Two years ago, the German government enacted the “blue card” system for non-EU nationals who are willing to stay and live permanently in Germany to replenish its dwindling labor force. Similar to a green card in the United States, an immigrant is eligible to apply for a blue card if he or she has a confirmed job offer or a valid work contract with a sponsoring employer, holds a university degree, and earns an annual salary of at least 35,000 euros. 

Tago Mago rages schizophrenically from song to song, from the two-bricks-shy of a pop song “Mushroom” to the sprawling “Halleluhwah” and everything in between. This confusion, this constant search for how best to communicate, is part of the album’s appeal. West Germany and its people had to find new ways to be heard in the world—a nation dismembered, no longer quite German, not yet fully Westernized, and always idling in the Cold War shadows of the Iron Curtain.

Liska Koenig is so San Francisco, she's got a tattoo of the Golden Gate Bridge on her left forearm.  She’s also an undocumented immigrant, and notwithstanding a forced trip back to her hometown of Hannover, Germany in 1997, has lived consistently in the Bay Area since 1989. Having exhausted all options for extending her current student visa, Koenig, 46, is now facing the possibility that she will have to leave. And while remaining an undocumented immigrant is a troubling prospect, talk of moving back to her native Germany forces a cringe.