Axel Springer

Who's number is that? Tuesday I received a surprising amount of phone calls on the cellphone that brought over from the US and had unlocked less than a month ago. Very few people know my number as a result, but I was still receiving unrecognized calls.

In part it was due to the craigslist ads that I recently responded to concerning studio spaces for rent in Berlin located on Axel-Springer Str. The first call was from D, one of the members of a design firm, elegant embellishments, that was renting space out of the other half of their 100 sq meter studio. It was originally listed at €150 (perfect!) but I later found out that it was per desk space. Their posting said that they were designing experimental building materials, and I sent them a link to my website. I had to turn them down because I needed at least 2 or 3 desk spaces. I still am kicking myself about it, it would be a great match but it is not in the cards (or the Euros).



I was determined to compensate by being really productive in the studio that afternoon. Then I received another call, while I was riding my bike. This call was from F who got my number from a friend and asked if I wanted some work preparing their gallery for the next show on Friday. F works at Galerie Opdahl, at the end of Axel-Springer Str. Ultimately I said 'yes', eventhough the duties included hanging a digital projector from the ceiling. Many of the other artists that I know in Berlin seem to subsidize their incomes with this type or preparator work. When I arrived they had hired someone else to do the projector installation, which is good because they had concrete ceilings. I was mostly needed to repair the walls and paint over a text work from the previous show. The room was piled with 2x4's and all that was remaining was the shadows of letters that had been projected through a large scale structure that had been formed from all of the wood leaning on one another, spanning the gallery. I started yesterday and finished the job today, feeling a bit more integrated as an on-call contractor in Berlin.

Oddly enough these two spaces are located within a block of each other. They are in a part of the city center called Spittelmarkt, which I had never even stepped foot in prior to this week. It is an incredibly eerie part of the city that is half empty and half filled with new high-rise residential and commercial spaces and the Bundesdrukerei (federal mint). There are huge overgrown empty lots in this part of town from where the Berlin Wall previously divided this area and there is a clear line of urban wasteland that still remains. It is one of the few parts of the city that still evokes the void that bounded the Wall. It is now being overrun by nature, called the inner-city prairie by slab-mag, and is also the site of an sculpture park intervention soon to be incorporated into the Berlin Biennial.


Empty lots left-over from the path of the Berlin Wall

The Ledge

About a week ago I got an email from a woman I went to grad school with, MT. MT wrote me because she was going to be in Berlin for a weekend and wanting to know if I wanted to meet up. The reason that she was in town was because her husband Jy, was playing in a show that was part of Club_Transmediale...which is part of the larger Transmediale, "festivale for art and digital culture", that is taking place here in Berlin this entire week in various venues and forms across the city.

We made plans with MT to meet up for the performance on Saturday night and she hooked us up on the guest list so we didn't have to pay the €20 at-door cover. The show was at the main Club_Transmediale venue, Maria am Ostbahnhof, where we arrived at about midnight. Jy was playing guitar for The Legendary Stardust Cowboy, who was headlining on the "Giddy Up Go!" themed 2nd stage and didn't go on until 4am, so we had plenty time to check out the place and other performers.

Maria was a large open warehouse converted multi-use club/venue. It had 3 large rooms and a labyrinth of little spaces between them.


The Lounge at Maria am Ostbahnhof

One of the really interesting things about this club was that they have some sort of program (the details I am not sure about) where they invite and/or commission artists to come and do projects. Most of the walls, except the main dance hall, are covered with huge murals in a range of styles and applications (paint, digital prints, etc). In the Lounge there are also a few large sculptures, namely the one pictured above which takes up most the room. In the pic above you can see about half of what is a large platform with two cars made of scavenged wood that have appeared to crash head on into each other. There were also a bunch of modular stools made from dye-cut laminated cardboard that had been intricately folded like some sort of designer banker's box. Various image-only videos played here throughout the evening.

The second room/2nd stage (Giddy Up Go!) was "psychobilly" themed (according the write-up). I kept thinking 'Punk Rock-a- Billy', complete with Mohawk/Pompadours. The first set we saw was the Swiss Reverend Beatman, a one-man powerhouse on guitar with kick drum and a mic. It is hard to describe the bizarre intensity of this guy...so here is a video from his myspace page.



After Reverand Beatman we headed to the large dance room...I was drawn by the mix of classic rock and disco/techno beats. We hung out here for awhile watching DJ Kavinsky and 10 large scale projections across the entire room on 3 walls.



I was as interested in the visuals as much as the DJ...all themed around gaming with a nice mix of analog turned digital imagery. The visuals were by a French collective, Play. Check out their reel...alot of that imagery was used at Maria.

