Homo Viator

Check out the finalists of the Flashforward 2007 festival, a film festival dedicated to flash based movies, games and programs. I have not seen all finalists, but very much liked the winner in the category Experience. There are lots of other cool, artistic vids as well.

I must have had a cheeky grin on my face when I first read the title of an interview that La Nacion did with Argentina's newly elected president, Cristina Kirchner. When asked which country she would like Argentina to follow, she said: "I would like a country like Germany". The Spanish newspaper smartly made this the title of their report on Mrs. Kirchner. That is indeed a rather surprising statement. It is interesting to notice however how the human mind, occupied with stereotypes and classifications, processes such a statement. Having lived in Argentina, my first reaction was: Please don't. That is because I first thought about how her wish would translate to the admirable Argentinian way of life. Reading on i realized that Mrs. Kirchner was referring to Germany's export dominance. Germany is still the biggest exporter in the world. Even in nominal terms it exports more than China, although this may change soon. It is still surprising though that Mrs. Kirchner chose Germany as a model of comparison. She could have also mentioned Mexico for example, a successful exporter with similar cultural characteristics.

But a stereotypical cultural trait of the Argentinians is that they see more cultural similarities with Europeans than with fellow Latinos. To me Argentinians often seem embarrassed of their indigenous heritage, one that I cherish so much (I am aprox. 6% Mexican). When I traveled to Bolivia from Argentina, my Argentinian friends could not believe how I could want to leave their beloved, sophisticated country to travel to medieval and indigenous Bolivia. Martin Varsavsky, in his frequent posts on the Argentinian pride is right to remind Argentinians that Argentina is the only country in the world that went from first world to third world.

....if you have the talent. Check this home made sound out, where Reggie Watts does every sound himself. The little studio you see at the beginning of the vid, is the kind of thing I am planning on having in my new apartment. So whenever you want to record something to put up on the web, you are more than welcome to do that from my home, and get a Rooibos tea at the same time.


It's Over by Reggie Watts from Jakob Lodwick on Vimeo.

Those of you who know me better know how much money I have pumped into i-Tunes and have often asked me why I pay for songs, when I could download them for free. Of course I have not paid for all my 30.000 songs and have also downloaded songs from file sharing sites, but I prefer i-Tunes for several reasons.

First of all: I love the product. i-Tunes is wicked and their beta recommendation system on the spot. Based on your past purchases, they recommend you songs or artists that, according to their data profiling, would suit your taste. The more you buy, the better their profiling gets. Like this, I have stumbled upon many great artists, who I would have maybe never discovered otherwise.
Secondly, I like to buy complete albums and also like to see the artist's cover choice, even if it is just in digital form. I also love i-Tunes Essentials. The Bob Dylan Essentials that I bought for 200EUR includes all his 783 recorded songs and was probably the best thing I have ever bought in my life. It gives me instant gratification and pleasure, at least five times a week when I return to good old Bobby D for some musical stimulus.

Thirdly, I own Apple stocks and you gotta support what you invest in. The money that Apple has made me justifies me buying many more i-Tunes essentials.

Fourthly: I do want to support young and struggling artists. When I wanted the Paolo Nutini CD for example, I really asked myself what consequences it would have if most people just stole his music. This 19 year old songwriter deserves complete success, so that in the future record labels will hopefully sign up more acoustic songwriters and not just overlaid, non-writing starlits.

Lastly, I wonder whether I should include the fear of legal prosecution as one of the reasons that motivates me to buy my music on i-Tunes. Believe it or not, but my friend Luca got busted for downloading music. Even though he never re-distributed the music, he got fined a couple of thousand Euros. The illegal thing about mp3 downloading is not the downloading itself. The illegal thing is that sites such as Limewire put your downloaded songs in shared folders, where you share them with other Limewire users, who then effectively download those songs from you. The uploading and sharing of songs is the illegal part. You can of course disable that function, but most people don't.

There is a new, rather secretive site that gets rid of the uploading/sharing part. Here you just type in the song or artist that you are interested in and it refers you to websites where you can just download the songs, without having to use any file sharing service. You simply right click on the song and save it under whatever folder you want. It is legal for you, free and very fast.

Apple and New York just fit. Nowhere is Apple as established as in the Big Apple itself. People were cuing for the new Operating System Leopard.

Bare with me. It should hopefully be done by this weekend. Will put some vids from my trip to Italy as well. For now, why don't you have a read on Microsoft buying stakes in Facebook. Will post some more entertaining stuff in the afternoon. By the way: Apple has finally launched its new Operating System, Leopard. And the stock hit 182.72USD. The last time I wrote about the stock it was at 153USD, which was around 4 weeks ago. Wicked!

As you may know from previous posts, Werner Herzog is one of my favorite directors of all time. I can only recommend you to go and rent all of his movies, starting with Aguirre, Fitzgeraldo and Even Dwarfs started Small. But also check out his short films and incredible documentaries.

Trailer of his documentary on The Grizzly Man



Werner Herzog eating his Shoe

Sorry for the lack of words during the last two days. I spontaneously decided to travel to Italy. On Saturday I went to visit my friend Albi in Padova and on Sunday we went to Treviso, for the Ombra Longa whine festival. (Ombra Longa means "Long Shadow", which is what Venetians refer to when they talk about a full glass of whine.) And what a party that is. Everyone attending gets a whine glass that he ties around his neck and a map of the old part of this roman city. With the glass and the map you venture off through tight cobblestone streets, searching for the next small bar where you fill your glass and eat some venetian delicatessen. People get piss drunk, similar to the Oktoberfest, and there is lots of singing and dancing as well.
On Monday we went to Venice, for the Biennale, not knowing that most Pavilions close on Monday. Thank god you do not need to look far in order to find art and history in Venice. Venice just never fails to impress me and I love the dark, misty atmosphere you get at this time of the year. I am now in Milan, but shall go back to Monaco di Baviera tomorrow.

I think by now we have all done base jumping, haven't we? I mean that is a kind of been-there-done-that boring activity. The new thrill is gliding. Believe your eyes, this is real:

My ex girlfriend Mariquel has built a beautiful house in Punta del Este, which she rents out to anyone interested in spending some days at Latin America's most luxurious beach town. Check out the website here. She is also currently building a hotel in Buenos Aires, which you will find here.

I am still contemplating as to where to spend this year's New Year' Eve. I initially wanted to go to Cartagena and it is still my top choice, but nobody seems to want to join. Punta del Este would be a Latin alternative and one could rent Mariquel's house. Or I will visit my friend Ali in Capetown and then rent a car and drive up to Namibia. Let me know if any of you want to join on any of these trips.