Fridays

I am in the first fifty pages of Henry Miller´s Tropic of Capricorn and I can only say that I feel inspired, the tone, the sarcasm, the voice: its all perfect. The man knew how to write. As for me? I am stuck on this blog pretending that one day I will write a novel. I can say a thousand times over that I am just trying to find the story, or looking for the right voice for the narration. Its all a crock of shit, and its been cooking for quite sometime now. To look at the whole thing from a spanish perspective: you can´t have a bull fight until you get inside the ring. The ring is this computer, the bull is my inner-laziness, and my matador´s outfit is the keys. Until there is a confrontation, its going to be a lonely day at the ring.

On to the world cup in all its glory. Germany made it through! What a nervy game that was. Lots of indecisivness from both sides and only a single moment of individual brilliance to finish it off. My thoughts always go back to Mr. Linnekers quote about the germans always winning on penalties, well hopefully they can do better than that against England. Sunday will tell all.

I am off to shopping and other such fun and exciting things such as working on a Friday night. May your weekends be merry!

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Wednesdays are for Show downs...

Germany looked brilliant in their first game. They looked good in their second one and still lost. So it comes down to Wednesday. It comes down to Ghana. It comes down to ninety minutes and eleven men against another set of eleven. It comes down, to some degree, on the referee quality. It comes down to nerves and will and all that jazz. I am so nervous I can´t think about much else. Football has that effect sometimes.

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World Cup 2010

By now every newspaper has been running their stories and special takes on the 2010 World Cup so I won´t drone on about it too much. I´ll admit that I have Football Fever. Due to work schedules and odd hours here and there, the first game I will be able to watch will be Germany against Australia. Its going to be magnificent, its going to be wonderful, in a way that only a world cup can be. I don´t think Brazil is going to do it this time, Spain is looking hot, Holland is on the rise, Denmark will be a bottom dweller along with France and Portugal. The drama is here and now and that month of magic that comes once every four years is here. I only wish I could watch every game.

In the middle of May

Sorry about not updating this blog for a long time. I can´t really say that I have been so busy that it would have been impossible to write a line or two, more like I just didn´t take that time necessary. This is of course a confession for being lazy. So what is going on? I am working at a pizzeria and once or twice a week at an ice cream cafe, then besides this I do the occasional work at a catering company. To be honest I haven´t been doing enough reading recently. At night when I climb into bed around 11 or so I just turn out the light and pass out. I have been skating a lot recently as well. It was something that was missing in my life and now I have been doing it enough to reach a level I haven´t been at for about three years. To be honest though I am not back to the level I was at in the fall/winter of 2006. It is getting close though.

To football: the world cup is beginning soon. Sweden won´t be there so I will be for the Germans. There isn´t much to say about the German team (always pretty solid) so I thought I would write a note or two about what I hope the Swedes do. First they have a new coach in Erik Hamren and while new coaches don´t always solve all the problems, they can be a breath of fresh air and a step in the right direction. So what is Sweden´s biggest problem then? The lack of a strong team sense and the ability of key players stepping up when called upon. We are also in some kind of generation shift at the moment, but the new kids just aren´t quite there yet. We need someone to step up and take the reigns (or as we say in swedish: visa vart skåpet ska stå). I am waiting for Wernbloom and Bajrami and one or two others to show some heart and determination. Our big stars are also a problem: Ibrahimovic had an alright season at Barcelona, but is now in the middle of a sea of rumours none of which can be completely dismissed, and Marcus Berg has got to step up his game pretty mightily from the garbage he has shown so far at Hamburg. We expect more from such players. Of course Sweden has come back from dark patches before so there is no reason to think they cannot do the same now as well.

The IIHF Championships are taking place right now and Sweden is going to meet Denmark in the quarterfinal on Thursday. If we don´t win it will be one of the biggest embarrasments in our Ice Hockey history. I will admit though that I had all but written this team off after those shaky performances against Norway and France, but the last three games have pulled us together and our young players have shown a lot of heart. Pääjärvi-Svensson, Ekman-Larsson, and Hedman have been standouts and will be big stars in the years to come. I think there is a chance we win the gold but if we take a bronze only, I can live with that: as long as they leave it all on the ice.

