Musical geekery

The song chart meme (via LittlestYellowestDifferentest):

And of course I couldn't resist joining in:

Melbourne / Berlin: a district-by-district guide

Melbourne and Berlin have a lot in common.  They're both the most culturally vibrant cities in their respective countries,  they're both roughly the same size,  and they're both full of fascinating people and places.  Not surprisingly,  they also appeal to the same kinds of people:  Berliners who visit Australia often rank Melbourne as their favourite city,  and Melbournians travelling through Europe always seem to fall in love with Berlin.  And Nick Cave is by no means the only one who's ended up living in the other city for years.

When I moved to Melbourne from Berlin,  I found myself inevitably classifying areas of the new city in terms of areas familiar to me in Berlin,  as a way of orienting myself.  I was amazed how easy it was,  and how neatly it all seemed to fit.  This is my guide to Melbourne for Berliners,  and to Berlin for Melbournians,  according to what Australians call  "suburbs"  and what Berliners know as  "Bezirke".

Caveat:  it's only a rough approximation,  and there are plenty of differences between the two cities,  not least stemming from the fact that the dominant ethnic group in Berlin is the Germans and in Melbourne the Anglo-Celtic Australians.  But I think it gives anyone familiar with either town a pretty good idea of how things fit together in the other - at least in the inner city areas.  I'm basically restricting myself to those;  I could go beyond that but I'm not very familiar with the outer suburbs of either city,  and let's face it,  outer suburbs just aren't very interesting anywhere really.  The further out you go,  the more boring and/or nasty things tend to get,  and let that be warning enough for you.

First a rough geographical overview:  inner east of Berlin  =  inner north of Melbourne,  inner west of Berlin  =  inner south of Melbourne.  Centre  =  centre.

Northcote  =  Friedrichshain.  Not long ago considered very dull,  now increasingly hip with lots of new little cafes/galleries/live music venues and other  "alternative"  things.  Some of these have established themselves,  most however are rather ephemeral and will disappear relatively quickly,  to be replaced by others.  In other words,  an area in flux,  with a lot of interesting things going on.  Some bits are much more hip and/or upmarket than others.  Ethnically still pretty much dominated by the traditional majority group,  although slowly becoming more diverse.  Note that Northcote does not have a Simon-Dach-Strasse area:  the closest thing to that is probably the Bridge Rd-Church St area of Richmond.

Richmond  =  hard to classify in Berlin terms:  something like the Hauptstrasse area of Schöneberg mixed with Simon-Dach-Strasse area of Friedrichshain.  Close to coolness but not quite there,  despite sometimes trying very hard - with the exception of a few venues which are genuinely very good indeed.

Brunswick  =  Neukölln  (Nord - the parts closest to Kreuzberg).  Similar to Northcote/Friedrichshain in terms of being in flux,  rapidly becoming much more hip,  lots of new arty-alternative things popping up.  However,  both poorer and hipper than Nthcote/F'hain and even more interesting things going on nowadays.  Much more ethnically diverse as well:  this is an area which has long been an ethnic minority stronghold,  particularly for the Arab/Turkish/Muslim ethnic minorities,  but with other groups as well.

Coburg  =  Neukölln (Süd/south).  Geographically one step out from Brunswick/Neukölln.  Similar to that area,  only not becoming hip.

Fitzroy North,  Carlton North,  Clifton Hill  =  Kreuzberg 61.  Comfortable,  relaxed,  leafy area of the city,  full of quiet well-ordered streets with nice little cafes,  bookshops and organic groceries.  A few good bars and music/performance venues.  Lots of people who vote Green.  Becoming more expensive these days,  more yuppie-ish,  but still very alternative in character,  if rather "safe" and unexciting.  Traditionally an ethnic minority stronghold  (with main ethnic group Italian in Melbourne and Turkish in Berlin),  but less so these days as rents rise.

Fitzroy  &  Carlton,  parts of Collingwood  =  Prenzlauer Berg  (especially south of Danziger Strasse).  Once the hippest part of town (and originally very working-class),  but became much less hip over the past decade or so as all the fashionable young wannabes moved in.  Now increasingly expensive and increasingly mainstream and "trendy".  However,  still a number of good bars and music/performance venues hanging on in various places.  Also lots of nice leafy streets and still some interesting little cafes and shops.  The alternative past is by no means completely dead,  but the area is not as pleasant as it once was,  and nowhere near as affordable.  Ethnic diversity:  fairly low.  (Note Fitzroy/Carlton doesn't have nearly as many babies as Prenzl Berg:  still more a young singles place than a young families place.  Fitzroy/Carlton also doesn't have the old,  fairly mainstream gaybourhood that Prenzl Berg does,  although there is something of a gay presence there and it's likewise fairly mainstream)

