Kategorie: Hier kommt alles rein!

Constantly yearning for higher temperatures I stroll around in my city with eyes and ears open and antennas upright. Now even bikes love to wear beetle disguises! Or mushroom. Anyway: hello nature! Blossom out!

I looked (at the company where I work) out of the window and watched: a man on the roof repairing something, then smoking and contemplating; fast flying clouds in crystal blue sky; women with dog and bucket pointing at fresh green baby buds; a magpie preparing her nest …
mmmh springtime is approaching and I can’t sit still anymore …

And then I had a cup of China herb tea and it was smiling at me!

Ban Xia + Chen Pi + Fu Ling + Zhi Gan Cao + Chuan Lian Zi 🙂

I’m just thinking about the hilarious German word IMBISS, it’s almost untranslatable, it is a kiosk or a stand and it derives from BITE. I’m hungry, let me bite, that’s good.

Lately I found a closed bite-kiosk in Kreuzberg called SCHROTTI’S INN. Beautiful! The owner might be nicknamed Schrotti (which means something like Scrappy / Junky /Trashy).

Another Emergenza day (read yesterday!) at beautiful Lido club, funny, there was almost no audience at all except friends … why? Weekenders go elsewhere? Many schoolbands and I started to get bored but then a soul voice awoke me again – the music was not that interesting or fresh or awakening, but the voice! That woman has a voice close to Gloria Gaynor! The band is called Hot Action Diso Club and I wish that woman a gigantic future!

Next stop KATO. Johnnie Rook had their record release party gig. That was punk! That was soul! They say about themselves: “Wir haben Herz, wir haben Arsch.“ which means something like we got soul, ass, heart … They reeeaally rocked the place!

And here comes something personal that I discovered: These super front women are no Hungerhaken which means they are not skinny like skeletons, they are sexy. If I were lesbian I’d love every inch of them but I’m not so I love ghost men (sorry, personal, might be erased tomorrow with clear mind) but what I want to say: the Hot Disco girl wore a country flower dress, not very pret-a-porter or shit like that but had a goddesss aura and Franziska the Johnnie Rook front woman showed her Speckrollen that I loved her for and she has power for a continent or two! At least! Super! Sexy! Women!
Kiss!

There’s this Emergenza thing in Berlin I don’t know much of, it’s a kind of band competition from casting a thousand to semifinals or something, the audience votes and the best bands of the evening go on living.
Tonight at Lido, one of the most beautiful venues in Berlin-Kreuzberg, there was Emergenza number I don’t remember and Khani and I watched and listened to a handful of promising bands! Always having Bands On Boats in our mind of course 😉
We liked the first band, very young HipHop performers from Berlin-Pankow called Kurios (lovely woman singer with glasses in the background!) and the chicken gang, sorry, the guys with feathers and makeup looking like they were playing cowboys and Indians without the cowboys, they played rockyfunky reggae-like sun-full warm-hearted intoxicating music! Keep their name in mind: Solrise!

Funny, I’ve lived here in my apartment for almost 9 years and I thought I discovered all details in my stucco. But today, staring at the ceiling, thinking about antennas and spring, I discovered a flying little angel ghost with a tail behind him or her who’s waving at me. I like fresh surprises and new things in old things 😉

Another music night! Sandy Bird at nbi/Kulturbrauerei. I was there for the first time and I liked the place, perfectly small, warm red light, clear acoustic. 3 guys 1 woman.
It’s funny, I still thought about the various bridges of yesterday and I found them again between their songs: they never really stopped between them, they bridged them, I liked that. They – I can’t really describe their music – are powerful and concentrated and the rhythms have – I love it: breaks! And waves, escalating, increasing and ebbing away again. Guitar, bass, drums and a great violin bridge a mighty combination!

