Longer business hours equals stronger economy

Food and drink retailers, as well as clothing retailers, performed best in June, according to data published separately by the Bundesbank.

No duh. The public, delighted by suddenly dilated summer hours, rushed out and abused them. Taking advantage of a young, impressionable idea -- a concept that's had too much to drink, and with a tender liver -- they've decided to spend more money on Sunday. We were all guilty, and don't believe anyone who says otherwise. The extended hours is how things should be, were we free of back-numbered business laws.

Private consumption "accounts for 60% of the country's gross domestic product." That's a low figure for one of the world's top ten economies, but still, yeah, we need consumers who aren't counting 5-cent coins. We're existing in such a Rube Goldberg economy that for every World Cup success story (sports merchandisers, well-located businesses), we had a casualty (restaurants and hotels overbooked by FIFA). That's why no one's willing to call the past few months a boom: it's more of an affirmative sign. And it doesn't take a World Cup for that to continue for German retailers: just a willingness to extend working hours for normal businesses. Extend, not demolish. A compromise.

Lazy Sundays, we know thy name. It's definitely charming, in a certain inconvenient way, that [nearly] everything is closed here on Sunday. But the German nation isn't a quaint, high-Schuhing department of Epcot Center -- it's a huge, powerful economy that needs to show some adaptability if it wants to stay in the major leagues.

Posted by Christy Leonardo at 11:00 PM | Permalink | 3 Comments |

Some journalists just have a way with words. As Matthias Geis put it in this week’s Die Zeit article “Die Armee, die nicht verweigern darf” (The Army That Can’t Refuse), he writes i.e. understates that “(German) military missions are usually chosen with a clear view to the dangers involved...” Well ain’t that a mouthful of god-awful truth. He – and even the staunchest German pacifist out there by now – just can’t help but notice that Germany’s famous collective memory concerning what Chancellor Merkel labels the “historical duty” to defend Israel’s right to exist has become more selective these days instead.

Continue reading "Premature Scepticism About Premature Talk" »

Posted by Clarsonimus at 9:22 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment |

courtesy of Dutch Ramsey

Neal Stephenson's novel The Diamond Age ends with the Übermädchen protagonist Nell taking control of the Disenchanted Army, a prodigious volume of Chinese girls who have suffered the same neglect as she did. While remaining metaphor for the Yellow Menace, they illustrate strength in numbers:

By the time she had reached ground level and burst out, somewhat unwisely, into the building's lobby, the girls had breached the walls of the building in several places and rushed in upon the remaining defenders. They moved in groups of four. One girl (the largest) would rush toward an opponent, holding a pointed bamboo stick aimed at his heart. While his attention was thus fixed, two other girls (the smallest) would converge on him from the sides. Each girl would hug one of his legs and, acting together, they would lift him off the ground. The fourth girl (the fastest) would by this point have circled all the way round and would come in from behind, driving a knife or other weapon into the victim's back. During the half-dozen or so applications of this technique that Nell witnessed, it never failed, and none of the girls ever suffered more than the odd bruise or scrape.

Somewhat macabre, but whenever there's a numerous demographic whose similarity and unity is demonstrative, it's hard not to imagine immense potential energy: something that, if only it could be tapped, could change the world.

Why can't German kids get some of that? They're legion, they're smart and overeducated, longing to be of some use to the planet. They gots cell phone cameras, and digital ones too, with dense memory sticks. We got young people riding the waves, with both an eagerness for "real world" experience and an uncomfortable uncertainty for the future.

This collection of photos from Berlin then and now -- then being the 60s, mostly -- mostly depicts young people in various stations of life. Now is now, though. There's a lot of potential energy here, but I'll set my sights extremely low -- the youth should all take pictures. Diaries are hard to keep up, but Flickr and photoblogs have diversified our holdings: all we need is a little organization to capture a Berlin that will not exist in ten years, or even one. The world should know what Berlin does.

You are all the city's interns. If you don't know what to do with yourself, take pictures.

Posted by Christy Leonardo at 11:00 PM | Permalink | Comment |

The impossible: Germans long for cooler climes as the bodies stack up

There is no respite from the heat here. Air conditioning is an anomaly reserved for commerce and the decadent; the sun rages full-on, with precious little Wolke oder Schatten to protect the passersby. One can spy German city-dwellers lolling in their sweltering apartments like tropical lizards. The brain is feverish, bleeding. And now, papers open to the inevitable: people are dying.

Among the predictables in France and Spain, Germany has claimed 12 "bathing" deaths, which means people who have fallen asleep in the midday sun. The big sleep, rather. This is for old people, and is not as horrifying as it sounds: the sounds of children playing and gentle splashes of water echo in your ears. The solarized world blurs with each blink, and the crows surrounding you take on the downy, welcoming appearance of doves. Time is moving slowly. Your body feels pleasantly heavy, like honeyed coffee. You are being sauteed off the earth.

The rest of the report reads like the acts of a crazed god:

The dryness triggered by the heat has caused forest fires in several countries, including Slovenia, where a blaze affecting around 900 hectares in the southern region of Kras was brought under control and expected to be put out later Tuesday. Around 1,000 firefighters, assisted by military helicopters, had been battling the flames for five days, the news agency STA reported.

In Croatia, three people were injured after a bolt of lightning struck the tree under which they were standing at a beach in Novi Vinodolski, near the northern city of Rijeka. Meteorologists in Germany said the temperatures would remain in the 30s for the remainder of the week.

