27 September 2009 - What's more German than an international auto show?

[Rihanna, "Shut Up and Drive."]

Frankfurt is the host of the International Auto Show. THE auto show. I have always enjoyed the Chicago Auto Show, but this is in an entirely different class and spread across multiple buildings. So having a complimentary ticket courtesy of my boss and a colleague who was interested in going was a bonus.

Now, the cars were good, but I think the ways that the different companies market them is nearly as interesting. In particular, the way in which women are used in the selling of cars fascinates me. I mean, we've all seen the pictures from past auto shows of scantily clad women "demonstrating" the features of the cars. But that's in the past, right, and women are valued for their knowledge of cars, right? Well.... Read on for some highlights by some of the brands (oddly enough, no sign of Honda, Nissan or Mitsubishi at the show) and these attendants who I will refer to simply as the ladies.

Kia - I find the Soul quite charming, including its external optical features that can be customized, not unlike some of the Mini options.

Volvo - I thought the motorized rear hatch of the XC60 was impressively quiet. Not a bad ride. Volvo also offered a free USB thumb drive that you could plug in and try to win. We lost. The booth was at least partially staffed by Swedes, which I thought was quite genuine.

Mazda - An excellent selection of Preuscher Blue cars on display. The ladies were kind enough to take photos of attendees in the MX-5 with an impressive 12-second hardtop retraction. Said ladies were wearing purple dresses with 80s-era thick black belts.

Suzuki - Underwhelming cars, but the ladies' black denimish dresses with white off-set racing stripe worn with slouch legwarmers over Converse All-Stars was interesting. The dresses would match the Kia Soul.

Renault - Interesting concept cars -- one looked like a Mac or an iPod that could be driven, another looked like a fly getting ready to take off. The ladies in the futuristic area looked like they were standing by for a Korean Air interview or were resting in between shifts on the USS Enterprise spa -- flowing white pants and eggshell blue smocks. Gotta wonder who wants to be the guy at Renault whose job is cleaning the black scuff marks on their white matte floor. He seemed pretty busy.

Dacia - No stereo included? Seriously?

Ford - Keyless non-entry for energy car (it was locked) with right-side steering -- weird thing to have in Germany. Dresses of the ladies were somewhat ugly and seemed difficult to put on. Not that we tried. Ford Ka has seating that can be customized (must be for the younger generation that adds colored covers to their phones and all), including a tattoo style imprint. Mondeo still seems to have faux wood finishes -- some things never change.

Lamborghini - Like most of the high-end brands, you can't approach the vehicles. There were too many people snapping pictures to see if there were ladies on hand.

Bentley - A laminated wooden floor with three cars, no access, and the sales guys just standing there. Weird. There is a Bentley Collection Shop that appears to be accessible to mere mortals.

Audi - The Audi shop was disappointing. I'm thinking they need a woman's ring with the four interlocking Audi rings. I am disturbed by the number of orange/rust-colored Audis that were on display in the area. I still don't "get" the A5 sportback. They had a metallic/chromy (not sure if it was polished aluminum or what) R8 that looked rather blingy but reminded me a bit of a shinier Back to the Future car. The ladies (and men) were generally wearing muted blacks, gray and white. One exception was the lady in the limited-access area with the e-tron concept car and R8 cabrio who were more true to the typical auto show mold (very short dresses and the high heels), but they were not displayed on the hoods of the vehicles themselves. Audi Bank was there in case you couldn't wait another second to have an Audi. Alas, the "International Customer Services" area was unable to hook me up with an English language owners manual for Hudson (my local dealer has still failed to follow through on this).

Seat - The ladies were wearing a form-fitting bizarre black and white patterned dress worn with black hosiery. Not particularly flattering but certainly distinctive. The cars had interesting plastic textures - like the pattern I would associate with carbon fiber, but in plastic. Lots of overhead storage. The flip down trays in the back seat (no pun intended) are handy and with cupholders built in. It is unclear whether they must be stowed for takeoff. From a design perspective, I like the above rear seat latches that are sculpted out of the rear window panel rather than being within the metal of the door below the window.