By this point it was after 3am and we found MT again. She has just returned from the hotel to wake up the bassist, Klaus, who has overslept. While waiting for the band to go on we were hanging out with MT and end up discussing how the South Carolina Democratic primaries were about to close and how we have been really sucked into following US politics now that we are not bombarded by it everyday. At this point we were introduced to Klaus and he said "Oh, so your ex-pats" and continued with us in our brief conversation on the current political atmosphere in the US. This only became significant later when we realized this was Klaus Flouride, the bassist (also) for the Dead Kennedys, a infamous Hard Core political punk band from San Francisco. Needless to say, that made R's day.

"The Ledge" went on shortly after 4am to a fully warmed up crowd. Throughout the night on this stage they had been projected vintage footage from the 40's and 50's US rural culture; farmer's milking cows, trips to the grand canyon, cattle ranchers, etc. At one point I swear the video showed a sign for the 'smallest cathedral' or church in America, which is actually in Highlandville, MO, next to my hometown.


The Legendary Stardust Cowboy (left)

This pic was taken toward the end of the set when The Ledge had already stripped down to pants and shoes and was pretty sweaty from geriatric difficulties getting up off the floor after rolling around during one intense number.

The only US band made the vertigo of American culture reflected back at you a little less intense...but only until you realized the guy was an over-the-hill 'outsider' alternating between howling lyrics, screaming yaw!, pentecostal-style handshaking, and stripping. Needless to say, it was good times.

A Quick Update on what has been going on for the last week and a half

Many of our new Danish friends put together a show called, "The Space Convention", which took place in a open commercial space donated to them for 2 months by a Danish real estate company. The opening was Friday the 18th and we headed over there about 8pm. Since it was their own show, the opening lasted until after midnight and then we continued at a local bar until about 3am...making it more like an opening/party.


The Space Convention

As you can see from this pic that one of the artists sent out, the space was very nice, pretty large...and (coming from SF) unbelievably free. From those back windows you can look out onto the Spree. The show was good and it was nice to have so much time to talk to all the artists about their work. All of the people in the show are friends in the same Danish art school (one person graduated last year and the rest graduate this summer). The title/theme was "a forum where the participating artists exchange concepts on space and present their notion of understanding space."

The artists were: Mika Andersen, Jens Axel Beck, Morten Espersen, Nils Grarup, Morten Kaer, Claus Larsen, Simon Lindhardt, Karen Petersen, Louise Schrader, and Kirstine Stroemberg.



Many of these artists are getting ready to head over to San Francisco for the final installment of the Deadpan Exchange exhibition. The opening with be Friday, Feb. 8th at the Lab and if you are in SF you should stop by to check it out.

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All week I have had German class and that has still been pretty fun. Last week we learned vocabulary used in government forms (like single, married, first and last name, etc.) and general things people have in their houses (lamps, windows, chairs, etc.) and how to ask people things like, "Do you have children?" and "Are you married?". This week we have been learning food related vocabulary and about how to order in restaurants.

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On Thursday, R and I went to check out a studio space (which was actually just a 3 room apartment) in Wedding, an area of town northwest of the Mitte. I took this pic of "Gang Wear". I think the picture speaks for itself...but I will add that the sign on the door says 'La Familia' in some sort of old English font someone might have tattooed on their abdomen.

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We have been watching a lot of Adam Curtis documentaries. R and I had seen 'Century of the Self' awhile back, but in the last week we have also watched a 6-part series called 'Pandora's Box' and the newest, a 3-part series, called 'The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom' (2007). These two series really could go together, with the newer/latter picking up where the former left off. 'Pandora's Box' covers the Cold War and focuses largely on the Soviet Union, the USA, and Britain. 'The Trap' focuses on how the ideas of freedom developed during the Cold War are (still) effecting us today. I really like these documentaries because they seem to offer a larger picture than most attempts to describe our current or recent past situations. They also do not favor the 'right' or the 'left' but are critical in a more general and overarching way...which can rarely be said of anything in our current, extremely polarized political environment.



Also, Curtis' style of documentary relies entirely on montaged imagery from the period he is discussing, with commentary written and narrated himself. The result is a surprisingly entertaining AND insightful combination of primary image sources narrated with a history of the theoretical context in which they were created. He basically tracks the ways economic, political, and psychological theories have developed throughout the last century and what has resulted when they become dominant ideology...many times paradoxically with the opposite kinds of results that were intended or desired. If this sounds vague...it is because Curtis has an amazing ability to be very specific when talking about a very big picture. Watch some if you get the chance...and then let me know what you think because I would love to discuss these films further.

