glow.like.berlin

Here I am, sheepishly awkward, feeling sort of like I should, like, recant some things I’ve said not so long ago. To wit, that is, the thrift stores I said some more or less nice things about. This is not say that they aren’t excellent stores in their own right, nor do I necessarily mean to eat my words, so to speak.

I REPEAT I am not hating on vintage stores. I <3 vintage stores.

too much, probably, it has been argued

BUT. but. I’m onto them. i used to assume that vintage store owners had some mysterious monopoly on cool cheap shit, some esoteric relic pipeline or maybe a timemachine but this is not true, not in Berlin. we all have access to the raw materials. all. all those with free time on Sundays.

FLEA MARKETS friends, where these shops clearly get their goods from, then turn around to sell at KUH-RAAZYYY inflated prices. Now I know the secret. There is no going back. Irreversible and existentially hazardous as your own long ago personal unmasking of the santa claus/stork mythology. Truth.

Exhibit A: Mauerpark

I’ve heard some prissy bitches say things like, Mauerpark is crowded expensive etc. blah.

I don’t know what they mean by this, except that probably they hate pretty things and people.

Mauerpark is a huge park in Prenzlauer Berg. Every Sunday the flea market claims like half of it.

Mauerpark flea market is a big-kid party, highlights include -outdoor karaoke madness:

*yes these ppl are ALL watching one tragically brave individual under the technicolor beach umbrella interpret Britney into a microphone, whipping around periodically, boozily to read words off the prompter located, meanly, inexplicably, behind his back. karaoke 2.0*

-lawn-lazing:

-and a wide selection of nourishing refreshments:

then this cool lady will make you a tortilla or something:

maybe you will find your way back to weird mementos of a lost childhood:

maybe you’ll weirdly laugh at someone else’s lost mementos:

but in the end you will have a prize: buttons, baubles, batteries, timekeepers and stuffholders ruthlessly bargained for and proudly won. i got all this stuff for less than 30euros. you may not understand, but they are treasures

Mauerpark is magic. just you try naming something you’d rather do with your hangover on a Sunday afternoon.

Exhibit B: Boxhagener Platz

So what is homeboy in the photo at the very top of this post so surprised about?

perhaps it’s because my eagle eyes picked up a dark relic i wasnt sposed to find?

*but why was it for sale? i like to give ppl the benefit of the doubt, specially ones with cool glasses, so let’s say for now that he didn’t know*

even tho, volume-wise, it’s just not fair to compare it to mauerpark, boxhagener platz is one stellar flea-vendor.

scary dubious old photos aside, trawling this little magic one-block radius on a goalless Sunday is like panning for gold. among utter junk, there are festive festoons and softly scintillating baubles>>

and then there were things of true beauty>>

this jewelry was so cool, and definitely original, but the guy at the booth had zero information to give: I don’t know who made them/how they were made/if there is more. alls i know is I want the chandeliers.>>

yea.

there’s a weird mix of vendors who are clearly antique/vintage dealers and know what their stuff is worth(/suffer delusional fantasies about what their stuff is worth), and random ppl who just throw cool shit at you for pennies

so the other rad thing i noticed bout this plc is the plethora of receptacles on offer. i love to put things away, so boxes and purses and cabinets are what i need to feel happy and zen.>>

speaking of receptacles, the end of the adventure is that i found a shadowbox and left in ecstasy.

plz note also my other wonders, acquired for nearly nothing. not pictured is a shirt that was free and a plaid wool skirt for 30cents.

THE end

?