Gisbert zu Knyphausen

Die aktuelle Ausgabe der Zeitschrift Rolling Stone enthält eine Live-CD des Liedermachers Gisbert zu Knyphausen. Liedermacher – was für ein Wort.

In der Sonne glänzt dein Kleid
Und am Himmel macht der Tag sich breit
Ein alter Mann kotzt auf die Wiese
Und die Dächer singen Lieder vom Verfall

Ich will dich verstehen
Doch am liebsten würd ich untergehen
Im Meer deiner Gefühle setze ich
Leise meine Segel und schlaf ein
Bis der Wind sich langsam dreht
Und mein kleines Boot im Meer vergeht

Geocaching

Found my first Geocache yesterday! All over the world, people have hidden boxes, for you to seek and find: The boxes contain at least a paper where you can leave your name. Often you have to solve a puzzle to find the box, on the map click on the Geocache’s name to get details and a description. You should be able to find some boxes even without GPS, if you’re in a city and use the map.

Faces

Has been a good weekend for seeing faces, on a walk with my girlfriend Eva…

Painted organic food truck

Saw this painted truck standing in the street. One of the cutest advertisements I have ever seen :) Illustration by Eva Muggenthaler.

Muppets

Just watched another great muppet show episode, with Roger Miller, where everyone turned into chickens. The first three muppet seasons are available on DVD (in english) and not very expensive. And they are really great :)

“Froggy Went A-Courtin’” from The Muppets Valentine Show
http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=2998305

Rowlf performing “I never Harmed An Onion”
http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=2159306

Bubbles

Frankie Manning

Improv Everywhere

Frozen grand central

Food Court Musical

Favourite Dance Videos

My favourite dance videos, mostly Lindy Hop. Get out your shoes, and join the groove!

The classic scene from Hellzapoppin’ feat. Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers, music by Slim & Slam:

Kevin and Carla:

Tommy Blacharz and Max Pitruzella:

David Elsewhere:

Tap Dancing Challenge from the movie “Tap”

Clayton “PegLeg” Bates:

Nat and Yuval:

Hula Shim Sham:

And finally the Slow Jack’n'Jill from Barswingona 2007, from this great French video site.

Charts

Wanna know a secret? I will tell you which songs I have been listening to recently. And even more, you can listen to at least some of them (“full track”) on my last.fm page.

Salvador Dali

This is fun: Salvador Dali at the game show “What’s My Line?”. Quite surreal indeed.

Concert review: Phoebe Kreutz, Ching Chong Song, The Debutante Hour

One of these evenings where I am torn between being happy to watch such great bands in an intimate setting and wishing more people would know and love this great music.

The evening in the full-but-not-crowded Hasenschaukel started with The Debutante Hour. Equipped with accordion and low-tech-drum-kit, these two very nice girls from NYC and Ukraine played antifolk songs with the occasional waltz, warming up the audience to clap along and cheer. In the middle of the concert they switched the instruments, like being one person in two bodies, sharing one soul. Sort of. Songs about lost love, weird love and the devil. I am looking forward to listening to their EP, I guess the lyrics are worth listening to closely.

Next on the stage was my favourite Phoebe Kreutz, who darwinistically managed to be one of the most played artists on my 20.000+ song iPod. She has a great voice and talent for writing songs, and she is really funny. The evening’s program included songs about “Anna Karenina” (Tolstoi), “Elizabeth I” and her “ass”. Surely everyone in the room would love to join her rocknroll band “Throat Culture”… She finished playing Hasenschaukel’s summer hit “All summer long”.

The evening was completed by Ching Chong Song, joined by Susan from The Debutante Hour on accordion. The concert was an art performance, like a dark circus cabaret in a Kurt Weillian setting, bizarre and theatrical. And with great songs, with Julie playing the ukulele and singing saw, including “Old Man” and “Ghost clock” from their album “Little naked gay adventures”. The ukulele decided to add some low-fi antifolk tendency by being a little broken and distorted…
“Don’t believe in the sun, make your own light, stand in the light.” Thanks to all the three bands for standing in the light, and thanks to the Hasenschaukel for making this happen!

Faces

Something fishy going on…

Best Bars in Hamburg

Here’s my top three pubs/bars in Hamburg:

1. Hasenschaukel (St. Pauli / Kiez)
   Great singer/songwriter concerts almost every evening, beautiful 20ties interior, nice crew. Small, but home.
2. Queen Calavera (St. Pauli / Kiez)
   Home of burlesque cabaret, this bar combines the nasty with the swinging rockabilly. Time to party.
3. Blaues Barhaus (Ottensen)
   Best cocktails in this small, sometimes crowded, church-like bar.

Best programming books

I guess I like making lists.  So here they come, my favourite programming books (in no particular order):

• Domain-Driven Design / Eric Evans

  This books talks about the essence of writing software: Creating a model for some real life domain. This book is based on object oriented design, but goes much farther and contains a well of experience and guidelines.

