Dagies Blog

My back yard. A bike problem. More bikes than actual bike stands. Some bikes are dead – flat tyre, loneliness, whatever. Slowly nature is taking over. Sprouting, entwining tendrils around the spokes. Hilarious and absurd look.

Mmmh, summer just doesn’t really want to leave! I’m enjoying every single drop of warmth and colour …
One of my favourite bars / cafés in my street is called Goldmarie, I think I mentioned it before: quiet atmosphere, good not too expensive wines, delicious bagels with inventive spreads, peppermint tea with fresh leaves …
And when it gets cold and you still don’t want to go inside since the evening is so precious, wonderful, crispy: they give you Wolldecken – woolen rugs!

I’m a classical music nitwit.
But years ago my friend Andreas introduced me to Dmitri Shostakovich and some of his symphonies, I especially loved No. 7, Op. 60 ‚Leningrad‘; 1. Allegretto; from 7:39 on because, listening to it, I felt the joy of mathematics, I had a vision of cinematic numeral beauty.
Today thanks to my friend Frauke, she invited me to the Philharmonie of Berlin: Musikfest Berlin 09: Orchestra London, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Dmitri Shostakovich, Symphony No. 8.
It was so exciting to watch the musicians, we had a good seat above them all, enjoying, hearing them like a swarm, a flock … and I liked the mixture of old and very young ones. I loved the percussion section the most, so concentrated partly for just one single boooom 🙂

Here you see the conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy receiving a bunch of flowers at the end of the wonderful performance:

This is me and my brother (the best photographer in town!) checking our new magical device (see some blog earlier) …

… and these are two examples of what came out (a tiny version of course – the quality is gigantic in reality – grain beats pixel!!)

It was a too short pleasure to have had you here!

I bought this funny thing on Ebay: a kind of objective that fits on a camera and on top there is a window for one super 8 frame! Analog scan! (Because I’m feverishly trying to find the best highest resolution way to enlarge one tiny image to a … more or less giant poster. I want to bring some unseen beauties, stills, a 24th of a second, to light, to exhibition).
So I opened the parcel, checked the thing and the screw which immediately broke … aaarggh … a plastic screw! How stupid!
But for all accidents there is help: I recommend ASA 90, the best shop in town (Berlin-Neukölln, Fuldastrasse 55) for film and foto!
Fred, the owner, is the coolest helper ever and of course he and his two companions helped me fix that thing! Thank you!

This is Fred’s magic screw toolbox 🙂

It has been hot and beaming and shining for days, now suddenly the air changes and rain comes pouring down.
My opposite children can’t believe it and try to catch the drops 😉

These days I’m thinking a lot about my job. And about changes coming. Shaking situations. Blabla – anyway: I whispered to the heavens above „Why don’t you just send me a quick sign?“ and then I continued spooning my blueberry yoghurt and *YIKES* look: one smiling face and one astounded … Now I’m trying to decipher the message …

I thought my back yard was quite secure. I locked my 15 year old half rusted mountain bike there. Among 20 or 25 other ones more or less rotten. This morning I came down and wanted to cycle to work – and it was gone. At first sight I thought: oh, was I too drunk last night? But I wasn’t even out … Starting Alzheimer? No. It was just simply stolen.

Fuck you, thief! That was really mean. This bike is of no worth, maybe you’ll get 40 bucks for the frame and 1 for the plastic duck honk, you asshole. I curse your Karma. Get scrabies! (Krieg die Krätze!)

Here’s a still from one of my films (The Self-Healing Of My Bike) *sigh* from those days when we were still together …

“Don’t jump from the long side!“ yells the bath attendant in my favourite summer pool called Prinzenbad. I’ve always loved it there, it’s like a melting pot mixing everybody in almost always peaceful coexistance. At least it used to be like that. Except for some cracking pubescents or overheated brutalos but they mostly stay among themselves … and those uptight asshole voyeurs who molest people in the separated nude areal … well … anyway …
What I realized over the recent years: it has always been a normal thing to sunbathe topless. More than half of the girls/women did it. No big deal here. Today? No one except for me and I felt like a medium aged hippie from another planet. What’s that? Americanization? Muslimization? Back to the fifties-prudery? I’ll have to muse about it … Maybe the mood, the atmosphere is slowly turning towards rough and aggressive and disrespectful behavior … and girls … well … react.

Until I found out, here’s a little still from a very short film called “Ducks are watching you”, a film festival trailer that I made some years ago for the Zwergwerk Film Festival in Oldenburg:

and here’s the trailer: zwergwerktrailer.mov

This is how super 8 filmers tame and bind their high towering balcony tomatoes 😉

Last weekend at Force Attack … I don’t really go to punk festivals regularly … but it was a good spontaneous chance to accompany one of the bands that will be part of Bands On Boats – A Pony Named Olga – share some time, work, fun, music, film with them on a small tour.
We even had time to relax half a day at the Baltic Sea which is very close to that festival (Rostock/Warnemünde).

