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