Being the tech junkie I am, I spent much more time then I had to at the three Apple Stores in Manhattan, when I was there in December. Besides my lust for toys, I got fascinated with the way Apple managed to create a store which offers a usability that is as superior as the the usability of their software. Of course they use quite a bit of tailored hard- and software to achieve that. Their portable counters speed up things as do receipts via email. Extra features like the genius bar and regular workshops add to the experience as much as the firewall guys who approach clients instantly when they come in and redirect them. Color coded staff is also a very smart idea, that I had not really seen in a store before.
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[display_podcast] Re-education, a small art festival at Hebbel am Ufer on January 19, dealt with the large scale re-education project that the United States imposed quite successfully on post war Germany (more successfully anyway than recent attempts in Irak. Unfortunately I missed much of the program, but I saw two things I liked quite a bit.

One was the lecture/performance “Manifest Destiny” by Pablo Helguera, which consisted of a power point presentation mixing four stories around the idea that the US should expand their territory, which was popular in 19th century. The presentation was half caricature half serious and it worked quite well. I only found out later, when I googled Pablo Helguera, that he was also the author of a book I recently had a look at when I was standing around, waiting for a film screening to start at new gallery show about the art world. The book is called “Manual of Contemporary Art Style” and is a very helpful beginners guide to the art world not only for practitioners. It’s of course a bit childish, but nevertheless very entertaining and mostly quite well observed.

The other was a concert hardly dressed cross dressers punk combo. I could not even find the name of the band anywhere, because as it turned out it was only the starting act. The main act sucked. If anybody knows the name of the band, please leave a comment.