faced with satellite warnings that the Soviet Union was under nuclear attack from the United States, Petrov--with precious little time to react--decided that the warnings were some sort of malfunction and did not escalate the situation, which would have resulted in the Soviets counterattacking. The story of this frighteningly unbelievable day can be heard here until May 27.

Obviously, this story isn't new, but I had never heard Petrov discuss it in his own words. Warning: this 30-minute piece is not for the faint-hearted. While listening, I realized that there were a lot of things being discussed that I really didn't want to know. This includes the speculation, for instance, that one of the reasons that Ronald Reagan moved to towards more open discussions about existing nuclear arsenals, was due to another close call (perhaps initiated by the US), which remains classified. He was also concerned that the more technologically sophisticated the weapons delivery systems become, the more room there is for error.

In short, the fewer opportunities there are for men like Petrov to say, "No. Do not launch."

Congratulations Luke!!

Remember this guy?

Well yesterday he graduated from Colgate University. So here's a shout out to one of the coolest and smartest guys I know:

YOU ROCK DUDE! WELL DONE!!

Luke, since I'm not there to buy you a dozen drinks or sing obscure funk tunes from 1973, I'm sending 22 seconds of our 7th floor past instead, as a little reminder of some of the silliness we used to get up to.

Luke hard at work . . . checking out YouTube

Looking forward to more silliness in Berlin ;-)

Enjoy your celebration!!

WTF??

You know how it is . . . you're up late working on a project. You're home alone for the weekend because your flatmate is in France and her son is with his dad. Determined to finish your work before going to bed, you head into the kitchen for a cup of tea, glance up at the clock, and see THIS:



Now, I don't know about you, but I've never seen a clock do that . . . except in a horror flick. And that goes extra double for a German clock, which must be second only to a Swiss clock in precision and all that shit. Soooo, that leaves me with two choices:

1. The Mercury Retrograde is a lot stranger than I have ever imagined.
2. There are some crazy-ass German poltergeists loose in my flat.

I'm going to assume the answer is #1. However, just to be on the safe side, I have come up with a strategy for dealing with number #2. Being the brave lass that I am, I made a deal with the spirit of the clock: I'll stay out of the kitchen tonight, if it stays out of my bedroom. I put on some Ella Fitzgerald, followed by some Feist for good measure, just in case it found that Thom Yorke tune (Black Swan) offensive . . . well, you never know, spirits have feelings, too. At least, I can imagine they do. Okay, screw it, all I know about ghosts came from that Patrick Swayze film.

Okay, I did finish my work and I am going to bed. I am even going to turn the lights off (aren't I brave!) and pretend like this is just another normal night, which means that Jeff Buckley will now sing me to sleep. I think a ghost would enjoy that as well.

See you in the morning!!

A room with a view

Victoria Park

I finally made it into the park a couple weeks ago, which is absurd I grant you. Still, there's something to be said for experiencing it like this . . .

Mercedes-Benz Telling the Future

Having moved more times than I care to remember, I am always amazed by the curious things I've managed to hang on to. Random postcards, clippings, rocks, candle holders . . . you get the idea. Some of the clippings are collected in a small file folder that travels with me from place to place, giving me a sense of permanence and a tangible past in whatever new surroundings I may find myself.

So it was this sense of stamping my new place with some sort of "This space belongs to Inez" that led me to go to the folder once again.* It was there that I found an ad I had torn out of a magazine in the early 1990s:

Der zukünftige Präsident der Vereinigten Staaten?

It was a pull-out ad that unfolds into a poster. The images were a series of of children and questions about what they might grow up to be. The image above was the centerfold and the question is, "Future President of the United States?"

I remember laughing when I saw it, with a kind of "as if" attitude, but then on closer inspection being deeply moved on many levels. That this child is so precious and tugged at my heartstrings is probably clear. Beyond that, however, lies the fact that as recently as last year, I would never in my wildest dreams have imagined that I would live to see a black president of the United States, much less as far back as the early 1990s. So this ad became a symbol of America's failure to live up to its potential; and for black children whose dreams were restricted by the world in which they live.

Happily, it has now has become a symbol for something else entirely and I think it's about time I put it in a frame.

If all their subsequent ads have been crap I haven't noticed and don't care. Mercedes-Benz gets a life-pass from me for this one. Well done!



*I had skipped this ritual on Bürknerstraße, as if I knew when I moved in that I wouldn't be staying.

La Nouvelle Smooth

A few weeks ago I posted a Stella ad (the one with the ice skating priests) on Facebook and then spent hours on YouTube checking out some of their other ads. I've always found their commercials extremely witty and clever, which makes me very happy because I love their beer. Now, however, they have exceeded all of my expectations with their new campaign, La Nouvelle Smooth, which reimagines La Nouvelle Vague directors such as Jean-Luc Godard and Francoise Truffaut shooting 24, 8 Mile, and Die Hard. More information can be found in this article on the Guardian website.

The video featured in the Guardian article is a hilarious "what if" Godard directed 24. It uses characters based on those from Pierrot le Fou and gives our hero, Jaques Bauder, the task of saving St. Tropez in 24 hours or else . . .

Saving the world is so . . . Bourgeois.

I thought that was hilarious, but then I went to the campaign's website to check out the other two.

