A Star Spangled Day

Yesterday, Elke was finally sworn in as a U.S. citizen after living for more than 23 years in the country. What took her so long? Well, these things are never easy, and the path became only fully clear when Germany modernized its citizenship laws at the end of June 2024.

Dual citizenship has both symbolic and practical value for us. We love New York City, and now we can eventually both call it fully our home. However, we increasingly feel the itch to live somewhere else for a (longer) while. Not tomorrow, probably not in the next 12 months, but eventually. However, this would be a particularly hard decision if it meant we might lose the right to go back to living in New York City because only a few places match the culture that this city has to offer.

We haven’t been to many shows lately, but tonight, we finally see talker, the indie pop project by Californian singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Celeste Tauchar. We met her at SXSW 2017 and have been following her music since her debut single, “Collateral Damage,” in 2018. Check out her debut record, I’m Telling You The Truth which came out this June.

Speaking of albums, we have been a little underwhelmed by full-length records this year. Not so much by the individual songs but by the album as a coherent piece of art that is more than the sum of its parts. Since last week, however, we stand corrected: two records came out that we play in their entirety on repeat. Kelly Lee Owen’s Dreamscape is a euphoric, shimmering piece – a mood booster for all situations. And Every Inch of Earth Pulsates by the Manchester band W.H. Lung is forward-looking indie rock at its best.

New York’s indie indie rock festival, The New Colossus, beats SWSW with their first-round announcement, and we are excited: with Dutch Mustard, Red Ribbon, and Bibi Club there are already three acts on the bill that we featured earlier this year. We can only recommend New Colossus: for a $175 badge, you get to immerse in music from March 4 to March 9.

Lastly, here’s a cute animal video from the Cornell Lab. Five little American kestrels are about to take their first flight. They are not eager to do so (watch the clock in the corner!), and there is no contention for being the next in line. Some of the birdies procrastinate by cleaning their feathers very, very thoroughly. But this moment is a crucial part of being a bird, so in the end, all take the plunge.

So whenever you dream of being free as a bird, remember that you first have to jump off a very high place and hope your wings will carry you.

glamglare favorites

Listen to glamglare favorites on Spotify or below on YouTube.

I want to keep it with today’s American theme for our five songs. Of course, music from the States is plentiful and ubiquitous today, but there was a time when US acts not easily crossed over the Atlantic. So here are five songs that are stuck explicitly in my memory for being American. Daryl Hall & John Oates were massive in the 80s, but not so much in Germany. They still got plenty of radio play and reminded us that there is an entirely new world of music in the West.

Tuxedomoon, an avant-garde electronic collective from San Francisco, was utterly mysterious when “No Tears” was passed on cassette tapes. But everybody could sing the lyrics to the song.

Okay, my statement above did not apply to Prince (and, of course, Michael Jackson). I believe “I Would Die 4 U” was the first Prince song I ever heard.

The town I grew up in had three American bases, so cutting-edge hip-hop was traded at school. “It’s Like That” fascinated me so much that I bought the imported RUN-D.M.C album for a ridiculous price.

Maybe I didn’t even know that Talking Heads were from New York back then. But I remember listening to “Psycho Killer” on a road trip to Paris on repeat.

Song Pick of the Day

Listen to/watch all seven songs on YouTube. Follow our daily updated playlists on YouTube and Spotify for the 50 latest Song Pick of the Day features or subscribe here to receive them into your mailbox in real-time. Thank you for following us and sharing the excitement.

• Caroline Strickland - Martha’s Calling
• Sunna Margrét - Fern
• Magic Wands - Armour
• Cate von Csoke - Spindle
• W. H. Lung - Lilac Sky
• Aneyrah - Marmelade
• two blinks, i love you - alright

American Citizen

For over 23 years, I have been happily living in New York as European, German to be precise, and didn’t feel the need to apply for the “Beibehaltigungsgenehmigung,” the retention permit. And while I finally applied for the bureaucratic document with the frighteningly long name, I eventually didn’t need it anymore because Germany changed one of their laws, allowing dual- and multi-citizenships. Hurray! It all got a little tight with the dates, but I succeeded in the interview last month and got sworn in today. I immediately went to the board of elections for my voter registration (no photos from there, though)

Please celebrate with me -virtually- and see some impressions from my way to Federal Plaza and back. Oliver, who picked me up, and I enjoyed a little morning sun at City Hall Park, with a view of our first apartment building in New York, where we lived for not quite three years. (It’s the one with the two little towers on top. Only one is visible, though.)

Note: Voter registration ends on October 26 in New York City. Other states have passed this deadline already.