New long-form essay up. My ode to Berlin. A first-person account of my life there, the places and people I found, the networks of care I encountered, and the ways it has shaped me as a person. Bit of TW on this one, as it covers a handful of sensitive topics.

Trying to put my finger on something I kept stumbling across online. How our media landscape has led to widespread political and cultural amnesia, and what that means for people's general ability to orient themselves and their thinking in the wider world.

This is precisely the world and atmosphere I grew up in. Only realized recently how formative it was to have it simply dissolve and dissappear. Gave me a fair few tools and perspectives that have been useful ever since.

If I talk about decentering myself, am I not just centering myself all over again?

I reworked a 2017 essay addressing war and conflict as inherent features of human societies and behavior, updating and expanding it to incorporate our current drift towards widespread violence. Do we always have to end up here to learn our lesson(s)?

Forget Sun Tzu, get on your von Clausewitz.

Left out the longing for the mundane, but here's a new one thinking about the relationship between analog and digital technologies and what they represent in terms of our relationship with the world around us and how we wish to experience it.

Thoughtful mind cleanser...

After moving a household plus two kids across oceans wide and plenty, working, and recording/releasing an EP, I finally wrapped up this essay. Analyzing the obsession with generational differences and how it relates to the frenetic standstill we have been in since the beginning of the 21st century.

As an American who grew up outside the US, it became clear very early on in life, that when Americans say "the world," they essentially mean "Cleveland."

The "Generational Drama" essay remains stalled due to belongings strewn across hemispheres, but Her Gang's German Graffiti Demo is starting to make the rounds and getting plays/noticed here and there. That's nice. Listed here with hundreds of other great releases.

Things have been quiet due to trans-hemispheric relocations, but did manage to use a few free moments to record some songs for a new solo project. Available on tape at Cardigan Punk or via Bandcamp. I think it's good.

Don't think any name is ever going to beat Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

A documentary where Dave Grohl, Henry Rollins, and Thurston Moore talk at length about something, but it is never really clear what they're actually talking about.

Something that gets omitted when people throw around ideas about Nazism, is how the 12-year dalliance with facism killed up 10 million Germans, destroyed every major and mid-size city, ruptured a cultural inheritance stretching back over a millennium, and is still felt today, nearly a century later.

Looking at some of today's "crises" through a historical lens and drawing parallels to past instances of shifting climate, mass migration, conflict, and a transition to a new geopolitical order.

Promo tape unearthed during apartment clear out. Late 90s... what a time to be alive.

The biggest trick the internet ever pulled was making dorks think they were cool and jocks think they were smart.

More geopolitical ephemera from clearing out the apartment. Picture album of post-war Sarajevo from when my dad was stationed there.

Clearing out the place. Unearthing decades of cultural and sociopolitical ephemera. MSF postcard from Chechnya, 1999. Putin's been keeping it real for 26 years.

Many to choose from, but lots of young, friend memories associated with vibing to this one.

POV: That's not what POV means.

Reviving the Solid Maybe homebase to snych up my essays. Will also have new music going up soon. Hope to get on the imagery and short form again too. For now, my rant on the involution of progress and consuming everything on lease.

I am once again pitching "Russian Windows" as a band name. Depending on how 00s you want make it, you can throw a "The" in there.

Been driving myself crazy trying to write this essay in between massive life plans, baby, and general chaos. Finally fucking finished it, thank Hosanna.

One of the key, late 20th century cultural values to have been lost is authenticity. DIY, street cred, underground, keeping it real...all dissolved. Everything exists as a shallow pool of slop-driven pseudo-emoting coated in defensive snark or desperate pleas for seconds of recognition.

When I was little, our grandparents’ generation was the war generation. Then grandparents were the school of ‘68. The new generation of grandparents are the ones who downed 40 shots of tequila and were still standing. Those were different times, as Lou Reed said.

Reading Hegel quotes in therapy. Berlin things.

The 1953 East German uprising of June 17 began with construction worker strikes in East Berlin, fuelled by rising work quotas and poor living conditions, and soon involved nearly a million people. The protests were violently suppressed by Soviet tanks and East German police. Images via Wikipedia

Berlin just extended the usage of the refugee center at the old Tegel Airport until 2031. They doubled its capacities in 2024. It's now the largest refugee center on mainland Europe, will have been running 9 years in 2031, and most people in Berlin don't even know it exists. (1/3)

Continuing the critique/commentary on the dissolution of progress. This time with an essay and quick introduction of Perspectivism as a response to the stagnation of progress, and possible foundation of an approach to break the deadlock at the heart of current democratic politics and societies.

Dork capture: The extent to which new media has created an environment in which all discourse is now solely undertaken by complete dorks who have both the time and energy to invest in endless, pointless nitpicking on every subject. It will eventually lead to the extinction of most species on Earth.

A little before someone's time @bestshow4life.bsky.social.

Threading together previous essay topics to elaborate the historical, political, cultural, ecological, and psychological aspects of the deterioration of progress, loss of future, and the socio-cultural effects of digitalization. Read: Hypermodernity. Super fun, right?!

I started studying Political Science at a school that was originally founded by the US occupying forces to teach Germans about democracy. Now Germans have to lecture the US government about the separation of powers. The student has become the teacher, it seems.

You should smile more.

It's always worth a visit if you're looking for something to do in Berlin. The German Resistance Memorial Center tells the many different stories of people's acts of courage, big and small, that most often cost them their lives.

Discussing the cultural effect of the collapse of progress and how it led to the modern phenomena of short-term nostalgia, the 20-year revival, the concept of the “big now”, cultures as identity reservoirs, hypermodernity, and individuality as an end in and of itself.

420, Easter, and Hitler's birthday. The day of days for all Christian Stoner Nazis arrives once more.

In the 80s, Germany's most prominent far-right party was Die Republikaner (The Republicans), which featured former members of the SS. Strangely apropos in 2025.

History is forgotten by the victors.

“When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.” - Abraham Lincoln (1855)

Another stab at disentangling the threads of this socio-political dead-end. This essay tries to outline the paradox at the heart of politics based on progress and the trap it creates when the ideas of rights, equality, and identity are based on a conception of positivist value and worth.

Essential reading from @astra.bsky.social and @naomiaklein.bsky.social. It's not the end THE world, it's the end of A world. My Masters thesis was a critical analysis of Anthropocene theories and how we are approaching the end of an objective-dualistic epistemology. (1/3)

Re-edit of a longer essay where I explore how the ancient concepts of progress and revolution were infused with an eschatological mindset and monotheistic morality, and how this informs our current political atmosphere. Basically, modern politics as religion. Take the time...please?

I personally only play 19-dimensional chess.

Another old music project. I holed up in my Kreuzberg studio apartment and recorded three albums' worth of songs on a Tascam 4-Track tape recorder. This ended up being the people's favorite. Artist Leonie Schneider made a beautiful video for it, which I love.

Finally put an observation into words that I’ve mulled over in my head for the better part of a decade. How can we live with ambiguity so easily in our personal lives, yet react so violently to any hint of it in our politics, histories, or public figures?

This aged well.

The fact that most comments are not questions, but statements, indicates there isn't any interest in understanding the possibility of another perspective. They're knee-jerk defenses of a self that feels attacked.