Just two links Sorry I am in a hurry. The concerts were great. I'll write about them later. Thank you for the feedback.

• There is a long article plus discussion at kuro5hin on Go: Life Itself: "There is one board game that stands above all others. The most beautiful, most ancient, most strategic, most subtle. The king of games. A game which teaches as much as it entertains, whose enthusiasts number tens of millions and which has often been compared to life itself." I never played Go though I was very much into chess. But Go has always fascinated me. Especially the "strange" space logic in it where you don't take the opponent's pieces directly but you try to isolate them and you try to dominate the board in terms of space I found appealing. A game for an overpopulated world where the battle is for anthroposphere and not so much for material wealth.
• Salon on Mission of Burma: "The undeniable truth about Burma Mission of Burma recorded 21 songs, helped invent post-punk, and left a legacy that resonated from R.E.M. to Moby. More than 20 years later, no one will let the band die."

The origins of chess I read in Der Spiegel that Renate Syed, an indologist from Munich has found evidence for the theory that chess actually comes from India and originated as a war practice game called caturanga around 450 AD. The pawns were the infantry, the rooks were bronze chariots with archers, the bishops were war elephants, the knights were obviously horses and the queen used to be the minister who only moved one field diagonally like a handicapped king. The Indian king of Kanauj gave the game of chess without the rules as a present in the sixth century to the king of Persia to test his intelligence. The Arabs conquered Persia later on and spread the game of chess around the world. They gave the queen the long radius it has now as their armies were dominated by many fast moving horses and mounted camels.

Last question round with John Thanks for your good questions and your honest answers John. 10. It sounds like the Ryan Adams concert was excellent. What is the best live music experience you've had and why? My favourite concert was Yo La Tengo in Berlin in 1997. It was a small club in East Berlin. It was very crowded and hot. Ira Kaplan, Yo La Tengo's guitarist played himself into ecstasy. It was absolutely mesmerising. I came out of the concert as out of a purgatory. 11. What do you think would have become of the career of Nick Drake had he lived? He would have become popular one day. And probably would have become even sadder as he would have realised that success is not the only thing in life. And he would have written even more melancholic songs. 12. Have you traveled to America? If so, where did you visit and what were your impressions? If not, do you plan to do so? Yes. I've been to the East coast and the West coast. I loved San Francisco for the atmosphere and Cape Cod for the landscape. Another great place was Sonoma County for the wine, especially the red Zinfandel. I like America as a country a lot (or is it just a myth?). though I am not sure if I like Americans as people (I mean in general). Many Germans have the prejudice that most Americans are quite superficial people. Open and nice in the beginning but without much depth behind. Ignorant of almost everything outside of the US. I guess there is some truth hidden in this prejudice. 13. What words would you choose as your epitaph? There is life before death.

• I started a thread on Ryan Adams. Uninspired copycat or the Future of rockn'roll? at I Love Music. The answers were quite disappointing as most of them were off-topic and/or cynical.
• I will participate in the third anniversary special of Freaky Trigger, the pop music fanzine of Tom Ewing and friends in March. The task is to write 100 words on an album I'd like others to know more about and another 100 words on an album another participant has chosen which will be selected randomly. Up to now there are already about 50 potential contributors. Everyone interested can take part in this. So come on join us.

Blogger Insider, John's 2nd set of questions 5) I am very envious of your planned trip to hear Ryan Adams in concert. I really like his music. How long have you been following his career? Do you listen to much of his pre-going solo work? Damned. Today I found out that his concert is sold out. But my girl-friend and me will go there anyway. Maybe we are lucky that there are tickets on the spot. I do not know any of the Whiskeytown records. But I'll guess I wouldn't like them too much as they are quite country as far as I have heard. I got Heartbreaker last year and I loved it. He has everything it needs. A good expressive varied voice, touching lyrics and great melodies. He could well become today's Bob Dylan. 6) Yesterday was a rainy day for you. Do you like rainy days? If so, why? If not, why not? Depends on the circumstances and the place. In Germany I usually hate rain. As there is so much here. It rains almost every second day. In Mediterranean countries I love the summer rain as it clears the hot earth and is rare and precious. 7) Do you have siblings? If so, describe them, please. Yes I have got a younger sister. She is very different from me. Less of a thinker. More of an expert in the art of living. 8) Name a song that describes well your current state of mind. A Thousand Kisses Deep by Leonard Cohen. Especially the beginning: "The ponies run, the girls are young, The odds are there to beat. You win a while, and then it's done - Your little winning streak." 9) Name a song that makes you immediately happy any time you hear it. That is very difficult. I'd say the Sugarglider's Will We Ever Learn. Not really happy but very light and tuneful as only bands from the fifth continent can be.

