The bald gay person named Michael Stipe is the singer of one of the most popular contemporary rock bands. R.E.M. is the title of this band. And they have been around for almost 25 years now. On this DVD a retrospective of their videos is given from the day they joined a major record label. Most of these songs I know by heart without watching the videos - "Everybody Hurts", "Man on the Moon", "Losing my Religion" - and these are just the most popular once. The overall quality of the songs is certainly superb. And some of the videos are also quite intersting - for example the one for "The great beyond". On the negative side - the amount of extras isn`t extremly high - ok, if the so called "Bonus videos" were really something rare I would understand it but "I`ll take the rain" and "Lotus" don`t seem very rare to me. Then there are three songs performed live -they are pretty nice but nothing more. And as for the interviews between the songs - they aren`t particulary intersting, I`d rather hear Stipe and co. talking about the songs, and the videos, and not just talking `bout "things".

This is a film based on the rock opera "Tommy" by the Who. The songs are rerecorded especially for the film with the cast doing the singing in a broadwayish manner. Tommy`s father doesn`t come back from WW2 and his mother finds herself a brand new lover. When dad unexpectedly does come back, the lover kills him with a candlestick (if I remember it correctly that it was a "Cluedo" weapon he used). Anyway, Tommy who`s aged about four or five sees that in the front of his very eyes and after that he becomes deaf, dumb and blind. He grows up like that, nobody being able to cure him, he`s tortured by a cousin of his, a perverted uncle named Ernie (played by Keith Moon - the deceased Who drummer) "fiddles about", but there`s one thing Tommy can do - and that is playing pinball. Which is not the most typical thing for a person that doesn`t really know what pinball is all about. And he also likes starring at his own reflection in the mirror. And then he gets his vision, hearing and talking back, and becomes some sort of a preacher. What`s the film like - it`s basically just a long video for the music, and nothing more. Roger Daltrey - the singer of the band is kinda ok as Tommy, but both his Mom and Dad make 2 are not only lousy actors, but crappy singers as well. Still the music is good, altough it`s a bit musicalised which I don`t really appreciate. By the way, Elton John is the pinball wizard, while Eric Clapton simply does a song.

I have absolutely no idea who the authors of this play are - I was just trying to find the Russian translation for the word "scene" in a play, and I somehow found my self downloading this play where I noticed that Stalin and Lenin where among the characters. It turned out that the play was kind bizarre - there wasn`t even a single real socialist leader in the "cast" but those were supposed to be actors impersonating the dictators. The situation was something like this - in the late eighties there was a demonstration against the Communist party in some little town, and those actors were on their way to buy some alcohol when they were stopped by the local police and sent to spend the night in jail. There were two major things going on - the actors were preparing for some anniversary while the local socialist leader was preparing for the first election where there were choices to be made, and he knew that he stood no chance in a free election. So he decided to cheat. This is not a very spectacular play, but in the context of modern Russian dramaturgy it`s at least normal and not full of perversion.

I can`t really believe a Latvian band recorded this album. Hospitalu iela is a relatively unknown band, but this record absolutely rocks. What does it sound like? A bit of pop, a bit of rock, a bit of reaggae, a bit of national elements - something like that. Most of the songs are easy to memorise and sing along, but that doesn`t mean that they are primitive. The arrangements are nice, I especially dig the violins. The best songs? "Par kiosku", "Vilcene", "Sinepes".

This is Jurek Becker`s most highly acclaimed work, and not without a reason. Jakob is a Jew in a gheto close to a small village in Poland who accidentally hears over a German radio that the Soviet army is but a few hundred kilometres away. When telling these news to other jews he knows that he would need to tell how exactly he heard the news, but that he can`t do - `cos it was in a German institution where he amazingly escaped death but he knew that the jews wouldn`t think that he was saved just for nothing. Anyhow he tells that he got a radio hidden at his place and that it`s where he got news from. And after that little lie he starts providing imaginary news to the jews everyday, in this way keeping them alive and hoping. But it`s not that easy for himself, for Jakob is no hero, and many times he`s close to giving himself in. What happens in the end is not really clear - the author provides two versions - in one of which the Soviet army comes fast enough to save the jews, while in the other case - it doesn`t. This book reminded me of the film "The Pianist" by Roman Polanski, only in a less pathetic manner.