Truly hysterical is a reworking of 8 Mile, here called 8 Kilometre, in which a pair of poets battle it out in a jazz club.

Monte Carlo in the house??!

Finally, in Dial Hard, a mysterious woman sends our hero (Inspector Jean Meqlaine) to a telephone booth across the street to answer riddles.

I have holes in my top and bottom, and in the middle, but I still hold water. What am I? Call me in four minutes with the answer or die.

The campaign was created by the agency Mother London and is worth every pound of their undoubtedly ridiculous fee.

And now excuse me while I go off to buy some beer.

Shame on you Mr. Helg Sgarbi!

The extenuating circumstances of Mr. Sgarbi's attempt to extort millions of euros from BMW heiress Susanne Klatten make for fascinating reading. Was he really trying to exact revenge for the fact that his father, a Polish Jew, languished as a slave laborer in a BMW factory as this article in the The Independent suggests? If so, being paid €49 million is still a hell of a lot of money to collect for the suffering of someone who has long since died.

The point here, however, is not to examine the ins and outs of what type of revenge (if any) is appropriate in these circumstances--I'll leave that to the ethicists. No, the point here is to publicly chastise Mr. Sgarbi for screwing up the perfectly formed image of the gigolo I have carried with me since 1980, which would be this:



and definitely not this:

Image courtesy of ITN

No offense intended, but this guy looks my banker and not a gigolo. But then again, perhaps looking ridiculously hot is only important for an American Gigolo.

Meggings

Nope, fashion is not one the topics usually dealt with on this blog. There are some stories, however, that are just too shocking to pass up . . . like the piece on the Guardian website this morning about men's leggings, or meggings as they are now called.

Image courtesy of the Guardian

Well in a way I'm relieved to see that men can also be manipulated into becoming fashion victims. Perhaps because their victimhood is relatively new, however, they appear more tragic. But I say, "Right on Fashion Industry!" because if a guy is lame enough to buy "meggings" and think that that makes him cool, then I'm left with the hope that the industry will now turn more of its attention to making men--rather than women--look ridiculous.

That must be some kind of victory for women . . . right?

RIP Horton Foote

Given that he was working with such great material, it is perhaps not surprising that Horton Foote created such a wonderful screenplay for To Kill a Mockingbird. That said, the experience of viewing a film adapted from a beloved novel can be so very painful, that I am inclined to give proper credit where credit is due.

Mr. Foote was a genius.

Trailer

The High Noon Moment

While it is of course true that he was helped by a brilliant cast and one of the most beautiful film scores ever composed, Mr. Foote's contribution to the film can not be overstated.

It's not for nothing that To Kill a Mockingbird is quite simply my favorite film.

Thank you sir.

Marty's Response to the "Slavery Memorial" Post

Thanks Marty for taking the time to visit my blog and for always leaving such thoughtful comments. Thanks also for giving me permission to feature your comments in a separate post. I have to admit that you are a bit more optimistic about the future than I am. I think that greed is an extremely powerful force, so I'm not sure that this resort won't eventually go ahead as planned. I am glad, however, that your optimism--grounded in personal experience--exists. Perhaps it will rub off on me. ;-)

So my cyberfriend, keep fighting the good fight in Nashville and beyond!!

It does appear and to me feels like someone trying to trivialize the most heart breaking and tragic period in the history of the human species.

Let us not forget that it was pure unadulterated greed in the desire for profit and riches of the few that forced the many into slavery.

Does that not sound like the same battle we are approaching in the coming economic disaster? The battle being currently fought in America is one of wealth.

The Republican plan was to continue to remove all taxes from the rich and tax the poor into the streets to beg. Taking what's left of the treasury and giving it to the banks and the wealthy. At that point you would have near slavery. Everyone would work for what ever money was offered.

That would have worked if it weren't for our President Obama. It has shocked the wealthy in this country that Black Americans and working class Whites carried an election by banding together to achieve a goal something few in this country ever thought would happen. But WE were successful.

That's the past and looking at the future Republicans and wealthy America one thing is coming. Note who the Republicans just made the chairperson.

In 2002 it was noted that Blacks in America had reached a threshold that the next generation of Black Americans were situated to inherit the the largest amount of money ever seen in this country.

Inez you have just seen and recognized how the Republicans plan to get power back to the rich. Nice Work....

How do you break the ties with the Democratic party Blacks have had since rich White American gave up slavery? Tell them you going to tax the first inheritance many have ever seen.

They are banking that wealthy Blacks will be a greedy and self-centered as Wealthy whites.

Your outrage Inez may be the deciding factor.

All people. Let me say that again. All Humans on the face of the Earth were descended from two Black people out of Africa.
Whites we are genetic mutants of
million's of years of evolution.

To say you know the pain of the Black race is impossible if you do not have the genetics to back it up. My mother brought her Black boyfriend to my high school functions. Yes in the South that was a painful experience for me. But one now that made me the person I am today. I didn't fully understand at the time but it changed many people for the better, me as well.

Why will the Jacksons in Nigeria and the Republicans in America fail in their endeavors to separate the Black race like they have the White, one in to wealthy the other average working class.

They fail to take in to consideration of the millions of years of the Black race of tribes and families and community in the face of overwhelming pain and suffering have made them not only Different race but dare I say a genetically superior one. Tune in in 100 years to find out.

For now, continue to look for the signs of the attempt to divide the Black Race into have and have not.

