German Across the Atlantic

"Mommy & Daddy ar' the Bestest"

Boyaca Impressions

German abroad

Montreal pranks Sarah Palin

Well done, Les Justiciers masqués on radio CKOI in Montreal.

Movie: Sleuth 1972 + 2007

By accident, we discovered Sleuth, two British movies about an older and a younger man fighting over a woman by playing (psychological) games.
We watched both the original (1972) and the more recent version (2007) and they are both intense, somewhat complementary crime plays.
Funnily enough, amazing actor Michael Caine is playing the younger bloke (Milo Tindle/Tindolini) in the original version and the older gentleman (Andrew Wyke) in the new version. In the original, his companion is Laurence Olivier, while Jude Law is delivering a great performance (maybe a little bit too gay-ish-crazy for my taste) in the 2007 film.

Julian Neville's Lowlight - Dancing in NYC

My buddy (and step god cousin) Julian just finished his cool movie Lowlight about the dancing scene in NYC. He smoothly interweaves his personal search for Big Apple's magic moments and a documentary on the ridiculousness of the R.A.V.E. act that forbids dancing. Screenings at selected venues are announced on the movie's website: lowlightnyc.com and there's a nice feature on spiegel.de today.

2 min trailer:


10 min teaser:

So Many Things (thanks Warren)

http://spacecollective.org/MissionControl/4254/So-many-things-to-do

Whats a girl to do (via d-trick)

Politics News: Livingstone to be Chavez adviser

Former London mayor Ken Livingstone is to work as a consultant for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez...

reminds me of

Schroeder Accepts Russian Pipeline Job 3 years ago

It's all about the stupid oil!

Zo! and Tigallo - Love the 80's

Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme (2000)

I really appreciate googlevideo as a platform for rare documentaries! Thanks to whoever uploads them, that's how I imagine the internet to be: a repository for the creation and preservation of multimedia-based episodic or semantic memory.
Check out this one: Freestyle - the Art of Rhyme from 2000. One hour on the discipline of freestyle in hiphop. It features all big names in the black music and rap scene like Mos Def, Biggie, Tupac, Questlove and Black Thought, Kool Herc, Freestyle Fellowship, Eminem, and of course the Lyricist Lounge.

Rumpfkluft - Hilarious T-Shirts by Katz&Goldt

"I'm 27. Some of my contemporaries are already employed"

There are some really funny t-shirt designs by Katz & Goldt (sorry--all of them in German)

Jamie Oliver Changes Chicken Consumption

He definitely is a slick fella: In his show Jamie's Fowl Dinners, Jamie Oliver suffocated male chicks and "electrocuted" a chicken live on TV. It was all for a good reason as he wants to make us aware of the lives and deaths of the animals we eat.
Don't become a vegetarian but read his tips of improvement. In principle he advises us to definitely buy free-range or organic eggs and to cut down chicken consumption or buy the whole chicken, then using all of it.
I was already wondering how it's profitable to sell 6 chicken wings (= 3 chickens?!) for 99 Pence as they do in the incredibly many chicken takeaways in London...

Heart Attack at the Supermarket

What the deuce?
At a big German supermarket they have a heart defibrillator as their main offer this week.
It's only 799.95 Euros (plus 3.95 shipping costs). You save 199.05 Euros!

BLU at Tate Modern, Listening Post at Science Museum

Ok-- a little fun is permitted.
I just made it down to the Thames last weekend to have a look at the Tate Modern's "streetart" pieces and I was surprised to see a gorgeous one by BLU, the guy I just blogged about a month ago. Go and have a look at it if you can. The exhibition is on until the end of august.
Another thing I watched again is the Listening Post at the Science Museum in South Kensington, a huge audiovisual installation which displays and acoustically synthesizes live snippets from chatrooms and message boards on the internet. There are videos on the internet but they don't come close to reality.

Free Online File Conversion -- Zamzar

July is the busy month.
Therefore, no fun.

