squirm

for those WWII buffs who never expected

to see 'Berchtesgaden' and 'Sports Bra' in the same sentence - please click here.

to all you foodies out there

they've got something special for you in Budapest....

like sand through the hourglass

we paced the Zattere in the footsteps of Nicholas Crabbe, greeting a pink Sun from the Punta della Dogana. the past night, tracking a fractured moon over the oily blackness of the Grand Canal, we had lost ourselves somewhere in the thousand years of calli and campi. the stones swaying beneath our feet as at sea, we wandered with Frederick Rolfe, Proust and Henri de Régnier, only the dull thuds of the vaporetti against the traghetti punctuation to our dreaming. in the ghetto we found Gautier's blistered walls and impossibly narrow passages while yet the wraiths crept furtively beneath the high houses, now draped insufferably bright beneath the burning sky. at sunset, reveries over cappucini at Florian's, the bitterness of history sweetened by austro-hungarian marches and mustached conspiracies.
   and now wake again on the sands of the Mark, a dream departing across the silent sea of memory...

my father had a very black mustache

my flight is in three hours and i still have yet to pack. Running down south for a few days - to that city in the sea haunted by the spirits of second empire neuropaths, birthplace of Casanova and beloved of Byron. The most touristed place on the globe, stinking and sinking below the waves. Two nights in Dorsudoro and then over to La Giudecca to spent another two nights at the home of a friend. It should be a relaxed excursion as long as i don't look now! and avoid the comfort of strangers. Of course, as is local fashion, i feel compelled to once again state that Berlin has more bridges than Venice (as if anyone was going to mistake one for the other!).
   meanwhile i am in the beginning stages of planning a redesign for this site, as developments on other fronts and a few friends leaping into the fray have prompted me to divert my attention from contemplating this world's slow motion apocalypse for a few minutes and turn to the prospect of shuffling some letters and numbers in order to assemble a new heap of decaying ideas that i hope will inspire a bit more attention and caresses from these palsied fingers.... ciao!

floods in papua new guinea

and pigs perishing of blue ear disease in thai binh. as a news junkie i can't get enough information regarding disasters in places i will probably never actually visit. that's why i depend on the good folks at the budapest based National Association of Radio-Distress Signalling and Infocommunications, Emergency and Disaster Information Services (EDIS) to provide me with an up to the minute disaster map. full of threatening icons and multicolored alert levels, the map puts me at the center of the ongoing catastrophe we call planet earth. now if i can hollow out a mountain for my command and control center and hire a team of sexy clones in track suits i can finally put my master plan for world domination into motion!

lost weekend

despite the sunny weather saturday found me in darkness. sitting in our tiny lichtlblick kino watching peter lorre's singular directorial effort der verlorene (the lost one). the film, made upon his return to germany in 1951, opens with Lorre as Dr. Neumeister, a physician in a displaced persons camp who is suddenly joined by one Nowak, an associate from his wartime past. as the two men reacquaint themselves in the canteen that evening, we learn the truth about the doctor, his associate and their shared dark past. the film is a meditation on murder, seeing, silence and the burial of truth beneath opportunism - themes which would also haunt it's release and subsequent disappearance (after a short ten day run) from german cinemas. the film's relentless confrontation of historical horror was unacceptable in the germany of 1951 which, on the verge of its miraculous postwar economic recovery, could not bear the sight of its recent crimes. lorre, silenced in his homeland, went back to hollywood where he would live until his death in 1964.

   the next day we left before noon to ride out the the grunewald. in preparation for a planned trek this autumn through the transylvanian countryside i am training to ride (horses, that is). the riding association of uncle tom's cabin (don't ask) has a riding school and so we went out to make the proper arrangements. afterwards, having noted it on the map of riding trails taped to the door of the barn, we decided to bicycle through the grunewald to the selbstmord friedhof (suicide's graveyard) - who could resist? though setting off in a general northwesterly direction, we soon became turned around and lost among the dense network of walking, riding and cycling trails running through the forest. and we weren't the only ones - as we stopped to ask directions from the other cyclists and wanderers we would often as not be asked the same questions - where had we come from? what was down the next fork or over the next ridge? the woods were full of the desperately lost and disoriented - i think i even spied a group of east prussian refugees still fleeing the advancing russians sixty years later. and one can also imagine the looks of horror we received inquiring for directions to the suicide's graveyard... luckily we soon ran into a orchestra conductor out for a constitutional with the faithful hound and young 'protege'. he closed his eyes and waved an invisible baton, directing us through the forest to the banks of the havel where he indicated we could find a map for the remainder of the journey.

