Jorge Luis Borges and himself.

Without any doubt (by nobody) is JL Borges the absent godfather of all hommes des lettres:
A shadow, a ghost (ein Gespenst, und nicht nur der absolute Geist)

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Pure Kinetics

Ho Chi Minh City  October 2010


This town seems to be the pure state of catatonic immobilization by ultra velocity of motorcycles of its citizens. Everything is moving, nothing is in movement. 

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Density & Space

Hong Kong 2010

The limited geography of Hong Kong determines at infinitum the situation. High-rise, tiny, claustrophobia inducing buildings in unbearable juxtaposition. This is the mental infrastructure of the citizens: space as fatal lack of space. While browsing the town, anything, anyone and any building seem to be so close to you.  
Ho Chi Minh City @ October 2010

Soundtrack of HCMC:
AIR (moon Safari)
Benjamin Biolay
Kean

Liveablitity score (worse 1-5 best)
Sustainability: 2
Sociodiversity: 1
Public transport: 1
Creative Index: 2



Ho Chi Minh City @ October 2010

Live Report: midnight "Saigon Saigon Bar" in a rooftop of central HCMC. Salsa, Merengue, Reageton, ChaCha: LIVE and the hot sky of HCMC. Fabulous atmosphere, simulating and, indeed, replacing La Habanna.
Ho Chi Minh City @ October 2010

While reviewing the ride from airport yesterday and exploring chaotically the city at later morning today, the first thing, evidently charakteristic for HCMC, is the lack of pedestrians in downtown.
Once someone has claimed, that Los Angeles might have no options for walker because of the lack of public transport and the dominance of intercity motorways and streams. The American and especially the Californian affinity to driving cars, BIG cars, was the second explanation. However, we know that it was never true and that today more than ever LA and California in general is doing more efficient work on transportation infrastructures than a lot of other states in USA. So LA has got pedestrians, I did it many times.
The downtown of HCMC has got, historically developed, well marked pedestrian ways in both side of all streets. You can see hardly someone walking on the space stretching between buildings and streets, let's call them pedestrian ways, which are predominantly ruled by motorcycles. At the afternoon, at the height of rush hour, which lasts from 4PM to 8PM, motorcylist are using pedestrian ways without any problem as a surrogat or alernative. It is alienating, to see how the inherent kinetics of HCMC determine exclusively daily live. Almost nobody is walking in downtown almost everyone is driving a motorcycle, sometimes a car or bycicle, the pedestrian ways are ocupied by parking or moving motorised small vehicles.



Ho Chi Minh City @ October 2010

The city is lost, in finit fatality, in her own dynamics.

The pure kinetics is the essential and the only image of HCMC:
describing it, writing it, manipulating it, vanishing it and at the end of the day making it.










Ho Chi Minh City @ October 2010

The first benefit of hotel's geographic position was, that I could go to hairstylist at 11.55PM, five minutes before midnight, incl. a facial treatment in order to forget the historic day in Kuala Lumpur.
The hotel is in the heart of the most touristic polluted area of the city. I did not notice it, while making the reservation in web. What the hell, I thought.


On the way to the city from airport a sea of motorcycles are surrounding me. In front, back, sideway, and certainly above and beneath the cab, they are indefinite number of cyclists, streaming through the beautiful evening.




















Ho Chi Minh City @ October 2010

HCMC is pure kinetics.
Kuala Lumpur @ October 2010


Soundtrack of KL:
Bach, cantatas
Cat Power, mixed


Liveablitity score (worse 1-5 best)
Sustainability:3
Sociodiversity: 3
Public transport:4
Creative Index: 3



Kuala Lumpur @ October 2010
Who gets history?

KL during the day is mavellous. A fine, small town, with a clearly defined touristic area, a minor high rail system, and wonderefull hotels and swimming poools.


KL is, succeding the discursive statements of the former state leader Dr Mahatir during 1980/1990th, the prototype for the realisation of the new Asian spirit. Even if he did not use the term "Asianness" explicitly, it was the birth moment of New Asia, including an heavy work on defining new Asian values. In order to fix the idea of the "New", he created, in accordance to the work done in Taiwan, South Korea and Singapor, an savage, unlimited, unbound, dynamic and eclectic system of capitalist economy. He was, obviously, successful.