• The Pragmatic Programmer. From Journeyman to Master /
  Andrew Hunt, David Thomas, Ward Cunningham

  Collected wisdom how to be a (pragmatic) programmer, ranging from the little detail to the big concept.

• Agile Web Development with Rails /
  Sam Ruby, Dave Thomas, David Heinemeier Hansson

  The one book on concrete technology to be included. Even if you don’t plan to use Rails, it is so much of an eye opener how simple (not only) web development can be when done right.

• The Deadline: A Novel About Project Management /
  Tom DeMarco

  One of many great books by Tom DeMarco on the the psychology and social interaction of programmers and teams.

• Getting real / 37Signals

  A (free online) book about the business- and programming philosophy of 37signals, a company developing web applications. A lot of thought provoking statements, often contrary to common wisdom.

A honorable mention goes out to Tips, Tricks & Recipes for Sybase ASE by Rob Verschoor for discussing every Sybase question we ever had in epical depth. We never found out how he read our minds in advance : )

Haareszeiten

Ever wondered why hair dressers are especially addicted to silly word puns? Then check out this blog entry, including a map of all hair dressers in Germany named Haareszeiten, Haarmonie and Haargenau.

There is no satisfactory explanation, at least not to my knowledge, for the higher than average incidence of lame word-play in the names of hair salons. Some examples in the Anglosphere include: British Hairways, Shear Excitement, Fringe Benefits, Comb One Comb All, Locks of Fun, Mane Man, and my favourite: Julius Scissor.

Faces

Balloons

I have seen many impressive balloon artists, but Jason Hackenwerth is really amazing. Different. Art.  WOW.

Nikoki

Nikoki‘s blog is the home of many cute sewn animals. Online shop coming soon… I like the elephant’s tattoos.

Map of Entenhausen (Duckburg)

Jürgen Wollina spent 13 years drawing a definitive, consistent map of Entenhausen (Duckburg), based on all stories by Carl Barks.

Verzeichnet sind alle bekannten Wohnsitze von Donald Duck, Daisy Duck und Gustav Gans, alle Geldspeicher von Onkel Dagobert, alle Laboratorien von Daniel Düsentrieb, alle Brücken sowie alle bekannten Straßennamen. Natürlich fehlen auch berühmte Denkmäler, Bahnhöfe, Postämter, Leuchttürme, Kirchen und Tankstellen nicht. Der Stadtplan wird damit zum unverzichtbaren Muß für jeden Entenhausen-Touristen.

Jedes Detail im Stadtplan wird anhand von Barks-Quellen belegt, dieser Stadtplan ist damit keines der unzähligen anderen Phantasie-Produkte, sondern zum ersten Mal authentisch.

Congratulations, well done :)

Claire Austin / Last.fm

Just discovered a great swing/blues singer at Last.fm: Claire Austin.

PS: Here’s an article about someone who found his musical twin at Last.fm

Happy Easter Greetings!

Faces

Psychology

A compilation of the classic ten most revealing psych experiments.

Singing duck

One Word A Day

Improve your english by learning uncommon words and phrases, also for the advanced speaker. Free service that will send you an email with One Word A Day. Try it out, its very good.

Ringelnatz – Ostern

Wenn die Schokolade keimt,
Wenn nach langem Druck bei Dichterlingen
‘Glockenklingen’ sich auf ‘Lenzesschwingen’
Endlich reimt,
Und der Osterhase hinten auch schon presst,
Dann kommt bald das Osterfest.

Und wenn wirklich dann mit Glockenklingen
Ostern naht auf Lenzesschwingen, —
Dann mit jenen Dichterlingen
Und mit deren jugendlichen Bräuten
Draußen schwelgen mit berauschten Händen —
Ach, das denk ich mir entsetzlich,
Außerdem – unter Umständen -
Ungesetzlich.

Aber morgens auf dem Frühstückstische
Fünf, sechs, sieben flaumweich gelbe, frische
Eier. Und dann ganz hineingekniet!
Ha! Da spürt man, wie die Frühlingswärme
Durch geheime Gänge und Gedärme
In die Zukunft zieht,
Und wie dankbar wir für solchen Segen
Sein müssen.

Ach, ich könnte alle Hennen küssen,
Die so langgezogene Kugeln legen.

Faces

Guest picture by Kira Paas who just started to see faces :)

Incoming music

If you are interested, here’s the new food for my iPod:

• Dikanda – Ajotoro
• Lonely Drifter Karen – Grass Is Singing
• Louise Gold & die Herren Quarz
• Mirabai Ceiba – Ocean
• The Great Park - Eat like a bird
• The Real Tuesday Weld – The London Book of the Dead
• Vagabond Opera – Get on the Train
• Vagabond Opera – Vagabond Opera
• Grossstadtgeflüster
• The History of Jazz (Compilation)

Faces

Today a guest picture by Tonia Wiatrowski
from the group Tatendrang-Design