   our conductor also remarked that the cemetery was no longer known as the selbstmord friedhof nor the alternate name of friedhof der namenlosen (graveyard of the nameless) but was now officially designated the friedhof grunewald-forst (graveyard of the grunewald forest). the old names reflect the history of the cemetery, which was founded by the local foresters as a burial ground for the bodies that they pulled from the river, whose currents had the habit of dropping the floaters from the big city here along the reeds. since suicide is a mortal sin, the local churches refused the dead entry into the their churchyards and the woodsmen provided this ground in the stillness of the forest as a final resting place for these tortured souls. as the years progressed it became a resting place not only for the suicides and unknown dead of faust's metropolis but also for those who preferred to rest in eternity untroubled by the petty badgerings of religious faith.

   as promised, after a bit more wandering through the forest we found ourselves on the banks of the havel. the warm sun had brought innumerable families to the water's edge where their children were busy harassing the local waterfowl and being repayed in kind. finding the promised map we soon determined that we were several kilometers southwest of the cemetery. given our propensity for misdirecting ourselves we thought it best to ride north along the havel - keep the river on your right (or in this case left) and all that. the next few kilometers found us dodging butterflies, toddlers, teens and ancients along the bike path until we reached schildhorn where we paused for refreshment before heading back up into the forest.

   leaving the waters edge and riding up into treeline, the lowering sun reddened the trunks of the pines. before long, a clue we were headed in the right direction. a wooden sign pointing down the trail and announcing in large letters 'zum friedhof'. heeding, we found ourselves a moment later at the gate of the graveyard. as we wandered between the plots, we spied a small stone with a pair of names, upon which rested a bottle of wine, a lantern and several pebbles. it was the grave of one margarete päffgen and her daughter christa - better known as NICO. singer-songwriter, fashion model, actress, keyboard player and warhol superstar, NICO was buried here with her mother after her sudden death in ibiza in 1988. funny really, as we have been listening to NICO quite a bit lately after reading simon reynolds writing about her in the guardian. her two albums the marble index and desertshore are to be rereleased together this year as the frozen borderline. siren of the lost, NICO was our youthful companion of many a dark and delirious night and we've even a vague memory of seeing her once in concert. our recall of the evening a bit dim, the main thrust being that she was extraordinarily late to come on stage.

   leaving the chelsea girl and onward through the graveyard - past the final resting places of the nameless fished out of the river, the unknown soldiers, the russian war prisoners of wwi, lost beloved parents and the children who perished on christmas eve. all of them buried here in the middle of this pine expanse beneath the dome of the sky. as the hour was growing late and the woods were darkening we left to make our way back into the city, the low wall of the graveyard disappearing behind the pale screen of the pines reaching heavenwards from the sandy hills....

Saarbrücken

there was nothing there. i shed no tears as we left the small city, crossing the tarmac, climbing into the aircraft. flying eastward, i read with interest of marlowe's growing obsession with kurtz. before long we began our descent, our Dornier 328 a stone dropping from the black sky. through my window i tracked the tv tower, its outlines softened by the exhaust fumes, as we touched down and taxied to the crouching terminal, itself a testament to the amorality of technology and design. i collected my luggage and caught a cab, and as we pulled away i turned to see the moon, a bright thin blade, a sliver of broken bottle, hanging low in the western sky.

lately

i've been traveling too darn much!

continuing

its special coverage, Spiegel publishes an interview with Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun - the two "businessmen" at the center of the Litvinenko murder case. Did they bring the Polonium to Londongrad to poison a troublesome former colleague or were they just pawns in a greater game? Enquiring minds want to know!

the ongoing nightmare

of this trip to the city by the bay. three days later cliff and lee anne down at us airways still haven't been able to locate my luggage and i am beginning to suspect that they have lost interest. I also suspect that, much like the search for a murderer, as the days pass and the trail grows colder, my luggage is less and less likely to rejoin me. between the jet lag, the conference and the loss of my things i have been distracted, depressed and with little interest to go out and explore the city. this afternoon after the official end of the conference i am scheduled to take a tour of alcatraz - perhaps the dreary weather and human misery soaked into the prison walls will help to lift my spirits. Needless to say by now i have had to go out and purchase some new duds so that I may leave my hotel room with attracting undo olfactory attention. Gott sei Dank fuer H & M!

wtf?