My personal opinion is this Jacksonville in Nigeria will fail for the very reason stated above. My hope the Black race will continue to say what they have said through history. Its not about sipping champagne and re-writing history at a golf course in Nigeria. Its about community and family helping your neighbors.

My mother would say to me. "Feel privileged that you are accepted with open arms in the Black community, people I have always prided myself in knowing. For it was your Grandfather that denied the basic rights deserving of all humans to the Black community in this County."

I was privileged and still am. Please God I pray for one thing: never again divide us By race color creed sexuality or national origin.

Moreover by Separating us by Greed for the riches of wealth.

marty

Loking for love and getting dead chickens

There's another one of those bizarre "woman goes looking for love and finds creepiness instead" stories in The Local today. After being "wooed" online by a man she believed to be a 33 year-old PhD student, a German woman set off for New Zealand to begin a new life. Rather than being met at the airport by the intellectual dreamboy with whom she had been corresponding since October, however, she was greeted by "old man" who lived in a "horror house."

Okay, first three things:

1. "54" is not old. "84" or "94" perhaps, but not "54." Who writes this stuff anyway, teenagers?
2. Moving to NZ after a four-month virtual relationship? Seriously?
   
3. She's crazy.
   

Finding love on the internet is possible; I know people who've done it and are now married and living happily ever after. The problem is NOT the internet itself, but critical thinking skills that are needed whether you're hunting at the neighborhood bar or on MySpace.

The decision to remain in the "horror house" and sleep in a "filthy bed" with her host for six days--despite having had many opportunities to escape--because she was "fascinated," suggests to me that she's a woman who makes seriously bad choices.

I don't think we can blame the Internet for that.

Luckily, she was "rescued" after a guy she met on the plane raised the alarm when she didn't show up for a date they had planned. Wow. She hadn't even met her fake PhD student and she was already planning to hook up with yet another stranger. Okay, it was a long flight.

I wonder if she went back to Leipzig (perhaps too embarrassing) or if she decided to stay in New Zealand with Bachelor #2. Seriously, I'm pulling for this pairing. I want them to get married and tell their children the story of how they met:

"Daddy met Mommy on a plane. She was on her way to meet a man. But he was a bad man and his house was full of dead chickens, so Daddy rescued her."

Lovely.

Marlon Jackson's $3.4 Billion Slavery "Memorial"

I have long since given up on the notion that the world can't get any more ridiculous. Yes, despite everything, I am sometimes still quite naive. In any case, another story always comes along to remind me that the growth rate for ridiculousness is apparently exponential and I should just abandon whatever shreds of naiveté I have left.

Case in point . . .

There is an article this morning on the BBC website about Marlon Jackson's plans to build a $3.4 billion slavery "memorial" in Nigeria. This story is disgusting on so many levels . . . but i'll pick one:

Visitors will be able to see the route their ancestors walked, shackled together as they were whipped toward the 'point of no-return.'

They can then retire to their five-star hotel to drink cocktails by the pool.

Because heaven knows after seeing the route my ancestors walked, I'd certainly need a fucking drink in a fucking 5-star hotel.

Of course, this is being marketed as both providing jobs in Nigeria and connecting African-Americans with their history. Both of those things may indeed be true, which doesn't make the project any less reprehensible.

If Marlon Jackson truly wants to go down in history as an assclown who was eager to profit from one of the most painful chapters in world history--and in such a crass 5-star fashion--then by all means he should proceed as planned. Alternatively, he could take that $3.4 billion and use it to fight modern-day slavery as it continues to be practiced in Africa and elsewhere in the world.

But then again, perhaps the world does need another golf course and its first Jackson Five museum:

Visitors will be able to pay their respects at the site of a mass grave for those who died before boarding ships across the Atlantic Ocean.

And then travel a few yards in a buggy to play a round of golf.

They can visit a replica slave ship to see the conditions Africans suffered, before visiting the world's only museum dedicated to the memory of the Jackson Five.*

Like I said before, disgusting . . . truly disgusting.


*Italics are mine.

Oren Lavie

I absolutely love this song and accompanying video.



According to Oren's MySpace page, the video consists of over 3,000 still photographs, the storyboard took four weeks to complete, and the actual shooting took only two days.

I heard the song for the first time today, so I'm ignoring the bit I just read that said it was featured in a Chevrolet commercial . . . which isn't necessarily a bad thing, I'm just ignoring it.

Anton Chekhov

The way these things typically go is that one thing leads to another which leads to yet another and so on and so on . . .

For example, I was just watching Druckfrisch, a show about new books hosted by Denis Scheck. He began with a segment on "change" in the US and went on to discuss two of Obama's favorite authors, Saul Bellow and Philip Roth. I read Bellow when I was really too young to understand what I was reading; a mistake I didn't make with Roth. So I was more than interested in his discussion of the latest Roth novel to appear in Germany, Empörung (Indignation). I was a bit annoyed because this book had slipped off of my radar, so I went searching for reviews, etc.

That's how I found the following quote from Anton Chekhov, which was in the review* of Indignation in The New York Review of Books:

There ought to be behind the door of every happy, contented man some one standing with a hammer continually reminding him with a tap that there are unhappy people; that however happy he may be, life will show him her claws sooner or later, trouble will come for him—disease, poverty, losses, and no one will see or hear, just as now he neither sees nor hears others. (Italics are mine.)

