…which also serves as some kind of update. Every time I realise I haven’t blogged for a while I feel a bit embarrassed, but then this also means that I have been busy other wise. Currently I’m mostly working on my grannie-related project which I briefly mentioned here – but there will be a more detailed update later. I’ll also record a short video with the good guys over at Storymap, which is one of the nicest sites about Dublin history and culture around on the interwebs, and they are going to film me talking about German spies in Ireland. Talking of Ireland, I am also going to partake in the Irish Writers’ Centre’s world record attempt of having the most consecutive public readings in one go – on Bloomsday. Last but not least I am also working on the story for a concept metal album (yes, a CONCEPT METAL ALBUM) with German metal band In Arcane. More and detailed information for all project to follow soon, but now I’m off to the official opening of the new talents – biennale Cologne, which is run and co-curated by the Analog Girl, and which makes me insanely proud. In the meantime, here’s a picture of Susan Sontag in a bear costume. Enjoy what you’re doing, whatever that may be.
As some of you might know, I’ve started writing for the good guys over at Slow Travel Berlin since coming to the German capital (you can read a 2010 interview with main man Paul Sullivan here). And these guys are hosting a phantastic event on the weekend: on Sunday, April 22nd, the 120-year old Markthalle Neun in Kreuzberg will be taken over all day for a day of ‘creativtity, culture and cuisine’ with walking tours, slow food market stalls, readings, workshops and what not – the full programme is up here.
There will also be a Lit Lounge hosted by English Berlin-based Sand literature magazine and Dialogue Books, aided by cakes and coffee from Hudson Cakes. Sand together with the newly founded Kombinat Literatur Berlin are also holding a little portable book fair, where independent Berlin-based publishers and authors will present their works. And they’ve kindly given me the chance to talk about the little pamphlet I self-published last year, so somewhen between 2.15 and 3 pm a nervous chubby author will hold up a little grey book on a stage and would be very thankful for your support.
So do come and join the festivities on Sunday and hear about good books and magazines and nibble on delicious stuff and watch the puppet theatre and go to the readings or join the didgeridoo-workshop, maybe.
I live in Berlin-Wedding, which is not the most picturesque quarter of Berlin. What we do have here is a lot of shops and pharmacies though. Germans do go to the GP at the first sign of a cold, so there’s no tradition of self-medication here at all: all pharmacies lack the good stuff like Nurofen or Lemsip – the only thing they offer are weak lemon-based remedies without painkillers. German pharmacies do however have the strange tradition of handing out giveaways with your prescriptions. The standard is a pack of tissues and some sweets, but the pharmacies here in Wedding seem to be in fierce competition with each other. With a sinusitis, I walked into my nearest pharmacy last week to get antibiotics. I handed over my prescription, and the lady behind the counter started packing my bag.
Chemist: ‘So, that’s the antibiotics and the painkillers. Would you also like some olive soap?’
Me: ‘Sure, why not.’
Chemist: ‘Good. I also put some tissues in. Do you like cappuccino?’
Me: ‘What?’
Chemist: (grabs a handful of instant-cappuccino bags from under the counter) ‘Cappuccino.’
Me: ‘Mmh, ok.’
I left the pharmacy with my prescriptions, two packs of tissues, olive soap, 8 bags of instant cappuccino, glucose, a little calendar, and mints. I like it in Wedding.
Dublin, how I missed your stained and pockmarked footpaths, only looking clean when awash with rain; your piss-stinking alleys; the oily Liffey with its smell of rotting seaweed and exhaust fumes; and the taste of greasy sausage rolls washed down with stale tea in a futile attempt to clear the hangover cobwebs in my head. It was good to be back.
And yet it does. Even though most Germans still imagine Ireland being solemnly inhabited by tweed-clad fiddlers, ginger line-dancers and sheep and only consisting of pubs and green hills, there’s a small bunch of Irish expats waving the shamrock-in-exile and promoting Irish culture beyond getting wasted on stout.
So, as an ex-expat for whom St. Patrick’s Day had to replace Karneval for quite a while and who developed a liking for dressing green on a particular day in March, I’m happy to present you the low-down of Paddy’s Day celebrations in Germany:
Germany’s biggest Paddy’s Day-parade takes place in Munich, of all places. Sadly, it already did so yesterday. They nevertheless had some good craig, I’ve heard. There even was an Irish mass.
Thankfully, there’s also a Paddy’s Day-programme in my new hometown, Berlin. Here’s the story.
‘SHEBEEN FLICK BERLIN
Three nights of screenings showing some much loved and some unseen Irish films. With directors taking part in Q&A’s via Skype at the end of each screening. Some of the highlights include Pyjama Girls, One Hundred Mornings and a double bill with the only two ever Oscar winning Irish short films Six Shooter and The Shore.
