General

Somewhat apropos for this post, I just learned I’m the #1 hit when someone searches Google for Arkansas is a horrible state.

The guy known as “upyernoz”, who comments regularly on my blog, finally has a weblog of his own: Rubber Hose. Go check him out!

My friend Anees — search on his name to see where I’ve mentioned him before — is a young Palestinian man living with his family in East Jerusalem. He just started a weblog, so go check it out.

The only time I see CNN is when I’m at the gym, and then it’s on monitors with the sound off. Today I saw them transition from a story about an exhibit of new documents from Anne Frank at the Holocaust Museum in D.C. to an interview with Miss USA — tiara, sash and all. Yes the purpose was to talk about her AIDS awareness efforts, but the whole thing was just tone deaf.

A would-be immigrant is hugged to be protected from the cold by a Spanish soldier on the Punta Paloma beach in Tarifa, Spain Thursday May 8, 2003. Some 50 immigrants survived the crossing arriving in a small boat from Morocco Thursday. (AP Photo/R. Perales)

A Spanish soldier cares for an illegal immigrant with symptoms of hypothermia, found near the southern town of Tarifa, May 8, 2003. Tarifa is the nearest point to Africa from Europe and a popular entry point for thousands of illegal immigrants. (REUTERS/Anton Meres)

This site — warning: bad music — is showing up in my referrer logs. I can’t decide if it’s a parody. I fear it’s not, since I have cousins whose emails sound like this.

I won’t be posting much for a few days. Mom arrived today for a visit, and we’re busy having fun. While walking around Chelsea this afternoon we spotted Tony Kushner eating at Le Gamin on Ninth Avenue. Mom saw Angels in America at Arkansas Rep, so I had to stop and point him out. We also went to see the Douglas Gordon video works at Gagosian:

—

I haven’t had time to post it, but the night before the El Niño debacle I saw a brilliant music/theater work by Heiner Göbbels work at BAM called Hashirigaki. Go read Flying Vicar‘s take on it — including photos. While you’re there, do not miss the essay titled What is art for? by Jeanette Winterston.

While reading some of the blogs linked to in my general links I’m reminded of this Boondocks.

I think you know who you are.

I forgot to mention that I started German class at Deutsches Haus a couple of weeks ago. I’ve wanted to study German on a more rigorous basis for a while. I love the country, its culture, and its people, and the events in this county since November 2000 have made me think about leaving, at least temporarily, at some point. Germany is a country that makes it relatively easy for technical workers to legally work there. It is also a place that values high culture in a way even NYC barely does these days — except perhaps in the visual arts. I could never hear a daring contemporary opera at Lincoln Center, but even provincial cities in Germany do it all the time. You also have to love a country where the equivalent of CNN or Time put “Culture” and “Books” on the list of main navigation links on their homepages.

Several things struck me as I was reading the introductory material in the textbook. One is that the texts talk about diversity — specifically referring to one woman as both Turkish and German. Another is that they don’t shy away from the ugly aspects of Germany’s 20th century history. In a section devoted to the story of two women tourists, one mentions wanting to see the city’s synagogue, and the explanatory text (with photos) describes it as built in 1913, destroyed in 1938 by the Nazis, and now restored as a Museum. Can you imagine such a thing, say concentration camps for Japanese citizens, in an American English-for-foreigners textbook?

On a lighter note, I’m amused, as a New Yorker, to see references to the exact time that a bus or train arrives somewhere. In my experience in Munich, I could count on a streetcar (S-Bahn) to arrive at the time indicated on the schedule at the stop. One last item from the textbook: some of the vocabulary words include political words like “protest”.

I was reminded to write this entry after going to pick up my new toy, at an Orthodox Jewish-owned store, no less.

Posting might be sparse, weirdness might happen.