raskal trippin

from the folks at Spiegel Online

2006-03-24T10:43:00.000+01:00

A quick note to our friends out there in the blogosphere. As you've probably noticed, we began a partnership last fall with Technorati to provide citations and links to blogs that write about our stories. The feature has proven incredibly popular with our readers and we're hoping to expand our cooperation with them in the near future.

In the meantime, however, we have another new opportunity for expat and German bloggers here. On Friday evening, we launched a new project at Spiegel Online: The Germany Survival Bible (http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,k-6896,00.html). The plan is to create an irreverent online guide to German culture -- the good, the bad and the ugly. It'll cover the shit shelf, the appallingly small selection of products at grocery stores, weird cultural traditions like greeting people in elevators or the absolute taboo of crossing the street on red. But our aim here isn't just to have fun at the expense of Germans and our adopted home country. We also want to include the cool quirks -- like the fact that things actually work here. Public transportation is reliable, obsessions with the environment, clean energies and the environment.

We'll be posting contributions from our readers regularly, but we would also like to open this up to bloggers. If you have any existing blog entries that would be interesting to SPIEGEL Online, please submit them to us. If we republish the blog, we will also include your blog's name and a link back to your site. You've got the content and we've got the traffic and the platform.

If you're interested in participating, please send your links and editorial contributions to spon_feedback@spiegel.de. Also, I don't have email addresses for everyone in Germany and would be grateful if you could pass this on to other bloggers in Germany or post it to your site.

Thanks and happy blogging!

(hopefully this will show up on berlinblogs.com)

ursula rucker in berlin

2006-03-02T23:10:00.000+01:00

east coast represent

ursula rucker starts her ma'at mama euro tour today. all you londoners go check her out at the jazz cafe tonight. berliners, we get lucky on this tour. quasimodo, again, next monday, 6 march. be there or be somewhere else but you will have missed out.

in the meantime, i'm contemplating migrating to wordpress or some other less flaky host, getting ready for the big three oh celebration coming up tomorrow, and wondering how all of these empty boxes are going to get packed. so blogging may drop off for awhile and start back up from another side of kreuzberg. anyone going to the rucker show, hit me up beforehand or wave or something.

and a safe repatriation for berlin blogger and his fam. going through customs should be fun. one day that will be me...

[edit: blog will be moving here.]

spring cleaning

2006-02-28T01:08:00.000+01:00

spring cleaning

and moving.
the new blog is at http://raskal.typepad.com
still working on it

thanks in advance for updating your links

WM2006

2006-02-27T10:21:00.000+01:00

new URL: http://raskal.typepad.com we are moving...

ich bin dabei!

i signed my contract for the Berlin WM volunteer team this weekend. i have a training program in place to get my smiling muscles in shape and tone down that pesky sarcastic reflex. last year was a rebuilding year. i think i'll be ready to go by May if klinsi ever comes back from cali and the bird flu stays away.

WM Volunteer links:

what WM volunteers will be doing

another WM volunteer blog from Dortmund(DE)

where you can still volunteer during the WM: Street Football World Championship in Kreuzberg

blogstats

2006-02-27T10:12:00.000+01:00

blog stats

since the der spiegel episode, i haven't checked the stats too often and realized i've been missing out on stat comedy.

my favorite 3 recent searches:

"is robert de niro hung like a horse"
"can i eat pancakes after having teeth out"
"turkish kids fighting kreuzberg"

people are strange.

Berlinale wrap-up

2006-02-20T12:31:00.000+01:00

Berlinale wrap-up

It didn’t end up as well as it started off. Apparently, I mixed up a title or a description or something and ended up in a movie with two scenes repeated over and over and over again. In one scene people were clothed and in the other scene they were naked. In neither scene was dialogue a priority. More ass and penis than I ever expected to see in one setting. Half of the audience was gone by the time the credits were rolling. Later that night, the director of this unfortunate movie was spotted at a bar in Kreuzberg. I was at home and missed out.

Even though I missed out on that star sighting, I did run into Berlin Blogger at the last film of my Berlinale 2006 expedition, which was a pretty funny surprise. Block Party was all and more than I expected. Dave Chappelle had me rolling. I loved it. It was better than Cats. I was depressed for about a month after it happened for real, thinking why am I living in Europe? what have I done? So now I can go on with my life. I really need to see Jill Scott in concert though and yall need to go see this movie. March 3rd at a stateside theater near you.

Until next year…

tips for berlinale

2006-02-15T07:52:00.000+01:00

tips for berlinale

1. don't laugh at the people who had to stand in line to buy/pick up tickets. even if you have the hook-up, you may eventually have to stand in line too.

2. realizing you have to wait and then trying to cut in front of half of the people already in line is a no-no. it is likely that there will be a taz reader present who will insist on explaining the process of line formation and its benefits to modern civilization loud enough for everyone to hear. (i was not a part of this interaction)

3. if you don't really understand the language of the film you want to see and there are no subtitles, stay at home. do not bring your friend to perform simultaneous translations in a loud whisper. if you can't wait for the DVD, learn sign language.

4. don't kill yourself trying to think up questions to ask the director. it's true he/she probably travelled a long ass way but berlin is not such a shabby place to be. i'm sure the director could be using his/her time more fruitfully than answering gems like, hey so are you from south africa? ok thanks... or watching someone totally ignore an answer to come up with their enlightening (as in 18th c.) hypothesis: maybe it's the african culture?

5. if you don't have paparazzi following you around, you can always get a stalker. mine showed up on the bus yesterday with an open bottle of beer, woozily stating that he'd seen me exactly 2 1/2 hours earlier on the bus. does that mean anything? he asked. yea it means you need help and probably should not be trying to create your own version of the berlinerfahrbar in the middle of the afternoon.

all that being said, conversations on a sunday afternoon was great. even with the disconnect of almost wanting to cry while 99% of the audience was laughing.

Valentine’s day in berlin

2006-02-13T10:33:00.000+01:00

Valentine’s day in berlin

Passion lives here! Oh wait, that's Torino. Do people do that here? I’m not the best person to be reporting on cultural differences on this particular holiday. I don’t remember a single Valentine’s Day celebration growing up. February was Black History Month. If anything, on Feb. 14th, we had a birthday cake for Frederick Douglass. My parents did not play.

In Berlin, flowers are shockingly cheaper than other cities I’ve been to. In Paris, there is clearly some sort of flower mafia at work behind the scenes. We never did Valentine’s Day there either. I’m not really a fan of flowers and we have too many other things to celebrate: first date, civil ceremony, church ceremony, the US side reception, that day we had a fight in the esoteric section of Barnes & Nobles… things like that. But if you wanted to indulge in such sappiness here, it wouldn’t totally kill your wallet.

More love: JDilla/Jay Dee tributes were taking place online this weekend. If you listen to hip-hop, you know JDilla probably without knowing it was him. This man straight overworked himself to death. At 32. For Valentine’s Day, love yourself. Go schedule your check-ups, annual pap smear, blood work including STDs, mammogram if you are old enough… I’ll be trying to get done with the dentist finally.

No love: moving… definitely not in time for V-Day. This is turning out to be the longest move ever. We’ve had the keys since December and the only things that have made it to the new place are most of my books and a mirror. I’ve moved to other continents faster than this. First some rest, 2nd movies, 3rd back to the dentist, some more IKEA/Bauhaus excursions and then and only then we are packing it up and moving out of Graefekiez. By mid-March *fingers crossed*

goodbyes/back for berlinale

2006-02-07T10:02:00.000+01:00

goodbyes/back for berlinale

eventually i'm going to have to say goodbye to the neighborhood but right now it's being drawn out as long as possible. this weekend was another all-star kiez weekend, interrupted by one trip to steiglitz.

old neighborhood

tire-bouchon and lebmel on dieffenbachstr.
la maison blanche on körtestr.
mini-bar, the room 77, die kleine kneipe on graefestr.
~~kado~~, the licorice store finally... which i can't say i'll ever patronize due to the sambos adorning the finnish licorice.
emerald isle on erkelenzdamm for the france/scotland rugby game. the only screen i could see was playing chelsea/liverpool which was quite entertaining so i didn't feel like i was missing out. replacement goalie. comedy.

new neighborhood

enoteca bacco
and knofi where "wir hassen fleisch." not the place to be looking for italian sausage.

now that our weekend visitor, the dubliner famed for missing planes, is gone, i can get on planning a starless, redcarpet less but very international Berlinale and drinking the liter of bailey's we received as a present.

movies i'm going to see:

Dear Pyongyang, Japan
Casa de areia, Brazil
Shisso, Japan
Conversations on a Sunday Afternoon, South Africa
El cielo dividido, Mexico
and my personal highlight
Dave Chappelle's Block Party, USA

a ripple in the internet

2006-01-27T09:48:00.000+01:00

a ripple in the internet

what started out as one of those e-mails which should have stayed in the draft folder is reaching epic proportions.

Latest developments:
mike’s article in Spiegel Online (which includes a link to the top ten list that doesn't seem to want to die)
Du bist Deutschland and klowände are now the top searches on technorati
which lead to an explanation for non-German speakers on the technorati blog.

it's like wildfire over here... i'm convinced it's all due to the fact that wikipedia.de is down (due to a lawsuit involving a deceased hacker's parents) and folks just don't know what to do with all that time they used to dedicate to creating their own skewed version of history.

i know i need to rededicate my time... this post is all about procrastination. happy friday!

February in Berlin

2006-01-25T14:12:00.000+01:00

February in Berlin
Black history and berlinale

The Berlinale posters are already up at Potsdamer Platz. Here’s a poster for Black History Month events in Berlin next month.

On Tuesday night, I got a call right around 8pm, Check out the thema-abend on Arte. So I did. The films shown were: Black Deutschland and Frankreich, Schwarzes Vaterland.

Irony from the French version of the Arte website:

Les Noirs d'Allemagne, qu'ils soient ou non naturalisés, ont l'impression d'appartenir à une toute petite minorité, que sa couleur de peau désigne comme "étrangère". // German Blacks/Blacks in Germany, whether naturalized or not, …

Funny. I don’t remember the first film mentioning naturalization at all. Maybe I missed something. Compared to France, Germany's laws on naturalization/dual citizenship are quite strict. Children born in Germany to foreign parents receive citizenship only if one parent has been living in Germany for at least 8 years with a valid resident permit to account for that time. And that's only a pretty recently change (2000). Dual citizenship for naturalized adults is only allowed in special cases. So who are the naturalized people?

I thought it was supposed to be self-evident that the Germans in the film were not naturalized. Wasn’t that central to the whole point? None of the non-German Black people said nary a word about being interested in German citizenship. If the French side of ARTE’s head couldn’t figure that one out, then the audience probably wasn’t doing much better. Some context (historic/legal/biographic) and clarity would have helped out. The jus solis/sanguinis difference between the two countries seems pretty important to me.

The film on France brought me back to the days when I thought Christiane Taubira was the only Black person on French TV not singing. Mohamed Dia is still making me shake my head, a day later.

I was waiting to see what Louis Georges Tin from the CRAN (Conseil Répresentatif des Associations Noires) had to say in the fake debate at the end. If that random dude from EHESS wasn’t there, the conversation could have gotten interesting.

stalking.cold.humor.truth

2006-01-24T08:09:00.000+01:00

stalking.cold.humor.truth

but not in that order.

.cold
on the positive side, i'm not in russia.

.stalking (WM related)
as most politics & law obsessed folks know, the anti-stalking bill which previously flopped is back again as a pet project bringing CDU and SPD together as one big happy family. no one likes stalkers.
until the law is passed, consider yourself a groupie. here's a list of where the football teams are staying in Germany for the World Cup.

.truth
How to write about Africa by Binyavanga Wainaina at Granta.com

someone should translate this whole piece into german, french, scratch that... every european langauge, esperanto and braille.

excerpt: In your text, treat Africa as if it were one country. It is hot and dusty with rolling grasslands and huge herds of animals and tall, thin people who are starving. Or it is hot and steamy with very short people who eat primates. Don't get bogged down with precise descriptions. Africa is big: fifty-four countries, 900 million people who are too busy starving and dying and warring and emigrating to read your book. The continent is full of deserts, jungles, highlands, savannahs and many other things, but your reader doesn't care about all that, so keep your descriptions romantic and evocative and unparticular.