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Berlin: Sunday, Jan. 27th at 4:07pm

Schönlein Studio Upgrade

Here is a photo of my studio fully refurbished after week three. Outside, through the windows, is not snow but the rooftops of mobile trailer vendors parked on the Fußganger (pedestrian) zone. On Tuesdays and Fridays they sell meat, cheese, bread, honey, and fruits and vegetables. There are a few pieces in the studio that are in process and may stay in this unfinished state for some time because I believe I may have to leave the apartment soon. If you know of a studio space available in Berlin, let me know.

German Junkmail

We receive considerably less junkmail in Germany than we did in the US. Possibly it is because of the 'keine Reklame' (no advertisements) sign on our mailboxes, or because Germany is slightly more ecologically conscious, or that whenever junkmail as a phenomenon began to saturate the US, with the advent of cheap color printing methods in the 1970-80's, capitalism was not exacty thriving in Germany?

Whatever the reason, this is an image of a pamphlet we received in the mail last week. It is not junkmail, but was nearly thrown into the same recycling bin. The title itself taunts you into paying attention. 'Entlassen', or Dismissal, materializes what registers in your mind as you begin to sift through the mail, important or ignore. Honestly it was the cover photo that caught my attention, due to my delayed comprehension of the German language. As I said this is not junk advertising but a political pamphlet distributed in our 10 block radius to raise awareness about the changes taking place to the architecture and the surrounding urban fabric. Which continues to change on a day to day basis in this part of the former East Berlin.

The sub-heading for this publication translates to something like a 'Publication for all residents and business owners for the formal abolition of for-profit development in this quarter', ie. anti-gentrification. It is filled with essays and imagery that focus on the process of refurbishment and develpoment in this segment of the Mitte over the past 15 years. I would be proud if there was an intelligent discussion about architecture in America that was public enough to arrive in your mail box. However, few cities in the world share Berlin's understanding of the political capacity of architecture.

One set of images recurring through out the newsletter caught my attention because they are photographs of the block we are living on, taken in 1987 and 1989. These images show a comparison of how this specific corner changed over a two year period. I found myself driven to find this corner and update the comparison.




Corner of Stein and Alt Schönhauser Str, 2008

The Score 0-2

The visa office: 2
R + S: 0

We spent last Thursday waiting at the visa office for 6 hours, at least we received an appointment this week. It was an adventure, not unsimilar to the moments in school while you are sitting in class anticipating the presentation that you are about to give in front of everyone. Excitement and anxiety, but the stakes were higher.

We ran into a girl from S's German language class and waited in line with her for the duration of our application period. She was 19 and was born in the USSR and had grown up in Israel. She hadn't come entirely prepared but we lent her an extra application and helped her figure out how to convert her $100 to € for the application fee while we waited in line (exchange with a taxi driver). My suburban upbringing seemed to pale in comparison to the fictional stories I was imagining about her life. But we shared very few insights about our pasts, focusing on the significance of the present situation. She did mention that she was avoiding the mandatory military service and that no one would ever wait in line for 6 hours in Israel, "people would start killing each other" (she attributed this to the heat). In the end she received a 2 year visa, congratulations A.

We met with a middle-aged woman for the interview, in an office that she shared with a male clerk. Essentially she grilled me, even though our translator said she was optimistic about my responses. She still required us to obtain 3 additional documents to clarify the documents that we had provided. I think this will be possible and the next round is set for January 31st.

mmm...Riffels

Welche Sprachen sprichst du? Ich spreche Englisch, ein bisschen Spanisch, und ein bisschen Deutsch.

On Monday I started my language class at Babylonia. It has been pretty awesome so far...quite different obviously than my German classes at City College in SF. Of course, we are all immersed in the German language here and it is an intensive class that meets 4 days a week (Monday through Thursday) from 10am to 1:30pm...so that in and of itself makes a difference. But this class is also awesome for the wide range of people that are in there and the fact that everyone's first language is not English...so you are forced to speak German a lot more because it will be your common language.

We have two teachers for the class. One teaches Monday and Tuesday, and one teaches Wednesday and Thursday. The first is a male teacher and the second female. About a third of the class speaks English as their first language (from the US [SS and I and one other...although SS always says that she is from California, 'which is its own country', actually...all three of us are from CA, although me just immediately, SS from LA and the other person from Berkeley although she has been the living the last 5 years in Chicago], Australia, New Zealand, and England...but I think everyone speaks a little English) and about half speaks Spanish as their first (or second) language (mostly from Argentina and some from Portugal). There are also people from Belize, France, Italy, Israel, Palestine, Bulgaria, and Bosnia. So today, for example, our teacher spoke mostly in German, but also in English and Spanish. Since Spanish was the foreign language that I took all through school this is interesting to me also. A lot of the people in the class speak 3-4 languages, and one girl speaks like 6 (not including German).