VW - Eos available in beautiful blue GT. I was not aware that the Scirocco is back.... The ladies were wearing basic black skirts and crisp white shirts. No-nonsense and professional.

Skoda - Great mascot, as evidenced by his willingness to hold the Sarah Palin action figure for a photo (see Facebook album of Sarah for the latest). The uniforms of the ladies were interesting -- charcoal skirt, lime green shirt and silverish vest thing - with lime green belt. Hmmm.... The exhibit did have a kind of slot machine game where you pull a lever and win -- in my case, a parkschein, which I have been wanting (you put it in your window to indicate when you parked in the parking space so the meter reader can tell whether you have overstayed the limit -- love the honor system).

All of these brands and others were from just the first two halls we visited. En route to the next stop, we decided to stop off at a hall that boasted, among other things, a "Ladies Corner." Well, that immediately had me thinking I would see Tim Meadows, the Ladies Man from Saturday Night Live there, or at least some quick manicures, moisturizer samples, or mazybe even a chair massage. So we rushed on over. I cannot begin to tell you how disappointing the reality was. There was literally a woman there dressed up as a cleaning lady complete with a bandanna tied around her head with a bin full of cleaning supplies and some sort of coupon for something. There was also a display of GPS devices. What, like women don't know how to drive and only clean? Ugh. So on to the next hall.

Maserati - One of their cars was a beautiful blue (of course!) color. The friend who went with me, codename D-D, loves Maserati and sweet-talked the guy at the rope to let her in and even convinced him to take a picture of her in the convertible. Nice work!

Lancia - The theme of the exhibit revolved around chalkboards and chalk drawings. I suppose that is the connection between the ladies being dressed as, more or less, naughty school girls -- short skirts, white shirts, a sagging black tie, and tights just above the knee. Perhaps not surprising that the cars didn't appeal to me either.

Fiat - Fiat was located next to Lancia and continued the youthful theme, but did so in a much more innocent way. The background of their area was composed of whimsical pastel children's drawings (drawn in a smaller scale by real children as shown in videos -- no child labor seems to have been involved in the building of the large scale actual background). They also had astroturf areas with flower-shaped tables for even more whimsy. The ladies did seem somewhat related to the Lancia ladies, but a bit more classy I suppose - short plaid skirts and vests and red Converse All-Stars. The cars are small but with character. And I give them high marks for the items in their store that are directed towards women -- including a really cute but overpriced little purse that looks like the front of a Fiat on one side and the back of a Fiat on the other side.

Alfa Romeo - Continuing the youthful example of Lancia and Fiat, Alfa Romeo's exhibit was made out of giant sized creations from the erector set that I remember my brother playing with as a kid building cranes and stuff. Alas, they did not have many actual cars to sit in, so we moved on quickly.

Hyundai - I can only describe Hyundai as the "Hooters" of the IAA. They literally had a woman sitting in a car on a rotating pedestal looking pretty and showing off long legs. It's a HYUNDAI for crying out loud! Uniform? Satiny shorts, glittery halter top, heels, and very blonde. I think I saw Heidi with her long braids..... In the sports section, it was slightly better with black jeans and a white blingy halter top and more sensible shoes. I did like their Blue Will concept car with a steering wheel that seems more like a yoke on an airplane.

Abarth - I had not heard of them before. It is apparently another Italian company and has some relation to racing. Uniforms? Heeled red leather boots, white tights, and a short knit red and white dress/smock of some sort that kind of looks like a racing flag.

Porsche - Handsome cars, often in nice blues, but many were locked. All reps were male with a matching tie and pocket square. There were a few ladies. Their job was apparently to just look pretty as they were not even issued name tags!! However, a quick conversation with one of them indicated they actually know a great deal about the cars, features, prices, etc. They were wearing somewhat simple linen dresses with a scarf matching the ties of the guys, with the effect of making them look like flight attendants (not to be confused with Renault).