I love Chekhow, and he's one of my go-to guys when I'm feeling miserable and want to feel worse. This quote is taken from a story called "Gooseberries," which is in the collection The Wife and Other Stories. This passage makes clear that things haven't really changed that much since 1898.

It also makes me want to swing my hammer.


*It's a very detailed review, so if you're interested in reading Indignation and don't want to know everything that happens, skip it.

Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaud

It's a dreary Saturday afternoon in Berlin, and I'd love to be curled up on my sofa with a blanket and a cup of tea watching gorgeous French people being crazy in love:

Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaud Trailer

Instead, I'm sitting at my desk working. I can't even play the (Miles Davis) soundtrack since it's in storage in DC.

Since I'm a freelancer, however, I will stop complaining immediately. Having work on my desk can only ever be a very good thing . . . a glorious thing . . . a truly magnificent thing . . .

*Sigh*

Auf der Strecke

Once in a while a film grabs me and won't let me go.

This was the case with Dare mo shiranai (Nobody Knows), Absolutely Positive, and Iklimler (Climates). Each of these films left me reeling, but at the same time hungry for more. Their power rests not only in their beautiful aesthetics and stunning performances, but also in the directors' ability to tell simple, but enormously moving stories with protagonists that make you care about what will happen to them next.

Now I have another film to add to this list: Auf der Strecke, a short film by Swiss director Reto Caffi, which tells a heartbreaking story of love and the terrible impact of a bad choice.



I saw this film on Arte a couple weeks ago, and simply could not stop thinking about it. I won't go into too much detail here, because I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it. Everybody deserves to have the same "Oh fuck .... Nooooooo!!!" moment that I had. Suffice it to say that the protagonist is a good guy who makes a bad choice because of love. The repercussions bring the woman he loves closer, but now make that love impossible.

Confused? Sorry, but you do need to see it for yourself.

I'm very excited to see that the film has been nominated for an Oscar in the category of short films.* So keep your fingers crossed for Mr. Caffi; this one really deserves a win.





*Honestly, this is always the BEST category in the Oscars, anyway.

Jumbo Hostel

As if Sweden weren't cool enough, I recently saw a report about a 747 that has been converted into a hostel. Located at Arlanda Airport, about 42 km north of Stockholm, the Jumbo Hostel is a fascinating example of creative thinking. And honestly, if you have to stay at an airport hotel, what could be cooler than staying in one that used to fly?

Cockpit Suite

Double room

Amazing transformation

I wouldn't want to spend my entire visit to Stockholm having to travel back and forth to the airport, but a couple nights in a converted 747 would definitely be on the agenda.

Details about room types and prices are available here.

Prostitutes and Tax-deductible Corsets

I have always been fascinated with the prostitutes on Oranienburgerstraße. Yeah, they're beautiful, but that's not the point. Most of them look like they could kick your ass with little or no effort. And then there are the corsets, which create the most amazing tiny-waist effect I have ever seen outside of that Research magazine issue about weird body stuff.

In any case, the article in The Local exploring the popularity of the corset in Berlin's prostitution scene is interesting enough, but to the extent that it reminded me that the oldest profession is legal in Germany and the corsets are, therefore, tax-deductible . . . well, let's just say it made me a bit crazy. No, I don't have anything against prostitutes deducting their corsets as legitimate business expenses, but it just reminded me that I forgot to save my receipt for the colored pencils -- essential for a copy editor -- I bought a couple weeks ago.

I could certainly learn to pay more attention to my business expenses from these ladies, that's for sure.

Stuff I Don't Really Get: SMS on the TV

This is just bizarre.


The way it works is that you send a text message and your message and photo, if you like, appear on television. Each text message costs 1,99€. Aside from the idea that people are willing to part with money for this, which is bizarre enough, the animation here is really weird and is accompanied by really weird music.

While the rabbit is waiting for text messages to arrive, he taps his big foot and shows his displeasure if he has to wait too long. Then when a message arrives, he hops up and down, whips it out of the kettle, and reads it. He doesn't actually read it aloud, but the text appears on the screen, like this:


Okay, I have to translate this message because it does shed some light on what's going on here.

No one loves you as much as I do. My darling Diana L, please talk to me. Forget everything that happened. Let's begin our love. Your A.

So apparently A screwed up and perhaps s/he thought that the apology would work better if Diana L saw it on television at 2:53 in the morning and knew that it cost 1,99€.

Like I said, bizarre.

Hair India

Hair India is a documentary from B&B Film that traces the journey of hair: from a temple in India, to a factory in Italy, to salons around the world. The film's strength lies in the filmmakers' ability to expose this remarkable journey with humanity: the Indian women and girls who donate their hair to the temple are not exploited; the factory owners in Italy who make the extensions and the Indian women who purchase them are not demonized.



Nevertheless, it's impossible to watch this film and not come to the conclusion that there's something horribly wrong here. Perhaps it makes sense that hair lying around in a temple is a business opportunity, but I can't get past the feeling that these poor women really thought that their sacrifice was about something else.