as the job is sending me to a conference in san francisco in oktober i was hoping to scrape up some tasty flight miles on my star alliance account. unfortunately lufthansa and co. are charging between two and four thousand ducats for a ticket while klm has it for just over a grand. since they are paying for it downstairs it looks as though i am at the mercy of the free market and, being a good sport, i just jumped on the klm site to open an account with them. Apparently their "flying blue" program is aptly named, for as soon as i created my account their confirmatory email indicated that they had reversed my first and last names, changed my birth date by thirty odd years (flattery will get the dutch nowhere!) and added some strange business contact information from some corporation in cologne - and after logging into my new account i found that i could not change my data and so must drop an email into the bowels of their crm system by web form. here's hoping they can fix this in the month before i actually use their silly airline! sigh....

back in the U.S.S.A.

enjoying seeing friends and family. have already seen countless hummers and other oversize vehicles and shivered in the frigid over airconditioned grocery stores - i suppose if so much blood is being shed in the securance of oil one might as well use it up! the country strikes me as fat and gluttonous...with a willful disregard of the consequences of it's foreign policy - desperately hiding its head in the sand of consumerist paradise to avoid the ever escalating chaos of the barbarians at the gate - and i am of the sympathetic hordes!

ear of squirm: The Other Half 's Mr. Pharmacist

on top of the world

35,000 feet over the north atlantic, crammed into seat 55G of Lufthansa Flight No. 418 from Frankfurt bound for Washington Dulles. The day's travel has been uneventful, though the security checkpoints in Frankfurt were a bit overloaded. And of course the word went out that no liquids would be permitted in the carryon. At the moment I am being subjected to the cruelties of the in-flight entertainment program - most notably the zombie Jeff Bridges in Stick It! - which seems to me to be a poor choice of name for a film about a girl's school for teenage gymnasts...

ear of squirm: Ellen Allien & Apparat's Under

drat foiled again!

while my visit to Moenchengladbach was mostly painless, i am now stuck at the Duesseldorf airport with my return to Tegel on flyDBA delayed by 55 minutes....there goes my chances of making Mr. Sardonicus at the Babylon tonight....

leaving on a jet plane

at least i hope it's a jet - tomorrow my work requires that i must fly to Moenchengladbach (the largest city to the left of the Lower Rhine!) for the day...the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune...

lost luggage

seems some unlucky soul forgot their bag aboard the train...or perhaps they were just tired of carrying around that heavy burden....

horrors!

a busy couple of days here in london town. yesterday i dragged my carcass through the horror and gloom of the gothic nightmare exhibit, wandered the streets surrounding abbey road, and had a delicious persian dinner before meandering down the canal from little venice to camden. today i examined the mummies in the egyptian wings of the british museum and then made my way over to St. Paul's Cathedral before coming back to Hampstead to struggle with my laptop which seems to have a dying wifi adapter...returning to berlin tomorrow but not before i pop down to the tate modern for the current exhibitions and sail about the thames. no rest for the wicked....

i stood up and i said yeah

london was unusually sunny today, which we celebrated by going deep into the bowels of the V&A to see the modernist exhibition.  full of proclamations, odes to tractors and the bold colors of an ever receding future the exhibition traced the modernist movement through spacetime.  i was especially thrilled by a smart modernist outfit designed by rodchenko.  grey trousers and tunic with bold black leather framing.  it announced stark efficiency and modern intent.

later as we settled into the royal albert hall the flaming lips hit the stage flanked by a squadron of santas and a gaggle of green faced aliens.  soon the confetti and balloons were flying and the audience was enjoying the epic experience of melancholic optimism offered by wayne and co.   who else could have the entire audience cheering and singing happily 'do you realize that everyone you know, someday, will die?'  as an encore they played a hard straight ahead versoin of 'war pigs' while the big screen strobed images of the republican junta in washington, the iraqi invasion and the ensuing human 'collateral damage', though even with this final descent into gravitas, the audience streamed out of the hall laughing and lovely.

the city

taking a few days off and making a run to jaunty old london. two exhibitions at the Tate Modern (a Kippenberger retrospective as well as 'Albers and Moholy-Nagy: From the Bauhaus to the New World') look to be interesting, as well as the 'Modernism: Designing a New World' exhibition at the V&A. but that which fires my gotholescent passions is the 'Gothic Nightmares' show at the Tate Britain - full of demons, nightmares, and perverse sexuality - this looks to be right up my unspeakably dark, unutterably oppressive rat infested alley. i'm also plan to float up the Thames on the clipper and check out the infernal devices of torture at the Tower of London...ah, the thought of it all brings a bit of color to my aged visage! oh yes, the flaming lips are playing the royal albert hall as well...

