SEARCH RESULTS

If you haven't experienced it yourself, you might think it's just a phrase, but literature really does inspire you to cook. For this article, not only the exchange with the Swiss cooking talent Lorenz Graf - whose creations impress me deeply - but also a book was a source of inspiration: Paul Auster - The Art of Hunger. In it, Auster asks whether there is a compulsion to write and whether - if so - the great works of world literature differ from all other books in that they had to be written. If you are looking for an answer to this question, I am sorry to disappoint you. The Oyster is a diva and deserves full attention! But one thing is certain: Paul Auster's book about the art of hunger inspired me to devote myself to Oysters. Was it a compulsion? Hard to say, maybe it was just hunger. In any case, this article is different from all the other articles written about oysters. Promise! When one begins to explore the topic of oysters, the first fundamental question that arises is why should one slurp a mélange of oyster meat, lemon, and seawater at all? This cult delicacy has fascinated people for centuries. Actually, longer than that, considering that Aphrodite, the goddess of love, sprang from a shell and the oyster is said to have an aphrodisiac effect. Zinc is said to stimulate the production of sex hormones and increase testosterone levels. No wonder the inventor of polygamy - Giacomo Casanova - ate 50 oysters for breakfast. Whether oysters have an aphrodisiac effect has never been scientifically confirmed. It's quite possible that it was simply due to the champagne because it certainly couldn't convince with its fishy breath alone. But myths - like oysters - should be enjoyed and not questioned. So, it's quite possible that Casanova had one or the other Arielle on his hook. Love knows no boundaries! I first really fell in love with oysters via the Netflix series Mad Man. As a former advertiser, I felt a deep connection to the characters on the show and watching them treat themselves to two dozen oysters and a bottle of champagne after a successful pitch made oysters seem like a way to be even closer to them, because I never got served oysters at Jung von Matt, Advico Young & Rubicam, or Wunderman Thompson. Not because there was nothing to celebrate but unlike the 50's, I lacked the time to do so in the 50-hour work week. So, if any dropouts are looking for a startup idea: Oyster delivery service with 10% discount for ADC-members. I have great understanding that oysters for breakfast are not everyone's cup of tea. But when is the right occasion, when is the right time for oysters? There are many reasons to eat oysters - a winning pitch, loneliness, attention deficit, love of the sea, the right six crosses on the lottery ticket.... There are many reasons to eat oysters, but more important than the occasion is the timing: if the month does not contain an "R", the oyster stays closed - that's the rule. There are several theories about the origin of this "R" rule. Keeping the cold chain during the warm summer months seems the most plausible to me. With the Bavarian Weisswurst it behaves similarly: No “Zuzeln” after twelve o'clock! Since there were no refrigerators in Casanova's day and oysters - like sausage - are perishable, they should always be served fresh. So, anyone who eats oysters in July or a Weisswurst at two in the afternoon these days is cheating fate. It seems to me that the date is even more important than the time. Oyster lovers should therefore mark August 5 in their calendars so that it is clearly visible. You should really see it clearly - at least more clearly than the "R" in August!? The National Oyster Day is mainly celebrated in the USA, but in August you are well advised to escape from the stuffy city and enjoy the sea breeze in the Hamptons - the pearl of the East Coast. Now let's dare a change of perspective: how does the oyster live with our preference for seafood? We cannot avoid addressing the "barbaric" act of eating oysters. Is the consumption of live oysters justifiable at all, or to put it another way: Would Aristotle, as the founding father of ethics, eat oysters? Marine biology gives the all-clear here: oysters do not have a brain, and to feel pleasant or unpleasant emotions, they would need one. This could also explain why so few corona deniers felt neither shame nor symptoms. But before the facade of our editorial office receives a new colorful coloring by color bags, as one can admire it otherwise only with the snorkeling on Galapagos, we turn again to the oysters. Now that biology has given us absolution to eat oysters, let's turn to the opening procedure. Just as we humans lock our front doors, the oyster seeks protection from "burglars" within its hard shell. To get into Oyster's home, hungry thieves first need the right tools: an oyster knife - ideally from the traditional forge Laguiole en Aubrac - and a chain glove. The use of these utensils alone makes eating oysters a spectacle. What would the gladiator have been happy if he had been allowed to wear such a chain glove in the last fight. History would have been rewritten. Maximus would have been given a second chance in front of an audience of millions, millions of fans would have been given a second part and Ridley Scott would have been given another double-digit million amount. It is not called "The world is your Oyster" for nothing - everyone has his own life in his hands and with a chain glove and 50 oysters for breakfast you will make it to the top as "Maximus Ostreum"! Now that even the last doubter might feel like slurping down a