Filed under: bar, club, dance dance fun for nights, made in berlin, party | Tags: appartement, haus am köllnischen park 6, kitsuné, martini, music, partyy
TO DO:
<<i sincerely hope this isn’t some kind of sassy symbolism.
my fingertips are feeling the first phantom sting of subzero glass, i’m seeing the fiery candlelit twinkle of microscopic ice floes on glacial grapefruit-juniper tanqueray deeps. that slick slide of poison over frostbitten lips before it bites my tongue and anaesthetizes my esophagus.
<<and then there’s this.
Filed under: club, dance dance fun for nights, made in berlin, party | Tags: appartement, partyy, stattbad, villa
Anyway, back to my main rant: Berlin is the perfect treasure hunter’s city. It’s a cave of jewels and ancient riches; it’s riddled with trap doors and mazes; underground; makeshift.
Largely it seems to be an afterglow, or desperate nostalgic simulation, of the charged fluidity and frantic change from the time right after the two Germanies were vigorously smooshed back together, when Berlin actually was the grungy sinkhole it still likes to pretend to be.
But what if it is a tawdry ruse? It’s so fucking fun.
The most exciting places to dance and prance, not surprisingly, are either impossible to find, in some back alley or weird basement or gutted insurance office somewhere, requiring you to clamber through a window or up a fire escape to get in, or best of all: password protected.
The Stattbad, e.g., while it’s definitely on the radar, is cool because it’s in a closed-down public indoor pool. They host parties and exhibitions. Also it’s in Wedding, which I can’t decide if that means it’s so uncool it’s cool again, or if it’s just queasy. Takes forEVER to get there.
o jesus!
Then there’s Villa, which is just all about keeping it on the DL. At the door, a tweaked out pixie with big goggly eyes and twirling in a poncho sang out as we tried to enter*, “and where are you going, my pretties?!” This made me feel confused (and not only because I was a half bottle of sekt deep) as I had believed it was generally clear to all that we were going into the club. She wanted, as it turned out, to test us, like a little guardian troll type thing, to see if we were tuned in enough to know the name of the event, which I vaguely remembered from the flyer only because it sounded a little like
fuck.
Phew!
Inside it feels like a creepy but cool apartment. It is Berlin, remember, buzzing little beehive of creepy/cool apartments with crumbling plaster moldings on cavernous ceilings, just begging to be outfitted with chandeliers and disco balls and ironic taxidermal birds of prey to set the stage for dance party magic.
in retrospect it seems weird that there was a cute little birthday party with candy and snacks going on at 2 in the morning, but villa is the kind of place where you generally just go with it.
And, because Tuesday nights are really the most utterly depressing time of the whole entire week, it’s a good thing that Dinner for Friends happens to be just then, in a little place called Appartement on Prenzlauer Allee, where you can get yourself a helping of warm noodles with a side of warm, fuzzy candlelight and a sprinkling of peppy throwback beats.
Wash it all down with the fierce hipster parade that starts marching in around 10 or 11 and that’s some damn tasty Berlin. But don’t even try and get past the gatekeeper if you don’t know the password.
*roughly translated
Filed under: art | Tags: art, c/o gallery, galleries, nan goldin, photography
go see this. wild. c/o gallery.
Filed under: DIY, clothes clothes clothes, online stores, style | Tags: DIY, etsy, jewels, shopping, threads, vintage
unicorn ring by fleathers. rainbow not actually included. i wish
Finally, a place where my obsessions with gold, with the awesome, and with cute lil animals doing silly stuff can be safely and conveniently satisfied in one magic place.
Have you ever been to etsy.com?
Well it’s on the internet. This is ideal because usually I would go to the flea market on Sunday, but it’s suddenly October in Berlin which is wet and cold and generally awful. I’ve officially declared the start of my seasonal hibernation and won’t be going outside voluntarily unless I am escaping a fire or replenishing the larder, which is what I’m calling the fridge, because I’ve sort of started to think of myself as a character in The Wind in the Willows. As in
The kindly Badger thrust them down on a settle to toast themselves at the fire, and bade them remove their wet coats and boots. Then he fetched them dressing-gowns and slippers, and a delicious supper from the larder.