• Insane deaths continue as two women die in an art exhibit that raised off of its moorings and floated 150 feet into the air.

• Did you know that the American government trusts their Executive branch to German technical aptitude?

Posted by Christy Leonardo at 8:30 PM | Permalink | Comment |

Germans, stereotypes increasingly featured in advertising

"All of a sudden, Germans are cute," says Rob Schwartz, executive creative director for ad agency TBWA/Chiat/Day in Los Angeles. "There is something in the zeitgeist. ... Part of it is born of pragmatism. The World Cup was in Germany, and it put Germany on the brain. But also, more than ever, brands are looking to differentiate."

So the Christina Aguilera spot is a logistical nightmare -- as it clearly indicates we're in Germany, how much melisma would it have taken for Xtina to struggle through "Das Lied der Deutschen"? And why does the [ambiguously] German crowd not lynch her for her blasphemy? Would we giggle if Sarah Connor sang "Don't Stop Believin'" instead of the National Anthem before a Mets game? (Wait, that would be awesome.)

Meanwhile, DaimlerChrysler doesn't have the target demographic of say, a Volkswagen (20-40 yr. hipsters, city dwellers, first-time buyers), but they're still strategically emplacing a German -- one of their CFOs, even riskier, one would think -- to ease, rather than unsettle, the apprehensions of consumers. What unlikely turn advertising, which second-guesses the will of the public more surely than they do themselves, has taken!

The truth is we love the German accent and we love the tactless, unblinking sincerity. Times have changed, and deeply-rooted Nazi infatuation is evolving into a deathly-afraid-to-be-considered-a-Nazi yet unswervingly punctilious and blunt stereotype. No more dissembling is necessary: the German is the one you want to explain the machine he made to you, and in person. I needn't stay awake at night that the Reichstag will be seized, an expressed concern I once heard from one of my less urbane friends back home. Germans are no longer a threat, and it's finally sunk into the American conscious.

In other news, Nic Cage has bought a cut-rate Bavarian castle.

Posted by Christy Leonardo at 11:00 PM | Permalink | 1 Comment |

There was an American flag in my fried mushrooms this afternoon. I was in rural Czech Republic, just trying to have my 15-Crown (that's about 70 cents, America) half-liter of beer and discuss cultural differences with the insanely attractive native demographic (I have chosen a difficult path in this life), and look what had been triumphantly speared into my food. Was it the aforementioned staple bar cuisine or my "American-style" frites -- kind of like steak fries but otherwise unlike anything I have previously experienced -- that produced this little wonder, which was sailing off a toothpick? Or Christ, is Jiroslav on to me? Was it the loud voice or the impolite forms of address? Maybe I'm just paranoid, because the guy forgot about it before I even got around to asking him. Or was he... feigning disinterest?

The leader of Iran has moved on from his misguided missive to the U.S. and crafted a new one to Germany. What I love about these Ahmadinejad letters are they're shots in the dark, awkward Myspace mails to attractive people. "Hey Angela, I saw in your profile that you like the Palestinian State. That's a really unusual interest, and I think we have more than that in common." Five paragraphs and a "Let me know, Mahmoud" later, there's absolutely no way the person is going to respond, which the person totally should have known anyway.

Which begs the question -- why? I mean, this from the guy who wants you to boycott "Zionist" products and -- well, should I keep going? The kangaroo court is underway, Iran is in the sights, and Germany is insistent on correcting their unbürgerliche behavior. So: what's this "just between Hitlers" letter all about? I dunno, is it an attempt to make intercontinental relations into a reality show? Or is it go-for-broke ad creep? What's next, carrier pigeons? The problem with fan mail is -- the more you send, the less I care.

p.s. Youtube is full of maverick filmmakers with something to say. Sometimes it gets political. Tell me: do you like Gnarls Barkley?

Posted by Christy Leonardo at 10:00 PM | Permalink | Comment |

Our President pulls a Tom Cruise during Europe visit

This is the ultimate in rude and presumptuous behavior. I've worked with men who feel compelled to touch me in exactly this way, with one even responding to my terse request to back off with a more determined shoulder rub and the comment, "But you're so tense." To which I replied, "That's because you won't get your fucking hands off of me." He backed away then with his hands in the air and a big, "Geez!" like I was a bitch. What an asshole I was for not considering my body community property like he did.

Hissy fit alert. Not so fast, Melissa McEwan. You're an office worker, and the G8 is not the weekly update at your consulting company. As awkward and condescending as it seems, and as much as we can all feel our skin crawling when we watch the video, and as much as Bush is the biggest presidential fuck-up/distraction ever: you're obviously out for blood. Go easy on the mythology in your Alternet-driven quest to vilify Bush beyond human proportions. I can imagine the editor coming out with a stack of ones -- "Okay, you mentioned Bush 26 times in your article, so here's one, two, three..." Unlike you, the least of Merkel's worries is a few weird moments with another world leader. Should she file a sexual harassment suit at the next UN summit?

That being said: WTF? Dubs got super-unhinged for his European tour. Laura, please, where were you? Between this, the pig references, and imploring Hezbollah to "stop doing this shit" on the mic, he's had a banner week that will keep the media talking for long and loud enough to forget about him covering his tracks in the wiretapping scandal.

