hem|mungen

Cripes.

Finally, a redesign, but sheesh! it's not finished yet. It always takes me a long time to figure out where things are and make sure everything matches. But I couldn't stand fiddling with the main page anymore... Tiny improvements will be ongoing.

>>Ok, most things are fixed. With a lot of help from Andrew, who helped me wrassle with IE until everything lined up properly. Thanks!

>>>And now that I've been able to look at the page in Windows I guess I'm really all done with it. All I can say is that IE is a big pain (it refuses to interpret the size of the banner properly). No surprise. Oh, and the fonts look a lot nicer on a Mac, also no surprise.

Cicada on the move

Another tidbit while I try to get back in the swing of writing actual posts: for those who will be missing the cicada swarms this month, a little time lapse video of a molting cicada at the Baltimore Sun. Neat. Actually, I just found a discarded case on our kitchen screen here in Austin, but then it seems like there are always a few (maybe it was a locust) around here in the summer.

>>Oops: on closer inspection, that "case" just moved and is, in fact, a so-called wood roach (or tree roach, or water bug, or Ick!), the gigundo cockroaches common to this area. Oh well.

>>>Nyeeaaah. I went around and looked at him from the front, finally, having forgotten about him for a while, and it's not a roach, but an Eyed Click Beetle. What a freaky lil dude. Haven't ever seen one of these, but luckily the fabulous index of Texas insects at A&M; is here to help identify such critters.

Nem beszélek magyarul.

So, no, I don't speak Hungarian, but it's not absolutely necessary to enjoy reklamok's (great name) collection of communist-era tv ads. 101 of them! Wow.

[via Things.]

Whew.

...grading finished, grades turned in. Checked in at various campus offices re: the end of my contract. All that remains is to turn in my keys to the physical plant, and my time as an adjunct is over. At the moment I'm so tired I can barely think, but I'm sure by tomorrow the remorse will set in. This class had such a good vibe, and nearly every meeting yielded good discussions. I'll miss it, no doubt, but the prospect of writing full time (what does that mean? 40 hours a week?) is really appealing at this point. I'm a bit sad to consider that this was my last teaching stint for at least a year (if things go well, only a year; I suppose it's pragmatic to assume it might be longer).

Teufelsdreck / Devil's Dung

Via Language Hat:
Gernot Katzer's fabulous and exhaustive dictionary of spices and their names, origins, and uses.
I immediately had a look at the entry for asofetida, a spice I'm loving after fearing it for years. Needlessly so, since the powder is safe for even more pedestrian cooks. I doubt I'll ever graduate to using the resin itself.
I was interested to find that asofetida shares--um--medicinal properties with epazote, another spice I'm just learning to use and which is taking over my flower bed.
Oh: had to add that the origin of 'epazote' is epatl (skunk) + tzotl (sweat, dirt). Devil's Dung and Skunk's Sweat! Necessities for any kitchen.

1. Mai in Berlin--mal anders.

Während in anderen Stadtteilen Berlins, die Völker aufeinander schlagen, habe ich mich heute in das wirkliche, echte Grauen begeben. Nicht so läppisches Steine rumwerfen, Autos abfackeln und unschöne Dinge über die Ordnungshüter rufen. Das kann ja jeder.

At irgendwas ist ja immer, a wonderful (!) photoessay on the Müllerstrassenfest in Wedding. In truth it's a bit mean to joke about Wedding's, um, style, but seriously: this gives you a really good sense of the place.

[Actually, this is just plain Strassenfest atmosphere, could be anywhere. Ok, maybe not Mitte, but lots of other places.]

Rem K. on East German Architecture and History

At der Spiegel, an interview with Rem Koolhas on the topic of the disappearance of East Germany's buildings. It's (obviously) in German, but here are a few excerpts:

RK: ... when Germany was unified, in my opinion the tremendous potential of showing respect for the different cultural and social projects on both sides was thrown away. I am still very upset by the way that East German buildings are aggressively erased [his word is "extinguished"-h], especially when this happens in the name of History. It's absurd to eliminate the historical in the name of History.

Spiegel: How, in your opinion, did it come to this?

RK: It was due less to ignorance than to intolerance. There was a predominantly dogmatic way of looking at the city of Berlin, one which sought to rid the city of the remainders of the ideology that had been fought against in the Cold War. The dismantling of the Palace of the Republic was also an act of revenge for the dismantling of the (City) Palace by the Communists. For me, not saving the Palace of the Republic was a similar crime.
...

Spiegel: [what about the idea to rebuild the Hohenzollern's City Palace?]

RK: This is a sad idea at its core, but it has a lot of supporters. In Germany, the weight of history makes it difficult to make rational decisions. And naturally, the idea of reconstructing the City Palace is also an attempt to erase a historical epoch--and simultaneously to show the people in eastern Germany: your life was for nothing.

[via Ostblog.]

IA profiled in the Chronicle

Everyone's already linked to this, but in case you missed it: here is a story on Invisible Adjunct at the Chronicle for Higher Ed. Sigh.

[via CT, Ionarts, etc.]