1) The Teenager Takes Over From The Adolescent

First we read from scrolls, like the ones found in Khirbet Qumran near the Dead Sea. Then we got the codex: instead of unrolling and scanning, we began thumbing through, flipping, slamming shut. About 1500 years later, Gutenberg (re)invented moveable type. His printing press eventually led to photocopiers, which gets us pretty close to the 1970s and our first home computers. Next we had the Internet. Thanks parchment and paper, thanks Mr. Postman, we’ll take it from here.

And so we’re back to scrolling and scanning. Our words are not printed, they’re displayed. The new scroll is a screen. We can’t turn the page; we can only go to the next or return. We do not read from the beginning; we start in the middle, we mine for information, we search and seek by way of invisible algorithms; we get what we need and we move on: we click through — and in an instant, one scroll is replaced by another.

CBC TV, “Marshall McLuhan On The Global Village” (May, 1960)

“Look, uh, let’s back up just a bit Marshall.” Why the hell did these old TV presenters feel the need to perform their befuddlement, and in such a smarmy, cartoonish way? And what’s that floppy-lipped expression Marshall McLuhan keeps pulling? Is he drunk?

In any case, safe to say computers and the Internet are changing the way we think and read — and yes, authorship and context are getting harder to determine, narrative is being lost. Got that. So is it the end of the codex, the end of the printed book?

No, it’s not, lets’s just say.

E-books? This is what literary man Harold Bloom has to say on that topic: “Imagine that for the last five hundred years we had nothing but e-books, and then there was some great technological advance that brought us the printed and bound book. We would all be ecstatic. We would be celebrating after the long horror of the e-book.”

2) Look I’m On A Teaching Machine!

If an appliance store was the symbol of the age in 1960, today it’s the iPhone. Switch the channel from prophetic Marshall McLuhan to long-haired, sandal-wearing Steve Jobs, major player in our recent leap into the digital age. Here he is in an early TV appearance, as wowed by it all as the next man.

Steve Jobs, “Early Television Appearance” (1978)

3) The Mozarts Of Digital Design

We spend hours a day gazing into “our new gadgets,” glowing in their blue light. Who is responsible for this? A small group of men from a very modern tribe, and this is their story, told by tribal member Robert X. Cringley, back in 1996.

OPB, “Bob Cringley: Triumph of the Nerds” 1/3 (1996)

4) This 50-Pound Machine Will Help Us Do It

When that first Apple II came out (33:22), IBM was busy selling its IBM 5100. For $19,975, you could get it with both BASIC and APL, as well as 64kB of storage.

MrClassicAds1970s, “IBM 5100” (1977)

5) Give The Prize To The Inventor Exploiter

IBM would have to do better. Apple was stealing market share. People wanted personal computers. The suits at IBM sought out a few well-reputed young nerds to help them make a mass-market personal computer (6:50 onwards). They needed an operating system. The best candidate was Gary Kildall, inventor of CP/M. Don’t recognize the name? Heard of Tim Paterson? They are the relative unfortunates in this part of the story. The winners, you know them all too well.

OPB, “Bob Cringley: Triumph of the Nerds” 2/3 (1996)

6) All The Way To The “Much-Hyped Information Highway”

“You want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?” Here comes the part of the story where Steve Jobs discovers the Xerox Alto (7:10), which inspires him to create Macintosh, which leads to more of that changing the world stuff.

OPB, “Bob Cringley: Triumph of the Nerds” 3/3 (1996)

Windows 95, “the biggest, noisiest product launch in the history of the personal computer” (1:48)? Mr. Cringley, you’d better check out Steve Ballmer pulling a Matt Foley at this Microsoft Annual Conference.

Also, what was that? “Apple is now a fading force in the PC marketplace (48:20).” Ha ha! How times have changed since Cringley made his documentary! Once Steve Jobs was restored to Apple as CEO, he got busy developing the iBook, the iMac, and then the iPod, along with close companion, iTunes. Jackpot!

7) Design Is The Fundamental Soul Of A Man-Made Creation

In the mid-nineties, Microsoft was on top of the world, with a clear vision of what portability and cyber networks would mean for the computer industry. “At the centre,” said Bill Gates in 1995, “will be the idea of digital convergence, that is, taking all the information — books, art, movies — and being able to provide them on demand on what the PC will evolve into.” Here is what the PC would evolve into.

Steve Jobs, “iPhone Keynote: Part 1/2” (2007)

Steve Ballmer laughed about the iPhone, and was skeptical about the potential of iPads and other tablets, but turning concept into good design has been Apple’s strength. This is what Steve Jobs said about design: “In most people’s vocabularies, design means veneer. It’s interior decorating. It’s the fabric of the curtains and the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service.”

8) Mac Vs PC

As Apple Inc. returned to profitability with a series of successful computers, PC loyalists liked to imply that Macs were merely entertaining toys, and that real work could only be accomplished on a good old PC (scam=macs backwards). In answer to this charge, Apple aired a series of “Get a Mac” commercials, with John Hodgman as the uptight, bumbling PC and Justin Long as cool, reliable Mac (Give a listen to John Hodgman in Act One of “This American Life: 329” — 8:08 — discussing his sudden PC Guy fame, it’s hilarious).

In reality, both systems have their shortcomings, as this YouTuber makes abundantly clear with his clever “Get a Mac” parody (though it must be said, his conclusion is lacking in nuance).

JeremyMess, “Computers Suck” (2007)

9) No Longer The Youngest Guys In The Room

That passionate brand rivalry has been fuelled by the big boys themselves. Both of them made snarky remarks over the years — Steve Jobs especially (as we saw in Cringley’s documentary — Part 3: 39:58, ouch!) — despite the interdependence of their two companies. Here’s the real Mac Guy and the real PC Guy, sitting side by side and being friendly with each other. As Steve Jobs points out, “PC Guy’s what makes it all work.”

“Steve Jobs & Bill Gates Together: Part 3″ (2007)

Call them egomaniacal blowhards, ruthless capitalists, lucky bastards, or prophetic geniuses, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are the two guys who did most to make us into people who are — as Marshall McLuhan quaintly put it — “with it.”

10) Your Gut, Destiny, Karma, Life, Whatever

Steve Jobs passed away in 2011 after battling cancer for eight years. The video tribute that would have most pleased him, the one most fitting to his character and style — it uses the soundtrack of an old “Think Different” Mac commercial — is this one, made by Ken Segall, presumably with the help of iMovie.