To books. I am reading the Poisonwood Bible, Herr Lehmann, and finishing off Moby Dick all at the same time. I recently finished my first novel from Stanislaus Lem, Solaris, which I have to say was fantastic and I recommend it for anyone looking for a good book to read.

That is that and I hope that the summer finally shows up here one of these days as all this gray weather is killing the mood. Though at the same time, even with the gray skies I have been skating pretty damn good.

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Readings and things

So while this is the third time I am reading Moby Dick, it is still a hard book to get through. For that reason I am also reading other books at the same time. Right now I am reading Stanislaw Lem´s Solaris (afterwards I am going to track down the famous Soviet movie and I will review that here as well). So far I have to admit I am pretty impressed with Solaris. Its one of those books that you approach with a skeptics view-given the large amount of amazing reviews it gets, but that I am finding have good reason to them. I don´t want to give away plot lines but am just going to say that I really recommend it and I am not even half way through.

I am going to Cologne this weekend and will be there until wednesday. Hopefully though I can update with some photos and stuff. I will watch some football this weekend and try to do some skating in Cologne. Of course we are really there to visit family so that is going to be fun as well. If the weather holds up like this tomorrow then I am going skating again. Landed some really good stuff the other day, stuff I hadn´t done in years.

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Obama as the white whale, but who is Ahab?

I am reading Moby Dick for the third time right now. Since the value of a novel is often found in its interpretations, I am going to apply a modern one to a classic. Of course Melville could never have foreseen the tea party and the anger of people when their illusions of America were revealed to be 1950´s fantasies, all the same Moby Dick fits the current discourse really well.

I begin then with Obama as the white whale. This isn´t too hard. He is different from all the other previous whales that the whalers have hunted. Rumours surround his presence in different parts of the world. He is thought to be a destroyer by some. However, since he has appeared he has been gaining a name and a reputation. When he reached his peak, the election or in the book the first fight with Ahab, he changed everything. That brings us to Ahab. He is none other than Dick Cheney. A man with a limited vision of reality who is so possessed with his need for revenge for what he considers a purposeful attack on himself. This attack on Ahab I translate as the American people voting the neo-cons out. Cheney cannot let go of the whole thing and so he is able to bring others to the same fanatical point of rage (the tea party or nowadays most of the republican party). He tells them they have to get the White Whale. The ship always has been and always will be America. Cheney, as Ahab, is willing to take the ship (America) down with all hands rather than see it not doing his will.

Ok so this is all just for fun. But what drives a maniac like Cheney or Ahab? Their wounded pride?
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A well worn path

Monday strikes again. I had to work so I didn´t have to sit around all day thinking about how I don´t have a job. Actually I do have a job, but I mean more like a real job. Whatever that is. I have never had one actually. A real job would consist of me doing something that is related to geography and the environment. Preferrably some kind of research. Of course in the world of jobs its all about who you know and as an immigrant, I don´t know anyone.

Lets put all that aside for a minute. Instead I think about the tea party in the US and Bill Maher´s condemnation of the whole movement. He makes the point that they really can´t talk about deficit reduction until they are willing to give up what is essentially the American Empire. If we can´t decide what to cut, but never tackle a standing army that is indeed to big when considered alongside what it is used, then we aren´t really proposing any real solutions. He noted, and I thought this part was quite good, that the defense industry is really a set of welfare payments. So then the question is what percentage of the military industrial complex (and I mean the whole shebang here) is republican and/or right wing? Maher also noted that the whole thing is geared to fight Russia back in the 70´s. Despite these words of wisdom I doubt the teabaggers will actually ever call for any reductions in this sector. Then what about NASA? Is getting a base on the moon or planting a flag on Mars really that important? Nope. If we want to reduce the budget, lets use the money where its needed and not on male sci-fi fantasies.

Here is hoping the weather is nice tomorrow because I can hear my skateboard on the other side of the room calling my name. No its not really calling my name. Inanimate objects don´t do such things, but all the same I have an itch to take it for a ride.

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Friday: or how to go through the motions

Lets begin with facts. The sun is shinning. The trees are in bloom. Its nearing the end of april and the summer is starting to break through here and there. In the parks the smell of grilled meat and charcoal smoke floats by occasionally amid the screams of running children on green grass and the silent areas where couples wrap themselves in blankets. The streets are unusually quiet for a Friday and its as if there is some holiday feeling over the whole city. We have left the facts behind. I am sad and don´t know why. The job hunt is getting to me. I know I should call the companies and places I have applied to but don´t want to. The fear of rejection? The sinking feeling of inadequacy sinking in to all my pores? Something like that.