Friday Five 1. What's the most romantic thing you've ever done for someone else? I gave her my jacket as she was feeling cold. It was in winter and I didn't feel warmer after that. 2. [pardon the cosmo question] What are your erogenous zones? Just one. Actually on second thoughts two. But they are quite close to another. 3. How old were you the first time you had sex? 20. 4. What's the most unusual place you've ever had sex? Choose. On beaches of the Greek islands of Rhodes and Halki or in the park near here. 5. Do you have plans for Valentine's Day or is it just another Thursday? Nothing special. Except we will go to see Ryan Adams in the Batschkapp.

Blogger insider is back Keith has enough work to match about 200 webloggers every two weeks who are participating in his q&a game. Therefore newcomers are not accepted anymore. John from LA asked me these excellent first questions. You can check my first questions and his answers on his blog. Btw John, there are worse addictions in the world than workaholism. 1) We're now twelve-plus after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Do you sense that Germany is truly united? If not, what work remains to be done to unite the nation? No. Germany is definitely not yet united. I guess It will take at least one generation for the Germans to become one people. East Germans ("Ossis") still have to fight with loads of prejudices West Germans ("Wessis") have against them. Wessis often think Ossis are slow, lazy and naive. Sometimes this is true as East Germany was a country where initiative and critical thinking were not valued high. I guess if you are born after 1985 it does not really make a big difference for your character if you are born in the East or West of Germany. 2) What are your opinions on the whole issue of copyright protection on recorded music and Napster and other peer-to-peer file sharing? That is a difficult subject. I like the fact that the big entertainment groups have smaller profits now due to Napster and the like. On the other hand the artists are left out as well. Therefore I think a system like emusic where the customers pay a monthly fee and can download as much as they want could be a viable compromise. 3) What is your take on the status of the American-led "War on Terrorism?" I have stopped writing on it in my weblog as I feel helpless about it (one of the things I can't change and have to accept). But if you ask me I have to say that I am very skeptical about the American policy. In a way I see the attacks as a reaction to the US foreign politics of the past. The war on terrorism just continues the arrogant and self-righteous appearance of the Americans in the world. It will not solve the problem of terrorism. It will only aggravate it. By attacking one of the poorest countries in the world the US definitely have not diminished the hatred against them. And hatred against the last superpower is the origin of the attacks. It really frightens me how the US behave in the UN or in environmental conferences. The US always do what serves them best no matter if it is humanitarian or not. Therefore I see our future on this planet endangered if we do not get a world government with all people and nations represented in there soon. The huge problems which lie ahead of us can only be solved together. Different nations, people and religions just show the huge variety of the human species and should not separate us from another anymore. 4) Does your academic study of statistics enrich your passion for music? If so, in what ways? Strange question. By chance I happen to like many bands with numbers in their names, e.g. 16 Horsepower, 22 Pistepirkko, 808 State (in moderation). Basically listening to music is a counterbalance to the dry subject of statistics for me.

Friday Five Another q&a game for webloggers. It is by Heather from smattering. Five questions every Friday.

1. Have you ever had braces? Any other teeth trauma? No. I almost always had perfect teeth. Except the colour. They became yellowish-brownish from the black tea in the morning and the 100 kilograms of burning tobacco I have inhaled in my life. 2. Ever broken any bones? Yes twice. I fell and broke my right foot which now has a ganglion where it broke. The advantage is that it will never break there again. The second time I had a bicycle accident. Broke my collar bone quite badly. The doctor had to put a 20 centimeter nail into my shoulder to stabilise it. After four weeks the nail was taken out again. A strange feeling. Suddenly there seemed to be a hole in my shoulder. 3. Ever had stitches? Another bicycle accident. I tried to go downhill in a bend without braking. It was a kind of sport. I knew the bend perfectly well as it happened to be on the way to my favourite pub. Needless to say that I was not 100% sober when it happened. The eyebrows had to be stitched. 4. What are the stories behind some of your [physical] scars? As a child I ran full speed against a radiator with my head first as I wanted to catch a ball which had fallen below the radiator. My head hurt quite badly and I took a cushion to ease the pain. The cushion was soaked in red blood after a minute. Now I have a scar on top of my head. The scar is covered by hair so that it can't be seen usually. 5. How do you plan to spend your weekend? Tomorrow I will be lazy. Have my car washed. Try to find a decent office chair (hopefully this wonderful fully mobile Moitzi). And look for a car cd/mp3 player. On Sunday the weather is supposed to be even sunnier and Catherine and me plan to walk a stretch on the European long-distance hiking path E3 (Royan, Atlantic to Marktredwitz, Bohemian Forest) which goes from Glashütten via the Feldberg to the old Roman Saalburg. 17 kilometers with 1,100 meters of altitude difference.

