back from Berlin December 10, 2006
Posted by michael in Art, Germany, Live Music, Random Observations, Travel.add a comment
Have i mentioned lately how much i love Berlin.
i’m not sure exactly what it is about the place but this trip (i’m just back from a week there), short as it was, has confirmed Berlin as my favourite city in the world (that i’ve set foot in so far).
So, a brief roundup of selected highlights of my trip in no particular order:
- looking at more contemporary art than you can poke a stick at. (and i’ll pre-empt any inevitable joke in the comments with ‘some of it may have indeed been made by poking sticks at things’, right, now that’s out of the way moving right along). seriously, so much interesting art my eyeballs were getting fatigued.
- going up into the dome at the top of the Reichstag building.
- looking around the Memorial To The Murdered Jews of Europe. the memorial itself is interesting to walk around and look at but abstract enough that you can forget what it represents if not careful. i guess it’s tricky finding a balance between presenting a memorial and going too over the top and ramming it down people’s throats. The underground interpretation centre is more formal, well presented and effective.
- buying a bucketload of CDs including (but not limited to) a couple of Iggy Pop bootlegs, Mingus, a 2CD Berlin punk anthology ’77-’89 and a 2nd hand find that may possibly feature the words Cyndi and Lauper and Christmas on the cover.
- watching live jazz at A TRANE. a very small but very cool jazz joint. there were maybe 40 people in the whole place including the band and the staff and it was almost full. i reckon just walking through the door automatically raised my coolness quota by several points. as an added bonus it was only a 10 minute walk from my hotel (30 – 40 minutes if you are a bit tipsy and take a wrong turn on the way back to the hotel a few hours later). the band were pretty good too and the bass players name was Pepe.
- ROCK! Jugend und Musik in Deutschland. an exhibition of music and youth in Germany with everything from a lock of Elvis‘ hair to the current clubbing/techno scene and tons in between – the mixing desk and ephemera from CAN‘s studio, metal ‘drum kit’ used by Einsturzende Neubeauten (i always spell that wrong but can’t be bothered checking it right now), a dress worn by Nina Hagen, guitars signed by Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Ray Davies, Chrissie Hyndes etc etc etc and heaps more. the info was all in German of course but with all the videos, posters, photos, music equipment and assorted other gear it didn’t matter and i had a great time checking it all out along with a few barely suppressed oooohs and ‘f*ck me that’s the[insert whatever piece of rock memorabilia i happen to be gawking at at the time]…‘slipping out occasionaly.
- generaly gawping at architecture in a way that suggests i have half a clue. i don’t. i just like looking at cool/interesting buildings and stuff.
- Matthew Barney and Joseph Beuys at the Deutsche Guggenheim. a small space and some strange installation pieces featuring lots of molded plastic, marble, and huge volumes of petroleum jelly. Barney is the guy who did the Cremaster Cycle or you may know him better as ‘the guy who is currently boinking Bjork’.
- 3 exhibitions at the Museum fur Fotografie.
Private Property – a collection of Helmut Newton miscellanea; photos, letters, cameras, car, mock up of his study etc etc.
Window – Reiner Leist. – hundreds of photos of the same scene taken over years out of his New York apartment window, more interesting than it sounds.
Men, War & Peace – Helmut Newton, James Nachtwey and David LaChapelle. The Newton component was a collection of his portraits of famous men and was of the calibre you’d expect. LaChapelle’s work is amusing in his own special hyper-reality way. Easily the standout though was the amazing, albeit disturbing and graphic, photos by Nachtwey, especially his Balkan war series.
- Hamburger Bahnhof. a HUGE old train station that has been converted into a museum for contemporary art. If names like Robert Raushenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Joseph Beuys, Damien Hirst etc ring any bells you get the idea of the kind of work that is on display here. In addition to works by the aforementioned and many others this museum also had a few special exhibitions (they have different special exhibitions every few months in addition to the permanent display). Two of the special exhibitions were a collection of work by Felix Gonzalez-Torres and a large exhibition under the banner of ‘The Art of Projection’ exploring film, video and installations involving projection of varying types and media from the Christian Flick Collection. i spent a good chunk of a day wandering around the giant halls and highly recommend this place to anyone passing through Berlin that has an interest in modern art.
as an aside i did raise a chuckle earlier in the day passing the antiquities museum on museum insel which had a large neon sign out the front that states ‘All Art Has Been Contemporary’.