Meanwhile, Bruno, the lone representative of his race in Germany, got capped for his uniqueness last week, and we're all still coming to terms with it. But now his mom is in danger: she's in the sights of Italian hunters for the human habits she passed on to her progeny. Sure, they're claiming they only want to catch her and fit her with a transmitter for her own safety. But it's pretty clear beyond all the table talk that we've got another assassination on our hands. Biggie and Tupac better make room in gangsta heaven -- we've got another maverick visionary whose gospel came too soon, a reverse Saint Francis. Let's hope the good ones find her before the bad ones do.

Posted by Christy Leonardo at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comment |

courtesy of Dr. Motte

The scoop on Berlin's reanimated techno truck-fulla-amps

Mingling among the crowd in the bright Berlin sunshine were so-called Love Guards, who distributed earplugs, ice spray, glucose tablets and even contraceptives if things got too hot.

The Love Parade made a good showing this year, especially for a young gentleman who's been out of the game for two years -- around 600,000 people showed up on Saturday, which beat out the last one in 2003. Techno isn't exactly, I dunno, EBM anymore, but the minimalist variety that our Übercoolische Berlin freshmakers churn out is going nowhere. Germans like nothing more than throbbing to some beat that takes 8 minutes to change from "bup bup bup bup" to "bup bup bup ba-dup" -- maybe wacky tobaccy has something to do with it?

I didn't make it to this momentous celebration of youth, as love does not reside in Berlin for yours truly. Sebastian and I had notions of selling bottled water or collecting beer bottles, so you can see that our motivations run completely counter to the assumed spirit of the event. In a different way, this also holds true for Dr. Motte, the founder of the whole Love Parade movement -- he divorced himself from the proceedings, citing bad feelings and corporate whoredom. Music nerds can be almost unbearable and have no place in polite society, but there is a lot of sonorous truth in his complaints. Motte still had the good humor to mount the decks even if he had some political problems with the whole scenario, so how bad can he be (though he does look like Alan Rickman playing a gay suburban father)? He's shifted emphasis to the SF one anyways.

I can cite several reasons why I didn't Max out to my Julietta this year: I wanted to have a comfortable, enjoyable afternoon; seeing constant streams of near-naked women seems to infuriate me as much as it arouses me; I couldn't conceive an outcome to the event that would personally gratify. But, in the end, I'm kind of disappointed in myself for not witnessing even the fringes of this blow-out feature to an already-active July. I feel like I've dropped the ball as a cultural student, and a boy. Everybody likes a parade. Especially an insane, too-big German one. Well, I can always live through my deranged acquaintances -- one of whom told me that he had hooked up with several girls in Germany "without using words." Fan-tastic.

According to people who like using found items to their political advantage, World War III is on. Whether it is actual or intentional, I think we need love more than ever. Break me off one of those glucose tablets and iron my g-string. Next year, it's on.

p.s. Speaking of American-German love, check out this footage of how much Bush liked his suckling pig last week. It's gotta be an act, right? (Super thanxxx to Ben Perry)

p.p.s. Can I get a na for the theme next year being Im Staub Der Sterne? If you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about.

Posted by Christy Leonardo at 11:00 PM | Permalink | 1 Comment |

Alan Partridge invented it, or at least codified it, in dealing with his Ukranian girlfriend: when you're in the presence of a non-native speaker and you don't want them to hear you, you just talk really fast. And it does work, mostly. But it's Pig Latin, as compared to the actual Latin that is Technical Idiom. When Ben and I need to communicate privately in public -- which is normally nigh-on impossible, as I remain an irreconcilably loud American -- we occasionally resort to Technical Idiom.

Technical Idiom consists of using obscure, ambiguous and non-cognate words to express yourself, so that the average English-proficient German still has problems understanding you. The psychological benefits may outweigh the practical. First, it is ego-gratifying to use big words: we all know this. Second, because Technical Idiom is still in the experimental stages, and because it can prove difficult to dust off terms like "persiflage" and "bellicose" for conversational usage, it's a very forgiving friend. Prehension falls before exactitude -- oh, see, there goes some Technical Idiom right there. A snippet of confabulation athwart practitioners:

BEN: Are you aware that a grandee over yonder engages you in address?
CHR: The rubipilate yeoman swathed in azure?
BEN: Uh... precisely so.
CHR: His visage bears no particular anamnesis.
BEN: And yet he regards you as would a basilisk.
CHR: Perhaps some... relinquished... muck-up?
BEN: You're somewhat better at this than I am.
CHR: Let's stop. No one cares.
BEN: Okay. "Rubipilate"?
CHR: Um, red-haired? I don't think it's a word. (To yeoman) Hallo!

As you see, with the added element of unbearable, masturbatory pretension, it's almost impenetrable.

A girl last night asked me, in German, if I fish well. I thought about it for an ego-negating minute before I realized that the door of Technical Idiom swings both ways.

Posted by Christy Leonardo at 4:00 PM | Permalink | 3 Comments |

The Germans are notorious for being kühle Rechner (ice cold calculators). One unofficial national sport of theirs is figuring out and planning every penny they spend down to, well, figuring out and planning every penny they spend - and then wondering later why they can do this and their government can’t. Private calculations are never wrong, it seems, and their efficiency at dealing with their own money like this leads, in my view, to a certain degree of personal stinginess.

Continue reading "Kühle Rechner" »

Posted by Clarsonimus at 5:51 AM | Permalink | Comment |

Nothing is easy anymore. Just when you think you've got all sussed out. You used to think if you saw a man with no hair on his head and a swastika tattoo on the back of his neck, "Aha! Here is a man generally aggrieved and probably violent. I should try to offer him a wide berth." Nowadays, though, he could just be a gay man with an unusual substance.