dozen of these delicacies, there is one last question - provided your credit card is covered : Where? Well, that depends on various factors. But we have tried to make a wide selection that considers every taste and budget, and even vegetarians. If you're one of those people who fished off a decent amount of Oyster Coins in December 2017 and spat them out four weeks later, you're probably spending National Oyster Day in your 12-room Hamptons mansion. If so, I recommend for the oyster feast the Restaurant "Mirazur" of the Argentine Mauro Colagreco at the Côte d'Azur. It currently tops the list of the world's 50 best restaurants and will serve you a single Gillardeau oyster decorated with small white tapioca pearls, bluish-purple flowers and a cylinder of pear jelly. One can only speculate about the cost of this delicacy but for someone like you, who got rich from "Oyster": a weary smile plus a tip. http://www.mirazur.fr However, for those who - like the author - have to write about oysters in order to afford surimi sticks, Zurich's "Berta Bar" on the street of the same name offers a great neighborhood atmosphere and wild oysters from the grill every Wednesday. The Berta Bar is truly a pearl and worth a visit with or without oysters! https://www.bertabar.ch Have you eliminated animals from your diet - with the exception of Red Bull? No problem. Normads' plant-based "oysters" are a highlight not only visually, but also in terms of taste. If you'd like to try them out, I can recommend Hofkino Zurich, where Normads offers their purely plant-based delicacies on a daily basis. https://www.nomadszuerich.ch So let's conclude: oysters are the epitome of a delicate delicacy. The humble sea dwellers have fascinated us for thousands of years and have a magical attraction. To us and to others. So would you like to end the suffering of your lonely single existence without having to suffer an oyster for it? Eat it! Casanova would say: "Se non è vero, è ben trovato". Oysters save our love life, oysters satisfy our hunger for fame, oysters let us move up a caste by eating them. What would we do without oysters as an "invisible hand"! Now it's up to us - oysters are available around the clock, and around the globe in every price range - new for vegetarians too. Who is overwhelmed with this large selection, should completely do without oysters and save the money for a Rolex Oyster like me!

Zurich is a great city! The smallest big city in the world! Just "Little Big City"! Despite its manageable size, it is internationally competitive in many respects. This now also applies to the category "open-air cinemas". Until yesterday, if you wanted as a swiss resident to visit a great open-air cinema, you needed two tickets. One for the cinema admission and one for the flight: Travel-loving cineastes might know the open-air cinema in New York's Brooklyn Bridge Park, where you can enjoy Woody Allen's "Manhattan" (1979) in front of the skyline of the same name. If you haven't been there yet, you must put it on "The Bucket List" (2007). The London "Hot Tub Cinema" is another place where you can just dive in and enjoy movies. It must be a special experience to sit in the warm hot tub and watch Leonardo diCaprio in "Titanic" (1997) sink into the cold Atlantic Ocean to melodramatic flute music. The best thing about it: in the pool - unlike the raft - there is room for more than just one person. Our big brother Berlin also has something to offer in terms of open-air cinema; the "Freiluftkino Friedrichshain". The perfect setting for this? Wim Wender's "Der Himmel über Berlin" (1987) on the screen and "Berliner Luft" in the glass. This is the moment when the true Berliner sighs softly: "Janz Berlin is eene Wolke". In contrast to Ricola, the Swiss have not invented the open-air cinema, but with the Hofkino Zurich, the city presents its cineastes with a delicious spectacle that - at the latest after this article - will be the talk of the town and should be very tasty for visitors from Germany and abroad. The venue "Landesmuseum" is Zurich's "Casterly Rock" and summer residence of the Hofkino makers Daniel Frischknecht Knörr and Rico Fanchini. Embedded in a beautiful city park (Platzspitz) where 30 years ago dramatic scenes took place and "Platzspitz Baby" (2020) as well as "Christiane F." (1981) saw life pass by, today film enthusiasts can recharge their batteries in an environment steeped in history. The medieval-looking castle complex of the Landesmuseum was completed in 1898 and is hosting the Hofkino for the first time this summer. The thick castle walls shield visitors from everyday life and allow them to relax and immerse themselves in the fantastic world of films and culinary delights. Unfortunately, I missed the two big events (moon landing and fall of the Berlin Wall) of the last 40 years. Either I was too young (at that time one was with twelve years still no activist) or - that excuses my absence - not yet born. But I didn't want to miss the opening of the Hofkino and today I can proudly say: I was there! Or in the words of a Hofkino sponsor: Been there, done that! It was a great moment and a great feeling! You may remember Giuseppe Torantore's "Cinema Paradiso" (1988)? When I stood wide-eyed in front of the big entrance gate of the Landesmuseum and the smell of sweet popcorn hit my nose, it was as if I was perceiving that moment through a Super8 film camera. But the admired one was not called Elena, but Hofkino. No film title could better describe the aura of Hofkino than Pan Nalin's "Die Liebe zum Kino" (2022). Cinema, like a good magazine, tells stories, it amuses, it touches, and