glow.like.berlin

Children, children. Settle down. If you’re really good I will tell you a story. But beware!

We will pass through dark places, cold places, wild snarling volatile places, before we reach the glowing glimmering gleam on the other side.

This post has been a long time coming. It all started in early February, like this: a snowflake. Then another, and another. A million! A whole big mess o snow! Ah, but wait, how about a lil thaw in there for good measure…? Doh! What do you mean it’s going to drop below freezing again for 3 weeks straight? And that’s how all of Berlin came to be coated in a slick layer of ice 5 inches thick.

For all of February.

Effin bleak. Petrified flautist bleak.

Which brings me, by-and-by, to my theme: how to deal. Coping mechanisms, anyone? Yes, please. It is all about discovering what numbs your own personal pain, and just coasting for a while, riding that fragile high, until the sun comes out again.

I’m not talking about drugs, you crackhead! I am a graduate of the D.A.R.E. program.

No no. I go on adventures. If you ask schoolchildren, what are some famous explorers? They will name Indy, and then they will name me.

In my holster I’m packing: 1 (one) iPhone, 1 (one) 250 mL bottle of Rotkäppchen (trocken only, please), 1 (one) VBB Monatskarte Berlin AB (that’s a Metro card, fyi), and probably some lipstick.

I’m flanked by a lusty troupe of strapping young adventurers. We polish our boots and buckle our sashes, we’re off into the night.

(Sssh it’s more like dusk still. Bear with me.)

Our journey begins on a Saturday. It is late afternoon.

Determined to laugh winter straight in its hideous face, we bravely trundled all the way out to Dahlem to luxuriate in the lush, fecund world of ferns and fungus and foliage and flowers that lives in the network of greenhouses at the Berlin Botanical Gardens.

What my fellow travelers and I realized only after arriving in this (weirdly steampunk, right?) tropical paradise was that some angel had gallantly organized a small concert in our honor! And not just one concert, but a bevy of small ensembles, scattered throughout the gardens and perfectly matched to the vegetation around them! Trumpets in the tropics! Clarinets among the cactuses! Bongos in the ferns!

As the sky turned from frostbite white to a bruisy blue to a sinister velvety violet black, we were safely encapsulated in a glass and steel lozenge, tipsily scampering from giant banana leaf to sultry palm glade as the musicians tactfully tuned.

Haters might say something like: dude, that is a thing called Palmensinfonie that occurs regularly and in fact there is another one this weekend. To which I say, have you ever found yourself inside fucking Jurassic Park while a lone flautist serenaded you from within a thicket of vines and prehistoric ferns, as tiny chickens scampered underfoot? Take your cynicism elsewhere, Captain Reality-check.

We have made our dashing foray into the West, and emerged victorious.

Night has fallen. Feeling frisky from all that oxygen, we stretch out our antennae inquisitively…

…and sniff out an event in Neukölln called La Fête Fatale. I know you already love it! Yes it is in fact a burlesque show, the highlights of which were twofold. 1. a lady dressed only in golden glitter. 2. The Tin Man.

It was not a single sequin short of an enchanted costume party — with some spooky vintage Hollywood theme, in a crumbling prewar ballroom. It was glorious.

And yet the night sweeps us onwards, ever deeper into the disco cave.

What began so epically could only end at Villa, where the bartender is 17, the DJ is 35, and the median number of people in the bathroom stall at any given time is something like 4.

While you’re waiting for them to pile out comically, you’ll notice the bathroom walls are covered in wisdom and art.

Right, Villa, if you say so. I’m still mesmerized by that taxidermied hawk.

TO BE CONTINUED…