Ken Segall, “Steve Jobs Tribute” (October, 2011)

Steve Jobs, you put a ding in the universe. RIP.

1) The New Year, Because We Expect So Much Of You!

Whatever we write or speak or are but seen
We are ever unapparent. What we are
Cannot be transfused into word or book.
Our soul from us is infinitely far.
However much we give our thoughts the will
To make our soul with arts of self-show stored,
Our hearts are incommunicable still.
In what we show ourselves we are ignored.
The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged
By any skill of thought or trick for seeing.
Unto our very selves we are abridged
When we would utter to our thought our being.
We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams,
And each to each other dreams of others’ dreams.

— Fernando Pessoa, “Sonnet 1″ from “English Poems” (1918)

2) A Tentative Question In Advance

Nancy Wilson, “New Year’s Eve?” (Z Deschanel, JG-Levitt, 2011) — thx S MacLachlan

3) Dressed Jazz Casual, Countdown To Midnight

The Dave Brubeck Quartet, “Take Five” (1961)

4) Dreams Of Ourselves Dancing

WHZGUD2, “DREAMER|DUBSTEP” (Dec 2011)

5) Singing Auld Lang Syne, Think Ragtime

TheWhiteHat, “Auld Lang Syne: Ragtime Fingerstyle Guitar” (Dec 2011)

6) But Before Any Hasty Resolutions…

George Steiner, “Force Yourself Down Those Stairs” (”Beauty & Consolation,” 2008)

Good luck everybody! Lots of love from Ryeberg!

1) No Need To Hang Your Stockings

TheYahsInitiative, “Miracle On 42nd Street” (December 2011)

Oh yeah! That’s Alex Karigan and Zac Hammer — members of the Amy Marshall Dance Company — giving the gift of dance, with a whole lot more exuberance and joy than we could possibly ask for.

2) Give The Unexpected This Christmas

Woody Allen, from “Take The Money And Run” (1969)

3) Warm Brand New Fleece, World Peace

There’s a lot of hype about Santa Claus this time of year, but as liberal as he is with the gifts, he can be a rude, unappreciative guest, even when visiting his biggest fans.

Amy & Amy Show, “Christmas Cheer with Amy and Amy” (December, 2011)

4) That Anger Not Tear Us Apart

Christmas and Chanukkah overlap this year. During a holiday concert back in 1988, Peter, Paul & Mary performed their wonderful song about the significance of lighting candles. Don’t let the light go out, let it shine through our love and our tears…

Peter, Paul, & Mary, “Light One Candle” (Holiday Concert, 1988)

5) Light Your White Candles

Rudolf Ryberg’s countrymen light a lot of candles around this time of the year. In fact, Swedes are well into the holiday spirit by December 13th — St. Lucia’s Day — when children dress up as angels and star boys and sing carols, most notably a beautiful old Neapolitan song. Of course, the Swedish lyrics are not about the beauty around Naples; they talk about candles in the house, about light taking the place of darkness, and about Saint Lucia, saint of light, clad in white (Saint Lucy, remember, is the pious young Sicilian who the Romans — under Emperor Diocletian — were unable to kill by burning, and so had to resort to the sword).

Lucia Tradition, “Sankta Lucia Sweden”

If you’re the lucky girl, you play Lucia and and wear the big crown made from Lingonberry branches and rounded with white candles. Then everyone drinks coffee and eats Pepparkakor (gingerbread cookies) and Lussekatter (saffron-flavored buns with raisins), provided there is butter available. Eventually the teenagers spill into the darkness in their virginal costumes to get drunk and find other, more potent pleasures.

Here’s a poem — a jul budskap — written by that brilliant Swedish writer, Stig Dagerman, in 1950. If there is freedom, it is in our brothers’ eyes.

Don’t believe in stars. Stars are distant things,
that don’t dispel the darkness over any Bethlehem.
They were not lit for us. They burn for themselves.
For people, eyes shine bright. Let us follow them.

Don’t believe in angels. They are merely prisoners,
dragging their wings as shackles of lead.
If there is freedom, it is in our brothers’ eyes.
If freedom sings, the song will be heard in our blood.

Ryeberg wishes you much happiness in the final moments of 2011. Get yourself a big hug!

1) Why Is This What Democracy Looks Like?

n9productions, “Occupy Wall Street” (October 5, 2011)

Why are those people meditating together? What are they thinking about? Why does the grey-haired man in the pink collar shirt seem so sure of what he’s saying? Why does the grey-haired man in the blue collar shirt call that person a monkey? Why does the guy with the pencil behind his ear seem so sure of what he’s saying? Why doesnt he seem to be satisfied with the status quo, like those guys in the collar shirts? Why are thousands of people parading through the street chanting: We are the 99%? What does that mean? Why are so many of them carrying cameras? Why aren’t they smashing the window fronts at Starbucks? Why is the Hollywood star justifying his presence in the street? What does he mean by a place of love? Why is that crowd of people repeating everything that bald guy says? Why did the bald guy choose to get those tattoos on his arms? What’s he got in that tall coffee cup? Why are those people in the crowd shaking their hands in the air, looking like they’re doing a Kecak Monkey Chant?

2) Why Do So Many Have So Much To Say?

thedailycal, “Occupy Berkeley Movement” (October 13, 2011)

Why did the Occupy Wall Street protests of New York spread to California? Why did Occupy protests spread to Denver, Seattle, Vancouver, Toronto, London, Frankfurt, Madrid, Rome, Sydney, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and hundreds of other cities? Why did Abraham Lincoln say that “to sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men?” Why do YouTube films about the Occupy Movement almost always make such heavy use of foreground-background focus effects?

3) Why Zombie News Rooms?

CBC, “Chris Hedges Interviewed by Amanda Lang & Kevin O’Leary” (Oct 6, 2011)

Why does Obama feel able to identify the grievances of the Occupiers? Why are those “folks” he mentions resisting efforts to regulate abusive trading and banking practices? Why does Obama make it seem that he’s helpless to influence them? Why does Kevin O’Leary feel no need to disguise his true feelings about the Occupy Movement on national television? Why is he so camp? Why does the Canadian Broadcasting Company think it’s a good idea for Kevin O’Leary to conduct interviews about a movement he so virulently rejects? Why is he so hostile to the Occupy Movement? What is a left-wing nut bar? How does Chris Hedges maintain his composure? Why has he embraced the Occupy Movement? Why does he paint such an apocalyptic portrait of the future?