it stimulates thought. Cinema is a magical place that becomes a dream factory in the dark. A place where we can escape from everyday life and dive into another world. Of course, it is also possible to achieve such states of consciousness through yoga, but when your 18th birthday is already 22 years ago, you are happy about every day when your fingertips still reach your shoelaces. So, yoga is out! At least for me. My escape from everyday life is called the cinema - where I can sit and have drinks, food, and friends to help me escape. Cinema is a great experience that we missed during Corona, and sadly, lost a bit of. Netflix on the sofa at home in honor, but it's summer and as a resident of Zurich I - we - simply owe it to Hofkino and their brave and creative makers to get as many people as possible excited about it, because Hofkino does not simply mean cinema. The event also offers off-screen "Fuochi d'artificio" (1997). In addition to a varied film program and exciting theme nights, the Hofkino convinces with an innovative gastronomic concept: a combination of all-day and event catering open to the public, which in its diversity covers the range from "Cocktail" (1988) to "Ratatouille" (2007) and "Chocolat" (2000). For reasons of sustainability, the responsible cinema organizers have decided to dispense entirely with meat and to rely on regional suppliers for their purchases. The vegetarian and or plant-based dishes will be prepared by hip gastronomic establishments of the city. This "Eat Pray Love" (2010) sustainability concept sets a new benchmark in Zurich's event gastronomy and therefore deserves a big compliment! Even on days when "Little Miss Sunshine" (2006) doesn't show up and the weather forecast predicts "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" (2009), the Hofkino offers a covered area for gourmets and cineastes. So don't worry: You won't need an umbrella for either "Rain Man" (1988) or "Singin' in the Rain" (1952), and you still won't be left out to dry thanks to the “Red” (2010) Campari Bar. One thing should have become clear to all of us: The New York Times bestseller "1000 Places to See Before You Die" is incomplete! Just as "1001 Arabian Nights" (1959) is, the book's title should correctly be "1001 Places to See Before You Die", because you haven't lived if you haven't been to the Hofkino! Oh, dear Hofkino, you are so much more than just an open-air cinema. You are a place that pampers people, inspires them, and makes them happy.... Paraphrasing Rhetts words from "Gone with the wind" (1939), I would like to reveal my love for you: "I love you as I have never loved any other open-air cinema, and I have waited longer for you than for any other open-air cinema." The Hofkino project began a year ago with the brainchild of two brave cinema and gastronomy experts and yesterday, after a year of planning, it opened its doors and won over its guests all along the line. It was an unforgettable and great evening. Like in a movie! Thank you, Daniel! Thank you, Rico, for giving Zurich this open-air cinema! I will personally lobby our city president to have you chiseled in stone on the forecourt of the Landesmuseum, even if I must carry the marble barefoot on my back to Zurich. The back-friendly alternative would be a "Hofkino-Street". In whatever form, this project, and the people behind it deserve an appreciation that goes beyond a mention in our magazine. I am open to suggestions and a good "Negotiator" (1998). Corinne, these two more than deserve it. Go see it for yourself! Hofkino runs until July 10 at the Zurich National Museum. @hofkino More info and tickets at: www.hofkino.ch

When moving house, many people worry about the basement, because the basement is the only room where not only the square meters but also the cubic meters are completely packed up. I, on the other hand, don't worry about the cellar. For me it's the kitchen, because I love cooking and that needs space. A lot of space! Why is that? What attracts me to cooking and why am I fascinated by people who devote their lives to cooking? Cooking is an incredibly creative activity and offers endless potential for self-realisation. The spectrum is huge and ranges from certified organic haggis from home-raised sheeps to lacto-vegan molecular cuisine. The sky is the limit! Cooking not only encourages creativity and allows you to express your way of life, but it is also enormously versatile. In addition to shopping at dawn and days of preparation, it also involves arranging the food. Just as a Rembrandt belongs in a baroque picture frame, the remoulade needs its matching plate to taste good. In everyday life, however, this attitude to cooking is not very common. I often look into astonished faces when I say that I cook every day. I can literally see big question marks rising in the other person's head, like air bubbles in boiling pasta water. But I take it as a compliment and think: You have no idea! There are lots of crazy cooking fanatics out there. You just don't know and don't see them because they sleep during the day and only come to life at night in a haze of frying fat. Kitchen zombies who, like Frankenstein, have a good heart but turn into creative beasts at night out of isolation and misunderstanding. Even if many top chefs boast about it; Zen Buddhism and mindfulness can be found in cookbooks but certainly not in the restaurant kitchen. For example, the word "please" is used exclusively by the serving staff. However, if you enter the competitive cooking arena, you'd better not use this word - unless you want to spend the first two years of your apprenticeship