On the Baltic with the husband, keeping things spicy with some role-playing. I‘m Caspar David Friedrich, he’s Monk by the Sea.

The sad departure of Bud Cort reminds me of this poster I saw years ago for a production of Harold and Maude in Athens. "So what if – hear me out – they were the same age?!"

Just had a whole-ass tree in a box turn up on my doorstep with no indication of sender and am concerned it’s some kind of underworld warning. Nice tree though.

Czarna, 2011–2026. The best girl.

Can't remember ever seeing the Spree this frozen. No one venturing out on it, thankfully; there is a limit to even the Berliner's folly.

Originally published in 1894 and now available in English for the first time, Antisemitism features a range of interviews with prominent figures across Europe, revealing attitudes towards anti-Jewish hatred during a pivotal moment. Read more: bit.ly/4nAEJdU #History #JewishStudies #JewishHistory

A few days ago, this old, half-blind dog was so ill that when I took her to the vet, I wasn’t sure I would be bringing her home again. And now here she is, running through the forest on a beautiful autumn morning like a furry little Lazarus. ❤️

Berliners! Next Wednesday (15/10) at @curiousfoxbooks.bsky.social: hear @brookfiles.bsky.social talking about his new Magnus Hirschfeld bio, The Einstein of Sex, and me re my translation of Hirschfeld’s Berlin’s Third Sex, moderated by @ajbwells.bsky.social www.curiousfoxbooks.com/events

Berliners! Next Wednesday (15/10) at @curiousfoxbooks.bsky.social: hear @brookfiles.bsky.social talking about his new Magnus Hirschfeld bio, The Einstein of Sex, and me re my translation of Hirschfeld’s Berlin’s Third Sex, moderated by @ajbwells.bsky.social www.curiousfoxbooks.com/events

Monte Verità, looking down on Ascona and Lago Maggiore.

You know the feeling: you’re on a train deep in the Gotthard Tunnel but you MUST have risotto rice. Swiss railways got ya covered.

It was closing time at Staatsgalerie Stuttgart but this caught my eye on the way to the exit. “Magic Scene” 1740/1 by Andrea Locatelli – a macabre, occult scenario that really rewards close examination (death has not halted the hanged man’s indignities...). Fantastic custom frame, too.

@brynstole.bsky.social‬ in The Berliner on August Endell’s The Beauty of the Metropolis (trans. me, pub. ‪@uoftpress.bsky.social‬): “a meditation on aesthetics, shot through with musings and engaged in turn-of-the-century debates” www.the-berliner.com/books/the-be...

Me: I’ve got a package coming today. Husband (hopefully): Is it negative books?

@johncoulthart.com, I saw one of these in the wild* and thought of you. * the Stefan George Museum in Bingen, which was actually pretty wild. Lots of Melchior Lechter designs.

I may have found the most bizarre structure in Germany! Even the journey there is weird. Starting out from Mannheim, the grid city that has blocks with Battleship coordinates rather than street names, you catch a tram which crosses the Rhine to Ludwigshafen …

Toys at the Bauhaus Museum, Weimar, including spinning tops designed by Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack, one of the original Bauhaus Weimar cohort who later emigrated to Australia and became an art teacher, where his pupils included my Dad.

*Jan Brady voice* Nietzsche, Nietzsche, Nietzsche!

Erfurt is for lovers

Receiving fresh copies of a book you’ve worked on – it never gets tired. Berlin‘s Third Sex by Magnus Hirschfeld, published by @uoftpress.bsky.social

Berlin, Saturday. Outside: meh. Inside: unfiltered sunshine from the other end of the world as Australian & New Zealand writing folk freely share their work and their thoughts in an all-day symposium. Looking forward to it!

This legend's book launch is at Lettrétage tonight >> www.the-berliner.com/books/gabrie...

Edwardian eccentric, defrocked priest and fantasy league pope Baron Corvo was getting up to this kind of nonsense 120 years ago strangeflowers.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/p...