freizeit in freiburg

i arrived in freiburg late tuesday and slid straightaway into my hotel bed. finishing business earlier than expected the next day i had the opportunity to see a bit of the medieval innenstadt. that morning i had chanced across the 'muenster', freiburg's famous cathedral, as i raced about looking to purchase a necktie. i had forgotten to pack one and after a few futile attempts i was able to find a ghastly bright green and black thing, quickly fashioning myself a noose after slapping down too many ducats at the local kaufhof. dressed now to my wishes if not exactly to my satisfaction, i proceeded to the customer site where, as i had expected, i was the only one in the building wearing a necktie. after a few hours of to-ing and fro-ing we shook hands and i left, making a beeline back to the 'muenster'. i had noted during my earlier gaping that it was possible to climb the church tower and wanted to ensure my return during opening hours. the cathedral itself is one of those classic red stone montrosities which loom over so many small european towns. frenzily adorned with processions of carved saints, apostles, church fathers and regents of every stripe the cathedral seemed more a writhing mass of religiousity than a house of worship. i eagerly climbed the 206 stone steps to the cashier in the first gallery, wondering on the logic of putting the point of ticket purchase halfway up the vertical journey. i suppose the theory being that upon their arrival in the gallery the patrons would gladly hand over a few ducats just for the chance to stop and catch their breath. in addition to extorting money from the winded climber the gallery played host to the gift shop, selling poorly translated tourist guides and postcards, covered for the moment by plastic sheeting to protect them from the water dripping from the snow settled on the red roofs above. after a brief glance over the goods on offer i continued my climb another two hundred or so steps to the viewing platform of the church tower. from here on could scan the entire valley, observe the small city nestled against the sheltering hills and the shadowed mountains beyond. the peaked snow covered roofs of the old city below seemed like a gingerbread fantasy and i noted the plaque warning off the dangers of tossing anything off the tower - knowing of course that in the preceding five hundred years surely many 'things' had been tossed from the tower to the church square below! after a few minutes in the biting air, taking the usual illustrative photos to send to mother, i descended down the metal staircase, past the ancient graffiti carved into the red sandstone celebrating various seargents and majors of the armies that had crisscrossed the local landscapes over the years. returning into the gallery the mute attendant gestured that i should now climb into the belfry to observe the old yet still functioning church bells. indeed, there they were... old... and bell shaped. unfortunately the top of the hours had just passed and i wasn't prepared to wait the fifty minutes necessary to hear them toll their mournful peal once more. i returned to the gallery, purchased two postcards (illustrative etchings of the 'muenster' from those days when illustrative etchings were still produced) and, after thanking my host and accepting his grunted response, made my way back down the sandstone staircase - wondering if the scarring apparent on the walls was evidence of the arrival of the american troops sixty odd years ago.
    leaving the 'muenster' i crossed the square to my next destination, also noted earlier that morning. the torture museum promised a gloomy thrill and illustrative counterpoint to the glamour of the 'muenster'. for as we all know, wherever man would raise a tower to the glory of his gods, he first builds dungeon to imprison the unfaithful. almost every self respecting european town has a torture museum, often in the back pages of the local tourist guide and freiburg was no different. the museum consists of a dozen or so rooms roughly painted a dreary yellow with the occasional brick facing, lit by flickering low wattage orange bulbs. ( the attempt is to occasion the appearance of a dungeon, the better to present the accoutrement of pain giving, but the result is that of a poorly lit bathroom in a second rate mexican restaurant. one can almost smell the cheese congealing on the nachos). distributed through out the rooms are the usual implements of torture. from the small portable devices: the evil pear, cruel pincers, the humiliating fife and painful thumbscrews - to the large and dreadful furnishings of medieval justice: the fearsome rack, the witches chair, the ladder and the hellish iron maiden of nuremburg. each was accompanied by an explanation (also thoughtfully translated into english) describing the use of the device and what sort of crimes it was used to discover and/or punish, those two processes so often confused during the dark ages of europe. (as is the case today in the american dungeons). while the explanations were written in an informal style as an effort to appear modern and detached, their casual language created an atmosphere of cheap theatricality when combined with the ridiculous decor. interesting however was the occasional inclusion of statements which showed an evaluation of the witch hysteria as essentially a war against women - a belief of which i heartily approve since i share it. of course the real question is whether this war was justified! after all - aren't women the source of all evil in christendom? these observations were especially fitting as the day was actually observed around the globe as international woman's day! as i dolefully finished gawking over the implements of cruel and unusual punishment and made my way to the exit i came across a young blond woman dressed head to toe in black and giving a tour to a group of students. i thrilled to hear her descriptions (in german of course) of the uses of the helmet of shame, the wooden fife and the chastity belt fashioned from hammered iron. i was ready to accompany them once more through the entire exhibit but when i asked she informed me (with obvious delight at crushing my delicate hopes i may note) that it was a private tour for the students only. Bah! i should have inquired as to how she expected those ungainly urchins, obsessed as they are by MTV and the latest boy bands, to appreciate the finer points of red hot irons gouging out eyes or the popping sounds of shoulders dislocating on the rack. but i simply nodded understandingly and made my way back to the cashier. before i left however i purchased a few books (more ducats), one examining the history and the horrors of the inquisition and the other a calendar detailing on a daily basis the crimes of two thousand years of christianity. a quick check in the text noted that on this same day in 1933 the pope had written to a french church official expressing his approval of hitler's reich and noting that he shared hitler's evaluation of the dangers of bolshevism. well, birds of a feather i suppose... as i left the museum i chatted with the two old crones manning the cashier regarding the inquisition and the witch hysteria. rewarding my interest they directed me to the main gate of the medieval city, upon which a plaque had been fixed as a memorial to the sixteenth century burning of three women of freiburg accused of witchcraft. later, after finding the plaque (just across from the mcdonalds now installed into one side of the ancient stone gate) and taking the usual photos for mother, i wandered through the narrow cobbled streets back to my hotel listening for the whispers and murmured accusations of history behind the thick stone walls....