Blogger Insider, second edition Cebern Dodd Harris IV (that's how he calls himself at least) asked me the following ten questions. Check my questions and his answers in his weblog Ipse Dixit.

1. You haven't posted lately. Did you go on vacation? Yes. I have been in Southern France in Brouilla, a small village close to Perpignan. From there you have a nice view of the Canigou, one of the highest and most beautiful mountains of the Pyrenees. I went with my girl-friend Catherine (Q4) and we stayed at her mother's new house. We had beautiful sunny weather and drank and ate very well which is quite normal in France. We made day trips to Argeles at the Mediterranean, Prats-de-Mollo in the Pyrenees and Perpignan.

2. Have you ever been to North America? Yes. I was in New York State in 1979, in California in 1997 and in Massachusetts in 1999. I especially loved Sonoma County (great wine, forget Napa) and Cape Cod. Not to forget Big Sur and San Francisco, the most beautiful city I know. Very nice beer this Anchor Steam.

3. You worked for the European Commission. Will a federal state of Europe result in more homogeneity across the Continent? I doubt it. Europe is so bloody weak politically nowadays as historically France, Germany and Great Britain have always been enemies and they still cannot speak with one voice as they have different interests. Just take the Israel-Palestinia conflict. France has been on the side of the Arabs for a long time. Germany still cannot be against Israel because of what we did to the Jews from 1933-45. And what really sucks about Europe is the loss of language. In Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg they have their own Eurospeak, a kind of pidgin English with many stupid acronyms in it. I also left Luxembourg to regain a proper language and to have less superficial relations. Don't know if I succeeded.

4. This may be on your blog somewhere, but if so, I haven't found it: Married, single, seeing someone? see Q1.

5. You admire Leonard Cohen for the serenity evidenced by not having a lot of conviction about his own opinions. Are you that serene? Do you aspire to be? I would not admire him for his serenity if I were as serene. I like his modest attitude towards his opinions. That he does not take himself too seriously. Opinions are always subjective (only a part of the whole picture) and never right so yes I would like to be as detached from my opinons as Leonard Cohen is.

6. Since you haven't gotten around to doing it yet, why not tell us now why Camus was wrong? Shit. I knew this would happen. I should never announce anything in this blog. But ok I was thinking of Sisyphus which I consider as the focal point of Camus' philosophy. All Sisyphus (who stands for the modern man) is doing (in Greek mythology he is punished for something but that is not important for Camus I guess) is rolling this stone up the mountain and when the stone reaches the top it rolls down again and da capo ad infinam. Sisyphus' life has no meaning. My view is different. Though I have not chosen to live as a human being on planet earth I somehow feel the challenge to find out the meaning of my life here. I have not found it yet but that does not mean it does not exist. I would find it presumptuous to say my life is useless. Life is such a miracle that it cannot be totally futile I feel.

7. Should Basic Statistics should be a required course in high school? Though I studied statistics I do not really care about this. I guess not.

8. You like making 5 Item Lists, it seems. What are your Five Songs You Can Never Get Tired Of? Five is such a ridiculously small number for songs I like, but as you asked it, just what comes to my mind: A Forest by The Cure, Lucky Jim by The Gun Club, Julia by The Beatles, Transmission by Joy Division and Panic by The Smiths.

9. Is there any rhyme or reason to when you decide to post in German rather than your more usual English? Or is it just to provide some balance occasionally? Usually more personal and philosophical posts are in German. I did not want to write about too many personal things in this weblog. That's why it is mainly in English.

10. What's the referent for "sex and sunshine" as the title of a blog that focuses mainly on music? There is none. When thinking of a name "sex and sunshine" came to mind. Two of the most important experiences in life of which I still have not had enough. The music thing came later just to make clear that my site is not an adult site. The music blog which inspired me was Josh blog though he writes in a totally different way about music. His writing his precise and conscientious. Mine is vague and allegorical at best.

