Fuzzy picture of me at Bar Boca in Oslo, Thorvald Meyer Gate 30. Cult 50's style cocktail bar where you can impress the cute bartender by ordering a Zubrowka Polish vodka, the one with the amaretto overtones.

And here, from behind, the cute bartender.

Norway's famous kitsch painter, Helene Knoop.

"Wir machen blau!"
with the Norwegian dramatic soprano Katharina Jakhelln Semb.

Bringebär tid!
Raspberry season in Norway.

In the background, our hosts Oslo gallerist Gerald Bleim and painter Helene Knoop.

"The sky in Berlin is tumultuous. So in a way, we never needed the hills or the ocean," said the woman in the cafe. She was a gardener. And, apparently, the ground beneath Berlin is quartz, which gives the city the special energy that it will never lose.

I helped her eat the cake.
* * *

Mmph... hey wait, this isn't funny...

Erfolg!
The Open Mic at Brezel Bar morphed into an Open Sidewalk.
"If it doesn't bother the neighbors."
"You mean, until it bothers the neighbors."

I've been to a lot of open mic's in Berlin, and it's seldom to be treated to a "man with guitar" with as much talent, discipline, and humor as Christen Bach, an artist of many talents.

* * *

Oh, no, she does not approve. Of men who kiss every girl in sight. She is a diva and must be the only woman on Earth.

Here's to you.
* * *

Samstag Idylle. Beerenzeit in Deutschland.

* * *

Are we there yet?
Back-seat driver on Schulterblatt, Hamburg.

IV.

(something in the breath
of you next to me
so soft will hurt
come august morning;

when you again say
politics of your inner
never will change;
yet remain my heart

which bone beneath
your skin (that i loved
to kiss) knows truly
‘tis not the separation
between me & you but
the separation of
above and below

(and missing you
behind a cratered wall
i dream not but
confess am hoping
someday
we will
be one




from Five Short Pieces for a Talking City
(c) idyll wilde 2009

* * *

"Stay for a while"
The season finale party at Deutsches Theater, Saturday 11 July 2009. A part of town I don't go to very often. Beautiful all the same, some pockets of old Berlin near Friedrichstrasse; I promise to be back soon.

The theater lounge. People were having a really relaxed evening.

Bar at Deutsches Theater with DJs from Berghain, Berlin's gem for the world's best techno music. I always talk about how techno music can actually be pretty. The good stuff is not a repetitive electronic beat; the good stuff is a mix of sounds where the melody may not change, but the texture does. Gorgeous sounds they can be. You sit there for hours; it feels like you are being served the finest feast for your ears.

Marga was with me that night. She was impressed by the range of people at the party, young and old. True, that is something nice about German cities, to be honest and objective. Those who feel beautiful, attractive, and want to be visible are allowed practice their vanity boundlessly. And many take up that offer. At what age do people get old and disappear? Start to wear the same clothes outside the house that they slept in, every day? Or at what weight? When do people stop feeling entitled to embody beauty?

* * *

See, I can dance, too.

The table set for Rosé Sekt on Wohlwillstraße, Hamburg.

Die Prinzessin zu Hause.Susanne just got the role in Berlin and is reading about Brigitte Fassbender, her inspiration for singing Kurt Weill.

* * *

Today my head is full of thoughts that I am not allowed to publicize.
Confidentiality rules.

Ah, ha. The flash works.
* * *

Rain, rain, get outta here.
Come again when I'm out of town.

There are fireworks in Kreuzberg tonight. I'm not bothering to see where it's coming from. It's my evening to stay home and rest. Yet another Middle-Eastern man asked me in the subway today if I was married with children. Before he even knew my name. How am I supposed to answer that? Why does it matter to him? Shall I ask him the same question? Why is it the FIRST thing they want to know? Why does it always happen to me, but not to German women? And why don't German men ask me? Do they ask me to see if I'm potential marriage material? Or to see if they should feel sorry for me when I say no?
I'm tempted to generically answer: I'm lesbian. But usually I'm so shocked that I can't think of anything witty to say.

Holy Cow! Ugly men in advertisements!!
Not that they're not lovable... but wow talk about double standards. I know there is a reverse psychology in action here, how to reach the target customer. Worse yet, as German as I am, even I can't tell how serious this is supposed to be. In any case, this takes the cake for the year.

It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood/
Would you be mine? Could you be mine?
Won't you be my neighbor?

