Essay for “Sounds of Water” Art Festival — part album review of Enya’s Watermark, part travelogue and art eco-diatribe. Growing up in the early 1990s, I got my hands on the music of Enya. Watermark, the Irish musician and singer’s second album, had become a worldwide hit and was reissued…

A critique of the 12th Berlin Art Biennale I have always been interested in art. Over the course of my life, I have visited countless museums and exhibits across multiple continents. I gained a profound appreciation for how art affects me, and the world. But until now, I hadn’t considered…

For a long time, I did all I could to forget about having served in the U.S. Army. Although I physically survived my three-and-a-half-year-long enlistment, my mental health was, as they say, touch-and-go the whole time. The Army finally discharged me for injuries I accumulated in training, but I felt…

Thoughts on the famous Afghan girl photograph I was a child when I saw her face for the first time. Those piercing green eyes from under the red veiled head of a beautiful girl, looking at me from the cover of the National Geographic Magazine. I spent many hours in…

A poem about expat life These colors signal safety, but I’m not so sure. In customs and immigration, bright lights twinkle above. No photos allowed in this cavernous arena of desperation. Welcome home, says the suit, daring me to make a false move, as I reach for my magic ticket. …

I live on Togo Street in the African quarter of Berlin. The tiny country of Togo on the western coast of Africa — near the curve or armpit of the continent — was once a colony of Germany, later of England and France. The other streets around me have names…

Take a break from your regular programming to focus on my obsession I don’t know when it began, my love of all things pretzel. Probably when I first came to Germany at the age of 14, but maybe before that…when eating snack pretzels as a child? Remember those bags of…