Anyway you sort of have to spend a lot of time on etsy, like I do, to move past the crocheted throw pillows and “whimsical” little kitties (e.g. HERE lolololol). But once you’re down the rabbit hole there’s no going back to kansas. yes, i mixed that metaphor, I know what I’m doing.
I’ll stop talking now, here is some etsy magic..
Varieties include:
1. all manner of choice baubles in what i like to call frontier aesthetic
<<brassy guns and antlers by missmouse
<<cheery fatalism by chainchainchained
<<talismans (talismen?); these are made from spent bullet casings and reclaimed chains by leoravon
2. laser-cut acrylic like crazy (not expensive!)
<<by brevity
<<by plastique
3. really cool animals, all kinds
<<take careful note of the owl in mary-janes. by Julia Pott
<<bears in love by kg + ab
clothes too, i’ll cover that in an upcoming post!
what is your favorite etsy treasure?
Filed under: alltag, made in berlin | Tags: friedrichshain, krankenschein, kreuzberg
No! it’s not what you think! I AM NOT faking.
But the festive German tradition of the Krankenschein is new to me and causing pangs of guilt and confusion. It seems too good to be true….there must be a catch. I wasn’t prepared for this, my doctor didn’t brief me. I get a whole week? Just to recover from swine flu (diagnosis courtesy myself, M.D.)? Am I supposed to work from home during this time? Am I allowed to watch TV?
Concerned and afraid, I asked my good friend E, resident expert on being a USAmerican in Berlin Germany. Ever thoughtful and ready to help, she created a personalized itinerary.
ME “What will I do?”
E: “well, when in Rome…” (i.e. unemployed in Kreuzberg/Friedrichshain)
8:30 crack day’s first beer on U1 near kottbusser tor
9:00 switch to U8, continue drinking, become slightly more belligerent
10:00 find creepy fluorescent-lit bar/arcade in neukölln where you can spend the morning
12:00 lunch of cheap döner (yell at turkish worker while enjoying his food!)
1:00 sell drugs at görlitzer park
2:00 buy beer (and whole chicken) at that stand by görlitzer park
3:00 arrive at alexanderplatz by mysterious means. sit on the fountain and heckle tourists
4:00-4:30 stumble down skalitzer straße, buy a beer, cross the oberbaumbrücke, meander towards favorite strandbar on simon-dach
4:30 arrive just in time for happy hour(s)
4:30 – 7 chat with your fellow stammgäste about being on hartz iv. try with little success to engage young tourist couple.
7:00 abendbrot! beer is like the new bread.
8:00 accidentally join a group of american coolios for a concert event in friedrichshain basement. they dig your “homeless” look and give you drugs. vice germany photog very interested in your eyepatch.
8:15 things turn sour. asked to leave
8:30 forcibly removed
9:00 [no data available] remainder of day spent in blackout, emerge approx. 10 hours later at hookah bar on simon dach reeking of pot and fryer grease. leer at spanish tourists.
Thanks E, always lookin out for a homegirl.
Filed under: alltag, art, made in berlin, streetart, travels | Tags: friedrichshain, kreuzberg, ubiquitous streetart
And this is the part where I force you retroactively to come with me on a ruminative walk I took yesterday on which 1) I felt sorry for myself for maybe (probably) having swine flu and 2) took a picture of each thing i stopped to look at.
Come! come! Don’t dilly-dally there’s existential ponderings in store.
I present a tour of art and other oddities close enough to my home that I was able to tour them before I started wheezing.
Snarky commentary will be kept to a minimum, pinky swear yo.
these little guys live close by.
so much better than the zoo! ew, the zoo. last time i went there the lions freaked out and almost ate everyone.
ok then i took two steps and found some more things.
his job is making sure the animals are OK.
whoa, jim caviezel? no i think it’s jesus! wait no jim caviezel IS jesus, or like his earthly persona, which still doesn’t explain why he is looking all muralized in front of this cafe.
moving on.
