2005-06-26

new place

my new home reminds me of a birds nest. I am living high up on the 4th floor and the light in the rooms is like a therapy for me. The street is very lively with cafes and restaurants and regularly I can hear the music from street musicians passing the cafes and restaurants for some change. Every place has its own feeling and athmosphere. The street lies in the former eastern part of Berlin, but has been renovated, so it gave me the feeling of a stage at first.I am cooking with gas again(great!) and exercise whenever I climb the four floors to the apartment. The two rooms were furnished and I occupied them with my paper-life. The closest post office is the one I used before, which now lies two tube stations away: In the supermarkets here I have to find my products again or other supermarkets with my products. But the best thing is that I live over the treetops. In the evening, when the sun comes around the house I can see the sun and wind playing with the leaves while sitting at my desk. After my nomadic time I can feel how I needed such a space within homely walls. The first days I only left the house if necessary, just to hurry back up to my nest-
Posted by steffi at 7:39 PM
Categories: places

guard of my sleep

whale whispersthis very Japanese looking whale(made in Peru) is the new guard of my sleep. With just 10cm in sizea very convenient company-
Posted by steffi at 7:26 PM
Categories:

WARNUNG

hot stuff insideNach den Besuch bei Ihrem Bäcker lesen Sie bitte die Packungsbeilage oder fragen Sie einen Bäcker oder Konditor. nie mehr allein
Posted by steffi at 7:19 PM
Edited on: 2005-06-26 7:22 PM
Categories: misc

Wunder gibt es immer wieder

Auf seltsame Weise vermischte sich bei meinem gestrigen Kinobesuch die Vorschau mit dem Hauptfilm. In der Vorschau wurden Szenen aus dem Film 'Die Höhle des gelben Hundes' gezeigt. Eine mongolische Großmutter weist ihr Enkelkind an, zu versuchen, ein Reiskorn auf die Spitze einer Nadel zu spießen, indem sie die Reiskörner über die Nadel rieseln läßt. So schwer sei es, sagt sie, in einem nächsten Leben als Mensch wiedergeboren zu werden und deswegen sei das Leben so wertvoll. Der Hauptfilm war Emir Kusturicas 'Das Leben ist ein Wunder' und spielte in Bosnien vor und während dem Krieg. Die Menschen leben autistisch in ihrer eigenen Welt, sei es der Eisenbahningenieur Lucca, seine psychisch gestörte Frau, die früher Opernsängerin gewesen ist, oder der Sohn, der von einer Profifussballkarriere träumt. Jeder lebt für sich vor sich hin und wird von den Ereignissen mitgerissen, den ganz privat familiären ebenso wie den politischen.Schrägheit, Poesie und Tragik führen den Betrachter in einen Mikrokosmos, der wie das Eisenbahnmodell von Lucca für den Versuch einer geplanten Welt steht, die sich den Plänen immer wieder entgegensetzt. Der einzelne ist gebeutelt von den großen und kleinen Ereignissen. Ist dieses Leben lebenswert? Diese Frage stellen sich Mensch und Tier gleichermaßen in diesem Film und die Bahnstrecke, die Wohlstand und Reichtum bringen sollte, wird immer wieder, ebenfalls von Mensch und Tier als Ort für einen Suizid ausgewählt, der wiederum von den Ereignissen immer wieder verhindert wird. Und so ist das Fazit dieses tragigkomischen Films: Ja, das Leben ist ein Wunder, das immer wieder irgendwie weitergeht. Besser, man feiert heute, was heute zu feiern ist und läßt das Morgen auf sich zukommen.
Posted by steffi at 11:16 AM
Categories: movie

2005-06-11

just don't trust

Yesterday I saw the performance: Don’t trust anyone over thirty!’ in the theater ‚Magazin’ of the Staatsoper Berlin. My friend M had organised the tickets and I had no idea about the content of the play. I only knew that it was a puppet play with videos of Tony Oursler...and produced by Dan Graham. At the entrance earplugs were given out and regarding the life music accompanying the play I do not wonder why. Unfortunately the sound quality of the speaking was quite bad and the American slang did not really help the understanding... A rock star initiated that the age for voting is dropped to 14 in the United States and so the rock star is voted for president with the slogan: ‚Don’t trust anyone over thirty!’. Everyone over thirty was then being sent to a kind of educational recreation camp, where they are treated with drugs. Slowly the under ten years old feel underrepresented and start a new campaign with the slogan: Don’t trust anyone over 10! reared more
Posted by steffi at 4:11 PM
Categories: misc

2005-06-09

Ich bin ein Berliner!