4) Why So Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?

nationalBAMN, “UniCal Berkeley Protests” (November 10, 2011)

Why have those policemen surrounded the students and teachers? Why do those policemen violently pull that teacher wearing the colourful scarf by her hair when she’s already offered up her wrist? What are detainees being charged with? Where are the police taking them? Why are the protestors chanting Stop being students? Why was the order to disperse the students and teachers given? Who gave the order? Why did the police obey the order? Why didn’t the students and teachers unlink their arms and go home? Why are scenes of police violence so absorbing, so stimulating, so distracting?

5) Why Articulate Our Non-Freedom?

sbgskf, “Slavoj Žižek@OWS--Human Mic Removed” (October 16, 2011)

Why did Slovenian Philosopher, Slavoj Žižek, travel to New York to speak to this crowd of people? What does he want from them? What do they want from him? Why is the human microphone so much fun for people? Why did the uploader of this video remove most of the human microphone from the video? Why is it easier to remember something once you’ve said it aloud? What is written on Žižek’s t-shirt? Why does he say it’s practically impossible to imagine a capitalist system of production and consumption different from the one that exists? Why does he warn the occupiers not to fall in love with themselves? Why does he paint such a hopeful portrait of the future?

6) Why So Civil? Why So Disobedient?

Reuters, “UC Davis Protest & Aftermath” (Nov 21, 2011)

Why are those policemen pepper spraying a line of motionless students in such a deliberate and nonchalant manner, like they’re watering plants? Why do the students sit there and suffer the boiling pain in their eyes? Why did the university ask policemen to remove the students in the first place? Why does the University Chancellor, Linda Katehi, tearfully apologize to the students? Why do the students feel so passionately angry at her for the actions of police? Why does Sophia Kamran feel at ease with standing on an elevated platform and having her fellow students repeat aloud what she says? Why do those students wait outside for hours in order to watch the university chancellor walk to her car? Why do they sit in silence?

7) Why (Not) Panic?

steve13565, “Newt Gingrich Faces The People’s Mic” (Nov 18, 2011)

Why did this man’s parents call him Newton Leroy? Why did he receive enthusiastic applause for suggesting that Occupiers “go get a job right after you take a bath?” Why do these hecklers choose sarcasm to accuse him? Why do they think the human microphone, used ironically, is their strongest attack? Why does someone say, “Get back to your tent?”

8) Why Respect One Another?

insightoutnews, “Occupy LA Eviction: Protesters Removed From City Hall” (Dec 1, 2011)

Why do so many protestors disregard police warnings? Why do demonstrations often resemble carnivals? Why do newly-formed carnival communities soon manifest the same class hierarchies as any other community? Why is it not surprising to see one of the Occupiers playing with a hula hoop? Why does Shane say he has nothing against authority? Why is he not really the king? Why do some of the Occupiers think prayer is going to influence events? Why does Homeland Security appear on this scene? Why does Sam Rosenfeld, the Densus Group chairman, sound a little like an Australian? Why were Fox, NBC, and ABC affiliates the only TV media allowed to cover the eviction? Why is it necessary to have four large cops standing in front of the entrance of City Hall? Why did Benjamin Constant say that “with newspapers, there is sometimes disorder, but that without them there is always slavery?” Why can’t we get this kind of journalism from the mainstream media?

9) Why Occupy?

nationalinformation, “Occupy Plymouth, Devon, UK” (Dec 1, 2011)

Why does the filmmaker use dramatic video-game music to bookend his video? Why did he make this video? Why do these people from Devon think it worthwhile to protest the system? Why do those people in the street show them so much sympathy?

10) Why Does Righteousness Wither Away?

AlexRoss, “Philip Glass@Satyagraha Protest” (Lincoln Center, 2011)

Why have all those people chosen to occupy the Metropolitan Opera during a performance of Philip Glass‘ “Satyagraha?” Why are police ushering the opera-patrons away from the Occupiers? Why do a few of the opera-patrons choose to walk down the stairs and jump the barricades? Why, after making his bows on stage, does Philip Glass go outside and join the Occupiers too? Why does Philip Glass read these lines from the Baghavad-Gita? “When righteousness withers away and evil rules the land, we come into being, age after age, and take visible shape, and move, a man among men, for the protection of good, thrusting back evil and setting virtue on her seat again.” Why?

1) The Vision That Was Planted In Our Brains

Paul Simon, “The Sound Of Silence” @ 9/11 Memorial Service (Sept 11, 2011)

2) As If Its Vast Tides Were A Conscience

Michael Winter, “Humpback Hits Dory” (August, 2011)

3) Humble, Like The Dust

Jerry Thorpe, “The Tao of Kung Fu #6″ (1972)

4) For Merit Itself Is Offensive

Elvis Presley, “Young And Beautiful” (”Jailhouse Rock,” 1957)

5) If Youth Knew, If Age Could

Louis CK, “20 Year-Olds” (2010)

6) I’ll Miss My Sister, Miss My Father, Miss My Dog, And My Home

Yasujiro Ozu, “Late Spring” (1949)

7) Getting Married Isn’t Happiness?

SCTV, “Scenes From An Idiot’s Marriage” (Series 5 Cycle 5, 1984)

8) These Illusions Are All I Take With Me

Peter And The Wolf, “Dear Old Robyn” (Black Cab Sessions, 2008)

9) My God, What Mystery! What Beauty!

Roberto Rossellini, Ingrid Bergman in “Stromboli” (1950)

10) And Still… Time To Pretend

MGMT, “Time To Pretend” (2008)

1) To The Great Mystification Of Those On Both Sides

britishpathe, “Berlin Wall Erected” (13 August, 1961)

This month gives us 50 years since Communist Party Leader, Walter Ulbricht, gave the order. Berliners were taken by surprise. One Sunday morning in August, in only a matter of hours, almost the entire perimeter of West Berlin — a hundred miles — was sealed off. Why? “To put a stop to the hostile activities of the revanchist and militarist forces of West Germany and West Berlin,” explained the GDR Council of Ministers. Real reason? To put a stop to steady desertion of its citizens; over three million people had already fled to West Germany, unhappy with social and political developments in the GDR.

