For nearly a decade, Courtney Utt has designed my book and CD jackets, and has worked for me as a freelancer everywhere from Asphodel to Tikkun. When I was helping launch PM Press, I brought Court aboard to help design their initial titles, as well as assist with branding.

One of the most memorable jacket designs Courtney supervised was for Staughnton Lynd and Andrej Grubacic‘s wildly popular Wobblies and Zapatistas. Imagine our surprise when, showing Court around Berlin, we found these flyers, using the book’s cover, advertising a Die Linke event.

It’s a real tribute to Courtney’s art direction that, half a world away, the San Francisco-based designer would discover an event hosted by Germany’s most significant progressive political party, relying upon her work. Here’s to seeing more appropriations like this in the future.

For French speakers, it’s a common English phrase. For everyone else, anti-Sarkozy graffiti. Théâtre National, Strasbourg, September 5th.

A case study of the ties binding Europe’s most iconographic racisms. On Bundesbank executive Thilo Sarrazin, for France 24.

If Germany has a city of equal significance to Detroit, it’s Stuttgart. The birthplace of the country’s auto industry, it also hosts one of Germany’s biggest migrant communities, with one estimate rising as high as 39 percent of the overall population. The local Turkish community is particularly visible.

Also home to Jennifer’s firm, we’ve set up shop in a tiny studio apartment near her office until our new place is finished being refurbished.  In the western part of Stuttgart, we’ve been surprised by incredible Sri Lankan and southern European food, as it surpasses most of what we’ve eaten in Berlin.

Jennifer and Joel. Los Angeles, November 2007.

Twenty-three months ago, Jennifer and I left San Francisco for London. Though we miss the Bay Area, and have weathered many difficulties since, we’ve never been more convinced that the decision we made to leave America was the right one.

In The Egyptian Plumber and My ‘Eurabia’ Problem, I discuss how the move has impacted me politically. What I’ve learned, where I’ve learned it,  in Milano, as well as in Berlin. Check it all out, in this week’s edition of The Jewish Daily Forward.

Vintage magazine. Clignancourt flea market, Paris, June.

I’ve always enjoyed collaborative writing. Since April, I’ve written three essays about Israeli politics with my friend Keith Kahn-Harris. Our newest article, In Search of an Israeli Left, was just published by open Democracy.

There wasn’t a day that he wasn’t there. If he wasn’t standing at the bottom of the stairs, leading down from our side of Piazzale Loreto, he’d be in the middle of the tunnel, connecting one side of the square to the other. Whether it was hot or it was cold, the same sock hat was always affixed to his head. Upon reflection, I can’t remember when he wasn’t wearing a down jacket, either.

I always assumed that the guy was deaf. I don’t know what lead me to conclude that. Blindness is not the same thing. Nonetheless, I’ve always unconsciously equated the two. Carrying my recording equipment through our underground station, taking pictures of the adverts, recording the sounds of the Milanese, I always found myself turning off the mic when I passed him by.

I wasn’t so disciplined with my camera. After six months, I finally gave in and took this picture last winter. Editing audio recordings I made in the Loreto tube station, I was reminded of this photograph. Somehow, I imagined, he saw me.

More than just cargo. Turkish freight forwarder, Neukölln, early June.

Always tell them to get off at Marx. Our new apartment is a block away.