Attack! Ladybug plague at the beach! That was kind of weird! Hundreds of those little beautiful 7-dotted bugs flew around us, landing on us, on the sand, on the towels … never experienced that before.
Sensitive people started to fix mosquito nets to their sunshades …

This is for specialists only … never try to self-process an Ekta 16mm film that has lived more than 20 years outside a fridge. Deborah Phillips my friend and I didn’t believe Mr Draser, the god of Andec, who refused to process her 30 meter long film because of that reason (it would ruin the developer baths with all the black gelatine particles).
It did exactly that. All the beautiful filmed scenes, all work, all images got dissolved in the first two baths. Though … it was fun to do that dirty bucket processing again (30 meters of 16mm film is too much for a Russian tank) so we – thanks to Fernando – occupied a darkroom, set up the scene: 4 buckets, some towels, hot water to keep the chemicals in appropriate mood (38 degrees centigrade), plastic gloves, and my new invention: who tells you the exact countdown time of 6 minutes when you’re in absolute darkness? No red light allowed! So I recorded a kind of down-counting voice with some nice weird music telling every 10 seconds where we are!
Anyway … it all went shit. So we strolled away to have one two drinks around the corner at Syndikat. Good white wine!
I noticed a cat opposite to the bar, it balanced nicely on the balcony rim, said hello to the tree leaves, looked at us and then returned back inside. It was a lovely day anyway!

This is an invitation to a very special evening:

Helen Bittner is a musician and I am a filmmaker. We found each other, spent one day together walking and subwayriding through Berlin, inviting coincidence, strolling around, me filming (on super 8) … and now the music clip for her song You And The Moon (Groovy) is finished. There’s going to be a little party this coming Sunday (the premiere of that clip!!) at Arcanoa (Tempelhofer Ufer 8, Berlin-Kreuzberg) from 8 pm.
No entrance fee!
She’ll be performing some of her songs (with 3 guest musicians) and later I’m going to show some of my films in original super 8.

Here’s the song list:
I’m alive
You are the one
You and the Moon (jazzy)
Where are you tonight?
So blue
You and the Moon (groovy)

… and here’s the film list:
Milchwolken Liebe
Die 6 Astronauten
Ach, es ist so schön, ein Käfer zu sein
Cowboy, reite immer schneller!
Der höchste Spiegel der Welt
Stich 8 juckt einfach super!
Die Salzfrösche von Hiddensee

Come and meet us!

… force people to fold their sunshades and wipe up rain drops in no time.

Riding home from my job through Köpenicker Strasse I saw a beautiful sky, looked like a thundery front approaching, warm tropical evening, beautiful saturated colors, crispy air!
I stopped at a night kiosk (remembering my empty fridge) and bought a bottle of good icecold Rivaner white wine. Stepped in, smiled at the old lady who guarded the open door. The guy (young, friendly, tattooed all over) said, when he realized that I was anxiously watching my unlocked bike outside: „Don’t worry, the owner lady will keep an eye on your bike and if someone’s trying to snatch it she’ll take care of him and throw her crutches at him!!“
I love Kreuzberg …

And then … at home … sitting in my open balcony window I heard a percussion sound, someone’s drumming … I looked down (2 storeys) and I saw 4 guys drumming tenderly on the orange garbage can on my street, a spontaneous 3 minutes concert! Whow! Awesome! Listen and watch! under-my-balcony1.mov

Finally. One of those nights. The summer has come back. The city is humming and buzzing. I light my Guadalupe candle (which I imported from LA last summer!), fill my glass with ice cubes and rosé prosecco, watch the blue-pink sky, listen to the chasing flocks of Mauersegler (European or Common Swift). Mmmh! This is summer and I love it!

In the course of one’s life – film friend Khani told me recently – everybody inhales and swallows (eats!!!!! Yikes!!!) … four spiders.
An urban myth?

Aah, just 2 minutes in the googleverse swang me to a science site!

You can say it’s ugly, this Kottbusser Damm (the street that separates Kreuzberg from Neukölln), yes it is, but it is as well charming on a Sunday noon when you sit at lovely Ankerklause, a café / bar spot on the street. Nothing better than a coffee and a croissant, watching people passing by, relaxing after a long Saturday with too much work.

Happy Sunny day!

Midsummer in the city of Berlin. Suddenly you know: you need to go to the countryside right now or else you go crazy.
So my brother and his son took me out on a ride to the emerald green clear crispy clean beautiful lake called Liepnitzsee, situated about 30 kms North of Berlin. The lake belongs to the district of Wandlitz, which in GDR times was the space where the highest East German functionaries lived.

