Kategorie: Hier kommt alles rein!

Today I found a song that I’ve missed for about 13 years … „I’m Straight“ by Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers. –> im-straight.mp3
I used to listen to it a hundred times in a loop. Swinging in my hammock. Thinking about Swingchronicity. Falling in love with someone.

Today I re-found it. At a friend’s re-birthday party in one of my most favourite clubs called Mysliwska (the Polish word for „Jägerstübchen – Hunter’s Parlor“) in Berlin-Kreuzberg (Schlesische Strasse 35) where we celebrated his entrance into the forties. And Berlin’s first warm summer evening. Smells like so much more!

Inside Myslivska there’s a lamp with a magic elf or a dragonfly inside … stretch your neck, buy a drink, get drunk, dance.

… to go and then it’s time for my Berlin Wabi-Sabi-Workshop #1. See here!!

Today I dusted my super 8 cameras … and found my old Agfa Family (the one on the right with the orange button) – a very special and funny camera that Agfa invented in the late seventies: a totally simple thing, no focus, no zoom, but it filmed AND made stills! To mark the still it scratched a tiny chink which was somehow „felt“ later by the projector while projecting the film and it stopped for a certain time. So says Wiki …
And I say: there are still some places left in my workshop!!

The moon is fresh, only a sickle now. Summer has finally, shily come (will it stay?), I open my balcony door and find the moon, scrunch up your eyes: you see the whole of the moon!

One day on the countryside!
I spent some time with my friends (who by the way are specialists in Japanese gardening! Go visit their website here.)
I’m a specialist in weird spontaneous film making … I saw an oil seed field and grabbed it. And then we harvested some rhubarb in the garden and made a cake. Both yummy. See the Making-Of, ah yes by the way: I collect Dirndls (blogged it before) – did you know that the breast part, the décolletée is called Balkonette? Isn’t that beautifully logical? Think of a window with a balcony and lots of flowers 😉 —–> balkonetteklein.mov

It is really incredible how many there are … lost places … abandoned Russian military caserns around Berlin. The geocaching dream team hit the road again and explored a huge area – “Das letzte Paar“, many buildings, wide overgrown boulevards, almost like a city, now taken over by a brushwood and birch jungle.
We found a room in the catacombs filled with weird technical machines, half destroyed half rusted, like pre-computers or calculators, called Задания (Zadaniya which I found out means something like task or job): painted numbers on the frame 1-2-4-8-16 etc, some bakelite buttons behind a hole punched transparent screen, an electric plug and a handle that reminded me of a dynamite explosion device.

The dream team: me, David, Michi, Bernd in front of a water reservoir tower (yes, we did climb the marginally rusted metal stairs up to the top!) Foto: Bernd Brundert

This year I’m tomato crazy. I ordered seeds. At Manufactum! Oldfashioned tomato sorts, hairy, striped, full of pure tomato magic flavor! Funny names like Tigerette (the striped one of course), Black Zebra, Striped Roman …
One is called Fuzzy Wuzzy and the little seedling is so cottony, fluffy …
Summer can begin!

“Endlich, der Sommer ist da, die Wolken weiß, der Himmel klar (finally summer is there, clouds white, sky clear“) sings a skinny grey crooked man with guitar in my Ubahn train in Berlin, yesteryesteryesterday, me leaving for Köln, Cologne, to the Frauenfilmfestival / Womens Film Festival where I spend 3 days, show 2 films, meet summer, feel a bit lost, loving that feeling nevertheless … lay down on a meadow at the river Rhine, ear full of even skinnier young Russian girls yelling into their phones but I don’t give a shit, it’s suddenly summer, everybody drinks Kölsch at noon, I watch them and I watch ducks and ships, one ship’s called “live slow“ and I try to.

On my way home today on the train I recorded the following film … I’m always absolutely appalled and get the goosebumps and start to giggle – oooooh I’m so mean ;-o when I hear German train staff announcing stations and information in english – here’s a good one >>> senkjufortreweling.MOV

To complete a perfect weekend I needed a perfect concert. Tocotronic’s 6 weeks tour ended tonight at Berlin’s Astra, a good intimate place with great acoustic. It was long sold out, it was great, it was for me like fulfilling circles: the junkie (?) with his guitar in the subway singing about clear summer clouds, nervous blondie girls talking Russian, too many lesbians on a festival (sorry, gimme testosterone you awful dudes), exploding nature, ah yes Tocotronic that very best German band that held my bygone last summer together while I was again cloudwatching, filmplanning, searching for things I can’t publish here and they truly friendly accompanied me on my iTunes. Thank you guys and your guitars for the best concert 2010. The last song, the outro, the endless guitar loop feedback was BETTER than Neil Young and that says it all.

Hey ho there’s a fat Venus and a smaller Mercury up in the sky tonight! Planet neighbors, buddies of love and communication, fellows of harmony and transmission, associates of sweetness and intelligence … maybe I had too much herbal tea today, fighting my flu … lalalaaaa shoobidooo …

I got the flu. Und nu? Yoohoo!
Make a new film, step on my balcony (again …), mix words, contemplate about entropy, about cats‘ furs, the black and the white in animals and puddings, escaping the grey, avoiding the wishy-washy and the mediocre. Wish me luck and you too!