I saw and heard two young musicians tonight at The Coffee Karma in Berlin-Friedrichshain: A Dead Louise and “Golden Diskó Ship“, both Berliners, I think, both single performers. Was er nicht in seinem Bart hatte, hatte sie in ihrem Ringelpulli, heehee, I try to translate it: The Louise guy had a dusty (or maybe not) about 30 centimeters long dark beard, really, he looked quite funny, quiet, nice, I thought about how much charisma Captain Haddock has with his shorter beard and how little has that Louise guy who kept on excusing himself and saying that he thought he better say nothing, not telling a story but actually wanting to …. blah.
A very skilled guitarplayer though!

The Golden Diskó Ship is a one-girl-show, she plays joyfully with her own looped voice and various weird sounds from a laptop and a good guitar and a children guitar and once she set a wind-up pink-furred plastic-cat free who beeped perfectly to the song she was just performing. And she had a beautiful projection behind her, self made film snippets, personal pieces, city views etc that matched sensitively to her sound.

I rode my bike home, crossing the Warschauer Brücke (the connection from Friedrichshain to Kreuzberg where I live), having a very simple tune from her in my head, starting to like my city right here right now on the bridge between winter and spring.

Stepping from winter into spring is always an adventure in Berlin. Tonight I had a film show in my favorite club – the Club 39 – in Berlin-Kreuzberg – I blew June heat via beamer into the winter room. Means: my friends came, some strangers came, too, we shared time and some drinks and some space and watched my „Ode To June“ film, which is 30 min long and has a bucketful of warmth and flowerful moments.

But suddenly there came a noise from outside, just before starting the film, and I thought I was in a parallel universe: a large group of people started to perform some unique something in the street singing and playing RING OF FIRE, 5 akkordeonists disguised as teletubbies, dancing, moving … see my bad photo …

I don’t know what happened there … I go to bed now and start to ship my weird thoughts over to my colorful film dreams hopefully 😉

I’m in the middle of the making of a new short film. I use Czech black&white material (double super 8 which gives me the beautiful chance to expose the film twice or more!) and I animate run and fly girls, rouse swans and ducks in my neighborhood and say cheers to the goddess of coincidence 😉

The big celebrations of Carnival don’t touch Berlin at all. Almost not at all. There are some guys that still want to party (Non-Germans notice: The Ultra-Western part of my country celebrates Carnival 3 days long with parades and endless parties): opposite to my house there’s a gym, see how they have fun!

Today I was at Antje Öklesund for the first time, it is a great live music club in Berlin-Friedrichshain.
And I discovered a gem!
This doesn’t happen often. Normally I go to concerts and have some drinks and listen joyfully to the music and that’s it. Today I went there with Khani and we had some drinks and listened joyfully … whow that band rocked the house! Rocked the Hinterhaus! Rocked the snowy icey half-dead-hibernating yetis!
A skinny singer with a monster voice! A weird drummer with underarms like calf legs. A warmsmilingsexy keyboarder and two beardy nerdlike base-guitarmen. UTAH from Denmark. Come back guys in summer! And I give you a drink or seven!

About Antje, the name-giver of the club: Im Herbst des Jahres 1599 wurde an der südnorwegischen Küste eine Holzkiste an Land gespült. Die Kiste war mit einer Decke und einem kleinen Kissen ausgelegt. Das Mädchen, das darin saß, war etwa drei Jahre alt und trug nichts bei sich außer einem dünnen blauen Kapuzen mäntelchen. Es zitterte am ganzen Körper, als die Fischer es am Strand auflasen und zum Bürgermeister trugen. Doch niemand brachte auch nur ein einziges Wort aus ihm heraus.Der Fischer, der es am Strand gefunden hatte, hatte Mitleid mit dem Mädchen und nahm es mit nach Hause. Seine Frau hingegen war erbost, da sie schon jetzt nicht wusste, wie sie die vier anderen Kinder ernähren sollte, doch ihr Mann bestand darauf, dass es bliebe.Sie gaben ihm den Namen „Antka“, und nahmen es als Tochter des Fischers „Antkesson“ in ihre Familie auf. So wuchs Antka in der Familie des Fischers auf und zeigte sich schon bald als wissbegieriges und aufgewecktes Kind. Doch die Mutter mochte Antka nicht besonders und zog ihr ihre eigenen Kinder ihr vor. Antka dagegen holte das Wasser für die Familie und wenn sie sich mit ihren vollen Eimern über den Dorfplatz schleppte, riefen ihr die Kinder hinterher: „Antka, Antka, De er et oeklesund“, was soviel heißt wie „Antka, Antka, Du kommst nicht von hier“. Schwer schnitten die Riemen an ihren Schultern und schwer wog der Makel der Fremden an ihr. So nahm sie der Fischer mit zur See und lehrte sie den Fischfang. Doch Antka blickte oft hinaus zum Horizont und wenn der Fischer sie ermahnte, die Netze zu halten, da summte sie verträumt vor sich hin…….