.humor
Paul Beatty in the NYT. he's always quite, well mostly, amusing.

blogosphere

2006-01-20T14:02:00.000+01:00

in the blogosphere

what's been happening?

the e-mail (supposedly) from the mind behind the Du Bist Deutschland campaign is making the rounds on german blogs. in it, the author calls blogs the bathroom walls of the internet, die Klowände des Internets. what's funnier the ad or the e-mail? toss up.

the other big copy/paste of the moment are the ridiculous 30 questions required for baden-württemburg's muslim residents who are applying for German citizenship. the question list in its entirety in german. a black woman Somalian shows up for question number 28. how did black folk get in the mix? is it because she is Black or African or Somalian or assumed muslim? i have no idea. i'll assume if the applicant is offended and insulted that a black person got the job, they automatically qualify. it's all about outsourcing institutionalized racism in the new millennium.

palast der republik

2006-01-20T12:48:00.000+01:00

palast der republik

the votes are in.
the palast der republik is finally coming down
for another castle!

if you love demolitions, like i do, but fear lingering asbestos
you can watch it being destroyed from the german history museum webcam.

WM country flag

2006-01-20T11:26:00.000+01:00

WM preparations

the premise of taking a video camera and a microphone and interviewing random people about random things is a good one. when is this not funny?

i was watching some tv last night and came across olli pocher of media markt fame interviewing folks about the upcoming world cup.

he had big poster board images of flags. apparently he'd asked people to identify the respective countries.

one woman looked skeptically at this image, snuck in between the rest of the flags:

her response: is that Greece?

eh no it's not.

more TV

2006-01-16T10:57:00.000+01:00

The Collegium (Part II)

Harry Louiserre, from Classic in Black, and I have been working together on a French language presentation for Black History Month for high school audiences here and abroad.

Our readings on the Collegium, Voices in French and English, will be rebroadcast on Offener Kanal next Sunday at 9pm.

On the show:
He read from the French translation of James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time.
I read Claude McKay’s poem If We Must Die in both English and French.

In the State of Affairs portion of the program, Donald Griffith talked to Otu Tetteh about his experiences as a filmmaker, his travels to Ghana, and his upcoming projects. Check out his website, Own Productions, for more information about him and sponsoring his work.

Way too much comedy on the back end of trying to do live television. I can’t wait for the blooper reel.

Once we were done, someone from Offener Kanal Radio came down to get volunteers to do sound bytes for some publicity spot. I’ve learned when someone asks Do you speak…. ? to always answer hmm a little until you find out exactly what they want. He only wanted a few seconds of time to record Offener Kanal, Ich mache mit! and Offener Kanal, meinung äußern. I could do that.

wintery german conundrum

2006-01-16T10:52:00.000+01:00

Ski/Schi - A wintery german conundrum

After watching some rather skinny people on ZDF repeatedly jump into the air with slats attached to their feet, it got me wondering. Just why exactly is Ski pronounced Schi? I understand that the word ski in German is also der Schi. Fine. But clearly Ski is Ski not Schi.

Sk is for Ska and Skandal and Skizze and Skiff. Not Scha and Schandal and Schizze and Schiff. Why are Ski and Schi pronounced the same? This is not logical. I protest.

For MLK Jr Day

2006-01-16T10:51:00.000+01:00

For MLK Jr Day

Same as last year.

A Time to Break Silence.

edit: even google is up on it this year.

multimedia friday

2006-01-13T10:38:00.000+01:00

multimedia friday

proof the internet is a truly wonderful thing
this James Brown/MJ/Prince video is classic (but blurry).

back on tv on offener kanal berlin - sunday at 9pm. reading some claude mckay. hopefully with a meshell outro from the cookie cd. i love that joint.

perusing a loaned book: augusto boal - theater of the oppressed.

working on a french language theater improv with a friend.

and really i need to be writing too... but it's almost the weekend. happy friday the 13th.

christmas still in the air

2006-01-11T09:50:00.000+01:00

christmas still in the air

throwing the christmas tree out of the window seems to be the routine procedure around here. somehow things didn't go as planned with this one. this great feat was probably the handiwork of the same let's shoot rockets into the building across the street folks from new year's eve.

brilliant.

if you hear of anyone in berlin dying from injuries sustained from a christmas tree falling out of another tree, that was my neighborhood.

word of the day: verpachtung

2006-01-10T12:31:00.000+01:00

word of the day: verpachtung

my second home is now at the finanzamt. it's a very intimidating building that looks like it could be holding gold reserves or other treasures behind its fortress. unlikely since we are talking about kreuzberg here. once you've found the door, it's not all that bad inside especially if you don't have to talk to anybody. it looks like every other government building i've been to in germany.

i used to be up on things like cultural events in berlin now i'm only aware of very sexy news like the 2005 tax forms came out this week. i guess that could count as a cultural event since there were a whole bunch of people hovering around the forms in a strange, grim ritualistic fashion.

the last time i was in the finanzamt i noticed that you have to pay dog taxes/hundesteuer here. there's an office just for the dog tax with a little dog pasted on the door. each time i see someone walking their little fur covered rat, i think to myself you are really paying taxes on that? maybe there's something i'm missing and you can deduct ziploc bags and dog food or something.

picking up the forms i needed probably would have been a lot simpler if i knew the meaning of words like "verpachtung" but i didn't. i haven't leased anything so luckily i don't need that form. the other option would have just been taking every single form with 2005 on it.

maybe next year, in between LEO and ELSTER, i'll be tapfer enough to do it online. figure out how much you owe and what percentage goes to münte's eyebrow archer here.

(yes, the sky is really that blue)

immigrants

2006-01-03T12:05:00.000+01:00

From the IHT: In Germany, immigrants face a tough road

despite the link, islam8.php, it's actually about the educational system.

in a foreign land

2006-01-03T11:11:00.000+01:00

blogging abroad

armin keeps a crazily growing list at ministry of propaganda (recently updated). it's becoming so long that some people have been abroad and returned home, creating another category.

this is one of my favorite lists, mostly because of the flags. i joined a couple of years ago when i was blogging from paris. link of the day: another black girl in paris blogs.

a linguistic wish for 06

2006-01-03T10:02:00.000+01:00

a linguistic wish for 06

from the last issue of die zeit - 100 wishes from the redaktion/editorial staff:

#14 from jeannine kantara

Ich wünsche mir, dass der deutsche Duden 2006 das Wort "afrodeutsch" aufnimmt. Das wären dann genau 20 Jahre nachdem es ursprünglich geprägt wurde. Und gleichzeitig sollte der Begriff "Neger" als das benannt werden, was er ist: ein Schimpfwort.

I wish that the German Duden 2006 would incorporate the word "afrodeutsch". That would be exactly 20 years after it was originally coined. And simultaneously the term "Neger" should be designated as what it is: an insult.

and wie kommt eigentlich ein Wort in den Duden?

you know how that goes. maybe Blind Date and After-Sales-Service were more important. or maybe afrodeutsch is in the secret database with words a-waiting, like Bling-Bling and Weblog (no joke). you can always contact Duden to let them know about any word you feel should be included and add to the 200 requests Duden receives daily, of which 196 are trying to figure out whether Bling-Bling has a hyphen or not.

new year's in berlin

2006-01-01T12:48:00.000+01:00

new year's in berlin

i've been a few places on new year's eve and nothing beats berlin in terms of individual use of pyrotechnics. i use to associate fireworks with a radio and tv simulcast of corny, melodramatic music. walking over to the fdr drive with droves of humanity. personal (illegal in nyc) firework displays were reserved for members of organized crime and their acquaintances.

the first time i was in berlin for new years, it was just scary. if i had any personal memories of armed conflicts, i'm sure i would have gone into post-traumatic shock or something. people were shooting rockets at each other from one side of the street to the other. even with the constant ducking reflex, i still managed to have the best new year's ever, evidenced by the picture tacked above my desk of us sitting on a swing at some club, bottle of champagne in hand.

last year, new year's was also scary but it was mostly the bizarre people. while trying to devise an exit strategy, about as successfully as W., we realized that we could probably see the fireworks from our own apartment, sans the scary people, but it was too late.

this year, when the fireworks started, it was all good. no stress, just wonder and awe about the amalgamated cost of each sparkle shimmer and boom. all good until i opened the window. bad move. simultaneously my lungs filled with smoke and the phone rang. the callers thought the same thing as i did: where the hell are you? baghdad? someone with serious neuromotor damage was shooting off rockets from graefestr. nothing went straight up into the air. the building across the street kept getting hit, sparks falling into folks' balconies and setting off car alarms, the clueless lone bird trying to escape from the roof.

nothing like a good adrenaline rush to start off the new year. at least nothing flew into our window.

my big goal for 05 was tokyo. it started out as a crazy idea but ended up falling into place. for a change, none of my goals for 06 have anything to do with travelling but hopefully they will eventually fall into place.

basically i'll be here. if you will be coming through berlin in 2006, take a look at what's up and coming.

christmastime in berlin

2005-12-24T11:04:00.000+01:00

christmastime in berlin

(on ku'damm it's sponsored by berliner morgenpost and wall AG, @ raskal trippin christmas is sponsor free... oh that's not a peace sign)

in my neighborhood, you can't really tell there's a major consumer oriented holiday going on. which is just fine with me. the only new decorations around my way are signs revealing which stores are opening in the space that used to house deniz. another Plus! that's what my neighborhood was missing. at least it's not a starbucks.

for christmas, you have to go towards karstadt hermannplatz or the krippenmeile on körtestr. where broken english has a "traditional british" nativity scene.

after lunch somewhere around ku'damm with friends, before we all get sucked in with first christmas day celebrations, we wandered down towards wittenbergplatz. it wasn't as bad as i imagined. definitely not fifth avenue crowds. only one person stepped on my foot and she said excuse me. we even went into kadewe. i'm not sure why. it was actually more crowded, with crazed football fans, during the fall on a hertha game day.

i still wasn't really feeling it. christmastime in paris was always oyster time to me. so we stopped off by the fish store @ dieffenbachstr. 13 and we got a very detailed demonstration on how to open oysters and avoid major injuries. in france, there are over 2000 oyster opening injuries per year and 40 percent of them occur in december and january. opening oysters while drunk is not advisable, unless you are a professional shucker (or a professional drunk).

oysters downed, we could finally start getting the presents and holiday e-cards and real cards and wrapping together. basically the part i detest, that part which seems to offend people if you don't follow through. but really i don't need any gifts. except maybe a kitchen and bathroom for the new apartment. movers would be nice. maybe a nachmieter too.

happy holidays!

neutral space

2005-12-17T10:19:00.000+01:00

neutral space

after reading rashunda's latest post, surprisingly the first thing i thought of was not being stuck in between german businessmen on the early flight to berlin who thought touching my hair would be alright in a claustrophic aisle with the airplane doors still closed.
(no that's not ok and pre-9/11 that would have gotten someone jacked up)

my first thought:

funny how the most banal activities - recently involving banks and notaries - always require an added level of stress, patience and a decision whether or not to bite my tongue. a general lack of neutral space and comfort.

at the bank, i would have gladly traded in the lebkuchen and fizzy water for an ethnically neutral meeting. no mention of "business chinese" or pointing out a glitch in the print-out and blaming it on the "indian programmer."

i wondered what the bank agent talked about with the south asian man who was before me. maybe he got the black jokes? was there a rotation depending on who was sitting in front of him?

recent events have reminded me to be thankful that my basic rights like residency are not affected by whatever i do choose to say about minor and major offenses.

if all things go as planned, i will probably talk about something like that, and other related topics and experiences in Europe on The Collegium, a television show which appears on Offener Kanal Sunday night. as I've never been on tv purposely before, it should be interesting or embarrasing. or maybe both.

until then, it's just one christmas party after another. ok two. but that's enough for one day.

nostalgia weekend trip

2005-12-12T09:15:00.000+01:00

nostalgia weekend trip

this weekend shifted my focus from the future, back to the past. i finally skyped with a friend from college after figuring out the time zone difference and went to a party where i ended up chatting with folks i hadn't seen in 7 years. usually when that much time passes with folks back home at least one person has gotten depressingly obese. but here everyone looked like the relatively trim and fit high paced travellers that they were attempting to become back then. same folks, different european capital.

there was this one man that i remembered as a huge block of a person, a less green and less jolly giant, always standing with his arms crossed and yelling something like a german lou ferrigno. this was obviously just a figment of my imagination. he didn't yell and he was perfectly reasonable and sociable. he wasn't even that big.

during one awkward conversation with a non-giant, i stared dourly at the silence, after the previous speaker confided that she really feels like she fits in here in berlin and how it's wonderful for the children. later i talked to her other half who revealed that this fitting in meant absorption into the berlin french community.

i found it interesting that:

people are able to talk about such things with an air of neutrality.

those discussions will never inspire the tiniest thought about or the widest parallel to leitkultur or separate societies.

certain french accents and incorrect declination denote charm yet another accent with correct grammar can be used to rate intelligence.

finding people of a similar background, who speak the same language, and send their children to schools that also teach this language are in this case a wonderful and positive thing. and it's then called fitting in. really well.

how interesting.

i think i would seek therapy if i ever started feeling that i fit in anywhere in germany, excluding perhaps tegel. departures.