IP Freely!

ah Paris in the spring! through the cobblestoned streets the breeze carries the heady aromas of daffodils, perfumed women named brigitte, cafe au lait, Gauloises and piss. But the winds of Paris au printemps this year will present a thinner and weaker concoction as the city council has decreed that all the public lavatories around the city of light will henceforth be free of charge. This is a direct challenge, indeed a slap in the face of all those who have hitherto relieved themselves in the alleys and on the doorsteps of the city's twenty arrondissements. We can only hope that the revolutionary spirit that gave rise to the commune and the terror will sieze the day against this draconian exercise in state power! Beneath the paving stones, the sea!

double platinum

i am in israel for business. sunday i went to jerusalem to the see the western wall of the second temple of the jews - two thousand years old. as well as the church of the sepulcher - built upon golgotha where christ was crucified. i touched the stone where the cross was erected as well as the stone upon which his corpse was washed. how incredibly morbid! the site was also once home to a temple dedicated to aphrodite... the city is also home to the dome of the rock - where mohammed ascended to heaven during his night journey from mecca...jerusalem is basically god's greatest hits album!

cleanliness is next to godliness

which is a good thing since i just hopped out of the shower here at the Hotel Dan Carmel in Haifa, Israel. Tomorrow I am hopping the train down to Jerusalem to check out all the holy sites and see how my shoe size compares to Jesus.

the belly of the beast

after a few false starts (delayed flights, missed connections) i am back in the USA.... first impression - everything here is so large - the people, the cars, the appetites, the hype... not being a size queen - to me it all seems quite odd and compulsive... but it s nice to see friends and family...hard to believe i haven't seen most of these folks for almost a year...and yet it all comes back so quickly, just like riding a bicycle

ear of squirm: Track 15 's Track 15 -

some velvet morning

tomorrow i fly to the states to spend the holidays with family and friends. a whirlwind tour of DC, Florida and NYC in twelve days, making it back to Faust's Metropolis for the usual Berlin Sylvester Chaos. Unfortunately I won't make it back in time to attend the fun to be had at 22C3 which was such a blast last year!

sounds of silence

can't make it downtown at the moment? Use this helpful sound machine to recreate your urban auditory experience...just be careful not to get mugged....

Spending

a few days in Kassel. This small city along the Fulda River was completely destroyed by the allies on the night of October 22, 1943. At war's end most of the city was not restored to its previous form but was built along the lines of classic fifties architecture. This lends the city a curious air, a sort of fifties toy town feel, suspended in time at that brief moment before everything colllapsed into a morass of early sixties tiki torches and satellite standing lamps. The Stad Hotel Kassel, where I am installed, has attempted to further this heritage with period furniture and interiors, but i am much more impressed with their free WLAN which has speeds exceeding my network in Berlin. Kassel also played host to the Brothers Grimm during their lives and today is home to the Grimm museum as well as the world renowned Documenta - an annual conference exploring the intersections of art and technology.

a sad commentary

on that state of childhood today....

around deutschland

earlier this week i found myself in the medieval walled city of Villingen in the Black Forest. The town, one time seat of the regional watchmaking industry, enjoyed such historical high points as the Fürstengrab Magdalenenberg, (a Celtic Burial Mound), the Black Death, three separate sieges during the Thirty Years War, (though the town stayed Catholic throughout the tumult) and of course the Revolution of 1848. While compact Villingen had all the usual urban offerings, including a small synagogue which they burnt down during Kristallnacht. Today the inner city has been quaintly restored and converted into a pedestrian shopping zone in order to attract local businesses and tourist with some success. I had dinner in the The Red Lion,first established in the year 1514 and my hotel was just next to a monastery which now houses the local history museum.
Next week i am due to travel to Essen for two days and then to Aachen - continuing my all too rapid tour of german cities.
Immer Vorwarts! Nimmer Ruckwarts!