You can rent rowboats for hours for little money, watch ducks, ducklings, great crested grebes (Haubentaucher), herons (Fischreiher) and coots (Blesshühner) … swim in the soft cuddly water, walk to the Insulanerklause, (a kind of little open air restaurant) and have a wheat beer, a salad, a coke, a Wienerwürstchen, icecream … stroll through the woods on the island and the surrounding banks …
It was a perfect Sunday 🙂

Try to count the mosquito bites on my legs … but funny, the magic water cools the itching away!
And this is my brother taking a dive!!

Good night, mighty ship, dear Spreeprinzessin!

We had a special beautiful evening – 4 great bands which couldn’t have been more different … 4 rounds on the boat … 4 new audiences … 4 new light conditions (for us filmmakers) … 4 little explosive concerts, 4 times diving into fresh music universes (we had them all! Swedish pop with a fresh haircut and the sweetest Pippi Langstrumpf cover version I ever heard, shoegazing superguitars who learned from Daniel Johnston and Syd Barrett, accelerating Texasbilly Umhauer, decelerating Salsacolumbiafusionhiphop, and so many more words to describe them that I can’t think of at the moment … photos will follow … Thanks again 48 Stunden Neukölln for letting us be part of your festival!!

This is me and Nadine (friend, helper, autopilot) waiting for bands at the landing place of the Spreeprinzessin. Sewing boat patches on our shirts.

The ship is full!!

This is Kör Sakta!

This is Milsantos:

From left to right: video, super 8 and Boundary Jim at dawn!

A Pony Named Olga shaking Neuköllns Bridges!

Fotos: Uli Strempel, me

48 Hours Neukölln. It’s like a big fair all over Neukölln, a very special part of Berlin, growing, getting more colorful and hipper.
Starting today, ending tomorrow night. It feels just great, at every corner there’s something happening, something to see and to listen to.
I spent some time at Marie’s Toilettenhäuschen 😉 , former public toilets, now a little art space. Tiny pictures and photos hanging there (I loved the underwater ones!) and Anything Maria playing, a woman from Marseille, now a Berlin resident I guess. First I didn’t really like her lovelyfrenchbrokenenglish singing, too much Lolita I found, but she got better from song to song: one woman, one loud distorted guitar and some weird electronic little helpers.

And tomorrow we aaaalllll enter the bandboat!! The captains welcome you with a warm beating heart and hopefully a warm sun!

I’ve just come back from a very small cellar-hidden concert at Madame Claude, a café/club in Berlin-Kreuzberg (Lübbener Str. 19) – Boundary Jim, a 4 guys combo (2 guitars, 1 bass, 1 drums). I guess they are very in love with their instruments since they kept on looking dreamily down on them … I liked that. I liked them and their honest good guitar-playing. Sweet and beautiful. (The singer’s voice is like a green apple waiting for more sun to ripen. He will surely do.). Looking forward to see them on our ship and share a cool evening!! —-> Bands On Boats – The Neukölln Edition! – bob-neukoelln.pdf

It’s Fete de la Musique in Berlin. More than 100 bands playing for free on more than 100 stages outdoor and inside.
I went out to see only 2 today … found a rainbow … found two special powerful brilliant super-bands:

Las Rainhas do Norte: They played in a kind of sandy areal (sandsational – sand sculptures) – and they really blew me away, sand in my nose, power in my eyes, percussion in my brain … 6 women 6 sunny devils.

Later, Kreuzberg, picture comes later, a promising band called Milsantos, they played in a tiny club called Café MANO, Skalitzer Straße 46a, Berlin-Kreuzberg. Speedy fire latino corazon party beautiful singing a little hip, a great hop. Watch out. They are going to be great. (for example this coming Saturday on Bands On Boats – The Special Neukölln Edition!!!)

Geocaching part two.
Today: Beelitzer Heilstätten, me, my brother Bernd, my nephew David and his friend Lenny. We spent all day long looking for caches, hunting places, collecting clues … it was a beautiful summer excursion!

We stumbled upon weird rotten houses and sheds, one was like spidermans refuge with red threads all over, so magic!

And then, deep down in the tunnels, I found a lonely toad. Must have been fallen through one of the ceiling hatches. I gave it a lift back up (I kept it in my hand, it felt warmer than expected, I felt it struggling in the beginning and then breathing, calming down …) I set it free up in some shady shrubs.

Does anyone remember Catweazle? His toad was called Touchwood – in German Kylwalda! Electrickery! Elektriktrick! Salmei, Dalmei, Adomei! Schampamporasch!

Berlin drowns in abundant rain and people hang their – not sneakers this time – yellow rain rubber boots on traffic lights and signs.
I saw two pairs today!
Confusing!