Monat: Mai 2009

Liquid Bar, Noah’s Ark

Berlins world famous Karneval der Kulturen got swept away in cold rain today but people kept on rocking swinging drinking musicking in bars and on the streets. Phew!

I stranded in Arcanoa, a place that has always been there for bands, film makers and underground lovers. Which has a special bar with a river running! And tonight I found out: they serve Bierlikör (beer liqueur). Khani and I have never heard of it neither had the barlady, so we checked it out … and … it tasted like … vanilla 🙁

There was a band playing. Punos. 3 guys: base, guitar, guitar/sax. No vocals, but harmonica instead.
Lovely laidback music, skilled guitar players. I liked the way they shily announced their songs … one about the meanwhile famous Admiralbrücke called „Admiral“ – one of the guys said that he once wanted to play there solo but it was so humid that he couldn’t tune his guitar so he left home … crying? I don’t know.
Anyway. Pleasant laidback evening! Good guys!

Deep Space Neukölln

How I love to watch my (neighbour)hood shifting! Normally it goes from working class heroes district to yuppy. Same story all over the world.

Neukölln … I remember 20 years ago it was empty, grey, it stank (in winter) of Kohleheizung (carbon stove heating) and EVERYBODY who immigrated to Berlin from Westgermany or elsewhere stranded there, because it was extremely cheap to live there. Or Berlin-Wedding.

Beam up to 2009: it’s getting hip now.
Tonight I discovered a new place in Weichselstrasse 6, called BROSCHEK (the maiden name of the owner’s mother – 3 photos of her as a young very beautiful woman hang on the wall) and watched and listened to Erich, the akkordeon-player who played instrumentals and told accompanying stories and showed slides!
In short: he, living in deep space South Germany / high mountains, got a music cassette from one of his travelling friends (Nepal, India etc), fell in love with the music and wanted to find out more about the musician. So he and his fellows went to Bangladesh and to India and after a long odyssey that took them to the weirdest places he found the guy!

Geocaching – Nephew’s Delight!

There are crazy people out there, wandering through woods and castles and tunnels, with a GPS in the hand and an enlightened look on their face, on the hunt for treasures! … this is our new passion: geocaching!

Today: The Beelitzer Heilstätten (close to Potsdam) – I stole the following info from Aunt Wiki: Originally designed as a sanatorium by the Berlin workers‘ health insurance corporation, the complex from the beginning of World War I on was a military hospital of the Imperial German Army. In 1945, Beelitz-Heilstätten was occupied by Soviet forces, and the complex remained a Soviet military hospital until 1995.Following the Soviet withdrawal, attempts were made to privatize the complex, but they were not entirely successful. The remainder of the complex, including the surgery, the psychiatric ward, and a rifle range, was abandoned in 2000. As of 2007, none of the abandoned hospital buildings or the surrounding area were secured, giving the area the feel of a ghost town.


Me, my brother Bernd, my nephew David and our friend Uli solved 2 riddles and found two caches, yeehaa!! And explored the surrounding, the caves, the tunnels that connect all buildings – amazing and extremely exciting and beautiful!!!

tunnel.jpg

stromkasten.jpg

russe.jpg

… and in the end we rewarded ourselves with famous Beelitz asparagus and wheat beer!

Support Your Local Rainbow

The Regenbogenkino (Rainbow Cinema) in Berlin-Kreuzberg had a good idea: they repainted & repaired themselves and now, in fresh clothes and sofas and colors, they’ve started a great series of pictures & music shows which they say they want to continue monthly: a local band performs in front of a projected silent (or volume down!) film.

Yesterday’s stars: Low Sweet Chariot!
Great performance, boys! Loud, warm, dark, heart&powerful.
(I filmed them and taped the music, here’s a little sound clip: lowsweet1.mp3

Luck ‘09

At my office, there where I spend 30 hours a week … it’s a nice job: layout, computer, magazines … nothing too creative … there is a coffee machine on the first floor and there is also a swap corner where people leave things they don’t need any more … recently I found 2 items lying there lonely: clips.
A DUCK and a LUCK.
I felt like they were waiting there just for me and I took them home. (Duck is my secret name and luck is all I / we need 😉

Duck Path and Brick Lane Memories #1

I landed back home in Berlin yesterday night!

After 5 days spent in Cambridge and 3 days in London I must say firstly: The Cambridge Super 8 Film Festival is now officially declared (by myself) as my favourite film festival … and London is pretty cool.

I stayed at one of the festival makers home and every day I cycled through Cambridge along the Duck + Toad Path, see here:

… feeling like in the middle of the fresh born juicy green country!
I found rosy trashbins, heavenly beer and cider, delicious sausages in gravy … and a handful of new friends. Thank you for having invited me and letting me be part of the festival.

And then: London.
My first time ever.
I stayed at City Hotel(12 Osborne Street in Whitechapel) which I can highly recommend: book long before on the internet and you’ll get a room for a third of the regular price which means even half-broke artists like me can afford it!
Osborne Street leads directly into famous Brick Lane. If you like Curry, go there. I enjoyed it. It reminded me a bit of my home quarter, Kreuzberg. And the curry and other Bengali meals are just good.

I found this beautiful piece of minimal art in one of a closed down house’s window grating and it made me smile passing:

All in all: Heart Act 😉
More to follow soon.

Cambridge Super 8 Wabisabi Workshop 1

I’m in a hurry and in a blurry wonderful experimental mood!
This one turns out to be one of the best warmest film festivals in the world …
…. and here come some first photos of my Wabi-Sabi workshop (yesterday and today) – so intense and so fun and successful (in terms of films that we processed today: 10! Ekta 64T with Tetenal Reversal Kit E6! God! Beee-yooooou-ti-fullll!!!)

Here’s Julie performing the ultimate Russian Tank Spiral Ballet:

This is our group film hanging in Colins workshop space:

This is the Wabi-Sabi group sunken in Cambridge’s Green:

… and this is Jean, holding the magical tank direction heaven 🙂

……. to be continued ……