The film will be called „Tigerlelle, the incorporated resistance against entropy“ and will be shown next Sunday at Kunstraum T27 in Berlin-Neukölln! [Tigerlelle is the name of my cat].
—

Later in the evening … Jesus is dead, bunnies are alive, winter is gone, spring’s not yet arrived, I feel a bit gaga and this gaganess is always good for processing a film (the one that I wrote about above!) so I poured the stuff into the Russian tank and poured some rosé wine into me (note: heart shaped ice cube for summer luck!) – results: yippieh 🙂

The last ice floe on the Landwehr Canal.

Mmmmmh, gingerbread cookies with a huge amount of organic cocoa powder, cane sugar, butter and honey, in super 8 shape with hand drilled perforation holes – I made them for my audience next Saturday (first day of spring!) at the Shortfilmweek in Regensburg / Bavaria!
For all of my readers who come to my special retrospective: welcome!!

I’m in a black&white mood. I just processed a super 8 reversal film, so exciting, it means: 5 baths plus second exposure to light before second developer … mmh that’s really magic and it looks like everything’s alright, see picture below. For all those who are interested in the matter: buy Czech Foma processing kit R100. Available in Berlin at Foto-Impex. Cheap and good. Foto-Impex is the best photo shop (analog) in town and they are the only ones as far as I know that sell chemicals!!!

Still frozen: the Landwehr-Canal …

A funny word: Orangenrahmfächer! Roughly translated as orange-cream-fan. I was waiting for the subway to take me to my brother – another trip to a geocache! This time direction North, Templin and beyond to a lost place: a former secret Russian city in former Eastgermany, a city in the middle of the woods, built for thousands of Russian soldiers and their families, totally shielded from the environment. Decaying slowly. I felt like in a timewhirl! Found beautiful paintings, peeling off and then that’s it, all the balalaikas, Leninfaces, naive fruit – gone!

foto © www.berndbrundert.de 😉

Last day of February, lazy sunday, staring in the sky, smiling at daffodils, descrubbing my balcony, finding survival moss and a laughing G!

… brings up last year’s shit! Love letters! New Years firecrackers! Cigarette buds!

Longing for new ones 😉

Subwaystation Moritzplatz today: An ATM with a pair of shoes neatly deposited in front. Maybe it’s not an ATM, maybe it’s a beam machine, a time machine, a summer machine, a travelator … something to escape with and leave shoes behind …

Winter continues, snow never ends, the longing for warmth and colors is immense.

Bottles, colors, sunbeams in my hallway.

For the first time in maaany years I (I! The bike rider!) gave up and bought me a public transport ticket for February since it doesn’t look like winter’s going to end or tricky little ice hills on the bike lanes are going to melt. So I travel all through Berlins veins now, stopping at intersections, watching people … Fehrbelliner Platz is a croos station and it has a yummy mediterranean snack shop which I highly recommend – try a Panino Italiano for only 2 €: toasted bread with rucola (arugola), dried tomatoes and mozzarella inside! Mmh!

Later in a drugstore I found shimmering hope, smiling Easter bunnies, spring napkins, newborn colorful eggs, yippieh:

I was so stupid to drop my beautiful Lumix photocamera on New Years Eve, I was not even drunk, just squirrelly, careless. Broken. Release button no reaction, no nothing.
I knew it would be very expensive to have it repaired IF it had a chance … so today I sighed and went to Foto Braune, a shop in Berlin-Kreuzberg/Neukölln (Karl-Marx-Str. 7) specialized on photo and film (super8!), repairs, second hand etc.
And then the miracle happened … me: „I dropped my Lumix, help!“ – Braune-man laid his hand on it, checked it, said: „young woman, it’s healed, it’s ok!“ … and it was!
So here I bow down, flicker squirrellily with my wings and say THANK YOU!

I met my friends Dayna and Mountainman-Gert tonight at Madonna (Wiener Str. 22), a place that seems to exist like forever – my first wine universe in the eighties and my last in the fourties to come for sure. Wednesday! Live music! Dota die Kleingeldprinzessin oder so … sehr sehr schöne 1-Frau-1-Gitarre-Musik!! Unfortunately I dropped my camera on New Years Eve so I can’t provide you with good pictures, only awful mobile phone pictures like this on my way back home through the virgin snow:

For a short moment I caught THE Berlin glimpse: island. Winter. Grumpy but possible.
Explain? Almost impossible …

… means something like Mass Demonstration Against The Situation or something wishy-washy-ish …
Seen on a bench at a bus stop. The thing on the right is a plastic bag containing a banana peel. The stain on the left … nobody wants to know what it is.
I was waiting for the bus close before my nose fell off, so cold, so freezing … mass demonstration against cold, pro banana. Verhäl-tnisse. Cool word. Tnisse! Shiver! Atchooo! Bless you! Gesundheit!

