Aurèle's Visit Part I

So, Aurèle came here for a week and we had a great time. I wish I had written down everything we did, but here is the short list: A national galarie, 3 Biergartens, Gorki-Park (3 times!!!), a punk show, a squat, a club, a Schwäbisch dinner, a Bavarian breakfast, a flea market, shopping, eating & vodka. We were really excessive for the whole week plus we hung out with Daniel every day, and new Dutch friends; Anna, Aletta, & Lilian, very frequently. Aurèle took most of the pictures, plus the ones I took are trapped on my phone, by my old OS, for the moment. So, once I compile all the photos from Aurèle, Daniel, the Dutch girls and myself, I should have a more photographically representative post to share of most of the previously mentioned people & activities. Also, Daniel has started taking some video with his Handy. Look out for fresh new co-productions featuring his innovative Beer-Cam.

Here is the first video, or what I was able to capture with 1 battery, from our tour of the Neue-Nationalgalarie - a modern to contemporary National Gallerie housed in the fantastic "temple of light and glass" which was designed by Mies van der Rohe. It is home to some of my favourite famous-artist's work such as: Otto Dix, George Grosz, Miro, Picasso, and numerous Bauhaus masters. I set it to the Knife - Bird (2001) because it was really comfortable there, and the collection was broad but to the point. Like a bird's beak.

A Museum with Aurèle

Stay Tuned for:

Aurèle's visit part II
&
Riot Party! Die Erste Mai!

Chromatics

The Chromatics show was great however, I was definitely left wanting more. It was fairly short set considering they were the only live act, maybe 40 minutes. The Roter Salon was a good venue though, it was filled up real good so I couldn't move around very much to record different angles. This was also my first audio capture with the coolpix and the sound clips a lot, so I left the first half of the song "In the City" intact and spliced it together with the studio version. Then I used some of the iMovie plugins to beef up my sparse footage of the show. I did this rather hastily however as tonight is the Holly Golightly show at Knaack and thought I best get this up sooner rather than later. I am meeting Olga and Delphine there and Abel and some friends afterwards. I still find it hard to get over how easy it is to make really nice friends here!

Chromatics Live in Berlin (sort of)

Käsespätzle Party

I had to preempt the Chromatics video for an unexpected Käsespätzle party at Rebekka and Abel's, Daniel's new neighbours, apartment. For those unfamiliar with Spätzle, it is the southern German version of pasta and a staple in their diet. It is also delicious and really good at soaking up gravy, or in this case; onion, bacon fat and cheese!

I met up with Daniel directly after work and we went Handi Shopping, my usual reliance on email as my primary source of communication does not work very well over here, as , unfortunately, everyone else is phone-centric. So I had to cave and pick up a mobile. We managed to find one for 20 euro though. The Ericsson T250i, It's super thin and should last me at least 3 months. It takes pictures too, which is nice because my Coolpix is bulky and if I put it in my pocket, people, conversely, aren't glad to see me.

Unfortunately after a long day at work my head cold was getting the best of me. By the time we got to Daniel's place with the groceries and wine, I felt pretty beat. No problem though! Daniel just gave me some home remedies he picked up in Russia.

Cure #1: A shot of Vodka with black pepper in it.
Cure # 2: Shove a large chunk of garlic into each nostril and breathe deeply.

I felt remarkably refreshed for a good 2 hours afterwards, as strange as these remedies sound, they are immediately and extremely effective.

The dinner party was a really good time, and I got to meet a lot of nice new people, particularly nice were our hosts who put up with me getting in the way with my camera in the kitchen, way too much wine drinking by most of us and Rebekka made us Crêpes for dessert!

The following video is a documentation of Käsespätzle production from start to finish. Thanks to Delphine and Rebekka for helping out with the footage and LCD soundsystem for providing a song that fit not only in length but more importantly, with the spirit of the evening.

Käsespätzle

Pergamon

True, I have been killing a lot of beers & Cuba Libre's at Daniel & Jürgen's Billiard Club "Küh" on Sophienstrasse, but I am trying to fit in some "drier" experiences to keep my remaining brain cells from forming a frat house. Today I picked up my year-long membership to all of Berlin's national museums. With my student card it cost a total of 20 euro! for a whole year! 40 is the normal price. If you are a museum buff you're lucky, as I suspect you will be getting a lot of museum videos from me over the next few months. For the rest of you, I will hopefully have some hot footage to post from the Chromatics show this Thursday.

My first stop was the world famous Pergamon on Museum Island. It was very interesting for me as a Museum Studies student to explore such a high-of-caliber institution. The recreations of Babylonian, Greek, & Turkish altars & walls were overwhelmingly large and lifelike. The tapestry collection was very well presented in the lowest of light conditions. Unfortunately, I found it really difficult to see past all of the conservation and exhibit strategies and simply appreciate the collection. Their recording-hygrothermographs were really more interesting to me! As were their strategies for presenting text. Simple yet effective black lettering on clear acrylic postioned approximately 2 cm from the wall. This gave the text a natural drop-shadow and, I suppose as a bonus to the museum, was difficult to photograph. The abundant use of high-quality scale models was great. It was especially effective when juxtapositioned with the colossal recreation of the Pergamon altar.

Anyway, the following video is from today's visit. I tried to include shots of visitors and of the overall museum rooms when possible, as the low-def video my camera records can not do the artifacts, some of which were +3000 years old, or the recreations justice.