- Sowjetisches Ehrenmal(Soviet Memorial, 1949). for sheer over the top-ness. the memorial has two large marble walls with statues of kneeling soldiers in front which open on to a big plaza. the plaza is lined with great big blocks covered in relief designs depicting war scenes and gilt quotations by the likes of Stalin. all of this leading to a big mound, topped by a big plinth, topped by a 13m high statue of a soldier with a child in one hand and a dirty great big sword in the other, standing on top of a broken swastika. subtle.
- Berlin Story. a multimedia (and i don’t just mean a few dodgy videos) exhibition over several levels detailing the history of the city of Berlin from the 13th Century to the present. Extremely well presented and informative. and the entrance price also included a brief tour of a functional atomic fallout shelter. cool. (i will blog about the fallout shelter separatley).
Food Highlights
- one word. currywurst.
- that dark stuff i was drinking at A TRANE. i hesitate to simply call it beer. i started calling it “i’ll have another one of those please.”
Not-Quite-So-High-lights:
- Berlin Zoo. was good but not great. i think i had set my expectations too high before going. they claim to have more different species of animals than any other zoo in the world. i did see some interesting stuff there. amongst other things the several varieties of Madagaskan mongoose were kind of cool. overall the zoo was ok but most of the enclosures looked a bit dated (they are currently renovating some).
- getting soaked to the skin while perambulating up Ku’damm on my first night in town.
- having a muscle spasm and as a result destroying half a tray of glassware at the hotel breakfast buffet with my spastic flailing arm.
- discovering that the hotel was indeed named after the song by the Eagles (shoulda seen that one coming – it was way too obvious) but it was a fine place to stay, especially seeing the cheap deal i got.
- thinking i was about to be mugged by the two very dodgy looking characters on the U-Bahn. one had a shaved head, the other had a mohawk, both had multiple piercings, heavy boots, grotty looking clothes, none of which i took any notice of or gave a second thought until i noticed they were furtively looking about the carriage before making subtle signals to each other and moving to either end of the carriage and blocking off the exits. at this point i started to wonder what was about to happen… turns out they were undercover ticket inspectors.
Berlin. i love it. i saw a bunch of other stuff too but that will suffice as a wrapup for now.
oh, before i sign off a quick aside on workplace health and safety standards in Germany – ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
example – sitting in a cafe in Berlin (drinking mighty fine coffee i might add) i was watching through the window two guys dismantling some scaffolding out the front of the building next door. one guy was standing on the scaffolding, two stories up, pulling it apart and half dropping/half throwing the parts (planks of wood, steel tubing, brackets etc etc) over the footpath onto the back of a flatbed truck. the other guy, who was standing on the truck, would then step over stack that piece then step back out of the way before the next piece was chucked down. this sort of thing is not an isolated incident, during our time here in Europe i have seen quite a number of dodgy work practices of varying types and degrees of scariness. for one thing i certainly will no longer walk under ladders without looking up anymore.
Conclusion: yes. I. am. a. nerd. (but a nerd who has been to Berlin. twice.)
fondue and other stuff November 15, 2006
Posted by michael in Food, Germany, Live Music, Random Observations, Travel.add a comment
well this entry is something of a grab bag report on a few recent activities ’round these parts… here’s my take on stuff (i occasionally waffle on so apologies for the length of this post – i am trying to catch up while i still remember stuff) and i think J will also have a few words to say about some of this as well.