Amid other things that are let downs these days: the Swedish National football team. Its hard to argue that anyone really deserves a place on that team these days. Everytime we play a nation that could be considered blueberry in quality we get a run for the money. Right now I am not at all convinced that we will be taking part in Euro 2012. A lot of people have to step up and reach another dimension of playing. I don´t see that happening. To continue the football line: Barcelona are two goals down in the semifinal of the Champions League. I am going to write them off now. Inter Milan with a genius in Mourinho is going to get to the final and there they are going to play an über-close game with Bayern that will be a toss up. It might even go to penalties. That is my prediction anyway. Enjoy the weekend.

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Skateboarding!

Its official. The sun is out and I don´t have to serve ice cream or bake pizzas today, so that can mean only two things. First I am working on further job applications (which even when I am doing nothing else, I am still working on) and secondly I am going to go skate at Hasenheide where I haven´t been in a week and a half. Just looking out the window at the bloomind trees, I know that that itch is slowly coming back.

In other news I finished Margaret Atwood´s sequel to Oryx and Crake titled The Year of the Flood. While its always extremely difficult to write a sequel to such an amazing book, I thought that she did pretty well in the end. Some of the story arcs seemed a bit simplified, but all in all it held a high standard and the ending was acceptable. Recommended though to get it you have to read the first one first.

Today is Market Day on the Maybachufer and I am wondering if I need anything at all today? The answer is probably no, now to the question of do I want anything. Well the answer to that doesn´t need to be stated literally. To everyone out there reading this: Enjoy a beautiful spring day.

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Delusions of Grandeur, mass fantasy, and the right wing

Its all the same thing. Yesterday Sarah went to Boston to give a little Tea Party speech near the site of the original event. Personally I am wondering whether she shook the dust off her feet when she left that liberal Mecca or whether it is now a sacred site of the right thanks to the election of Scott Brown (from whom much will expected....). In any case I took another thinker about the people and ideas that make up this right wing hate fest and thought I would talk about them a bit today.

Lets start with the socialism/fascism claims. I am constantly wondering where they get their evidence for this? To this day I still haven´t heard a decent argument for this, but that hasn´t stopped it being shouted from every pulpit they can find (and radio station, and fox news, etc.). I am therefore forced to conclude that these people are living in a giant bubble of fantasy. What they imagine in their head they conclude is also actually going on in the streets. This is the same affliction that many terminally ill homeless people suffer from.

Then there are the ideas about the constitution and lets go back to the constitution and it was better back then. To be honest they are practicioners of the Great American Religion. The first principle of the religion is that America is so special that it is unlike any other nation. When your worldview starts like this it invariably leads to the conclusion that all other nations are incomplete, bad, or even evil. The second principle of the religion is that the US can do nothing wrong on the world stage. The third principle is that American will only be great as long as its tied to some Randian view of capitalism and individuality. Going back to the constitution then is some kind of purification rite of the Great American Cult (cough, religion). The problem (one of many) with this view of America is that first it idealizes a kind of country that would look like The Andy Griffith Show and ignores the complicated real life that a constantly changing and dynamic nation faces. It also ignores history but that is for another post.

What I am trying to illustrate here is that the Tea Party, Fox News, and Sarah Palin are all living in a cocoon they built for themselves with a worldview that never really existed the way they wish it had. Tough shit, you lost the election, and this is the real life (its not black and white).

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Yoga Wednesdays

On wednesdays I do yoga. Its something I started with a little over a year ago. I had wanted to do it before but never had the courage to do it on my own. Enter Clara who wanted to do it as well and when we signed up for a course at the local community college (German VHS) we didn´t really know much about it. After a few weeks we were hooked. Now in the mornings I usually start my day by doing a few exercises. We do Iyengar yoga and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to be more flexible, add another dimension to their physical training, as well as learn something new.

Tomorrow is Thursday and if the weather finally gets a bit nicer, I am going to have a nice skate session. First though I have to hand deliver a job application I have been working on for a while now.