peeling rhubarb and asparagus. Top gastronomy and large kitchens are no place to show weakness, because the daily stress does not allow for polite phrases. There is swearing and shouting. Cooking is a matter for the boss and - as is so common in dictatorships - it's not too much fun. There are even celebrated Michelin-starred chefs who are said to have beaten employees to hospital. But usually non-verbal communication is enough: a glance or a finger pointing at the damask knife, the nutcracker, or the lobster tongs. Sounds like a torture chamber to you? No, THAT is restaurant cooking! Only someone who has worked in a kitchen can understand that. You must be born a cook. As a normal person you will hardly survive the madhouse (restaurant kitchen), especially as there are sharp knives and meat hammers lying around everywhere. You think I'm exaggerating? You think you know the chefs from TV? I can pretty much tell you how they react as soon as they put on their cooking crown: If, for example, as an apprentice to Christian Lohse (Fischers Fritz ,Hotel Regent, Berlin) you accidentally sear a bluefin tuna "well done", you will certainly not hear "Well done!" from him. Rather, Germany's fish competence made flesh would turn into a piranha and turn you into fish food. That's how it works in the wild sea and in Lohse's wild fish kitchen. Perfection and aggression can also be found outside restaurants, where you are served an almond half filled with salmon mousse for the price of a Rolex. Traditional cuisine is just as driven by cooking perfection and its collateral damage. The best example of this is Frank Rosin - the chef from the Ruhr area - whose currywurst tastes good even without liquid nitrogen and potato caviar. Even if you like to laugh at his jokes on TV - believe me: if he doesn't like your sausage, he'll put you through a meat grinder. After that you have to collect yourself...and leave. Then there's Tim Mälzer, who once said in an interview that he doesn't do anything to earn money, but simply does what he feels like doing. So, he has a place in my heart forever. But beware: we are talking about my heart here. Don't be fooled, because when the soufflé in your second year at the Bullerei collapses in front of his eyes like a hot air balloon flying over a shooting range, believe me, he'll be ready to load his magazine with insults and riddle you with them so that tears flow from your every pore. The Swiss chef Meta Hiltebrand will also put a lot of pressure. After all, she has one thing in common with my pressure cooker: they both have a red top. So, you would be well advised to keep to the timing in your kitchen and monitor the temperatures. No one wants the pressure cooker or Meta to explode, but should you have a bad day in the kitchen and a fairy godmother leaves you the choice of what to blow up: choose the cooker, otherwise you'll only be cooking in the Metaverse for the next few years. Yes, and then there's Rambo Ramsey, who with his hot temper - and we're talking about a Beefer grill here, not sous-vide - has already been charged with assault because he couldn't agree with a kitchen employee on the correct preparation of banana parfait... I always thought an apple had driven us out of paradise? Adam, Eve and a banana sounds weird to me and not very Christian, does it? Anyway... If you love desserts like I do, you know that the best always comes at the end. All the anguished sweat, all the bitter tears and splashes of blood notwithstanding: they all don't do it out of malice. On the contrary: they do it because they love food and cooking so much, they do it because they love their guests and are masters of their trade. Finally, they do it to justify their high prices to gourmets, celebrities, and food critics. Quality has its price and I know of no profession that takes this to heart more than chefs. The Ramsey's, Mälzer's, Hiltebrand's, Rosin's and Lohse's of this world, are creative masterminds that always look beyond. In the kitchen, however, their focus is precisely on the plate and if you then slap the polenta onto the plate from a height of 30 cm, you get a good slap. A well-deserved slap for the love of cooking and perfection. I have the utmost understanding for this! Chefs identify with their work like no other professional group. They demand iron discipline from their cooking staff and golden credit cards from their guests. Who else do you think pays for the compensation for missing fingertips that your chef had to cut off because you have to be told everything twice? So once again: The beef fillet core temperature medium is 56 to 59 °C. Just as the cat has nine lives, you have nine fingers left. So, you better remember it! Cooking is 100% passion, 100% perfection, 100% art...and 100% madness! I could go on forever about the fascination of cooking and chefs, but I must get back to the kitchen and concentrate: "Fugu wa kuitashi, inochi wa oshishi". In English: "I want to eat fugu, but I am attached to my life." So, I have to stop at this point, because otherwise this will be my last article for MYTHILO magazine and nobody wants that. But what am I worrying about? You're probably happy that the alphabet soup has been spooned up and you'll soon be able to open the door to the pizza delivery boy. To each his own, but please don't let it be Pizza Hawaii! A personal note: I don't think I made career with my former employers because instead of judging my performance, they spent years shooting their mouths off about me diluting my coffee with cold water. To all my former work colleagues and bosses! EAT THIS: Tim Mälzer does it too!