Heidelberg revisited x 2
we’ve been back to Heidelberg twice in recent weeks and both times the trip home which should have taken 45 mins or so blew out to 2+ hours each time (late night trams with unusual routes or missed connections etc). the first visit was one sunday arvo when we went across the river from the schloss/old town and hiked up the side of the hill along a path called the Philosophenweg (Philosopher’s Way) – apparently the views from here were inspirational for Hegel, personally i found them nice but lacking any prompting of profound philosophical inspiration (between wheezing and trying to catch my breath). The initial path up to the philosophenweg is called the schlangeweg(snake way) and is a steep narrow walled in windy path which should be named neck-breaker way, lots of cobblestones and very steep steps, especially dangerous at night – and that’s just the physical danger – on the way back down in the fast receding light later in the day J was grabbed by a dirty old perv as he walked past.
Beyond the main walkway we headed further up the hill looking for an ampitheatre i’d read about and discovered the area (around the top of the hill) was the site of a celtic tribal fortified/walled settlement, then later a Roman temple and still later a monastery (named Michael Kloster no less!) We also found the ampitheatre or ‘Thingstatte‘ built by the Nazis in 1934/35 which was impressive looking for an outdoor ampitheatre on the side/top of a hill. After nearly killing J (asthma) climbing up the side of the hill to the ampitheatre and kloster ruins we headed back across the river to the old town and had a great dinner in a pub which brews it’s own beers including one which holds the Guinness Book World Record for strongest alcohol content at 33% – i didn’t actually try this one opting instead for a seasonal dark winter beer which still had a pretty strong kick – dinner for me (i know i keep banging on about food but seriously it has been too good to not mention) was wild goulash with cranberry followed by an insanely good apple in vanilla sauce concoction. The second visit was to a different pub with a bunch from the uni for dinner which was also good, again more on site brewed seasonal beers (i again opting for the dark winter house beers – yummy), along with ‘grandmother’s’ roast pork with a side serve of red cabbage (and by side serve i mean a whole plate which i demolished in quick fashion and groaned about several hours later).
Jazz
we also went along to another gig as part of the Enjoy Jazzfestival (slightly kicking myself for not getting to more shows but limited time, funds and organisational ability/laziness all played a part). This show was also at the Old Firestation in Mannheim which is actually a really cool venue. we saw Nouvelle Vaguewho after the first few songs warmed up and were better than i expected them to be. their schtick is breathy French accented vocals, poppy, jazzy covers of new wave standards such as ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ etc (The support duo were appaling however).
Cinema
On saturday the new English language movie started in Mannheim (they seem to show about one a month) so we went and saw ‘Children of Men’which was surprisingly good if a little slow to start and a bit heavy handed on ‘making a point’, nice gritty look about it with some quite graphic violence all done with an artsy bent. Set in near future London after the whole world’s population has become sterile i won’t say anymore in case you want to go see it. Also it has Julianne Moore who is usually good (this being no exception) and Clive Owen (J was disappointed at not getting to see him nekkid) with Michael Caine (using the same voice he uses for every character he has ever played). still quite a good flick mostly – i’d give it 3.5 out of 5.
xmas
the xmas decorations and advent calendars are out in full force in all the shops so to prove i am not a total bah-humbug scrooge i bought J an advent calendar and agreed to the purchase of a xmas decoration for our room. (just quietly the advent calendar was purchased with a small ulterier motive – it is full of lindt chocolates and i have gallantly offered my assistance in eating them – purely to save J from lactose belly if she eats too many herself…) and also it looks kind of cool, a giant Babushka (click pic below to see bigger version). given the cosiness of our room a xmas tree is completely out of the question but we have settled on a decoration of a local made handcrafted blown glass christmas gherkin, now we just need to find somewhere to hang it…
Switzerland
and to bring us up to date we have just returned from 3 days in Geneva. Geneva itself is pretty but kind of bland and lacking in personality i felt. very much a transitory sort of town with a high turnover of population. and it’s expensive(for example a 500ml bottle of coke in a local convenience store was 3.80 Swiss Francs which equates to roughly about 4 Australian dollars, a McDonalds Big Mac meal (small) was about 14 or 15 Swiss Francs – not that i ate Macca’s but gives you an idea).
this trip was organised by the Mannheim Uni MCL course and i’m sure J will talk more about the UN visit she went on and the quiz night at the pub (i had a migraine so spent monday night curled up in the hostel – and i think the resulting next morning dopiness was partially to blame for the honest mistake of standing around for 5 minutes in the girls shower room – i didn’t see the sign and for some reason thought there was only one unisex shower block).