* * *
A day at the market in the capital city of Germany. A man is selling textiles at the Maybachufer.

Castles on Tuesday?
Uh, yeah. Don't ask me how this happened (see below). Believe, me, I am having a busy week. Stressed and sleep-deprived, deadlines, juggling emails and phone calls. Was only momentarily sidetracked, which in Germany often results in stumbling upon a Baroque Castle in a clearing shortly before sundown.
(Schloß Köpenick, south east of Berlin. Completed in 1690)


* * *

This is the reason for the spontaenous outing. My favorite Lenna (there is only one). The International Woman of Mystery. With her sunglasses. And the Mercedes convertible that I must drive once before it's sold.

Looks so innocent on the outside. The Josetti Höfe in Berlin. Former cigarette factory, now a crazy factory, as I call it. Currently occupied by mostly creative tenants, you never know what you're going to get flying in through your window. The other day there was a photo shooting outside my office door for some band that sounded like they were playing gypsy music, guitar and violin ensemble. Marvelous. But last week it was someone cleaning out the techno music from their hard-drive, and I remember the summer when the room next door must have been editing a computer-game soundtrack. It sounded like a Smurf orgy, over and over and over again.

* * *

"It's a lonely city," he commented, before I even said anything. I think he must have read it from my expression across the table. But still, he nailed it, my thought as I was taking a breath to speak. That was exactly what I was going to say.

in der angetrunkenen dämmerung
der morgenstunden alleine
am tag nach meinem geburtstag
zwei drei null sieben null sieben
oder anders gesagt
diese stadt ist mein blut

Pretzels to Palaces
Back in Berlin at BrezelBar off Bergmannstraße.
It had to happen one day (namely yesterday) that an Israeli would start talking to me because of the airport stickers in Hebrew on my suitcase. So I met Oren in in the subway at Alexander Platz on my way back home from Hamburg. He just opened this cafe in the Bergmann-Kiez in May.
Oren from Tel Aviv is a little crazy. He's obsessed with making the best pretzels according to a Bavarian traditional recipe. It all started years ago with a pushcart that grew into a catering service at Columbia Halle, and now this cafe.
Anyway, come check it out. Friesenstraße 2

brezelbar.de

* * *
I'm heading off to Theater unterm Dach now.

There's something about this house! I wouldn't know what to do with a 10-room 18th century estate, ruin, former war-orphanage, and now "Wohnprojekt" in the middle of town. Yet so endearing. It's so large you can't keep track of who's in it. So best to keep the doors double-locked and stay exclusive about who gets to move in.

I like the way the colors turned out on this one. White balancing made it more true to life. This is the view from the Gästezimmer onto Große Freiheit, where the Beatles hung out before they made it big. The cluster at the end of the street is the Reeperbahn. Noisy. But I must have been tired from the gig on Thursday. I fell asleep with the window open.

Susanne in the garden.
My Susanne. My lovely Susanne.

* * *

Ha! I just had to add this. Nobi in a food coma after a killer breakfast at the Greek diner in Brooklyn.
Archive photo 6 June 2009

This is what a 50th birthday party in Hamburg looks like.
Jörn's celebration in February with his buddies in the Große Freiheit. He is the one talking and wearing the brown sweater he got for his birthday. Jörn is a true-blooded Hamburger; he went to sailing school, worked as a sail-maker, can tie a killer knot, and has been immaculately squatting this house on the Reeperbahn with his mates since the 1970's.

And the dessert by Susanne: berry creme with mini baisers

Cafe Ponte Carlo
A popular daytime hangout for the tenants of the various crazy-factories on Rungestraße, Berlin. Everyone loves Gambi, the Italian owner who has let's call it "diverse" taste in music that blasts in the cafe from a home-made music system that resembles a pile of laptops and cables. Black metal, ballroom, Frank Sinatra, country-western. You name it. He surfs between four languages during the hour, at the moment there is a young French woman waitressing the lunch crowd. Today, Gambi was talking on Skype with someone in Italian. He had no headphones so he used the speaker system and the entire cafe was listening to the conversation at normal volume over the theme song to "Austin Powers," I think it was.
It went on for twenty minutes.

***

Nobi in der Großen Freiheit. Two blocks from Beatles Platz, Hamburg.
The historic house from 1772 a spit away from the Reeperbahn.
And you hear the ruckus at night.
I'll be crashing here until Saturday.