Jelena Ćirić

Remember folks: if you have any small amount of artistic talent, any sex appeal, or can make your friends laugh, the richest man on earth is crying screaming throwing up because he can’t be you.

It’s fun to think about the surgeon who will botch your surgery 20 years from now and what he’s doing at this moment. He just ran all his homework through ChatGPT. He just read that article about vaccines and autism at the CDC website. He just watched an Instagram video about the moon landing hoax.

At the risk of being Captain Obvious, I'd throw in Fischer-Dieskau.

Box up the Fox: The Cunning Little Vixen Review (Staatsoper Stuttgart, 14 Nov 2025) Paweł Konik (Forester), Claudia Muschio (Vixen), Itzeli del Rosario (Dachshund, Woodpecker), Oscar Encinas (Rooster), Staatsopernchor Stuttgart. Foto: Martin Sigmund Foxes having sex, hens that clu…

Stuttgarter "Die schlaue Füchsin". (Review written in a futile effort not to entirely forget how to write.)
operasighs.wordpress.com/2025/11/16/c... #stgtfüchsin @staatsoper-stgt.bsky.social

Example: the well-intentioned but terribly made tearjerker "3 1/2 Stunden" that's trending these days on ARD Mediathek versus any of the unabashedly weird and weirdly beautiful (if flawed) TV shows like Dark, Kleo, Kassandra. Important lesson: never try to act normal!

A footnote on German contemporary culture: they can't craft an ordinary, well-made mainstream cultural product (like a pop song or a simple Sat-night film) if their life depended on it. But what they excel at are things that don't resort to, that never even try to appeal to normality.

They’re literally socially constructing gender out of sand and metal after a decade of tut-tutting about women being adult human females ONLY

In just over 6 m of working in a retirement home in 🇩🇪, I already met several refugees, kids of refugees or merely young immigrants on a volunteering program, giving away A LOT of their time on a job that no fascist would ever do. Why aren't there more reports on that in the media? 🧐

Note to learners of German: if any work of fiction appears too difficult to read in German, just switch to one or two pages of Robert Musil. Makes anything else look easy as pie in an Augenblick.

Old Soviet joke for today:

A man walks into a newsstand every day, looks around, and leaves.

After a long time of this, the owner says “Can I help you find something?”

“I’m looking for the obituaries.”

“The obituaries are in the back of the newspaper, comrade.”

“Not the one I’m looking for.”

If you happen to overhear anyone looking for a servant to pour them Sekt or, idk, scratch their back while they are(n't) watching Wagner, drop me a note pls! Looks like my only chance ever to get there in person 😂

Curtain call at #stgtwal, super interesting! @staatsoper-stgt.bsky.social

Umschlag des Buches "Zur Verteidigung der Demokratie" von Thomas Mann. Das Buch liegt auf einem gelben Tisch.

Ich frage mich, ob ich das im Original lesen kann. Nur einen Weg, es herauszufinden. 🤔

The color choice too is very... unorthodox. Makes one think of bubble gum 🧐

And it was! For half an hour before it was gone.

Hausgemachter Kuchen mit Obst auf einem Herd

Hab' einen Kuchen (zweimal!) gemacht. Eier, Quark, Mehl, Bourbon Vanille, Öl, Backpulver, Obst.

Oh I've heard Canticles of Ecstasy and Ordo Virtutum from this box set but had no idea of the new age sales pitch.

It's available on YT Music, for what that's worth!

Under the spell of Hildegard: A new album reboots ancient music The 12th century abbess, scientist and composer inspires new interpretations of her music, and new works, on an album spotlighting soprano Barbara Hannigan.

Can't wait to hear this!

www.npr.org/2025/05/09/n...

Well I had to limit the impression to my own experience 😂

YouTube video by Bellot Ensemble Barbara Strozzi - Arie - “Che si può fare”

Here's to the one thing that I find conspicuously absent from the culture of small-town Germany: unabashed sensuality.

music.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfE...

What do they sell?? 😂

Lol, chortled again! I like Ass Service even better!

A red and white pickup truck called "Ass-Car-Truck".

I chortled. Yes, I'm 5.

Herzlichen Dank, es freut mich auch! Ein schönes, schönes Land.

Stiftskirche in Herrenberg

Nach 2 Jahren der Bemühungen bin ich endlich nach Deutschland umgezogen. Mit meiner Partnerin!

Bonne anniversaire, Pierre!

Anybody seen Arte TV's broadcast of Musiktheater an der Wien Norma? My 2 cents: the purists are *sometimes* right. It's all written in the notes. Of which there are here too many. As great as Grigorian is in some other roles and on stage in general, this role just isn't her cup of tea.

Know Nothing - Wikipedia

depths of wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_No...