What you should look out for in this day and age are tattoos with pagan runes on them and certain numbers. There are three things they could be - 1) Old hippies who never learnt to play the guitar. 2) real wizards offering you dark exits from your existential crisis (just don't get me started!) 3) Neo-nazis. Seeing as the first group are hopelessly lost in a place as good-humoured and happy as the blue room, and the second group I just made up, it's probably best if you avoid them altogether, and then you'll be in the unenviable position of having to have Merkel's parties for her. She never shows anywaze.

This is the best waz to spot a disguised nazi.

Posted by Ben Knight at 4:08 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment |

There aren't that many gaps in our 700-post history, thanks to the tireless terriering and pithy posting of Christy Leonardo, but Anglofritz does seem to lack adequate nose to the scent and ear to the wind reporting from the streets of Germany's most German city, Munich. Let's stick our thumb into that hole, and hope that this will do until the fire engines arrive and the ocean of ignorance can be kept at bay by some more competent commentator.

Affluent, clean, sunny and Catholic, Munich doesn't have much in common with Berlin, and has almost nothing in common with east London. All your cliches about Germany are true in Munich. It can be an unnerving place for this reason. The school girls wear tighter clothes, and are altogether on a different hunt, the food is heavier, and the immigrants look a lot more nervous. Of course these are all cliches and prejudices, but you know what? - the world is made of cliches. It's true that Munich harbours more Audi-drivers than any other European city. There really are fat businessmen who spend their money on restoring roccoco theatres and keep polaroids of girls in their wallets. But you have to see beyond such petty, weeping images. Though they reflect things in your brain, it doesn't make it true.

Munich is like the Glockenspiel in its town hall. Everyone lives in costume, but we're all dancing on the same stick. You can have a great time there - just keep Munchen that sausage.

Posted by Ben Knight at 11:10 PM | Permalink | Comment |

courtesy of zettelkasten

I don't think this is appropriate for the back of a child seat.

Posted by Christy Leonardo at 7:45 PM | Permalink | Comment |

When summertime comes, there is something in the human spirit that explodes. From where does it originate: childhood's months-long idle vacations, national spirit, some sort of bizarre biochemiocal equation? It doesn't matter. What does matter is that you're in a good mood for the next few months or so, so let it ride, and have a good time while you can.

These guys know what it's about. Play to your strengths, and enjoy things, no matter what it looks like. Have you looked around you? Let it all hang out. Although you should go a little easier with the football talk this year.

p.s. Extra points awarded for: reggae, the riverside jam, "devil" goatee, and kind-of dancing.

Posted by Christy Leonardo at 7:30 PM | Permalink | Comment |

Besides President Bush taking on a symbolic relationship with a baby, nothing much is happening in Germany at the present. But abroad? My friends, the center shall not hold: just take a gander at Sploid's Apocalypse Watch, a secular but yet excitable alternative to RaptureReady.com's rapture index. Here's an overview:

• Israel: After a failed recovery of two Israeli soldiers from Hezbollah forces, war has begun, with, to quote the headlines: Israel Blockades And Bombs Lebanon While Hezbollah Rains Rocket Fire, Hezbollah guerrillas fire 700+ rockets at Israeli towns, Israel keeps up Lebanon assault, 200,000+ now staying in bomb shelters. Good Lord, that's an excellent start.

• America: is going bankrupt, as oil prices climb and climb. A tornado has hit New York City, and two serial killers are battling for dominance in Phoenix. Meanwhile, recent injustices in Iraq include child rape and massacres.

• At large: we have the following:
  Britney Spears is threatening to resume her music career.
  Los Angeles is even banning its beloved taco trucks.
  The Japanese are executing people on live television.
  Innocent Meerkat pups are being forced to eat live scorpions.

All exaggeration aside, today has been a fucked-up day.

Posted by Christy Leonardo at 7:00 PM | Permalink | 1 Comment |

Despite it all, sexual chemistry between German girl and American boy excellent as always

The German girl had it hard from the beginning. She grew up in a communist country -- which is whatever, you get used to it when you're raised in it -- and worked hard from then on, because she saw where it could get her. Men had a problem with that, of course, and it's lonely where she is. But in the meantime, she's self-confident, direct, stressed out but capable of great lightness and levity, and oddly charming.

So then this guy comes along. His reputation precedes him and, good or bad, that works in his favor. He's good at small talk and flattering her -- which isn't done nearly enough on the personal level, at least with the earnestness he does it with. He also doesn't give 1/1,000th of a shit about a lot of the issues that should plague them both, which also promises some sort of new world, new future that she can see off in the distance, together.* To say she's not sure about his general policy is an understatement, but she wants more of him in her life -- she wants it to work, although she has no idea how that can be so. But he keeps calling her, so that's okay.

Physically, she finds him a bit handsomer and healthier than the Americans she's known, while he finds her a lot funner to talk to and intimate with that he would have thought from a German. She actually finds him ridiculous a lot of the time, but that commitment to absurdity -- the one which her countrymen so rarely undertake without mitigation, but which comes naturally to Americans -- keeps her coming back. A lot gets lost in conversation, but no one seems to care. They're both old enough to have changed their opinions and allegiances a lot, and they both know what they want, and are sensible enough to consider the other's needs.

There's a lot of evidence that, even if the American is a bit of an ass and the German girl is a little boring, and most of the world is completely against their coupling, that this situation works.