Abbotsford  &  parts of Collingwood  =  Kreuzberg 36.  Not long ago quite seedy,  poor,  gritty,  very hip in the slightly scary inner-city-ghetto kind of way - drugs,  punks,  loud bars,  etc.  Now increasingly gentrified,  but retaining a respectable amount of its earlier character.  Very strong hippy tradition as well.  Located on the banks of the river,  with some nice green spots.  Features a major arts centre  (in a refurbished historic building complex)  and a sizeable children's farm.  Also has the city's biggest not-totally-mainstream queer scene  (although some of the most interesting queer stuff is now happening elsewhere,  especially in Melbourne where it's moved to Brunswick and Melbourne City).  Still an ethnic minority stronghold (Turkish in Berlin,  Vietnamese in Abbotsford).  Also continues to have a very strong sense of community,  with people willing to protest against new developments they feel will alter the character of the area.
Note:  Collingwood/Abbotsford was never quite so hip or vibrant as Kreuzberg 36 was in the eighties;  it lacks Kreuzberg's legendary squatting past.  Kreuzberg 36 is perhaps unique in terms of its steeped-in-tradition cool and the strength of its community spirit,  although both have weakened in recent years under the pressures of development and rising property values - something also confronting Abbotsford/Collingwood.

Melbourne City,  South Melbourne  &  Port Melbourne  =  Mitte  &  Tiergarten.  All the main tourist landmarks,  plus the main business district and the city's major parklands.  Also includes the main arts precinct and museums.  Lots of fashionable galleries,  eateries and nightlife,  and the city's most expensive residential districts.  Also the city's most expensive shops.

I'm less familiar with the south of Melbourne and the west of Berlin,  so the following are only a very rough comparison:

South Yarra  (west of Chapel St)  =  Mitte  (Spandauer Vorstadt)  but minus Oranienburger Strasse.  Expensive and fashionable,  but mostly in a rather quiet and understated kind of way.  This place has style - expensive style.  However,  still a few surprisingly down-at-heel corners surviving if you look hard enough.  Lots of art galleries and boutiques.  Next to the river.

South Yarra (east of Chapel St) & Toorak  =  Charlottenburg.  Also expensive but less fashionable.  "Old money" area.  Possibly not quite as many art galleries in the Melbourne area as in Charlottenburg,  but I haven't really looked closely at either area.

Prahran & Windsor  =  Wilmersdorf/Schöneberg.  Includes the city's traditional mainstream gaybourhood.  Generally similar to Mitte/South Yarra  (the latter being next to it in Melbourne,  on the northern edge of the gaybourhood)  but not quite as expensive or as fashionable.  Fairly boring on the whole.

St Kilda (minus beach)  =  Schöneberg/Tempelhof  (minus airport).  Fairly mainstream,  still relatively working class,  still some very seedy corners but on the whole undergoing gentrification  (and St Kilda has been going upmarket with startling speed,  more so than Tempelhof or Schöneberg).  Probably more ethnically diverse than the other areas in the inner south of Melb/west of Berlin,  which tend to be very much dominated by the majority group.  [Edit 26/01/08:  St Kilda is probably more like Prenzlauer Berg - not only is it going upmarket from poor origins,  it also used to be a quite alternative area popular with artists,  and there's still a fair bit of artsy stuff there.  It also has a reasonable gay presence,  spillover from adjacent Prahran/Windsor.  Possibly even more like Prenzl Berg than Fitzroy/C'wood,  as those areas have a few patches which are very Kreuzberg.]

And that's it - everything within the borders of my world,  which essentially consists of the central areas of two cities on opposite sides of the planet.  I'd like to have been able to talk more about Melbourne's inner west - the Kensington/Footscray/Yarraville area - but I really know very little of it,  although from what I've heard it sounds a lot like Wedding/Moabit.  If you want to check out maps of any of these places,  you can find Berlin here and Melbourne here.  Explore and enjoy.

"Where are all the moderate Muslims?"

Boy,  am I sick and tired of hearing that old line.  I saw it asked most recently by Dan Savage in an op-ed piece in Seattle newspaper The Stranger  (on Dec 7 - yeah,  this has been sitting on the  "to blog"  list for a while).  Savage is more famous for doing what he is good at,  namely giving excellent sex advice.  He's less good whenever he strays beyond that sphere,  usually leading him to mouth all the usual ill-considered and ill-informed opinions typical of mainstream centre-left America.  Such as his wholehearted  "humanitarian"  support for the invasion of Iraq.  Now he thinks it's a  "good question"  when an op-ed in the New York Times asks where are all the voices of Muslims who are "said to be moderates".

