Frankfurter Rundschau 28.03.2009

The paper looks at what remains of GDR literature. Ines Wilke doesn't like the question itself. "Why can't we just put aside the category 'GDR' literature for one moment and just read Thomas Brasch and Rolf Dieter Brinkman, Christa Wolf and Peter Weiss, Wolfgang Hilbig and Wolfgang Hildesheimer, Reinhardt Jirgl and Ernst Jandl for what they are: writers, language players. Their material is the German language, they are united by the attempt to free this of empty phrases – in the most manifold ways and against the background of the 20th century.


Frankfurter Rundschau 30.03.2009

Hans Magnus Enzensberger is the "Jürgen Habermas of German poetry" Rolf Spinnler learns at a symposium on the poet's 80th birthday (which is actually not until November) in the German Literature Archive in Marburg, The celebration lasted three days and "was played out with all the drama of a US election party convention: While academics from various disciplines analysed his work, the birthday boy hid back stage, appearing only when the conference reached its highpoint to answer questions about his life. Not that Enzensberger would have had anything to fear from the various appraisals of his life's work at the symposium, because everything that was said in his absence was pretty flattering and neatly coincided with the image of himself that the poet likes to cultivate."


Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 31.03.2009

Swiss writer Urs Widmer explains the difference between the Swiss and the Germans. "I, who have bathed in many German waters, have no problem understanding Herr Steinbrück [the German finance minister who told the Swiss banks in rather crude terms exactly what he wanted from them] who, like your average German customer, goes into a bakery and says 'Ich krieg' das Brot da' (I get that bread there). Of course he gets it, pays and goes. But this sort of transaction is absolutely inconceivable for the Swiss, and the first time they encounter such a thing they will be in shock for hours afterwards. If we want to buy bread in a bakery, we say: "Could I possibly have a loaf of bread like the one over there, if you wouldn't mind, please?' Then we get it and pay, and pay more than the German in Germany who by this time will have been to the butchers and the greengrocers and got his sausages and potatoes and be heading homewards, his shopping done."


Neue Zürcher Zeitung 02.04.2009

After 180 years in the heart of Vienna, the piano maker Bösendorfer is being forced to head for the provinces, writes Paul Jandl sorrowfully. Steinway is just way too powerful and there are just not enough prominent musicians who play Bösendorfers. With a few exceptions: "Andras Schiff is fighting a lonely fight against Steinway's globalization of piano music, faithfully rolling out his Bösendorfer to perform Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. The crystal clarity of the Steinway is 'high German' against the darkly lyrical 'Viennese accent' of the Bösendorfer. In a protracted diminuendo, the spruces of the North face oscillate in the resonant terrain of the vast concert grand. It is a sound whose legend endures."


Süddeutsche Zeitung 02.04.2009

Turkey has lost a far right politician. The entire country has thrown itself into mourning. The correspondent Kai Strittmacher is nonplussed: "There are days when you wake up in Istanbul to find country is more of a mystery than ever. Wednesday was like that. Images of the funeral filled the front pages. The streets of Ankara was awash with mourners. In their tens of thousands... Pro-government newspapers expressed their condolences: 'Turkey bids farewell to its hero.' The hero: Muhsin Yazicioglu. Not a government minister. Not one of the big cats. The chairman of a splinter party, the Great Union Party, BBP. A one-time Grey Wolf. Top wolf. A fascist."


Die Welt 02.04.2009

Friedrich Pohl harshly criticises the German musical copyright agency GEMA, which has raised its fees yet again, forcing Youtube to erase all German music videos from its site – and we're talking videos that the record labels actually put online themselves. "You get the feeling that the GEMA is raising its fees simply to finance its vast bureaucratic apparatus. The agency might say that it is acting in the interests of its 60,000 members, but there is seldom any talk of the massive hurdles that GEMA places in the path of musicians who do not use its services (the majority, incidentally)."


Die Tageszeitung 02.04.2009

In an interview filmmaker Werner Schroeter talks about his new and extremely sinister melodrama "The Night", his extravagance, and the barbarity of life without art. "You see it in this 'un-culture' of computer and mobile phones. People no longer have to make any effort to strive for anything. You just google it – this is alienation: anti-art in every way. Pain and searching are part of culture, not just tap, tap, tap! But art is so important, and this goes for ars amandi and cooking too! I get livid when people cook badly!"


From the Blogs 03.04.2009

f!xmbr was deeply frustrated by the re:publica blogger's conference in Berlin. "Here we are in the middle of a global economic crisis on a scale that has shattered all expectations and we still cannot begin to imagine what consequences it will have. This crisis is also the result of the media's inability to critically question the elites, the people in power, to do its research, to come up with alternatives. The media is currently in the middle of a nuclear winter – and rightly so. And what is happening? At the re:publica in Berlin they are offering crocheting courses. People are philosophising about deadly sins in web design, letting themselves be lulled by IBM's PR events and celebrating Twitter's entry into the mainstream. Incredible."


Die Tageszeitung 03.04.2009

Bahman Nirumand assesses the mood in the Arab world, which is concerned about Iran's growing power in the wake of Obama's shift in strategy. "The enmity which occasionally breaks out openly between Iran and the Arab states goes back a long way. In 642 the Arab armies conquered Iran and forced the population to convert to Islam. The Iranians, who regarded themselves as a grand cultural nation far superior to the Arabs, were left with deep wounds that they continue to lick today. And now Arab societies are getting nervous that a powerful Iran might be tempted to reek revenge."