As for Sangeeta, the Indian woman in the film who wants the extensions, it is too easy to write her off as shallow and/or ignorant, but there is also an interesting point being made here about notions of beauty in India. The pressure on women to conform to globalized beauty standards is huge and cannot be ignored. Apparently, for instance, Bollywood stars were previously quite voluptuous, but now the beauty ideal is based on Hollywood standards, which of course means skinny . . . very skinny. I felt pity for Sangeeta because she appears to be trapped; both in her belief that having long hair will make it easier to find a partner, and in a society that seems to validate that belief. I was also struck by the filmmakers' choice to make the consumer an Indian woman. That allows the hair to come home, so to speak, and it exposes high-society life in India, making the contrast between the source and the consumer that much more drastic.

Hair India is a brilliant documentary and I salute the filmmakers for their work.





Images courtesy of Arte.

Bullshit They Can Believe In

I'll confess to gleeful curiosity when I saw the headline -- "Bush loyalists seethe over Obama's address" -- in yesteday's International Herald Tribune. While watching the speech, I was trying to imagine how Bush and his entourage must have felt being on the receiving end of that oh-so eloquent smackdown. The article confirmed what I suspected: Bush couldn't really be bothered, but his mates were not too pleased.

I was ready to dismiss much of the article as the blah, blah, blah I was expecting, but then I read the quote from Marc Thiessen that had appeared in Washington Post.

As the new president receives his intelligence briefings, certain facts must now be apparent: Al-Qaeda is actively working to attack our country again. And the policies and institutions that George W. Bush put in place to stop this are succeeding. During the campaign, Obama pledged to dismantle many of these policies. He follows through on those pledges at America's peril -- and his own. If Obama weakens any of the defenses Bush put in place and terrorists strike our country again, Americans will hold Obama responsible -- and the Democratic Party could find itself unelectable for a generation. (Italics are mine.)

Oh really?

The assertion that Bush's legacy is that he kept the US safe from terror in the wake of September 11, while true, nevertheless seems to ignore the fact that the events of September 11 happened on Bush's watch. Period. So how is it that such a catastrophic failure gets reworked into a legacy that the former Bush administration is proud to own?

Seriously, I wonder if they really believe their own bullshit.

Eating Frogs into Extinction

You know how it is: you've got the remote in hand and you're channel-surfing mindlessly, when suddenly an image catches your eye and your brain starts to melt. That was the story on Saturday morning when I made my breakfast, turned on the tube, and was soon confronted with a report on frog farming.

Frog farming? WTF?

I'll be the first to admit that I don't know much, but how much I don't know about the world continues to amaze me.

In any case, I was too stunned to immediately start grabbing screen shots, so my readers will be spared pics of slaughtering and skinning frogs. Already skinned frogs, however, are on the menu:


Since I missed the beginning of this report, I can't exactly say where this was taking place, but it was somewhere in Asia. The owner of the bistro killed and skinneded the frogs himself, then tossed them into pots of whatever, bubbling away on the stove.

According to the report, this guy has the best frog dishes in wherever this story was filmed.

Okay, so I knew that frogs (well, their legs at least) are popular in France, but I did not know that they are also quite popular in the United States and in Asia. In fact, according to a recent study, frogs may be facing extinction not only due to poor environmental conditions, but because they're so yummy.

According to UN figures, global trade in frog meat has soared in the past 20 years. France and the US are the two largest importers, with France importing between 2500 and 4000 tonnes each year since 1995. Indonesia exports more than 5000 tonnes annually, mostly to Europe. Frogs' legs are also very popular in Asian cuisine.

Wow. That's a lot of frog meat. And while I'm intrigued that so many people around the world think that frogs are tasty, I just can't get past the fact that they're frogs . . . which makes no sense given that I gladly eat eels. Ah well, if you've had frog meat drop me a line and let me know what you think about it.

Cute, aren't they?

Images courtesy of Phoenix

Leadership

There's a lot I haven't said since Obama was elected. Somehow the historical significance of the election rendered me more or less mute. My thoughts, though, turned to my grandparents who worked so hard all of their lives on their little farm in North Carolina to provide for their family, and to my own experiences growing up as a black child in south. And yes, I was also one of those black folks who never imagined seeing a black man in the White House; but there I sat yesterday in a daze watching German news coverage of the inauguration.

I have to disagree with the claim that Obama's election was some sort of miracle. To make that claim would be to deny the hard work and political astuteness that convinced the majority of American voters. I would also argue that it was the promise of real leadership that drew so many Americans.

When I marketed management books in San Francisco, I was particularly struck by two of our titles: The Leadership Challenge and Leaders, Fools, and Impostors. Without going into too much detail, suffice it to say that leadership is complex, and many people in positions of power haven't the slightest clue about how to actually lead their organizations. Listening to, and then later reading President Obama's Inauguration Address made clear to me that he understands clearly some of the most important aspects of leadership: inspiring by example and challenging followers to act.

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

This is my favorite passage from the speech and strengthens my conviction that Obama is truly the leader that the United States needs in this very difficult period.

Well done voters!

A Great Soup for a Winter's Day

It's cold in Berlin. Really cold. And when it's this cold, it's so soothing to have a big pot of something yummy simmering on the stove. That was the idea yesterday when I decided to make vegetable soup.


I missed the Turkish Market on Tuesday (it was too cold to venture out) but found these goodies at the Turkish grocery store around the corner. Lovely and ridiculously inexpensive.

