last.fm is playing Charlie Parker

Every once in a while I am tempted to give up my habit of blogging in English. That’s in those rare moments when I wish I were rich and famous and well-loved by a broad, wildly engaged readership. Then I tend to imagine my present audience of a dozen or so, and sigh. Wouldn’t I lower the thresholds, the entrance barriers, for me and for my potential readers and commenters, if I stuck to my native language?

When I started writing in English occasionally some months ago, it was because of a somewhat cosmopolitan situation I’d happened to find myself in, and a very special and dear part of my small audience who couldn’t read German. But using the foreign language more and more developed into some kind of mental exercise, an unexpected and welcome challenge to my everyday life. And after a while the sport even became fun.

So when I contemplate writing in German again from time to time, it’s not only the potential loss of my special Audience of One that keeps me from doing it, it’s also a feeling of sacrifice that I can only compare to voluntarily and unnecessarily giving up a healthy jogging or dietary habit.

All this is to say: Keep on bearing with me, my few dear friends and readers. And feel free to comment in German or any other language of your preference. As much as I like people joining me for a jog in the park, I wouldn’t want to oblige anyone to do so. Maybe I will later indulge to my vain wishes of fame and an audience of fifty german readers.

Love

“Soon you will be eighty-two years old. You are six centimeters smaller now. You weigh only 45 kilos, and still you are beautiful, gracious and desirable. We’ve been living together for 58 years now and I love you more than ever. Recently I’ve fallen for you anew. Again I’m bearing in my breast this overwhelming emptiness that only the warmth of your body close to mine can fill.”

That’s what french philosopher and journalist André Gorz wrote about his already cancer-ridden wife Dorine last year, in a small book called “Lettre à D : Histoire d’un amour” (follow the link for a beautiful picture of the couple). Now the two have ended their life together.

Goodbye, Summer!

Today we’ve had one of the most beautiful days of the year. Warm like summer, with clear sky, but with a richesse de couleur that only autumn can provide.

Every autumn and spring, around the equinox, an important change takes place in my Frankfurt life. It’s the time when the path of the sun crosses the roof line of the southwardly opposite buildings in my street. In autumn, I have to say goodbye to direct sunlight and prepare myself for the permanent shadow of the winter term. In spring, there is the joy of a sudden glaring beam of sunlight caressing my desk, forcing me to shut down my computer, go to the balcony and celebrate the reawakening of it all.

Today the sun was still paying tribute, but it left a parting note.

Progress

Sitting in the basement of a house filled with Beuys memorabilia, surrounded by one of the most elaborate libraries and music collections in this country. Some strange guitar music is penetrating my ears and mind. Even old style intellectuals collecting the Complete Works of, say, Bloch, Benjamin or Merleau-Ponty now provide Wlan internet access.

Being liberal

Some years ago I started to define myself again as a political person. Politics re-entered my life on a micro level, mostly due to the immediate political context of my work. But I also put some effort into getting a grasp of bigger topics, like globalization, european integration or global security issues. I read political analysis, mostly in foreign language papers and magazines like the Guardian or Economist. As a ‘secularised Marxist’ I did my best to acknowledge and understand the political impact of economical issues.

But I never really succeeded in finding some access to domestic politics. I even feel – and not only in myself, but also in many of my friends – an acute sense of embarrassment whenever there is a need to position ourselves towards one of the important political questions of our country. Political judgement in these areas is at best fragmented, related to certain smallish aspects, it is mostly emotional and rarely well-informed.

So what is going wrong here? Why has it become so difficult for me and others to be or become an articulate political animal in this country?

Continue reading →

After Us

“Being Dead” by Jim Crace is a weird book, “easier to respect than to love”, wrote Gary Krist in the original Salon review. Well, I can imagine that it plays havoc with some sensitivities. The very premise of the book – telling the story of a couple against the background of their bodies’ minutely described decomposition, after their brutal murder on a beach – adds considerable power to Crace’s beautiful writing. Lesser writers might have failed with the scheme, but Crace fulfills it seemingly without effort. This is metaphysical prose, dense and sometimes lyrical. Weird but great.

The scene at the beach reminded me faintly of the natural history of decay given in Peter Greenaway’s movie “A Zed and Two Noughts”, where you can see a sequence of rotting fruits and decomposing animals in stop motion, starting, if I recall correctly with an apple, then going up the evolutionary ladder with a shrimp, an alligator, a zebra, and, finally, the Crown of Creation. And if you widen your scope a little, you might like to read this 2006 article from New Scientist: “Imagine Earth Without People”

Back from Berlin

Peter Stein reading Chekhov

Were I more faithful a blogger, there would have been plenty of opportunity for daily writing. I’ve met a dozen interesting people, had wonderful talks, visited an outstanding international literature festival. And then there was the city itself with its characteristic mixture of pomposity and shabbiness.

Every time you visit Berlin some grandiose new buildings want to make you forget that there is no real money being made in this place. Unter den Linden politicians’ motorcades pass by with flashing blue lights. Even at eight o’clock in the morning Café Einstein is packed with high-ranking officials and eager lobbyists. The smell of power is spread over Berlin-Mitte.

But then, public transport still has its usual bunch of defiant dreamers: There’s the withered femme-fatale-who’s-never-been in her chrome-buttoned waisted leather jacket, tight jeans and high heel boots. The slightly overweight, unemployed Neukölln samurai wearing ponytail and some imitation of coolness on his unshaven face reads Marc Aurel. An adolescent black boy in a shiny white suit with dark blue silk shirt and polished shoes, still full of illusions, nevertheless knows how to keep distance from the turkish hoodlums. And the hollow junkie averages 50 cent an hour pestering the passengers with his whining soliloquy.

Berlin’s appeal, which made me willingly suffer the hardships of bumpy hitchhike rides through communist territory whenever I had the opportunity as a schoolboy, is still effective. The Prussian grandeur of its design, the proletarian charm, creativity and grumpy wit of the locals, the many temptations of state-sponsored High Culture. How could one not fall for this place.

Without Whom Not

So Cory Doctorow hates Facebook. I think that is too strong an emotion. But I like Doctorow and respect his judgement.

The value of a virtual network is ultimately based in real life experience. Websites like Xing, LinkedIn or Facebook mostly serve as reflections and reminders of real-life connections.

Yesterday on Xing I chanced to meet an old business acquaintance with whom I share a truly pivotal experience. Thomas Dahlmanns, then working for Pixelpark, had supported Georg Hessmann and me at a very decisive moment, in the year of 1998. Georg and I were working on the ultimate relaunch of Spiegel Online at that time, and Thomas generously helped us with the introduction of Vignette’s Story Server content management system. Two paid afternoons, no contract, no big deal. But, in retrospect, the very starting point of Spiegel Online’s success story. Nearly nobody else in Germany knew anything about professional content management, certainly nobody else knew about Story Server.

The late great american philosopher Donald Davidson dedicated one of his books to his mentor Willard V. O. Quine with the words “Without Whom Not”. This is my message to Matthias Müller von Blumencron: You owe Thomas Dahlmanns a dedication like that.