This list has been sitting around for a ridiculously, hilariously long time-since January to be exact. I've let it gather dust while making constant back-of-mind plans to polish it up and flesh it out. But eff that, as they say. Not a polishing or a fleshing happened in the last five months and I probably would've only added an item or two anyway. But this morning a tweet from überlin inadvertently reminded me about this thing and I thought, heck, I'd better at least put it up before the second freakin' half of 2012 arrives. So hear it [...]
Inspired by überlin's excellent Monster Mix and my adoration of Fever Ray's Keep the Streets Empty for Me (the first song and the namesake of this mix), I present this little set of pleasingly post-apocalyptic, desolate, dystopian, zombie-evading, street-walking music. Happy Halloween.
Inspired by überlin's excellent Monster Mix and my adoration of Fever Ray's Keep the Streets Empty for Me (the first song and the namesake of this mix), I present this little set of pleasingly post-apocalyptic, desolate, dystopian, zombie-evading, street-walking music. Happy Halloween.
Like anyone, I'm a susceptible to bouts of nostalgia. But after the sudden passing of Steve Jobs, these video of clips from the Macintosh game "Beyond Dark Castle" really brought me back to a simpler time (it's always simpler isn't it?) of the early 1990s playing this game on the tiny 9-inch screen of my family's Macintosh SE and its 20MB hard drive. The computer was a gift my from aunt in New Jersey, one of the early Mac adopters and a major Apple evangelist in her own right. Sure I'd used computers at elementary school, but this thing was [...]
I just (finally) upgraded this blog from WordPress 2 point something to 3.2.1 on PHP after more than two years of neglect. I'm liking the new, slick dashboard, the plugin admin and the generally improved ease of use. Let's see if that helps me blog more...
In the world steel industry, China's exponential lurch from small bit player to dominant producer ( far and away ) in just ten years serves as good illustration for the country's sudden dominance in all kinds of industries. Just look at shipping-China, as the world's biggest steelmaker, rather necessitates being its biggest iron ore importer. As such, it's only a slight exaggeration to say that day earnings in today's dry bulk shipping industry rise and fall on China's steel industry and its importing whims. Still, I was surprised (and then surprised that I was surprised) to see that a massive [...]
Former Berlin finance minister and hugely successful author of a book about, among other things, how immigrants are dumbing down Germany and a burden on its social market economy, Thilo Sarrazin , came to Kreuzberg with a ZDF camera crew last Friday to "have a dialogue" with the local population. Shockingly , he wasn't greeted with open arms. He visited the Hasir restaurant on Adalbertstrasse, the Turkish market on Maybachufer and, finally, the Turkish Alevi Community Centre on Waldemarstrasse, meeting with loud disapproval at every stop. At the community centre he [...]
News of E coli-tainted hamburgers from Lidl hospitalizing seven French kids yesterday reminded me of "America Week" last week at my local Lidl, Germany's hyper cheap grocery chain. Lidl often has ethnic themed weeks (Greek, Scandinavian, "Asian", Italian, French, etc., assuming "American" is an ethnicity) when they stock limited food items firmly based on national stereotypes. AMERIKAWOCHE and McENNEDY brand foods are no different. Every America Week that comes around (about twice a year, I think) comes with newly imagined American products that-much like the German words Handy, [...]
Thanks to Knut the Swede for introducing this band to me a few years ago.
So, I saw Liturgy last night. Were they transcendent? Yes. Yes, they were. I'm still floating about an inch off the ground at this very moment. So, yes, seeing them up close in that rather intimate venue at Hackescher Markt, I can say this is a band to get excited about about. And their drummer is phenomenal. The whole band are really tight and committed and slightly bonkers, but that drummer, my goodness me. Is it fair to call them hipster black metal? Well, there were at least two guys in the audience wearing headbands, which I couldn't [...]
My picks for the ten best records of 2010 . Better late than never, no? LCD Soundsystem - This is Happening (James Murphy, genius) Kvelertak - Kvelertak (the metal to rule all metals) Wovenhand - The Threshingfloor (badass Christian music) VA - Pomegranates: Persian Pop, Funk, Folk and Psych of the 60s and 70s Big Boi - Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty (Kanye who?) Actress - Splazsh (cerebrally satisfying electronic) Willie [...]