2) Berlin: Cold War Front Line

The Wall followed the zigzag edges of the city’s Soviet sectors, which included Pankow, Prenzlauer Berg, and Mitte, the historical district. This meant a line right through the center: cross-city avenues and railway tracks now led to dead-end streets. Shops and cinemas in neighborhoods bordering the Wall soon closed up.

raumfahrtenthusiast, “Mauerverlauf (Berliner Zeitreise)” (2009)

With the construction of the Wall, the incompatible claims to the city — by the US and its allies on the one hand and the Soviets on the other — had been resolved. Germany had been divided into two separate states in 1949, and both German regimes named Berlin as their capital city. After a tank standoff at Checkpoint Charlie and a few cautious expressions of indignation, the West accepted the Wall, a little relieved that Berlin would no longer be such an urgent and heated Cold War battlefield.

3) Peoples Of The World, Look Upon This City!

The archive images of the “day that shook the world” remind us just how brutal it was to construct a dividing Wall without warning. Everywhere bewildered Sunday strollers encountered troops and police. Neighbors and families discovered all at once that they had been forcibly separated: “As a border policeman, I saw how a small girl who was visiting her grandmother in East Berlin was held back by the border soldiers and not allowed to cross into West Berlin. Even though her parents were waiting only a few meters from the barbed-wire barriers that had already been laid out, the girl was simply sent back to East Berlin.” This is how 19-year-old Conrad Schumann explained his decision to jump the barbed wire and flee to the West on August 15, 1961. The moment was captured by West German photographer Peter Leibing, and his iconic photo appeared in newspapers the world over. Conrad Schumann was the first of over 2500 border guards to escape to the West between the construction and the fall of the Wall.

Landesarchiv, “Berliner Mauer” (August-September, 1961)

In their haste, East German authorities made use of apartment buildings as part of their “antifascist protective rampart” (it was prohibited to refer to the edifice as “Wall”). Along Bernauer Strasse, lower-floor windows and doors were walled up, while the sidewalks below remained part of the West.

Young Monika Schaar was one of the many people separated from her family. At 2:19-2:42 you see her waving tearfully to her mother, who is not allowed to come down from her apartment even on her daughter’s wedding day. It isn’t long before East German police are ordered to prevent “every form of contact, waving [and] exchange of greetings” across the border.

4) Every State Stands Before Its Servants

East Germans who spoke out against the Wall were arrested and imprisoned. To get to the West, they would now have to risk their lives. As the months passed, border fortifications improved. By the mid-1970s, the “border barrier system” had been more or less perfected, with trip wires, dog runs, anti-tank obstacles, anti-vehicle trenches, spiked gratings, and the brightly illuminated “death strip” — carefully surveyed from watchtowers.

Despite these measures, in the 28 years of the Wall’s existence, over 5000 GDR citizens succeeded in escaping — using forged documents, crawling through tunnels, swimming across canals, hiding in secret compartments in cars and trucks, or even ramming barriers with trucks and bulldozers. One can only imagine the number of failed attempts. We know that at least 136 people died at the border, the majority of them murdered by border guards. The order was “shoot to kill,” at least tacitly, and guards could be punished for missing their targets. How many others were killed? The GDR made an effort to cover up these embarrassing incidents, and it was the Stasi’s job to have bodies “disappear.”

Republikflucht, “Schiessbefehl an der Mauer” (1990)

5) Gawking Eastwards

In 1973, East German psychiatrist Dietfried Müller-Hegemann published “The Berlin Wall Disease,” a book of case studies on patients suffering psychological ailments directly attributable to the presence of the Wall. His patients experienced the Wall as a violent psychic imposition, one whose permanence made their depression and anxieties especially difficult to overcome.

Presumably people on both sides of the Wall would have been susceptible to “wall disease.” West Berlin was an island, after all, enclosed on all sides. However, whereas East Berliners were instructed to live in denial of the Wall, to behave as if it weren’t there, West Berliners were invited to express their scorn for it, and to gaze into the increasingly mysterious world on the other side. In 1986, Gerd Conradt spent 12 hours doing just that. The result was a short film called “Ein-Blick,” meaning “In-Sight.”

Gerd Conradt, “Scenes From Ein-Blick” (1986)

6) Surveying Westwards

As it turns out, East German border guards kept fastidious records of daily incidents along the whole length of the Wall. If a man threw his hat over the Wall from West Berlin, a guard made a note of it in the record books. Guards also made notes about each other — motivated praise or petty denunciation: “Due to his tactically appropriate behavior he was able to arrest a border violator” or “When bored, he used his feet to make shapes in the snow when on duty” or “He concealed his true opinion of East Germany” or “He did not deem it necessary to leave the tower to relieve himself.”

In 1995, author Annett Gröschner and photographer Arwed Messmer came across a cardboard box in the Military Archives in Potsdam. Inside were a few rolled-up 35mm film negatives with photos of almost the entire length of the Wall, taken from the East. Gröschner and Messmer have dug into the archives and created a fascinating exhibition.

A Gröschner & A Messmer, “Berlin Wall: The Other View” (5 Aug-3 Oct, 2011)

7) A Country Bleeding To Death

“The GDR, Germany, is the country where it must be determined that Marxism-Leninism is right, and that communism is the higher, better social order for industrial nations as well… If socialism does not prevail in the GDR, if communism does not show itself to be superior and viable here, then we have not won.” So said Anastas Mikoyan, Soviet First Deputy Premier, in June, 1961. The Wall was the first undeniable sign that the Soviets were losing the battle. Thomas Hoepker’s photos provided a few other clues.

EconomistMagazine, “Thomas Hoepker: Life behind The Berlin Wall” (2009)

8) Ambivalent Realities

While young people in East Berlin enacted bourgeois rituals, young people of isolated, scrappy West Berlin were working hard to throw off the burdens of their fathers, by radical political action or simply by creating wild, underground party scenes. Always though, bordering their dreams and yearnings, the Wall.

Dieter Koster, “Wilde Clique” (1983)

9) Protecting The Painted Line

Even though the Wall was an expression of incompatible differences, it was always and increasingly a symbol of the fundamental bond between all Germans. On the one hand the GDR was seen as a dark, oppressive, authoritarian society, but it was also felt to be a storehouse of traditional German virtues, unspoiled by commercial imperatives and insidious American influences.