181 days

2005-12-10T15:22:00.000+01:00

181 days

until WM 2006. i am aware of this piece of trivia because i watched the draw last night to confirm what i already knew (that F1 is indeed Brasil - a little birdie told me so) and to find out what i didn't know (that F2 is Croatia).

so for my first prediction for 06: we will be seeing Brasil play Croatia in the World Cup!

and my second prediction: we will be moving in 06. hopefully a bit quicker than 181 days. not out of germany (unfortunately?). just to a new apartment, in another part of kreuzberg. i will miss graefekiez and the kids and the evil receptionists at the dentist's office who hoard packages and the canal and kottbusser damm but i guess i can always visit. *sniff*

crawling-on-language

2005-12-08T09:32:00.000+01:00

crawling up the language ranking

although i'm always learning new words, like weißwurstäquator, i haven't really thought about the state of my german language skills recently.

the other day i had to call the notary to verify that my german is good enough to comprehend the contract that he had prepared.

i pick up the phone and ask to speak to the notary in german.
he tells me in german that we need to talk so he can decide whether or not we need to hire an interpreter. i explain in german that i've read the contract and i'm not sure what will be discussed in the meeting so i don't know what exactly to talk about.
he asks how long i've lived here and seems surprised. i must have studied german before! he assumes. (which is true but studying german with french people was probably more of a hindrance than anything else) i threw in a few dativs for good measure and he finally conceded. my german received a notarized seal of approval.
i passed!

this won me the right to an hour long reading aloud of contractual german. i failed.

around page 10, i zoned out, wondering what the notary would look like if i took his bowtie and wrapped it around his head like a baby's ribbon. a day has passed and i'm still trying to clear 27 syllable words out of my skull.

killing me softly

2005-12-05T11:04:00.000+01:00

berlin is killing me softly

it's about the possibility (c) love jones
that's urban living to me. the possibility. even if you can't afford it or can't make it or have to work or broke your leg, the ridiculously abundant possibilities are what make big cities so shiny and desirable.

living in berlin, i sometimes feel like i've traded possibilities for square meters and high ceilings. and not that i was really dying to pay 50 euros to see the fugees in some football arena, and the possibility of lboogie missing all of her notes, but um why does their tour stop in bratislava and not berlin?
that's just scandalous.
capital my ass.

i would trade a warehouse of advent calendars, all of prenzlauer berg, angie's hairdresser and stylist, krombacher die perle der natur, the antenna from the television tower, all of these things i would willingly trade just for the possibility.

i just want the possibility. is that so much to ask?
====================================================
if you missed the skatalites in november, you still have the possibility of rocking steady in berlin in december.

Di, 20.12.2005, 20:00 Uhr
NEW YORK SKA JAZZ ENSEMBLE @ SO 36

Eigenheimzulage

2005-12-01T17:09:00.000+01:00

get yours before it's gone

after the urlaubsunfähigkeit revelation, i've ceased to be surprised about... well just about anything, including the german government just giving money away as an incentive to do things people were already planning on doing.

while i won't advise anyone to have as many kids as possible before kindergeld dries up, i can report this tidbit. for all those seeking real estate in berlin and elsewhere in germany, the countdown begins.

Eigenheimzulage will no longer exist after 01 Jan 2006. You have 30 days left to purchase a new home to take advantage of that 8 year long home owner's credit.

free money. now das ist deutschland.

or was... at least now there will be more money to pay for things like ransom.

absence/presence

2005-11-28T14:53:00.000+01:00

absence/presence

growing up in new york, jewish culture became an unexpected complement to my own. public schools in new york city have several important jewish holidays off. in elementary school, during the "minor" ones, the black and asian children and the vegetarian of dubious religious background would run amok around the school, while the jewish children stayed home. at that young age, i don't remember separating whiteness from jewishness.

as we got older, i owned dreidls and some jewish families had christmas trees alongside their menorahs. kids practiced the haftorah on the yellow school bus for upcoming bar and bat mitzvahs. i received hamantashen on purim. i learned the hebrew alphabet in the back of our huge dictionary that sat in the living room. like yiddish words in everyday new york speech, my childhood was infused with the presence of jewish culture.

the little bit of yiddish i knew turned out to be almost identical in german. and that is about all of the jewish culture i encounter in berlin. here, the only associations i have with jewishness are armed guards and trucks, outside of synagogues, schools and cultural centers which i have never entered. memorials. the cobblestone replaced with gold squares in front of houses in memory of those deported.

yesterday started the 19th Jewish Cultural Festival/Jüdische Kulturtage 2005. it runs until 11 December. one of the highlights is on Saturday, 3 December - Die lange Nacht der Synagogen, an open doors night at Berlin synagogues with a religious service, tours, speeches, and concerts. an interesting opportunity to see jewish culture alive and well in berlin.

or on the same night, check out the line-up silent films.

downhill

2005-11-25T10:34:00.000+01:00

it's all downhill from here

first my computer breaks down, prompting me to switch from a french keyboard to a german one for good. umlauts for everyone!
üöäüöäüöäüöäüöäüöüöä
that was fun

snow.

winter.

ah berlin.

i think i would appreciate the snow more if everyone and their mother wasn't suggesting to move out of this place and return to the sun.

time to go get my glühwein on.

5 days of berlin in the cold

2005-11-21T14:52:00.000+01:00

5 days of berlin in the cold
my family's whirlwind trip

museuminsel-itis

i'm allergic to the pergamon museum. i'm not sure why i thought i could accompany my parents and grandmother through it. i made it through the door. i even had a ticket. but once i was inside and the audio sets were shared, i couldn't do it.

the pergamon makes me tired, woozy and then i break out in hives. i had to leave and pick my family up at the end of their tour. i made up for it by accompanying them to the alte nationalgalerie.

construction

three years ago there was a hole in the ground across from the spanking new swissotel. now the swissotel's novelty is less than spanking and another hotel stands where that hole once was. the hotel concorde opened about 2 weeks ago. an example of why berlin always looks like a construction site. 3 years to build another hotel. as if berlin needed more...

shopping

my grandmother is a fan of salamander shoes. 3 years ago, she saw one of the stores on Ku'damm but it was closed for inventory. since then, the store disappeared. sold. gone. now there are only 2 salamander stores in berlin. i was dragged to the one on friedrichstr.

food

my mother is convinced that all food in berlin is so wonderful. somehow i don't think she got a representative sampling. some of the places we have eaten this past week:

restaurant 44 in swissotel
mr. hai and friends on savignyplatz
galeries lafayette - gourmet section
my house - gorgeous rabbit from frischeparadies
my in-laws's place
and bier's @ ku'damm 195 - surprisingly everyone liked currywurst

rabbit makes people of a certain age nostalgic. my great-grandma and my mother-in-law's mom were remembered sweetly that night.

goodbyes
glad i don't have to do that too often... i think next time they'll come when it's warm. those 2 days in august.

kiez beautification

2005-11-15T13:29:00.000+01:00

kiez beautification

urban areas are often a site for constant taking and sparse giving.

sometimes i think berlin is one of those transitory spots where people choose to only smell and live off of the sweet side of decay.

and sometimes i think, like an optimistic yet unhappy investor, that there is something pulsing, beating, feral here.

out of the urban areas i've lived in, berlin rates an oxygenated green, keeping it in the running for an overall high score.

so yesterday i thought it would be nice to contribute to one of the things i enjoy about my neighborhood.

results of the IGG zaun/pflanzaktion in Dieffenbachstr.

it was pretty cool. i got to use a saw and a staple gun! and plant things for the first time in my life. my carpentry tool/botanist vocabulary is lacking so i probably seemed a bit mentally challenged.

if you are walking by dieffenbachstr., please talk to the plants so they don't die. and go make your neigborhood beautiful too.

st. martin's day

2005-11-14T14:08:00.000+01:00

st. martin's day

apparently, there's a traditional german meal on november 11th, st. martin's day. i'd never heard of this before so i thought it was a joke/excuse for a get-together when i was invited to a st. martin's dinner last weekend.

this is how it was described to me: kind of like thanksgiving. i asked around and received a long-winded description in german which didn't involved colonizers and the colonized. i tuned out most of it. something to do with lanterns and carnival.

whatever we were celebrating, it involved a huge goose, red cabbage, potatoes, applesauce, dumplings and lots of red wine. it was all quite tasty. thanksgiving it wasn't but a wonderful meal it was. it was all organized by a friend visiting from cologne, who is welcome to come and cook for us anytime. maybe he'll come and do an early thanksgiving when my family is visiting.

for some reason, clubbing until 5 in the morning was a part of the celebration. that didn't sound traditional to me so i skipped out early. next year, i'll have my lantern ready.

the berlin i know

2005-11-11T09:46:00.000+01:00

the berlin i know

today the grey has returned and it makes me smile
because this is the berlin i've grown to know
this dull overcast sky

the first time i visited berlin
it was for a funeral
7 years ago
it couldn't have been like this
we sat outside with coffee and black forest cake
but i remember it just the same
the ubiquitous grey, the windwhipped coattails, the hardened cold earth

the first time my parents visited berlin
it was for a wedding
there were flowers
and a white dress involved
and a cavalcade through sanssouci
and no time for much of anything else
on a beautiful late august day

it makes me smile to think
that in a week i will get to show
my parents the berlin i know
the cold november berlin
the fresh smell of parsley in the rain
the wet dark streets of the early evening
and the warmth of returning home
breathless
from 5 flights of stairs

new words

2005-11-09T14:04:00.000+01:00

new words

i love words. i love dictionaries. new words are like recently opened Christmas presents, something to play with until broken.

in German, however, new words are more like an "educational" present from an aunt who doesn't really know you too well. a present that makes you think so what am I going to do with that? what is that? do i have to use that?

examples of the day:

Nudelholz/rolling pin
rolling out dough for noodles would be one of the many uses for a rolling pin. this is a fact. but then a rolling pin could also rightfully be called Kniebrecher.

Brustwarze/nipple
breast wart. breast wart?!?

i have nothing else to add. i refuse to use this word.
and to think the person who explained this to me was laughing over the English term "belly button." as if belly wart would be better...

The Room

2005-11-07T08:35:00.000+01:00

fast food done slow

this is what The Room promises and the promise is made good. it's not only done slow; it's also done well. the people behind the Fat Lady on Graefestr. have moved into a new space. i meant to check it out earlier but i couldn't chew.
tostadas, quesadillas, nachos, burgers. the same goodness from the Fat Lady but in a bigger space. more comfy couches. it's like an annex of my living room.

i give it a 19+/20. The plus is for the Muhammed Ali pinball machine. i want to take it home with me but i wouldn't be able to get it up 5 flights of stairs.