Here's this nice free file conversion service called Zamzar.
I converted .pdf to .doc and it worked nicely (here's a list with all possible conversions).

Or am I missing out on a simpler way to do that?

Homecookin' Trackwerk Mixchange

I put it in the heavy rotation box on the right a while ago, but it just doesn't stop to rock:
I highly recommend the Homecookin' Guestmix "Homewerk mix" by Scott Trackwerker and the new counterpart by Homecookin' host Ichi.One "Do you want the real thing?"

Deacapitator Streetart London (via thinkingmachine)

There's a nice graphical guerrillero enhancing London ads significantly by turning idols and icons headless.
Here's an article (via thinkingmachine) and the artist's flickr page. Haven't posted anything on this kind of art in aages (the last post was the great USPS spoof 3 years ago)

Japano-Germanic Valence

good luck (++)

happy (++)

space // clean your desk. every bird loves its nest. ( )evil (--)

weird and funny (--)

Last post in the series on "good, bad and ugly" German influences in Tokyo.

Incredible Intermezzo: MUTO - a wall-painted animation by BLU (via thinkingmachine)

I already encountered one of BLU's amazing wall-painted animations at last year's Backjumps live issue in Berlin, but this one is even more mind-blowing: MUTO -- An ambiguous animation painted on public walls (in Buenos Aires and Baden) by BLU (via thinkingmachine).

Stores with German Names in Japan

snob looks

liberty

liberty (this time with Steven)mishmash

laughter

cellar

king

trouble

German Influence on Japanese Cloth

Today is the best time

Pritt makes it possible

The most perfect on the market \\ ...18 years of global experience

We are all little sinnersGerman Federal Diet and Ensinger Urquell\\ mineral water\\ quiet & classic \\ ...that's how smooth water must be

Heimat

And then there are the truly great t-shirt designs by graniph which very often include pretty cool German phrases. Check out their collection. Especially On one here no tree will fall, natural animal kingdom/naturally animal-rich (cool ambiguity), it came for me\\ the starry sky\\ key to the sercret paradise\\ I remember where I lost my mind\\ reminds me when her eyes entangled themselves today\\ don't they let me kufl (nonword) her, today is starry, and many more.

Japanese Poetry Meets German Precision

"We cannot knoew what will happen in future""desk diary \\ month pocket \\ new discoveries \\ educate yourself follows function, smaller is more"

"memory \\ landscape \\ the imagined landscape is landscape that only extends on my intellect"

"smaller is more \\ snow, moon and flower"

"micro size \\ eight to nine and april to july \\ fibre"

Photolog Series Announcement - Japan 2008

With this aka I sooner or later had to go to Japan. Unfortunately, I was too late for the real hanami (cherry blossom watching) period but I still passed some dazzling two weeks over there!
In the following posts I will try to convey some experiences and provide some photos with a special focus on German influences in Japan.
Watch out.

Thinking Machine's Li'l Brova: thehumansarecoming

So here's Warren's announcement shifted out of the comments section:
Thinking Machine has a little brother called http://thehumansare.com/ing/
Haven't properly checked it out but you should!!

Australian Commodore 64 Ad from 1985

'Thinking Machine' on the Blogroll

There's a new member on the blogroll: Thinking Machine, a London-based link blog thematically orbiting around audio consumption and production, design and technology, the future and the web, politics and philosophy, art and music -- with a hint of science and brain in all that.
Plus, it's updated almost daily. Check it out.

Cali Agents - How the west was one - Intro

Finally a piece of media that's worth sharing (I hadn't really encountered anything in a long time):
The hilarious intro to the great Cali Agent's (Rasco and Planet Asia) album how the west was one from 2000: Here's the link to the mp3.
NB: Be warned, it may not be as emotionally charged for you as it is for me -- but it's definitely still funny.

