Marginal Art Marginalized In Berlin

April 28, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Hostility, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: Art, Art Galleries, Artists, Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Kunst, Marginalization, Protests, Whiteness Leave a comment

Marginal art made by marginal artists, that is. Actually, the story’s about the marginal artists who are upset about being marginalized, for being marginal.

There is a difference here, of course, albeit a marginal one. I have an idea. Perhaps, just maybe I’m thinking, if they made their art better and not so marginally successful they could stop being so marginal and protest about something else a little less marginally interesting.

Earlier this week, stickers and posters started circulating in and around the city of Berlin that point to a disparaging fact: according to a group of arts activists, 75% of the artists being platformed at Berlin Gallery Weekend are white and male.

The stickers protesting the lack of diversity within the Berlin art scene feature a white sausage — known in German as Weisswurst — against the blue background of Berlin Gallery Weekend’s main logo and branding typography.

German Of The Day: Bildungsurlaub

April 17, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Health, Hideology, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor Tags: Berlin, Court Rulings, Courts, Education, German, Germans, Germany, Language, Profession, Training, Vocational Training, Work, Yoga Leave a comment

That means educational or vocational training leave. You know, like that yoga course you took for your job?

What? Your boss freaked out at the suggestion? Well, everybody does it here in Berlin. Yoga to go with the times, people.

A yoga course can be considered vocational training, a Berlin court has ruled, paving the way to doing the “Downward-facing Dog” or “Greet the Sun” on company time in Germany’s capital.

The state labour court for Berlin-Brandenburg has ruled a worker has the right to paid leave so they can attend a five-day adult education course entitled “Yoga I – successful and relaxed at work with yoga and meditation”.

The judge ruled that under Berlin’s Educational Leave Act, even a yoga course fulfills the far-reaching criteria of “professional development” which would promote an individual’s “adaptability and self-assertion”.

“Yoga I – erfolgreich und entspannt im Beruf mit Yoga und Meditation.”

German Of The Day: Enteignung

April 7, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Apartments, Berlin, Building, Construction, Gentrification, German, Germans, Germany, Greens, Language, Political Parties, Property, Property Rights, Rents, SPD Leave a comment

That means confiscation or dispossession. You know, like confiscating private property?

And the German Greens hold this to be denkbar – another cool German word meaning conceivable or possible.

After all, the world must be fair and if rising property rents in cities like Berlin – caused by city governments like Berlin (Social Democrats and Greens for decades) – are creating hardship for the 85 percent (!) of Berliners who don’t own property – the government does everything it can to discourage owning property here – then the government that created this mess will simply confiscate the private property of those currently developing new housing and… And what? Give it to the poor? Been there, done that. We all know how that turns out. And who foots the bill. Robin Hoodlums never learn. They have no intention of learning.

Thousands took to the streets of Berlin on Saturday in protest against rising property rents and called for properties of large-scale landlords with more than 3,000 houses to be taken over by the government.

“Das Grundgesetz sieht Enteignungen zum Allgemeinwohl ausdrücklich vor.”

German Of The Day: Litfaßsäule

April 2, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Advertising, Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Language, Progress, Tradition Leave a comment

That means advertising column.

Take a good look. They won’t be around much longer. They’re going to a better place – the same place the LPs, dial phones, typewriters and carrier pigeons went.

They have been an integral part of the city’s furniture for so long, Berliners admit to taking them for granted.

But concrete advertising pillars, known as Litfaßsäule – or Litfaß columns – after the man who invented them, around 3,000 of which dot the German capital, are under threat. A low-key, grassroots protest has sprung up in an effort to save them from destruction and sparked a trend involving writing messages on the pillars, as well as poems and heart felt tributes.

It takes two or three people to group hug a Litfaßsäule, and that has also become another way of highlighting the reluctance to let them go.

“I’m certainly still more drawn to a catchy poster on the Litfaßsäule, than I am to something that flashes up on my mobile phone which I’m likely to swipe away in annoyance.”

How Could It Not?

February 18, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Hideology, High Art, Home Cooking, Hysteria Tags: Art, Berlin, Berlinale 2019, Films, International Berlin Film Festival, Movies, Politics 2 Comments

Not win, I mean. This is the Berlin Film Festival, after all.

Argentine LGBTQ Sci-Fi Film Wins Berlin Festival’s Teddy Award.

That’s the Berlinale for you. If it’s not about LGBTQ Sci-Fi films it’s about politics. Or should I say other forms of politics?