Artega - Beautiful vehicles. Wish they weren't cut off from the masses.

Toyota - A very white space with nearly all of the cars in the front section being white. Additionall, the ladies were wearing very nice looking white suits with a crisp white blouse with tiny red stripes and a sport shoe that looks like it would actually be comfortable for spending hours on one's feet. We think overall these were the best and most professional ensembles we saw the ladies of the IAA wearing.

Saab - Very few cars in their area and many were locked. They're just Saabs.... Casual uniform for the ladies - black jeans, gray jacket, reddish t-shirt.

Mini - Mini is celebrating 50 years complete with DJ and a sparkling water bar (the Mini Lounge). Attire was typically youthful for the brand - jeans and a whitish t-shirt for both men and women.

BMW - The largest digs in the show must belong to BMW. Huge area. They had an interesting Vision concept car, but it was difficult to get close to it was it was near the "fashion show" of vehicles driven around on the indoor track. All but the ladies standing by the concept car are wearing kind of ugly taupe pant suits belted with a dark lavendar color. Not nearly so nice as Toyota.

Rolls Royce - The hideously painted Ghost model has suicide doors. Haven't seen that on a car in ages. The cars were, of course, inaccessible to the masses, but I give RR snaps for having the most normal looking woman among the attendants. It was refreshing, though some leggy blondes were also loitering at the gate to the VIP lounge. Otherwise, a bunch of guys in ties standing around.

Benz - Their space was, like BMWs, a tri-level structure. They also had an interesting interior structure covered in an interesting white fabric that could be used for projection and it also apparently served as an environmental control. However, they should consider hiring the floor guy from Renault as their white floors were terribly scuffed. Simple uniforms - dark skirts, white blouses, and a scarf kind of like BMW. Plastic name tags for both men and women struck me as tacky, particularly as compared with the other major players. Lots of security.

So that's pretty much it. Can't wait to head back next year!

13 September 2009 - Co-existence of Politics and Music

["I Don't Recall" from Melissa Dunphy's Gonzales Cantata.]

Many of you are aware of the importance of music in my life. While I really enjoyed performing back in my high school and university years, in recent years it has been a more passive experience of attending the performances of others (how I miss those season tickets to the Lyric Opera and the Symphony Center Jazz Series in Chicago). But every once in a while I would be moved to sit down and play the piano or, in the more rare cases, drag out Arthur (somehow I knew you wouldn't be surprised that I named my clarinet, a handsome Buffet R-13b, Arthur deriving from R-thir(teen)).

I have a Yamaha Clavinova keyboard that is probably about 10 years ago but that still served my purposes well. Good piano sound and feeling, never needs tuning, and I can play it as loud as I want whenever because it has a headphone output option. All good. Except that it uses US power current, so not a good idea to bring it over here and my Mom is now enjoying it.

I thought this wouldn't be a big deal, but every once in a while I just get the desire to go play the piano and then realize that I don't have one here. And last weekend I realized that I cannot live for four years without the ability to create music (I don't consider my harmonica efforts to be a creative effort that would qualify as music, alas). So I went online and identified a piano store called Stollenwerk (www.pianostollenwerk.de, if you're in the market or if you want to see some really cool external tile/brick work) that carries Yamahas and drove over there. While they do carry Yamaha, they only carry acoustic pianos. The guy I was talking with was very friendly and helpful, though, and even introduced me to the concept of the "silent" piano from Yamaha -- an acoustic piano that also has the ability to port the music through headphones. Alas, I can't imagine trying to move a piano back to the US. The guy was nice enough to refer me to a place called Schmidt Music that is just up the road from my local Hornbach hardware store, but which somehow I had not seen before.