What makes days sleepless? If you are waking at the day, why should you worry that you don`t sleep at the time? Or are you some nasty pervert who works at night but still can`t sleep at day? This novel tells us about a teacher named Simrock who suddenly feels some pain in the heart while he`s teaching his students at school. When he comes home and tells it to his wife Ruth, she doesn`t treat that as a big problem. After that he decides that he has been living his life in the wrong way (btw., he`s a partly orthodox communist in East Germany). He leaves his wife having realised that there`s no love left between them - only routine is left. After that he finds himself a brand new lover Antonia. While he has his summer vacation he takes a job at a bread factory and even finds a friend there. Together with Antonia he goes to Hungary, from which she tries to flee to Austria, but unsuccessfuly. The book left a good impression on me, it was interesting to read and even had some nice ideas in it.

We`re going alternative. Jim Jarmush my ass! A completely unknown Russian film having less than 20 votes at the IMDB is alternative enough. What would the English title sound like? I guess there is no right ford for "zapoy". Hell! In a Russian film you can guess what kind of theory to expect - theory of long term drinking! And here we have it - Vitaly, an airplane pilot leaves his wife and especially his mother in law when they have disturb him while he had a hangover. He goes to his friend - a drunken philosopher who lives the next door and starts a drinking party there. His wife meanwhile guided by her mother finds a new lover, but it doesn`t go very well with him either, since her mother wants to give instructions even while the couple should be making love. Some other moments are also good, and so are the songs by "Leningrad" - a very controversial Russian punk band. Acting kinda sucks - you can clearly feel that those guys got very little bucks for their work, but the screenplay seems to be ok - a fun comedy showcasing the Russian habbits of drinking in a somewhat different manner from "Osobennosti Nacionaljnoj Ribalki". A masterpiece this is not, but for underground Russian cinema it`s not bad.

Let`s face it - I have almost entirely forgotten what this book was all about. I can remember that it was a village close to the Polish border of Germany, where everyone tried to persuade everybody else of their Polish origins. As far as I can remember a long period of time was described. There was this one guy who was among the first to join the NSDAP hoping that his low party number will bring him great benefits but he was kicked out because he was Polish. There was a woman who had an affair with a musician but she kicked him out because while having sex he set up a metronome in order to control the speed and occasionally got off from her to switch it. It all started with a wedding - the grooms parents weren`t rich and they weren`t even invited to sit at the table. Cholonek was born only some time after the wedding. What else do I remember? It wasn`t particulary interesting, that`s for sure. Otherwise there would be more to tell. Don`t bother looking for it unless you`re a Janosch completist (and I doubt that there is a single Janosch completist around).

Amazing isn`t it - to read a book that has been written buy a person only less than ten years older than you (if you`re 20 and not 65 that is). And Arjouni is just the guy. It seems that he`s mainly writting some detective crap, but this book can wisely balance on the right side of the mud puddle where such authors occasionally fall. The title story "A friend", for example, is a beautiful tale about a hitchhiker who gets a ride from a theatre director who needs a person to immitate being his friend for a weekend. It turns out that Archie (that`s his name) isn`t the only acting person at the party, and even when he believes that he actually has achieved some sort of friendship with his supposed friend (I don`t mean "friend" in the sexual way), it`s nothing but acting in the reality. The story "The inner" is a strange tale how a man is taken hostage at a bank robbery and he develops the so called Stockholm syndrom in him but still kills the bank robber in the end. And there`s another nice story about a family that illegally keeps an undertendant from abroad and gets awarded for it, despite how bad they treat him. And "In peace" tells the story of a rich city guy starting a country life. But the two other stories are not that good - "The Black series" is the usual gangster stuff we get in the second hand literature nowadays, while "Visit of the pope" makes no sense. If there had been only the four best stories it would have been a great book, but so it is just ok.

The post war Germany is the location where this book leads us. And more exactly - its the post war Berlin (but before two German states where founded). We get to see the lives of quite many characters: Philipp, the unsuccessful writer, Emilia his money crazy wife, Carla - a young woman that has become pregnant from an afroamerican named Washington. And there`s Odysseus - another black soldier, then there`s Heinz - Carlas son. What is the book all about? It`s about ruined people that have no real reason to live. And its not only the Germans - there`s no big difference between them and the Americans. Oh, there are also some female teachers that have come on a visit to Germany; and a successful American poet. All of them interact in different ways, crossing their paths and going in the opposite directions further. What`s good about this book is its sincerity and beautiful language. What disturbs the reading is the length of the sentences which on one hand helps the language to be majestic but on the other hand makes the book very difficult to read.