Needless to say, everyday has been a very intense but extremely engaging and insightful experience. Because we are all actually in Germany, there is a lot more conversation about what people actually say versus the proper way to say it...and a lot more emphasis on extremely practical terms. For example, I know all this about everyone because we have spent the first 3 days asking each other in German; 'What is your name?', 'Where do you come from?', 'How long have you been in Berlin?', etc. We also learned how to say important things like, "I am (trained as) an artist but have no job."...a situation I shared with a few other people...but there was also people trained as a Lab Technician, a Yoga Instructor, an Engineer, and a Dentist.

Also, there are things that everyone just knows from being here, even if they have never had a German class before, like numbers. Numbers are also especially easy in German. If you can count to 20 you can pretty much say any other larger number in German because it is just a super long compound word. In English you write 52 like fifty-two, but in German it is zweiundfünfzig. 152 is einhundertzweiundfünfzig, 1256 is eintausendzweihundertsechsundfünfzig, etc. It's kinda fun.

Today I went and picked up my text book from the book store and also bought 'Der Hobbit' in German, on CD. I had looked for this before we left the states but it was too expensive there. This should be entertaining and educational...I know the story well...yet it is long and involved so it shouldn't get boring too quickly to listen to more than a few times.

Gesamtkaufwerk

Möbel Kraft


Gesamt•kauf•werk: total shopping experience

I introduced this term in a previous entry to describe the encompassing experience of shopping at an IKEA store, and could also apply to other chain stores like Wal-mart for the variety and quantity of products they sell. This word is derived from a German phrase, 'Gesamtkunstwerk', used to describe the production of a 20th century artists whose work crosses many boundaries, art, architecture, music, film.

However I never thought I would find another store that would challenge IKEA's defining position but yesterday I found a candidate. Möbel Kraft, is a furniture store that translates to an English phrase that roughly means the 'power of furniture'. Möbel Kraft competes mostly in the dimensions of Scale. It's Templehof location is a four-stories tall outlet with a mezzanine that surrounds a void the size of a football field and whose halls extend well beyond. It is BIG, but its product line is not nearly as integrated and addictive as IKEA's.

Eeny, meeny, miny, maybe

Do you ever make those decisions that you know that you are going to regret? The type where you must weigh the repercussions against the benefits, then just go for it.



Well I made one of those decisions this week and am beginning to think that it just might work out. I have been looking for a studio space since shortly after we arrived here in Berlin, and one fell in my lap earlier this week. There are of course pros and cons but I am really hungry for a studio. I'd like to give full disclosure on this posting but the situation is still developing, so a synapses will have to do.

My friend ES has been in Berlin since early summer, renting a room that he uses as a studio and occasionally living space. As a foreigner with part-time work, as most of us are, it can be difficult to rent an apartment. Requiring certain registration documents and up to three months rent as a deposit, then being chosen over any other applicants. ES found an apartment that can best be described as college dorm-like where no one asks questions as long as you pay your rent on time. There are a group of college age guys staying in this apartment and living off of the German welfare system. Which I've learned involves not leaving the house very much, playing a lot of on-line computer games, and having pets. Having pets helps pad your check because you are given extra cash to care for them.

Recently one of these rooms, measuring about 300 sq.ft., came open and ES offered me the opportunity to move in and use it as a studio. The circumstances under which it opened up are still coming into focus but one roommate made a quick exit, a chunk of money went missing, as well as a computer, and (luckily) most of the pets too. So there it is, take it or leave it.



I decided to take it, on a month-to-month rental 'understanding' and can spend the time looking for a more stable situation. The first night I laid awake worrying about the costs, the security, the awkward architectural characteristics of my new studio. Two things that I hate are confrontation and being cheated out of money. In the end I refused to pay a deposit (everyone seems to be happy just to have the room filled). I do not plan on keeping anything valuable in the space, just art, and it cost €23 just to have a set of keys made so there cannot be too many sets floating around. And architecturally the space looked too lived-in, multi-colored walls and a strange coal heating monolith in the corner. I spent the majority of the week white washing everything and if I install a fluorescent light fixture it just might look clean. I look forward to the day that I can sit as my make-shift desk and look out the window onto the park. There is even a Bauhaus (housing supplies) store near by.


by request: pic out the window


Having this space to work in has given me a focus and an outlet that has been lacking up to this point and the guys who live there are rather agreeable. It feels a bit like 1999 when I was 19 and freedom meant having a beer bottle collection and not taking out the trash.

