Twenty-five years after his cult TV series, Kir Royal, director Helmut Dietl has now come released a sort of ?sequel? for the big screen. Zettl focuses on the high-flying career of a ruthless media man in Berlin. As satire, however, the frigid figures in Zettl fail to warm up to viewers. ...
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Mother Jones pulls the plug on the dirty water so beloved of Greens and high society alike: Fiji. Newspapers might be losing brand value online but journalists only stand to gain, says Le Monde. Not the future but the present is the real inspiration, French sociologist Michel Maffesoli tells Clarin. In Espresso, mafioso Francesco Fonti explains why Aldo Moro's kidnapping made his boss so nervous. In Poets and Writers, literary agent Georges Borschardt points to the one thing that changed the publishing industry most: the short-term contract.
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The New York Times reads Carl Jung's "Red Book" with a shudder. In La vie des Idees, Eric Hobsbawm wonders how to start a revolution. Merkur magazine calls for a return of the hero. Walrus describes a day in the life of Al Jazeera. In Nepszabadsag, the political scientist Csaba Gombar is so over "post"-isms. Polityka celebrates the poet Juliusz Slowacki. Al Ahram compiles a list of failed Arab states.
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In the Atlantic, Robert D. Kaplan explains why he prefers watching Al Jazeera to CNN or BBC. Mark Bowden heralds in the "post-journalistic" age. In Tygodnik Powszechny, stage director Jan Klata explains predatory capitalism using a hundred-year-old book. In Espresso, John Berger gets on his motorbike and rides. In Elet es Irodalom, the historian Miklos Mitrovits wishes the Russians would stop using WWII as an excuse to flex imperialist muscle. In the New York Times, Leon Wieseltier doesn't see why Jews should vote like Episcopalians.
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The New Yorker orders ceiling-high piles of boxes of shoes at Zappos. In Literaturen, Terezia Mora explains why the IT community is not interested in social climbing. In HVG, Agata Gordon explains why she'd rather be called homosocial than homosexual. The Guardian gets between the sheets with JM Coetzee. NZZ Folio sings the praises of the apprentice. The Chronicle of Higher Education is gobsmacked by Google's literary annus mirabilis of 1899.
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Today, on the anniversary of the outbreak of WWII, Russia plans to unveil secret documents detailing Poland's involvement, the Observer reports. In Przekroi, Tomasz Lubienski praises Poland for its great and righteous behaviour in a critical moment. The British online magazine, spiked, is horrified by what passed for quality journalism in the Swedish paper, Aftonbladet. Human rights were shaped in Haiti, Le Monde remembers. Standpoint asks why the world reacted with fury to the oppression of blacks, but reacts with silence to the oppression of women. And Hungarians can be child murderers too, Magyar Narancs concludes.
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Nicholson Baker tests the Kindle for the New Yorker. In Polityka, the physicist Janusz Ostrowski describes his experience of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising as a fireman. Prospect reports on a media revolution that has seized Pakistan. The Economist reads the devastating UN report on the Arab world. L'Espresso reports on the consequences of a wrongly translated letter from the Pope to the underground Christians in China. In the New York Review of Books, Michael Messing thanks the bloggers for ushering in a new journalistic era.
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In Poets & Writers, publisher Jonathan Galassi has a positive take on the digital future of books. The TLS will miss their smell. In the Gazeta Wyborcza, Leszek Kolakowski reveals the truth that he would die for. In The New Statesman, John Gray wants to see the term "Englightenment fundamentalist" reinstated. In Le Journal du Dimanche, BHL tells the French Socialist Party to throw in the towel. The New Yorker is counting calories to the next tax. In the Spectator, Iason Athanasiadis asks why the Iranians are so scared of the English. Foreign Policy sees a silver lining to the credit crisis: it should kill off machismo.
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The TLS discovers how Sartre and de Beauvoir each got their hands on a Lanzmann pet. Le Monde remembers Europe's first terrorist to target a crowd at random. In the New Statesman, historian A.N. Wilson can no longer find any reasons to keep the monarchy. Al Ahram comments on the German reactions to the murder of Marwa al-Sherbini. In Le Point, Bernard-Henry Levi remembers the brutal killing of Ilan Halimi in Paris. NZZ Folio discovers a continent of garbage and a citrus-sweet-bitter chord to party in.