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Pots Damn

R. Gusarevs once took a bus ride to get to my wedding that involved him temporarily being on a street in Berlin called Waidmanslusterdam or something like that. Of course to the ear that is not so used to German, he sat up and thought Wild Mans Lust Damn! This of course led to a whole new level of sillyness in Berlin with all the different names of things (names that really mean very different things in english or can be perceived as meaning odd things). Lustgarten is another favorite. Anyway this weekend we had visitors from Sweden, Marie and Pekka Lindgren and we took them to the small city of Potsdam. Or as its known in this blog post Pots Damn.







































We also went to the Dutch Quarter which is an older part of the town that is good for walking around in and having a coffee. Went to a restaurant called the Flying Dutchman (rather cliche for a dutch restaurant). The food was what could be called average, but as the guests were far better than so it was still a nice time.
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Friday is Market Day

This blog has long suffered from a lack of photos detailing the happenings in Berlin. One reason is that I am shy about using the camera. Well no more, here are the days of point and click. Today is Friday and it is market day in my neighborhood. Turkish vegetable mongers fight for space among cheese sellers and licorice stands. Here are a few of the photos I took.









If the weather holds up i.e. no rain today, then I might even have a chance to get a little skate in. Here is hoping.

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Knee Slapper of the week

I didn´t really expect to follow up on the last post so quickly but apparently I am wrong (irony). So here is the first source. Of course this means that you have to believe the heritage foundation first of all. My question: Are you still a think tank if you leave out the thinking?

Two friends of mine are coming from Sweden and are staying till Sunday. Its going to be a fun week. Now its time to clean the house and have a little skate.

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Socialism is all you got

Its one of those mistakes I make over and over again: I read an article about anything that the President is doing and then when I am through with the article I scroll down to skim the comments. Here and there I find a few who agree, a few who disagree(at a constructive level), and then a bunch of comments about socialism taking over. Now I am going to go ahead and make the claim that anyone lobbing socialist at the current government is A.) unaware of what real socialism looks like and B.) have no understanding of the positions that the Republicans have taken in previous decades. On the issue of health care for instance the President´s plan, Obamacare, is the Republican idea from 1993. So the Republicans were socialists back then but now they are not. What about Romneycare? Hmm. I am going to take this a step further: if you want to keep screaming socialist thats fine, but at least be able to provide some kind of evidence for it evidence that doesn´t include Hannity/Rush said...

That the political debate on news websites has degenerated to this level is telling in many ways. It tells me that a lot of voters have no real idea of the political process or what government really does. It tells me they have no idea about American history and all the instances where government has failed to protect its citizens from con men who are out to take as much from everyone else as possible. The idea that less government is the golden goose is probably the most common religion that right wing groups share.

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monday, monday

I wanted to go skateboarding today. I woke up and looked toward the curtain covered window in hopes of being greeted by rays of sunlight glancing off the walls. Nope, it was overcast and what was worse, if I sat and listened to the cars rolling by I could hear the sound of tires on a wet street. Rain it was and rain it stayed until half an hour ago. I am hoping it stays sunny tomorrow and then I will take on Hasenheide skatepark.

Easter was so so. Don´t get me wrong the brunch was fun and the pesto quiche that I made was fantastic (could have used a bit more salt says the critical cook within me), but at the same time it wasn´t great because Clara was laying at home sick. She wasn´t on deaths doorstep or anything, but she wasn´t feeling good and that dragged the feeling down a few notches.

Tomorrow I will try to begin a new week day schedule. Get up between 7:30 and 8:00. Do yoga/short workout for twenty to thirty minutes. Breakfast. Write for half hour. Job search. Write applications. Have all this done by two o´clock in the afternoon. That is the goal anyway. If it happens or not is another thing.

To reading: I am halfway through Moby Dick right now and already I know which book I want to read next. I am going to read Margaret Atwood´s The Year of the flood. Anyway that is all for now, its just one of those slow Mondays.

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Easter Brunch: my contribution

Tomorrow is Easter Sunday and therefore its Easter Brunch time. While its only the second time in Berlin that we are doing this its still a nice tradition. I am hoping the weather is going to be nice so we can sit outside and enjoy the weather and general mood of the city. Of course I have to work tomorrow evening but thats life when you have a restaurant job. Here is a picture of the Anders family contribution to the Easter Brunch. Hint: it includes pesto and no meat! While I don´t generally think its a good idea to bring something new to a party without having sampled it first, if you know what you are doing i.e. know how to make quiche and know how to use pesto, then this isn´t a problem. I am looking forward to the reactions.

