{Dressel}

Charlie survived (possibly thrived?*) during my watch. My work...

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 14:20:00 -0500

Charlie survived (possibly thrived?*) during my watch. My work here is done. Bird sitter out.

*Apparently he is found of classic Madonna tracks. Who knew?

Babs/Judes — Get Happy/Happy Days Are Here Again

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 03:30:00 -0500

Babs/Judes — Get Happy/Happy Days Are Here Again

Berlin never rests, and this is glorious. Each dawning day...

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 22:46:00 -0500

Berlin never rests, and this is glorious. Each dawning day brings with it a new, agreeably disagreeable attack on complacency, and this does the general sense of indolence good. An artist possesses, much like a child, an inborn propensity for beautiful, noble sluggardizing. Well, this slug-a-beddishness, this kingdom, is constantly being buffeted by fresh storm-winds of inspiration. The refined, silent creature is suddenly blustered full of something coarse, loud, and unrefined. There is an incessant blurring together of various things, and this is good, this is Berlin, and Berlin is outstanding. —“Berlin and the Artist.”

I’m not even quite halfway through Robert Walser’s Berlin Stories, translated by Susan Bernofsky, and it is all I can do to stop myself from blogging nearly ever single sentence. First, “noble sluggardizing”! Then, throughout the “prose pieces,” as they are designated, there are phrases like “that blue-eyed marvel, the early morning” and “magnificent restlessness” and “where poesy can be felt, poetic flights are superfluous.”

The book is one of my favorite types, the musings of a flâneur and metropolitan chronicler who observes the whirling city from its bars stools and park benches, its opera boxes and streetcars. It is the kind of book that affords the reader the eerie delight of life explicated just as it is. It is poetic and deeply felt even in its flippancy.

Even though Walser was writing about Berlin in the early 1900s, it is hard not to draw parallels to New York, for a certain type of person who has moved to the city to live a certain type of life, no matter the decade or century in which they arrive. That is, for me, both a help and a hindrance as I am trying, after a five month absence, to fall in love with this city again.

But! This post is mostly in service of encouraging you to pick up the slim volume, if you are certain type of person who is drawn to a certain metropolitan life; if you ponder, like Walser, “what plays will be put on this winter,” if you enjoy long, contemplative walks smoking hand-rolled cigarettes, and if you find the thrum of urban life to be a source of endless fascination.

When picking up the keys yesterday I was informed that the bird I’m meant to be sitting may in...

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 14:38:43 -0500

When picking up the keys yesterday I was informed that the bird I’m meant to be sitting may in fact be dying. So. It has now become a bird hospice situation, possibly. Further updates as warranted.

ourmaningraz: Hauptplatz A thoroughly incomplete list of things...

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 18:38:00 -0500

ourmaningraz: Hauptplatz

A thoroughly incomplete list of things I will and will not miss:

I will miss the euro but not euro coins. I will miss legally drinking on the street but not the teenagers drinking on the buses. I will miss the nachtwurststandl and the kebap place that’s open on Sunday when everything else is shuttered. I will miss learning German but not being asked if I’ve conned the grammatical complexities of the language in only five months. I will miss sitting and smoking in cafes undisturbed for hours. I will not miss the 24 hour clock. I will miss tipping by merely rounding up to the next whole number. I will not miss people treating their public displays of affection like an extreme sport. I will miss living in the 8020, aka the wrong side of the river. I will not miss people’s inability to queue at the post office, the movies, or the bank, really anywhere one should know how to stand in line. Nor will not miss people’s refusal to utilize all available space on buses and trams. I will miss paying five euros for a prescription. I will miss kürbiskernöl. I will miss my bike, die Frau. I will miss the Hobbit bar and cheap beer. I will not miss terribly made cocktails. What I will miss most I’m sure will be what I’ve thought least of while I was here.

Magritte

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 09:43:15 -0500

Magritte

My sister has a very accurate, if often baffling, memory. She emailed me today this link, saying...

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 10:25:08 -0500

My sister has a very accurate, if often baffling, memory. She emailed me today this link, saying “I remember vividly sitting on the subway with you as you read this, back in the balmy summer of 2001.” It is true, it was balmy, and we were taking the train to Coney Island. Though why I was reading the Daily News is a question lost to time.

Regardless, In the Annals of Headline Poetry, “Arm Lost In Farm Horror” really is evocative, no? I guess that would stick with you.

Mehr Erotik, bitte!

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 17:21:00 -0500

Mehr Erotik, bitte!

Somebody’s house always burns at Christmas.