Sunny Pommes-Frites

I haven't been in the mood to write much lately, but I have been taking pictures so it has been kinda fun to do these more photoblog-type postings.

I meant in the last post, where I talk about shoes, to mention a link I added on our right bar for Stil in Berlin. I guess that there is a bunch of related sites in most big cities that focus on street fashion. The people who do this one for Berlin must live kinda near us because most of their postings are around the area where St. Oberholz is. So...in a sense these are really people we see everyday. I am pretty sure that I saw a pic of the guy who lives across the way that has the hair horns.

Today I added this live Berlin feed. I stole the link from someone else's blog that I found on the Berlin Blogs listing.


still from about 2pm today

Today there was a totally clear sky, which I am not sure has happened since we have been here. Mostly it has been the typical Berlin-winter gray sky, but the last few days have been sunny. I have found the sunny days to actually be a bit more disorientating though. The light is very strange because, well, among other things the sun doesn't get very high above the horizon line...maybe like 30degrees at the most.



I took this pic yesterday at about 4:30pm from the S-Bahn as the sun was going down. It is pretty much dark by 5:30pm but the days are getting longer now instead of shorter.

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On Thursday R and I attempted to go to the Amt to apply for our residency visas. If you don't remember, we are applying for student visas with our letters from Babylonia. We got there a little after 10am when they open and there was a line literally out the door. We were going to meet BH (who I formally called Br, but R changed it since we know his last name now) who also needed to go to the Amt and he was going to be our German speaking guide.


While waiting in line at the Amt, a woman came by and padlocked this baby carriage to a pole while she went inside with the child. I guess it makes sense to treat a baby carriage like a bicycle, but then again...?

BH got there about 10:40am and we had just made it inside the building, with a full room line ahead of us. Half-way through this part of the line they announced that they no longer have appointments for people who are seeking student visas because they have filled up for the day. BH said that he had never seen the line this long and maybe it was an after Holiday rush. We had no choice but to leave it at that and took some info home to email the correct office in hopes of scheduling an appointment. If we do not hear from them before hand, then I guess we will head back to the Amt again on Thursday (when BH can hopefully join us again) at 9am and see what happens.

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On Friday night we ended up roaming around to a few gallery openings with SS and two of the Danes, MK and JB. We went to some Jannowitzbrücke galleries and then one the Danes knew of near Kochstraße, Croy Nielsen. DK was there too and we all went to an afterparty in this random location near Oranienberger Tor. The only landmark was a (bad) gallery downstairs next door, but we got there earlier than most so that meant no cover charge and free soup. The place was basically two rooms; a smaller front room with a bar and small DJ table that we stayed in and a larger room with a dance floor, another DJ, and tiered sitting area. It was fun but not too crazy. We all left by 2am.

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On Saturday, R and I went to the brunch place a block over from our apartment called Blaues Band. This is about the third time we have gone there and it is pretty good...no Sparky's Diner (SF)...but pretty good. R had the 'Farmer's Omelette' pictured at the bottom and I had the 'Kanadisch Pancakes mit Blaubeeren' with Milchkaffee and Orangensaft pictured above.



Speaking of Milch...here is my favorite Milch. SS wrote a whole post dedicated to it on her food blog. Not only is it amazing tasting milk, that is also organic, it comes in a logic-defying, award-winning container. The 'handle' to the right is simply an inflated section and the 'spout' in the upper left-hand corner you simply tear off, and by the way it is magically designed, only opens when you tip and pour the milk out. When sitting straight up like this, it closes itself so that it is doesn't get funky in the fridge. Genius!...and of course, recyclable.

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After brunch, R and I headed to the Helmut Newton Foundation to see the current exhibition, 'Wanted', with Helmut Newton, Larry Clark, and Ralph Gibson. There is also a permanent exhibition called 'Private Property' that has a bunch of Newton's belongings. I didn't know much about him before going, but Helmut Newton was a very famous fashion photographer known for his nude female portraits. Another highlight of the trip was seeing Larry Clark's 'Tulsa' series which documents the rampant drug use he was around and involved with in Tulsa, OK in the 60's and 70's. I can only describe seeing it as literally gut-wrenching...



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After a short bus trip back to our neighborhood we stopped by a brat stand for the German staple...Bratwurst and Pommes-Frites...before heading to the grocery store and back home.


Bratwurst mit Senf (Mustard) und Pommes-Frites mit Ketschup und Mayo

These boots are made for walking.

This picture was taken on Saturday, Jan. 5th...five days after Silvester. By this point they had at least got all the fireworks, champaign bottles and confetti off the streets and sidewalks and in small piles by the side of the road for the city to come pick up.