It's quite a challenge to write about someone who rejects all interview requests - in case you can call an invitation via Instagram an interview request? However, I had to research everything by myself, but don't forget Ricky: I know where to find you - I have Netflix! So, who is the bearded with a black sense of humor and a black T-shirt? Who is Ricky Gervais? Science is now sure that he is supposed to be from the Reading region - not to be confused with the similar-sounding Riyadh, because if that were the case, we wouldn't know him from his big appearances on Netflix, but from pixelated YouTube videos that must be deleted 24 hrs after they go live. Through my reliable contacts at the Daily Mail, I was able to find out that he worked at Wernham Hogg Paper Company until he was fired in 2003. It wasn't just the staff who were shocked at the time - his boss also struggled to find the right words "We have no idea how to run your department without you - but would like to give it a try." That's how it is in real life - the best leave us too soon: Jesus, Edward the Hamster, David Brent. But successful people get up once more than they fall. He got up, grabbed his guitar, and threw himself into the nightlife of English suburbs. But even the best in showbiz can't always make money at the expense of others, and so it happened that the same number of guests showed up at his concerts as at Anna Delvey's ADF Club at 281 Park Avenue. Unlike Anna, however, he didn't let Netflix turn this epic defeat into money. He stepped out of the spotlight-he said goodbye to the screen! Black humor gave way to black screens and the comedy community cried bitter tears. After a successful fish and chips detox (rare night shots by David Attenborough show him in top form), Ricky began producing shows in the background. But this had two major drawbacks: As a producer, only the bank account laughs and, of course, it involves work. But especially with the noble pallor of an Englishman, you should leave the deck of your superyacht over lunchtime and head for the cool wine cellar. And who is the best joke writer? Correct, alcohol! The great philosophers of antiquity already knew that. "In vino veritas" and what is funnier than real life?! So if you, like Ricky, spend your life dealing with the injustice of the world, you'll eventually find solace in philosophy, where you're in good company: Karl Marx (The Chronic Drunkard), Georg W. F. Hegel, (The Systematic Drunkard), Friedrich Nietzsche (The Frail Drunkard) and, of course, the unforgettable Michel Foucault (The Bold Drunkard), who was about to give a toast at a party and crashed to the floor before he could really get up from his chair. This is elitist comedy at its best. Even funnier than dogs in wigs. Well, let's say at least equal funny. This formative confrontation with philosophy then gave birth to his masterpiece "Humanity". At this point I would like to advise all welfare cheats: watch the show right after the appendectomy and your scars will never grow back and you will still have a good laugh: Humanity can be so fun! If one day the number on your birthday cake is a six and a second number follows, you begin to come to terms with your own finitude. There comes the phase when you start to deal with your own autobiography and what title would be more fitting for Ricky Gervais than "SuperNature"? But a reading while drinking beer? No! It came as it had to come: A new show - and what a show! A supernatural show! Ricky, you are not only the god of atheists, but you enlighten our lives with your black humor! Without you, life would be as boring as the reading of a will without a whoopee cushion. You are and will always be, next to Oleg Po(o)pow, Joker, Pennywise and John Wayne Gacy, one of the greatest clowns in history and even if one day your voice will be silenced, millions of salt rims from peed-on couches will remain forever visible and remind of the greatest stand-up shows and the greatest comedian in the world. Ricky, we have one thing in common: You are the best!

1984 was a great movie year: Indiana Jones, Gremlins, Ghostbusters, and Terminator broke all records. These were the entertainment highlights of my youth. But while the mentioned films about cave explorers, water-shy teddy bears, vacuum cleaners for ghosts or the first Austrian cyborg were trivial entertainment formats, "The Karate Kid" clearly stood out from this crowd. The movie and its protagonist Master Miyagi not only gave us exciting evenings with popcorn, but also fed us with spiritual food: "The secret to karate lies in the mind and heart". Thus, one could - it took me almost 30 years to understand this - equate the core statements of Master Miyaagi and Immanuel Kant: "Have courage to use your own mind". Already Adam and Eve had to master - each for themselves - the situation that they are not alone in the world and that the other one is different. If the two had rejected diversity at that time, there would not be 8 billion people today for sure. In contrast to 200 tons of rice, - which corresponds to 8 billion grains of rice - we have much more diversity in our world today and should learn to deal with it accordingly: Not only out of reason, but also out of respect and tolerance towards others. But I do not want to lecture anyone: Just like Master Miyagi or Kant, I also think that you should come to knowledge yourself. So, ask yourself: Why do we watch with the greatest admiration the hummingbird flying backwards and sideways, even though it is very bizarre from a bird's eye view? The national flag of Belize with its 12 colors is clearly different from the average flag - is that why you cancel it off your travel list? "Snakes Venom" is the strongest beer in the world with 67.5% alcohol. In your opinion, is it still a "real" beer or rather a strange whiskey? In Greece and Albania, people nod for a "no" and shake their heads for a "yes" - so who's right? An average Facebook user has 342 friends. Are 341 or 343 followers still real friends? With seahorses, the males take over the pregnancy. So, Herbert Grönemeyer’s question remains: When is a man a man? Most billionaires are of the astrological sign Aquarius. So how can Elon Musk (June 28, 1971) fly into space in his private jet? In Japan, it is believed that black cats bring good luck. Isn't true luck that there are other points of view? R2-D2 from “Star Wars” is called C1-P8 in Italy. Isn't it sad that even robots from the 80s are more open-minded in some views than we are? Did you know that the world-famous Corbusier Lounge Chair "LC 4" was designed by Charlotte Perriand? Now that you know, shouldn't it be called the Perriand Lounge Chair? Do you know why Paris is considered the city of love? Probably because there is only one stop sign in the whole city! Mental stop signs are the breeding ground for rejection, which can develop into hate. Wouldn't we rather live in a world of love? Is the average so desirable? Should we seriously waste our time judging others in powdered wigs instead of living our own lives? The answer is simply: No! Man is the self-proclaimed crowning glory of creation. The ostrich among the feathered animals. But the brain of the ostrich is smaller than its eyeball and who wants to be an ostrich, if one may also be a hummingbird? Look: A grain of rice remains a grain of rice! No matter whether it wants to unfold as sweet rice pudding, fiery curry rice or powerful sake. You should also have this respect for people, should't you? Tolerance today is still strongly linked to conditions: Male couples? Sure, but not on our block! Women on the executive floor? Gladly, I could never operate the coffee machine anyway. Transsexuals? Why not, but please not in front of the children, they wouldn't understand. The concept of diversity is still in its infancy. Today, diversity is usually only tolerated if it fits one's own horizon. That's why I dedicate this article to all those who suffer in everyday life from the fact that there are still people whose limited horizon fits on a grain of rice. #diversity #love #respect #tolerance Thilo loves you all!