Graefestr. in between Dieffenbachstr. and Böckhstr.

blog value

2005-11-06T07:21:00.000+01:00

blog value

from lynne's spot:

My blog is worth $16,936.20.
How much is your blog worth?

anyone want to buy it? that's USD.

packages and neighbors

2005-11-03T11:12:00.000+01:00

packages and neighbors

after living here over a year, i still haven't met some of my neighbors. usually the same lovely people are at home when packages arrive and those are the neighbors i've met, in addition to the old lady who is perpetually cold. recently, she thought i was housekeeping for the bedridden woman who lives below us. the old lady has memory issues. she probably thinks her house is being invaded by black women since she can never seem to remember that we have already met before and yes, i close the door when i leave.

if a package somehow lands at an unknown neighbor, i usually get the once-over, a sort-of odd look up and down after the initial surprise, followed by an awkward head jerk to try and see the package slip.

since we don't have mailboxes, i'm not sure why anyone is trying to see my package slip. how likely is it that a burglar (that would me) breaks into an apartment building, walks up to the 5th floor, breaks into the apartment, steals a package slip, walks down to the 3rd floor checking all of the doorbells and then calmly asks to collect the package? the package slip doesn't have my picture on it and i'm not producing ID for a neighbor i didn't even ask to take my mail in the first place... so all that is really unnecessary.

but it's better than trekking over to hallesches ufer.

this package made me happy. books! just in time.

on beauty - zadie smith
the intelligent investor - benjamin graham
the namesake - jhumpa lahiri
a field guide to getting lost - rebecca solnit

the namesake is being made into a movie next year by mira nair with soundtrack by nitin sawhney. that's my scoop for the day.

creative lifestyle financing, part II

2005-11-01T12:34:00.000+01:00

creative lifestyle financing, part II

as i mentioned before, precarious is the key word.

the many stages of jobbing in berlin

motz: the last resort
luckily i have not had to sell this street newspaper yet

aushilfe: babystep
mini-jobs galore. you don't have to pay taxes; they don't have to pay many taxes but you don't get paid much either.

part-time job: slight improvement
a lawful part-time job is a very nice step up. vacation, health insurance, paid sick days and therefore the right to be urlaubsunfähig. i would never do that though.

freelancing: income supplement
this is where it gets complicated. you need a tax number. the finanzamt people may be helpful or they just may not. you have to make estimates, create invoices. you start buying random things like printer paper so you can deduct them.

full-time freelancing: this is illegal
companies complain about germany's stringent rules for hiring and firing so they resort to this alternative.

full-time job offer: nirvana
i had one of these last week. luckily i did not sign anything committing me to the place that revealed itself to be an insane asylum during the last week.

unfortunately, this means i'm reconsidering selling motz.

jazz in berlin

2005-11-01T08:07:00.000+01:00

jazz in berlin

jazzfest berlin 2005 starts tomorrow and ends sunday.

hmm well
the theme is the italian jazz scene and Istanbul.
interesting. let me know how that went.

what I will recommend:

richard bona
17 november, quasimodo, 18 eur.
i could explain in detail just how amazing this vocalist/bass player from cameroon is live. let's just say i'm in possession of 7 tickets and i'm counting down the days.

wer ist deutschland?

2005-10-31T08:10:00.000+01:00

wer ist deutschland?

i don't know anyone who doesn't make fun of the ridiculous du bist deutschland/you are Germany marketing campaign. i thought about the concept a bit more soberly last week when riding the U1.

on the U1, there are usually lots of school classes. maybe they are coming and going to the technik museum. who knows.

last week, on the way back from getting my tooth pulled, a group of kids scrambled into the metro car dashing for all of the available seats. a little girl, curly hair pushed back into a ponytail, was left standing. she reminded me of my middle cousin on my mother's side when she was younger. she was a bit taller than the rest of the classmates and could reach the bar overhead to hold on by standing on her toes.

she made jokes about the dark haired boy a little further away and the rest of her white companions would laugh. you didn't understand ? don't you understand what I'm saying? the boy, the outsider, wrinkled up his face and kept silent.

the converstation changed and she proudly stated that her oma/grandma speaks plattdeutsch. and in her eyes and through her uncertain actions, she seemed to want to make it clear that she was not like the dark haired boy who couldn't understand sophisticated 5th grade jokes. that she belonged. that despite her difference sie ist auch deutschland.

mein vater heisst mustafa. meine mutter heisst mustafa.
meine schwester heisst mustafa. meine 3 brüder heissen mustafa./my father's name is mustafa. my mother's name is mustafa. my sister's name is mustafa. my 3 brothers are called mustafa.

she conjugated and the seated clique broke out in laughter. the little girl with the ponytail looked satisfied. the doors opened at kottbusser tor.

was she really trying to prove that she's all Deutschland? maybe the marketing campaign had an effect and there are new insults on the playground: you are only 1/2 Goethe!

or is she really being raised and taught to be just as ignorant as the peanut gallery?

poor kids...

interestingly, the teacher said nothing to any of the children.

vielleicht weil sie auch Deutschland ist? or maybe it's because "social-marketing" is neither education nor teacher training.
------
the real du bist deutschland site (DE)
parodies of the du bist deutschland campaign (DE)
-----

happy halloween! this year i've decided to dress up as a jaywalker. scary...

berlin in the fall

2005-10-29T11:51:00.000+02:00

berlin in the fall

i didn't know berlin did fall. the weatherwoman reported that it hasn't been this warm at the end of october since 16 years ago. it's really amazing. all i see is blue sky. when the paracetemol kicks in, i'm definitely going out to enjoy as much as i can.

although i'm loving berlin in the fall, if i could be anywhere tomorrow, it would be here.

creative lifestyle financing

2005-10-27T17:09:00.000+02:00

creative lifestyle financing, part I

berlin isn't easy.

maybe precarious would be a good description.

when i was searching for a regular source of income, the random suggestions and blank looks were kind of unnerving.

if someone asks me, i try to be that person i wish i'd run into when i was looking. so far i've helped one person find a job. i think that's a pretty good number for berlin.

anyway... looking for extra cash?

the World Cup/WM comes around, well, not too often... if you are looking for WM fans who need lodging or if you have WM tickets and are looking for housing in Germany, check out the WM Zimmer site at Immobilienscout. in English too. and if you have tickets to a game in Kaiserlautern, sorry.

berlin anglofiles

2005-10-23T23:07:00.000+02:00

hey hey the gang's all here

over at hauptstadt blog, get the rundown on the past week in english-language berlin blogging but auf deutsch.

birthday weekend 05

2005-10-23T14:56:00.000+02:00

all-kreuzberg birthday weekend

Für das kommende Lebensjahr wünschen wir dir viel Erfolg, Glück, Zufriedenheit und vor allem Gesundheit.

my first birthday e-wishes were from das Volunteer-Team der FIFA WM 2006TM

i found that funny at 3AM

when i think of birthday celebrations in germany, it's a bit depressing.

in the states, birthdays mean cake and presents, a eulogy of individualism, a 24-hour exemption from routine mediocrity. birthdays, as one e-card reminded me, are like funerals where everyone sings the same song without a hymnbook. you celebrate the person, how wonderful they are, how much their sunny disposition or searing sarcasm brightens everyone's day.

from my experience in berlin, the birthday concept is a bit skewed. i've observed at work you are expected to bake a cake or bring pastries for your colleagues on YOUR birthday. unless everyone has empty pockets, you may end up buying drinks for your friends and having to organize your own party. somehow i get the feeling that a birthday is about making up for the fact that you were born into the world, thereby increasing the burden on social security... so bake your own damn cake and buy me a beer.

the birthday weekend went like this:

friday

the non-intended "present" - a real bonafide full-time job offer
baraka on lausitzer platz- famous molochia soup that makes all of your dreams come true
wiener blut - no birthday is complete without a disco ball and a kicker table
rote harfe/orient lounge - accidently locked in the bathroom - long story

saturday

full english breakfast at lunchtime
read birthday e-wishes, birthday phone calls
kaffee und kuchen - misunderstanding where nobody brought cake
le cochon bourgeois - gelebt wie Gott in Frankreich

sunday

present unwrapping and prosecco
brunch at defne on planufer - hot - food is bangin, worth the 8 eur
more cake and vacation story swapping

i think i celebrated enough for the next 5 years or so. i baked no cakes and i ate so much good food that i'll have lots of memories when i get my last wisdom tooth out later this week and can only eat mush.

FAQ

2005-10-19T07:41:00.000+02:00

FAQs

the anglo-german foundation/deutsch-britische stiftung asks the questions that have been burning in your mind forever, such as:

is it easier to be a turk in berlin or a pakistani in bradford? [R. Boyes/D. Huneke, 2004]

extensive reading and a short history of kreuzberg here.

birthday fun

2005-10-17T20:45:00.000+02:00

birthday monday, birthday funday

it's birthday week. i may not have as much fun as this october birthday girl. but i'll try. i'm not 26 anymore...

actually it's birthday month. i'm racking up little celebrations to build up to birthday weekend. two weekends ago was nomad sound system @ mudd club. last weekend, we got together a last minute dinner party and tried out a guy martin recipe for lamb brochettes with dried apricots and dates.

we were in the neighborhood on sunday and took the advice to stop by the botanical garten, which reminded me of vermont in the fall - all of the beautiful north american trees which burn red in october.

just a couple more days and it will be my first real birthday weekend in berlin. last year i had to work on the weekend and that was no fun.

for birthday monday, i got blueberry pancakes! who could ask for more...

i gotta make the best of it. soon i'll only have one year of my twenties left.

urlaubsunfähig

2005-10-13T08:00:00.000+02:00

urlaubsunfähig

i was made fun of when i "made up" this word but was quickly reassured that you can do that in German. i thought this concept must exist for people to be able to use a doctor's note to essentially call in sick for vacation.

from lexonline:

Der Urlaub ist für Arbeitnehmer ein wichtiger Bestandteil ihres Arbeitsvertrags . Die tatsächlich vereinbarten Urlaubsansprüche gehen oft über den 24-tägigen gesetzlichen Mindesturlaub hinaus. Das Urlaubsglück wird jedoch empfindlich gestört , wenn der Arbeitnehmer im Urlaub krank wird.

1. Die Ausgangslage

Es passiert immer wieder, dass Arbeitnehmer in ihrem Urlaub arbeitsunfähig werden. § 9 BUrlG enthält dafür eine Sonderregelung :

"Erkrankt ein Arbeitnehmer während des Urlaubs, so werden die durch ärztliches Zeugnis nachgewiesenen Tage der Arbeitsunfähigkeit auf den Jahresurlaub nicht angerechnet."
[...]

Wenn ein Arbeitnehmer arbeitsunfähig ist, ist er damit gleichzeitig auch " urlaubsunfähig ".

i wasn't the first to make it up!

anyway, since the winter season is coming up, make the most of it. if you break your arm while skiing, don't chalk it up to Pech and grumble. everyone's entitled to the pursuit of Urlaubsglück. i wonder if you get sick from your lunch, can you get your lunch hour back too? what about Mittagsessenglück?

meanwhile from e-mail fwd land in the USA:

Sick Days
We will no longer accept a doctor's statement as proof of sickness. If you are able to go to the doctor, you are able to come to work.

Personal Days
Each employee will receive 104 personal days a year. They are called Saturday and Sunday.

changes

2005-10-10T16:42:00.000+02:00

changes

getting a wisdom tooth out is not urlaub (holiday/vacation).

i learned this and other things over the weekend. in some workplaces in germany, if you are sick during your holiday, this doesn't have to count as holiday. you can get a krankschreibung (doctor's note) during vacation and reschedule when you are in full enjoyment capacity.

nevermind that a krankschreibung states that you are arbeitsunfähig (unable to work) and not URLAUBSunfähig.

sounds like something to put on merkel's agenda.

so i'm not on holiday but i did get the 3rd wisdom tooth out. the rest of the day is mine to be in pain. it's a holiday in the states. maybe that counts for something.

in between waiting for the big one to get pulled, unten rechts, i'm adjusting to working in charlottenburg 5 days a week. bye bye bergmannstr. bye bye berlin blogger.

charlottenburg is special. as in i'd rather not spend much time there.

the other day, i was eating lunch on a city bench. two charlottenburg bums to my right.

they were enjoying one of many afternoon beers, not lunch, while discussing how lovely paris is. the laissez faire attitude. that you can sleep outside of gare du nord and not get hassled by the police. not like in berlin! high class bums. i wouldn't have been surprised if they had Louis Vuitton coasters for the beer cans. they were sitting across from the institut francais, of course.

in paris they say boulot metro dodo or the other way around. either way, that's what i've been doing.

plus the whole wisdom teeth thing.

and mudd club last friday night... nomad sound system. i'm telling yall they are good. i don't even like mudd club but i still went to see them. seriously check them out. i contemplated becoming a groupie for a second but then i would have to buy one of their 10 eur t-shirts. back to work for me.

big bad berlin rats

2005-10-05T07:22:00.000+02:00

kiez wildlife exploration

the only things unpleasant about getting up early and running by the canal, other than getting up early and running, are the rats.

usually the rats go their disease-laden way and i go mine.

yesterday morning, all that changed in one split second. i was looking at birds or a tree when something flashed across my path. i glanced down to see a grey mass of ugly wrapped around the front of my foot, a ball of distorted teeth and tail. it was a pulpy beating thing, which finally scuttled away after much shrieking (mine or the rat's, i couldn't tell).

so i kicked a big, bad berlin rat. it was by accident. i was mid-stride and i couldn't stop. making head-on contact with a suicidal rodent... great way to start the day.

kieznews

2005-09-30T11:17:00.000+02:00

more neighborhood news

Räuber überfallen Schwangere und ihren Ehemann

mugging pregnant women... what is really going on in graefekiez?

olympiastadion

2005-09-27T23:19:00.000+02:00

olympiastadion

over the weekend, i made my way up north, far out on the U2 to check out the olympic stadium. little did i know that thousands of marathoners, ballons and all, were participating in a breakfast run that ended up at the same place that day. the U-Bahn was crazily crowded and it seemed as if i was the only person not wearing lycra.

i was out there to find out what it takes to be a volunteer for the 2006 world cup. adjectives like communicative, welcoming, open, and discreet seemed to be high on the list of volunteer qualities. across the little partition, i could hear another person being interviewed, who was describing how a football fan gene that obviously causes overexcitement ran in her family.

on the to do list - actually go inside the stadium one day.

i did find out some semi-secret WM game info which made the trip worth it in the short-term. however, my lips are sealed. discretion is golden!

more voting

2005-09-27T21:58:00.000+02:00

more voting

taz Panterpreis 2005

for everyday heroes

vote here.