Haa! This is one of the most magic moments in the process of processing … the second exposure to light!
It comes right after 1st developer + bleach + clear and before 2nd developer + fix.
At that moment the deed is done and you can check and try to detect frames and images …

I feel like black&white double super 8 fllming these days!
Berlin is covered with snow and the sun is shining but I can’t wait for the white hell to disappear. Having a film in my mind called “Lust For Luck – Get Up, Jucy Lordan!“ which is going to be a lot about, well, taking hold of the reins and running towards … whatever. To the horizon like Jack Sparrow proposed?
“— Now, Bring me that horizon.“ that’s what he exactly said, says Auntie Google.
I’m cutting snowflakes and preparing a nice animated double exposure.

I hate mimes. Say “Marcel Marceau! Boo!“ to me and I break down and get the scabies. But! There is something else in this polyverse! With SOUND!! The Umbilical Brothers come from Australia, performed in the Tipi tent in Berlin tonight and we all loved them, even my little nephew who doesn’t understand more than 10 words english but that doesn’t matter, he understands all the stories they tell with their extremely skilled funny intelligent laugh-myself-to-death noises (special beatbox microphones I guess) and … well … I wish them luck and fame worldwide!
Watch them on Youtube (here’s my favourite: Velcroworld!) or better if you have the chance go see them in reality because they are so REAL (one thing I love about artist is when you see and feel they have really fun performing on stage, it’s like a spark that oscillates, can you understand me?!) and they have layers. Their jokes are not flat. They are partly extremely simple. Boys jokes. About zippers and chainsaws and robots and guns and flies. But with layers behind. And their choreography is gorgeous. Musicians.

These days just happen, Berlins winters are notorious, everyone’s glorious, it’s Berlinale (Filmfestival), I don’t really care, there are side-events … went to Deborahs Film show at Directors Lounge, didn’t feel like in the beginning, it was cold, I was old, wine was sold (just for the rhyme – in reality wine was bad and cold) but the programme was … mixed and good and special and intimate. And: almost all of the participating filmmakers showed up! And: something that will probably never happen again: all super 8 film makers (except one guy) were there projecting their / our films. Milena! Karola! Eva! Me!
Technique was crucial in the beginning because time was out and no one had checked the projector, but 4 skilled super 8 ladies worked like 4 fingers of a hand and we had … fun.

Karola brought apples and shared them. They tasted like spring. Yearn!

I just met Marie (dreaming over her coffee) and Deborah at the Ankerklause and the latter handed me her Red Films program “Meanings & Effects of Red“: Berliners and visitors, go to Directors‘ Lounge (SCALA, Friedrichstr. 112A, Berlin-Mitte) Monday February 9 at 8 pm! It will be a very cool and mixed program (8 and 16 mm and some DVD) of red films (including 2 of mine).

Hello February, there is hope on my balcony!

Today I bought a beautiful Russian Double-Super-8 camera from a collegue who told me that he bought it almost 20 years ago at the „Stasiflohmarkt“ in Berlin (Stasi = GDR State Security; Flohmarkt = Flea Market: when the GDR broke down almost everything was sold out … the Stasi had their headquarter here and they, too, sold a lot of their equipment … everything except for weapons I think …)

So now I’m a lucky owner of a probably 30 or 50 years old extremely beautiful heavy metallic – no batteries – wind up! camera with some changeable lenses and a manual in Russian … which reminded me that I once began learning Russian almost 30 years ago at my highschool (I grew up in the Western part of Germany and nobody was interested in Russia in the late 70es so our course died after one year … I was very sad because I just got into that complicated and at the same time flowery language).