R and I decided to wait until after the Christmas rush to do our Christmas shopping. We just couldn't stand to go out because Alexanderplatz (at this point) is basically a big tower surrounded by a bunch different malls next to each other...so it was crazy. This ended up being a good idea though because there were great after Christmas sales. I bought R these 'Hausschuhe'. Germans love house shoes and these are very German.



Before I left for Germany my boots died. I tried to fix the soles but they are far too gone. With some of my Christmas money (thanks parents!) I bought a new pair of boots for myself. These are leather and heavy canvas so should be good for the snow. They are quite warm.



Last Saturday, when the ground was covered with ice and everyone was sliding around, I thought that it would be a good idea to carry home this enormous rug that we found on the street on the way to brunch. It was huge and heavy and took both of us to carry it...not to mention the fact that we had to go really slow because of the ice. R said, "This is exactly what we should not be doing right now." But, we got it home and it was in excellent condition and way bigger than we thought. It almost fills the whole bedroom!



For now, I am working at home instead of trying to rent another studio space. R and I went out today and bought some studio furniture and I got this great table with legs that fold up under the top and then collapses in the three sections. It even has a metric ruler on the side. It is the perfect long skinny work table for the bedroom and I can easily carry it around on the train if I need to move it somewhere. It was pretty cheap but I figure if it doesn't work out I will just take it apart and use the panels for paintings.

Stand still

Icing

It has been below or around freezing since we woke up on New Years morning to snow flurries. Today it must have become barely warm enough for the snow to turn to a slow steady rain as we wandered the city looking for somewhere new to eat brunch. Finally deciding on Frida Kahlo where I ordered Heuvos Rancheros. The wind kept the temperature down and as the drizzling rain landed on the streets and sidewalks it turned to ice. We slid all the way back to the apartment across the brick, cobblestone, and slabbed rock sidewalks of Berlin. Only now does the texture on America's poured concrete sidewalks make sense to me.

Germans love New Year's Eve so much they call it Silvester.

In many northern European countries New Year's Eve is referred to as 'Silvester'. Another way to think of it is that Silvester is the name given to the last day of the year. It changes the meaning of the holiday slightly. Instead of subsuming December 31st into the approaching shadow of the next year, Silvester is a celebration of the End. The end of a year, the end of old habits and the end of a week long holiday celebration that begins on Christmas and is sustained through the earliest hours of the year to come. However, endings do not have pre-parties. You only celebrate the anticipation of beginnings.

This led to some confusion with our dinner party on Sunday night which I titled 'Silvester-Eve dinner party' in the e-mail invitation. Silvester is new to me and I thought it would be fun to combine both customs and throw a pre-party for the end of the year, ie. Silvester's-Eve (or New Year's Eve-Eve). This did not translate well across cultures as much as I had hoped and caused some confusion amongst our German guests.

Silvester was one of the largest celebrations I have ever witnessed (and we have the photos and video to prove it). For Silvester 2007 we attended three parties: one for the past, one for the present and one for the future. The party for the past was a reunion of 12 Danish artists held in an apartment in Neu Köln. The present was a party at BootLab in one of the most famous artist squats in the Mitte. The party for the future was a collage in an apartment turned disko, called Foto-Shop.

The celebration started on Christmas when the first fireworks started ringing throughout the city. For the next week the explosions multiplied until reaching a sustained cacophony that lasted well into 2008. By last Friday, walking through the streets was causing me to jump out of my skin as I turned corners and M-80's would explode just meters away. This city, which had been bombed more than a few times in the last century, was ringing again like a war-zone. After a few days my nerves settled but the explosions continued.

To begin Silvester we met up with two of our friends from Denmark staying at an artist residency in Kreuzberg, The Berlin Office. After meeting up we headed off to dinner at an Indian restaurant where they had 21 seats on reservation for a group of their Danish friends whom had all attended art school together. Most of which are now living in Berlin. We managed to doge most of the fireworks, only one skipped across an intersection hitting Hk squarely on the leg. These are not just bottle rockets or roman candles (most common on Independence Day in America) but everyone was throwing shotgun shell sized explosives. This one happened to come from a teenager with a yellow back pack walking down the sidewalk dropping them in his wake. Hd & Hk brought up the public campaigns that are held in Denmark this time of year encouraging everyone to wear a pair of specially designed safety glasses distributed by their government.

By the time we reached the restaurant dodging fireworks had become a game and i was beginning to enjoy it as much as the kids throwing them. Our table was located in a decadent tent adjacent to the restaurant complete with tapestries, a fountain, and more Buddah statues than I could count.