It’s only about 3.500 kms – from a midday plunge in the ocean to a midnight landing in deep ice and snow!

We almost missed our flight, got confused by weird announcings on the departure board (delayed flight because France is on strike, at least air-wise) but thanks to Airberlin’s spontaneity and the Captain who decided to wait for 2 desperately running chicas (if I got it right his name is Bernd Wedekind and I say Thank You again here to you!!) – well, I’m back in ice.

Who cares … got a couple of yellow butterflies inside >>> 2yellowbutterflies.MOV

Dear Anaga Mountains … if you were on Facebook, I would ask you to be my friend.

Writing this, I’m still thrilled by the beauty of the most breathtaking mountains of Tenerife … again we wandered through barrancos and alongside steep sides, stone walls, up and down small goat paths and wider men and women paths.

Meeting butterflies, yellow flower fields, rarely another hiker thanks god, goat milkmen, dripping water falls, lazy doves sitting on a wire staring down 300 meters into the Atlantic, having a perfect lunch break at the only bar in Afur, a tiny town: fresh goat cheese and fresh baked bread and a glass of milk coffee.

Bellezza!

anoher bellezza is having an ice cold Dorada beer after a 9 hours hiking trip, sweating like camels, happy like doves on a wire!!

To be continued … here’s a trip on a small path: >>> enger-pfad.mov

… is one of the oldest villages of the island of Tenerife. I love the name. We hit the road again, crawling barrancos, following goat paths almost indetectible, met Heidis Wandergruppe (an organized group of hikers), said hello and no thank you, we are antisocial today, won’t join you, but thanks, see you again at the Guagua stop!

So we fell into a kind of time and space twister, a weird feeling that, knowing that the last Guagua of the day will leave in 3 hours and we would have to climb over unknown Barrancos (Heidi promised it would be possible in 2 hours time) – seeing green mountain sides far or close, not sure, irreal blue ocean, high glittering clear sky, hearing echoes of chicken and a single bird and nothing really nothing else … well, we made it in time and had one of the most beautiful hiking experiences of our lives.

Gesine filmed the exploring of small private paths of Taganana starring half of the animal inhabitants —> taganana1.MOV

I’ve always known … rainbows begin in the ocean!!

… and a good place to end is La Carta (Calle San Felipe 53; www.promocanarias.com/lacarta) – we had Tenerife White Wine and Salad tonight and it matched just perfect with our salted sunsoaked skin.

… a toilet. I don’t remember where it was, I think Bar Neptune. Light on, music on, light out, music continues —> klo.MOV

They have the highest vulcano mountain of Europe here – the Teide – looks like a breast with a little amount of snow or fog on top! Ten or twenty years ago there was a group of weirdos there waiting for a UFO to take them to a better planet but I don’t know if they ever got picked up or if they did it lemmingwise down the abyss or just got spirited away …

We hiked a nice circle around the breast top across huge lava fields, through magnificent stone cathedrals, frozen lava waves, moonlike sands …

… here’s a café where everyone’s waiting fort he one and only Guagua at 4 pm to take us back down again, after a long hike, steaming boots, having coffee and apple vanilla pie or like those two hardcore guys red wine …

… until we got picked up thanks god not by a UFO but by a Guagua taking us down through different vegetation levels like desert shrubs, foggy pine woods, dry smaller pine woods, down 2000 meters to level ocean with salty air and buzzing flowers again … beauty continues.

Today the two famous Wanderwomen fell in love with the Tenerife public transport system aka bus aka Guagua – a net of green buses (www.titsa.com) with brave speedy drivers inside. Took a ride from Puerto de la Cruz via Icod de los Vinos (where we admired the 2.000 years old endemic Dragon Tree with a mystic history – read below) to a small town called Erjos where we started our jungle hiking trip.

Elvises mark the route!

About 20 kms through misty laurel woods through valleys called Barrancos and cactus fields and stony paths until we finally reached a tiny quiet town called El Palmera.
Next Guagua direction home? No way, we would have to wait 2 hours so we decided to continue hiking to the next big city (Buenavista) and after some kms a friendly farmer grandpa picked us up offering us a ride to the … Guagua station downtown! Thank you Tenerife señor!!

And then again Wuwei hit us in the face with lucky coincidence: the Guagua to Puerto de la Cruz was just about to leave!
We enjoyed the whole trip so much, tried to inhale as much beauty as we could!

Ready for another coincidence? We decided that we felt like craving for potatoes, a specialty called Papas Arugadas served with green and red Mojo, so we just walked around and incidentally stumbled on a Tapas Restaurant (Arcon Tapas, www.arcon-tapas.com) where we had the Papas of our lives! Plus something colorful lovely for the eyes, the park nearby decorated with lots of Christmas lights and symbols which I feel free to interpret as New Year wishes for me and her and him and you:
Red boot is for more travelling; star is for a wish come true; green tree is for nature; the bell is for good music!

Oh yes, the Dragon Tree … an endemism! More than 20 meters high, its „blood“ is red and was used as a curative and cosmetic potion, a subject of legends and symbolisms …