But what we know really about Asian values?



KL is Petrona Towers. No other architectural landmark in Asia was, at least in last two decades, so consitutive for national confidence. A pair ot two high rise buildings in the middle of the town is the SYMBOL for Kl/ Malayasia. As if they could not create any other monument or real sign than a skyscraper as a confidence building procedure. Anything in the city remembers one on Petrona Towers, their sole existence in real external world seems to disappear in favor of pictures, movies, plastic/ metal / stone based miniatures of them you shall buy everywhere. Petrona Towers are, at some stage, just a clichee. Or a template for fantasies.
Kuala Lumpur @ October 2010
A nice fable for a small tiger

Arriving at the very early morning in KL, the dark heat at 4.40 AM was beating my face. Who the *F.... is flying at midnight above the coast of South Chinese Sea? The smell of petroleum in air, sleepy ghosts on streets and a rail station, which was more an empty temple in a lost and depopulated village, than in THE finance capital of East Asia, as his - former- excellency and my colleague Dr M. Mahatir never stoped to claim Malayasia to be. The holy hall was full of ATMs. But none of these cash mashines accept any Eurpean bank card, around the station is a big constructin site, almost no way out, and no way in. Good morning KL, the city what sleeped very well.
Shanghai @ October 2010

Soundtrack of Shanghai:
Travis
Kean
Radiohead


Liveablitity score (worse 1-5 best)
Sustainability: 4
Sociodiversity: 2
Public transport: 5
Creative Index: 3



Shanghai @ October 2010 
The issue with the verticality

Not just the architectural verticality of the town is, as a matter of fact, Shanhghai's main urbanity marker. But the will to build into the sky in despite of having enough space in horizontal dimension. The ambition for a condensed structure, the affinity for a dense spacial order is the main discursive dispositiv of Shanghai's past and, strongly promoted and argued in last two decades, the today practice of urban planning and project realization. 

The claimed "greenness" is clearly a statistical technique, showing the green surfaces of the city more prominent on maps and explicitly in scientific and promotional texts.   


Shanghai @ October 2010 
Bar Rouge at BUND (number 18) is the hell of a club. A breathtaking, relaxing scenery of urban landscape from the huge balcony. Reflecting itself at Pudong's jungle of skyscrapers, tranquilizing in a flow of lights and games and ads on their facades. It is the name for tension, A superficial tension of  lost bodies, a deep tension of found souls. Bar Rouge is long lasting one, the persistence of highly professional madames and highly disoriented messieurs under the pressure of  striking beats of the DJ. Everyone wants to give the last thing he/she seems to get: passion, forgiveness, money, high heels, eyes and the self.


In Zeiten des Verrates sind die Landschaften schoen (wie immer HM) 

Shanghai @ October 2010
Who was speacking about totalitarianism?


Shanghai @ October 2010
Money is beautiful. 


Shanghai @ October 2010
Greed is good. 


















 








Shanghai @ October 2010
Das "Unheimliche" and envisioning the possible present

Driving down the motorway from the airport to the downtown of Shanghai, a Chinese "chanson sentimental" on your ears, coming from the car radio, with it accompanying cordially singing driver, it comes to the first dilemma. Where am I arriving? Shanghai, the always-been metropolis of 20th century, an asylum for Europeans, escaping Europe just before the two wars (the very European genocides, 1914-1918 and 1939-1945), this place of the cosmopolitan gangsters and local and international crime heroes, of best of American and European cabaret culture and often visited by Charlie Chaplin? The place of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen in the lovely house in French concession, and the first Chinese communist party founded in the same area 1921? Or the place of opium, prostitution, smuggle, and perverse British officers and noble Men, who actually made and enforce opium trafficking, widespread prostitution and royal - from London- allowed smuggle possible?
However, it could be, while driving the motorway down, in a constant velocity, and listening to the same Chinese "chanson sentimental" in radio, another different place. It could be, that Shanghai is the conglomeration of anything we are able to imagine and fantasize for the term FUTURE. For what reason ever, the top of any high rise building on the way down to the city, and they are many of them on both sides of the motorway, is full of light. They seem to salute visitors and to convince them from the monolith power they radiate, or it is just an action of municipal administration during "Expo 2010", which is occuring right now. Driving down from the two time elevated streets into the city, there is an highly densed accumulation of skyscrapers in any direction and dimension. Anything else is in first instance not visibel. Glimmering high rise builldings determine the picture.
The city is a picture itself. And fresh wind.