In Geneva on the monday we went to the Red Cross and Red Cresent Museum which was very good but i failed to fully appreciate as the aforementioned migraine was already starting to kick in at that point.
On the tuesday while J and the other uni types were off at the UN observing Human Rights committee meetings i spent the day ambling aimlessly about the city. As i said, a nice but not hugely exciting city. Lake Geneva is visually pretty appealing to look at.
i did however get told off by some old nana in rapid fire French, until she realised i didn’t understand a word she was saying and switched to rapid fire English. i was taking a photo of some graffiti and she came running over (well hobbling but quickly); “these are terrible things written here, the young people they write them at night, it is awful, you should not take pictures of such things, you go now, take pictures of beautifull things in Geneva” followed by some walking – stick pointing/waving in the direction of the old part of town and a look that showed she was serious.
Tuesday night we went and had a traditional fondue dinner (well i had fondue, J opted out completely for health reasons) with the whole group and a guest judge or some high-falutin official from the UN, i’m sure J will fill you in on the details of why he was important. The cafe was small and cramped and when we first walked in the smell hit you like a wall, closest i can describe was like hot, sweaty old socks, but once i started dipping my bread chunks into that molten cheese, woo-hoo it was good (or at least what i could still taste after the first mouthful burnt off the top layer of my tongue).
On Wednesday morning before getting back on the train i went on the guided tour of the UN European HQ in the Palais d’Nations which was really good, very interesting and informative and definitley worthwhile. it was an hour tour but was full of info and saw quite a bit. a lot of serious world-affecting stuff goes on in that place and was cool to have a look around.
oh and yes we did buy some swiss chocolate, unfortuantley the use by date is some time in the next week or so i am sure, guess we’ll just have to eat it ourselves…
that’s it from me for now. on Saturday we head off for our anniversary trip (a year already, where the hell has that time gone???) and will be gone for 8 days so no updates probably till we get back with stories to tell of Baltic adventures… (Unless J wants to expand on her Geneva excursion and the like before then).
NY Jazz in Mannheim – Roy Nathanson October 31, 2006
Posted by jlsd in Live Music.add a comment
Sotto Voce – WOW – that about says it all. Imagine 5 blokes on stage – none of whom look like they could possibly be in the same band – NY balding skinny jewish guy approx 55, tall black 65ish guy with super trombone, 25ish year old human beat box, 30ish greenhaired double bass player and a violin play or similar age but looking like he’s been stolen from the local symphony orchestra and popped in a pair of jeans and his mum’s favourite shirt for the evening – and then you hear them play and realise that it’s a minor miracle that they have found each other, accorss generation, cultures and genres.
Unbelievably rhythmical beat, hypnotic, poetry style lyrics over and with and woven through the music, all of them playing at once or just a trobone, bass and voice – doesn’t matter soooo good. Very hard to explain other than we had a fabulous time. It was my first night out at the ‘Enjoy Jazz’ International Festival of Jazz at Mannhiem, Ludwigshafen and Heidelberg. We’re off to another show at the end of the week – I can’t wait although I suspect nothing will come up as good as these guys. And the good news is we bought their CD – bad news – no CD player.
M might have more musical things to say – a photo of the band and us at the night click to see bigger images. And have a look at the handsome blue eyed, bearded beatnik…
friday night skronk in Mannheim October 19, 2006
Posted by michael in Live Music.1 comment so far
for anyone who is interested (hello Kami) i am off to see John Zorn’s Painkiller tomorrow night!
described as “The most annoying free-jazz heavy metal you can imagine.“(http://www.omnology.com/zorn01.html)
J, not surprisingly, has decided to pass on this particular outing…
and in other news we’re off to Belgium for the weekend, back tuesday (quite possibly feeling the after effects of overindulging in Belgian chocolate and trappist monk beer).