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Market Day

Today is Tuesday and the street market around the corner from my house is in full swing by now. All the vendors are lined up with their various goods ranging from vegetables, grains, cheap clothing, and various regional specialties and cheeses. Sometimes there is nothing better than to take a stroll through before it gets to crowded, before the vegetable mongers yell their prices at you, and just take everything in. My personal favorites are the cheese stands, there are usually two and one of them specializes in Austrian Bergkäse, and then the Dutch Licorice stand. Oh, I should of course mention the italian stand with all the fresh pastas.

Today I have to go apply for new jobs. Not the kind of jobs I really want, but more the kind of jobs that I can actually obtain for the summer months: cafe work or kitchen assistant positions. Its not what I wanted to be doing at this point but it seems like it is the only answer at the moment. So then I´ll print out a few CV´s and be on my way. Maybe I will walk through the market as well.

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Health Care reform: morning thoughts

I don´t know at what time they voted. I was asleep at that point. I have no idea if there is a live stream where you can watch the voting process. I probably should have stayed up to watch it but I had a good feeling about it so I thought well I´ll sleep on it. We got it. After all these years and all this waiting, finally there is some real reform going on. Its not perfect and its not as far as it could be, but its a step in the right direction. I send out a sincere thank you to all the people who made this happen.

Now to the other side... I have been reading about the protests taking place outside the capital. At what point is it ok to call anyone a nigger or a faggot? I am not going to sit here and pretend that I didn´t believe these right wing tea partiers capable of this type of behavior, and the fact that it happened is just further proof of the kind of people that are involved in that movement. As for the republican media, claiming its socialism or communism or whatever their flavor of the month is: you are so blind, so ignorant, and beyond anything else so stupid that you don´t even know what those things are. To the Republican party: this is your chance to win over America. Go out there and tell the people how you want to make sure they are only a disease away from bankruptcy and that honestly you could care less about them. If you win a massive landslide in November it will be a sad day in a country that is actually starting to move forward again after stagnating for so long. I sincerely hope voters will see the truth about your party once and for all.

Anyways today is a day of celebration!

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Amid the waves and sun

I don´t know how to begin this. At times I struggle to fully realize my own thoughts and find that I fall back to the land of cliches. A land from where it is hard to recover one´s poise. I will try, I will struggle, I will let these thoughts loose, I will let them grow.

An island group. An isolated island group somewhere in the middle of the pacific. A population of natives with a very structured society. A society that put a great emphasis on their greatest resource: the ocean. A society that strove to be as close to the ocean and all its gifts as possible. Perhaps in this day of Avatar and Dances with Wolves there is nothing easier than to over-romanticize an indigenous group, to make them seem more enlightened than their evil conquerors, to make them seem closer to nature. I don´t deny this may be the case, but let me have this limb and we´ll see if it will hold the weight I place on it.

Once upon a time there was island people whose love for the sea was evident even to the first European eyes. Captain Cook noted in his notes that the Hawaiians rode waves on pieces of wood. Once upon a time there was an island people who didn´t have Christianity and to the Christian world this meant only one thing: they were in need of missionaries. Indeed the missionaries came and they even fought amongst themselves to the point that the catholic priests were persecuted under instructions from the calvinist missionaries. At this point we have not even arrived at the lowest point of this story. The missionaries could not leave the people as they were. The missionaries felt the Hawaiians were lazy and so they did everything they could to destroy their ocean loving culture. They discouraged them from surfing the waves, an action that had kept them healthy and fit. They did what they thought would be good for them: tried to turn them into images of protestantism. Then the United States took its first step towards becoming an empire and seized the islands. This was only the beginning of the decline.

Amid all the chaos, there were those who clung to the old ways and despite the influx of outsiders, the dietary changes that wreaked havoc on the native population, and the colonialism that took place they kept the old traditions around. The person whose name is most evoked for bringing back the art of surfing is Duke Kahanamoku and perhaps it was his simple love of the ocean that helped most in the revival. There were many others of course who struggled to bring back to the islands what the people had lost and I will say from my visit that there is still have a long way to go to restore all that was lost. All my respect goes out to those men and women who love those islands and are trying to restore the ecosystems and culture.