Esther Mujawayo-Keiner, one of the nominees, works with widows and children in her native Rwanda. Read her story here (DE).

around the neighborhood

2005-09-23T17:27:00.000+02:00

around the neighborhood

saddest news of the month: temporary closing of deniz on kottbusser damm. hopefully it opens up just as it was or better. the place you can run around the corner to when you forgot to buy coconut milk or some other random item. instead of fabric stands on market day, now they are trying to sell dsl packages. on graefestr., you can peek in a see the sad shell of the building and reminisce.

worst service of the month: zitrone, ecke graefestr./dieffenbachstr. dunno what you have to do to get a kirschschaftschörle around there. apparently ordering one is not enough. first something arrived that looked suspiciously like an apfelschörle. i knew i had said kirschsaftschörle because it's ridiculously hard for me to pronounce right or say 10 times fast. when that was taken back i got nothing in return, while the other 3 people i was with enjoyed their coffees. glad i was close to home. (this was a good month)

openings: after the fat lady's mysterious disappearance from graefestr., cafe sisk has taken over the chalkboard. whether they are open or not is kind of unclear. the door is open so you can see the turkish flag hanging but there is never any life form visible. other than that, i dunno what goes on behind the frosted windows.

over on körtestr., open for about a month or so, la maison rouge. looks nice. i hear it's nice. so stop by... and find out.

coming through the neighborhood on sunday: the berlin marathon, down kottbusser damm to hermannplatz.

in the news

2005-09-21T15:03:00.000+02:00

in the news

from deutsche welle online

um... ok. why? i don't even know what merkel is supposed to have on... a jamaican gypsy outfit?

and

bye bye.

voting

2005-09-19T20:15:00.000+02:00

on voting
when i lived in new york, the community room at the bottom of our building was used as a voting hall on election days. people would line up early in the morning to get in their voting before they went to work. when i lived in philly, voting took place in my building's basement. one of the volunteers thought it was ok to have a bible laid out next to her miniature american flag. this year, since we have three schools in the area, i got to live next to another voting hall but it wasn't that exciting. no lines or anything.

the only exciting thing would be the miniscule possibility of saying i live in Germaica for however many years i end up living here.

living through moments of political change or stagnation abroad, i'm always bewildered that people don't seem to have a grasp on their own country's basic laws. usually people pretend it's just americans who have that problem. all in all, it's a bit strange to be asked: so are you voting? are you German now?

perhaps when it doesn't affect someone personally, there's no need to be bothered with the difference between citizen, resident from a non-EU member state, resident from an EU-member state, spouse of a resident from an EU-member or non-EU member state, asylum seeker, illegal dual national, or just plain illegal, oops - overstayed a visa for 3 years. in fact, when i wanted to find comprehensive information for Germany, i found the most thoroughly organized information on a sex workers site. but somehow i think those are quite fundamental things to learn. maybe even before you get to tackle the proportional representation: how it works chapter. i think some people (major party leaders included) were absent from school that day too.

-------------
my vote for a bon plan: david sanborn & lizz wright, kammermusiksaal, 30 sep.

or catch meshell sitting in with transdub massiv at paradiso in a'dam, 21 sep .

is it oktober yet? i'm so done with september already...

smiling outlawed

2005-09-15T20:53:00.000+02:00

smiling outlawed

No Smiling for Passport Photos in Germany

"A broad smile, however nice it may be, is therefore unacceptable," the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

shouldn't be too hard to enforce *broad smile*

berlinquote

2005-09-14T08:20:00.000+02:00

funny berlin quotes

from an unwanted copy of this month's Ex-Berliner, interview with two american musicians who moved to berlin.

"I cannot really understand the level of mediocrity here."

"Well, when you've got nothing but time and you don't have to go and work on a job, you can just go, "Oh I'll just do it...tomorrow."

ubahn

2005-09-13T06:26:00.000+02:00

metro stories

the berlin U-bahnmetrosubwaytube is a funny place. there's not really a rush hour to speak of. perhaps a school rush phase at varying points of the day.

unless there is something strange going on in town, you can usually get a seat, even if it is next to someone drinking a beer at 7am.

it's also a place for random meetings.

yesterday i met a man doing his Ph.D in biology in berlin. he is from cameroon and reminded me that perhaps whatever problems i encounter in berlin will somehow serve me later in life.

a couple of weeks ago, i met a man from trinidad. i don't know what he was doing other than trying to convince me in a rather obnoxious way that i should get with him. as berlin really isn't that big, i was almost not surprised to see him three weeks later at bauhaus-hermannplatz, with a woman, buying home furnishings. and he had the nerve to wink when the woman was a few feet away. i'm sure it was his sister.

last night, at around 6pm, on the U1, a crush of high-school students filled all of the empty space in the car. a woman who had just sat down next to me was reading, just like i was. she seemed annoyed by all the hootin and hollarin. i was able to sense this by the fact that she held her fingers in her ears for the next 6 stops. across the way, an older woman clutched at a bag of papers - one read "dieu soucie-t-il vraiment de nous?"(does god really care about us?)

only in berlin would someone expect absolute quiet on public transportation.

freiwilig activ in berlin

2005-09-12T07:28:00.000+02:00

freiwillig activ in berlin

that's what is written on the cute little blue pin i received on saturday. a day earlier, the mayor of berlin announced the freiwilligen pass which can be issued to every child in berlin over 12. the purpose: i don't know. maybe soon you'll need to be certified to volunteer in germany. (one more job created, someone has to stamp all those passes...)

the red cross site was filled with volunteers (who didn't seem to need any pass) to help out with suchdienst, telephoning various locations to help find missing persons in berlin. we were the only ones in the wheelchair garage, cleaning, refitting and pumping, but it was fun plus a bit of hard work. although we were learning on the go, a man in a wheelchair who was there to help out with another activity allowed us to change his front wheels, setting him up with a brand new squeaky set. for someone who has never changed any kind of tire, it was an honor for me.

the red cross hilfsmittelzentrum actually rents out wheelchairs for a minimal price and allows you to check out different models and various high-tech aid mechanisms, in addition to providing training. apparently i wasn't up-to-date on the latest technology because i was in awe at what is available. crutches that can stand alone so you don't have to pick them up of the floor, wheelchairs that can move a sitting person into a standing position, whole kitchen counters that slide up and down at the flick of a switch. amazing.

i'm a millionaire

2005-09-11T23:30:00.000+02:00

i'm a millionaire...

you want to be a millionaire and i'll say whatever i damn please.

maybe that's what gunter jauch was thinking. or more likely he wasn't thinking at all.

i was just trying to fight off jet lag and stay up past 8pm without the aid of caffeine. flipping channels. came across gunter jauch and a pretty easy question. i was about to change the channel because i already knew that Antananarivo was the capital of Madagascar and it looked like this very large woman was going to use up all of her jokers trying to figure that one out. but just before my thumb pressed down on the remote control button, responding to something unbeknowst to me, Gunter Jauch quotes a former Bundespresident, : "all i know is Guten Tag meine Damen und Herren, Liebe Neger."

since i doubt there is much political or critical analysis of any -isms going on during a cheezy game show, i don't care what the context was. why is that being repeated on tv as a ha ha ha, knee-slapping, shooting the shit in between questions anecdote? and more importantly, why am i still living here?

i turned off the tv.

after catching up and trying to get in touch with NO folks, i'd heard back from a bunch of friends who've also read the village voice article, half-joking that maybe they should move elsewhere, like i did, where people aren't left to rot in stagnant water and their own waste for days. in my college circle, one friend made it to dallas and another classmate was evacauted in the back of a delivery truck of the newspaper he writes for.

amid all of the international shock, i'm confused as to why people believe/wish it's so different anywhere else. all over the world, there are the same elitists, same racists, same ignorant people, only in different packaging with varying degrees of power. social state or not, whether it's french old people sweltering to death in the canicule/summer heat or poor people in NO, regular, everyday people have to take the time to help others out to fill in the gaps, stay freiwillig activ, make something out of less than nothing so that next generations aren't doing the same thing, listening to the same offensive shit from 1955 and 2005 in 2085.

a woman in houston donating free time to do NO children's hair as they get ready to enter texas schools. that's love, right there.

don't wait. go spread some love now.

do better.

Berlin Volunteer Day

2005-09-09T13:57:00.000+02:00

Fünfter Berliner-Freiwilligen-Tag am 10. September 2005

info here.

anyone still looking for a project, come down to the Berlin DRK/Red Cross and help us fix wheelchairs.

back to berlin

2005-09-08T07:07:00.000+02:00

vacation days are over

the weather was wreaking havoc across the globe. as we watched CNN from various hotel rooms in Asia, it was clear that there were many places we were happy not to be. on the front end, we missed earthquakes and tsunami warnings. on the back end, we missed a typhoon that swept over northern Taiwan the day before we came back to Taipei for a friend's wedding in Taichung, which was closely approaching slum status, debris piled everywhere, military removing fallen trees and signs from city streets.

blessed with good weather, we travelled to:

Hanoi and Halong Bay, Vietnam

Tokyo, Kyoto, and Nara, Japan

Taipei and Taichung, Taiwan

although we missed out on the beginning of the campaign season in Berlin, we made up for it in Japan, where the official campaigning process started during our stay in Kyoto. this was the old school deal. vans driving by with a loudspeaker spinning on top, projecting election promises at all times of the day. on a day visit to Nara, we randomly came across Japan's Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, giving a speech right in front of a train station. the pic is a bit blurry but it is really him, poofy hairdo and all. i couldn't get a good shot as i was being yelled at in japanese and not so gently pushed across the street at the time.

on vacation, the first real one in a long ass time, i fell in love with kyoto, chocked up crazy stories, used all of the japanese i learned in class and some more, met an 83 year old man whose family all died in hiroshima, listened to japanese classic songs played by russian professors from vladivostock and was present at a blues/60's rock jam session in a tiny kyoto club, cruised for 2 nights in halong bay, managed to cross the street in hanoi without getting run over, got interviewed by a class of taiwanese 7-year olds learning english, and many many more unbelievable and amazing experiences.

back in berlin, i've realized that somehow it feels like people here stare at me more, in an annoying and vaguely hostile way, than in all of my time in Asia, where the staring phenomenon occurs just as often but a bit more warranted, lacking the sneer. and still no matter where on the globe, it seems i still have to explain to some people that yes i'm american, my parents are american, my grandparents are american and yes my great-grandparents lived in the USA and no i'm not French or any African nationality. not surprising that people are baffled about the situation of dark-skinned american citizens, refugees except by UN definition, in the aftermath of trina. history lessons come in all forms, even on vacation. w's not mine.

wonders of technology

2005-09-06T16:14:00.000+02:00

wonders of technology

just so a face could be placed with a name and my expert knowledge on rent and (ironically) ipods in berlin... i received an e-mail from new york while chilling out in the apple store in ginza - tokyo, japan. my neighbor at the next imac showed me how to change the keyboard from japanese characters to english characters. in return, i had to pose for a picture which will end up god knows where. on request, my friend in taiwan sent me a kind of crappy picture taken of me a week earlier in hanoi, vietnam, which was transfered from a digital camera to her laptop hard drive. the picture is sent to new york from the apple store in ginza the next day and voila...

found in the latest article of the series Generation Debt: The New Economics of Being Young by A. Kamenetz

and yet i still can't get through to cell phones in new orleans. technology...

i'm back... the vacation post coming soon.

discovering germany, part 2

2005-08-15T07:50:00.000+02:00

discovering germany, part 2

part I previously took raskal trippin to hamburg. this week i took a home improvement trip to the Ruhrgebiet to help a couple of berliners who are jumping ship. when travelling from east to west, you can see signs for other areas/towns which have lovely scenic landmarks, like schloss and garten; when you reach the ruhrgebiet, the first thing you see from the highway is a big ass nuclear reactor. industriekultur.