I was, to put it mildly, overwhelmed by the options at Schmidt and had no idea where to start. And a quick look made it clear that electronic pianos/keyboards have come a long way in the last 10 years. More than a few of the Yamahas had what I can only describe as a cockpit-like dashboard, including a LCD screen that's larger than the one on my first laptop. Given that I have no intention of becoming neither DJ Jazzy Preuscher while I am over here nor taking up a musical composition career, I think I'm safer with a more moderate model. Which models are still quite impressive.

So, I have now purchased a new Yamaha, though it will not be delivered for a couple of weeks. Which is good, since I have to figure out where to put it in my small-by-American-standards apartment.

But back to the more passive ways in which I enjoy music. Since my arrival here, I have yet to actually attend a formal musical performance, but given the number of posters I have seen for some great sounding fare, I am excited about the possibilities here. First, I have to figure out how to buy tickets in advance! Until then, I live vicariously through iTunes. This applies to both classical music (favorite recent purchases are the albums "Appalachia Walz" with Edgar Meyer, Mark O'Connor and Yo-Yo Ma, "Humoresque" by Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg) as well as pop (where new favorites include "Electric Arguments" by The Fireman (aka Sir Paul McCartney), "Bible Belt" by Diane Birch, "It's Not Me, It's You" by Lily Allen, and a few more Lady GaGa singles than I should probably admit).

However, that said, let me be clear that I think the new iTunes interface STINKS! I cannot find a way to browse new classical releases to save my soul. Do they not want to sell music? Because let's be honest, pushing Jay-Z, The Doors and a deluxe version of the Norah Jones album I already have is not making me want to linger on their site. It just makes me angry.

Not enough to make me totally cut myself off from the other audio delight I receive through iTunes. Podcasts. Political/news podcasts. I may be on the other side of the pond, but I am still quite interested in the politics and related insanity going on in the U.S. So I download podcasts, copy them to an SD Card and then pop that card into Hudson and listen to the podcasts as I drive around. I started out with the Sunday morning talk shows (Meet the Press, Face the Nation, This Week, and even Fox News Sunday) as well as Washington Week from Friday nights. But then I kept seeing references from one of my favorite Twitterers (yes, the same one who introduced me to Massweiler) about Rachel Maddow, so I began following that, too. Maddow requires a bit more committment as it is a nightly show which somehow causes me to not get through all the Sunday shows before the next show (not surprisingly, Fox News is often the victim). But the show amuses me, particularly with some of its Moments of Geek.

Which brings me to my newest source of classical music. (No, there's not a paragraph missing in there. The Rachel Maddow Show has introduced me to new music. Something not even the might iTunes itself can apparently do anymore.) Political music. No, I'm not talking about the "music to my ears" of politics in action (because there is simply no harmony in that these days). But the simple joys of setting politics to music.

About two weeks ago, Maddow mentioned on her show the Gonzales Cantata (www.gonzalescantata.com). Yes, Alberto Gonzales. No, he wasn't singing himself as his predecessor is so famous for (though who didn't find "Let the Eagle Soar" wildly fascinating??!). Rather, it is written by a young Australian composer, Melissa Dunphy, and is based on the testimony of Alberto Gonzales to the Senate Judiciary Committee. In that particular hearing, all of the major parties involved were male, with the exception of Dianne Feinstein (I think). Apparently it is easier to get a lot of good sopranos to perform a cantata than it is to hire all men and one woman, all gender roles have been reversed. So imagine the joy of listening to "I don't recall" being sung by a soprano. Simply delightful. The tracks can be listened to on the website (as well as, sigh, downloaded from iTunes). The cantata's music itself (or perhaps it was just a bad performance) leaves a bit to be desired at times, but the overall work remains amusing and compelling listening.

I thought this must be the only political classical performance available, but I was wrong. Last week Maddow had an update on the Moment of Geek about two other such works. The first is a John Adam's opera, "Nixon in China" (video of Act 1, Scene 1 is available on YouTube, and even features Air Force One (pre 747 days) as part of the scene). And then there is "Three Rumsfeld Songs" by Phil Kline (downloadable from bangonacan.org). I am so hooked.