Ross McElwee & Marilyn Levine, “Something To Do With The Wall” (1991)

In 1972, the two Germanies signed the “Basic Treaty,” and the GDR was soon after accepted into the United Nations. But détente did not make crossing the border any easier. In fact, the number of Stasi employees doubled in the 1970s; spying and surveillance in East Berlin is said to have foiled over 90% of escapes at the planning stage in the 1980s. More than ever, however, the GDR was ransoming political prisoners to West Germany for ever greater sums. In 1970, in return for 888 prisoners and for 595 “family reunifications,” the West German government paid 50 million DM. In 1975, 100 million DM were handed over; in 1984, 388 million DM. This income held the flailing East German economy together, for a while.

10) Freedom Doesn’t Need Papers

How it happens: Hungary dismantles its part of the “Iron Curtain” in May, 1989. Tens of thousands of East Germans flee to Austria. Mass exodus is accompanied by mass protest — in Leipzig for example. The East German government, uncertain how to deal with the nationwide protests, and on the brink of bankruptcy, is paralyzed. At the beginning of November, 1989, the Western border in Czechoslovakia opens up. In a panic, the Council of Ministers decides to announce the possibility of permanent emigration to the West for applicants in possession of a passport — knowing that only four million citizens have passports. But in a press conference cock-up, politburo spokesman Günter Schabowski gives the impression that the new travel regulation means borders are open for crossing “immediately, without delay.” The headline story in Western media outlets that evening (though not entirely accurate): “GDR opens border.” There is an immediate rush at all the Berlin border crossings.

Border employees have been given no directives and can get no answers from their superiors; senior ministers are still in a Central Committee meeting, completely unaware of what’s happened at the press conference. At Bornholmer Strasse in Prenzlauer Berg, passport controllers — bewildered and intimidated by the crowds — take it upon themselves to open the gates. And so, at this spot, at 11:30pm on 9 November, 1989, the Wall cracks open. Spiegel-TV reporter Georg Mascolo with cameraman Rainer März are there to document this incredible moment in history.

Georg Mascolo, Rainer März, “Die Nacht Des Mauerfalls” (1989)

1) Where My Music’s Playing

Simon & Garfunkel, “Homeward Bound” (Monterey, 1967)

2) Where My Mind Is Peaceful

John McGreevy, “Glenn Gould’s Toronto: Part 1/6 (1979) – thx A.L. Harris

3) Grassward Bound

Tom O’Bedlam reading “A Removal From Terry Street” by Douglas Dunn (1969)

4) Who Wishes He Would’ve Stayed Home

Dirty Projectors, “I Pity The Poor Immigrant” by Dylan (Roosevelt Island, 2006)

5) When His Gladness Comes To Pass

IFC, “House Sitter” (Portlandia, 2011)

6) Like A Living Being

juberli2000, “Demolishing A House” (2007)

7) Keeping And Erasing The Archive Of This Injustice

AP/WPXI, “Man’s House Demolished By Mistake” (Pittsburgh, 2011)

8) A Beggar In His Own Home

Andrey Konchalovskiy, “Odysseus Returns Home” (The Odyssey, 1997)

9) One Home Guards Against The Other

K Dick & A Ziering, “Derrida Visits Nelson Mandela’s Jail Cell” (”Derrida,” 2002)

10) But Now I Must Be With My Mother

Raptor Resource Project, “Eaglet Scrambles Back On His Own” (April, 2011)

1) Theater Artist

Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell, “The Dana Carvey Show” (1996)

That’s Stephen Colbert ten years after he graduated with a degree in Theater Arts from Chicago’s Northwestern University and ten years before Time Magazine included him among the 100 most influential people in the world.

2006 was also the year he killed unforgettably at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, sparing no-one his lashings of ironic praise, George W included: “The greatest thing about this man is he’s steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday. Events can change, this man’s beliefs never will…” Ballsy.

2) A Zoo Parrot In A Mortar Board That Has Been Trained To Say ‘Congratulations’

This month Stephen Colbert — the man, not the character — delivered a very funny, self-mocking commencement speech to the graduating class of his Alma Mater. Under no circumstances wear white jeans, he advised them.

Stephen Colbert, “Commencement Speech at Northwestern University” (June, 2011)

3) We Can Take What Was Wrong And Make It Right

Somehow it’s not all that difficult to picture the Stephen Colbert of 1985/6 — a bearded 22 year-old student wearing black and delivering unsolicited Shakespearean monologues, plugged into his Sony Walkman and earnestly singing along to Mr. Mister’s “Broken Wings.”

Mr. Mister, “Broken Wings” (1985)

4) Which One Would You Rather Take Home?

Even back then he had to decide if he was a PC man or a Mac user, back when Macs cost less and ran more software… No joke, that Apple IIC has 128 KB RAM built-in and a microprocessor running at 1.023 MHz!

“Commercial For Apple IIC” (1984)

5) One Disc, Interesting. Six Discs, Fantastic

The world population in 1986 — two billion fewer than today — was 4.83 billion, give or take a few. That year Cary Grant passed away, along with Simone de Beauvoir and Jorge Luis Borges. Meanwhile, Rafael Nadal and Usain Bolt made their first appearance on earth. Lady Gaga was born that year too, though not her look.

Pioneer, “6-disc CD Player Commercial” (1986)

6) Living In A Material World

Yes, CDs were only just taking the place of cassettes in the mid 80s. In fact, Dire Straits were the first band ever to sell a million CDs with “Brothers in Arms,” in 1985 (goodbye Maxell Tape Guy). Madonna was not far behind, the most material girl in the most material decade.

Madonna, “Material Girl” (1985)

7) We Were The World

The other American music superstars of the 80s, meanwhile, made an appeal for Africa. The song was written by Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson (particularly otherworldly at the time), but the high points of the recording come from Bruce Springsteen, Cyndi Lauper, and most hilariously, Bob Dylan.