during the ride, i saw horses, two old windmills, a tiny little village called Erxleben, lots of wind turbines, the old watchtowers at the east/west border, and other things that were a bit hard to take a picture of at 200 kmh. at one of the reststops, i did get to take a picture of the truck wash and the latest in west german fashion (please note the steel capped shoes - not boots, it's summer, silly - and the breakaway leather pants).

i ate lots of sausauge, tempered by corn hot off the grill. and i learned there's a difference between berliner currywurst, really just a bratwurst with ketchup sprinkled with the most minimal amount of curry and paprika possible, and west german currywurst, which i dared to try again, made with an actual curry sauce. if you miss the ketchup, you can put it on your fries.

the weekend continued the general trend of revisiting events from the past year in Berlin. for the last two days, i've been thankful for the home improvement tips i learned from a professional painter at last year's Berlin Volunteer Day (this year Sept 10) , where we helped to paint a community room at the Morus Rollberg community center in Neukölln.

other revisits:

people: i ran into someone on bergmannstr. who i'd met earlier in the year at black atlantic and meeting up just didn't really work out. that's now rectified and i'm happy about it.

the umpteenth run of the year: CityNacht on Ku'damm was so much fun. probably not so much fun for the winner for the in-line skating race since no one bothered to remove the wire fence barrier blocking off traffic until the skater was 3 seconds away from crashing into it. i accidentally ended up running the furthest i've ever gone before. 5.2 k. i thought it was only 5k and was kinda salty after passing the 5k mark, finding out there was still more to go.

haruki murakami: during my unemployed stretch, i bought the thickest english language book i could find at dussmann's, the wind-up bird chronicle. it was pretty amusing, ignoring the bank account implications, to sit around while being unemployed and read a book about an unemployed person who isn't even trying to find a job. i should score some extra berlinerin points for that one. murakami revisted - tony takitani at moviemento.

that's enough berlin for me. for now. check the archive. i'm out.

moviemento - OmU migraine

2005-08-12T07:06:00.000+02:00

moviemento - OmU migraine

moviemento is right down the street from where i live, a kreuzberg institution to me. moviemento reminds me of the doctor's office. you have an appointment but you know it will never ever start on time. the last movie at moviemento probably starts at 3am, if you are lucky.

traffic was the first movie i saw at moviemento. i left with a headache that had excedrin written all over it.benicio del toro could do nothing for the plot and i had to live through the OmU in a foreign country experience.

OmU stands for Original mit Untertitlen - orignal version with subtitles. OmU migraine can be caused by listening to a movie in a foreign language and reading it in foreign subtitles. traffic was an especially bad case because 1/2 of it was in spanish and nobody told me.

i gave it a try again for tony takitani because murakami and a ryuichi sakamoto soundtrack are worth the risk to my health.

what i didn't count on was the woman who came with a 20-pound bag of chips and the 4 people in the middle row who had a case of weed giggles. when the movie started off with tony takitani's name was...it was really tony takitani, i thought they would laugh straight through the next 74 minutes.

after the movie, it was clear that my German - i knew words like Pausane and Leichnam - is getting better than my Japanese, which only came through for a total of 6 words - moshimoshi, sumimasen, shigoto, arigato, hai, and mainichi. i did recognize a whole bunch of kanji characters in the credits which must be some sort of progress.

the easiest solution: wait til it's out on DVD. but go see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in the theaters. Two words. Augustus Gloop.

back to school

2005-08-09T00:53:00.000+02:00

back to school

the three schools and an annex in my neighborhood are back to sucking up and vomiting out kids at all times of the day. even if i hadn't noticed that the average age of people on my street decreased by 30%, somebody somewhere would have reminded me that school is back in session.

why? simply because i'd slipped back into my normal, jaywalking mode while school was out. i'm not a dangerous jaywalker. i just don't see the point of standing in the rain on an empty street when there are no cars just because somebody decided to time the traffic lights a certain way. my brain has refused to warm up to this idea. if someone was giving out fines, that would be a different story.

it only took one day of back to school chaos for someone to yell at me (and some other woman) for crossing the street on red. how could i live with myself doing THAT in front of CHILDREN!?! was the gist of the guy's little tirade.

i was on my way to church to repent for my sins when i tried to figure out the rationale behind the average jaywalker harasser. perhaps they are thinking:

1. Children are not smart enough to learn the difference between red and green pedestrian traffic lights.

i would find this hard to believe but maybe there's an epidemic of colorblindness in berlin? or the two different ampelmänner are confusing for berliner youth?

2. Setting an example by doing is a necessary requirement for educating children, which is the responsibility of random people on the street.

since i have yet to see anyone yell at parents for smoking all over their kids or 10am beer drinkers for their existence, i'm not convinced this is even part of the rationale. i lived a street away from a methodone clinic from the age of 1/2 to 22 and i didn't turn into a recovering heroin addict. i'm also not convinced that jaywalkers cause any imminent danger for German children. although i believe setting an example by doing is a useful educational tool, following anyone blindly is surely not something i would advocate teaching children, unless they are being prepped for the military.

and

3. The police are not doing their job by ignoring jaywalkers and it is their duty as good citizens to yell at other people in the street.

this one i don't believe either. i think it's an excuse for angry people to yell at someone else in public. or maybe it's just me... perhaps they have figured out my diabolical plan to teach all German children to walk on red, causing mayhem and destruction, and shutting down what's left of the German economy. *insert evil laugh with reverb*

Tagesspiegel

2005-08-07T09:02:00.000+02:00

Berliner Liste - Tagesspiegel

the shortest story I've ever written (3 sentences) and the only story I've ever written in German heads off the Berliner Liste feature in today's Sunday Tagesspiegel.

Get yaself a copy.

media moves

2005-08-05T18:31:00.000+02:00

media moves

Axel Springer to acquire a majority of ProSiebenSat.1.

Hmm... To Axel Springer AG, I would suggest, as one of the first steps as a majority shareholder, taking Sarah and Marc in Love off the air. This show makes me feel sad for Germany and the United States, together. Please make the madness stop.

currywurst

2005-08-04T09:19:00.000+02:00

it's official

yesterday for lunch, i went with a confirmed expert to the Marheineke Markthalle off bergmannstr. i looked at other customers' plates filled with goopy red sauciness and had second thoughts. nevertheless, i took the plunge and ordered my first currywurst. with fries (preishammer 50 cents).

overall, a mediocre ketchupy experience topped off by the mild annoyance of standing while eating. but if you are still a currywurst virgin and you don't know where to go or what to do, go to the experts and find the right currywurst for you. In March 2006, there will even be a Currywurst Museum.

1 year - Berlin Bears

2005-08-01T18:25:00.000+02:00

1 year: Berlin bearishness

today marks my one year anniversary of living in Berlin. and therefore in Germany. I know Berlin is in Germany but sometimes i pretend it isn't. i made it and i lived to tell about it.

i remembered reading on craigslist that someone was doing a story on "expats" in Berlin for the village voice. i checked and didn't find any new articles.

what i did find:

innovative ways to pay for a year in berlin
if he can do it, so can you!

an amusing berlin quote:
"No yuppies. Far fewer than in New York. Living in a place without any yuppies at all makes you realize they have some function.

To keep the economy healthy. Why did you—you
from Boulder where everyone has pink cheeks and your mother
goes hiking every morning—want to live in Williamsburg?
Because it's as bleak as Berlin? There are certain similarities. "

what i did to celebrate: i went to disneyworld! no, not really.

instead, i went to see the berlin bears. not the kitschy sculptures. berlin has its own live mascots. brown bears. i'm not kidding. they live in köllnischer park by the markisches museum. every day at 12.30 (for free!) you can see schnute, maxi and tilo (photos) being fed an assortment of goodies like apples, pears and grapes. what cuties. everyone seemed to love the bears except one little anglophone blond girl. after
exclaiming loudly THEY ARE ALL THERE! and
I CAN'T SEE, she decided that she liked pigeons better
than bears and let everyone know (loudly).

what i learned:

- to keep it moving. berlin embodies the anti-hustle.
i can't relate to that.
- there are actually things i miss about living in France and speaking French.
- my English is not getting any better.
- the look that people give you when you tell them you live in Kreuzberg means: but where will your non-existent children go to school?
- there are no need for real shoes in Berlin. Pumas suffice for every occasion.
- the top ten list just keeps going and going and going, like an energizer battery.

what i regret:

neglecting German - the reason I wanted to be here in the first place... i'm all on this one when i come back from vacation. i'm convinced i need to read more. i even have my first book picked out: Aimee and Jaguar.

round 2.

scandal

2005-07-30T08:41:00.000+02:00

freedom under attack!

freedom fries that is... the latest German scandal.

and in other news, the US military announces plans for installation realignment, meaning they are finally shutting down most of those military bases in Germany.

other high-powered adieus: Jürgen Schrempp(de) shakes up the business world and steps down earlier than expected. stocks rise; i think it's due to the other guy's mustache. or the girls.

i believe the caption for the second photo was Dieter Zetsche: Hustle and Ride, the story of an auto exec who always wanted to be a pimp.

and now, back to the 1-year in Berlin anniversary weekend.

london in berlin

2005-07-25T07:59:00.000+02:00

london in berlin

- a dog with president bush's head affixed, held aloft by red, white and blue balloons, shits an oblong piece of material, which tumbles through the air. the oblong material transforms into a round patty and falls directly onto an outstretched hamburger bun being held by ronald mcdonald. ronald places the top of the bun onto the burger, throws the whole thing into the air, only to be eaten by the bush-dog and the process starts again.

- various leaders carry fast food on silver platters, including berlusconi, mugabe, and condi rice.

- images of bush and blair at press conferences superimposed over a proportionally correct globe. a gun shoots at the land mass and it bleeds.

these were some of the visuals at the nitin sawhney concert at pop d'europe's london night on saturday. not one to let a gaping whole in my mouth stop me, i doubled up on pain medicine and headed out. political commentary, music, and fashion. the fashion was provided by the wandering bbbb folks who got in free after their event was over at another part of arena. the opener for london night was home grown, nomad sound system. i would check them out again. for cheaper.

studiowise, nitin sawhney appears to be looped and sampled perfection. i didn't know what to expect of the live show. i came away loving it. hearing immigrant and homelands performed live was enough for me. the rest was all bonus. he brought 5 brilliant vocalists with him. and since it was hardly packed, i hope he comes back to berlin sometime soon. and the girl who was dancing like she was channeling a ghost having an epilectic seizure stays home. scary.

nitin sawhney's new album: philtre

satisfied

2005-07-23T18:39:00.000+02:00

"We are now satisfied that he was not connected with the incidents of Thursday 21st July 2005."

oh to be brown and living in london. or dead.

africa remix

2005-07-23T09:40:00.000+02:00

on africa remix

l'art contemporain d'un continent

i was really blown away by the exhibition. not so much by some of the commentary. but i'm willing to overlook that and give this one a 18/20.

two of the many, many, many featured artists work and live in Germany.