Sigue Sigue Stuttgart

looks like i am travelling next week to the tiny town of Villingen in the Black Forest, two hours south of Stuttgart. Perhaps i can hook up with Hansel and Gretel and get some of that good black forest cake or make it, wolflike, with Little Red Riding Hood.

flying to Köln

but only to spend to deliver some hardware and spend an hour sitting at the airport waiting for my return flight. Yesterday spent the day checking out a collection of photos of industrial buildings currently hanging at Hamburger Bahnhof and later wandering through the antique buildings of the Charite Hospital. the old psychiatric klinik was especially delightful...one could almost hear the shrieks and moans of yesteryear's madmen echoing through the victorian age stairwells...

von cracow nach berlin

My twenty four hours in Cracow was a succession of artwork, cathedrals, castles and coffee. the town, well preserved since the middle ages, still holds some character as a increasing number of tourist floods the historical center. my friend had procured bicycles for us and as we rode through the cobblestoned streets i marvelled at the architecture - thankfully not all completely renovated - and its evocation of a lost world. my experience of the city was constructed as a series of dark interiors, heavy wooden beams blackened by candles, the trundling of feet across the boards - and then emerging blinking into the streets, the aged exteriors washed in pale pastels beneath a weakening sunlight....sunday i had the opportunity to observe the natives in their element - appearing briefly at a catholic mass. A delightful combination of kitsch and morbid, the marble dripping with gold while jesus writhes and twists above the crowds. Afterwards a tasty dish of pancakes, themselves dripping with a cherry compote....

leaving on a jet plane

a dirty orange one. flying to cracow for a day to check out the situation.

on the mountain

arriving in haifa i find that the hotel dan carmel is a grand hotel from the old days. the large public areas still have their blocky multicolor decor from the years when fat dictators, greedy arms merchants, dim witted race car drivers, drunken hollywood romeos and behatted fashion models cavorted by the pool, ordering tall drinks and making eyes at each other over their bulky sunglasses. if vampyros lesbos had been filmed in haifa, it would have taken place here.

Listening to Breezeblock - MogwaibyMogwai

rain over vienna

i am on my way to haifa, israel. training for work, i am staying at the hotel dan carmel. the hotel is located halfway up mount carmel (as in 'carmelite order') which was the location where the prophet elijah defeated the 400 priests of Baal (later having them executed) and secured the victory for monotheism among the semites. i hope to make contact with the spirits of this broken priesthood, perhaps invoking them over a tall glass of lemonade at poolside... Baal was also known as Beezlebub to the local hipsters of the day and has a complex and useless history...

munchin on nuthin

spent three days outside munich. training in hallbergmoos. ten minutes from Josef Strauss Airport, this small village plays host to an office park where all the usual suspects in the tech business are located. tuesday night i fled into the city for three hours - as the S-Bahn travelled through the fields and meadows i spied a red rabbit running between the rows...arriving in the city i took in the Paul McCarthy show at the notorious Haus der Kunst and wandering through the AltStadt. The city reminded me Vienna - a sort of wedding cake cast in stone. There seemed to be much more money than taste washing around in the streets....

the dark tyranny of despair

and a fucking big hill. i find myself in eberstadt, a small town in hessen. this town is so small that the streetcar stops have names like 'church' and 'cemetery'. after performing the necessary ablutions for my employer, i rented a bike and proceeded to ride to the castle frankenstein. legend has it that mary shelley was inspired by this castle as she and percy travelled through germany. the 'burg frankenstein' was much farther and much higher up than i had realized - after riding uphill for five kilometers i had to walk the final to the castle. the castle is a preserved ruin which overlooks the valley which it once dominated. i could easily picture the enraged villagers setting fire to the foundations as the monster cried out into the cold waste of the stars. the strenuous ride to the top of this mountain was rewarded by a speedy descent, my bicycle taking the hairpin turns as monster magnet cranked out of my earphones. afterwards i made my way to a delightful little eatery for some tasty refreshments. as i dissected the half chicken which steamed in front of me, i fell into a reverie and could feel the ghosts of the past treading across the hardwood floors of this old tavern. the medieval villagers, the soldiers of the emperor, the petty bourgeois of the national socialists - all were comingling in the yellowed light beneath the low ceilings. stepping back into the street after my meal it seemed like it could have been any year in the past two centuries...at least until the first car cruises into view...

