Author: john
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Lights, but none of them are quite celestial enough
A cool 5 am ride across the city. I have two complaints. One serious: This was the going away party for our closest friends here, Kenji and Till. They’re moving to Munich, for opportunities too good to pass up. We are overjoyed for them, and still devastated. We’re going to be spending too many GermanWings…
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J’accuse. Or I date? It’s all nomative, relative, what?
This learning German thing, it’s good. It’ll be nice to be able to speak in a non-simpleminded manner someday. If that day ever comes. For now it’s getting up too early in the morning to throw ourselves into the twin hells of accusative and dative cases, and all the parts of speech agreeing, like that…
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Field trips: Ruined village, bristling boars
A few days ago our friend Norbert called us and asked if we wanted to go to the old Olympic Village to take pictures. We looked it up; it’s mostly ruined, but a bank has purchased the property, and is restoring bits, and is celebrating the 70th anniversary this year. The Village is in the…
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I like to water down my gin, with whiskey
So, who knew? We’re at a bar last night on Bergmanstrasse, hip orange and white decor, very minimalist, but the usual mellow Berlin crowd. I haven’t quite finished reading the cocktail menu when the waiter comes. I’m a fast reader, but it’s long. All I can recall is the Smokey Martini. Laphroig and Bombay. It…
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Rain, ego, and marionette rock stars
It’s gray outside, which isn’t exactly new, but the persistence of the rain is. The temperature has dropped decidedly into fall territory, which seems a bit early to me. A year ago we arrived in Berlin to scout, and it was hot, T-shirt weather, a beautiful Indian summer. Since in SF we get our summers…
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Your writing always seemed a little mechanical…
And so at last, writers, journalists, reporters, call us what you will, we’re being replaced by computers just like everyone else. The Thomson financial media group is using software programs to automatically generate earnings stories, within .3 of a second of the release of a company’s earnings statement. No chance of a John Henry moment…
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Embracing violence, it embraces us
What does this say about us? America turns its resources to fighting the vague but real threat of terrorism. We start two wars. Support another one. The Middle East is radicalized, and new terrorists attracted daily with marketing campaigns more effective than Nike’s slam dunks. And what do we get? At home gun crime and…
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The Nazis march, but are outnumbered
A genuine Neonazi demonstration marched past our window today. The first we knew of it was a flyer on our door, of unclear origin, advising us of the approach, and suggesting a few ways to protest. Hang a flag, write our local councilperson, turn up music loud out our windows as they marched past. We…
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Go to war, miss the way the world changes
And so this is the outcome of Israel’s war. They have destroyed some of Hezbollah’s military capacity, rocket launchers and fighters. These are renewable resources. They have killed hundreds or perhaps thousands of Lebanese. Destroyed thousands of homes, and crippled the country’s infrastructure. They have inflamed hatred across the region; and the United States’ tin-ear…
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Sweating through the Mediterranean
So, a little late, but almost exactly a week ago we returned from two weeks in France and Italy, sweating our way through the heat wave which has nothing to do with global warming. A quick recap: Two nights in Paris. Aimee left me here to go wandering through the best wineries in the world.…
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Even Germans think the Democrats are screwed up
A fascinating look in Der Spiegal at various German papers’ interpretations of Lieberman’s loss in Connecticut. None are particularly happy about it, even though few think the GOP is anything but a disaster. Left wing paper focuses on “the kiss,” and say Clinton (who also should be defeated for the same anti-war reasons) isn’t likely…
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Passing of a gentle soul
Today was Frida’s last day. Just a month after we left for Berlin, the poor purring kitty turned out to have kidney failure. Corii stabilized her for a few months, but she took a turn for the worse a few days ago. Today a needle slipped into her veins, and she shivered with a final…
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Oh yeah, the love parade
On Saturday, the Love Parade. Half a million people or so in the Tiergarten, dancing to 39 heavily adverstising-laden floats circling the main boulevard and blasting various stripes of rave music. It was fun, not as annoying as it could have been, nor as entrancing as a small rave can be. Aimee described it best:…
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Three more months!
It’s hot today, wiltingly warm, and so naturally we put on our presentable clothes and got on our bikes and rode down to the Auslanderbehörde, where we needed to get our long-term visa. We’d been warned about their coolness. Frigidity. Anything that represents unfriendliness and unhelpfulness. Our language hero Till told us a story of…
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Papergirl delivers. Don’t ask for a subscription.
Yesterday afternoon, a group of artists and writers rode up and down Prenzlauer Berg with boxes on their bikes, tossing unsolicited wrapped “newspapers” into doorways, American paperboy style. We met one of them, a woman who just graduated from LSE, but is living temporarily here, at a party on the Spree last night. Inside the…