Ingrid Mwangi: more & more
and
Kwesi Owusu-Ankomah (fr): de & one of the official posters of World Cup 2006

unfortunately africa remix has already been to düsseldorf so i'm not sure whether it will make its way back around these parts anytime soon. tokyo gets it next. at centre pompidou, paris, until 8. August.

and another addition to the readz file: black looks - more than worth the look.

berlin-is-paris-was

2005-07-21T17:35:00.000+02:00

digust is...

watching a mother pick up her child's fallen ice cream cone in the rain, take her thumb to wipe off the offending dirt, give the ice cream cone back to her child while she goes back to licking her own. or maybe that's just one evil babysitter. people in berlin never cease to amaze me.
(digust is also...looking at pictures of other folks' widsom teeth)

paris was...

africa hot. spicy. fun. at least someone's having a real summer...

at the dentist

2005-07-21T17:22:00.000+02:00

at the dentist

i made it a goal at the beginning of the year to start going to doctors for something other than not getting pregnant. although i hadn't made any kind of concrete plans to move back home since moving abroad, whenever it came to doctors i always had the same thought. i'll wait til i get back home.

going to the doctor in a foreign country requires a big leap of faith. that they will understand what the hell you are trying to tell them and you will understand what the hell they are trying to tell you. without anyone dying in the meantime.

starting off with the doctor list from the embassy - i knew they were good for something - i went through the different categories and picked random doctors in possibly relevant fields, scheduling appointments for every moment of free time during the next month.

shamefully, i don't even remember the last time i went to the dentist. apparently it was before i got my nose ring because i would have remembered having to take it out for the x-ray.

i went regularly to the dentist for all of my life until moving from the states. my orthodontist watched me grow up and didn't seem to mind that i wasn't the smiling type, as long as i did when he was around so he could claim my orderly set of teeth. this cheerful man was the same man i vomited recently digested ice cream on when he tried to take an imprint. i just couldn't replace him. i probably still think my teeth really belong to him and subconciously refused to let anyone else fiddle around in my mouth.

until now.

after the nose ring came out, the international sign for baby (semi-circle hand gesture over the stomach region) was made, and x-rays taken, i got to sit in the reclining chair, while behind me the dental assistant interrogated me.

the dentist came in and shoved his face in mine to say guten tag. a little too close for someone stuck in a reclining chair.

he stepped back dramatically and proceeded to commence his schtick, with the dental assistant, an observing doctor, and me still stuck in the chair as captive audience members.

where are you from? your german is very good. how do you speak german so well? did the american embassy send you?

i wasn't sure what any of this had to do with my teeth but i didn't really want to argue with a man who owns drills.

but i also didn't want to be a part of any secret military US government dental experiments either.

finally, we got to my teeth. my last teeth as i affectionally called them in my oh-so-good german. sadly they will have to eventually go, the weisheitzähne.

like 80% of the population, there's just not enough space in my mouth. and people say i have a big one...

the one above is the reason why i look like i got into a fight with mike tyson, except there are no bite marks. so i get the week off to pump myself full of antibiotics and eat meals from a straw. what a deal!

more berlin shorts

2005-07-20T07:15:00.000+02:00

3 berlin short stories (from the deep archive)

at the "graffiti-free" holocaust memorial. i'm going to assume that unless you are going by yourself or it's rainy, it's easy to lose the solemness of the occasion and give in to playing hide and seek. maybe not a full blown out game. but at the first realization that you are walking faster than the people you came with and have a perfect opportunity to scare the shit out of them, it's almost inevitable. these are things architects should think about. and decide against?

an older group of three strayed toward the edge with shorter stiles. the older man about 70ish or so looked over at my friend atop a stile taking a picture and must have gotten inspired. this man decided to try and jump, not once, not twice but three times before getting his foot finally at the edge only to come tumbling down in slow motion. he was so intent on getting this shot that he held tightly onto the camera instead of trying to protect himself from falling. the on-duty officer smirked before coming to ask if he could help.

on stresemanstr. how anyone came up with the idea to name their restaurant express-china-thai-fastfood-döner-imbiss that i cannot explain. nor can i explain why anyone would want to go to a restaurant trying to do all that. but what completely baffles me is the two non-asian men who were wearing conical hats, looking like they were about to go rice farming, getting up from an apparent meal of china-thai-döner.

on boppstr. i had to check myself because i thought i was in the wrong. there were cars but they weren't moving. yet this lady, headscarf styling and 3 kids in tow, was firmly letting her little mr. man know that he was not crossing the street. mr. little man looked quite tiffed and kept pointing to the pedestrian traffic light, saying something like but mommy it's greeeeeeeeeeen. the light was green. so why was i standing there waiting? if that's not assimilation, being able to inspire the fear of god into jaywalkers, i mean other pedestrians, i don't know what that is. there's a german value right there.

yet another berlin story from the deep archive(pending editor's review -insh'allah -) will appear in the cityspace get on the bus anthology. thanks to desyl for the link, possibly months ago.

berlin-paris

2005-07-14T17:47:00.000+02:00

de berlin

Ohne jetzt ausländerfeindlich werden zu wollen, aber von wem lässt Zend die Strings für seine Produkte(in diesem Fall Zend Studio 4) übersetzen? Vom Chef einer Dönerbude in Berlin Neuköln?

courtesy of berlinblogs

now if you really feel the need to make an ignorant statement about someone's supposed lack of language abilities or intelligence based on their job and ethnic background, then qualify it, and chuckle to yourself about it, the least, i repeat, the least you could do is spell Neukölln right, in your own language.

à paris

Si vous n'aimez pas la mer, si vous n'aimez pas la montagne, si vous n'aimez pas la ville… Allez vous faire foutre !

this post is sponsored by easyjet, la nouvelle vague, and the letter Q.

and if i wasn't headed there, i'd love to be in stuttgart. only because roy hargrove isn't coming to berlin. 20h, 16. July at Liederhalle Mozartsaal. RH Factor was one of the most ridiculously slept on CDs.

or the free roots concert in nyc tonight.

or living it up at montreux, from where bebop & loola report: Richard Bona still gives a great show. i'd give up a small body part to see him live again.

berlin-watersports

2005-07-11T07:21:00.000+02:00

water sports

i was wondering what i was getting myself into when someone said just come over to the apartment. i'll give you directions. it's right by the lake.

lake? i had a sudden nightmare of hours and hours on the S-bahn.

directions in hand, i got off the U-Bahn at Franz Neumann Platz, walked a couple of meters, and there it was. a lake that looked like this:

i was also wondering what i was getting myself into when someone proposed rowing down the Landwehr canal. on something inflatable. this sounded fun and interesting until it dawned on me that four people were getting into this former emergency raft that we had just inflated with a foot pump. we, and everyone else, who saw us navigating tour boats, motor boats and other paddlers, had a good laugh. one little girl fishing commented: Sie kommen nie im Ziel. but then again, she was fishing for dead fish so what did she know.

wunderschön

lots of grillers

lost paddle and panic

docked at kottbusser brücke next to fellow canoers

berlin-classicsummer

2005-07-08T12:03:00.000+02:00

a classic summer

every summer i've been in berlin, it's rained. a lot. no need for summer clothes. sun was reserved for special occasions like weddings.

and every summer i've been in berlin, i've gone to heimatklänge, which started this week at Kulturforum, until 14. August. this year's theme: copa americana. sure to erase any lingering trauma from the wedding music horrors.

but unlike other summers, i won't be packing it up on sep 1.

aug 1 will mark my one year anniversary of moving to berlin. time flies.

and there are so many things left to do before then.

there was that housewarming party that was never planned...
and i wanted to try currywurst
and ask some random person willst du mich verarschen?
there's freiluftkino and le cochon bourgeois
and hard:edged
and
and

and i need another list
and more free time

more milestones: less than a year until World Cup Deutschland. if that friend of a friend of a friend who is getting you seats looks like it will fall through, you can always sign up to be a volunteer.
The current application phase goes through September. The third and last application phase runs from January - February 2006. Apply online.

after May 2006, just in time for the WM, no more ICE trains will stop at Bahnhof Zoo. end of an era. shed a tear. maybe that means Lehrter Bahnhof will actually be finished by then... ?

busysignal

2005-07-08T07:28:00.000+02:00

busy signal

i remember a time when a busy signal was a twinge of comic relief slathered with the annoyance that my parents refused to get call waiting, or anything other than that rotary phone.

in modern times... terrorist attack. call. busy signal. wait. redial 50x. are you ok? no, are you ok? repeat cycle.

still redialing...

viralmarketing

2005-07-06T07:41:00.000+02:00

it can happen to you too

high school friend turns into internet star

update on the crying while eating story.

Crying, While Eating is going to be in the Artists Pick show at the Larissa Goldston Gallery (530 West 25th St, 3rd Floor in Manhattan) from July 7th through August 5th.

check it out. that's so crazy... i think they won 2nd place and were even on the radio. impressive.

i see action figures in the future.

canalsummer

2005-07-04T07:29:00.000+02:00

summer by the canal

there's nothing more refreshing after a grueling 18 holes of mini-golf than sitting by the canal and watching tens and tens of dead fish floating by, belly up.

Berlin quotes of the weekend:

Berlin c'est une grande ville, mais c'est comme une ville de province.
Berlin it's a big city but it's really like a country town.

c'est comme Brooklyn
it's like Brooklyn

es ist immer Rot für Ausländer
it's always red for foreigners
someone joking about the extremely slow pedestrian traffic light at Kotti, from the median to Adalbertstr.

cure

2005-07-03T08:26:00.000+02:00

cure for berlin blues

1 serving of a cold avocado soup with shrimp

2 visitors who paint the city in a glowing, positive light

3 days of rest

6 different kinds of cheese

and a plane ticket outta here...

shortsightedness

2005-07-02T11:15:00.000+02:00

shortsightedness

the other night i smoked shisha for the first time. in a really cheezy atmosphere. around the table was a visiting acquaintance from morocco, and it's been awhile since i'd been around someone who played the exotic bit to impress folks. all night long. if Sherezade had 1001 stories, this boy had 2002, which all convienently refered to his people in the 3rd person. he was an essentialist expert on all things arab and anywhere else that he'd visited where he claimed that he could pass as some other nationality.

now it's not my life's mission to educate or miseducate non-brown - liberal & conservative - people or play into their desires fantasies and fears about brown folks. what part of the game is that? so, i definitely don't do promotion of white liberal infighting. or sillyness like this:

Mein Vater kommt aus Afrika, hat vollkommen normale Augen und duscht jeden Tag. Ich werde weiter in dieses schöne Café gehen, aber die Leute dann auch unbedingt mal auf ihre dusseligen Formulierungen ansprechen. Ich glaube nicht, das die das böse meinen.

one of my favorite quotes on indymedia (to which doughtnut boy andy left links in the comment section), which also includes apparent false postings by someone pretending to be a part of the cafe ownership accused of racist practices. the person who explains why he faked his identity writes later on:

Uns, vom Aktionsbündnis ist die objektive Sachlage eigentlich egal, wir wollen einfach nur mal wieder ein bißchen Action haben. Natürlich wollen wir für unser Ziel kämpfen "Nazifreies Deutschland - smash racism" aber irgendwie kriegen wir das hier in Pankow nicht hin.

Naja, wie ihr seht, haben wir ja doch noch ein bißchen Rummel aus der Sache geholt und wir vom Aktionsbündnis hoffen, daß ihr alle schon zu unserem Aktionstag vor dem Cafe am 17.06 kommt.

i'm not linking to that... some white liberals trying to use a racist event to their advantage to get some donations?

that's a joke right? in a country without legal precedent for
*employment discrimination (poor Frau Ludin)
*housing discrimination (unbelievable that with the housing market in Berlin that this would exist, but it does)
*humane treatment of refugees (most black people in Germany?)
*resident/working visa discrimination (and actually, i wonder what is the largest employer of black people in Germany? probably the lion king or hotel housekeeping. so don't wonder why people are trying to sell beads in a zoo.)

recent events which inspire white people to say- "I CAN'T BELIEVE IT.. how can that be..." seem just ridiculously stupid. the "really in my neighborhood? right down the street? where are those trains going? how curious..." act is kinda tired.

eff a media response. let me be really American and say hey, sue somebody. gather up the weed money and hire a lawyer, fellow pale brethren in the struggle. or maybe that would ruin the point - to be able to sit in a prenzlauer berg cafe & buy drugs inside instead of on the street - not to make a statement about racial profiling or racism in Germany.

which is not really illegal here.

as far as i know, it's perfectly legal for an individual visa officer to decide on your right to residency, the fields in which you have the right to work, and the duration of your visa based on unstated, undefined, "other" criteria.

it's just the beginning & shortsighted. there are no impressionable former abolitionist Quakers up north to appeal to.

come on now, people are about to get bold. yall ready?

the future is sept 18. go promote that.

french5

2005-06-30T07:51:00.000+02:00

francophone five special

1. meshell ndegeocello and spirit music jamia finally have an internet presence, in french and english, promoting the new CD and current US tour... check it out if you can. thanks matt for the updates as usual.
promotion... what a concept. universal france is actually trying to be on the ball.

2. bebop&loola, my favorite french berlin bloggers, say adieu and head off to the montreux jazz festival... i'm jealous.

3. my senegal football jersey is one of my favorite pieces of clothing. and although i don't wear it that often, it gets me into strange french converstations when i do. on bergmannstr. another former paris resident and i ended up comparing what you can get in berlin and paris for 10 euros. conclusion: in paris not much. in berlin, you can feed a family of five plus a large pet at aldi.

4. last visitors of the summer season arrive today. the language majority will definitely be french this weekend. will be nice for a change.