oh my Aachen heart (part deux)

tomorrow evening i leave for Aachen for a reprise of my trip there earlier in the month. we are doing a demo for a customer there, which we couldn't complete earlier as we lacked the proper drivers for the HBA's in the servers. after two days in Aachen we will meander over to Darmstadt as we have another demo for a customer there. while i certainly enjoy a bit of travel i am not looking forward to this one as i would rather stay in berlin and prepare myself for my apartment move next weekend. i am leaving my sweet and tiny place here in heinrich roller strasse 5 and moving up the hill a few blocks to sredzki strasse 62 - tis the end of an era - though my time here was brief it was dense with change and development... a bit overwhelming if i think too much about it... anyway - i return from Darmstadt on friday and and must finish my packing. saturday i am taking my BCSD exam and then i must move my shit to the new place before sunday...no rest for the weary...sigh...

out of coffee!

drat! that means i must leave the apartment.... and here i just wanted to stay in an listen to destroyer until i had to leave for The Game...

oh my Aachen heart

the job is taking me to the beautiful german metropolis of Aachen. Legendary home of Charlemagne - though somehow i doubt that i will get much sight seeing done in the thirty-six hours in which i will be there. I assume most of the time will be spent setting up our equipment (we sent it over on thursday) and running the demo for the customer. otherwise the job is going well - though it is quite an adjustment getting back to a forty hour week. how outrageous!

to the ramparts comrades!

spent the morning out at the statue park - a memorial garden of socialist realism - bodies in motion and oversized heads.  the many pieces championing russian-hungarian friendship, the heroes of 1956 (bravely crushing those pesky counter-revolutionaries), marx, lenin and other lesser known heroes of the worldwide communist revolution once lined the streets exhorting the workers to continue the good work - now, , they seem a bit melancholy - having been banished to a dusty park on the back end outskirts of the city.  the pace of history, agonizingly slow at times, at times suddenly surges forward, changing one's world so as to be almost unrecognizable.   then the artifacts of worlds gone by appear like bleached bones on the unforgiving beaches of time.   afterwards i returned to the hotel to soak in the beautiful turn of the century baths of the gellert and put in a few strokes at the indoor pool and later a dinner of mushroom soup and roast duck to celebrate good friday.  this evening i am hoping to take in some electronica on the other side of the river...

Listening to UCH Live from Jailhouse

moon over the danube

the flight to budapest was smooth as easy jet has made checking in a schoenefeld even easier than before.  now one just walks up to a machine and plugs in the confirmation number and out comes your wallet sized boarding pass.  Budapest itself is as beautiful as ever.  After checking in at my hotel i spent the afternoon walking about on Castle Hill and later beneath Castle Hill - in the Buda Castle Labyrinth (a bit spooky, a lot kitsch and very meditative).  Coming back above ground i was thrilled to see the city lit up like stars along the river.  whatever else one may say - this city is quite beautiful...

leaving on a jet plane

and probably a rather dirty one. tomorrow morning i am taking easyjet down to budapest for a three day vacation. my last jaunt before the job begins on april 1st. flying back to berlin on easter sunday - hope air traffic control keeps jesus out of our flight path.

Listening to Track 1 by Unknown Artist

tomorrow - bright and ugly

i have to get up extra early tomorrow in order to drive to Hanover for CeBIT. my god how barbaric! can't they just shoot me down a pneumatic tube system or something?

Listening to Falling In Love Again (The Blue Angel)

pick a winner

since i am going to budapest in a couple of weeks (for a last moment getaway before the job starts) i thought i better bone up on my hungarian pop possibilities. listen if you dare - here are the hungarian finals for the Eurovision 2005 song contest.

god is just a statistic

berlin is sunny this morning. at least for the moment. i am feeling a bit nihilstic (not an uncommon mood) and listening to Marilyn Manson's Mechanical Animals. (funny how Amazon warns of the explicit cover - when the animal lacks any gentialia... thank goodness there aren't any nipples either!) I have booked a short jaunt to Budapest in the last week of this month. A last trip before my job starts and i am plunged back into the working world. Staying at the Hotel Gellért for three days. When i was last in Budapest - for twenty hours in 1999 - i had some fruit and ice cream in the hotel restaurant to celebrate my birthday and i promised myself that the next time i came to town i would stay upstairs in the hotel and take advantage of the swimming pools and thermal springs... guess the future is now!

