oldnick

funny enough, oktoberfest is mostly a september festival.

it started in 1810 as a public celebration of the wedding of bavarian crown prince ludwig and princess therese. the celebration went so well that munich basically decided to keep doing it for the next two centuries.

locals usually call it “wiesn,” after theresienwiese, the field where the original celebration took place.

and despite what tourist versions around the world might suggest, the real thing is surprisingly regulated. only beer from six munich breweries can officially be served there.

basically, a royal wedding somehow evolved into millions of people wearing lederhosen and drinking enormous beers every year.

anthropologists have long pointed out that exchange does not always need money.

one famous example is the kula ring in the trobriand islands, where valuable shell necklaces and armbands circulate between communities as gifts. the objects are not simply bought and sold. giving, receiving, and eventually passing them on creates status, trust, obligation, and long term social ties.

that is the interesting part of a gift economy.

the gift may look free, but socially it is rarely empty.

what moves between people is not just an object.

it is a relationship.

grew up near spokane, trained in mma as a teenager, competed in grappling, restores vintage cars, and somehow ended up becoming one of hollywood’s biggest sex symbols.

the funny part is that her public image makes her look like she was engineered in a hollywood lab, while her actual background is basically sports, rural idaho, fighting, and working on old cars.

this unique city, a rose garden without equal, rarely found anywhere in the world, has been all but plundered and brought to the brink of losing its identity because of a lack of vision, a lack of merit, and an unplanned approach to governance.

in no developed country in the world would a city that carries the traces of thousands of years of history, one that should stand out for its cultural heritage, give up its own core values for the sake of concrete, smokestacks, and industry. the mindset that sidelines history and tourism instead of making them the engine of development has stolen from this city's future. what's being lost today isn't just natural beauty; it's cultural heritage, economic opportunity, and the birthright of future generations.

industry can be set up in any city. but istanbul's historical and cultural heritage is one of a kind; once you lose it, you can't put a new one in its place.

as i approach the final pages of the guermantes way, the third volume of the in search of lost time series, in these late hours, a magnificent writer who, with every word, every paragraph, makes you ask what on earth have i been reading all this time. a writer who loved dearly an entire life, one a person can't fully analyze, finds meaningless, and squanders hours of amid the hustle of daily living, along with all its details, its pains, its associations. he emphasizes over and over that everything a person uses to make sense of life and lives within and comes into contact with, whether it's nature, people, emotion, or love, is bound to one another by a terrible bond within a chain of remembering and forgetting. reading his work, forget just taking a spiritual pleasure in it, i'm satisfied through other senses too, as if remembering my stomach being full, my ears hearing, or my eyes seeing.

a wonderful site i just discovered. it doesn't cover every country, but it's got some exciting destinations for travelers who are tired of run-of-the-mill recommendations. https://www.atlasobscura.com/

an individual in possession of a saying everyone makes reference to: the old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters. i've heard the same line from at least 10 different globally very popular politicians. mamdani said it most recently. the liberal order and the rules-based world are over, i guess. a communication theorist, politician, activist, sociologist.

weekend afternoon.

colombia is a machine of a team. their physical strength is the caliber of african teams. their only thing missing is a clear-cut center forward. if a prime radamel falcao were on this team, they'd play the final against france.

it's the work of a person who knows themselves. it stems not from an inferiority complex but on the contrary from self-confidence. wherever there's someone who claims to know everything, who won't admit they know something wrong, or even that they don't know at all, behind it lies an inadequacy and an inferiority complex. this never misses. in short, they're self-aware, self-confident people.

while japan, who gave the netherlands a hard time in the group stage, gets matched up with brazil in the second round, morocco, who gave brazil a hard time in the group stage, got matched up with the netherlands in the second round. i expect both matches to be very high-quality. i hope there's an upset in both matches and morocco and japan carry on. the usa got matched up with bosnia, and the match will be played in santa clara. i'll be taking my spot in the stadium for that one. let's see what bolic's grandchildren will do.

even though they never admit it, they envy the happiness of stupid people. they can never be satisfied with anything, which is why they are of benefit to everyone but themselves. since they generally go misunderstood, they tend to attach themselves right away to whoever can understand them.