I love dogs! That pretty much says it all. But as a thank you for clicking on the article, I want to let you in on a secret: Even though I love Weimaraners for their elegance and I can't get enough of bouncing pugs or running dachshunds, if I were to choose a dog, I would still choose a French Bulldog. Protruding eyes, the oversized ears, the odd love handles, the snoring, drooling...even the flatulence. The French Bulldog is simply adorable in every way! And somehow it is paradoxical what attraction this collection of flaws have in today's perfect world, isn't it? I don't think any of us would dare to go to the office on Monday morning with a wrinkled face and expect compliments, and on Tinder your portrait with the sewn-up eye would certainly not be a huge success. If someone should take pity on you and you wet the Persian carpet at your future in-laws, you can set the relationship status right back to "single". The Frenchie, on the other hand, would move in there the same evening. Listen to yourself and ask yourself: When was the last time your partner praised you for gaining weight? When was the box of chocolates fairly shared with YOU on the sofa Saturday night? Do you remember the last time you slept until 11 o'clock without a guilty conscience, only to lie down again after a short stretch? I remember. It was between 1977 - 78, after which my puppy protection ended. The French bulldog is allowed to do that. The French bulldog is allowed to do just about anything! The French Bulldog is always allowed to do everything! Let's just think about the topic of intimate hygiene, where we - unlike Frenchie - always exercise discreet restraint. If we were to follow the Frenchie's example, we would have been in jail or another closed facility. But why actually? What does the Frenchie have that we do not have? A look into the past provides us with the answer: In the 19th century, the French bulldog was associated with the Parisian café life, the "Bonvivants" and the fine ladies who sought nightly pleasures in the Parisian dance halls. Edgar Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec even depicted the Frenchie in their paintings. That's when you, as a dog, know you've made it. If you belong to the upper class, you can just be yourself and let yourself go. There is no other way to explain that Flavio Briatore with his 72 (that applies to age as well as BMI) surrounds himself with the most beautiful models in the world. It’s his „Frenchie Attitude" on the French Riviera! Frenchie I love but also envy you, because unfortunately I will never be like you! I will never be able to live your life or enjoy your privileges. In such moments of complete resignation, the only consolation left is that of a good friend like Freddy Mercury, who whispers in our ears "Someone still loves you". I don't want a French bulldog, I want to be a French bulldog - even if i have to wear a collar for it!

If you love New York like I do, and you're also an opera lover, you've probably been waiting for me to confess my love for the Metropolitan Opera. The wait is over! The Metropolitan Opera - also known as MET - is unique and its history is great! MET - these three letters are enough to make the heart of every opera fan beat faster. This is true even for the Viennese and the Milanese - even if such praise is heard less often from this corner of the world. At this point, I would also like to settle the matter right away: Espresso and “Sachertorte” are also great things, and no one can do them as well as you two. But for opera I'm going to New York! The story or saga (both are equally suitable for entertainment) surrounding the creation of the MET is as gripping as the love story from "La Bohème." Spoiler alert: Mimi won't make it. But let's not talk about death, let's talk about birth! Towards the end of the 19th century, New York was in opera fever. Yet for many - as today - it wasn't even just about the music. Rather, the opera house around 1900 was the catwalk of the illustrious New York society. The credo was to see and be seen. Today's Instagram in black and white. But it wasn't just the audience that was elitist - only those with a big name were allowed to perform on stage, such as the star soprano Emma Eames (1865 - 1952). The diva had her performance gilded with 1,500 dollars per evening. This seemingly ridiculous sum would be equivalent to around 50,000 dollars per evening today. Apart from Anna Netrebko, Renée Fleming, Rolando Villazón or Jonas Kaufmann, opera singers even today would have to perform in cooking shows for a comparable salary or be locked up in a container for two weeks with the lower class of the entertainment industry, where there are as many spotlights as on a big stage but far less applause. Emma did not know such worries. If you extrapolate her salary to her more than 400 performances at the MET, she could have easily afforded the best Boxes on her days off. Could have! But the big problem of the opera at that time was that Boxes were rare and therefore exclusively reserved for the old established, for so-called "old money". And so, it came as it had to come. It was only a matter of time: Maria Louisa Vanderbilt, wife of multimillionaire and railroad tycoon William H. Vanderbilt, was driven in her noble fur to the old opera house (Academy of Music), where she was refused a Box. I think each of us had to make this painful experience already once and has therefore understanding for the fact that she suffered a nervous breakdown at the cash desk and fell with estimated 14 carats to the ground. But successful people get up once more than they fall - Maria Louisa and her Willy also knew that. As is well known, America is the land of unlimited opportunities -especially when there is unlimited money around. So, the two most influential millionaire families, Rockefeller and Roosevelt, meet the Vanderbilts for a glass of champagne and decide to build their own opera house. A few years and bottles later - on October 22, 1883 - the Metropolitan Opera opened - a privately financed opera house. Great, right? Perhaps Elon Musk also tried unsuccessfully to buy a Nissan Leaf and !!BOOM!! - Nowadays, everyone drives to the opera in a Tesla. Great minds think alike! Financing and building your own opera house - that deserves great praise, because you could have taken the low-cost shortcut like good old Wagner. "Ludwig, I would like to have my own opera house for my 63rd birthday, but as always, I am totally broke" !!BAM!!: Richard-Wagner-Festspielhaus! No, no... the Americans have made short work of it. Poor view of the first violin? Drafts from the large double doors in the loge? !!POW!!: Let’s build our own opera house! Admittedly, I could have spent more time with Mahler, Toscanini, Caruso, Pavarotti, Domingo or Callas, since they had a great influence on the success story of the MET, but opera should also be fun behind the scenes or behind the curtain! I love the MET and its history...and of course I also like good espresso with Sacher cake.