This Tuesday, a couple of Humboldt University grad students will be presenting a seminar on the "Theory, Practice and Aesthetics of Horror." Entrance is free. Sounds like a good time, though sadly I'll have to miss the 19:30 slot discussing biological perspectives of the undead. From the email... Theorie, Praxis & Ästhetik des Horrors Liebe KommilitonInnen, Sehr gerne möchten wir Euch zur Abschlussveranstaltung unseres Projekttutoriums „From Hell: Kulturgeschichte(n) des Horrors“ am 08.März um 18:30 im Auditorium des Jacob- und Wilhelm-Grimm-Zentrums einladen! Besonders freut es uns, dass wir für [...]
Oh man, life, huh? Am I right? So I let the entire month of February go by with nothing new here. So be it. But instead of back-dating my still queued-up lists for 2010, I'm just gonna blog in the moment like a grown-up and get to those lists when I get to 'em. But I can't avoid this as it's pretty exciting, as the current developing strain of American black metal is. Liturgy are from Brooklyn but they sound like primitive Nordic earth creatures who've never seen a latte or a flannel shirt in their lives. Like they just [...]
Wherein our hero humbly but unapologetically submits his ten favorite songs of the past year-though I might add that Yuhang is at least as responsible for liking these songs as am I AND that the Aloe Blacc song was HUGE on German radio this year, which meant that for about six months you heard it at every single kiosk, department store, coffee shop, Imbiss and hardware store you stepped into. It became just short of annoying. But still it's a good song and the guy totally deserves the success. Robyn - Dancing on my Own The [...]
Oh goodness me, have I ever fallen off the blogging wagon. Not that I've forgotten about it. No, no, no. In fact this blog's gaping maw has been gnawing at me almost constantly since October when I left it out to dry and didn't come back until, well, now. Thereve been plenty of things, tons of things, that've crossed my path where I thought, "Man, I should totally blog the dickens out of this." But I didn't because, well, there are, incredibly, other happenings in my life that take slightly higher priority than this here mighty page of wonders. Not [...]
It's that time of year again-the leaves are turning, the kids are going back to school and the blogosphere is making mixtapes for Halloween-just like clockwork. From this year's crop, at the top of the list should be this work of love, the "Written in Blood" compilation by a fella named Nate Ashley. He compiled five discs worth (including gorgeous cover art) of classic, unreleased and/or out-of-print horror movie soundtrack music including the likes of Ennio Morricone and Christopher Komeda, who did the sweet & creepy la-la-la theme for "Rosemary's Baby." It's all tastefully gloomy stuff, much of [...]
Californian Berliner, Michael Scott Moore, is a comic book superhero waiting to happen—a surfer by day and a journalist & novelist by night. He spent the last few years travelling the globe, locating unexpected corners of the world where surfing has taken root and then wrote a fascinating travelogue slash micro-history about it called Sweetness and Blood . That means not Australia, Hawaii or California, where surfing began (as does his story), but places like Cuba, Morocco, Japan, Gaza (!). Surfing has by now spread itself to such an extent that you might even call it, in modern parlance, [...]
It seems simultaneously yesterday and a decade ago that I was in Japan (actually a month ago). But it was a wonderful week of half-assed touristing and full-assed fun-having with some dear friends of ours-Taichi and Toru-we knew from the good old days in Berlin of 2001-2 and 2006, respectively. Except for one excursion to nearby Yokahama (and its Chinatown), we spent most of the week bumbling around Tokyo, which in case you didn't know is a mad, intoxicating Moloch of a metropolis. And testing out Japanese whiskey (for scientific research purposes). The food was incredible, albeit exactly proportional to [...]
Today I find myself in Pu'er city in the southern Chinese province of Yunnan, a city and region renowned for having the best tea in China. The 40-minute flight from capital city Kunming turned into a 3-hour flight after the plane was forced to turn around just before landing in Pu'er as the weather was too bad to land the first time. One hour later, and a second landing attempt, nothing but clear skies. The last (almost) three weeks I've been travelling through Japan, South Korea and China with Yuhang and Pierre and haven't blogged a single [...]
benperry.net
Kanye West - [Album]
M+A – When