(doomed to eternity on the same wall directly below jesus caviezel)
this reminded me of my childhood because you have to use your IMAGINATION to know what they’re saying.
i walked ahead for a block or two and ran into this little spitfire TOTally not caring about how badly she was clashing with the leaves behind. tacky, but ballsy.
the elegant berries disapproved.
anyway before you know it we’re crossing the bridge, off to the weird lands of kreuzberg, which, when you get to know it, you realize is actually a little like those people who when you meet them seem kind of dirty-cool smart-arty and standoffish but turn out to be completely…
oh no oh no! wtf!
danger.
aww nm, that is adorable, yes?
my mental image of berlin: funny-shaped rooftops against a big sky, with the chopped-off looking sheer white faces of sad amputated houses left to stare at empty lots alone. except usually there’s actually a face on it (no really, e.g.)
after sundown, our walk turns weird, with an orange tinge of evil.
you know it’s almost october when empty supermarkets seem so spooooky.
and there is something marrow-freezingly sinister about “Chem. Reinigung” that I can’t quite put my finger on…
anyway it is weird walking by people with their partay faces on while yourself feeling like something somebody tried to drown in a bag. an addled sense of vertigo with a twinge of nostalgia.
but mostly just SERIOUSLY hoping you don’t run into anyone you know.
and after all that walking you must be tired.
i leave you with: the shoe.
good night.
Filed under: boutiques, clothes clothes clothes, made in berlin, style | Tags: black door beauty, friedrichshain, shopping, t-shirts, threads
So while I’m on this kick of blabbing about how great my hood is, I thought I’d present some real hard evidence for the jury.
BLACKDOORBEAUTY T-shirts. Yea, not so keen on the name either. But it’s cool, ok?
Frealz, I’ve never really seen anything like it at all. It’s got kind of a minimalistic thing going on, just a big plate-glass window in the front with a view on long neat, endless rows of T-shirts (in rainbow order how delightful!) with weird/funny/wacky/random/rad designs on them. Every size and color you can imagine, and every shirt costs the same, even tho they are done in all different styles. (29 €)
The concept is cool, no question, but the real key in my mind is that the designs themselves are fantastizizzle.
Not long ago I had the genius idea to wander in and accost the owner with questions she was not especially happy to answer, even after I told her it was for my blog. Come on! Lucky for her she has a kickass store regardless. And I’m feeling generous so I’m going to give her some free publicity even though she didn’t want to be friends with me.
The shiny-and-new look is not a deception: this little baby store hatched in June 2009, although it is run in partnership with the BLACKDOORBEAUTY jewelry store (Kopernikussstr. 7a, Ecke Warschauerstr. / Mo-Sa 10-20h / 03054719098), which seems like it’s been there for EIGHT years. because it has. Fact. Just sitting there with its floor-to-ceiling display cases of basically every style of jewels you can possibly imagine. Just beckoning to you to come in, stay a while, leave with a laser-cut acrylic turntable pendant, some silver hoops and dangly things, a gold chain or two. Ok but now it’s time to talk about the shirt store, not the jewelry store.
Here’s what the nice lady told me (my translation/paraphrase)
How would you summarize the concept behind this store?
Like the jewelry store, the keyword is variety. But rather than having many different kinds of things, it’s about just having one product (tees), and a HUGE selection of designs.
(Ed. note: word)
How are these beautiful T-shirts born? Who makes them and where do they come from?
The shirts themselves are produced on our own label (BLACK DOOR BEAUTY). The designs come from various designers from all over the world, mostly unknown, some of them just come into the shop and introduce themselves, show us their work, and if we like what they do then we put their designs on the label, too.
And what about Berlin? Why here, why now?
I’m from Berlin and have a background in fashion, and I really just felt like opening a store.
I think Berlin has it’s own particular style, very relaxed and laid-back, and that our store fits in well with that look. I can probably imagine the project being successful in a different city as well, but I want to be here, I feel good here.
Whatup fellow Berlin-lover. We would totally get along.
So yes she was a leetle bit cagey. But in the end she opened up, realized I was not trying to steal ideas but rather just share the love via interweb, and then she even let me take some pictures. Mainly I just wanted to know if she designed the shirts or not, that’d be a no, obvi.
Give them a visit! Nobody else in the world will have the same shirt as you! I am all about that.
Keep in mind they have weird-ass hours.
Smart, in a neighborhood where most of them krazy kids probably haven’t even realized the sun comes out before noon. Can’t say my new BFF doesn’t know her target demographic!
BLACK DOOR BEAUTY T-shirts
Simon-Dach-Str. 15/Ecke Kopernikussstr.
