Open-Air Gallery
South Asian-focused photo exhibit. South Asian migrant workers. Via Padova, Milan. February 2010.
Click for larger photo.
Archived entries for
Worst Case Scenario
It had to be said. Published Wednesday, in The Guardian. My first collaboration with my friend and colleague, Keith Kahn-Harris. Here’s to many more.
Sound Recording
The third stop on my US book tour was in San Francisco. A podcast of my reading was just posted to the City Lights website.
Talking Turkey
Compare the messaging. The first image, on the left, is a campaign flyer for Italy’s anti-immigrant Lega Nord party, photographed in March, outside our apartment in Milan. Notice the Turkish national flag depicted subsuming the northern Italian province of Lombardy.
The image on the right is a government-commissioned poster offering support to Turkish immigrants, displayed at a train station in Berlin. Given how accustomed we’d become to seeing Lega posters the past year, the German advert’s vibe took us totally by surprise.
Short on Cash
“She wasn’t very nice,” my father said. “We were fundraising for the Haganah in New York, not long after the war, and met with her, along with Herbert Marcuse and Max Horkheimer. ” Stunned, I asked, “Did you have any idea who you were talking to at the time?” Elie shrugged his shoulders, as though it wasn’t really important back then. “Marcuse, he was more of a gentleman. Arendt was a typical Berlinischer Jugend.”
I’ve been meaning to revisit this conversation with my dad for a while. I’ve been thinking a lot about this specific generation of German Jewish intellectuals since we arrived. Having written three theses on them (well, two, plus one incomplete dissertation), I’m having a lot of flashbacks, and have been repeatedly asking myself why their work meant to much to me when I was younger. I can’t say I feel any less fond of it now.
Minimal House
We finally redesigned joelschalit.com. We’re still in the middle of fixing things, but this is what it’s going to look like, with the addition of new images at the top of the landing page. Still, the emphasis is upon spare. Check back later this week, as things fill out. There’ll be major content updates across the board.
Gamers Against Prejudice
Even though the English could use some work, the irony is as welcome as the tolerance. April 10th, Berlin.
Hipster Multiculturalism
What they’re reading. Neighborhood radical chic retailer (out of view: designer skate decks, commissioned Melvins flyers), Friedrichshain.
The Zeek landing page image, Wednesday, April 7th.
Immigrant Songs
The high point of our year in Milan was discovering its longstanding hip-hop scene. Not just any artists, but the brilliantly-named MCs Marracash and Karkadan. Routinely employing cheeky oriental signifiers, both musicians attack typically racist fantasies of predatory Arab outsiders.
Charlie Bertsch wrote an in-depth piece on Karkadan in Zeek on Tuesday, reflecting on the singer’s significance as a multilingual Tunisian immigrant, playing the role of the ‘Post-European.’ Check out the videos. They do a great job of embellishing the complexity of the MC’s music.
Irrespective of how many times I’ve commissioned articles on Arab musicians, in context, it still feels precedent-setting to run these pieces. Part of that has to do with the poor state of music criticism, in general, in Jewish publications. And part of it has to do with identity politics.
The ideological link, for me, is the original experience of otherness that Jews once had in Europe. The situation of Arab Europeans is unbelievably close. Because of the ongoing conflict with the Palestinians, it’s something we tend to forget, precisely when it needs remembering.
Fragments of The Clash, Part II
If you look closely, the Hasid is wearing creepers. 5 Euros, Boxhagener Platz market, Berlin.
Note the Guns of Brixton quote, lower left hand corner. Squat wall, Friedrichshain, Berlin.
Click here for part one.