It's Sunday morning and as it should be (for me), I dedicate this sacred time to a long-playing record. Note to all readers born after 1990: this is a round black PVC disc that looks like a very large mini disc and is the same in size as the common Influencer Ring Lights. Such a long-playing record - after I dusted it off in an act of mindfulness and greatest anticipation - spins at 33 1/3 rpm on the turntable, filling the Sunday morning silence with French chanson. I listen to Francoise Hardy's "Tous les garcons et les Filles " Music is a window to the world, and Francoise Hardy's window opens me to a view of a COMME DES GARCONS boutique. The song melts my heart and I now understand why it influenced the naming for the company. I love the song and I love COMME DES GARCONS (CDG) even more and there are many reasons for that: As a big perfume lover (and that's a huge understatement), I've built my own little shrine for "Odeur 71" that towers over all my 300 other fragrances. While we admire - and I do not exclude myself - fragrances masterfully composed from natural fragrances and which can hold a candle to Richard Wagner's Ring in their complexity, CDG went a different, a, new, a "holy shit is that awesome" way: metal, warm photocopy toner, ink, freshly sharpened pencil... An olfactory masterpiece of 71 synthetic fragrances without a name but with a face: the unmistakable heart logo of CDG. In the magical year of 1969, the Japanese stylist Rei Kawakubo laid the foundation for a fashion company that has left more of a mark on fashion, the perfume world, art, and society then an imprint of a NASA shoe in moon dust. Sorry Neil, it was a small step for us too! Rei, you took the giant leap for mankind - thank you for that! I write here about things I love and in love the heart must not be missing. The CDG heart is omnipresent in my closet and therefore worth an appreciation. It is not an ordinary heart, not a cliché heart. It is a heart with character, a heart that exhilarates. A combination that is even more important, especially these days, when I think alone of all the millions of crypto dreamers whose heart rate and mouth corners recently shot down in record time. The sight of the CDG heart may be of little comfort to them because it's not the highly polished heart of Jeff Koons that you own to show your wealth (after all, you can't display it even in your 40 million mansion). No! The CDG heart is the snorkel that you can use when the sad world comes over you and you drown in the sea of tears. Let's start the week with this positive energy and remember that cheerfulness and cordiality are forgotten values that we should revive. Thank you, Rei, for sharing your heart with the world for 53 years!

The table is the heart of every home - the place where the family comes together. Where meals are eaten, handcrafts are made, games are played, arguments take place and the tax return is prepared once a year. The place where Jesus called his disciples together, the piece of furniture in the Kremel that clearly shows you what they think of you. In this sad case, size really matters! It is therefore not surprising that this piece of furniture wants to be purchased wisely. But which one should it be? In contrast to the Highlander, of which there can only be one, the table question is much more difficult. There is, for example, the classic by Eiermann (1953). Although I like the table very much due to its reduced design, it has become a supposed must-have over the last few years: While in Berlin-Kreuzberg, without too short oversize corduroy pants to white socks in sandals you do not really belong to the hipster-community, so little can you escape this table as an architect. It already seems to me as if the table is delivered at the same time as the diploma. Good news: there are alternatives: My choice falls on the EM Table by Jean Prouvé ( 1950). I immediately fell in love with the bold steel construction. The table embodies what a table should be: The focal point of a living space, which in today's world must serve more and more functions. Today's home is also an office, a workshop and often the basis on which new ideas and life concepts are developed. Life today is a permanent construction site and the EM Table is the most suitable tool for this challenge. While puristic emptiness must reign on the Eiermann table and the black Koh-I-Noor pencil should always be placed at a 90 degree angle to the white Post-it pad, the schnitzel can be knocked flat and beer pong played on the EM Table. Red wine stains and tears give it the familiarity you want from such an important piece of furniture. EM Table - You are who you are and that's fine. You are not hiding under a thick protective plastic film, as you often find in Chinese restaurants. The Peking duck can be as crispy as you like. Under such circumstances, I'd rather eat my undercooked chicken from the barbecue at the EM Table at home and enjoy every new splash of fat on the tabletop. EM Table you belong to the family - I love you!