TIL there is an online map of *every single tree in Berlin*! I see this tree on my dog walks and I always loved it but I had no idea what it was. Turns out it is a Dreidorniger Lederhülsenbaum, or honey locust (how is that not a shoegaze band?). experience.arcgis.com/experience/7...

Next week! A whole day dedicated to Aus/NZ literature in Berlin. I'm looking forward to some great panel discussions with others who have wandered far from home. stadtsprachen.de/de/event/par...

It was on this day that Magnus Hirschfeld was born (1868) and died (1935), so it’s a good time to tell you my translation of his utterly groundbreaking 1904 study of sexuality and gender, “Berlin’s Third Sex”, has just been reissued by @uoftpress.bsky.social. This is also good timing because … 🧵

LAUNCH DAY! THE INTERMEDIARIES weaves together 3 stories: A history of science and the discovery of hormones, a #history of political machinations + how Nazi weaponized hate and fear, and best of all, a history of #trans woman Dora Richter and others like her who lived lives of joy and resistance.

Artist Ilna Ewers-Wunderwald was born 150 years ago today. She provided illustrations for a number of husband Hanns Heinz Ewers's books; the scandalous pair were the ultimate bohemian duo of Wilhelmine Germany. In 2021 I was lucky enough to translate a bio of Ilna E-W www.zagava.de/shop/the-art...

Portrait of a Lady with Cigarette - Oskar Zwintscher, 1902

Looking forward to being Antipodean in fascinating company

From the exhibition Para-Moderne: Lebensreformen um 1900, Bonn: gustaf nagel roamed early 20th-century Germany (and as far as Jerusalem) in a kind of Jesus LARP, barefoot even in the snow, and sold postcards of himself in messianic poses. Mad – possibly. Eccentric – definitely. But ...

Goshka Macuga: Madame Blavatsky, 2007. From the exhibition "Para-Moderne", Bonn

Memorial for St. Edith Stein, Cologne. Bizarrely I was at the Vatican ceremony when she was canonised, on my first trip to Rome in 1998. It was controversial at the time because it was seen as the Catholic Church co-opting the Holocaust.

Easter Saturday in Köln

Flashback to an Easter trip to Turin, featuring Nietzsche, Christ, Lucifer, a pharaonic bachelor pad, a Polaroid amazon army and the Countess de Castiglione, with a seasonally appropriate leitmotif of resurrection. strangeflowers.wordpress.com/2016/04/02/p...

“Do not invent miracles or a second world above the clouds, for here in your world you have the kingdom of Heaven.” - Architect and theorist August Endell, who died in Berlin 100 years ago today.

For the 1972 film “The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant”, director Rainer Werner Fassbinder hoped to cast UFA screen star Sybille Schmitz as Petra’s mother. There was one small problem …

Book covers by Daniela Comani currently showing in an exhibition of Der Blaue Reiter at the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin

Tonight: the great Angela Winkler embodying the great Else Lasker-Schüler in a concert interpretation of ELS‘s correspondence with Gottfried Benn

For years it has baffled me that there is no English-language biography of Annemarie Schwarzenbach, Switzerland’s very own androgynous, gay, anti-fascist writer and adventurer, who set out from Geneva for a drive and ended up in Kabul as WW2 broke out … so I‘m v excited to read Padraig Rooney‘s book

Going shopping, you guys want anything?

Peak Bavaria

Strong showing against the far right in Munich today

The great German-Jewish writer and artist Else Lasker-Schüler died in Jerusalem 80 years ago today, having spent much of her adult life in Berlin. If the name means nothing to you, let me getcha all caught up. vimeo.com/690183355

I can guarantee you are NOT ready for what is going on behind this bland façade in Schöneberg, Berlin, but take a look anyway. The enormous top-floor apartment is on sale for 2.3 million yo-yos, and it is described by the realtor as a "one-off". Uh-huh.

Solidarity with the dog owners tonight. This is how wasted we have to get just to make it through the night.

Berlin is unrelievedly grey. I have forgotten what colour looks like so I went in search of my favourite blue sky images from throughout the year, mostly from various research trips in Germany.

The husband bought me slippers and while they’re very comfortable, from the knees down I‘m basically a Dr. Seuss character.