A Berlin Blog (n.) - A blog about living in Berlin, how to starve as an artist, pass as an electro head, and take solid pictures of graffiti-covered cement.
Turned 25 and haven't had the chance to update. Two new spaces to add to my "things I am digging about Berlin" list:
1) PnB
Pulled an all nighter here a couple weeks ago for a 24 hour rave / art exhibition. Well, there was supposedly an art exhibition somewhere but I didn't see one. All I saw was some pretty video edits of topless 70s films spliced with grainy footage of dramatic "urban decay." Rockin' the decks upstairs was the incredible DJ Donna Summers, a friend of a friend who I'd met before but hadn't seen play live. Before he went on he asked me about this, "Have you heard me? I'm awesome," is what he told me. And let me tell you, kiddies: DJ Donner Summers is awesome. Two thumbs up for the rave happy rendition of Smells Like Teen Spirit. The downstairs floor was dedicated to experimental glitches and noise of the kind that I'm not usually too interested in. Additiv said he liked the underground feel of it. I laughed when a couple folks we met said they'd seen a flyer for the party at the hostel. Ah, so is the nature of the beast. Tourism will eat this city alive until all the city is full of tourists, taking photos of each other in front of Tacheles.
2) Raum 18
Went here this weekend for the Sameheads 3rd Birthday Bash. There was a 7 foot tall (albeit non-edible) cake blocking the doorway, 2 dance floors of bootie shaking beats, and hoards of sweaty, musky young Leute dancing around in their most avant garde Zweite Hande chugging Becks. Quite impressed by [Trap] who I'd seen flyers for everywhere but had never actually heard of. Wanted to see Clark but could not keep my eyes open past 5 a.m. Was charmed by the slaughterhouse feel to the place. Spent some time appreciating the human sized paper doll hanging from the ceiling of the smoking room while snuggly settling into a vintage dentist's chair. Also: managed to successfully complete a Frankenstein's head puzzle I was handed upon entry just before heading home. Here it is. Marvel at my talent:
The bubble gum pink lighting and rafters above Prinzenstrasse Ubahn. Notice anything strange? Know whose idea it was and where I can get their autograph?
This weekend I went by the East Side Gallery (the longest remaining stretch of the Berlin Wall used as an open air gallery) to see the new paintings. I can't say I'm 100% pleased with the results. Granted, some of the old paintings were a bit cheesy but some of the new ones are simply hideous. I don't know who curates these things, but I'm willing to bet the bureaucrats had something to do with it and as we all know bureaucrats are notorious for having terrible taste in art (Merkel still swears by Thomas Kinkade). Because I cherish you, dear readers, I've chosen NOT to share photos of the terrible bits of the wall that will make you gag and want to bludgeon your own eyes out with bottle caps. Instead, I've snapped a few of the good paintings, one restored, and some of the unpainted sections for contrast. Enjoy. (As always, click if you want it bigger, or just shout at your screen)
So the first thing I did this morning was watch this video and eat toast:
I figured it would cure me of this feeling I woke up with.
It's difficult to explain, but long story short is that I'm beginning to think I hate other writers and maybe I don't want to pursue a career in journalism because the more writers I meet the more I realize what talentless, self-absorbed jerks they are.
Take for example this writer I met yesterday, whose name I've purposefully forgotten. I was introduced to him by a good friend of mine who told me he'd flown in from New York for a couple weeks.
This sort of thing happens all the time. New York artists are always popping up in Berlin, crawling out of the sewers or dropping out of the sky. We're practically being candy bombed with them.
Which is not to say we're the only ones in the NY Artists receiving department. Some other cities on the route include: Paris, Copenhagen, Barcelona, Madrid, San Francisco and, for some reason, Portland, Oregon. I'm not sure why this is. Call it the kuntsler migratory pattern. But for whatever reason the New York kunstlers are the loudest and seem to be the most abundant.
Anyways, I figured I'd be friendly, introduce myself, ask what line of kunstlering he was in, and so on. He answered that he had been working for the Advocate for 3 years and was now freelancing, looking forward to traveling, writing some travel articles for the New York Times, maybe if he had time, and wanted to go into an MFA program in the future. I asked him where and he said Hollins University, which I told him I hadn't heard of. And then, get this, he actually guffawed.
Now, never in my 25 years of life have I seen someone actually guffaw before, though characters in novels seem to guffaw all the time. So I was a little taken aback to see one in real life.
"Oh, you wouldn't know unless you were in THAT kind of circle," he said. "That's where the real writers are."
Now I had already told him by this point that I was a writer, but perhaps he'd forgotten or hadn't listened or didn't care. Or maybe I just wasn't a "real" writer considering I never worked for the Advocate or wrote for the New York Times. But by this point in the conversation I was about ready to toss my drink on the guy and walk away. Instead I asked him if he was planning on moving here.
"Oh I definitely want to. I'd love to do some writing for _____ and ______ and _______. There's probably a lot of money in it."
I politely suggested that Berlin was not a great place to make money, and that if he wanted to move here it would be better to do so when he had a good bit of savings to live off of. He took offense and insisted that I was "crazy" and that any real periodical would pay $2 a word for a 3,000 word feature from him and that would give him $4,000, which was more than enough to live off of in Berlin.
I decided to jump ship and go back to find Carlos at the bar and tell him how much I hated New Yorkers. And even though I did this, at great length, I still felt... annoyed.
Part of it was obviously annoyance that someone in New York had given so much work to a writer who can't even do basic multiplication while the rest of us in Berlin are sitting around starving to death, and part of it was anger at the publication process in general. But along with this there was this anger, this extreme disgust with how much networking has become a part of the art and writing world, and how good ol' fashioned talent has become at best unnecessary and at worst undesirable.
