Author: john
-
The friendly suits of Profitcenter
Scheduling problems force me to take another 5-hour bus ride from Tallinn to Riga, and spend the night there. The thaw is on in the Baltics, and the rivers are melting, snow sliding in dangerous torrents from sloped rooftops. In the old town, it’s best to walk in the middle of the street, lest a…
-
Surfing on the rails, blending 1000 years of history
Veljo Haamer is Estonia’s most gracious tech evangelist, editor of Wifi.ee but more specifically responsible for blanketing the country in wireless connections. He works with cities, cafes, governments, anyone, persuading them to set up routers and hotspots. Occaisionally he will get a call from an old lady in the evening, pleading with him to help…
-
Wild pigs in Berlin
Just ran across this National Wildlife Federation article from last year. Apparently there are thousands of wild boars living in the Berlin suburbs. Who knew? (Aside from the householders who have to argue with a 400-pound beast to get to their garbage can). Today some 7,000 to 8,000 boars live in Berlin year-round, compared to…
-
The land of bleeding
I’ve forgotten, living in Germany, what advertising is for. In Berlin it is language practice, and I study every ad I pass, translating and puzzling out the words I don’t know. Last week reaching London, and particularly Oxford Street, I found myself overwhelmed by people, commerce, traffic. I’ve become provincial; the sheer density of shrill…
-
Oxfordian collectors, on the bus
On the top story of a traditional English double-decker bus, heading from Oxford to London, surfing via a wi-fi connection onboard. It’s the first time I’ve personally seen on-board wireless on a bus, but Cyrus, a friend and colleague who was recently in Estonia tells of a similar service there on a bus to Latvia.…
-
International language of film is English.
The Berlinale is ongoing, one of the largest film festivals in the world, 500 flicks to be seen in a few weeks time, stars in town seeing the glamorous sights like the mall at Potzdamer Platz, and a whole host of genuinely great movies. We saw our first tonight, the Chinese “Getting Home,” or literally…
-
Interrupting this broadcast
I rarely write about TV, because a) I don’t watch much and b) I can barely make ours work. But for the last few days we’ve been re-obsessing with the unparalleled Battlestar Galactica, getting into the third season via iTunes. It’s incredible, a sci-fi show that’s dark, with deep characters, and has managed to make…
-
RIP Molly Ivins
A real loss to journalism and politics. There isn’t anyone in the US who can take her place, whose tongue is as sharp, but whose satire is made even more poignant by her real understanding of, and even sympathy for, the blemishes of democracy.
-
Mexican food. Extra jalapenos, please.
My biggest concern is that the Germans seem to have found a way to make jalapenos bland. Maybe for the locals these pickled peppers are scharf (spicy) enough. But a plate of nachos ordered tonight, heaped with sour cream and lovely green peppers, simply failed to present any spice whatsoever. On the bright side. The…
-
Stupid, anti-intellectual American critics…
At least the Germans like Pynchon. TP’s latest book, Against the Day, has been getting decidedly mixed reviews in the US, with the NYT calling it “bloated … pretentious without being provocative,” etc. Others, such as the NYRB, have been far more complimentary, admitting that there are vast dry patches in the 1000-page plus tome,…
-
Salt on the roads, a sleepy wave…
And a smooch to Berlin, where we meet our friends Kenji and Till up from München for a few days, a birthday dinner and then drinks until late, and when we walk home, newly salted streets are white with black-spotted footprints, bars still half-crowded with 5 am customers. Slush splashes from car tires, bicycles ride…
-
The heavens open, and confetti drifts down
I woke up late yesterday morning, after dreaming I was in the book Infinite Jest, but instead of tennis, we were playing baseball, and I was expertly catching infield fly balls that were actually slices of ham and bologna. I stumble disoriented to the kitchen, where I pour water slowly into the kettle for coffee,…
-
In Theory, there is no beauty
Anyone who has ever tried to read Derrida or other cultural theory, and come away baffled, or even a bit disgusted, should read Brian Boyd’s article “Getting it All Wrong.” It’s a fabulous and bitter attack on modern literature departments’ love affair with deconstruction and cultural critique, to the absolute exclusion of alternative means of…
-
Ice creeeeeam!
So this is how crazy Berlin is. I’m riding my bike through our neighborhood yesterday. It’s almost the coldest day of the year, which means practically nothing this year, but let’s say for the sake of argument it’s near freezing. Cold. But around the corner I hear a song, as played on a very lo-fi…
-
Can’t teach an old Bush new tricks, apparently
Today Bush will give his State of the Union (“strong?” probably not. “Skeptical,” maybe), and amidst much sleight-of-hand, will continue to blame Iran for smuggling weapons into Iraq to destabilize the country. Ie, it’s their fault, not mine. LAT has a good piece today critiquing this claim, noting that there’s really very little evidence of…