Shanghai: The immensity of economic power, the repulsion of any utopia, the density of buildings and houses, the obsession of bodies, and finally, the irreducible convergence of capital, ambitions and fantasy makes Shanghai to a "especial cultural zone". Shanghai is not a lab, as it has been declared Shenzhen to be one, it is just the future of urban option, it is the impossibility, which get NOW possible.

Shanghai has got no references within the framework of urban theoretician machinery, it has even no link to the histories and stories, which we used to read in reportages. It is solely "the making of" the future by means of a auto-referential system of politic codes, juristic contracts, sharp narrative framework, neonlight signs, urbanistic declarations, cash flows and the endless streams of human capital.


It is quite and rainy. The omnipresence of high rise buildings radiates an informal silence. Shanghai at early afternoon is more meditative than rush place. I took the bus from central city, without knowing where it is going. We transpass the inner Circle of districts, reaching some outer areas, where I got off. The town is changing its face while increasing distance from the "center" . It' s getting less dense and more spacious on streets and in-between. I changed the bus after 45 minutes of ride, in order to change the direction within the town. Taking a bus during afternoon in big cities has got two effects: first, coming around in non-planned routes and areas of the town, thus exploring without any guidance; second, a sort of meditation during the ride, which allows me to think and reflect on some issues of daily life at home, good one and not- good one. Anyhow, the meditative effects seem to be superior at same stage.


At the end of Moamin Lu, at the corner to Nanjing Lu in central Shanghai, there is a UniQlo shop, the primarily distinguished Japanese brand of other days, which is now expanding through Asia, especially China, and partly Europe and USA. Known for a laconic and simple statement of garments and products, thus a good address for affordable cloths in good Japanese quality with innovative materials and contemporary design. The presentation, giving in where the main local store happens to be, is a different one: three stores with the complete program, but adapted to Chinese customs and expectations. The German word "Ramsch" ( bargain !?) fits for the most products. Too much of everything, to much of hybrid and mix colors, too much of shining materials, too much of fluffy softy stuff, best placed in flea markets of the city.The specials, designed by Jil Sander for UniQlo are almost neglected.



Shenzhen  @ October 2010

Postcommunist Puritanism and Artificial Lives

Coming with the tube from the Hong Kong border, you see nothing from the surface than the clean subway stations. Going upstairs, huge clean shining halls of the station, which is a mall, an hotel, administration and a railway station at same time, why not. Red flags on golden walls and surfaces, men and women in service uniforms opening doors, where am I?

This town, the "retort baby" of former and almost sacrosanct chairman Deng Xiaopeng, represents herself as a perfect geometry. It is the perfect geometry, build by all-China modern time slaves, aka working class, between 1980 and yesterday. He had called them and they came and they have build the holy "New Jack City" out of a minor fisherman' village, which it was till end of 1970ties. Shenzhen is the new place.
Riding a cab on streets of Shenzhen under the mild sun of October, no wind at all, reminds you "the best case scenario" of some artificial cities in USA. The "special economic zone" has been designed for a test procedure of consultant team surrounding the eternal second Chairman Deng Xiaoping. They had the idea of producing a CITY, against the time, which always will be different than expected, and against the space, which was at these times just the absolute emptiness beyond frontiers of Hong Kong in Gunagdong province. The idea implied the production of a CITY against all predictions of history in the West and despite of materialistic historicism of the own party hardliners.