Vegetable Soup

1/4 cup olive oil
2 cups diced carrots
1 cup each diced onion, celery, and fennel
1 cup chopped leek (white part only)
2 tbsp minced garlic
6 ripe plum tomatoes (peeled, seeded, and diced)
salt and pepper to taste
6 cups fresh vegetable stock (recipe below)
2 large sprigs fresh thyme
4 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley
1 cup chopped green beans
1 cup diced zucchini
1/2 cup torn basil leaves

Place oil in a pot over low heat. Wilt carrots, onion, celery, fennel, and leek, stirring for 15 minutes. Add garlic during last 5 minutes.

Stir in tomatoes and season with salt and pepper; cook for 3 minutes. Add broth thyme, and 2 tbsp parsley; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium; simmer for 20 minutes.

Add the green beans, zucchini, and basil; simmer 10 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Stir in remaining parsley. Serve and enjoy!


Vegetable Stock

2 onions
2 leeks, sliced
2 tbsp olive oil
3 carrots sliced
3 celery stalks, sliced
2 parsnips, sliced
150 g (1 bunch) flat-leaf parsley
2 garlic cloves
6 peppercorns
4 sprigs thyme

Heat a large saucepan over high head and add the onions, leeks, and olive oil.

Stir until the onions begin to soften, then add the carrots, celery, parsnips and 3 liters (12 cups) of cold water. Ad the remaining ingredients and bring to a simmering heat. Continue to simmer for 3 hours. Remove from the heat and strain into a large bowl. Using the back of a large spoon, press the vegetables into the strainer to draw out most of the flavor. (from Zest by Michele Cranston)

OH MY GOD!!

Image by Michael Buchino

Love Sucks

It's not that I'm too lazy to write proper blog posts these days, I'm just kind of busy. Not too busy, however, to scour YouTube to find replacement material.

So next up for your viewing pleasure is a short film from France that nearly broke my heart the first time I saw it (about a year ago).



It's truly amazing what a talented filmmaker can do in three minutes and fifty-four seconds.

A Hockey Mom I Could Hang With

Aside from the terror and rage that the McCain/Palin ticket unleashed among thinking people, it inspired an incredible creative response as well. Like this:



Amazing.

FPOTUS Barack Obama

Brilliant.



Seriously, there is no contest here. The fact that there's the semblance of one says far more about some American voters than it does about Barack Obama.

The Best Coffee Commercials EVER ...

... or Why I Love the Internet Part 47,859

Someone with way too much time on her hands compiled the Nescafe Gold/Taster's Choice commercials from late Eighties/early Nineties into one fabulous clip. I remember being completely caught up in the relationship that played out over the course of these ads, and watching the compilation now I realize I definitely missed a few. Ah well, such is the beauty of YouTube.

I don't think a campaign like this could work today, given the slow luxurious nature of the individual ads themselves, as well as the unhurried approach of the concept itself. I just can't imagine a pitch being made today for an advertising campaign in which a couple falls in love over the course of a few years in a eleven 45-second spots. But what do I know? Maybe this was as hard to pitch in 1987 as it would be today.

In any case, finding this compilation was like seeing an old friend again: glorious.

Enjoy!

Frankfurt International Book Fair

Ahhhhhh ... the book people ...

Eichborn Stand 2007

Okay, I'm off to one of my favorite events on the planet and will be back here in a couple weeks.

Goat "Condoms" and "Whore" Miles

The olor is a device being used by herdsmen in Kenya to prevent goats from mating during the drought. When I saw the headline for the BBC story, other images than device actually being used popped into my head. In fact, it's less of a condom than it is a kind of chastity belt, but I suppose "Goat Chastity Belt" takes up too much space. In any case, it's an ingenious device and seems to be 100% effective.

As for the story in the Independent about "whore" miles being employed by the Dutch as an incentive to ease women out of prostitution and into other forms of work, I doubt this strategy will offer the same efficacy. It's not that the scheme is bad per se–though it does strike me as a bit naive–but until the demand for prostitution dries up, prostitutes aren't going anywhere. It really is that simple.

There's a reason it's called the "oldest profession."

Autumn

A lot of my friends are sad because summer is over and autumn is here. Well, autumn happens to be my favorite time of year. On a very selfish level, it always represented a new school year, which meant shiny new school supplies and the best clothes (wool!!); new teachers who didn't yet know what a pain in the ass I could be; and my birthday, which was the one day that I could get away with thinking that the world truly revolved around me.

I grew up with seasons and I think they're important in underscoring the fact that existence is organized around the cycles of life, death, and rebirth. So here's to fall and its very special beauty.

Böckhstraße, Kreuzberg

And now a Word about Dubbing...

HATE

No, seriously. I really hate dubbed* films and television programs, which is a bit unfortunate for me since I now live in a country in which foreign-language films are almost exclusively dubbed rather than subtitled.**

German Trailer for House of Flying Daggers

Aside from the cultural implications of watching a Chinese film set in 859 AD, in which everyone seems to be remarkably fluent in German, there is something disembodying (and creepy) about separating performers from their voices. For instance, one of my friends thinks that Brad Pitt and George Clooney are really hot, and I have another friend who is crazy about John Malkovich. Well these women have no idea how hot these men truly are because they've never heard their real voices. To German ears they sound like this:

German Trailer for Burn after Reading

Well ladies, this one's for you:

US Trailer for Burn after Reading

(Okay, to be fair, trying to spot Brad Pitt's hotness behind that haircut is a challenge, but I think you get my point.)

