Sylvester mit der Feuerwehr

We only heard the humming of an engine, and when we looked out of the window there were 5 fire brigade trucks in our street.

What happened at the first floor of the 1930s building opposite? Maybe a short-circuit on a Christmas tree? The firemen were throwing carpets out of the balcony. Or maybe it was those crackers we heard during the afternoon (new year’s eve small-scale fireworks start at 4pm and end at 6am in Berlin…) jumping back in the living room?

Everything is being taken care smoothly, no sirens and no mess. We almost feel ashamed to have looked out of the window…let’s hope that nothing serious happened and that ambulances are just for bringing those unlucky neighbors to a hospital check.

The last post of 2010 is thus dedicated to the Berliner Feuerwehr, who had a very intense December in Berlin fighting against ice, snow and fire. Let’s hope that tonight will be fine.

time for new year’s resolutions?

Guten Rutsch ins neue Jahr 2011! Happy 2011!

If among your New Year’s resolutions there is indeed a trip to Berlin, don’t forget that the Berlinale starts on February 10th…it may be cold, but the Berlinale will warm you up! More information for the whole of 2011 will be added in the coming days, however you find some bits and pieces for Jan-March 2011…

DEUTSCHES HISTORISCHES MUSEUM
- “Hitler und die Deutschen: Volkgemeinschaft und Verbrechen” (Hitler and the Germans, nation and crime”) until Feb 6
- “1990 der weg zur Einheit” until Jan 2

MUSEUM BERLIN KARLSHORST
“Chandogin” war photographs from Karelia and Leningrad 1939-1944 – until Feb 6

MARTIN GROPIUS BAU
“Làzlò Moholy-Nagy Art of Light” until Jan 16
“Pierre Soulages” until Jan 17
“World knowledge, 300 years of science in Berlin” until Jan 9

BERLINISCHE GALERIE
“Nan Goldin – Berlin works” until March 28
“Arno Fischer – Photographs” until Feb 28
“Menschen Dinge Menschenwerk – Emil Otto Hoppé Photographs” until Feb 28

the meringue movie theater

Tonight we braved the icing snow for that sublime macaron, that fluffy meringue: the Astor Lounge movie theater on Kudamm.

It’s marvellous, especially in the winter: the leather seats, the little side tables, the architecture. But the most intriguing thing is the small light & sound show just before the movie starts. It sets you in that expectant and magic atmosphere and makes you think “Er…what did we come to see?” the little pre-movie amnesia that only glorious theaters inspire.

kebab for brekfast, chez guenther grass

Kebab for breakfast is at a stone’s throw from home. We always had this sense of déjà vu when the camera zooms from the family’s adventures to the family’s home which, according to the plot, should be in Neukölln.

Now we realized why. This house is just around the corner and it’s in Friedenau. It’s the house where Guenther Grass lived until 1996.

Berlin’s secret bar

The art of aperitivo is something we practice in Italy. In Rome it is a fairly recent fashion. Its roots lie in Northern Italy and for us the real McCoy spritz and yummy magnarini are those of Venice’s bacari. In Rome rather than for the inflationed mainstream spritz noisy places we go for excellent wine watering holes, like our friend’s Pino and Francesca Uve e Forme in our neighborhood. Excellent wines, carefully prepared sfizi, nice conversation noises and thoughtful lighting – in Rome brouhaha and garish neon are the norm, here the confidential atmosphere is part of the pleasure.

In Berlin we don’t aperitivo at all. The city’s schedule is different. Enter cocktail culture…Last Spring our friends E&E introduced us to a so-called secret bar here in Berlin and that was a mind opener. Good cocktails are a disappointment in Italy – too watery – so we had to rely on our travels abroad for sampling excellent ones. But now there’s THE place! Each time we come to Berlin we phone the secret telephone number and get an appointment with our favorite barman…Mr.D.

In his secret bar the philosophy and the experience are close to a late night’s wine tasting or a nocturne foie gras rendez-vous. It’s about tasting and discovery. Small circle, few people, by appointment. Underground location, private club. It’s a gastronomic approach to alcohol. We go there to taste a special nectar. Quality ingredients, thorough research and création.

We never tried the classics so far in this secret place, even if one day we will have to start and go through the list. But it’s Mr D’s own creations and his impromptu improvisations which keep us glued to the small, confidential counter. Flower distillates especially researched and prepared. The best rums, tequila, bourbons from each corner of the planet. Even ice is perfect. It never melts and its shapes are perfect. Frosty spheres rolling in a misty tumbler. Transparent cubes shimmering across crystal.