USA For Africa, “We Are The World” (1985)

8) The Ones Who Make A Better Place

In Geneva, General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev met up with President Ronald Reagan to get acquainted by the hearth fire. Their first moments together in front of the Maison de Saussure are quite dramatic, Reagan in his impeccable blue suit, Gorbachev immediately self-conscious about his scarf, hat and overcoat, and perhaps even his height: Gorbachev hurries up the stairs as if to restore his advantage, and to avoid the President’s back patting.

footagefarm, “Geneva Summit: Reagan and Gorbachev” (November, 1985)

The two men had good chemistry and the summit led to other summits and significant agreements on cultural exchanges and nuclear weapon reductions. “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” The Cold War would be officially over by December, 1989. Hurrah!

9) Take These Broken Wings

The sticking point through all the Reagan-Gorbachev talks was Reagan’s insistence on continuing to develop his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), meant to protect the United States from attack by nuclear ballistic missiles. Gorbachev didn’t see the point if they were agreeing to build down their nuclear programs. The Soviets began to realize the whole SDI thing would never come to pass anyway, perhaps even more so after the Challenger explosion. During these headiest days of space research, shuttles were turning into test platforms for weapons testing under SDI.

Among the seven crew members on the Challenger was Christa McAuliffe, an American teacher from Concord, New Hampshire, and the winning candidate in NASA’s Teacher-In-Space Project, designed to inspire students and spur interest in mathematics, science, and space exploration. Across America, televisions were wheeled into classrooms so that school kids could watch the launch live on CNN. This is what they saw.

CNN, “Challenger Disaster Live On CNN” (28 January, 1986)

NASA had been warned repeatedly by Richard C. Cook, one of NASA’s lead resource analysts, that the O-ring seals in solid rocket boosters could cause a “catastrophic” failure. His warnings, and those of booster contractor Morton Thiokol, were ignored. Post-accident investigations revealed an autocratic, closed-door management culture at NASA, profoundly influenced by political and corporate imperatives and career ambition, and hostile to perceived “whistleblowers.” In fact, the Challenger disaster is used as a case study for engineering students to demonstrate the dangers of groupthink.

10) A World Of Cowboys And Princesses

In 2003, seven astronauts died aboard the Columbia shuttle when it disintegrated upon re-entry to Earth due to a damaged heat shield. Once again it was apparent safety took a back seat to commercial and political pressures.

Let’s see, what other big industry has a good record of disregarding and even covering up safety concerns for the sake of private profit? The one that was very much in the news in the spring of 1986.

Vladimir Shevchenko, “Chernobyl: A Chronicle of Difficult Weeks” (May, 1986)

And yet, it does feel artificial to fly back after 25 years to tell our former humanity how to navigate the waters ahead. “Break up with her you idiot!” This month Germany announced its decision to phase out nuclear power by 2022. The Fukishima crisis also prompted China to put a freeze on all new nuclear reactors until further safety reviews. And yet… Generation of 2011, be great. Please.

1) Up In The Air

May 2011 closed with news that energy-related carbon emissions reached a record level last year – 30.6 gigatonnes – according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). “The world has edged incredibly close to the level of emissions that should not be reached until 2020 if the 2C target is to be attained,” says the IEA’s Faith Birol.

BostonAirborne, “Elapsed Time: Heavy Traffic” (7 May, 2011)

Did you know that your return seat on one New York-Paris flight produces the same CO2 tonnage as driving your economy car 1250 miles/month for an entire year? Calculate for yourself.

2) Building Pyramids

Transport is not the only source of carbon emissions of course. Staying at home is enough. In fact, the majority of global CO2 comes from our use of lighting and heating, and as it turns out, China has just brought into existence 64 million new apartment flats. That’s a lot of light and heat. Oh but wait, they’re all empty…

SBS Dateline, “China’s Ghost Cities and Malls” (2011)

3) To Fill The Empty Spaces

Tearing down the old houses and temples to erect glistening empty towers… How bleak! Makes you think about that scene in “The Wall” when Pink discovers his wife is cheating on him and suddenly his mind fills with destructive, totalitarian fantasies of covering the earth with concrete and barbed wire… um, doesn’t it?

Alan Parker, Roger Waters, “The Wall” (1982)

4) With Human Shapes

When we replace forests and grassy riverbanks with steel and stone the result is not always so monstrous. Luke Shepard has taken a whole lot of still photos of one of the world’s prettiest urban places.

Luke Shepard, “Le Flâneur (Music: The XX -- Intro)” (2011)

5) Juggling Kinematics

The thirteenth-century stone masons who anonymously contributed their artistry to building Notre Dame Cathedral, what did they imagine their 21st century counterparts would be building?

ServoJuggler, “Servo Driven Mechanical Juggler 5-Ball Mode” (May, 2011)

6) Or 100 Hiroshima Bombs

In other news this month, on the heels of the Fukishima disaster, Germany decided to phase out its 17 nuclear power stations by 2022. France, meanwhile, has decided to expand its 58 nuclear power stations further. As a result, there is a whole lot of new and passionate debate about the use of nuclear power. And for good reason, lest we forget.

PBSNewsHour, “Revisiting Chernobyl: Epic Proportions” (29 March, 2011)

7) The World’s Newest Dead Zone

Japanese journalist, Tetsuo Jimbo, drove into the Fukishima exclusion zone with geigers and dosimeters. No people, no electricity… just a hell of a lot of invisible radiation. Radiation Dose Chart here.

Mercurio40, “Inside The Fukishima Nuclear Reactor Evacuation Zone” (April, 2011)

8) A Monstrous Cover-Up?

Anti-nuclear activist Dr. Helena Caldicott claims Fukishima is much worse than anyone is letting on, worse even than Chernobyl. Could this actually be true? Here’s what she said a few days after the nuclear meltdown in Japan.

Dr. Helena Caldicott, “Fukushima Nuclear Disaster” (18 March, 2011)

9) Shortwinded

Worrying… Sarah Palin, even you look a little worried. Anything to say about all this?

wreckandsalvage, “Palin’s Breath” (2011)

10) When The Levee Is Dry

Earlier this month, 5000 people in Grand Rapids, Michigan got together to make a lipdub video to show — so they claimed — that their city was not “dying,” as suggested in a recent Newsweek article. Certain cities are dying, and perhaps Grand Rapids is one of them, but in the meantime, its citizens are dancing… while good old boys are drinking whiskey and rye.

Rob Bliss, “The Grand Rapids LipDub” (22 May, 2011)

1) Put Words In My Ears

Buffalax is Mike Sutton of Ohio, the Internet’s most famous practitioner of soramimi — the art of purposely hearing a foreign-language song as if it’s being sung in your native tongue. Sutton’s version of the English lyrics appear as subtitles.

