On Saturday, Los and I went to the Sugimoto exhibit at the Neu National Gallery. Sugimoto was at the De Young Museum last year so a lot of the works on display we had already seen. But his newest segment, Lightning Fields, is simply amazing. Negatives of photos of lightning bolts were hung in front of a lit screen (much in the same way x-rays are observed by doctors). The result is that you can see all the "fibers" of the bolts, and the intricate root-like patterns mirrored in other bolts. It was pretty amazing. We took home a poster of his picture of the diorama at Madame Tussards of Henry the 8th. Sugimoto's website is here in case you want to take a look: http://www.sugimotohiroshi.com/
We also saw a temporary exhibit on Rupprecht Geiger who is now 100 years old and experimenting with bright neon colors that are almost too much for human perception. Take that young people.Sunday we tried to find fun stuff in Berlin amuse our visitors with, but as it was raining not much could be found. We mostly ended up wandering trying to find the Jewish Museum but never did. We stopped at Yaam (a reggae club that was supposed to be having a festival) which was nearly vacant and infested with bees. Los went home. The rest of us went to a pirate bar and had drinks while waiting for a band featuring a violin, guitar, drumset, accordian, and a unicycle (or so we thought) to set up. While waiting, one of Berlin's colorful locals with a bit too much alcohol in 'em came over and started talking to us about the Police. He started off by singing "Sending out an SOS" (which was the song currently on the itunes shuffle lazily abandoned by the bartender). Then he crouched down in front of the table so he was eye level with us and told us how he had seen Sting play at the Ziegman Sea (?) in Overalls(!) And do you know what he was singing?" he asked us incredulously. "No, what?" "He was singing..." his voice escalated rapidly to the point where he was screaming, "about the RHINE!" The small, disinterested waitress came over and with a wristful series of hand gestures told the gentleman to leave. We decided at this point to leave and went to Burgermeister (a sub-metro hamburger joint where railings with padding = seats) for dinner where we overheard a festival band doing covers of "Jump, Jump" "Just Like A Pill" and other songs featured in "NOW" CDs. We went back to the Pirate Bar to see if the unicycle band was up an running. It was, but only in the usual way bar bands are. We left. Went home. Fell asleep.
