“For many coffee drinkers, espresso is coffee. It is the purest distillation of the coffee bean, the literal essence of a bean. In another sense, it is also the first instant coffee. Before espresso, it could take up to five minutes –five minutes!– for a cup of coffee to brew. But what exactly is espresso and how did it come to dominate our morning routines? Although many people are familiar with espresso these days thanks to the Starbucksification of the world, there is often still some confusion over what it actually is – largely due to “espresso roasts” available on supermarket shelves everywhere. First, and most importantly, espresso is not a roasting method. It is neither a bean nor a blend. It is a method of preparation.” >read more (c) Smithsonian.com, 2012
“The Austrian Erwin Schrödinger, Nobel laureate in Physics & famous
for his theory about the feline in the box, spent his happiest years in Dublin.
“And Europe Will Be Stunned is a deeply stirring and contentious film trilogy by the Dutch-Israeli artist Yael Bartana, soon to open in Britain on its European tour. Each film is enough to disturb; together they are peculiarly subversive. I do not know exactly what they might mean to Jewish, Israeli or Palestinian viewers, still less to a Polish audience watching some of the scenes unfolding on the site of the Warsaw Ghettoitself. But my sense is that an anxious concern for other people’s reactions is at least part of the trilogy’s content.” >full review (c) THE GUARDIAN, 2012
Photo (c) Yael Bartana/Marcin Kalinski
Ed Vulliamy’s account of the Bosnian War (1992-95) and its aftermath shows why the conflict stirred a special anger. >Review (c) THE IRISH TIMES, 2012
Photo: elderly Muslim women grieve in a refugee centre sheltering Muslim families after they fled the Srebrenica massacre of July 1995 (c) Tom Stoddart/Getty
A sad document about life & death in Mostar during the fighting in 1992
Slavoj Žižek: “Humanity is OK, but 99% of people are boring idiots”
“A genius with the answers to the financial crisis? Or the Borat of philosophy? The cultural theorist talks about love, sex and why nothing is ever what it appears to be.” >Interview (c) THE GUARDIAN / G2, 2012; photo: David Levene
Viennese cuisine between political correctness and nationalism
It is well-known that the Viennese cuisine mostly consists of stolen goods: the breaded schnitzel actually comes from Milan, the goulash from Hungary, and the dumplings from Bohemia. However, while German chancellor Angela Merkel asks half of Europe to tighten their belts, lucky Austria is worrying about the correct names for its delicious food. Continue reading
The Czech village Lidice
was destroyed by German occupying forces on 10 June 1942 in reprisal for the assassination of Nazi deputy governor and Holocaust mastermind Reinhard Heydrich by British-trained Czech patriots in late May (“Operation Anthropoid”; see my earlier post on the subject matter). The exiled Bertolt Brecht dedicated his script to the Hollywood movie Hangman Also Die! from 1943 to Heydrich’s assissination; the director was the Austrian Fritz Lang). However, most inhabitants of Lidice perished after the attack… > Text on the literary legacy of the massacre (c) Radio Prague, 2012
Also see the letter the German president J. Gauck wrote to the Czech president on the occasion of the anniversary.
delirium clemens 