(030) 54719097
Filed under: club, concerts, dance dance fun for nights, food, music, party, restaurants, songs on the internet | Tags: diplo, major lazer, mitte, mp3, music, partyy, switch, themroc, wmf
You might say that the theme for this post is bad photography.
Or: what happens on a Friday night when you power through from work>>dinner>>club/party.
Namely, exhaustion, drunkenness, bad photography.
And fun times.
(Just don’t expect good pictures, is what I’m trying to get at here)
The night began righteously with a restaurant I simultaneously want to tell everyone about, and not tell anyone, so that it will stay a little lovely secret, because I don’t really like to share.
I’m talking about cozy-wozy Themroc on Torstraße, where we almost got turned away at 8 because of “reservations,” but after milling around the bar for 5 mins. we were apparently legit enough to be seated.
The awkward shuffle at the door was quickly forgiven and forgotten.
The view from our table was…the kitchen. As in sink, spice rack, cook. As in making our food. And no, this doesn’t mean we got hustled into the nosebleed section on account of no reservations. The kitchen is adorably right by the door.
As in any kitchen worth its guests, the refrigerator is covered in magnets/cute pictures. Jazz in the background and the gentle hum of various groups of people who like each other talking about things that make them feel good.
The menu is very small and exists only in the brains of the cook (1) and waiter (1). On offer was one appetizer, a sort of tabbouleh-style salad with shrimp. I like my tabbouleh with a little more zing and zest i.e. lemony-mintyness, but the shrimp were flavorful morsels grilled to perfection.
Next was a choice between something lamb and something chicken, I regret to admit that I was paying nil attention at this point, focusing more on like the wine-aspect of the meal (also excellent and plentiful), and so can tell you nothing about the lamb, since everyone at my table and at all the neighboring tables seemed to be going for the chicken.
The entree was solid and satisfying, if not spectacular. A little mogul of basmati rice mediated between a hunk of (baked?) chicken and a tzatziki salad. The chicken was tender and melty, basking but not bathing in a zesty-sweet-curry kind of sauce….mm now that I think about it, it actually was pretty perfect. It just didn’t stand out, exactly, but with the obvious theme here being that feel-good satisfaction of utter simplicity, wouldn’t anything more have been too much?
In any case, the dessert launched me to new heights of happiness: a warm fig amid fruity sauce and vanilla cream, all gooey and soft and choice with tiny caramelized crunchy nuts sprinkled on top.
All this warm and wonderful comfort food + drinks aplenty for less than the price of a pair of American Apparel leggings.
Speaking of which, the next stop was Major Lazer at WMF. This was really a great party, mostly because they had a little side room where the dj actually laid down the hip-hop all night long (this never happens in Germany), including some mash-ups that even though I feel negative about the mashup genre generally I have to say were pretty tight.
“MAJOR LAZER is a fictional cartoon character, who (according to press releases) fought as a Jamaican commando who lost his arm in a secret zombie war in 1984. He fights vampires and various monsters, parties hard, and has a rocket-powered hoverboard.” (Wikipedia)
I don’t feel like that requires further explanation, except that it’s the mutant science experiment of dj/producers Diplo and Switch and rocked pretty effing hard.
um you may recall I mentioned something about substandard photography. i think i should get points for even trying to take pictures and dance simultaneously.
why yes, thank you for asking, that is in fact a storm trooper in the right hand corner on stage. mostly blocked by some hombre getting way better pictures than me.
Forget the visuals, here’s an audio.
**Major Lazer – Hold the Line**
so get your dl on
Filed under: alltag, art, made in berlin, streetart | Tags: friedrichshain, home, ubiquitous streetart
THIS confronted me while I was meandering down Gärtnerstraße the other day.
For once I have little to say. Except that it somehow seems to just about sum it up, in terms of characterizing Friedrichshain.
Anyway anyway ladies and gentlemen stay tuned, I got up to all kinds of nonsense on Friday, meaning lots of food for my hungry blog. This handful of colorful and tasty treats coming at y’all is to include: a night of bouncing to way rad beats, a weird and wonderful dining experience, and (because I’m all about keepin’ it real in Fhain just now) an exclusive interview(ish) with the owner of one very special brand new store on Simon-Dach Straße. Tomorrow I will share it all with you. I tell you, this shit will be tight. Don’t be late, hear?
