Frankfurter Rundschau, 08.03.2006

"As woman and womb, I am the social glue. Where should I stick myself?" Elke Buhr is not really impressed by Frank Schirrmacher's book "Minimum", in which the author expresses the hope that women will lead Germany out of its birthrate crisis. Her conclusion: "An anti-child and childless society is really not a nice place to live, but it won't get any better if it barricades itself in fear behind resentments and class barriers. And why do we have to take the short-cut through biology and brain stems when what we're trying to describe is in fact a social problem? Probably because that gets you elegantly back to women, who Schirrmacher, for strictly biological reasons, makes responsible for finding a way out of the crisis. Der Spiegel summarises Schirrmacher's ode thus: women as a sex are tougher, they exude selflessness and the willingness to sacrifice, they are needed as social glue."


Die Welt, 08.03.2006

In the run-up to the elections in Congo, writer Hans Christoph Buch tells of his experiences in the huge country which was exploited by Sese Seko Mobutu from 1965 – 1997. "The word corruption doesn't do justice to his regime. Cleptocracy is better. When I landed in Kinshasa in 1986, I was led into the airport restaurant kitchen without a passport or customs check, where the head of protocol asked if I wanted to purchase smuggled diamonds. A delegation of the Zairian writers' association was waiting for me under a banner that read 'The nouveau beaujolais has arrived!' Mobut had renamed Congo Zaire, and ordered that all citizens wear a sort of Mao-type uniform called the abacost (from 'a bas le costume!' - down with suits!), with a high collar relatively unsuited to the tropical heat. It goes without saying that the abacost factory that clothed the entire population of Zaire belonged to the Mobutu clan."


Die Tageszeitung, 08.03.2006

Marius Babias unpacks the debate (more) about the Friedrich Christian Flick Collection which, for him, represents a disastrous step towards a "normalised discourse." With the loan of his collection, Flick has bought himself favour, respect and significance. "The money comes back to him in a discursive form. His accomplices: the submissive middle-men, the rapidly purchased post-avant-garde artists and the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz, which turned the Hamburger Bahnhof museum into a showcase of the new German self-image. Flick doesn't give anything, Flick takes and enjoys: the attention, the recognition, the liveliness of the conflict. With the old timers he used to collect, he would not have been granted the best seat in the theatre of the Berlin Republic, whose heart of darkness beats in his breast."


Berliner Zeitung, 08.03.2006

Detlev Buck's most recent film "Knallhart" (Tough Enough), which opened at the Berlinale, is set in one of Berlin's touhgest neighbourhoods, Neukölln. In an interview, he explains why. "For me it wasn't about 'slumming' and I don't see Neukölln as socially cold. I like colourful places where people from different nations live together, because that's become quite normal – which many people seem not to have noticed. When all these nations meet in one city, there's contact. I prefer Neukölln to the old quarters of the past. Neukölln is young, fast and direct. The area isn't foreign to me, otherwise I wouldn't have made a film there. You can't go in there as celebrity voyeur."


Süddeutsche Zeitung, 08.03.2006

Christian Maria Beer writes on the revival of first-generation German pop authors Hubert Fichte, Rolf Dieter Brinkmann and Jörg Fauser. For Beer, the rediscovery of these "rebels and flaneurs" is "an absolute sign of coolness.(...) But the grandfathers of German pop literature differ from their successful grandchildren in one key respect. Certainly, Fauser and Brinkmann also focused on classical pop themes like drugs, sex, parties, music and above all everyday life. But their relation to their surroundings was entirely different. What they wrote was also a reaction to post-war society. Their texts were – who would use such an expression today – socially critical."
See our feature "Ladies and gentlemen, Rolf Dieter Brinkmann"

The paper dedicates an entire page to strange and obsolete musical instruments. Among them is the arpeggione, "a bastard instrument, meant to be both plucked and played with a bow. It was created by Johann Georg Staufer in Vienna around 1823, while Peter Teufelsdorfer created a similar instrument in Pest around the same time. The strange blend of guitar and cello fit in well in that time when early romantic sensibilities were longing for etherial, magical sounds."

Another instrument featured is the bayan: "Originally a bayan was a Russian bard. But the tradition had already died out when Petersburg instrument maker Pjotr Sterligov presented an astonished public with his button-harmonica, the bayan. It differed from the better-known accordion in that it had only buttons and no keyboard.... While the accordion is considered more of a folksy instrument in Germany, in Russia the bayan ranks among the serious classical instruments. That can be seen in the work of Sofia Gubaidulina, born 1931, who uses it in her most famous works. 'Seven Words,' from 1982, which sets in music Christ's last words on the cross with immense pain and emotion, was composed for string orchestra, solo cello and bayan."