Santiago Loza’s Brief Story From the Green Planet, an odd genre-mixer involving a trio of LGBTQ friends who discover an actual alien sleeping in the house of one of their late grandmother’s, won the Teddy Award for best LGBTQ film screening at the 69th Berlin International Film Festival.

The Berlin International Film Festival has always been a political stage for filmmakers, and the 69th edition is no exception.

Let’s Celebrate Together In Berlin!

February 13, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: Berlin, Business, Celebrations, Diplomacy, German, Germans, Germany, Iran, Israel, Terror 2 Comments

The German foreign affairs ministry sent representatives to Iran’s embassy in Berlin yesterday to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Iran is just a regular old country after all and Germany is everybody’s darling so, what’s the big deal? OK, the mullahs have been known to dabble in international terror now and again. And maybe that part about Tehran urging the destruction of Israel (the Jewish state) is a little over the top but Germans would never urge that kind of thing on their own, directly, so take a chill pill already. Keeping up good business, I mean, diplomatic relations is never a bad idea.

Doch warum schickte die Bundesregierung einen Vertreter zur Revolutionsfeier eines Terrorregimes in dessen Botschaft?

How Sexist Or Something

January 31, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Humor, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Berlin International Film Festival, Berlinale, Film Festivals, Films, Gender, German, Germans, Germany, Movies Leave a comment

The Berlin International Film Festival will sign the 50/50 by 2020 gender parity pledge,

So, like, let me get this straight. You are ASSuming that there are only TWO genders or what, Herr Dieter Kosslick with the dopey hat? You’re going to get letters, pal. Some might have explosives in them, too.

At first I thought they meant 50/50 with regard to the quality of the films they show here at the Berlinale. You know, 50 percent crappy and the other 50 percent really crappy? But I was way off, as usual.

The 50/50 by 2020 pledge does not mandate gender quotas, but calls for festivals to strive for gender parity in top management and for them to publish figures on the gender of the directors of films submitted every year.

Even I Can See That These Are Fakes

January 25, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax), Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Adolf Hitler, Art, Auctions, Berlin, Fakes, Forgeries, Kunst, Painters, Paintings Leave a comment

A. HitPer? Never heard of him.

Three watercolour paintings attributed to the former Nazi leader Adolf Hitler have been seized by German police.

The works were up for sale at the Kloss auction house in Berlin, but taken on suspicions of forgery, police say.

“Wir verwahren uns mit aller Entschiedenheit dagegen, dass uns von unberufener Seite eine Nähe zum nationalsozialistischen Gedankengut allein deswegen unterstellt wird, weil wir – ähnlich wie andere Auktionshäuser weltweit, gerade auch in Deutschland – Gegenstände aus dem Nachlass Hitlers versteigern.”

No Nukes, No Coal, No Agribusiness…

January 20, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Agribusiness, Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Negativity, Pessimism, Saying No Leave a comment

No plastic, no non-refundable bottles and cans, no speeding…

No meat, no new economy, no tourism, no gentrification, no toxic masculinity, no defense spending, no borders? Hell no. But that’s just the tip of the German ICEBERG OF NO. Let’s call it the German NICEBERG. Germans think positive, you see, and want to move ahead, progressively, into the future. After all the no’s are said and done – and that might take some time yet, mind you – whatever’s left, well, that’s the brave new future.

Thousands of farmers from across Germany and their supporters protested at Berlin’s landmark Brandenburg Gate on Saturday, calling for climate-friendly agriculture and healthy food.

“We are fed up with the agricultural industry.”

We’re Prepared To Fend Off Cyber Attacks From Russia And China

January 9, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humility, Hurt Feelings Tags: Berlin, Cyber Attacks, Cyber warfare, Defense, German, Germans, Germany, Hackers, Hacking Leave a comment

But nobody told us here at Germany’s Cyber Defense Command that we would also have to be on our toes for a twenty-year-old student living with his parents in Hesse.

Now it’s a whole new ballgame. We’ll need a lot more personnel. And way lots more funding (tax payer money). Government in action over here is pretty much like government in action back home, folks. You hardly notice when it’s here. You hardly notice when it’s gone.

German authorities on Tuesday said a 20-year-old hacker had confessed to stealing and leaking private data from hundreds of politicians, including Chancellor Angela Merkel, because he was “annoyed” by some of their public statements.

The young German, who is still studying and lives with his parents, was detained after police searched the family home in the western state of Hesse on Sunday.

“The accused said he published the data because he had been annoyed by certain statements made by those affected.”

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

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