*Especially after the big break-up:

Now Mr Schröder is part of the history he once helped write. Iraq may be a mess but Ms Merkel has a touch of what Mr Bush's father famously called "the vision thing", seeing that Germany's interests lie far beyond Basra and Baghdad, rendition flights, Guantanamo Bay and the plethora of issues linked to the "war on terror".

Posted by Christy Leonardo at 1:15 PM | Permalink | Comment |

courtesy of sara77_zid

Thanks to the miracle of Flickr, a lot more of these are already up than you may think -- though often interspersed with photos of actual bushes, which a lot of people in the countryside, thankfully, care more about.

Posted by Christy Leonardo at 7:00 PM | Permalink | Comment |

You should totally already know this, but if you don't: the crux of this year's World Cup final was French player Zinedine Zidane head-butting Italian player Marco Materazzi over some taunt made earlier. It was the spiritual end of the game and perhaps even Zidane's career. And the internet is LTAO! (after inital WTFs)

• The Flash game. I wish it were harder, but perhaps this in itself is a metatextual message -- violence is easy? We shouldn't necessarily respond to provocation? Well, if we don't, we'll have all manner of Italians running roughshod across our browsers for hours -- even forever. (thanxxx to David's Medienkritik)

• The animated GIFs. Why take them in one by one when this guy has made a Sportscenter highlight reel of them all? We might be missing some important head-butt interpretations, as it gets a bit heavy on the video games near the end, but the cinematic touch is okay. (thanks to PapaScott)

• The Quicktime movie. Modest Austrian humor, i.e. not really funny. And why is every zero-budget video in the world made by a cast consisting entirely of men ages 14-30? I would have liked this film to consist of actual incidents -- about ten of them have happened in my presence, for example.

Posted by Christy Leonardo at 6:30 PM | Permalink | Comment |

20th annual re-release of musical mentions the war

Linie 1, the Rent of Berlin -- and we all know how played out Rent is, less than a decade later -- is doing the damn thing again in the GRIPS Theater. Not many people care, but this guy does, because there's a lesson in it. (Interesting also that the author name-checks two Asian cities, as Line 1 is enjoying a great deal more success in, say, Korea, where their adaptation is set in Seoul and has been running for over 11 years straight. The Korean show has even played in Berlin.)

I'm getting carried away with the premise. This is supposed to be about the Germans, and boy have things changed since 1986. Right? Self-criticism on the stage equals tedious and redundant, to this critic and every other. But it was (and remains) a stage. Next is addressing the situation earnestly and naturally, which inevitably leads to humor. Humor will remain tenative till everyone that remembers the war, or communism, is dead. Enough time cannot pass until we're out of living links. It's analogous to our Civil War -- we don't and can't, take Confederates seriously.

While the institutionalizing of memory may be necessary and even good, it's not necessarily good theater or film. For creators of that ambition, many flawed attempts will be made before we have something of real value.

Posted by Christy Leonardo at 5:30 PM | Permalink | Comment |

As of yesterday, the good but timid people of Poland are ruled by a pair of cloven-hooved mischievous leprechauns. They are giant-sized, and spend their days bathing in the river Bug, lying around in the sun, and throwing cows at Warsaw, which is 50 kilometres away. They are twins, they still live with their giant leprechaun mum, who makes them a potato stew every day which has pieces of Polish children in it, who the twins have caught by making special traps in hedges which have blackberries as bait. Their new laws include: compulsory consumption of five slugs three times every day for all Poles over the age of 9, (Of course, the twins own all the slug farms in Poland!), an extra tax on all thin paper napkins, and the outlawing of cars, dogs and cushions. The leprechaun twins also demand that the EU pay for anything in Poland made of metal or plastic.

The German government, nonplussed by the eccentric turn that Polish politics has taken, has sent a strongly-worded letter via the Polish ambassador to Warsaw. The leprechauns reacted by making the letter into a paper cup, filling it with blackberry wine, shouting "Long live Angela Merkel and her pretty little hips!!" and drinking a toast to the German people. Whenever a German diplomat tries to call the Polish government by telephone, Lech, the younger of the leprechauns by one minute, picks up and says, "You've reached the international fart-centre." farts into the phone, says, "Thank you." and hangs up.

Something similar to this was written by a taz satirist a couple of weeks ago, and it has since caused an international incident, with the Polish government calling on the German government to "publicly regret" the article. The German government said it had neither the obligation or the right to do this. Now there has been a phone call between the two governments and everything seems to be alright. Let's see if Anglofritz can re-light the fire.

Posted by Ben Knight at 3:44 PM | Permalink | Comment |

Your kind (yes, you, yellow-bellied anti-freedom young person, with your overblown notions of "justice" and "humanity") aren't allowed within earshot of the President today as he visits Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. It's just too high-profile. But thanks to the President creditors at Der Spiegel, you can virtually follow in the footsteps of George W. Bush as he ambles through the country, enjoying delicacies and waving to non-existent crowds. Yes, it costs €12 million to make something like this happen, my Spiegelian friend -- the days when Teddy Roosevelt take a constitutional on his own, drinking and raconteuring all the way, are gone.

View the photostrip

Posted by Christy Leonardo at 2:30 PM | Permalink | Comment |

Although Anheuser-Busch's Budweiser is one of America's biggest brands, it gets little respect in Germany, the ancestral homeland of the Busch brewing family, where it has been derided as spülwasser -- dishwater... Various other problems blocked its entry until 1996, and then it could be sold only as "Anheuser-Busch Bud" -- so as not to confuse it with the far-better-selling Czech import, Budweiser Budvar, or with Germany's Bitburger, whose trademarked nickname is "Bit."

