It does feel a bit like this at the moment.

BERLIN WALK from Vitùc on Vimeo.

Hallo. I cannot complain about my life being boring at the moment. Having returned from a stay in Dublin and Italy two weeks back, I’ll be flying to Dublin next week again to partake in a world record attempt organised by the Irish Writers Centre. Before that, and I’m extremely looking forward to that, there’s Amanda Fucking Palmer’s Berlin arts event and concert at the container-turned-art-space-place Platoon. I’ll attend as I backed up her Kickstarter for the new album, tour and other shenanigans. Here’s the low-down:

“International musician and performer Amanda Palmer is releasing a new album with her new band, The Grand Theft Orchestra. therefore she asked her friends, more than 30 international artists, to do artwork for her new album and while in search for a display space in Berlin she turned to PLATOON to do an exhibition followed by an intimate concert.”

Here’s a photo and a new song from the upcoming album. I can’t wait (and also harbour tiny tiny hopes that her husband, a certain Mr. Gaiman, may be in attendance as well).

The Friday after, I’ll fly to Dublin again to partake in a Guinness (!) world record attempt organised by the Irish Writers’ Centre, coinciding with Bloomsday.

“The Irish Writers’ Centre will attempt to make history this Bloomsday by claiming the Guinness World Record for ‘Most Authors Reading Consecutively From Their Own Books’.

The readings will be open to the public and the worldwide audience can join in too, as the whole event will be streamed live on the Irish Writers’ Centre website. There will be a broad range of texts and tastes, and audience members are invited to stay all night and cheer on the writers reading into the small hours.”

I’ll be reading with writers such as Roddy Doyle, Kevin Barry and Irish Nobel Prize laureate Seamus Heaney, amongst others. They did give me the nightshift though, so I’ll be reading at 3.45 am on Saturday morning, which I think is a good time to read a story. I hope they have wine though. Or Red Bull. In any way, the full schedule is here.

A few months back, most collaborators (that includes me) writing for Pocketcultures (a very good culture/travel website with a busload of interesting contributors from around the globe that you should visit) started working on a book. The whole thing started with an email from Marta, PocketCultures contributor in Spain who wondered: “Is a book feasible?” The idea caught fire and Pocketcultures decided to make a book collecting games we (the contributors) used to play as children. And collecting games in this case means children’s games from all over the world.

And guess what: you can get this lovely ebook with lots of illustrations for free over on pocketcultures.com.

So, if you (or your children) are interested in how games are played all over the world you should check this out. Did I mention that it is lovely?

I love telling stories. Either ones that I made up myself, or stories that actually happened. One of the most interesting stories I’ve stumbled across in the last months is the one of German WW2-spy Hermann Goertz, who was sent to Ireland in 1941, failed to find out anything interesting and finally committed suicide in Dublin castle. I just had nowhere to go with the story – until I approach the guys behind the extraordinary Storymap project. Storymap is mapping Dublin town through the stories of its people, recording storytellers telling their stories where they happened. And they cover all sorts of topics: history, anecdotal, personal, even the unnatural. One of the best and comprehensive records of urban Dublin today, in my eyes. In any way, here’s yours truly talking about Nazi spies in Ireland.

We actually found out that we recorded the story on the same day that Goertz died 65 years ago – you can read the Irish Times article from the following day here.

…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.

by Weddingweiser

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.

By Tom Gauld via broadsheet.ie

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

23:00 / SATURDAY 17th March 2012 / €5 ENTRY & FREE JAMESON IRISH WHISKEY’

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.