Pot luck

Yesterday morning, I was given a fortune cookie at a reception. I hope the message that I got means that my future will be good, not that I don’t have one…










Later that day I was given a book about the next Chinese year, the Year of the Pig, starting in February. As a Fire Goat (which I apparently am) I will be provided with an endless row of possibilities to further everything from career to personal contacts. Seems like turning forty will be quite a pleasure…

Bowling for Columbia

It sounds like someone lured Barry White and Cardigans into a recording studio and asked them to do some sexy 21st century Motown pop with attitude. John Legend’s US-platinum-selling last album from 2004 is an average 90s-Lauryn Hill-attempt (even the cover design is similar), but now it sounds like this ex-Boston Consulting consultant (!) has finally stepped out of the copy closet. He’ll start up a short European tour in Columbiahalle in Berlin on September 21, and if his new Save Room single won’t get heavy rotation on radio this autumn (especially the public Scandinavian ones), I will eat the only hat I own.

Little big man

On September 17, the Berliners choose a new Senate and a new Mayor. The prospects for the ruling red-red coalition (social democrats and ex-communists) should look bleak; unemployment hovers around 20%, the city finances are in ruins, schools in Berlin are reputedly lousy and immigrant integration seems non-functioning. Still, the opposition has great problems attracting sympathies. Apart from Berlin’s traditional left-wing fancy, this probably has one major reason: Klaus Wowereit, the Mayor. Shortly before the last election in 2001, when the conservatives were about to leak the fact that he is gay, he stepped out, told everyone himself with his now famous “Ich bin schwul und das ist gut so” and was instantly transformed from boring left-wing technocrat to the cool Wowi that everybody wants to cuddle with. When the conservative mayor candidate Friedbert Pflüger did a miserable and nervous attempt at hanging out backstage at the last CSD (Pride) Parade, it was obvious that – probably for the first time anywhere in the world – NOT being gay will keep you from winning an election in a multi-million metropolis. And THAT is cool.