Earlier this month Sutton logged in to find a termination notice: “YouTube account buffalax has been terminated because we received multiple third-party notifications of copyright infringement from claimants including: MRC under Exclusive Licence from Adageo BV.” Needless to say, his videos are easily found elsewhere in the labyrinth.

Buffalax, “Benny Lava” (2008)

In 2008, Sutton “buffalaxed” his first song, this clip from the Indian-Tamil movie “Pennin Manathai Thottu.” It’s become so popular among English Internet users that actor Prabhu Devahas often hears “Benny Lava!” when he appears in public.

2) Put Words In My Mouth

The guys at Day Job Orchestra enjoy a different game: they put their own audio track over politicians’ speeches and various scenes from “Star Trek.” They are careful to get the lip synching right, but the original dialogue has been replaced with their own nonsense. Captain Kirk is a brand new man.

dayjoborchestra, “Star Trek “Chin Hitler” (2008)

3) Put Thoughts In My Head

Voiceover can make even the most exotic of our fellow creatures seem closer to home.

BBC Comedy, “Funny Talking Animals — Walk On The Wild Side” (2010)

4) Read My Thoughts

Certain creatures are easier to interpret than others. Let’s agree that the following clip is a perfect feat of empathy.

klaatu42, “Ultimate Dog Tease” — thx S Elliott

5) Dub My Movie

Occasionally the sentimental finale of a Hollywood trilogy needs a good dubbing.

Olof & CJ, “Lord Of The Rings Voiceover” (2006)

6) Exorcise My Scouser

It happens that a Jesuit priest in Georgetown is a Scouser. He’s well hard you know.

ripdemfilms, “Scouse Exorcist” (2009)

7) These Are The Things I Hear

No buffalaxing or dubbing necessary for fans of Pearl Jam, right? Well, even if Eddie Vedder is from Seattle and sings in English, subtitles are still much appreciated.

misheardlyricsguy, “Misheard Lyrics For Yellow Ledbetter by Pearl Jam (2007)

8) These Are The Things I See

When you see a music video, you may feel compelled to change up the lyrics. Makers of “Literal Music Videos” do just that, so that what you do is what you sing about.

Dustin McLean, “Literal Video Of Head Over Heels by Tears For Fears” (2008)

9) Put Words To Music

Literal Music Videos draw our attention to the inanity of pop videos. Here Josh Groban displays the inanity of a certain rapper’s tweets…

JimmyKimmellLive, “Josh Groban Sings Kanye West Tweets” (2011)

10) Yo Yo Put That Music Into Me

When hip-hop is dubbed over with an affecting cello line (The Swan by Camille Saint-Saëns — courtesy of Yo Yo Ma), dance artist Charles Lil’ Buck Riley exhibits a physical lyricism that could never be translated, substituted, or subtitled…

OpeningCeremonyNY, “Lil’ Buck and Yo-Yo Ma” (Spike Jonze, 2011)

1) Temple Bell

sillydolphin, “Bon-Sho at Byodo-In Temple” (2007)

2) Sunrise

JuntosWorldWide, “Sunrise On Mt Fuji Japan: 4:30am” (2009)

3) Cat Temple

Chris Marker, “Sans Soleil” (1983)

4) Cherry Tree.

5) Cats

seiten4go, “Cats on Tashirojima” (2009)

6) Harajuku.

7) Cranes

ammf, “Red-Crowned Cranes Dance” (2009)

8) Monkey

ovenproof321, “Snow Monkey At Jigokudani-Yaenkoen” (2010)

9) Chipmunk

Michael Szymczak, “Chipmunk SloMo” (Phantom HD, 2011) — thx K Kuitenbrouwer

10) Tsunami

RyebergCuratedVideo, “Scenes Of A Tsunami: Japan 11 March, 2011″

1) Talkin’ Bout A Revolution

Hosni Mubarak, third dictator to rule Egypt since the military coup d’état of 1952, was forced to resign on February 11th after 18 days of protest. Here’s how one Egyptian family felt when the news was confirmed.

Mark LeVine, Al Jazeera, “Khaled Said’s Mother Celebrates” (12 Feb, 2010)

That’s the mother of Khaled Mohamed Said, a 28-year-old Egyptian who was dragged from an Alexandrian cybercafe by plainclothes policemen and beaten to death for suspected “theft and weapons possession.” Photos of Said’s battered corpse went online, and protests over his death became part of the action in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.

2) We Still Have A Lot To Do

Human Rights Organizations have long placed Egypt high on the list of repressive regimes and Said’s murder was not an isolated incident. Ask any young protester.

G V Langendonck, “Interview at Tahrir Square” (25 Jan, 2011) — from “Zero Silence“

3) What Seemed Impossible

Mubarak had been given plenty of heads up that times were changing. Even his principal financial sponsors, the Americans, have for quite a while been openly rethinking their policy of supporting dependable Middle Eastern dictators at the expense of democracy. Remember Condoleezza Rice’s 2005 speech at the American University in Cairo?

Condoleezza Rice at The American University in Cairo (20 June, 2005)

Mubarak saw no reason to change his ways and rigged the succeeding elections. But now it looks like Egyptians will finally experience the real thing. Who will emerge victorious? The possibly unduly demonized Muslim Brotherhood? This is clearly what the US fears, among other things. Democracy is well and good, they now want to remind us, until democracy chooses the “wrong” candidate.

4) Not An Apple That Falls When It Is Ripe

Free elections are precisely what the millions of brave Egyptians who took to the streets wanted, along with an end to rampant corruption and police brutality and the repressive Emergency Law. They also wanted higher minimum wages and — put simply — a better way of life. What they’ve got is the end of the Mubarak regime. Getting there required more than two weeks of resilient civil disobedience in the face of intimidation and violence.