Sat, 24 Dec 2011 13:32:46 -0500

Somebody’s house always burns at Christmas.

There is no way to not sound braggy about this but that short piece that ran on Metazen has been...

Sun, 04 Dec 2011 09:27:00 -0500

There is no way to not sound braggy about this but that short piece that ran on Metazen has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and I’m a bit stunned and humbled (stumbled?) so there you go.

The fog that rolls in every afternoon makes the city feel like a...

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 17:34:26 -0500

The fog that rolls in every afternoon makes the city feel like a poem. Except that technically it is smog. At least that’s what I’ve been told, being that we’re in a valley. The air quality is actually garbage. Still I prefer the romantic delusion, especially at this time of year.

The only thing really to know about the Krampus and Perchten...

Sun, 27 Nov 2011 13:35:00 -0500

The only thing really to know about the Krampus and Perchten procession is that it is a nightmare. It is like a Buffy-level Hellmouth opened up on the Herrengasse and these beasts have come spewing forth, belched from the acrid bowels. I mean! This is Christmas? OK, Europe.

I nearly lost my mind, for a minute or more? And kids are screaming in equal parts delight and terror and then some of these creatures are all up on the barricades eyes aglow and then some are revving chainsaws and oh god.

A few months ago I had asked what people here did for Halloween and was told it is not really a thing and in hindsight duh rightly so when there is this horror show to anticipate.

And yes good ol’ St. Nicholas is there in the mix too, but how can that even compete with horned demons who are rattling chains and waving flares and switching children with bundles of twigs?

Basically why have we not imported this to America?

It is odd the impressions I will remember from Venice. (Venice...

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 19:40:00 -0400

It is odd the impressions I will remember from Venice.

(Venice is ridiculous. Venice is a hologram. I was instantly smitten.)

Not the history, the grandeur.

There was the fair-haired boy in the black turtleneck and fedora, running from his mother along the canal as she laughed, exasperated, in his wake, calling “John Arthur, John Arthur!”

The two plain girls, barely out of their teens, in flats and unflattering dresses with floral scarves wrapped around their throats, taking each other’s picture on the Rialto Bridge, feeling sexy and invigorated by the city.

The corpse, fished from the water, lying flanked by two police officers, wrapped in one of those gold foil blankets like a marathon runner, everything draped but the tips of his brown boots.

All things, large and small, making me immeasurably happy and immeasurably sad.

(And what will John Arthur remember of Venice, in the future? If he remembers Venice at all.)

All Apologies by Mike Dressel

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 17:30:00 -0400

All Apologies by Mike Dressel

Moxy Früvous | My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors I was talking to...

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 09:35:00 -0400

Moxy Früvous | My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors

I was talking to these Canadian girls the other night, who are very proud of their Canadianness (which, sure why not?) and we were trying to come up with Canadian musicians beyond the super-obvious—Barenaked Ladies; Anne Murray;Celine!—and I totally spaced until now on the “politically satirical folk-pop band from Thornhill, Ontario Canada” (per Wikipedia).

File under: ridiculous songs; obscure 90s remnants; lyrics that rhyme Mario Puzo with ouzo.

Fall foliage.

Sat, 29 Oct 2011 12:26:00 -0400

Fall foliage.

This image is not here solely to illustrate how creepy I can...

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 10:29:00 -0400

This image is not here solely to illustrate how creepy I can manage to look in only 30 seconds of on-camera time but more importantly to let you know that three episodes of The Mel & El Show are finally online for your viewing pleasure.

For fans of music, and comedy, and musical comedy. And lady business. And hijinks.

Eine wanderung in den wald.

Sun, 16 Oct 2011 11:05:18 -0400

Eine wanderung in den wald.

GPOYShadow -3m Board Edish.

Sat, 15 Oct 2011 13:07:00 -0400

GPOYShadow -3m Board Edish.

Ich habe einen kater is one way to say, auf Deutsch, that you...

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 10:18:00 -0400

Ich habe einen kater is one way to say, auf Deutsch, that you have a hangover. This I learned from my hippie-ish German instructor, who was all purple flowing scarves and turquoise jewelry and looked to me a bit like an Austrian Alanis Morissette. This was on the day that the lesson focused on drinking, and (unsurprisingly?) I understood that lecture in its entirety.

Luca, my German flatmate, injured his foot while running, and was asking me what a muscle strain is called in English. In German one says they have a muskelkater.

I have not been able to ascertain what the Germans have against cats, or why they imagine cats are going around, sitting on various body parts, ailing them.

This language lesson is really here for you to understand that this morning I woke up with a big old cat on my head.