Titles

Screen-shots of movie titles, in alphabetical order, hundreds of them! I love the simple idea and I spend far too long on the Movie Titles Screens Page.

Browsing through these pictures I wondered how few titles I could actually remember.

Ready for Doze-Off

Swedish Hotel owner Oscar Diös bought a grounded 747-200 jumbo-jet, built in 1976 from a bankrupt airline and is currently converting it into the worlds first Jumbo Hostel, right next to the Arlanda airport in Uppsala.

Jumbo Hostel will offer 25 rooms with three beds in each. All together, the hostel offers 85 beds; some of the more luxurious are to be found at the plane´s upper floor.
The rooms are circa six square meters wide and measure three meters from floor to ceiling. All rooms have a flat screen TV where you can, among other things, watch the times of departure for all flights.


Everywhere in the jumbo jet you have access to wireless broadband. All rooms offer a shower and toilet in the corridor, except for a few luxurious rooms upstairs which boast their own shower and WC.

The aircraft’s cockpit has been converted into a de luxe suite with parts of the original interior saved as curiosities. From the suite’s panoramic windows you have a unhindered view of the airport.


Jumbo Hostel will be ready for bording in December.

Telecoma

Telecom keeps me hanging on! Still off-line and my days are beginning to feel like this:

The New Flesh

New Puma ads (click to make big) for a line of soccer shoes are once more playing with the man-becoming-machine-animal-centaur-cyborg-theme.
Although, the first thing that came into my mind was "Paralympics"! Is this a deliberate association?
After all I think that the Paralympics are becoming more and more fascinating each time. The clunky and horrible "spareparts" of yesterday have turned into sleek and fully functional new bio-mechanic bodyparts.

The transformation of man into a chimera of flesh, metal and plastic is fully exposed during the games. Gone is the sappy sentiment of "Oh, look what these poor people can do" and a new form of voyeurism has taken its place. We all become visitors of an exhibition of the most advanced medical and biological prothesis.

When I was three I must have been so fascinated by a neighbour, who was wearing a wooden leg, that I began to simulate his hunchback walk. My parents didn´t see the connection and sent me to various doctors who could not find the cause for my strange walk. Apparantly my mimikri lasted a full six weeks before I grew tired of it and decided to walk like a "normal" person again.

Another thing that immediately caught my eye on the ad: The buildings in the right, upper corner are clearly "inspired" by my psychotropic dreamhome

Burning Car

She was dressed in a white suit
and she looked like a bride too

...Then I looked at the sunset
and it felt like a stage set

...As I looked at my watch and face
I remembered the time and place

...and I breathed in the night perfume
as we met in the dark room.

It´s a burning car.

Burnt Out Car

The papers
The photos
Things were found in the fire
A change of hair colour
Clairol baby-blond
I'm not quite used to it
It never takes too long
No makeup
No earrings
Nothing to identify me

In Love with a German Filmstar

The Pet Shop Boys are actually going to release a cover version of this enigmatic song
Enigmatic because I can´t figure out who the hell the singer fell in love with. Peter Lorre? Konrad Veidt? Max Schreck? Curd Jürgens?
The cover-photo of the PSB production which is sung by Sam Taylor-Wood as well as the original video suggests Marlene Dietrich. But I was never content with this.

Fear and Fashion: Cold War Modern Exhibition

Modern life after 1945 seemed to promise both utopia and catastrophe. By 1949, both of the world’s superpowers had acquired the capacity to annihilate one another with nuclear weapons. Twenty years later, man had walked on the moon and thirty years later we had almost forgotten about it.


Modernist artists and designers responded to this dual vision, searching for ways to build a new and hopeful future and deal with the anxieties of the present.

Part of the above text is taken from the exhibition website of Cold War Modern which will open on Sep. 25 at the South Kensington V&A - Victoria and Albert Museum.


Cold War Modern explores modern art, architecture, design and film in the period 1945-70, highlighting the ways in which artists and designers responded to the conditions of the Cold War.


Legends like Ken Adam will also take part in several events which will take place throughout the exhibition for its run through January 11.

Men Who Look Like Old Lesbians

Men who look like old lesbians is one of those blogs that gives you exactly what the name promises. It´s also one of those blogs you feel a bit ashamed to like. That´s why I have to "pimp" it here.
The man who disguises as an old lesbian below actually used to be Al Pacino!

And that´s only one example...

Move!

Several voluntary and involuntary reasons require moving once more to another city. During the last twelve years I seem to move every four years. I moved to Hamburg exactly 4 years and two days ago and before that it was four years in Cologne. Inbetween we spend six month per year on the road in North-America for the last three years.

So its back to Berlin tomorrow! Not my favourite city, a bit overhyped and definately located on the wrong side of the country. I used to live in Berlin in 99/00 and did some jobs there afterwards. Bad timing always leads me to Berlin in autumn and winter, when it can be very drab and gray. All in all I must say that Berlin was always a bit too German for me.

But enough of the gloom. We found a fantastic flat, even better, larger AND cheaper than the last one. Apart from being obscenely big (and it´s not even an old building), it has got the most decadent feature: An elevator that opens directly into the flat. A little something like this:

The last days have been quite hectic, since our recent home was practically destroyed by intruding water while we were away. (Imagine coming back home after several months and you find your bedroom turned into a swimming pool.)

We managed to find the flat in Berlin, kicked the ass of our landlord, sued him to hell and packed up things within the last 16 days!

Of course our internet provider can´t compete with this tempo and I am going to face a few weeks being OFF-LINE!

So, dear (few) readers, it´s going to be a bit quiet until mid-october. I might do some occasional posts from a café next door. Don´t forget Stella, and come again!