Communicating with other webloggers Keith Berman had a simple (simple ideas are the best) and excellent idea how to connect webloggers. It's called the Blogger Insider. If you sign up you will be matched with another weblogger and you can ask 10-15 questions to him/her and in return your counterpart asks you 10-15 questions. The questions and answers are then published on both weblogs. The frequency of this q&a exercise is bi-weekly. I was paired with Martin from southwestern Ontario who already has answered my questions frankly and quite detailed on his site. Here are his questions and my answers:

1. Has the focus of German music turned more toward techno? Bands like Kruder & Dorfmeister are all I hear about lately. I must admit that I am neither a big fan of German music nor of techno music in general therefore my answer here can only be very fragmentary. Germany has always been a stronghold of electronic music. Bands like Kraftwerk, Neu!, Faust and La Düsseldorf pioneered experimental electronic music in the 70s. Techno has started in Detroit as a further development of house I think. Nevertheless it has become very big in Germany in the early 90s. The yearly Berlin Love Parade in mid-July with almost a million participants and disc jockeys like Sven Väth have spread techno in Germany. Kruder & Dorfmeister are based in Vienna, Austria (though one of the two is from Bavaria I guess) and are therefore not really German in the strict sense. Their music is not techno but electronic remixing. I listen to them from time to time and like remixes like Depeche Mode's Useless from the K & D Sessions a lot. To listen to a whole album of theirs in one sitting nevertheless I find very difficult as the music is a little too monotonous and predictable for my taste. That really depends on my mood. I am just listening to the whole K&D Sessions and I enjoy it I prefer other current non-techno German bands singing in German. Especially the Hamburg scene is noteworthy. I loved Blumfeld's second album L'Ètat est Moi which was a milestone in German indierock in the mid 90s. Great almost philosophical lyrics. Another great band from Hamburg is Tocotronic. Their early stuff was quite punk rock influenced but their latest album K.O.O.K. is more melodic and mainstream. The lyrics are funny with a laconic touch. This year I discovered Fink who are also from Hamburg but do not belong to the same scene. They make atmospheric folkrock influenced music not so far from Calexico and Giant Sand. Great instrumentalists who tell melancholic stories in bitter-sweet ballads. Another very influential band from a totally different background is Rammstein from East Germany who are even successful in the US. Their teutonic goth-hardrock is not really my cup of tea but they have their moments. On the David Lynch soundtrack Lost Highway there is the song Rammstein which recreates the morbid atmosphere after the Rammstein (a place in the German low mountain range Eifel and an ex-US air base) airplane show disaster (many people died when a couple of airplanes crashed) hauntingly well. Einstürzende Neubauten is another band we should not forget. They are Germany's Sonic Youth but more radical. Their heyday were the 80s. Making music with drilling machines was one of their strengths. They opened new horizons for rock music. Up to date electronic German music I don't care about is released by the Cologne label Kompakt. It has been labelled minimal techno. I find that it is terrible and boring but maybe it will turn out to be a trendsetter like Kraftwerk's Autobahn in the mid 70s. I doubt it.

2. Do you think that machines make life easier, or in fact serve to cause more stress? A question you could write a dissertation on. I feel that there is no definite answer to this. Man's use of advanced machines as computers and robots changes the focus of our life. It gives us much more time to think about ourselves and the machines. It alienates us from basic needs like food. There is the danger that we get too self-centered. But on the other hand now we have much more freedom. We can choose to use the machines or not to use them. Before we couldn't. We can afford to go into a Zen monastery and meditate for a month to come back to our roots. But there is a tendency that the fully automatised world takes over. For example cars without electronic aids are almost impossible to purchase today. If something goes wrong with the electronics you are totally helpless (btw I am so unpractical that I was quite helpless already before).

3. Do you play any games on your computer, and if so, what is/has been your favourite? Not really. The only computer game I got into was Tetris. I used to spend hours of my student life playing Tetris on my Atari ST. Later on I played the Windows version. One day I got above the score of 32767 and the score went back to zero as apparently it was defined as a short integer. That was the end of my Tetris playing days. I also used to play chess with programs (especially Chessmaster 2000) and via the internet at the Internet Chess Club. The internet is a great way for playing chess but I would prefer to play real people in front of me in a pub.