The group of Danes were incredibly nice. I struggle enough with German that there was no hope in keeping up with their Danish reunion. Their capacity for English was incredible, with only minor accents. The attributed this to their immersion in American movies as they grew up. In Denmark, I learned, that movies are screened in their original language (except for cartoons) and in Germany movies are dubbed over with German voices. We spoke about the differences in American and Danish universities and I bemoaned hearing about their tuition-free schools and the government assistance some receive while studying in Berlin. Not to mention that the Danish currency is stronger than the Euro.

S and i were having a great time and decided to continue on to MK's apartment to ring in the new year (or wring-out the old year?) Danish-style. We were warned that there were no chairs in the apartment and the only light in the kitchen was the one inside the oven. The kitchen light had fallen weighed down by paper streamers that were hung earlier in the day while one of the plastic recycling bins burned in the street outside their window. (No doubt due to a rogue firework.) A few people brought chairs of their own for the party. Upon arrival we passed around shots, got to know each other better, and waited for midnight. Our plans to meet SS and BH at the next party were post-poned until 2008.



When midnight arrived we set off fireworks in the house (in Europe they have small indoor table fireworks), the Danes took turns standing on a chair and 'jumping' into the New Year, then everyone got in a circle and sang a Danish New Year's song. This was followed by a round of hugs from everyone. Outside fireworks dotted every block of the city and did not stop until morning.



Around 1 am we decided to make the move and go back to the Mitte for the next party at the art collective. SS was not answering her phone, you never know if it is their fault or your fault or your pre-paid minutes have run out. I knew how to find the building and we figured we would wing it from there. The streets were littered with fireworks. We watched a guy light one off in his hand, then stare at it in disbelief (or pain). The subway tunnels in Neu Köln, with their reverberating acoustics, were no escape from the firework celebration.



The train ride was exciting, one of those rare ecstatic chaotic moments that makes anarchy sound fun. We transferred trains at Alexanderplatz and the station looked like rush-hour on the subways in New York. People everywhere.



When we arrived at Friedrichstraße the streets were blocked off by police. Wandered through the crowds, the confetti, and the broken glass until we found our destination. The archaic bombed-out train station building covered in murals and surrounded by people. SS was still not answering her phone, but remember this was our party for the present in the trilogy. Being present in Berlin means ready for anything and aware of how things change around you constantly. I knew that if we had made it this far we would find SS and BH. S needed to use the bathroom and we found a non-descript door that opened onto a private party, so we turned around. A few seconds later BH came bursting out of the door, we found them. We hung out for an hour or so, listening to the DJ and watching the iTunes style screen saver projections. This party had already climaxed and most of the people left were sitting around observing their surroundings and the events taking place through the windows outside. At this point we decided to make a move and walk with SS onto the next party near Rosenthalerplatz.

As we walked through the streets there was no sense of time, the year was too young for it to be late. We found the address and went upstairs to her friend L's apartment. We barged in on 5 or 6 somber people sitting around a table. (Turns out one of them teaches architecture at the Bauhaus in Weimar, really.) The party was being held in the apartment downstairs which appeared to regularly host parties under the name Foto-Shop. The walls were lined with large photographs, hung salon-style, a DJ played in the middle room and the kitchen was converted into a bar, serviced by a table that blocked the door. Most of the rooms were relatively unoccupied so we congregated in the room where people were dancing. The DJ's were playing a sound that was pure Berlin, a kind of industrial-pop. Danceable beats punctuated by crushing electronic samples, it was intoxicating. We piled our coats in the corner and danced to the new year. Collaged amongst the walls of photos we were in a country where we barely speak the language, in an apartment turned disko, listening to music that made you dance and thrash. It was perfect.

Sunday: Green Thai Curry strikes again...

On Sunday we had our first dinner party. I was going to make baked chicken but at the last minute decided to make a big batch of the Green Thai Curry I made awhile back that we liked so much. I made a big triple batch and added a bunch of veggies (broccoli, zucchini, carrots, green beans, and yellow onions) and then I made a veggie yellow curry with tofu and a bunch of rice. Luckily, the apartment came with a couple of big pots to cook it all in.

We invited all the various people we have met in our first month here. The people who came were: SS and Br and their friend visiting from Cologne Jm, DK (whose studio we went to last Saturday) and his friend visiting from Frankfurt, Ax and his girlfriend Ae who was visiting from LA, our friends Hi and Hk who were in town visiting from Copenhagen (who we meet at CCA) and En (one of the former CCA undergrads). Inevitably, it turned out that En and Ae knew each other from LA (they had met before and had mutual friends), and I already knew that Hi and DK had worked on Dead Pan II together, but had never actually met yet, so there was lots for us all to talk about and it was great fun.