beuys will be beuys

London is quite large and wealthy.  Arriving at Luton airport Friday night after short flight from Berlin I quickly caught the Thameslink ot West Hampstead station where i made my way over to the tube station.  As i tried to make sense of the tube map i looked over to see Hank standing at the entrance calling me on his handy!  We walked back to his digs and i said hello to Kelle and the kids for the first time in five years!  Yesterday Hank and I visited the Tate Modern, walking to the museum from the Waterloo Tube Station down the south bank of the Thames.  The Thames is wide and impressive at this point, a working river with much traffic.  The Tate Modern was an enjoyable museum - in addition to the Beuys exhibit - a festival of felt and fat - we had the opportunity to see works by Christian Schad, Max Beckmann, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and other favorites from Deutschland and elsewhere.   Leaving the museum we passed through an open air market and i took the opportunity to feast upon some steaming lamb and onion burgers.  After returning to the house  in West Hampstead for a bit, we went to see Bill Murray's  amusing film "The Life Aquatic" at a incredibly comfortable theater club.  Later i took a long constitutional through the city.  Taking the Tube to Waterloo Station again - I wandered down to Lambeth Bridge and then up the south bank of the Thames, Westminster and Big Ben were quite a sight seen from across the river, glimmering like jewels in the darkness of the night.   Crossing at Westminster Bridge as a light snow drifted across the city. From the northern end of the bridge i made my way up through Whitehall, back down Pall Mall (which i have previously known only as a brand of cigarette!), then taking St. James up to PIccadilly.  Making my way through Piccadilly Circus i then headed north on Regent Street all the way to the edge of Regent's Park.  Here i headed up Albany Street, taking Roberts Street east to Hampstead Road.  Here it was a natural northbound route as the road changed names until i finally passed through Belsize Park into Hampstead.  The entire journey took approximately two and a half hours by foot and was an introduction into the layout of London.  I arrived back at Hank & Kelle's around two in the morning and dropped exhaustedly into the sack...

to London

this afternoon. to visit my friend Hank who has moved there with his family to direct The Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment. We are hopefully going to check out a Joseph Beuys exhibit at the Tate Gallery. It will be good to see Hank and his family - his kids just turned seven and i have not seen them for over five years! Gotta run to the airport!

Listening to Essential Mix - 04-06-97bySven Vath

back in the USSA

spending two weeks in DC to visit my family, friends and beloved. amusingly enough i just received my first request for a job interview in response to one of the employment applications i sent off while in Berlin. Gee - this internet thing really works!
I am staying in an extra room at a friend's house. Because he is a real estate agent and rarely home except to eat and sleep, he has never gotten around to setting up any sort of network connection here. I was imagining the daily trek to some internet cafe to drink bad coffee and hover over the keyboard. But it seems that one of the neighbors has an open Linksys access point attached to their Comcast cable line so i have been get online and drink bad coffee and hover over the keyboard from the comfort of my bed!

travelogue

i have set up a little blog for my upcoming trip to paris with my mother....  we are spending a week in paris, two days in cologne and then the last four days in berlin... i am looking forward to being out of the country for a few days and seeing paris for the first time in almost ten years.... it also allows me to test out typepad's services, as i have been contemplating moving squirm.com over to a typepad hosted site...though i can't recall what my reasoning was in this regard...

the good news

yesterday, on the way to the exhibit, i presented my mother with her 70th  birthday present (even though her birthday isn't until april).  i am taking her to paris, cologne and berlin.  i have been planning this for quite a while but had been unable to arrange the airfare until the beginning of the year.  while i would not have been surprised if she got all choked up i think she was too shocked to really process the idea.  she is always so cute when she gets like that...she will start talking about the most irrelevant things because she doesn't know what to say.  at some point in the last couple of years, while speaking to her about my travels to berlin and elsewhere in europe, mom mentioned that seeing paris had been a dream of hers since she was a young girl.  i made a mental note of this and resolved to take her there for her birthday. i am very grateful that i have the capability to do this - she has had a difficult life - getting married before finishing high school and then finding herself having to raise three children on her own - she has always served as an inspiration to me when i need to keep going through difficult times. since i am planning on moving to berlin in august - i wanted to spend some time with her before i go away and introduce her to the berlin i love and my friends there.  i am excited about the trip as it has been years since i have been to paris - of course spending two whole weeks with mom will be an adventure in itself!  our little apartment will be just across the seine from notre dame and within walking distance to the louvre - which i know she has wanted to visit. here is our itinerary -
April 9th - fly from washington to paris
staying at an apartment on the rue Chanoisnesse
April 16th - take the TGV train to Cologne
staying at the Lindner Hotel Dom Residence
April 18th - take the ICE train to Berlin
staying at the Circus Hostel
April 22nd - return to washington from Berlin