Now, 2010, we have the CITY.
There is a almost weired meta-physical, and hopefully not cultural, connectivity between the Shenzhen, as it is new format of living and it was a concept of political economy of CPC, and re-created holy cities in the USA. Remember Salt Lake City? Or..................
Boulevards of Shenzhen, which are in most cases grand boulevards and not merely streets, are the absolute contrary of those we know from Moscow or New York, they like more Drives of Salt Lake City. While New York was build by indigenous natives with no fear from sky and clouds, in terms of playing at the heights of skyscrapers, and while Moscow was an idea of protection against the cold eastern wind and Tatars, Shenzhen is the CITY as a superficial and gliding program, there is no real code beyond it, no conspiracy, no hope, no enemies, no lovers, no refugees, no heroes, and finally no past. Nobody gave his live for this town ever, nobody has buried deaths and their memories under this earth. It is just a concept. You remember the Mormon program for Salt Lake City, the town build out of Nothingness of the desert and sky and nostalgia. What makes it unique, are lines and geometric forms, which beginn and end in absolute symmetry: pompous, sterile, flawless.
While Salt Lake City, dormant on a salt desert, reinvented Jesus Christ as a copy of Bjorn Borg, and it shines in the clarity and light of the pure believe on him. That makes Salt Lake City to a model of internalisation and of abstraction of believe, the perfect puritan place of salvation: religion as special effects. And Shenzhen, it is the lab of post- communist future phantasmagories, led by communists: flat, clear, unguilty, and NEW. There is No Mao there. His copy, which had certainly trancendet him by terms of Realpolitik, Deng, is standing as a statue alone and proud in a park, with a distance with other requisites of revolution, thus salvation. Shenzhen is a model of externalisation and of deletion of believe, the perfect communist inception of the possibel real: utopia as special effect. There is no past to grief, there is no presence to enjoy, at least for the residents emigrating from all over China. They dream in a not-real- time acceleration of richness, of golden bathrooms, fishes in living room, clean subway and blue sky, who does'nt? In this conglomeration of dreamers and dreams, Shenzhen is well prepared even for "Albträume". Buildings, high as it is possible, are filling the space above the earth smoothly and in a irreversible monotony. Anything out and in them is made out of steel and glas. The very idea of modernity of architecture of last century. In order to make the unavoidable verticality of skyscrpaers bearable they put as much kitsch as doable into the internal surfaces. Big hotels are shining in the the dust of gold, and their lobbies like antique palaces, which never have existed.
Hong Kong @ October 2010


Just water, falling down from the dark sky. Beneath my skin.




Soundtrack of Hong Kong:
  • J. Cash
  • 坂本 龍一 or Sakamoto Ryūichi  
  • Chavela Vargas
  • Nat King Cole
  • Andreas Scholl
  • The Shins

Liveablitity score (1-5)
Sustainability: 1
Sociodiversity: 2
Public transport: 3
Creativ Index : 2





























































































































































Hong Kong @ October 2010

While clouds are sinking down to earth at early night and are touching tiny high rise buildings; is Hong Kong the most beautiful.

 
Hong Kong @ October 2010
Chung King Mansion in District Kowloon

You remember the movie #Chung King Express #, and #Fallen Angels#  made by Wang Kar Wei some years ago, depicted by genius cinematographer Christopher Doyle?  The "Chung King Mansion" exist and exist merely as a farce, vegetating in the heart of  Kowloon. A monster, sleeping calm and breathless in between of  luxurious shops and buildings on a main boulevard. The surface is dark in the night and colorless during the day.
The real is always a farce and sometime even a tragedy. Chung King Mansion is a conglomerate of infinite single existences, Chinese to African men, Indian gangsters and Pakistani ex-policemen and many others, condensed and involuntary compiled because of their poverty, fatelessness, lack of any past and certainly lack of any future: smart, bad, realistic, hopeless and persistent. They should be many of rooms, rented for people as residents (residents of hell, mentioned above) and dozens of young visitors from overseas: naive, good, romantic, adventures and fleeing. While Maggy Chung is killing unselected anyone she met, the other killer in the movie is just doing it by extreme selection. Even for Wang KarWei were these people just material: Schlachtmaterial, as Heiner Mueller would express it smoothly. The signage of the walls and doors and almost all faces are saying nothing to us from outside. The movie had helped us to know that this hell of an house is existing in the belly of the beast.
A closed BOX, beyond signifier and significant.     





