Some friends as well as relatives happened to drop by in Germany during the same week last week so I was socially busy, and that was exciting. On the downside, I had to sign yet another hefty rent increase notice, a problem blazingly on fire all over Germany but politically largely unattended. Unattended because all the major political players are busy engaging non-problems like immigration or gendered language 24/7 to (re-)attract voters from the nazi party, but all they accomplish is right-shifting the Overton window and partially morphing into nazi parties themselves—because, you know, nazi voters prefer the original. And while there is no historical evidence whatsoever for the “People are starving because they don’t have bread? Why, let them eat cake instead!” quote, Germany’s Secretary of Housing and Urban Development had a bona-fide Marie-Antoinette moment with her “People can’t pay rent in the cities? Why, let them move to the country instead!” that was as brazenly callous (and spectacularly inane) as everything else happening in this country—from dismantling public transportation and even bicycle lanes to torpedoing climate legislation to getting tough on the poor [ADDENDUM: holy shit Excerpt | 🔒 Link] while the prosecution of fraud of biblical proportions (Wirecard, CumEx, CumCum, tax evasion) never gets fucking nowhere. I’m increasingly reconsidering my choice of location, let’s put it that way.
Last week I published three posts: one at my primary blog between drafts on the Bayreuther Festspiele’s Tristan and Isolde kick-off; one at my Secret Level just drafts on OpenAI’s Five Stages of Nonsense; and one on the four (or five) fundamental interactions of nature at my Voidpunk blog. Then, I uploaded six new Penang Island albums on Flickr: Teluk Bahang Reservoir (9 images); Craft Batik Factory (12 images); Tropical Fruit Farm (36 images); Ghee Hup Nutmeg Factory (7 images); Balik Pulau Rice Paddy Fields (10 images); and Pinang Peranakan Mansion (28 images). Next, I threw some new images into my Düsseldorf Bucket and uploaded daily vintage travel squaries to Pixelfed. Finally, over at Mastodon, I micro-reviewed three movies I watched last week, which were all terrific: Wim Wenders’s digitally restored Paris, Texas; Yorgos Lanthimos’s Kinds of Kindness; and Rose Glass’s Love Lies Bleeding.
For the Sunday Funnies, here’s a remastered breakdown and YouTube clip of Fred Astraire’s famous fabulous ceiling dance from Stanley Donan’s 1951 Royal Wedding.
Enjoy!
J.
Last week I published three posts: one at my primary blog between drafts on the Bayreuther Festspiele’s Tristan and Isolde kick-off; one at my Secret Level just drafts on OpenAI’s Five Stages of Nonsense; and one on the four (or five) fundamental interactions of nature at my Voidpunk blog. Then, I uploaded six new Penang Island albums on Flickr: Teluk Bahang Reservoir (9 images); Craft Batik Factory (12 images); Tropical Fruit Farm (36 images); Ghee Hup Nutmeg Factory (7 images); Balik Pulau Rice Paddy Fields (10 images); and Pinang Peranakan Mansion (28 images). Next, I threw some new images into my Düsseldorf Bucket and uploaded daily vintage travel squaries to Pixelfed. Finally, over at Mastodon, I micro-reviewed three movies I watched last week, which were all terrific: Wim Wenders’s digitally restored Paris, Texas; Yorgos Lanthimos’s Kinds of Kindness; and Rose Glass’s Love Lies Bleeding.
For the Sunday Funnies, here’s a remastered breakdown and YouTube clip of Fred Astraire’s famous fabulous ceiling dance from Stanley Donan’s 1951 Royal Wedding.
Enjoy!
J.