4. Can you think of a song whose lyrics you find most meaningful? Check my post on Nick Drake's Road. Another song with lyrics that touched me a lot is Neil Young's Cortez the Killer. The history of the conquest of America by the Europeans from the point of view of the Indians. So sadly true and moving. The lyrics of almost every second Joni Mitchell song speak to me. Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed have amazing lyrics too. As so many others...

5. What's your take on internet music? Do you still buy all your music, or do you download most of it now? I download a lot to check beforehand if it is worthwhile purchasing it on cd.

6. You have an extensive and multi-faceted music collection. What got you started? Was there anything in particular that drew you in? Don't really know. My first love in my teens was early Genesis from the Peter Gabriel days. They created their own world in music. I guess that has always been the biggest attraction of music for me. A parallel world I can dive into to forget the real world around me for a while.

7. What's the first song you remember hearing? I have got such a bad memory. One of the first which left a mark on me was Mrs Robinson by Simon & Garfunkel. A melody I will never forget.

8. If you could spend a day with anyone, (current/historic/fictional) who would it be? Nice question. I guess it would still be the German philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche whom I admired for his lucid vision of mankind in my youth. If I could choose two it would be Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady when they travelled the US in the late 40s and early 50s.

9. What's the song you least like to admit you think/thought is/was cool? Neil Young's Every Man Needs a Maid. On the verge between kitsch and romance.

10. Can you play any musical instruments? No.
11. It's said among my friends that each person can do three things better than anyone else. What are your three? A hard one. I can only answer it in an ironical way. In every period of my life I was always able to find a best friend. That is something quite rare I feel. I am quite good at giving up smoking and starting again but a good friend of mine is probably better at it. Maybe I am the best male partner in my personal four person chess version which is called touche-bouge (touch-move) where you play with someone of the opposite sex and one person touches the piece which has to be moved and the other moves it.

12. Considering you're attuned with the music scene, and live in Germany, I wonder if it ever bugs you that north americans tend to think German popular music ends with Nena, Falco and Trio. You are not so wrong here. New wave was the last German style I liked. Don't forget thee German rap band Die Fantastischen Vier here. Not only their smash single Die da was great. Their lyrics are twisted German colloquial speak. See also answer to question 1.

13. Do you have any pets? If so, elaborate. No. We had a cross-breed dog when I was 13-15. I will never forget the day she was run over by a car. I listened to Alan Parsons' Project Tales of Mystery and Imagination (Edgar Allan Poe short stories transformed to pop music) that day. The first and only time in my life I ever encountered death in a physical way. The end of my youth.

Connections
From time to time there are these threads at ILM. They are called Only Connect. I think you start with some artist or song and the next person has to make a connection to another artist or song etc. The internet works like that. Hyperlinks are connections and I love jumping from A to B to Z to A. Let's see if it works. 10 hops must be possible.

1 As a good self-referentialist I start with my review of the Van Gogh exhibition in Frankfurt.
2 From there I go to an article by Mario Vargas Llosa in the New York Times on Van Gogh and Gauguin (free registration required) living together in Arles.
3a Next station could be (but is not) the fireworks Rhein in Flammen as in the aforementioned article Arles is supposed to be on the Rhine. A German (ok ok Swiss-German-French-Dutch) river flowing into the Mediterranean. A dream coming true. I hope the translator and not Vargas Llosa could not distinguish the "o" from the "i". Whatever. Next time I (as a European) will write that Washington is the capital of Tierra del Fuego.
3 On we go therefore with absinth as both Gauguin and van Gogh loved it whereas Vargas Llosa thinks of it (in the NYT article) as "a nasty beverage tasting of mint and sugar, pharmaceutically based".
4 Next stop is salvia divinorum, a substance which is legal in contrast to absinth but which has similar effects.
5 I do not know anything about the Mazatec indians in Mexico (who consume salvia) but I know Castaneda (RIP) who wrote about Mexican sorcerers who can fly.
6 Castanedas teacher (in his books) was called Don Juan which brings us back to the old continent. Mozart's most famous opera (google translation from Italian).
7 Now I make a jump of two centuries. The Beatles were to the late twentieth century what Mozart was to the late 18th.
8 The Beatles without John Lennon would be like Christianity without Jesus.
9 At ILM someone imagined that Jesus would be listening to Oasis on his walkman now.
10 An oasis in the desert is like this site in the internet. But watch your clicks. It could also be a fata morgana or like a drug test experience.