Well,  the short answer to that would be – as always – they're in the newspapers you aren't reading.

Mass media organizations generally report news that they believe their readers/listeners/viewers will be interested in hearing.  This is particularly true of commercial media organizations,  which depend for the their livelihood on the level of interest they can raise among their potential audience.  Now,  which of these headlines is going to sell more papers:  "Girl stoned to death by enraged fundamentalist mob"  or  "Moderate cleric calls for restraint"  ?  No prizes for guessing that one.  In the same way,  media organizations also tend to pander to whatever prejudices or stereotypes their customers are predisposed to have,  rather than attempting to challenge those prejudices.

So we begin to see why people like Dan Savage might not be hearing any moderate Muslim voices.  Virtually all major  (and most minor)  media outlets in the USA are commercial.  The situation is fairly similar in most of the Western world,  Australia included.  In the USA,  the band of different political viewpoints catered to by major news providers is also relatively narrow:  the British press offers a considerably broader spectrum,  for example.  Furthermore,  the range of viewpoints in the mainstream American media tends to be more right-wing and more anti-Arab than elsewhere,  reflecting the prevailing political climate.

The New York Times piece which set Savage off was written by Ayaan Hirsi Ali,  described at the end of the article as  "a former member of the Dutch Parliament and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute".  Sounds very respectable. But what is the  "American Enterprise Institute",  exactly?  In the unlikely event that any New York Times readers felt the need for critical appraisal of that organization,  they would have had to look outside the mainstream American media to find it.  There are plenty of blogs out there talking about it and even Wikipedia is not too bad, but my favourite source for this kind of thing is the highly regarded,  left-leaning British daily The Guardian.  Articles like this have described the AEI as a neo-conservative thinktank which is fiercely pro-Israel and anti-Arab,  and one which has enjoyed remarkable favour not only with the Bush White House,  but also with a broad cross-section of the Amercian media.  Other pieces like this offer harsh criticism of the quality of its policy advice,  and argue that its  "scholarship"  is hamstrung by its extreme political biases.

Not only does the The Guardian provide information which might lead readers to question the agenda and credibility of the New York Times author,  it is also one of the very few Western media outlets I know of which regularly reports voices of "moderate Islam",  the existence of which Hirsi Ali dismisses as "wishful thinking".  A recent example came in its coverage of the British teacher imprisoned in Sudan for giving a teddy bear the name Mohammed.  One article contained the following paragraphs:

While many in Khartoum thought the arrest was harsh - the Sudanese blogosphere is awash with derision aimed at the authorities - leaflets were distributed at some mosques calling for protests against Gibbons after Friday prayers.
[..]
There was little doubt the protest had been carefully orchestrated.  The banners waved by marchers and tied to the front of vehicles had all been pre-printed.
[..]
The police did not intervene,  indicating that the protest received the official approval of the authorities.

In other words,  not only do we hear of moderate Muslims condemning the extremists,  we are also given the impression that the enraged mob was the result of a carefully orchestrated action by people with a hidden agenda  (quite possibly an unpopular government seeking to have unrest vented on a convenient foreigner).  Regardless of the ultimate truth of the matter,  The Guardian's piece is valuable for its thought-provoking perspective.

My previous post here cited the headline of an article in Australian paper The Age covering the same story.  That article in The Age was in fact lifted directly from the article quoted above,  citing  "The Guardian"  as its source.  In a graphic example of just how blatantly media outlets will manipulate information to cater to their reader's preferences,  The Age dropped all the passages just quoted,  along with any other "shades of grey",  turning it into yet another story bound to make its readers to ask where all the moderate Muslims are.  And given the source citation,  few readers would expect those moderates to be found in The Guardian either!

So Dan Savage's simplistic perspective is not surprising.  His support for the Iraq war stemmed from the same lack of access to decent information,  the same deplorable and deliberate failure of the mass media to provide vital facts.  Stephen Colbert got it exactly right with his satirical praise of the White House Press Corps back in 2006:  "We Americans didn't want to know,  and you had the courtesy not to try to find out".

Papa, non predicare

The World section of today's online edition of The Age has these two items cheek by jowl:

- Kill 'teddy bear' teacher,  says crowd
- Pope blames atheism for injustice and cruelty

Enough said, really.