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Scenic, but my teeth hurt
So, cobblestones. They’re a lovely way to pave a street, much nicer than the ribbons of concrete we have in the United States. But on a bike? Really, really bumpy. Thank god they let you ride on the sidewalks here.
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Filling the echoing void, with a side trip for meatballs
The problem: A vast, empty apartment. Which incidently smelled like sheetrock. We clearly needed Ikea. Ok, and a car. Or a van, technically. We find a shop that will rent to us. Many won’t, because we don’t have the International Drivers Permit that is really only a translation of our US drivers license, or an…
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Would a riot be too much to ask?
So, Mayday. I’m chatting with Corii online, and she says there’s a huge parade on Market street in San Francisco, part of the immigrant protest movement in the states. Here in Berlin, the first of May is supposed to get ugly. For the last 24 hours, we’ve seen literally dozens, even scores of police vans…
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A mattress, freezing rain, and pho on the way
Sitting in a smokey Internet cafe around the corner from the Landwehrkanal, and our little temporary studio apartment. It’s cold outside, and supposed to reach freezing point tonight. This just a few days after the entire city spent an afternoon sunbathing — some of them nude– in the Tiergarten. We’re on the way to find…
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We have a home. We just can’t go there yet.
We have an apartment. We can’t move in until Friday, and the payment details are still a little sketchy, but we have signed about 20 pages of duplicate contract pages, had them stamped (stamps are big here) and paid our 2 months kaltmiete to the agent. Kaltmiete is base rent, warm is with heat, warm…
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Prenzlauer or Kentucky?
Nearly a week in. We’re looking for apartments, starting a round of open houses this afternoon. Our first, yesterday, was a large echoey white box with huge windows and zero furnishings, except a stainless steel sink shoved against a wall. We’re finding that we probably can’t afford the neighborhood we want, which isn’t a big…
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Chilling at the wifi park
Sitting at a cafe table on Bryant Park, just outside the 42nd street library. We’d hoped to get a glass of wine here while waiting to meet people for oysters at Grand Central Station, but the cafe hasn’t yet opened for the summer. The trees here are still bare, arching over the park’s edge like…
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Les Paul, mugging at the Iridium
Les Paul is an old man now, and his guitar playing shows it. He plays Monday nights at the Iridium jazz club in Times Square, next door to the Mama Mia musical. People line up to see him. We were there for the second show of the night, at 10:00, in part because the first…
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In the archives of the “militant mothers”
In the special collections archive of Harvard’s eduction library. The librarians here are going out of their way to be helpful, but agonize over each piece of material drawn for us to look at. Brad and I are going through the archives of Peggy Charren, a activist whose Action for Children’s Television was in large…
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Homeless in New Jersey
Four days into homelessness, I’m sitting at Keena and Grigo’s dining room table in New Jersey, listening to the LA Philharmonic’s recent Arvo Part concert from iTunes and reading European tech news. Travel isn’t what it used to be. I’m as connected, or more connected, than I was at home in San Francisco. My laptop…
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Berlin’s river design
It’s still cold in Berlin, although the snow showers seem to have stopped for now. That doesn’t mean it’s not time for a bracing swim in the river. Design blog Inhabitant writes about the Winter Badeschiff recreation area, created from a sunken cargo ship off the banks of the river in East Berlin, and designed…
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Yougotmeup_web.mov (video/quicktime Object)
Jaimee Lidell dances with his cat. In black-ink animation. Purring soul music. My parents dog, Maggie, is jealous. Links: You Got Me Up
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calendarlive.com: Making a big deal of Minimalism
The LA Times remembers what a shock minimalism was in academic music circles in the 1960s. The writer carried an album of Terry Riley’s “In C” into class, prompting an outburst from his Berkeley composition professor: ‘”He betrayed Berkeley,” my red-faced professor shouted. ‘He betrayed music. He betrayed Gedalge. He betrayed everything this department stands…
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The fake JT Leroy is the interesting one
A long profile in Salon of Laura Albert, AKA drug-child-prodigy author JT Leroy. She was an East Village punk rocker, a San Francisco Net sex writer in the 1990s, and a consummate role-player who invented new identities for herself whenever needed. She’s more interesting than the author she invented. Links: She is JT LeRoy |…
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help me, i’m surrounded by whales
I didn’t get any pictures of the whales. But they were everywhere off the coast of Maui this weekend, more of them than there were sparrows darting and chattering in the palms above Aimee’s parents’ condo. The whales are birthing now, we were told. Or have, recently. They spend their days showing off to each…