Tongue of Culture: a special section of Badische Zeitung – Culture

The devil already knew in Goethe’s Faust that culture licks the whole world, even himself. Of course, the culture editor of a daily newspaper has to be very careful not to dictate people’s tastes like great teachers. Especially in a culturally rich area like Dreilndereck. Whether classical or folk, theatrical or literary, art or cinema: in each section there are readers who are superior to the editorial team in terms of knowledge and/or skills.

It is very important that the features section itself is not exposed and that it only brings together the public. Pure technical idiots or elite experts without the ability to transmit and reveal their standards would be out of place. Rather, the feature section should see itself as part of cultural citizenship, as a qualified voice in aesthetic political discourse, as its first reader to see and position themes, lead discussions, report news, visit and evaluate events.

The latter is often quite challenging. If, for example, at a big rock concert, the reviewer could experience cultural licking for free in order to fulfill his duty as a historian, while the fan had to pay half a fortune for it, and therefore is very willing to find the evening successful: then the conflict is already programmed. When a review of the complaint appears in the newspaper, some fee-paying visitors may think that the tongue of culture can bypass them. That is why there is no need to immediately give up saliva: serious cultural criticism is everything and the end of everything is a sure instinct and an understandable justification for aesthetic judgments. However, sometimes the audience gets the impression that they attended an event completely different from the scheduled one. Which is why he only visits the dress rehearsal instead of the premiere in exceptional cases (eg because he is no longer able to indicate important performance dates): who doesn’t know what could possibly go wrong…

It is easier to review technically reproducible cultural achievements, such as films. What is shown in cinema, television or on broadcast portals can also be seen in advance and presented to readers on the start date. The common way to do this has not only been the home cinema screening link since the pandemic – with individual access and password activated individually. In order to prevent illegal distribution of the work, the viewer’s name appears as a watermark in the middle of the film. As a critic of BZ, I’ve also sat countless times on press screenings in the big cinema, completely on my own. It was worth remembering the dates the charter company put a military trainer with a bull neck tattoo and combat boots by my side so I couldn’t score a pirated copy (are cultivated plants technically capable of that at all? But thanks for being reliable!): Art is beautiful, as The opera says “The Bartered Bride” is from 1932, but it takes a lot of work.

Of course, we can’t imagine anything from the features section of BZ – after all, culture is the added value of life. Thinking, weighing, and analyzing this matter becomes more important as a contemporary critical witness, and the greater the boundary between argument and mere expression of opinion, and between the confusion of position and mood in public discourse. The tongue of culture goes away (another quote, this time from Eric Kestner), and we’re glad it licks our territory in so many ways. Fortunately, he finally lived again.