Berlin Home Coming Feeling

Nothing beats this feeling: riding the road and arriving home in my city.

Remembering: more than two decades ago homecoming was like this: passing through lightless grey East Germany (me Westy / Wessi) feeling like a decadent spy, being extremely polite to the border officers who at the slightest grin checked your car for hours … and then … lights at the horizon … civilization … yeah … embrace shiny capitalism cool stinky Westberlin! Yes! I love my home city!

Wabi-Sabi in Dresden-Löbtau

Recently I was invited to give a 3 day workshop on super 8 and wabisabi inspired easy film making plus hand processing in Dresden! The place is called Werk.Stadt.Laden. (something like city working station atelier), a self made artist run alternative hipiesque sweet place which I can absolutely recommand (they also offer knitting meetings, silkscreen not only for children, guerilla gardening, edit a neighborhood magazine and lots more inspiring stuff …).

3 days, 13 people, half my age (ohmygod) but what the fuck, there’s no big difference: passion and enthusiasm and joy for experimental filming know no age, ha!

(We used Kodak’s TriX material and developed it in Adonal. What came out was black and white negative film. Extremely beautiful and a wide range of greys! Having it digitized these days and reversed to positive. Link to films: later! Or check out my wabisabi workshob website! But I’m a bit behind schedule ….)

Wabi-Sabi In Dresden

A little reminder for all who live in or close to Dresden:I’m giving a wabisabi worksop in Dresden @ Schmalfilmtage / Small Format Film Festival Friday and Saturday January 27 and 28!

It’s all about the magic of Super 8 and colour negative processing and it’s limited to 7 persons – only 3 signed in until today …. more info here!
And here in German; here in english!

Vatos Tacos

… speak for themselves!!!

Here’s the text again …

We were told (thank you Dayna!) there‘s a secret magic hidden cantina in the heart of Kreuzberg in a street where nobody goes – Lobeckstrasse, close to the Prinzenbad, not far from tourist overcrowded Oranienstrasse.

We found the yummiest tacos in town! Hot and medium! Go perfect with Astra beer and good white wine!

In winter from Wednesday to Friday only, 6 pm to midnight in der Kantine vom Aqua Carré, Lobeckstr. 30 – 35, 2. Hof, Aufgang B, hard to find.
In spring and summer they have a taco stand in a van outside in the parking lot, same address!

www.vatos-tacos.com + www.facebook.com/vatostacosforever

Cycle Baby Cycle!

I highly recommend a special programme on this year’s Berlin Interfilm Festival: Bike Shorts!
One more chance to see it: this coming Sunday at 5 pm at Passage Kino!
A freaky lovely funky mixed bunch of mostly very short films about metaphysical miracle bikes, speedy dwarves, brilliantly bikedancing Scots … durchgeknallte Newyorkers and lots more. Go!

Ehm .. the fourth foto is me holding the yummiest Schawarma ever … get it for only 3 Euros at Imren, Berlin-Kreuzberg, Boppstrasse 4!
I feel the Schawarma meat has a slight taste of cinnamon. Mmmh!

Goûtez Ça!

I like it when strong tattooed pierced French men come to my city and open a café with the softest sweetest cakes and tartes and best tea and coffee and service!

Go to Goutez in Reichenberger Str. 143 and enjoy! Hmmm, the link is weird, but maybe they work on it!

My tea was called love and tasted juicy and spicy –– high recommendation!! Kusmi tea directly from Paris! Kiss me later 😉 (original recipes by Pavel Kousmichoff! Who ever that guy is …)

GC286AH

It’s a geocaching code … some readers know that I like to go on a cache trip with brother and nephew!

This time it was really spooky in a way to enter the lost ruins of Prora (on the isle of Rügen) – the gigantic Nazi holiday (haha) complex at the Baltic Sea. Standing in front of the buildings you could still feel negative dark megalomaniac sick vibes, really … bursting into wacky laughter at that stupid Hitler face No entrance sign … and at the same time being totally aware of that dreadful slaughterous killer regime … oh my, and we wanted to have fun exploring the ruins!

And yes we had! Loving team contra killer history, ha!

They’re going to build some nice hotel apartments inside the colossus pretty soon, so if you want to stray around, be quick, it’ll be over soon!

Last two photos shot by my brother www.berndbrundert.de!

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Antje Øklesund is a cool venue. Antje Øklesund is a cool woman.
Berlin is a cool city that hosts cool bands. No, not cool >> heartwarming. Summerkeeping.

Tonight there was a secret concert called „Quixote back in Berlin with Zulu Pearls and Heidi Heidelberg“ – Heidi H is American with a giant voice and a hippiesk middle parting. One woman one guitar, how hard is it to be one of 6474837 singer songwriter women, to be individual? I don’t know, but her voice is thrilling and I liked her 7 songs especially the one about her lover telling her too often that he loves her … (Me: how poor in words, how great in music!) and >>> her version of Heard It Through The Grapevine is divine.

Next: nice pop guys called Zulu Pearls, summer ice cream music … and the sound (guy) of Antje is just fantastic.

Quixote is a Berlin / London based band that I heard before (they are part of Khanis Bands On Boats project) and I must say they definitely hide 3 or 4 fat smash hits in their miracle box — The Big Bad Man is the devil — and it smashed me 64748 years back when I was a tiny girl, working on a production line for Miele Waschautomaten (washing machines and dryers) in Gütersloh — 6 months heavy work and all we had was a little radio and I fought hard for BFBS because they broadcasted the finest music (the mighty John Peel for example who changed my life to good) — I’ll never forget the day when they played This Charming Man by the Smiths for the very first time, it just jumped on me like a little red demon and threw me down breathlessly … same with the Big Bad Man … good luck Quixote! Good luck Antje!

And by the way ….. wasn’t that one of the most gigantic songs ever: What Difference Does It Make?? (helped me survive my fucking youth @ countryside)