For desert I made sweet sticky rice and mango. At first I was a bit nervous that I made too much food, but by the end of the evening almost everything was gone except enough curry and rice for R and I to split for one meal later.

Saturday: Berlin has a party scene San Francisco can't even shake a stick at.

I guess that our Holiday weekend really started on Saturday. R and I walked over to the otherside of Alexander Platz, down Karl Marx Allee, to an area where we noticed there were a small cluster of galleries listed in the Index. Our main destination was a space called Haubrokshows for a show called Lights (On/Off) with works by Olafur Eliasson, Cerith Wyn Evans, and Isa Genzken and others. This title was an obvious nod to the Turner Prize winning piece by Martin Creed but that piece wasn't in the show. All the works did center around using light and light fixtures and it was pretty solid, especially the first piece as you enter the gallery Stripes (vertical), by Matt Calderwood. This video started as a bright, almost totally white, overexposed image of a line of fluorescent light bulbs suspended vertically and over 2.5 minutes each of them are consecutively shot and explode. The image continues to get darker as the lights are blown out and it ends with complete darkness.


Stripes (vertical) pictured on the right

The space, it turns out, is run by a collector (Haubrok) and all the works are part of his collection.

We then walked to a couple of other nearby locations where there ended up being a bunch of great galleries (only 3 of which were actually listed on Index). They were all closed for the Holidays though, but we plan to go back when they open for new shows which I think will be January 11th.

On the way back to our apartment we actually ran into Br who was trying to get into a hacker's conference to help his friend with a workshop but he wasn't answering his phone and they were trying to charge Br €30 cover. Anyway, we made plans for later that night.

About 9pm we met SS and Br in north Kreuzberg to explore a strip of bars on Schlesische Straße. The idea was to do a sort of pub crawl, have a drink at a couple of different places to see where we liked to go back. One thing about bars in Berlin is that each has their own list of cocktails. There are some common drinks, but for those of us who are not really into drinking beer, it adds a nice variable to the adventure. This night I stayed with a variety of drinks that had orange juice as their main mixer.

The first place we went to, I am not sure what the name of it was, had a kind of pirate or ship theme. This place was nice enough and played OK music (I remember hearing Ween's Buenos Tardes at some point) but there was no ventilation and it was so smoky that after 45 minutes or so our eyes were watering. We decided to move at that point and passed over a few places that pretty crowded and ended up at a place called Cake. This place was pretty fun, a hodge podge of wall painting and corrugated metal over the bar. All the furniture was thrift store quality couches and chairs, which is pretty standard here for sit-down bars. We hung out for awhile until they turned off the music and a drunk guy in tight black leather pants start wailing Bob Dylan-esque songs with an acoustic guitar. The place was small so there wasn't much room for his small jumps and hip thrusting and it was a constant battle between his performance and people trying to get by to go to the bathroom or the bar at the back of the place. This was annoying enough for us to decide to move on.

Our final stop ended up being the first bar we went to here with SS and Br, Konrad Tönz. This time we sat in the front and it was equally as funky. There was a DJ, a white guy with a black afro wig, playing what the flyer called "Soul, Funk, Trash", which was really just an eclectic mix with an emphasis in 70's soul and funk. There was a small 70's TV set above the bar that was playing old episodes of the Monkees TV show mixed with scene from what appeared to be an old German sexplotation movie about a chick who drives a motorcycle on the Autobahn. At some point she meets up with her lover and while they start making love (with her on top) he grabs a hand full of red roses from a vase on the night stand and hold them against her back as the scene explodes in to a psychedelic abstraction that only early film effects can create.

Another thing about bars in Berlin is there is no 'bar close'. This is extremely disorientating for those of us used to a specific end point to these kinds of evenings. As we hung out waves of different people came through, probably doing exactly what we had done, and before we knew it, it was 4am...

On the walk back to the S-Bahn (trains run all night on the weekends) we passed many clubs, a few of which had lines out the door...people waiting to start (or continue) their clubbing at 4:30am! Sure, most big cities have at least a few clubs catering to the all day and night and all weekend scene, but here it is the norm.

Lm

my niece, Lm

After we left SF, we went back to MO for a month before coming to Berlin. We planned this transition largely around my sister's pregnant belly. She is the first to have a baby in my immediately family and I really wanted to be there for her and to see this new person coming into the world. Luckily, Lm was born the morning after her due date so everything went as scheduled and we got to spend about 3 weeks with her before we left. Now my sister, MS, sends me regularly updated pics and Lm is so cute I just have to share them here. This pic MS sent me a few weeks ago...Lm might have been about a month old.