Berlin - Day 11
Finally at the last day of the trip, I can’t say much about this one having been spent entirely by travel. I will say Lufthanse has surprisingly good food in my opinion. It’s taken me a month to do these recaps—almost entirely just for myself to remember everything and try putting some thoughts I had during everything into writing, but I’m neglecting the now on this blog and I’m turning towards it more-so.
Berlin - Day 10
By now I feel like we were starting to get a hang of things, of course this always happens right as the trip is coming to an end, but this day was easily one of the most comfortable and pleasantly nice. I walked across the street from our place and picked up breakfast from Bäckerei 2000, honestly a pretty run-down unassuming place but to me, something I miss so much from Berlin. The corner store/bakery combo is so good. I love that I can pick up an espresso, börek, chips, and cigarettes in one stop for cheap.
We had tattoos from @kirschatattoo in Schillerkiez scheduled for today which took up most of the day. Super nice and welcoming studio, I read a good chunk of Self Study: Notes on the Schizoid Condition while I was getting mine. It’s written in a very digestible way, short journal entry type writing on each page that slowly builds this inwards looking philosophy of being anti-social today.
Recommended by Marta, we walked over to Caligari for maybe the best meal of the trip. A really cute Italian place with a seasonal and short menu, Emily got mussel pasta and I got the beef pasta.
Berlin - Day 9
Not many photos from this day either but it ended up being one of my favorites. We went to the morning part of Creamcake–an auditory/performance/poetry/sensory experience event at Liquidrom. Floating around in this womb-like cave was the sort of relaxing thing we needed by then. We got curry wurst for lunch and I was thoroughly embarrassed trying to order from the hard-ass man running the stand. We had to return the bikes this day which took up a good chunk of time but we stopped at a great pizza spot for dinner before calling it pretty early that night.
Berlin - Day 8 + Movement Weekend in Detroit
No photos from this day, I want to treat this post as I’ve normally been doing, to make some artifact of memory for myself, but also as a way to reflect on my past weekend in Detroit for Movement.
Our day began late, we rode for maybe a half an hour to RSO.Berlin for an outdoor, 100 hour non-stop rave. The mood was so good, in this sprawling industrial complex was a massive stage which brought out a huge crowd that afternoon even at a pretty off time like 3:00pm. The music was upbeat clubby/house stuff. We ate burgers for dinner in a dungeon like maze of seating before heading over to Cake, a perfect bar recommended by my friend Darby when he was in Berlin just a week or so before us. What I really love about places like Cake is just how effortless it is, no fussy branding or overly thought out vibe, just a bunch of old shit spread across the sidewalk that is perfectly fine to sit on and talk. I think these two places, RSO.Berlin and Cake have the characteristic of why Berlin, and I’ll extend to the city’s American friend, Detroit, continue to have a grasp on us. In short, these cities allow for spaces which encourage a mutual agency: over the environment, body, and mind.
Movement weekend is that time of year to make the pilgrimage to return to a major source of creative and developmental inspiration for myself growing up, as well as the ground zero of a beating sound that reminds each of us of the warm cave in which we were forced from at birth. In Detroit, the heart of America thumps and drones like the ever-present mother of nature which undermines our reality. Showing her pervasive demeanor, the crumbling buildings are filled with life once more, just as the ancient Mid-west parries bud new grasses after the periodical fires. The news cycle has been dwelling on the city’s rise for as long as I can remember and I believe should be ignored. To plot these places, Berlin and Detroit, on a timeline of progress breeds nostalgia that creates shells of the past. I believe that Mother Nature will never leave these places, she permeates the soil until all that is built on venture capital collapses once more.
Staying in Hamtramck for the weekend, we were pretty close by to a lot going on. Saturday we had Yemen Cafe before heading oversto Paramita, Submerge, then Wall of Sound into Sunday morning. Sunday we had lunch at Trinosophes before resting up for Zagc’s set and Control VI. Best set was probably Richie Hawtin at Russell Industrial Center. Never heard a sound system and space working so well together.
I’m running out of steam with this post and I’m failing to remember how I was going to tie everything together (interrupted by work). I’ve been imagining the photos to be most important to these re-caps so focusing on writing like this is totally new and potentially cringe-worthy for future me, regardless, I’ll continue.
Berlin - Day 7
We returned to our beloved Café Bonpland before setting out to find some more rental bikes since the last ones came with our last Airbnb. Another gorgeous day, the whole time we were there it was beautiful. Not too hot, not too cold. The perfect weather for strolling and lounging in the park. This day we chilled and waited for the bike shop owner to respond at Boxhagener Platz. Middle of the day and this place was packed with so much energy, the crowd was a crazy mix. We peaked in a couple stores, one particularly good antique store with some beautiful candle holders.