Yes, I am an official citizen of Berlin now. Feels quite strange and I look around with the question: Is this my city? And I answer myself: For now- YES!
Posted by steffi at 4:57 PM
Edited on: 2005-06-09 4:58 PM
Categories: misc

Schneeköniginnen

Die Bücher von Cees Nooteboom sind normalerweise Garanten für Lesevergnügen und darauf war ich auch eingestellt, als ich sein Buch ‚In den niederländischen Bergen’ zur Hand nahm. Eigentlich mag ich Märchen, aber diese Adaption von Andersons Schneekönigin konnte mich leider nicht begeistern. Gut, immer wieder mal gab es Lichtblicke, zum Beispiel, wenn über den Weg, 'auf dem Weg sein' und ‚weg’ sein reflektiert wird. Aber dies waren eben nur Lichtblicke, vergleichbar mit den Sonnentagen im Berliner so genannten 'Frühling'. Alles in allem überflog ich den Text eher als dass ich ihn las und freute mich, als ich auf der letzten Seite angekommen war. Kein Vergleich, beispielsweise zu ‚Mokusei!’, das ich verschlungen hatte, oder ‚Rituale’. Immerhin habe ich jetzt Lust bekommen, diesen alten ledergebundenen Anderson Band herauszusuchen, den ich vor Jahren in England gekauft hatte... Da weiss man, was man hat.
Posted by steffi at 4:56 PM
Categories: books

Monsters Inc.

Pixar studios have mostly managed to express some childrens dreams of mine; this is why I loved TOY STORY(and hadn’t I dreamt of my dolls having parties in the attic while everybody was sleeping when I was a child?) and also Shrek pleased me, very much to my surprise. When a boring evening some time this week started I decided to rent a video. My first choice was ‚Traumschiff Enterprise, Periode 1’, a German fun-version of a seventies science fiction TV series. Unfortunately the DVD had some scratches and when I took it back there was no another copy left. So I turned to the childrens section and decided I would spend the evening with ‚Monsters Inc.’. There is probably not much that can better lighten up a bad mood than a movie like this. Simple human emotions are tickeled out and the only thing that spoilt my evening was that I had forgotten my bottle opener somewhere and could not open the wine(I felt like a chimpanzee in front of a fruit box. You knkow, you like what is inside, but how the hell get it out from there). But maybe the juice was anyway a better drink for ‚Monsters Inc.’ And I slept like a baby after, wondering where the German monsters are coming out as the wardrobes are no real rooms with real doors. And with all the IKEA wardrobes in German childrens room, monsters probably easily mix up places...Who knows.
Posted by steffi at 4:53 PM
Categories: movie

2005-06-07

LADY SNOWBLOOD KILLS BILL

I went to my video library today and actually I wanted to get the second part of KILL BILL. But when I saw that all of the rental cards for KILL BILLII were still there, I wondered why I should see this film if no one else wanted to. Remembering that I had heard of the Japanese movie LADY SNOWBLOOD, from which the idea for KILL BILL was taken, I looked around for it and took it. What a fascinating movie, a little less blood thirsty than Tarantinos version and wonderfully ‚seventies’. I do not need to see KILL BILL II anymore after seeing this film. about Lady Snowblood...in GermanBy the way, the movie I rented next was Bridget Jones II. Contrasts are enriching...
Posted by steffi at 12:20 PM
Categories: movie

dogs and their droppings

Berlin is definately the city of dog droppings. They are everywhere on the pavement and often enough the street is ‚mined’ with dog-shit. You learn to live with it and develop a certain awareness to what is lying on the ground ahead of you. And then I read this news. The polititians think about developing a genetical test for dogs and their droppings (IT IS TRUE, I am not joking!)- So every dog dropping could be traced to the dog and to the dog owner. In Japan people are more...responsible(?)- anyway, you often see the dog-owners carrying plastic bags with the dogs droppings behind their dogs(a sight which always could raise my mood). However in Japan you take off your shoes when you enter a house or apartment. I strongly recommend this for Berlin too.
Posted by steffi at 12:16 PM
Categories: places