Furthermore, there aren't that many dubbing actors, so after a while Daniel Craig sounds just like Tom Cruise, who sounds just like Javier Bardem. And it's probably best to skip entirely what happens to black American actors in the dubbing arena. Aaaarrrrggghhh!!!

My voice is just as much a part of me as my face, my body, and my mannerisms. To open my mouth and hear another woman's voice would be unthinkable for me, and for anybody else for that matter. Yet, when I refuse to go see dubbed films and insist on either the original-language version or a German film, my friends get annoyed. They seem to assume that films are dubbed everywhere and that I should be used to it. Well I know that at least in the US and the UK they are not. Going to see a foreign film in either of those countries means reading subtitles. This revelation is sometimes met with disbelief, particularly in the case of the US, where it is assumed that we are generally too stupid to read ... as if stupid people are going to art house cinemas to watch foreign films.

Whatever.

When a foreign-language film is marketed in the US or the UK, sometimes there is no dialogue featured in the trailer--just music and/or a voiceover:

US Trailer for Pan's Labyrinth

But if there's dialogue, it is subtitled. Yes, even in a trailer:

US Trailer for The Lives of Others

Can you imagine how completely unrealistic and jarring that would have been with North American English coming out of those mouths? I can't and am really happy that I don't have to, either.

To be perfectly honest, I am quite lucky in Berlin. There are several venues that feature the films in the original versions or with German subtitles. So I can't complain too much. Still, when I'm listening to the film magazine on my favorite radio station, I have to switch it off. It drives me crazy when they feature a segment on Hollywood films, like the one this morning on Burn after Reading. After describing how great the performances are, they played a few audio clips. I don't know who those people were, but they sure weren't Pitt, Clooney, Malkovich, and the rest of the cast.

Well, at least not as I know them.



*The term in Germany is synchronized.
**In the interest of fairness, however, here's a link to a short article on the Goethe Institute website about the history of dubbing in Germany.

I've Got the Music in Me

What a truly glorious thing it is to wake up singing. Particularly if that music is really only coming from your own head.

That's what happened to me this morning. I don't have a radio or a stereo; my MacBook takes care of all of my music requirements at the moment. Yet at 8:00 this morning I woke up singing the New Radicals, having used their hit, "You Get What You Give" as the soundtrack to a dream I was having. Actually, the song was the focus of the dream. I was being sent on an errand in a sparsely populated high school and it slowly dawned on me that to the extent that there were any students and teachers in the classrooms, they were all listening to the same song. And NOT because it was being piped in through any PA system. I actually watched one teacher put the LP (no, not CD) on the turntable and cue the song to the exact spot being played around the school. Weird, huh?

I'm not sure what any of that means, but I have to say that it was a wonderful thing to wake up singing; and not just any song, but a youth anthem about being true to yourself. The fact that I'm a long way from youth doesn't matter. Old or young, we all need to embrace--at least for four and a half minutes--the feel-good notion that joy comes with having the courage to follow our dreams.

And that today happens to be my birthday, I think the dream is the universe's special way of extending greetings and good wishes. Or whatever. I just know that I was really happy when I woke up singing.

Enough Already

Even before I read this thoughtful piece by Coates, I had come to the realization that I had well and truly had my fill of bashing Sarah Palin on Facebook. There was something so incredibly painful about watching those interviews with Katie Couric that has caused me to redirect my rage to where it clearly belongs--with John McCain. She is so in over her well-coiffed head that it's not fun anymore; it's on its way to being a national disaster of epic proportions, brought on by an unprincipled political move stunning in its baseness.

That said, Coates is a bit more generous in his assessment of Palin that I am prepared to be, but I get where he's coming from. Well done.

Sleeping Pilots Reinstated

According to an article on the BBC website, two pilots who fell asleep on a short-haul flight in February of this year "have been cleared to return to work."

WTF? ... BOTH pilots fell asleep 44 minutes into a 45-minute flight?!! Seriously? One apparently has a sleeping disorder, but the other one? No, really, both of them fell asleep at the same time on such a short flight? Aside from the fact that I'm highly skeptical about the official explanation given, there's a much bigger issue here.

Flying is hardly any fun since 9/11. I'm not referring to any fear I may or may not have of terrorists, I'm thinking of the ridiculous and stress-inducing security hoops one has to endure just to get on a plane. By the time I am cleared to fly, I have been grilled about the circumstances surrounding the packing of my bags, the contents of said bags have been checked, I have removed my footwear, my jewelry, and my belt, I have opened my computer, and I have had my body felt up and patted down. And depending on who you are and where you're flying, once you land you may have also had your eyeballs scanned, fingerprints taken, and your information sent off to some government database ... whether you like it or not. All in all, a series of events over which you have absolutely no say or recourse if you want to fly.

Well here's one for the airlines and the National Transportation Safety Board: while they're trying to make sure that I am not terrorist, they should also try figuring out if their pilots have trouble staying awake for 45 minutes on a f**cking short-haul flight.

Look, I have resigned myself to the reality that flying is less pleasant than it used to be. But when I read stories like this one, my head explodes. After going through demoralizing secruity mazes to establish that we are fit to fly, we are then forced to trust that the airlines themselves are. Passengers work under the assumption that the airlines have thoroughly screened their crews.* Ha!