Now that our lives have been practically decided by advertising money, to go against the will of the companies that handle both seems like insurrection, treason of the highest degree. But there are times when we must step outside of the mold before it's closed on us, stand up and declare, "I object to this branding. I will not take this free PSP." Or, in this case, overpriced beer.

Never has the word "imported" borne a worse connotation. It's a phantasmic torture worthy of Nietzsche to force Germans to drink American beer during their own moment of hosting glory. Don't get me wrong, American beer isn't the worst in the world -- that honor goes to the Canadians -- but Budweiser, which the article takes great pains to distinguish from its Czech namesake, particularly takes the cake. It's swill. But all Anheuser-Busch has to do is throw a lot of money around to float the most absurd juxtaposition since Mouse and Toad.

People, when are we going to get together and decide that we don't have to obey some injudicious directive that makes no sense? Oh wait, we did, and it was pretty funny. Well, then, when are we going to coordinate it? Are you trying to tell me that doing it over the internet doesn't work?

p.s. Bitburger proves a more than adequate relief -- in fact, I've got a bit of Bit knocking around my head this morning.

Posted by Christy Leonardo at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comment |

courtesy of Potluck

Good Lord, you try to find a plum pic of Peaches doing her thing in the Fatherland and what do you serendipitously find? Colonel Pfirsich Rommel, the supa-gay brother of the Desert Fox. From the Gay Comics List:

Pfirsich is probably one of the most interesting character in comics. He's gay and out, he has exquisite tastes and manners, and a lot of people think he's just a pretty head more obsessed with his lover, the dashing pilot Rosen Kavalier, than with the obligations of his function. Well, his soldiers know better.

There's a few of these bad boys, and the character has even merited a musical: it's what you see above. Resources are scant, but read this summary of the Desert Peach theater experience:

If you were there, you felt the magic. If you weren't you'll probably never have a chance of seeing it again. It cost $30,000 to put on, used 10 top-class singers, including Julianna Rambaldi, who has been reviewed in New Yorker magazine, used 75 backdrop slides and 80 costumes for the 70-some parts, killed the composer, drove everybody crazy -- and broke even. If somebody else wants to produce it, you can contact me, but I've had all the theater I can stand.

Ben has long held that being gay is an insistent analogue to being a Nazi. How many memes must flourish before he is proved right?

Posted by Christy Leonardo at 8:45 PM | Permalink | 2 Comments |

Peaches, the hyperbolic female counterpart to Har Mar Superstar who's trying to make you feel bad about her sexuality, lives in Berlin. I'm feeling a little better about myself when I learn that her German is little better than mine. Although, if you can mount the stage like P does without abashment (I'm scared to go out and order Kababs for the gang, myself), what kind of an obstacle is that?

Impeach My Bush came out yesterday, and I've got a copy coming my way this evening. Apparently, next on the Peaches hit list is Anglofritz's second most overborne topic: G-Dubs. Before 2008, everyone shall do it. I liken this foray to Trans Am's Liberation a little while back -- an unexpected, kind-of-embarrassing WTF that ends up being kind of decent, if the B-word (or dancing around it) doesn't offend you. The idea is, if enough people have a problem with Dubs and his agenda, things may improve, which is the best modern morality this side of Dickens. If we all cared a little bit about the regime -- and it's hard to make today's ADHD sound and vision junkies sincerely care, for all their talk, about anything -- maybe change will happen in the meantime.

Looking forward to the album tonight. Peaches' "gratuitously shocking and embarrassingly unfunny" schtick has always worked for me. Not worked like that, come on...

Posted by Christy Leonardo at 8:30 PM | Permalink | Comment |

Entrenchment begins as Bush's offensive into Germany gains momentum

The standard Guardian sarcastic-as-hell reporting still can't capture the antipathy that the Bush visit to Germany is generating. Especially for an allied nation, Germany has a dedicated anti-Bush corps to rival or exceed that of Europe's most noble peace ambassadors, Austria. In this case, they are so desperate to vilify Bush that they're bringing out the East Germany references. Needless ones -- the whole reason they're stripping Stralsund down is because of Schädel's less visible equivalents, but what the hey.

So we have 5,000 demonstrators in Stralsund, making sure that Bush first knows he's not welcome, and second -- maybe some unified theory will emerge from the placards, which I'm particularly looking forwards to. They will be kept in line by 12,000 Landespolizei. So, by standing majority, Bush is welcome in Germany.
Meanwhile, he'll be dining on suckling pig with 50 of his most ardent well-wishers. After some apertifs, he'll find Merkel, and together they'll figure out what Iran can do for them.

Posted by Christy Leonardo at 6:45 PM | Permalink | Comment |

Did you think we were allowed to stop talking about the World Cup already? Not so fast, Zidane. European news organizations are still passed out in the ditch, and it's going to take more than a few Prairie Oysters* to sober them up for the trade again. Just as Anglofritz fancies a recap of the richness and whirlwind imagery that was the Cup, so the BBC tries to codify how this year's installment stands amongst the others. An approximation --

Security: A
Sure, arresting a small town's worth of fans seems like something, but it's actually a good outcome. Our friends in the White Power industry wanted to make this the biggest horrorshow ever, and that simply did not happen. Also, nationally-correct cops proved a good idea.

