Deutschland über Elvis

Who's yo' daddy?

It's a boy's bathroom, no?

Here's a secret for all you people who have never met a homosexual. (Or, rather, who think you've never met a homosexual.)

Gay relationships are not like straight ones. You can't pick who's the Mommy and who's the Daddy. It doesn't work that way.

(Of course, it shouldn't work that way in a non-sexist straight relationship, either. But that's another issue)

If it makes more sense for Master Right to take charge of something, then he takes charge. He can really put his back into a shovel, so he does the yard. I taught myself a bit of carpentry, so I do most of the handyman jobs around the place.

This works 99% of the time.

There are exceptions. Putting together Ikea bookshelves presses both of our alpha-dog primal buttons. ("No, YOU just hold it there, and I'll screw this bit...no, that doen't go there...let ME hold that while you...gimme the screwdriver...can you go faster with that allen key...no, THIS way...I told you that was upside down...") We end up in fisticuffs.

And every so often we have The Housewife Argument. When we first started getting serious, I asked him his plans for the future.

"I want to be a housewife," he said, scratching his balls.

"That ain't gonna happen," I replied, "If anyone is going to be a goddamn housewife around here, it's gonna be me."

The argument escalated until I had him in a head lock, shouting "Say it, MOTHERFUCKER, what are you?" He gave in, agreeing to be the master of the house while I damn well packed his lunch and had a tray of fucking cookies made for when he got home.

I sure as hell showed him who wore the apron in this house. Yes sir-ee.

What brought on these reflections? Well, Master Right just arrived in Munich for good. So our domestic life has picked up from where it left off.

For a while, he might get his wish. Ah, love.

Apple Leopard is a boon for bilingual households.

All we need to do is switch the keyboard, and restart.

Here, you see my English keyboard with Master Right's Japanese one.

I use a German keyboard and German Windows at work. It's a pain in the ass.

Windows effectively cannot switch languages.

A public rehearsal

The theatre makes magic. That's its job.

Like all jobs, magic entails work. Very few elements of an actor's art are truly spontaneous; it is her craft to conceal this fact.

Artistic inspiration comes only when the nuts and bolts are tight, when we have dispensed with the practical demands of putting people around each other in a limited space. To paraphrase Noël Coward, magic happens when everyone knows his lines, and nobody trips over the furniture.

A good rehearsal is like carpentry. At the end, you've built a functional object, the performance. Like a door, you can open it and close it as many times as you like, and it will always do the same thing.

In my student theatre days, I used to love rehearsals; nowadays, I treasure the moments when I stumble across one. Cycling home from work today, I did just that.

The Altstadtfest happens this weekend, a highlight of Munich's 850th birthday celebrations. One of major performances is the München Revue, in the Odeonsplatz. It will, it seems, involve an acrobat on a trapeze suspended above the crowd.

Just another workaday job on a working city street. Very few of the passers-by even noticed.

Plenty of workers sitting around, leaning on their shovels. In the theatre, that's forgivable; indeed, it's necessary. They're waiting for a cue.

The craft of the theatre doubles in complexity when you put it on film. If managing actors in a physical space in a theatre proves a challenge, imagine the same thing with the audience wearing blinkers. That's film.

These filmy types are working for Bayerische Rundfunk, the German version of the BBC. Actually, it's not quite the German BBC: that's Deutsche Welle, based in Cologne. Bayerische Rundfunk is the Bavarian state BBC. They've covered Munich's birthday celebrations diligently.

Though not a national institution, BR is a broadcaster of considerable standing. Listen to any classical music station on the planet, and you'll soon hear a recording made by the so-called Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. That's BR.

With 20 million inhabitants, Bavaria holds as many people as Australia; why shouldn't our local broadcaster be on a par, at least with the ABC? BR broadcasts throughout Germany.

These pictures are much better if you embiggen them, BTW. By a neat coincedence, this week's Photo Friday challenge is Lightness.