And while it's obviously not safe to make that assumption any longer, there doesn't appear to be anything that passengers can do about it. I mean, do you think that flight information will ever include tidbits like:

This flight will be piloted by Captain Blah Blah, who has a sleeping disorder. Those of you not comfortable taking this flight will be switched to a different flight.

No, I don't think so either.

But perhaps airline passengers have more power than they think. They've certainly had many "suspicious-looking" types removed from flights because they didn't feel comfortable flying with them, and recently passengers on a German flight refused to fly after the pilot tried to take off twice with a plane experiencing technical difficulties. Perhaps change comes through actions like the one in Germany, where passengers simply take a stand.

So maybe the next time I'm checking in for a flight and answering all of their questions, I'll pose one of my own:

Does the pilot of this flight have any health issues that might hinder his ability to fly?

Or maybe not ...


*And their planes.

Two?!

There are only two black farmers in Britain? Seriously?

(Courtesy of The Independent)

Then no wonder that poor brother keeps getting hassled by the cops for stealing from his own field. I think it's time David Mwanaka introduced himself to his neighbors ... at least so that he can get his harvesting done without constantly being hassled. That said, his neighbors have probably seen him on TV or in the papers by now, so perhaps it's a non-issue. And the police ... they should definitely know by now, right? I mean, how many times do they have to go to the same farm before they sort it out?

But really, only two?

Sigh

Swastikas ... in England

What the hell is going on in Somerset?

Okay, to be fair these idiots came from all over Europe for a weekend tribute to Ian Stuart Donaldson, the former vocalist for Skrewdriver, but they managed to gather in Red Hill in Somerset with no apparent difficulty. How is that possible? And how on earth is it possible that I can see the swastikas and hear the "Sieg Heils" in the video, while the pub owners--who were there--can claim that they did not? The folks in Red Hill need to send a clear signal to the pub owners that clientele of that sort won't be tolerated in the future.

I feel sorry for the family who made the video. I think that looking out of my window and seeing racist skinheads urinating in my garden would probably make me flee my house in fear, too. But were they too scared to call the police or was that just seen as a waste of time? There's no mention of the police in the story, except by the pub owner who says that she will cooperate with the police if there's an inquiry. Way to step up ... hardly.

Having spent a few years living in the UK, I am witness to the fact that there is hardly a week that goes by in which some television program about the Third Reich and its horrors isn't featured. Given the Second World War's devastating impact on Britain, it's really inconceivable to think that Swastikas--and the filth who carry them--would be tolerated there. Seriously, WTF?

If that's what free speech means, then it's a highly overrated concept.

Happy Birthday Romy!

Romy Schneider is one of my favorite actresses, and today would have been her 70th birthday. In tribute, here's a scene from Le Vieux Fusil with the great Philippe Noiret.

Baby High Heels

Every time I think I've heard/seen it all, I am reminded (and usually rather painfully) that I have not. The latest assault on my sanity comes in the form of high heels for babies. There's not a lot to say about this except that it's just WRONG and DISGUSTING.

Oh, and that I am officially NOT friends with anyone who thinks that baby high heels are cool or funny. Consider yourselves warned.

Watch out Condi...

...not too much moaning about the absence of black faces at the State Department or they'll be calling you an "angry black woman," too...

And THIS is why I hate zoos

I haven't been to a zoo since the summer of 1986, when I saw a polar bear in the San Antonio zoo who was incredibly thin and looked to be suffering from heat stroke. I can appreciate the idea behind zoos, but seriously WTF should a polar bear be doing in San Antonio TEXAS in the middle of the summer?

And now this??

Apparently there's algae in the water where polar bears in a Japanese zoo frolic:

(AP Photo/Kyodo News, Shuzo Shikano)

According to the article, things should return to normal in November "when the algae growth subsides." And even if that's true, it's still wrong.

WRONG.

THIS is why I love the internet

Respect to the geniuses who put this together!

The World According to Inez

Okay, I've been away. It was summer and I was waiting for my residency/work permit, chilling, working, and learning to ride my bike. I was also exploring my neighborhood, knitting, drinking a lot of coffee, hanging out with old friends, and making new ones. In short, I've been busy.

But I'm back, and just in time to publicly record my descent into madness, which I am entirely blaming on the US presidential campaign. Okay, I really think it's specifically Sarah Palin's fault, but more about that later. Since I'm an expatriate, I suppose it could be argued that I shouldn't give a shit ... nevertheless, I would advise you not to try to argue that to my face. Just sayin.

In fact, I am actually surprised by how much I seem to care and quite shocked by how enraged I was by the Republican Convention. I've been ranting and raving for days and as a result my poor roommate has a few additions to his extensive English vocabulary that I hope he'll NEVER have to use. Yikes! So yeah, I'm back and before I start with the hateration, I'll offer a few pics of that glorious summer day when I bought my bike (Miss Marple) and tried to see Obama ... with a couple hundred thousand other folks.

Miss Marple

Through the Brandenburg Tor on the way to the Siegessäule

Braving the crowd with Silke and Till

As close as we could get

The speech wasn't THAT amazing, but I had a great time and the crowd was fun. There was even a McCain supporter there.

Here's hoping that he's looking as forlorn and ridiculous on November 5 as he does here.