5 September 2009 - Kindling

I don't think that I have taken the opportunity to explain the beauty of my simple first generation Amazon Kindle. Since the device is central to this blog, allow me to explain briefly the device and my potentially irrational dependence and affection for the little slab of whitish plastic and not quite liquid crystal screen.

For those not familiar with the Kindle, it is an electronic book reader. Sony had one first but Amazon added several technologies that were absent from the Sony reader and coupled it with a direct link to the Amazon book distribution mechanism. It is larger than the small paperbacks but smaller than hardcovers. I think that Amazon claims that it can hold about 120 books on the device without using additional memory. It can also host audio books (but what's the point, really, as an audible book would be much better on an iPod). It has an onboard dictionary so you can highlight a line of text and it will look up the key words on that line. It has a very basic web browser. You can add notes and bookmarks, of course, and can even have some clips emailed to you. There are also about 5 different font sizes, so you can increase them when you're, for example, on the treadmill.

The device uses a technology called electronic ink that is markedly (no pun intended) different from the display of a regular computer screen etc. The screen is not backlit, so it can be read outside in direct sunlight. This electronic ink technology also significantly increases the battery life. I have found that I can be reading all day on vacation and not have to charge more than overnight, which is pretty good. Not to mention that when I go on vacation I don't have to figure out which books to take and leave behind based on how far I am and what I might want to read while on holiday.....

The coolest feature by far, though, is that books are downloaded wirelessly to the device within about a minute of ordering them. And you can browse the Kindle store of books on Amazon wirelessly on the device, which device is linked to your Amazon.com one-click settings. So I could literally be on the beach, ask you what you're reading, look it up and download it all within about a minute.

All this, plus the books are less expensive than the printed versions and you save the environment. When I lived in the US, I found it particularly nice for newspapers. Not only were the Kindle versions less expensive (I paid $27.99 per month for Saturday and Sunday home delivery of the NY Times, but could get it electronically every day on the Kindle for only $12.99 or so), but I received delivery wherever I was and never had to worry about stop notices for the newspaper or dealing with unread papers upon my return.

So with that as background, you can imagine how I would love this device -- cheaper, electronic, less baggage space. What's not to like? Well, there is one small drawback. Amazon chose to partner with Sprint for electronic delivery. Problem is, Sprint doesn't have a global network. So essentially you can only get electronic delivery within the continental United States. Hmmm.... That does not include Germany, in case you were wondering.

So there is a backstop measure. You can download content to your computer (as you would have to do with a Sony in any event, at least until their newest offering) and then push it to you Kindle. Not ideal, but in a country where English language books are not easy to come across, still a good deal. (And especially when dollars are so cheap in Euros!)

So the Kindle has been my cheap and easy connection to US political and other reading since I arrived. Until its untimely freeze this past freeze. It has a sort of "mouse" and related pointer area within the device and said device became nonfunctional on Friday. I tried restarting and even resetting the device, but to no avail. The main screen looked fine, but I was unable to use the "mouse" to select a book, so I was unable to read anything. Ruh roh.

Yesterday, I sent a message to the Amazon Kindle online help line and they asked me to call them, which I did. The dude, Blake (seriouslz?), was nice enough but, after suggesting that I reset the device (as if I hadn't thought of that before) declared the device inoperable and out of warranty. But, out of the goodness of his heart, he would be able to give me a credit towards the purchase of a new device. Except they could not ship said new device to Germany. I declined.

This morning, I tried a few other things that I thought might revive the Kindle (oddly, I haven't given it an individual name, which will register as odd with those who have read the rest of this blog, ala Bonnie, Hudson, etc.). Alas, none of them worked. So I did the thing I do when I am most frustrated with my laptop. I pulled the power plug and yanked the battery. After a long wake-up, the Kindle is just fine. No issues. New Kindle? I don't think so, "Blake."