The parade kicks off at 16:00 from Spreewaldplatz – Kreuzberg. Come down dressed in your finest green and march with us to celebrate Ireland’s national day. All Welcome.
The route will pass through Görlitzer Park and includes performances from The Berlin Pipe Band & special guests.
SPREEWALDPLATZ, 10999 Berlin-Kreuzberg
U-Bahnhof Görlitzer Bahnhof
TRADITIONAL EATS, DRINKS, CRAIC AGUS CEOL “AND SIX NATIONS RUGBY”
Come into the warmth of Irish stew and hot whiskeys ‘on the house’. A feast of delicious Irish cuisine from the Irish chefs who run The Last Supper Club. At 18:00 the Ireland vs England rugby game will be screened and traditional Irish musicians and singers will bring us late into the evening. G’wan the session!
A late night after party with live band and infamous ex-pat Irish DJ’s including THE PASSION BEAT CREW and THE RESIDENTS OF LOFTUS HALL. Get first hand experience at what the Irish are famous for.
LOFTUS HALL, Maybachufer 48, 12045 Berlin
Metro Bus M29 | U-Bahnhof Hermannplatz
In any way, I’ll be probably wearing a stupid hat next Saturday and try to sing Irish songs, even though the Dropkick Murphy’s can do that better. Did I mention that they’re going to light up Berlin’s TV tower in green all day on the 17th? Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig.
With Sunday being a hangovered Sunday courtesy of Gaststätte W. Prassnik, I was really looking forward to a mellow acoustic evening celebrating life and music of legendary protest singer Woody Guthrie. The good guys over at the ExBerliner Mag had put me on the guestlist for what had been announced as a ‘Woody Guthrie 100′-show, and I was especially looking forward to see Tom Morello a.k.a the Nightwatchman play his solo show in honour of Woody (who’s 100th birthday is this year). However, the show at the Kesselhaus in the Kulturbrauerei turned out to be the final show of the 2012 Berlin ‘music and politics festival’, a weeklong festival with panels, discussions and music promoting all sorts of leftish political songwriting. This being a German political event, I was one of the youngest people in the crowd. I’m 34. With rows of chairs set up in front of the stage, it seemed to become the quiet evening I was expecting, so I took to observing the stage and the crowd from the safety of the bar.
Opening act were the 4-piece ‘Woody Sez‘, a very likeable group of musicians who are named after a column Woody once wrote for a socialist newspaper in California, and who retell Woody’s story by playing his songs in chronological order using instruments like a battered accoustic guitar, a kazzoo, banjos, accordeons and fiddles in a proper 1930s setup.
Next up was German ‘Liedermacher’ (or songwriter) Wenzel. Allegedly a very famous musician in the former GDR, watching him perform for the first time he struck me as quite pretentious. Announcing his songs in a artificially hoarse voice, he and his backing band played songs of Woody in German translation (Wenzel has published an album of Woody Guthrie songs in German in 2003), and a few Wenzel-songs in between. What he did not do was to honour the one instrument that Woody used to write his songs: the guitar. Wenzel mostly used a squeaking 70s-keyboard as main instrument to interpret the songs, and in all fairness: if nobody would have told me in advance that he was covering Woody, those songs may have well been played by Heinz Rudolf Kunze (or Chris Rea, for that matter) at a local beerfest. Especially his variations of Woody’s children songs (’TICKY TOCK TICKY TICKY TOCK’) made me cringe. The pensioner next to me liked it, though. She whirled her handbag over her head and started shrieking whenever Wenzel looked in our direction.
To my relief, Wenzel stopped after about 45 minutes to make way for one quarter of Rage Against The Machine, or The Nightwatchman. Tom Morello had been booked for this single Berlin gig only and had flewn over from Los Angeles, but stormed the stage with no apparent jetlag. Tom was the only musician on the bill who I could identify as actively supporting political movements, having played at Occupy Wallstreet and for other protest movements, so his set was more aimed at participation and interaction than he initially received from the seated audience in front of the stage. But after a few foot-stompers like ‘The Fabled City’, ‘One Man Revolution’ and ‘Union Town’ he finally got the crowd to their feet for the last few songs – some of them seemed to remember their past and even flashed peace-signs at the stage. Also was Tom not playing any Woody Guthrie-covers beside ‘This Land Is Your Land’, which he performed as an encore with all other musicians on stage, all venue lights on and a somewhat jumping (more hopping) audience singing along.
Oh, and he played RATM’s ‘Guerilla Radio’ with only a guitar and a harmonica, with an energy that would have made Woody proud. I just wonder if somebody told Tom that the ticket price for the event was 30 Euros, not really a bargain that would have interested any political protester without a job. But I reckon they had better things to do anyway.