But thanks to my teacher then (another cool story: he taught Russian and Mathematics and looked like Einstein (hello Herr Becks! Oops, he must be dead by now …). He was very friendly and an inspiring teacher. He, a German, became a prisoner of the Russians during World War 2 but he was treated quite ok and started to like the Russian language and culture and decided to study it after he was released.)

Jumping back now from the story in the story in the story I tried to understand some of the words in the manual, needed a dictionary, asked Tina, got one, browsed a little, and found my favourite expression of the day: „Gefühl angenehmer Mattigkeit“ (sensation of comfortable lassitude)!
They have one word for it – „istòma“. Just one simple word for such a complex feeling … awesome. Genial.

Some beautiful aspects of winter in a big city: My crowded Hasenheide (“Rabbit’s Heather“) park! Kids and parents riding the sled. And you know what? The sun sent out a million of photons and ten of them were warm! Particles or waves?!

Yeehaa, this morning I looked into my balcony flower box and guess what I discovered: sprouts! Sprouts! Popping out! Green! Newborn! (I’ve had this box standing there for years, a small biotope, the plants live there on their own and can do whatever they want, every now and then I add tomato plants or cat grass …). Welcome, tulips and daffodils!

Ice age in Berlin! Temperatures fall miles below zero. Bike lanes are meanly frozen over, I’m a coward, I take the bus. Look out of the window, try to ignore my sneezing neighbors, see a dirty grey city.

Antennas up, I see more than a dirty grey city: a blackbird in a flower pot on my brother’s balcony on New Year’s Day, a (probably) sparrow hawk working on his or her nest …

Hello January! Hello fresh new year!

Slowly preparing to hop over into the next year – I look into the crystal clear sky and see Venus and Moon shimmering through my street trees. And for those with good eyes: can you spot the sun glasses hanging in the twigs? Look look 😉

One of my alltime nicest favorite Kreuzberg bars is the Würgeengel (El Ángel Exterminador, Luis Buñuel). It’s like a warm red hole that you can come to after a long days work. Meeting my brother. Having 2 glasses of delicious red wine. And what a bomb Berlin is right now, it’s pulsating with people from all over the world and we felt like a little eye in the hurrican because we’ve lived here for 20 years. Seen some changes. Call it home. (I grew up in the middle of Western Nowhere and I lived there only 19 years, ha!)
Unluckily the temperatures fell below 0 Centigrade and my bike lock froze. Had to wake it up with matches I always carry with me. Winter survival kit 😉

I love it when worlds collide. I had a late morning-coffee-date with Khani today at Biocompany (they sell organic food in Berlin supermarketwise, quickly growing, expanding. Smaller organic food stores die. Is the world that simple?) but we didn’t enter because the café was crowded with baby buggy pushing parents who allowed their breed to chose between 6 different sorts of croissants and made us feel sick so we preferred to go to the place where reality hurts: Kaiser’s Supermarket (directly @ Kottbusser Tor) with an inbuilt café where you get your coffee good and cheap from probably extremely exploited but extremely friendly and relaxed employees and can watch the outside world passing by which means noon beer drinkers and junkies and tourists and dogs and sometimes straying people from god knows where and neighbors. Sometimes it just feels good to be there for some time and watch them and like them. Especially on Christmas. Why? Don’t know.

I noticed a pair of sneakers hanging from a wire in front of Kaiser’s, reminding me of my Los Angeles days *sigh*, and the woman hanging there (not from a wire) told me there were 3 pairs 3 days ago. We wished each other a good day, she continued her day begging for money and I taking pictures.

Xmas night? I spent it with my very small very beloved very patchworky family at my brothers place and I guess we had a precious good time and a goose who had a good life before it was killed and good red Italian wine. Later when I went back home on the Underground I felt … good in Berlin. Love to y’all 😉

The Kottbusser Tor and the Making Of photo taken by Khani. Get your website ready!!