Once we got our rental bikes we rode them to Prater Beer Garden where we had some of the best food of the entire trip. Yes it was a little touristy but after a long ride, we were starving and the pork knuckle and a tall wheat beer hit so hard.
We walked up the hill at Mauerpark at laid there for a while with the rest of the layabouts enjoying a smoke and soaking up the beautiful weather. I kept saying this but really the entire city feels like festival grounds and I love it.
Berlin - Day 6
Tuesday we needed to leave our first Airbnb and check-in at our second in Friedrichshain, just northwest of us. We had some time to kill after packing and after making it to the area, we stumbled across this super chic café called Café Bonpland for a coffee and then read in the nearby park. One thing we noticed about Berlin is just the amount of playgrounds there are, and playgrounds that actually look fun. A lot seem to be made of raw and natural materials like plain lumber and dirt.
Just checking-out and checking-in took up most of our afternoon, we made pasta dinner at the new place which was a lofted studio with a little private patio in the building’s courtyard.
The area we were in now had a much more “neighborhood” feeling to it, with smaller streets, plenty of bakeries, parks, and apartments. That night was lovely to walk around and hear the streets still. We got a drink at Minimal Bar before grabbing a bottle of wine to take home. Sitting on the patio drinking and smoking, that night we talked early into the next morning.
Berlin - Day 5
We knew we wanted Monday to be slower than our first days in the city. When we first arrived, the focus motor on the camera I had brought with me broke and I was pretty determined to find some sort of better replacement than my phone. Luckily there was a film store close by to Pro qm, a bookstore we wanted to visit. I picked up two of those Ilford HP5 Plus disposable cameras which the rest of the trip’s photos were taken on.
Pro qm was great, a massive collection of art, design, and architecture books, magazines, and zines. Although we certainly could have seen a lot Of these books in bookstores in any big city, I really enjoy picking up something to read on a trip outside of Camille Paglia’s Sexual Personae, the behemoth I decided to bring with me to chip away at during our down time on this trip. I picked up two books, “Open Form: Space, Interaction, and the tradition of Oskar Hansen” and “Self Study: Notes on the Schizoid Condition”.
Afterwards we rode to the Berlinische Galerie. I think for both Emily and I, this is were things started to click for us in terms of why the city is the way that it is. I think up until this point, we approached the city with an understanding of what it has to offer, albeit, an understanding of outsiders. I’m writing these blog posts retrospectively after our return to Chicago and this past weekend Emily and I met Faulkner and Nat at the first Humboldt Arboreal Society event of the summer. There we happened to come across Tyler on his way to Yoga, and having just returned from a ten day meditation retreat an hour or so west of the city. Deep in overgrown flowering grass and the crowd of people all setting up temporary retreats for themselves, feeling the thump of House music coming through the dirt, we reported back on the trip, similarly to what I’m doing now. We talked about the people, the clubs, the wall, etc. but one point seemed most pertinent that Emily had mentioned, that the city kills your ego. A place with such a mystic grasp on many, promising fulfillment of your deepest desires, but only once you’ve earned it.
Tyler mentioned a conversation he had in Berlin with a woman who had lived through the extreme, pagan debauchery of old Berlin in a bunker deep underground just after the wall had fallen. I can only try to understand what the collective feeling must’ve been like, its been rehashed countless times and far more nuanced than I could ever, but throughout history there are these perfect moments in which a perfect shift occurs in the perfect location which creates seismic waves felt decades later. Just the night before Emily, Nat and I went a Dirty Truths party on Chicago’s southwest side. It was a true celebration of Chicago’s House music in all regards, a time capsule giving us just a glimpse of the excitement that must’ve been felt hearing such a fresh and novel take on Disco that possessed you to dance until sunrise. No average party goer could have ever imagined the lasting effects that Chicago’s thriving gay scene in an extreme time of civil unrest would have the endlessly iterated upon phenomena of House music born from the insides of converted warehouses. The fall of the Berlin wall must’ve been a moment in which the collectives floodgates were released in an already lush artistic community that gave rise to some of the most iconic and darkest music, style, design, art, and mindsets the world has seen. The Berlinische Galerie archives this and more. Following the chronological loop around the second floor, it covers works made in Berlin from the 1870s to today. Piece after piece it’s easy to see how unstable living situations give rise to some of history’s endlessly studied works of the avant-guard. Larger than life works that reminded me that I am nothing and deserve nothing from this place.
That night we read our books and smoked on the River Spree. Enjoying some time to reflect, we peered into the house boats dotting the water with a pair of binoculars.