Fans: B+
Sure, they were drunk and broke things, but the things were replaceable. The fashion choices more than mdae up for it.

Continue reading "World Cup Report Card" »

Posted by Christy Leonardo at 4:45 PM | Permalink | Comment |

starts earlier than kindergarten

However, pointing out that integration is essentially a two-sided affair, the government has called on German citizens to demonstrate acceptance, tolerance, civil engagement, and a willingness to honestly welcome legal newcomers to their country.

Scattershot government "initiatives" never, never cut it. What proof is there that immigrant children need to learn German? They don't need it to exist in the cultural enclaves that flourish in German cities, and it seems like the only jobs out there for them involve emphasizing their cultural differences, and even then learning enough German to complete a sale.

Children can, and will, learn two languages. But the dendritic connections in the brain are gone even before pre-school starts, and when your parents aren't German, the effort is significant. But the idea is that it must be undertaken.

Postulation: if you are a German citizen, born in Germany, German should be your first language. Every parent wants the best for their children: if there was some proof that learning German would ensure a child's success, I reckon the change would come shortly thereafter. But Germany has a lot of issues to work out before they can offer their immigrant population anything out of the ordinary -- so, uh, any ideas?

Posted by Christy Leonardo at 3:00 PM | Permalink | 3 Comments |

But The World Is Looking At Germany Again

93% of the German public wanted him to carry on, and all 23 national players wanted him to carry on, the twisted journalist dogs that spent their precious column inches niggling at his ankles wanted him to carry on, but exuberant, tight-shirted Jürgen will not be staying on as national coach of Germany. He's going back to California with his wife, Yoko. How disappointed everyone is - he did so much more than take this spirited team of young Polish misfits and renegades, make them into a brash, slender whippet-like fighting force that conquered the semi-finals. He turned Germany's image abroad around - he made Germany look young and happy again. In the world's mind, Germany is no longer populated by fat and arrogant businessmen, cumbrously mounting Polish prostitutes and driving too fast.

He was the central, wonderful image of Germany's World Cup campaign - jumping around, losing his mind as if it weren't obvious that Germany would win. Humble, you could say. The staid Joachim Loew just won't be the same.

Posted by Ben Knight at 11:29 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment |

In the end, the violence wasn't a landscape spectacle and didn't come from the fans or terrorists, marshalled and threatened into submission by ultra-police pressures, it came from the players - Zidane's moment of rarefied brutality - and, more desperately from the organisers.

Jürgen "Mister WM" Kießling, the man who put together the fandango free-for-all that was the Berlin Fan Mile, acted as speaker for the twelve World Cup cities, and who spent the final two years of his life putting together the various events that surrounded the tournament, crowned his World Cup achievement last night by shooting himself in the brain. It is a lesser mystery than the one preoccupying the media at the moment (what did Materazzi say - lip readers are shamelessly hiking the rates for their rarely-sought powers) but just as potent in its emotional impact. What does this tournament do to these people?

Even those that hate and barely understand football ended up getting caught in the fascination of people around them. To them it is a relief that the World Cup is over, but perhaps no-one can be as glad as Kießling. He did everything he could to foist it on our lives, and now he's gone - preoccupied by the nothingness of it all.

Posted by Ben Knight at 10:38 PM | Permalink | Comment |

When the guava power drink is drained and the crispness has left the collar of your football jersey , you got to get together with your boys and remember just what it is that you had together: an orgiastic, amorphous beast running ragged through Deutschland, consuming everything it could not convert. The World Cup. Ben and Christy recount their experiences watching games in the epicenter of football action, and reach for the grandest metaphors imaginable to explain the pageantry and pathos of the Final.

THANXXX FOR STAYING WITH US TO THE BITTERSWEET END, ANGLOFRITZERS! CONGRATULATIONS TO ITALY FOR A FINE VICTORY, AND TO GERMANY, FOR HOSTING THE GAMES WITH UNMATCHABLE GRACE!!!!!!!!!!!!

anglofritz podcast (8.6 mb, 9.26 min)

Posted by Christy Leonardo at 9:30 PM | Permalink | 1 Comment |

courtesy of trexcali

Things sure have changed here in Germany, as a result of the hosting duties. Now, even God agrees that the flag is okay. We needn't change the name of the country to Fungary, like we planned.

Posted by Christy Leonardo at 9:00 PM | Permalink | 5 Comments |

America supposedly seeks the secrets of European wealth

That taking SWIFT codes is a violation of privacy is a bad angle for European businesses to take. Germany, especially, prides itself on privacy laws but, hey guys, you don't let your government access SWIFT information when investigating corporate fraud and graft? My keyboard, you don't. But now, a new dimension has been added to accent the accusation -- it's economic espionage. It's a bid to find out more about what the American intelligence community is doing with the information, and it's a bit shameless.

Every intelligence community wants to know more about every economy in the world, but this is pushing it a bit. America has bigger fish to fry. And who's behind this new current of inquiry? France, you say? A thief lives in fear of people stealing from them, I guess.

I must admit, though it's a little off-topic, it's permissable to mention because of the sheer import:

The move comes after the US Supreme Court ruled last month that the military commissions of Mr Bush created to try prisoners at Guantanamo Bay contravened both US law and the Geneva Convention. The court said Mr Bush's administration had exceeded its authority in constituting the controversial commissions, concluding that they did not offer defendants sufficient legal rights.