The shots of the statues and busts at the end of the video were from the Hellenistic Art section; my favourite area in the Pergamon.
I saw it fit to included a peppy soundtrack from Berlin's duo sensation "Stereo Total" to liven up the content. Classical music seemed a little too obvious, but really, neither classical or electronic-pop were around back then. The oldest music I could think of which fit was Vulcan folk music, but I don't have any on my laptop.

also,

To Whom It may Concern:

I changed the blog settings so now anyone may comment on posts, anonymously even. Previously it seems it was only permitted for Blogger members. I did not realize that was the default.

Pergamon

Coming Soon:

Chromatics (yikes! she's hot!) live at Roter Salon

A Friday Night

Daniel and I started off the night at 18.30 at the Cinema Cafe, which is an incredibly smokey, but really cool, old cafe on Rosenthalerstrasse in Kreuzberg. It has been around since 1990 which is pretty much as old as cafes like this get in former DDR. After a Hefeweizen (both Paulaner and Hacker-Pschorr are available in Ottawa beer stores. Honestly, if you have never had a Hefe you have never had a beer) we went to a vernissage at the Johanssen Gallery for the opening of the Olaf Hajek - Maskerade exhibit. The art was so-so but the bar included FREE redbull and vodka. This turned out to be important later on in the evening.

The vernissage was very much like one you may experienc at Art Guise in Ottawa. Only way busier. The "art-lovers" along with their drinks soon spilled out of the gallery on the sidewalk, this then drew yet a bigger crowd and we soon took over the street and the sidewalk on the other side. I commented to Daniel that this type of situation would bring Ottawa riot cops unnecessarily to the scene within minutes. I do not feel I was exaggerating either. We were now hanging outside with some of Daniel's Russian and German friends, among them Svetlana, Luba, Georg, Michael, and one name erased by the night.

After the well of free booze ran dry, we all hit a quiet typical old Berlin Pub for a drink before heading over to Clärchens Ballhaus for some dancing and where Daniel introduced me to a new drink simply called "Sekt-Aperol" after its ingredients. "Sekt" is German fo sparkling wine. This is also important as I will now explain:

It was around 2:00 and things were getting very messy in the dancehall, young people believed they could swing dance, english people believed they could talk German, Russian girls thought they could stand up straight. It was this last thought that combined with the speed they put into Redbull. This amalgam allowed Sveta to start dancing on the rickety table. However, It was the Sekt-Aperol which had so thoroughly refreshed me and thus allowed me, without thinking, and with the strength of a soccermom whose yoga mat is pinned under her Prius, to get up on a chair and pick Sveta up and place her gently on the floor - before the bouncers could make it over and bounce us. I am glad she does not know how close I came to falling off the chair and smashing her to the ground. Sekt-Aperol saved us from both humiliation and unintentional brain damage.

Daniel

Georg at the Ballhaus

Accidental "about to makeout" photoseries with Sveta (pre-table)

Sekt-Aperol and A very nice girl who's name I cannot remember (note the before and after effects of the Sekt-Aperol captured by Daniel's Handy)

Bonus Photo!!!

(Secret Hottie)

Stay tuned for:

Berlin Zeitgeist

Berlin-New York Dialogues the music video.

Today, Delphine and I went to the DAZ to check out the free exhibit; Berlin-New York Dialogues, featuring progressive architecture design with a focus on community based initiatives. Very cool stuff. I will mention the floating self-contained swimming pools on the River Spree and "Platoon"; the reclaimed land initiative constructed out of empty shipping containers! only because those are some of the images I stole for the following video. But I strongly recommend checking out the website and visiting this exhibit if you happen to be in Berlin or NYC when it is running.

After the exhibit we went for a stroll, out for Kaffee (read: Green Tea and Hefe Weissen) and hooked up with Daniel for conversation and dinner. The evening/night quickly went by and after the Champions League quarter final football matches, Daniel and I ended our night, once again, at Gorki-Park to chat with Tatijana and to try and help Daniel forget about his big oral exam in Russian comprehension on Thursday. All of this is un-spectacularly captured on digital video, set to a kitschy German rendition of "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" and sped up for my amusement.

So here is my music-video version of the night, made with help from Delphine. The final product is a tribute to early eighties production, budgets of zero, and a newly discovered appreciation of glass washing ...Enjoy!

A Museum With Delphine

Things that are cool:

Invisible power and phone lines
b&w photo booths
3 Euros 50 cents for 1/2 chicken and a salad

Die alten/neuen Bauten

First, I apologize if my German is not correct, I am winging it like I do everyday here. Tonight I made up the word Alcoholmauer (alcoholwall), but Daniel did not approve.

Here is a bunch of footage from the same previously mentioned boat cruise, of old and new buildings next to each other. This is characteristic of the Berlin Style - which I find mind-blowingly (real word!) well executed. I slapped together a "real" NDW (german new wave) soundtrack to go with - it seemed inline with the old/new theme. It is a mix of 5 songs, I am too tired to write them down and do not know if anyone but me cares who the bands are anyway. If you have an interest, or a guess, drop me a line.

I apologize that the order of the footage is not correct, I lost track when editing out the graffiti bits.

Die Alten/neuen Bauten

I am now hitting the bedsac - 4:30 Berlin time, as I am meeting Daniel tomorrow at 13:00 for 5 Euro Sushi! Then a haircut, then a new cafe to check out with Wi-lan access.

I love this city more and more each day by the way, and as a double bonus have just received confirmation that my friend Aurèle is coming here for a week at the end of April!


Coming Soon:

A Museum with Delphine