Okay okay, I'm not that naive. I know networking has ALWAYS been important. I suppose I've only been saved from it up till now because I only recently started to write for cold, hard cash. In the end this is probably why I settled on Berlin, hoping to avoid the constant, necessary mingling that occurs in busy cities like San Francisco and New York.
But in truth networking probably happens here more among the expats than it did back home. After all, as an artist you have a smaller potential audience here so you have to make every person (who speaks English) love you and want to come to your next show, see your next film, read your next article, etc. etc.
Lately I've begun to feel used. And, simultaneously, ignored. I'm really worried I'll be forced to become a smarmy, self-absorbed jerk in order to make a name for myself, make a living doing what I want to do instead of teaching Business English to the kind Leute at Deutsch Bahn. I hope this isn't the case, but the deeper I get into the business of writing the more I find myself wanting to run away screaming or stay and chew off my own fingers.
So I'm throwing a little shindig for the 4th of July, you know, because I love big, sweaty Americans. So if you happen to be a big, sweaty American, come on down and bring your cute, fashionably emaciated girlfriend with you. Free cowboy hats for the first so many attendees!
Oh and the event is at a special secret location. Partially because I like to keep things underground, and partially because the place where we're throwing it wants us to keep our numbers low- to around 80 or so. So hit me up to find out the when and wheres!
Got back to Berlin yesterday ohne luggage. Our 4 bags got misplaced somewhere between here and Amsterdam. Los suggested that perhaps my new cocktail dress ran into his grey velveteen smoking jacket and decided to high tail it to Tahiti together, taking their comrades with them. They are back in our possession now having been dropped off by some long, skinny deutschers showing the effects of the lightning storm earlier this morning. The apartment is super clean thanks to our subleter Dolby Anol who now lives just down the street. Bandita is pudgy but happy. I am sick with something that I hope to hell isn't swine flu. Only time (and tea) will tell.
For those who are interested in seeing some nice shots of Berlin and Berlin-like-people, take a look at this short film by a good friend of mine who happens to have an excellent sense of humor: http://www.thirteen.org/sites/reel13/category/vote/
Yesterday we went to the neue nationalgalerie and saw an exhibit by Jannis Kounellis that we had seen a flyer for at a cafe: www.smb.museum. It was a very strange exhibit- mostly a labyrinth of 10 ft high iron walls (partially rusted- a sign before the exhibit said "Danger: The walls of the labyrinth may be dirty") and as you wandered through you would find certain artifacts- an egg, a bit of cotton with a fly on it, bags of coal seated in a circle of chairs, empty coffeee bean sacks that had been strewn together to make a blanket, rolled up raincoats (maybe) with knives poking out of them. Very bizarre. As most of the "artifacts" had to do with civilization and necessary materials in particular I took it to mean something along the lines that man often lives in poverty- spending his whole life to gain access to the materials that make life possible- food, coal, blankets- the bare necessities. Man spends more and more time trying to find these things until eventually he finds himself in a maze- unable to escape his search for the materials necessary to satisfy his basic needs. As for what this indicates, I can only think one of two things: 1) that art is a luxury those in poverty can't afford or 2) this struggle is in and of itself an artform- it is basic and human in nature and something that needn't go unrepresented. It's hard to tell which. Carlos seemed to think- more or less- that the exhibit expressed how 3rd world countries are exploited for their resources (many of the artifacts were obviously from argentina or other historically exploited countries). At any rate, very interesting. Some more photos are located here: http://www.smb.museum/smb/presse/image_list.php?id_gruppe=109〈=de&n=3
1. Saturday - 2 AM arrival @ Zementgarten located just foot steps away from the middle of f---ing nowhere / Lichtenberg. After wandering around dark streets lined in dilapidating apartment buildings for 10 min. am lucky enough to find boy on Ecstasy aimlessly searching for the sbahn. Wir fragen re: secret entrance to warehouse club. He points to an almost person-sized break in a sheet metal gate. Across huge former parking lot in dead warehouse city lit only by single street lamp we pull a security door. Enter moist, red dungeon of a squat party dotted in hippies dancing with drugs. Despite aversion to fusion music, manage to move feet significantly to the sounds of computers, vocoder, kazoos, and plastic bottles. Dragged butt home just shy of daylight.
2. Sunday - The Berlin poetry release of Paula Varjack aka: my friend sara from London / New York / & Washington DC- featuring: others. Others consist of: Germany's first "Mid-western mid-eastern blue grass band," a drunk girl who was supposed to MC but showed up halfway through the event to slur some words into a microphone, a British comedian whose jokes consisted mainly of using the words "cunt" and "crisps" in succession, and a band of Romanian minstrels dressed in druidic-looking robes. This madness (survived by no less than 2 gin and tonics) was followed by a trip to nearby 8 mm where the very bad man of a DJ encouraged sara's unruly throng to dance on chairs, have a make-out huddle, and sing along to "Roxanne." There was much making out between the girls and f*ing in the bathrooms, especially after my group converged with a gaggle of blond Danish 20-somethings who were impressed with our belligerence. I alone abstained and was subsequently told by the bartender that I didn't look like I was having a good time. 3 bottles of beer later I had made friends with everyone, but holding strong to my promise not to catch mono refrained from the all-girl tongue lashing. None-the-less, an Olympicly persistent Swedish girl insisted upon giving me her phone number and myspace "just in case I come to Stockholm for sexy orgy." Did not beat daylight on the long, cold bike ride home. And am still haunted by the memories.
Miss Berlinette is a writer / punk socialite who excels at sleeping, beer drinking, and remembering to feed the bunny rabbit. She is currently living in Berlin and working on a magazine that features the Fernseherturm as an amorous instrument. 2 euro per issue. Reserve yours today.
