If you were in the Kastanien Alley last night, you might have noticed the extraordinary crowd in front of a certain house, people waiting in lines to get in. We are not talking about chique tourist clients or wannabe cools or the way too conservative part of the nation trying to interact here ladies and gentleman;
we are talking about one of the most impressing living house projects in the history of Berlin.
H. wollte schon seit 2 wochen ins Ikea gehen…letzte woche war irgendwas dazwischen gekommen und man konnte nicht hingehen… diesmal selbt meine versuche bzw. ausreden die fahrt ins ikea zu verhindern oder besser gesagt meine anwesendheit als unnötig zu erklaeren haben nicht geklappt und gegen 12.15 machten wir uns auf dem weg …
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last night a few friends and yours truly thrilled to the B-Movie shlock horror of William Castle’s 1959 film “The Tingler” which follows Vincent Price as Dr. Warren Chapin, a pathologist researching the physiological effects of fear. Chapin’s search ranges from the prison morgue to movie theatre and leads him to discover the Tingler, an invertebrate creature in each of us which feeds on fear, can kill its host and is only defeated by the human scream. The film (shown in glorious celluloid) was part of the Babylon’s wednesday night Schräge Kino which is running a William Castle festival through August. Remember “When the screen screams you’ll scream too…if you value your life!”
Hey, I didn’t mean to say that every dog owner is a pig. I’m a dog owner myself. And there’s thousands of good clean Dog owners out there. But there’s a lot more filthy dirty pigs that just let their bloody dogs shit huge lumps of more or less digested dogfood in the middle of the sidewalk and don’t even think about cleaning up.
actually that’s a different joint. But if you need a hot bowl of noodles on a steamy summer night, take a trip to the land of the rising sun at Makoto, a japanese noodle bar at Alte Schoenhauser Strasse 13. A wide assortment of beast, fish, fowl and vegetables as well as your choice of three different sauces guarantees your ramen will be to your liking. Wash it all down with some cold japanese beverages and check out the desert menu. And as i stumbled to the street after a meal fit for an emperor this weekend i caught a glimpse of some beautiful manga heroines….
Yesterday Blues legend Taj Mahal played at Quasimodo.
The place was packed and sweaty. With some (lots of) fantasy you could imagine being in Louisiana.
I really liked the concert until these middle aged teachers started to clap along.
I really hate that.
Taj Mahal gave the crowd some sing-along-crap which I didn’t like either. So the last two or three songs left some bitter taste while we left the place with mixed feelings. BVG had stopped all their services at one o’clock.
- a little digression now: what kind of a capital is this? Neither subway nor S-Bahn at one o’clock, Sunday night? I want them to run, at least, 25 hours a day. And why aren’t the shops open 24/7 ? -
Waiting for about half an hour for a night bus didn’t seem appropriate so we took a cab. The 53 year old cab driver compensated us for all the hassle with incredible stories of his real job - emergency photographer for Bildzeitung - and some details about viagra and his sexual relation to the eighteen year old daughter of his ex-wife.
I hope for him she (the ex-wife) doesn’t read this as she doesn’t know anything about it and would be really angry if she did. And she seems to be a quite unpredictable person as he told us.
I don’t believe a word of it anyway, but cabdrivers like this one restitute my faith in mankind.
Thanks a lot for these 20 minutes.
If you are paying a visit to Berlin and you feel tired of going to hundreds of museums and clubs, you should perhaps take a day off and try something different.
Take a ride to Treptower Park…
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When I moved to Berlin back in ‘89 I fell in love with this city inter alia because it was so lovely dirty. I don’t know what happened in the mean time maybe I just got old or maybe all this dirt increased to an almost unbearable amount. Don’t get me wrong I still don’t mind that everyday dirt in the streets or greasy, smeary Döner or Curry stands. I’m far away from being an hygienics apostle. But those people that aren’t able to clean up their dog’s shit or the remains from their barbecues in the parks always make me want to dump their noses in it. The way you do it with little kittens that shit in your flat. Maybe I should, no everybody should really do this to get those pigs housebroken. Sorry for that bad feelings against you fellow Berliners but every now and then I just get overwhelmed by ‘em and have to let ‘em out.
It’s so easy to take a little plastic bag with you and remove the dogshit. And by the way it ain’t neither a revolutionary act nor is it cool to leave it where your dog put it.
this weekend i plan to check out the new DDR Museum. Located at the DomAquarée along the banks of the Spree the new museum intends to highlight the everyday culture of the former East Germany. But even as the curators carefully collect and exhibit “information and memories about every day life and culture of a past time” there is already criticism that they are neglecting the totalitarianism and state violence upon which this ‘everyday life’ depended. Would such a museum be possible for ‘everyday life’ in the third reich? ironically enough the DDR Museum opens its doors just as the Palast der Republik, that other icon of the East, is being pulled down on the other side of the river…
One thing I love most about hot summer days are the warm summer nights like last night. I had an appointment outside the city and drove back into town the late evening, car top open, pulsative music, pleased grin on my face. Can’t live be always like this?