'Allo 'Allo Hitting Germany

According to the London tube press (see picture) and some more serious journalistic organs, one of the funniest British comedy series, 'Allo 'Allo, is supposed to be aired in Germany -- finally.
It is set in Nazi-occupied France, was released in 1982 and went on for 10 years making fun of the British, the French and--of course--"ze Germans".
Apparently there are some doubts if the German viewers think it's funny--I for my part think it's hilarious and I know that Germans usually enjoy the representation of Germans and Germany in foreign fictional media...
Two other great examples: Herr meets Hare, a cartoon from 1945 in which Bugs Bunny meets some Nazis in the Black Forest (link to the video), and the classic of Charlie Chaplin as The Great Dictator Hynkel (whole movie and a cool snippet).

By the way, I was surprised to recognize René as the doorman in Terry Gilliam's Brazil the other day.

Simpsons and Neuroscience/Neuroimaging

I recently watched a great new episode of the Simpsons entitled Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind. It mocks the Michel Gondry flic that bears a similar title (I really want to go and watch his new movie Be Kind Rewind with Mos Def, btw).
Anyways.
What the Simpsons episode made me think of is in how many neuroscientific talks Simpson brain pictures are used as jovial illustrations. I wonder if this also holds for other disciplines or if there is something specific about the mind/brain and the Simpsons family/writers...
So here are two stills from the episode and I'm waiting for the moment when I see somebody using them in a talk.

Douglas Adams Acoustic Memorabilia

I checked for acoustic memorabilia of Douglas Adams on the web and found the following:

• Two interviews from 1983 and 1989 as streams and downloadable as .mp3 files on wiredforbooks.org
• Another one dating back to 1982 on The Generalist (.mp3) and one more from 1988 on thebaldheretic (stream and .mp3).
  
• Then there is this 90 minute video-streaming talk at UC Santa Barbara which he gave one month before his death in 2001.
• Lastly, a whole BBC website dedicated to Douglas Adams and H2G2, including cool Real Audio interview snippets.

Douglas Adams RIP - H2G2's 30th Birthday

One day after what would've been his 56th birthday, we'll go to the Douglas Adams Memorial lecture in the Royal Geographical Society London. It's organized by the Savetherhino Foundation and the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. The lecture itself will be given by Steven Pinker and because it's the 30th birthday of "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" it'll be followed by a special performance of some of the original cast. Ahh-- really looking forward to this.

--Also check this previous post on Douglas Adams and this cool BBC production in which he describes his view on how technology changes our lives, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Future.

Photolog pt. XIV - Paris & London Ten Years Ago

I just stumbled over this historical of myself in London in 1998 (on our journey through the UK and Ireland). Funnily enough one year before we also interrailed France including Paris.
So 10 years ago destiny had already sketched my pathway (or I'm just prone to patterns).

Changes in Latitudes on the Blogroll

I just updated the blogroll (to the right) and I added my friend Flor's blog 'Changes in Latitudes'.
Her insomniac posts thematically range from personal thoughts over movies to scientific matters and often include cool music videos.
Check it out!

SPAM Boosted in the UK

Wow--did you guys know that?
I just read it in Steven Pinker's Stuff of Thought and quickly looked up the details on the web.

The word SPAM is derived from SPiced hAM, a cheap luncheon meat, and the word's popularity got boosted by the following great Monty Python sketch.

German Coastguard Classic

Just a little thingy to bridge the gap between posts. Most of you probably know it already but I think it's still hilariously funny: The German coastguard's first day.

GP's Worldwide Festival 2008

Yeah!
The year starts off with some good news:
2008's Worldwide Festival in Sète, Southern France, is going to take place from July 3-5.
Even before, there's gonna be the Singapore version on May 16-18.
For details and teasers check http://www.myspace.com/worldwidefestival and http://www.worldwidefestival.com/.
I'll definitely try again to go there.

Worldwide Festival Teaser

2-0-0-8

Oops, sorry.
I think this has been the longest period in which I haven't posted anything.
I am (and the blog is) still alive and possibly gaining a new author, soon.
We'll see.
Stay tuned in 2008.