YouTuber Ahmed “Moody” Mohamed has compiled — his words — some of “the most dramatic footage from the 18-day revolution.” Evidently the footage was not dramatic enough: Moody has added the obnoxiously insistent, bombastic “Requiem For A Dream” score, a.k.a “Lux Aerterna” (written by Clint Mansell of the band Pop Will Eat Itself). You’ve heard it used in countless YouTube videos, usually compilations like this one, and in trailers for sports events and video games and movies (“Babylon A.D.,” “I Am Legend,” and “Sunshine” to name a few). Please, please, please: spare us this music in the future. Meantime, here is your Egypt Revolution 2011 Trailer.

moodyyoutube, “Egyptian Revolution 2011″ (16 Feb, 2011)

See the protestors draped over a tank (American advanced, of course). The Egyptian military kept a low profile during the protests, even stepping in at times to defend the people from police. But what is the political outlook of its senior echelons? Where are their allegiances? They get most of the annual two billion US dollars of American aid to Egypt, so it’s no surprise they are tight with American joint chiefs of staff. Many contingents of Egyptian troops receive training in the best American military schools. So will this privileged Egyptian military be willing to yield any of its enormous power to the people, to a democratically-elected civilian government it doesn’t like?

5) A Revolution In Order To Establish A Dictatorship

Give us a “real democracy” in Egypt, says Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, “not a democracy for six months or a year and then evolving into essentially a military dictatorship or a so-called democracy that then leads to what we saw in Iran.” What did we see in Iran again?

CBS, “1979 Crisis In Iran” (from “20th Century With Mike Wallace“)

Oh yeah… A US-backed dictator, decades of absolute power, out of touch with his people, unceasing popular demonstrations, ambiguous messages from friends in the White House (as ever), is finally chased into exile. Facile comparisons between the two revolutions are to be avoided, sure, but they look pretty similar on the evening news.

6) Talk To Them, Talk To Them

The fall of the Shah is a complicated story, with its own particular plot twists, as is the fall of Mubarak, and the fall of Ben Ali in Tunisia, and the fall of so many other dictators. And yet these stories are all pretty straightforward as well. When people rise up it’s about longstanding injustice, about repression and corruption, about the misery of the many side by side with the ostentatious luxury of the few.

In his video trailer, Moody makes reference to the popular uprisings of 1989 — the fall of the GDR, the Velvet Revolution of Czechoslovakia, and the one that ended so brutally, the Romanian Revolution. Unlike Mubarak, who’s made it safely to his beach house in an undisclosed location, the Romanian dictator was captured and summarily shot by firing squad along with his wife.

Here are the Ceauşescus on a balcony in Bucharest only three days before their execution. Three-quarters of the country are watching on television as the 100,000-strong government rally turns into a full-scale protest. The cheers in the front rows are drowned out by jeers from the back: “Down with the dictator! Death to the murderer!” Elena directs her husband — “talk to them” — as if it were a matter of reasoning with rambunctious kids. All Nicolae can do is holler into his imaginary telephone.

“Ceauşescu’s Last Address — 1/2” (21 Dec, 1989)

7) Men Make Their Own History

Nicolae’s spontaneous promises are too little too late. The mass of protestors grew into the hundreds of thousands. Amid bloody and chaotic street battles, one crowd managed to storm Ceauşescu’s offices. He and Elena fled by helicopter only to be seized outside the city. Senior army generals and key communist party figures had already turned against them. How chilling it is to see the old couple in their fur-lined coats, for so many years omnipotent, making their final plea: to die together.

BBC, “Socialism in One Family” (from “The Lost World Of Communism,” 2009)

8) No Revolution Without Blood

“To punish the oppressors of humanity is clemency. To forgive them is barbarity,” said Maximilien Robespierre famously. The trial of the Ceauşescus in that windowless room does bring to mind the Revolutionary Tribunal circa 1794: no counsel for prisoners, no hearing of witnesses, death the inescapable penalty. The stuff of terror… absolutely necessary to any social revolution, as certain people will want to convince you.

Slavoj Žižek in “Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution” (2009)

9) The Slime Of A New Bureaucracy

Ok, so perhaps Robespierre was at least an honest man? Not so honest were Ceauşescu’s successors. The National Salvation Front (FSN), composed mostly of communist officials from the former regime, took power four days after the execution. Ion Iliescu, their head honcho, made big promises: there would be multi-party elections and all those responsible for the thousands wounded and murdered during the revolution would be prosecuted. But very few were held to account. In fact, the secret police files of everyone in the new government conveniently disappeared from the records. And in the first elections of 1990, Iliescu’s FSN presented itself as a candidate.

This led to insistent demonstrations, initiated first by students and professors at the University of Bucharest, and growing to include over 50,000 people. Their supporters included Octavian Paler, Eugène Ionescu and other intellectuals. The principal demand — a reasonable one you would think — was that former communist party members be banned from running for office.

Iliescu called the protestors “fascists” and “hooligans” (golani) and sent in a few hooligans of his own. Among them were former officers of the now abolished Securitate as well as hundreds of miners, bussed in from the Jiu Valley, under instructions to help supress the “anti-democracy” demonstrators. What followed put quite a damper on the people’s hard-won Revolution.

International New Clips of Romania’s Golaniad/Mineriad (13-15 June, 1990)

Robespierre was not the last man to believe that an increase in liberty brings an increase in virtue… Revolutionaries find easy consensus around abstract ideas of liberty, and then easy discord the moment practical realities of governance are upon them. But hey, all the relief and euphoria is pretty good while it lasts.

10) Glory To The People, Disgrace To Dictatorship, And Peace Be Upon You!

Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi will likely be the next despot to fall. He vows to “die a martyr.” Born 1942 in a bedouin tent and raised by a small tribe of desert Berbers, he coup d’étated his way into power at the age of 27 and has gradually turned Libya into one of the world’s most censored and brutally repressive regimes. The Libyans who since February 17th have been rising up across the country are facing powerful, well-armed government forces, which apparently include hired foreign mercenaries from Chad, Niger, Liberia, and the Sudan — not anyone’s idea of a dream job. The video that has so far made it out of the country is horrible.

AlJazeeraEnglish, “Libyan Violence Spreads To Tripoli” (20 Feb, 2011)

Are the rebels hoping for outside help, or are they too distrustful of the US and its European allies? The US will be reluctant to intervene, fearing — as Hilary Clinton puts it — “a giant Somalia.” Yeah but Hilary, they’ve got oil reserves, and Muammar’s not even a friend! So how will it all end? With “real democracy” presumably, whatever that is.

Final word to a baker from Cairo, a man deeply moved by his own passion and eloquence. And why not?

Philip Dodd, “Eloquent Baker in Cairo” (BBC Arts & Ideas Podcast, 7 Mar 2011)