As courageous as some artists are, as courageous we may and must be as viewers. We are allowed to ask questions and sometimes make big eyes, wrinkle our noses or simply shrug our shoulders. Also at Art Basel. Talking about Art is not an exclusive privilege of people with glasses of 500 grams or more. Neither a black in black outfit nor a jumpsuit in epilepsy causing color patterns are necessary for this. You can do it and so can I. We do it together. I'll start our little excursion into the art world with Yves Klein. First of all, no, you don't know this name from Marky Mark's underpants and although Klein has created with obsession something for the eternity, neither "Obsession" nor "Eternity" belong to his masterpieces. When I'm feeling blue, one look at the monochrome Yves Klein surface is enough, because it radiates an incredible positivity, hope and infinite depth. (remember this sentence, so you will score in every gallery and art fair - worldwide) There are really creative approaches in the scene: Milo Moiré's Pussy (meow) , Damien Hirst's animal bodies soaked in formaldehyde, Jeff Koon's balloon dogs, Dieter Roth's mold paintings, Banksy's cut-up painting.....What haven't colleagues come up with...? And Yves? The good one has made it easy for himself. Of course, jealous philistines could now claim that with monochrome color surfaces, the only difference between a painter and the artist is the income. First of all, hard no. Second, even if - what do they care? Let them mix their own color and let them try their luck. I'm sure there will never be an entry on Wikipedia about their boring and dull "Nobody Orange". Klein probably thought: As a French artist, you have already lost in the art scene if you accept America as the land of unlimited possibilities. That's why he saw the earth as a planet of unlimited possibilities! (To all the nerd biographers out there: no he never said that but his art speaks to me. Touché!) Klein and his monochrome color surfaces in ultramarine blue (or his highly personal and patented Yves international Klein blue / IKB 191) had a clear artistic attitude, but with his Image between genius and charlatan, he is dependent on well-meaning art critics for his work. For this reason, we pay him the respect deserved by an artist who fills museums, books and his bank accounts through monochrome color surfaces. Yves I love your blue courage!

Jimmy Choo? Christian Louboutin? - You must be living in the Stone Age, lady! I know myself the great attraction of dazzling names from the fashion world but at the moment neither Choo nor Louboutin can hold a candle to the Balenciaga Highheel "Madame", which they designed in cooperation with Crocs! Let's face it - the worse a product looks the more comfortable/better it is. If you want to nibble on this forbidden fruit, you pay a high price for it: mobbing, social decline, dismissal and even divorce. If the addiction pressure is nevertheless so high and you want to escape public exposure, you have to live in a parallel world with a new identity: At night in strange cities, in one's own basement, or better yet, in the room behind the door that appears when the library slowly slides aside at the push of a button. That's exactly where there's room for these design sins: Waterbeds, massage chairs, trainer pants and, indeed, Crocs. The world has changed overnight and the fashion world is upside down. Crocs have ascended to the throne and now look down on everyone who smiled at them for years. How did it come to this? A rational technical-physical explanation would be to claim that it's easier to give a Croc a heel than to clean out stables in Manolo Blahnik's. But fashion has never been concerned with practical aspects so there must be another reason. I think I know the answer: huge ostrich-balls made of steel! My dear designer friend, I admire your courage. If there were any legal substances involved in the creation process, you must bottle them and distribute them at the big fashion events in Paris, Milan or New York. It would need more of your format. Crocs with heel - I love you and your creator!

Even if we wish it so much - there never was a Doc Brown that lets us travel back in time and unfortunately there is no DeLorean sports car any more (about which I will certainly comment in a separate post at some point). The past is irrevocably gone... ...if there wasn't this one exception: The Eames Lounge Chair! It is the epitome and lowest common denominator of mid-century design. It is mid-century design on four legs. Without reproach! You sit down and bang: silk pyjamas, whiskey and the sweet smell of pipe tobacco. Yes, that's how it was back then! “Hey Rey, why don't we make a contemporary version of the old English club chair?” With this question, Charles Eames initiated several years of development work on the Lounge Chair. The design was intended to satisfy the need for a large seating option while combining ultimate comfort with the highest quality materials and workmanship. With the 1956 chair, Charles & Ray Eames set new standards: not only is it lighter, more elegant and more modern than the clunky club chairs, it is also more comfortable. And when I write comfortable, I mean comfortable. In order to lend even more weight to this seemingly banal description, I would like to mention at this point that I don't sleep a wink on the plane, even after a nice bottle of Chateau Pétrus. (Next time I could try two bottles, but then the wine would be more expensive than the flight in First Class.) If, on the other hand, I sit down on the eames lounge chair - bang!: 50s and good night! With these prerequisites the Lounge Chair advanced to one of the most famous designs of Charles and Ray Eames and to a classic of modern furniture history. Lounge Chair - glad that you exist. And yes, you too Ottoman! I love you both!