Hong Kong @ October 2010
District Kowloon

Two aspects of this insular archipelago are from specific interest today:
First, Hong Kong is passé !
Why ?
The illusions of future, inherent in mind of its residents, and the notorious futurism, proclaimed in political calls of the local "money elites", both, are the obvious prove of the decline of HK. Neither the future will come, as it is expected by the old residents *the new residents from mainland China have none* as a figure of unlimited prosperity, richness and happieness, nor the apoplectic futurism of the old money elites, which have always been socially calm, historically deaf, politically blind companions for the colonial British power, will be realised by means of nostalgic repetition or media based replication.
It is over.
The very material and substantially economic eschatology of the COMMING times, which inhabits in a virulent way brains of old HK residents has got no historic background. Mainland China , the very big brother, the shadow of skies, will determine the fate of HK by his economic forces, by his cultural penetrance and by his immanent superiority. There is no chance for HK to stay as a regional player under the wings of China, it will for the near times just a kind of reservoir for capital, it is already the offshore place for Yuan. Thus it is the geography which protects HK. China will use HK for accumulation and distribution of almost endless amounts of money and this implies some extra conditions for the "special zone" status, which HK has yet.  Some day, it will be over.
HK is merely a museum.
The notorious futurism of the old money elites, ignored by the central government, has all those basic streams of a nostalgic call, which comes, when good times are over. It is paradoxically clear, that the obscure horizon of a politically and culturally unique entity HONG KONG induces more fantasy and produces a lot of hope in HK 's money elites and , at same time, in residents;  that it might be understandable for outsiders.
A melange of old and new greed and avidity and of historic blindness and politicall mutism has no future.They really hope to be something special again, as they have been under the colonial rules of UK: a bit out of history, busy making money, money and some bad C movies.

Second, Hong Kong is YESTERDAY.
Not just the limited geography is a factor of  historical and political limitations put on HK, as such, but the lack of anny political will or ambition is an issue. The lack of "das Politische" (as discussed by Hannah Arendt) generally, is making HK's futurism and illusions vulnerable, if not free of any sense.
A small region will be, independent of his potenial or reel economic potency, not for sure a real player in the region without having discussed substantially the implications of power and politics.  Especially implications of politics of identity. The political silence of HK residents and the opportunistic games of the money elites is not expressing any political will/ideas, which fit to the contemporary Realpolitik. HK has given, till today, no signs of a population based, politically forced discourse on its future.

So, there will be no such future.






Hong Kong @ October 2010

District Wan Chai

Wan Chai  by night is just water.
Water, warm in essence, falling from the dark sky, as if it were the shadow of clouds, wich do not want to stay there. It is falling slow, while watching it in the light of streets, nobody seeems to be concerned about it, as if it were invisibel and untouchable. At late sunday night, the crowd is slipping trough streets of Wan Chai.

Just water,  Adherent to my skin.
Hong Kong @ October 2010


Just water.
Berlin @ September 2010

Summer is going.
Sky is again grey.



Napoli / Italia @ August 2010


Neapel ist jenseits des hysterischen Gewimmels und der bekannten Leerlaufmechaniken der Massenmedien über ihre "familiäre" Strukturen, vermeintlichen Müllskandalen und anderen Kleinigkeiten ein mediales Negativum. Unrecht. Nicht, dass es die Probleme nicht gebe, deren Interpretation ist eine andere Sache. 


Eine schöne Meeresstadt, gelegen an einem wunderbaren Golf, mit dem Blick auf das Blaue im Himmel und am Wasser. Geprägt von Handwerk, gewachsen über mehrere Jahrhunderte, von einer autochtonen Essenskultur, verfeinert durch die Zeit, und von einer soliden Architektur des Südens. 