In these snowy and icy nights crossing the town is rewarded with aromatic winter treats, whose names, ingredients, nuances and perfumes I will not mention!

Three confidential counters compose the secret bar. This week we moored to the cosy rum counter which has a Tiki confidential twist. Who would have imagined after our trek in the snow across Berlin that we would end up spending an evening at the counter discussing tiki aesthetic with Mr D? But that’s the magic of Berlin. The sky might be gray, but there’s so much to discover. Like tiki gemütlich…

the fabric of things

At the exhibition there are objects that speak louder than many words.

A roll of yellow fabric. It looks as though it was produced yesterday. Not tarnished, not faded. It shouts that even if the events happened 80 years ago these events are still very close to us.

The Stolpersteine that you see on too many pavements and the panels on every street of Schoeneberg are a constant reminder.

Photo: Merkur

no populist leaders without people.

The articles I read about the exhibition were positive but not enthusiastic. They spoke about a “missed opportunity”. But I always like to go and make my own mind about things. To set up an exhibition on this theme is not easy.

I spent a few hours in the exhibition. It is quite vast and requires a lot of focus and attention. There are countless objects and documents. At first it seems that – as in any exhibition – there are a few important objects per room, and the rest is the filling. It is not the case. Like in Goethe’s prose, every word counts and if you remove just one, it doesn’t feel quite right.

The smallest object can hit you with the force of the planned banality of evil. You have to start again, and follow the chronological path. Because this is history, and here you don’t “navigate”. No jumps and no distractions: you follow the events. Because this is the only way to see the pattern.

Everything is linked. That commercial, selling cigarettes carrying the name of a drummer, is kitsch and looks just plain silly, like 90% of advertising. But it brought funding to the party, was a vehicle of consensus and a powerful role model fuelling identification well before the Marlboro Man. That top hat too, much less “popular”, needs to be put into context. And that upper class drawing room picture. What about the clay candle holder? Filling? In a sense, yes. Another piece of the puzzle, filling up the minds of people of that time, giving them further supporting evidence that yes, they were right in following the mainstream.

To visit it once is not enough.  The most impressive thing is the quantity of visitors: adults, families, youths, teenagers and children. On a quieter day the absorption of the exhibition contents would be easier. Taking in all at once is not possible without losing something in the process. I will go through the exhibition again.

Still the sheer volume of visitors is an essential part of the experience. When you look around you it’s the visitors – and even more their attitude – who are the heart of the exhibition, and the awareness.

The first conclusion is pretty obvious but only with hindsight. There are no populist dictators without a cheering crowd. No populists without the raw material: people.

The second conclusion is a confirmation of a feeling. That “the pattern” is very disturbing. Colin Crouch wrote about it. It’s not a circle. History is not repeating. But post-democracy in Italy is in full bloom. After WWII democracy rose, hit an inflexion point, and is now decreasing. Not coming full circle back to square one, but heading, drawing a bell shape, towards a lower level of democracy, a high control on the media and a dangerously high level of populism.

An exhibition like this is useful, even if probably not sufficient as a vaccine. I only know that I have never seen something like this on fascism in my country and probably I will not see it in the near future. Neither will I read critical articles saying that this exhibition was not enough.

Berlin, ville frivole

The frivolous side of Berlin. Berlin marshmallow. Berlin fraise tagada. Berlin zucchero filato. Berlin barbe à papa.

Berlin enrubannée. Berlin maquillée comme une voiture volée. Berlin coquine.

I took these pictures tonight, on Unter den Linden and Friedrichstrasse, coming out from an exhibition at the DHM, Deutsche Historisches Museum.

“We are informing the visitors that the Museum will be closing at 6pm”. In a trance, myself and the dozens of visitors who were packing the exhibition hurried to fetch our coats at the cloackroom. Out on the Unter den Linden I was so happy to see the frivolous side of today’s Berlin. I needed colors, silly shopping, lights. I had just spent hours in the “Hitler and the Germans. Nation and crime” exhibition.

children-friendly

In our neighborhood kids take the tube on their own. They are not dropped in front of the school by the parents driving SUVs or other less status-conscious but also CO2-producing vehicles. Now that they are on holiday, here’s how they turned the U-bahn’s stairs into a skilift…

…and into a sledge run! The steps have disappeared under compressed snow, now turned into an icy slope.

overexposed snow

You know that. I use the camera in the same way as some people call using the microwave “cooking”.

I know, the poor little camera’s settings are all wrong. But I like the pictures anyway!