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In MicroMega, Italian intellectuals protest against a new law that makes criminals of illegal immigrants. In Al Ahram, literature professor Hamid Dabashi explains that it's not the demonstrators, but Ahmedinejad's followers who are middle-class. In Observator Cultural, Leo Butnaru names the foreign dignitaries who flock to Moldova to be decorated. In Dawn, Arundhati Roy expresses her doubts about democracy. Standpoint discusses Oswald Mosley, who did the same.
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The Internet is changing our brains, philosopher Joaquin Rodriguez Lopez explains in the French magazine, Books. David Hockney shows his new iPhone drawings to the Spectator. In the New York Review of Books, historian Timothy Snyder calls for a new understanding of the Holocaust, that begins not in Auschwitz, but deep in the forests of Eastern Europe. In Literaturen, Aleksandar Hemon remembers an empty reading that turned out to be a success. Dawn introduces Michael Jackson as internalised by the Pakistanis. In the Weltwoche, pedagogy professor Georg Feuser calls for a ban on Ritalin for kids. The NYT witnesses the end of the black middle class in Detroit.
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The Economist is impressed the by the hybrid of old and new media in the coverage of events in Iran. Outlook India looks at racism at home. In Le Point, Bernard-Henri Levy rallies support for the Iranian opposition. In Salon.eu.sk, Zygmunt Bauman continues his thoughts on the effects of totalitarianism in Poland. In the Guardian, Wallace Shawn explains why sex is still shocking. Al Ahram sings the praises of the Pakistanis who chased the Taliban out of their villages. In Nepszabadsag, Lajos Parti Nagy explains why he doesn't want to be Hungarian. And the TLS holds its nose in Versailles.
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MicroMega wants nothing to do with the ritual of 1000 women – especially if it involves Gaddafi. Outlook India explains how Berthold Brecht put the fun into Hindu theatre. Polish author Pawel Huelle savours his vote while riding his bike. The Guardian learns from Abbas Kiarostami where to find the beauty in art. In Nouvel Obs Breyten Breytenbach wonders what went wrong in South Africa. Elet es Irodalom is irked by intellectuals who won't go to the theatre. The NYRB reads books about Darfur, the Nation reads books about Cuba. And the New York Times is very excited indeed about the new Grand Paris.
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Al Ahram asks what the Arabs can do for Obama. Outlook India says the US president should have talked to non-Arab Muslims instead. Charlie Kaufman's film "Synecdoche, New York" plunged the London Review into a thick fog of existential questions. Polityka discovers a republic of soloists in Poland. The Economist loses itself in the life of an American dreamer who is pinned down by a 483,000 dollar debt. In Clarin, Beatriz Sarlo asks: What does Buenos Aires want to be? In Elet es Irodalom, Ignac Romsics describes the difference between the Western and Eastern European right. NZZ Folio travels the coast of the Black Sea. And in the Guardian, sculptor Alexander Stoddart reaches for his pistol.
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Al Ahram witnesses Tunisians hitting the roof at the Arab Theatre Festival in Cairo. Alaa Al Aswany assures the Observer that democracy is coming to Egypt soon. Polityka complains about the grumblers who have rained on the June 4 parade. The New Statesman, Prospect and The Nation discuss China. In Nouvel Obs, Michel Pastoureau describes the fine line between man and pig. In Salon.eu.sk Zygmunt Bauman criticises Slavoj Zizek for not looking "beyond the barbed wire". Bookforum is excited by the boom in African literature.
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Wired explains what Google really is: an auction house. The New York Review of Books sees Pakistan near the brink of anarchy. Elet es Irodalom introduces a new Hungarian magazine about culture on the periphery. The Nation turns to the Kundera Affair. In Literaturen, novelist Barbara Vinken compares sex stories by children. The LRB is impressed by a wiki. In El Espectador, Hector Abad describes the potentially fatal consequences of reading. Espresso portrays the fascists of the third millennium.
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