Das historische Zentrum hat sich gewandelt. Einst bekannt für Müll, Armut, Sinnlosigkeit, ist es jetzt eine lebendige Sirene in der Mitte. Von den Rändern her, wird es erneuert und die Optionen der Lebensfähigkeit erhöht. Das beste Beispiel ist Piazza Belleni. Eine Oase kleiner urbaner lebendiger Kultur mit mehreren Cafés und Restaurants an einem historisch sehr schwer beladenen Gegend. Der historische Untergrund ist sowohl um den Platz evident als auch unter dem Platz, wo es "frei" gelegt wurde.  Die Statue von Belleni steht absolut ignoriert durch die sitzenden , rauchenden, tanzenden und trinkenden Leute am Abend und durch die Sonne und Mittagshitze am Tag. Nichts ist zu spüren von den lyrischen Rhythmen der Oper des sizilianischen Komponisten, so wie es sein sollte, eine Statue als nutzloses Ornament lokal-politischer Idiotie. Palazzo Conca (linke Seite) ist dafür um so schöner. Ein hybrider Ort: einerseits Sitz der Familie Conca (später der Orsini) und zugleich ein Zentrum des Handwerkes der napolitanischen Möbelkultur.  Auf der anderen Seite, Palazzo  Fiarro (rechte Seite) , ebenfalls mehr als fünf Jahrhunderte alt, repräsentiert durch eine barocke Fassade (von Cosimo Fanzago, um 1600) versteckt viel zu viel Gestern hinter sich. Nachts, unter den schwachen Lampen am Platz spielen Leute Ball vor dem Palazzo, während die Cafés voll sind und die Touristen ihre Kameras nicht nutzen können. Schade.






Das Hotel mit dem gleichen Namen zeigt eine Mischung aus japanischer Liebe zur Graphik und WENIG und der napolitanischer Möbelkultur in der Vereinfachung. Kein Ornament, keine Dekoration, schöne Räume mit aktuellen Stand der Technik (WiFi) mit Blick auf Via Constantinopoli, nah am Konservatorium und archeologischen Museum.









Napoli / Italia @ August 2010


Napoli ist Licht.


Costiera Amalfitana/Italia @ August 2010


Sehr schöne Tage an der Amalfi-Küste mit J. und O. 


Praiano ist ein kleines Dorf, eingezwängt zwischen den Felsen und dem Meer. Eine Strasse geht durch das Dorf und alle laufen, reden, essen, trinken entlang der Strasse. Vergangenheit, eigeholt vom Tourismus an der schönsten Küste Europas. Man kann die Monocle Med-Ausgabe hier kaufen.
Der Blick aus dem Fenster fällt in die Bucht. Die Bucht ist schmal und vom wilden Wasser übersät und sie schön.
Täglicher Gang, wie ein Pilgergang, in die Tiefe des Bucht mit J. und O., um im wilden Wasser Kühle zu spüren. Das Soziale, das kleine Leben auf 5x15 Meter mit eineigen italienischen Familien ist erstaunlicherweise neutral.











Costiera Amalfitana/Italia @ August 2010


Die Tage vergehen. Langsame Gänge durch die einzige Strasse des Dorfes. Essen mit dem Blick auf die Unendlichkeit des Blau.
Wasser im Nacken. 
Vikram Chandra´s Roman im Kopf und am Auge und im Magen.


POSITANO ist zu schön, um wahr zu sein.
AMALFI ist nur eine Illusion.


RAVELLO ist weit entfernt von Wagner, im August gibt es keine Konzerte. Glücklicherweise spüren wir (J., O. und ich) nichts vom Geiste Wagners, nichts. Aber dort ist das Auditorium vom Oskar Niemeyer, stolz, liegend am Fels, nutzlos und wunderschön. Der Ausblick zieht das Panorama des Golfes von Salerno in den Kopf hinein, die abfallende Kurve vom Berg zum Meer ist bedeckt durch Grün. 





Na ja, dann sind eben in ein Swimming pool schwimmen gegangen. 


PRAIANO ist der Ort, an dem man die "schönste Küste" beleben soll.

Berlin @ June 2010

Summer is not coming.
Sky is again grey.

