Filed under: clothes clothes clothes, DIY, made in berlin, music, style, vintage | Tags: bags, Boxhagener Platz, fabrics, Flea Markets, friedrichshain, jewels, Mauerpark, pooristhenewrich, prenzlauer berg, shopping, threads, thriftstores, vintage
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
?
Filed under: concerts, music | Tags: music, noise rock, parts and labor, prater, prenzlauer berg
for a medium-sized list of reasons, last night was a little bit like a concert in a dream. first a strange combination of circumstances led me to wait outside until an hour and a half after slated start time, something i often have unsettling nightmares about; being inexcusably late for something i’m excited about, something important, something unrepeatable. i made the most of it, though, waited outside, took my time, took stock of the scene, took in a beer or two, took notes, took pictures.
the show: Brooklyn’s Parts & Labor (u may listen to their new album, Receivers, if you wish) with LA-based duo Lucky Dragons (mp3s aplenty to be had at their webhome), at volksbühne im prater, kastanienallee 7-9. of the latter i experienced only what wafted out to me on my outdoor picnic table perch: an ambient tingle, a scintillating sonic glitter.
finally finally i was in, venue was epic and unremarkable both. it felt good inside, a soundwomb though cavernous. dreamlike, again.
something like church pews had been rowed up across the warehouse-like space, a few steps spanned the width of the room before the low stage. almost the entire audience (a small group, really) had clotted together right up against the band, listening with intent, curious respect standing on the stairs like kids eavesdropping on their parents.
we had just settled in when frontman dan friel said, this is going to be our last song. ! had not, needless to say, xpected them to finish this early. but all the more reason to really sponge it up. i walked all around the stage area, because i could, taking pictures.
the band seems to favor a contained intensity, both frantic and solemn. on this number, at least, they spent a lot of time on their knees, bent over dials near the ground in concentration or supplication, making new sounds.
parts &labor is bj warshaw (bass/voice), joe wong (drums), dan friel (keyboards/guitar/voice) &sarah lipstate (guitar/noise)
and their sound is new. they make a drummy, celebratory noise rock full of rushing and twangs and shouted vocals.
it filled me up with buzzing energy, wrapped me in a silky noise cocoon and made me think about the reasons i love music. it was a simultaneous feeling of frantic joy explosion and suspension in a soft reverent peace. like the rest of the audience my posture was sort of a back-leaning head tilt, like looking at a large painting, but almost without noticing it i started to jitter my feet. i felt held by pulsing warm soundjello. leaving was like climbing out of a hot tub into the cold. waking up.
and all i saw/heard was one song.
[[p&l has been around since 2002, they've made 5 albums and 2 EPs and this was the last stop on their tour, which started on may7 in london and incl stops mostly in germany and austria, also a festival in spain. they've toured with the likes of tv on the radio, deerhoof,&c.]]