Strange that Bush should go down for something Clinton [more gently] advocated, but his profile invites it, I guess. That's what you get when you try to be a big-timin', go-it-alone president. A senseless crusade for revenge. One's man's quest to drink up all the oil in the world. Oh, sorry, been working on my German by reading newspapers lately.

Posted by Christy Leonardo at 4:45 PM | Permalink | Comment |

This gun's for hire

Frau Hass and Frau Böse. These were seriously the names of the two women that were assigned to review my credentials at the Ausländeramt, a shantytown of long, dully-lit hallways and featureless anterooms. The corridors are lined with wide-eyed, expectant people of various national stripe, and the rules barely exist -- sit in this room and someone will probably call your number. It's quite common for interlopers to snatch your room out from under you by importunately knocking, and it's also quite common to lose your spot because your case worker is unwilling to hoof it out to the waiting room to call on you -- keep that pointer ear aloft! She's yelling for you.

So now, after months of alternately arguing and begging, I've been rewarded with a sticker that says "Böse" in big, legible letters on it, one that will guarantee that my dalliances at the Customs counter will be brief and positive for the next three years. But I've earned it through past chunks of life spent negotiating the Kafkaesque* red tape of the Ausländeramt. The last trip was a solid workday, 8:00-4:30, of getting redistricted and put off. I went through 12 stages and, much like AA, the last is Experiencing Spiritual Awakening. I'll let you in on how it works -- you see the swaddled children trying to keep their cool while restrained at shoulder height in a stifling building, these refugee children of uncertain futures, and you're eventually more concerned for them than your ridiculous 7-hour wait. They are clean slates; I hope something works out for them. As for me: I chose this life.

* - Why is everything "Kafkaesque"? Anything weird or dreamlike invites the stamp. Kafka would be insulted that his name was being dragged around like this. At least there wasn't a James Irony.

Posted by Christy Leonardo at 12:00 PM | Permalink | 4 Comments |

Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, a German transvestite, outlived the Third Reich and then the brutal East German Communist regime. After the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, in her old age she became a German media darling, albeit a controversial one when her involvement with the Stasi secret police was revealed.

American author Doug Wright heard the story and was drawn to it like a bee to honey. It resulted in I Am My Own Wife, his Pulitzer Prize-winning play based on von Mahlsdorf's life, which opens at the Merlin Theatre in Melbourne this week.

Funny, I was just trying to convince Ben to adapt the Marquis De Sade's Dialogues for the stage. The English Theater, in specific, and this would have to be a package deal -- in return for my assistance, I must be assured the part of Dolmance, the perversely polysexual Pan. Ben would have some cherry role (I'm thinking Chevalier De Mirvel), there's actresses coming out of the eaves, and the rest, as they say, will be German theater history.

Wright has already done this, in a sense, by adapting De Sade's life in Quills. The screenwriter's screenwriter, he has sensibly measured out his career in experiments with sexuality. They screen well. Damn you, Wright, always one step ahead! I suppose we won't be seeing our Berlin darling here where she belonged for another year or so: Aussies and Zealand-friends, won't you see this one out? It'd be interesting to see how Wright handles such a complex figure: a [righteous] murderer and Stasi informant, floating over incomprehensible waves of change.

Posted by Christy Leonardo at 11:45 PM | Permalink | Comment |

courtesy of lichtundschatten

If English fans are getting too rowdy, spilling beer everywhere and shouting unintelligibly, there's only one thing to do (and you were going to do it anyway, because it's summer and you're German): take off all your clothes. They're used to it in their lad mags, but the presence of a real naked girl will eventually dry up the flow of gibes and nationalist epithets, and then if you blow hard enough, they'll flake and fly away, like ashes.

Posted by Christy Leonardo at 9:00 PM | Permalink | Comment |

We simply cannot stop name-dropping Hitler. We love the idea of him too much, more than most people, who we allow to fall to obscurity and rot because they did not receive the perverse apex that Hitler did. He's the piece of history everyone knows, even the least interested, because he is too important, well-designed and omnipresent to forget. He combines too many genres that people love: leader, zealot, megalomaniac, proven occultist, rags-to-riches success story, mass murderer:

"Crowds came to hear Hitler speak," Gladney points out in his classes, "crowds erotically charged, the masses he once called his only bride... There must have been something different about those crowds. What was it?... Death. Crowds came to form a shield... to become a crowd is to keep out death."

-from White Noise, by Don DeLillo

Okay, so, we've got literature and psychology. But debate? It's a sordid history of anyone we don't like, or agree with, being Hitler. Manifesting any of the traits, to any degree, that Hitler is famous for unlocks the option: solemnity, industry, moral vacuity, a certain fashion sense, fascism, pseudo-fascism -- anything negative, really. It doesn't really have much to do with his character.

It's the image! Indestructible! Why did the other kids call you gay at the drop of a hat in school? Because it's such a semiotically-charged concept that it could not completely lose its impact. Something always registered, and we were as a result pursued by the night spectre of homosexuality, though it was an irrational and unfounded fear. Which 10-year-old actually knew a gay person (and I realize this statement is dating me) in the suburbs? And now, being gay has become vogue, even as a persecuted subculture. I think Nazis, all effectively gay in their florid uniforms and iron-girded cabals, have become so persecuted and morally equivocated, that they have tilted the machine and become cool again.

And so we have the Hitler subculture. We can't kill it, but hopefully it will be unpopular. But forgotten? I don't think he'd allow it.