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Lisbon @ May 2010

Soundtrack of Lisbon:
  • Soul of seventies 
  • 坂本 龍一 or Sakamoto Ryūichi (Japanese sound creator, piano genius) 
  • Mustafa Sandal (Turkish pop)

Liveablitity score (1-5)
Sustainability:3
Sociodiversity: 3
Public transport:4
Creativ Index : 3











Lisbon @ May 2010


Lisboa has got almost nothing to do with the huge sentiment of saudade, although anyone here will insist on this. 
It is just an idea, a very beautiful idea, far from any real live: on streets, in houses, in minds and during the night. There is no sign, no indication of any saudade  in streets of Barrio Alto at night. 
  
Lisbon @ May 2010

Champion league final today, we should look for a big screen


Lisbon @ May 2010

Sun again
New York @ May 2010

Soundtrack of NYC:

Georg Philipp Telemann  (German Baroque)

坂本 龍一 or Sakamoto Ryūichi (Japanese sound creator, piano genius) 

Sezen Akzu or Minik Serçe (Turkish pop/arabesque/electro/etc etc etc)

and again Travis (brit pop)


New York @ May 2010

Was auch immer die Nicht-Manhattaner über das Herz der Welt sagen, und was auch immer an Neid, Mißgunst, Kurzsichtigkeit jenseits des Flusses über Manhattan übertragen wird; Manhattan ist New York.



New York @ May 201


Liveablitity score (1-5)
Sustainability: 2
Sociodiversity: 5
Public transport:4
Creativ Index : 5


New York @ May 2010

Scrolling streets of Corwn heigts in Brooklyn in Sabbath time is the miror of long term dreams we might have from the Jewish New York. The Barrio is absolutely homogenous and traditional in exterieur manner and a place of deep metaphysics.

Yesterday I went with my friend U. to the synagogue at night after teh Sabbath cereminals. Meditating in a way and seeing people disputing, eating, laughing under towers of old books is hilarious.













New York @ May 2010

Rem Koolhaas wrot #Delerious New York# , a retragrad Manifesto for Manhattan;  in old days, which are to far from our post-Sep11 days and nights, New York is still delerious under the sun of May days and through the rain of May nights; origin of a vertigo, which always persist.
New York @ Mai 2010

Absolute Ruhe in Crown heights, der Strom von Maennern in Schwarz durch die Strassen in Kingston Avenue / Brooklyn ist lautlos, man gruesst sich und geht weiter.
Das Moloch Manhattan, delerious New York ist so weit (unspuerbare aliens) und so nah (20 Minuten mit subway).

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Paris @ April 2010

Soundtrack of Paris:

Vladimir Vizotzky  (Russian singer/song writer)
J. S. Bach
Ricardo Villalobos (Berlin electro pope)
梅林茂 or Umebayashi Shigeru (Japanese sound creator)



Paris @ April 2010

Liveablitity score (1-5)
Sustainability:2
Sociodiversity:5
Public transport:3
Creativ Index :4


Paris @ April 2010

Abendessen mit Margarida, Nuno und Torsten in Quartier Latin: sehr schön.


Paris @ April 2010

Metropolis ist als M und Paris ist ein grosses Museum unter dem schönen Aprilhimmel.
































Paris @ April 2010

Heute Sorbonne-Besuch mit Guilia and Dalia, die alten Räume. Der linke Esprit ist weg, die Fluren sind schön und alt, wie die Stadt.


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Barcelona @ March 2010


Liveablitity score (1-5)
Sustainability:3
Sociodiversity:4
Public transport: 4
Creativ Index :4
.


Barcelona @ March 2010

Zwei Tage unter der Sonne und Wind.
Promonade mit Lulu in der Altstadt und am Meer, anschließend gutes "lokales" Essen.

Barca ist nicht die Metropole, die wir uns denken, weil die Massenmedien wieder einmal ein Hype
erschaffen haben. Relativ kleine Stadt, übersichtlich und mit sehr guter rationaler Planung der neu zu endeckenden Bezirke.


Barcelona @ March 2010

EORTC meeting in central part of the town. More activity in lung group is needed.
Dinner in old town wit Dirk B. and a lot of football.


Barcelona @ March 2010
Sun, finally.