5. and finally, no more visitors means that i'm free to leave... and paris is definitely on the list.

overheard-2x

2005-06-28T07:18:00.000+02:00

overheard

woman being pushed in a wheelchair, graefestr.: er hat immer Geld verdient. arm, war er nicht... aber er war hässlich. (he always made money. poor, he wasn't but he was ugly)

fellow user of public transportation, U1: es gibt Uncle-Toms-Hutte als Haltestelle? hat das etwas zu bedeuten? (There's a station called Uncle Tom's Cabin? wtf? )

good question...

not overheard, but another question: why are there no mcdonald's in kreuzberg? the mickyds map finder confirmed my suspicions. not that i need mcdonald's in my neighborhood but it's a bit strange that kreuzbergers only have access to one multinational fast food empire and not at least two. which leaves me wondering... does that make kreuzberg coke or pepsi?

on blogging II

2005-06-24T06:49:00.000+02:00

on blogging, part II

another exception...

so i was talking to a friend the other day, sitting at Rubens Coffee House, a great spot for bookcrossing, remarking to myself how nice the interior design is and how it doesn't matter in the summer. a blog? what is this? what do you write about? like what about Berlin? the dogs over there? those people taking pictures? people who have an obsession with opening and closing windows for air circulation every 5 minutes? so i found myself agreeing to pass on the link to sort of explain the phenomenon of people spending (wasting) time on the internet writing junk for other people to read.

the dogs, the self-proclaimed sidewalk models probably wouldn't make the cut; the fresh air contingent i just won't write about but i do remember having a good laugh with this friend, who has now crossed over into non-bloggable territory. waiting for the bus one day, she pulls out a flyer. we were talking about places to go out in berlin, or where not to go, really. i examine it and something seems familiar, a vague feeling of deja-vu. i tell her something's ringing a bell, not sure what, i'll get back to her about this Black Girls Coalition.

back at home, i remembered exactly where i'd first seen it. the name reminded me of the short-lived NYC-based Black Grrrl Revolution of which I was an even shorter-lived member (i wrote an article about the importance of creating/claiming space on the net and sat in on an angry meeting between a white-owned feminist bookstore and the black grrrls). i clicked, realizing very quickly that their definition of "Black Girls" was not what we two black girls had in mind. they may throw a good party but i'm glad i caught that one before i ended up unknowingly representing the most realistic looking drag queen in the place. maybe the girls will be at pride.

happy pride weekend yall!

on blogging

2005-06-23T18:30:00.000+02:00

on blogging

usually i don't concern myself with theories on blogging or the nature of the blogosphere. occasionally, i'll get a comment which comes in via some blog directory like: i lied! another black blogger. which leads me to wonder about segmenting and segregation online.

i only have 2 vague blogging rules. no extremely personal content and pseudo-anonymity. in college, i remember getting the advice to not let anything come out of your mouth that you wouldn't mind being printed on the front page of a newspaper. not bad advice at all. so consequently, people with whom i have even an inkling of a possibly sustained acquaintance don't show up here no matter how crazily hilarious or quirky or amusingly naive they are. with exceptions.

this week's exception will have to wait til tomorrow...

summer in berlin

2005-06-22T07:31:00.000+02:00

summer in berlin

it's quite a mystery to me. although i've spent parts of several summers here, i feel more attuned to berlin winter. trudging through snow, crunching around in the middle of the night to find a strassenbahn to a bus to a "10" minute walk that is always longer home. berlin summer is a bit new, when taken all at once.

i'm clueless as to the school vacation schedules, why sometimes the metro is packed at 6 and other times at 4. there is some essential information about berlin summer that i seem to be missing. like i'm confused as to why anyone would want to walk around berlin with no shoes on, if you are not involved in some kind of cult. i can picture an eerie Tom Cruise character with wire-rimmed glasses atop of a couch, pontificating on how touching your soles to the same patch of asphalt where a leprotic bum vomited last month is a purifying ritual.

now that i'm here for the whole summer... i look past the barefooted, paunch bulging out of low-waisted pants, and try to figure out the best way to get out of here. unlike paris where everyone packs their bags simultaneously and gets out of dodge, here people slink away unnoticed so no one comments on how someone who is chronically unemployed is going on vacation, again. the red faced attempt to slide back in to berlin life unnoticed yet peppering conversation with references of their latest trip to spain.

sitting on a beach by the spree is about as exciting as paris plage. not very.

in addition to city beaches, berlin also has its own fete de la musique, which took place yesterday. i have a really beautiful string of memories from paris fete de la musique, including faudel live at republique. after doing the requisite, mobile phone tag, you are where? going where? nikolaiviertel? um i'm in mitte. i gave up, thinking of faudel, headed home, missing the rain by a few seconds.

i think i may have a case of berlin burn-out.

in any case, gay pride 25.06

and if you needed convincing the Christopher Street Day organizers are sure to reel you in with this one:

For the second time the CSD will sponsor a small CSD-City on the grounds of the Arena, with everything that appeals to a queer's heart:

* a boat for chilling
* a pool (on the Spree River!) for swimming
* 6 dance floors
* two elaborate stages
* an oriental lounge
* the Esco (Open Air) Bar with a view on the Spree River
* a Sex-Labyrinth to wander through and an exclusive Girl's Club in an new Arena location for girls and their friends

All this and the best innovative live and dance music that the city and other cities can offer.

Also the best of our classic regulars will also be on hand.

maybe that's a translation. 6 dance floors are so appealing!

Miklaslink

2005-06-16T16:10:00.000+02:00

Hartz IV and Xberg

a good bit of linking (DE) on Hartz IV and Kreuzberg over at Miklas Weber's spot. which only makes me wonder more... who are those people on Bergmannstr.? maybe they are getting their last bit of sun before debt and unmanageable rents drive them to Marzahn...

Bergmannstr.

2005-06-13T07:08:00.000+02:00

ambivalence and bergmannstrasse

i'm trying to think of some positives to attach to my unwanted acquaintance with the common cold this past week.

on Friday, i was walking by the Bergmannstr. Fest with one (used) tissue to last me the way home and a spontaneously runny nose. quite vile. and disappointing. while kreuzberg jazzt! (und kocht!), it was looking like most of my weekend would be spent in bed.

like most of my journeys down Bergmannstr., it was filled with mild annoyance, chased down my a large glass of haterade.

i don't mean to hate on Bergmannstr. in spots, it's kind of overpriced for Kreuzberg, 8eur for a pad thai at Pagoda, 5,70 for a put-it-together-yourself lox and cream cheese bagel at barcomi's. but i have to admit it's still pretty nice when the sun is out and people are lounging at espressolounge.

except when you are working. then bergmannstr. is the type of place that can really get on your nerves. you start to wonder who are all these people who continually keep the sushi, indian, and coffee joints packed at all hours of the day, every day of the week, beer or latte at hand and how can you be down. if bergmannstr. is the face of germany unemployed, then there isn't a frown to be seen... they can't be all students, although student in berlin seems to mean from 3-39, and they can't be all tourists. uh so...what's the deal?

despite my strained relationship with bergmannstr., when i felt well enough to inhale something other than my own 2-day old exhaled sickness stagnating in the apartment, i went to see what was jazzing down at the fest.

the music coexisted seamlessly with the street fair ambiance going on, not bad enough to force you to take your caipi and sit somewhere else but not good enough to bother to actually listen. there were enough crazy contraptions to keep kids of all ages satisfied. and the stands were filled with more boutique-y type items than the average run-of-the-mill street fair fare.

but i really wanted to see what was cooking. at chamissoplatz, kreuzberg's gramercy park without the famous key, all the kreuzberg chefs with a capital k and c were serving. (only le cochon bourgeois was noticeably missing i think) not just cooking, serving. like dipping, working the bain-marie, holding tongs, plating. i had the pleasure of Thomas Kurt of E.T.A. Hoffman slicing a salmon and pike perch roulade over an aspargus ragout. the experience was probably dulled by my aspirin+c tastebuds but it was still good to me. if i had been in full form, i would have probably gone down the line from amuse gueule to cheese plate and dessert.

Bergmannstr. - gejazzt und gekocht - was a real treat. today it's back to ambivalence.

visitors

2005-06-04T08:38:00.000+02:00

visitors

some of the happiest moments living abroad are related to the ever-welcome visitor. sometimes it can seem like you are running a hostel. and sometimes, despite the continually open invitation, there are long, desolate spaces where it seems like no one will ever come. the faux-ikeasofabed that doesn't pull out is never used. it feels like you could die alone behind a tree near the landwerkkanal and it would be years before anyone back home notices.

recently we are averaging 1 visitor a month, complete with the stressful prep period of cleaning and trying to figure out how the visitor is going to get to the apartment without getting lost in the berlin wilderness. so far we've lost no one and everyone has returned back to where they came from unscathed.

realizations:

americans are loud. i get loud (really loud) when american friends come to visit. and i really don't care. yall stare anyway.

despite my impressive mental trivia collection gathered from various tours and lonely planet berlin, nobody cares. in france, even after years of unwanted french history relating to literature, i always felt unprepared. people wanted to know what is that, when did it happen, who lived there, who's the man in that statue on a horse, where is the prison, what about this and this and that. i'm so glad we moved before davinci code. i guess just like my unexpected journey to berlin my visitors never thought about coming here either, until i started living here.

i love the question "do you need anything from the states?" but never really have anything in mind so i just make up stuff. which is why i have a box of pancake mix, a bottle of maple syrup, 4 boxes of cornbread mix, and 2 (now 1 1/2) bags of miniature reese's peanut butter cups sitting on the kitchen table.

i will go into convulsions if i have to go to the pergamon again. that's my eiffel tower. i just can't do it. i lucked out the last time. maybe if they move it back to turkey, i'd do it one last time.

it's a good idea to get the football schedules to coordinate your sightseeing plans. the galeries layafette - potsdamer platz - kadewe shopping trip was so not the move on schalke game day. i'm still seeing blue. those fools were everywhere. i could not believe the game started at 8.30pm.

my parents have still not come to visit me. in august it will be a YEAR already. bustaz.

i love my folks back home.

trainstories

2005-06-01T07:11:00.000+02:00

train stories from tuesday

with the weather back to dimsal and chilly, the people who would normally be dispersed over the vast landscape that is berlin have all returned to seek shelter in train stations.

morning. a teacher and chaperone are taking a class on a school trip somewhere. the oohs and aahs at the views from the U1 peak and valley until some seats free up. 4 little girls scramble up onto the seats and manage to turn themselves the right way round. setzen sich normal, reminds the chaperone. once they are in a row, they start singing and swaying. a strangely unmelodic version of the smurfs theme song. over and over and over and over and over again until wittenbergplatz. the smurfette quartet was cute the first time but i was happy to hear ok Schtroumpfis time to get off!

early evening. the requisite xenophobic homeless man turned CDU supporter. wir haben genug ausländer in deutschland he shouts in front of the burger king in Alex.

later that evening. an older woman sitting on the stairs at one of the Rosethalerplatz exits. she looks like some violent fatal disease is slowly eating her up from the inside. as i try to walk by to avoid any interaction, she opens her eyes wider and emits a gravely, burpish sounding noise. at first it startled me, then my brain finally reconstructed the cacaphony i just heard back into syllables and i understood: es regnet. she was trying to tell me it was raining. i was hoping this wasn't a service in trial version from the BVG. i kept thinking of the weather frog (Wetterfrosch) and what one sounds like.

on the way home. obviously it was going to be a train-theme for the day. so the best came last. the grey and straggly haired man with shopping bags abound looked like he had been drinking from the open wine bottle in his hand. a good assumption since he was having a very loud conversation with a non-existant person. his close neighbors pretended like this was not happening, staring straight ahead, looking like catatonics that had been released from the same asylum as the loud talking dude. at alex, someone complained to the conductor who came into the car and gave the man a big SSSSSSSSSSSSHHH sign. then two blue-suited officers stepped on board as we waited for train service to resume.

(following convo in german & english cuz i'm too lazy to get either right)

Sir, would you mind stepping outside for a minute?

Neeeeeeee.

People are complaining that you are bothering them.

Who is bothered? no one is bothered. no, that's him. er hat mich angemacht.

what? who?

der Typ. er hat mich angemacht.

welcher Typ denn?

Der Typ der ist ausgegangen.

yea ok let me see your ticket.

reality must have started seeping in because he started packing up his bags and put the plastic cork back in his bottle, following the officers onto the platform. they probably should have taken the catatonic lady with them too.

crying while eating

2005-05-26T07:18:00.000+02:00

crying while eating

i can't believe saffron got this up before i did from another site. it's so rare that i get a link to post on the blog from a friend. one of my friends from way back - 7th grade? - who is a pretty darn good fortune teller and filmmaker is behind crying while eating. cry. eat. live life. enjoy.