Melodic ambience

Has the expression of an opinion or wish that a community or neighborhood articulates any effect? It certainly does like a nice example showed that just recently happened in the Bötzow quarter here in Berlin. An artist group turned one piece of a pole construction dividing walkway and street into a horse jumping barrier. The whole thing looked unusual but very nice as well. Not much later vandalism took its course and one part of the wooden barrier was broken down.

Broken down "horse jump barrier" at Hufelandstraße

The neighborhood, obviously already pretty much used to the nice view of the piece of art before did not want to accept this. A note appeared on the barrier asking the artists nicely to please repair this art piece and a lot of people signed it.

Note on broken down barrier

So, the artists came back, fixed the barrier and even improved the piece of art by spraying some horsefeet prints onto the ground.

Fixed up "horse jump barrier" at Hufelandstraße

There is a big media hype around “Second Life” at the moment. It seems that this simulation/roleplay/chat system is so interesting that almost every big magazine and tv station reports about it. Now, for ages, whenever I liked to chat with people I used IRC and I am quiet satisfied with what it offers. And I am not so much into those avatar thingies too so I didn’t really care about “Second Life” as much as I ignore Myspace and other new “toys” of the internet too. Since a big German magazine “Der Spiegel” had “Second Life” on its title page including a big report I thought I finally might try this program out too. So, I signed up, picked my avatar - some kind of reggae dude - and started the program. This is what it said:

- Outdated chip set

- Not supported graphic card

- Why on earth do you think that your stoneold computer can be used for this?

At least that is what the conclusion of it all was.

Then came a question like “Ok, we all know this won’t work but you might try and start the program anyways, expect a crash of your system or very slow moving around”. It turned out that I got a glimpse of the reggae dude standing there with the standard clothes that every person wears at the beginning and I even saw some other avatars standing around probably looking at mine saying “that guy won’t be able to move around anyways”. And they were right, that’s all I saw from “Second Life” because then the program froze.

So, that was my unique, short experience with this very new program.

It has become a tradition for me to read at least one book during the advent time that deals with the Christmas topic. I started with some collections of german Christmas short stories by well-known authors years ago, then in 04 I read John Grisham’s “Skipping christmas” - a very funny book whose  movie version - as I heard - was not good at all. Then, in 05, Jonathan Franzen’s “The Corrections” followed. This is probably not really a Christmas book but it involves a  Christmas family meeting. Admittingly this very big book wasn’t finished by me so far.

So, now, in 06, it is David Baldacci’s  “The Christmas train” that I picked out. The story involves a journalist, a train ride and of course - Christmas.

Watching a german comedian on tv who pretends to be funny I realize again what a wasteland german tv is for people that come from Britain or the US whose tv programs actually have some really funny shows. If you do understand german you will desperatly search for a good laugh at the channels here but won’t find hardly any. Your options are these: Either you watch american sitcoms badly dubbed taking away much of the atmosphere and wit that these shows had in the original version or you watch german productions - basically none of them being funny at all. There is something on with a guy called Bastian Pastewka desperatly trying to copy Larry David (the Seinfeld Creater) and his “Curb your enthusiasm” show forgotting that he might have some talent but he is not like Larry David at all and the writers of the show lack completely of inspiration. If you wanna watch something that is copied but not as bad as that then watch “Stromberg”, a mediocre copy of the british “The Office”.

So, what’s left? You can either watch tv entertainer Harald Schmidt who sometimes has very funny and sarcastic statements or watch one of the many repetitions of ancient Loriot tv shows. Truly of the best comedians Germany has. Sadly, he doesn’t produce new stuff anymore.

It was pretty late already, around 10 pm, when I arrived at the new national gallery of Berlin. The Melancholia exhibition that had already so many visitors was about to end soon so I took one of the last chances to have a look at it. Surprisingly there was not a long line anymore when I came to the building, no waiting time, I just entered the building. When I passed the ticket control and arrived at the first room a wave of heat greeted me. I had difficulties to find the pieces of art due to the crowds standing in front of them. So I wondered if the paintings are really save in this pretty humid and warm environment since the air conditioning is obviously not able anymore to regulate the temperature and keep it at a normal level due to the many people gathering especially at this beginning part of the exhibition.

Another room, another situation. A woman was asked by one of the museum gards to not put her jacket above her shoulder that she is carrying. In which way would carrying it over the shoulder effect the paintings? I don’t know. This is otherwise a “tolerant” exhibition. Even bags are allowed to be carried around and you can make notes in sketch books, which is a a very nice way of dealing with the visitors compared to the prussian rules that exist normally in berlin museums.

I moved on through the crowded rooms. Already when the MOMA-exhibition was in town there were always a lot of people in the museum and I normally enjoy it to actually have a closer and longer look at the sculptures and paintings which is obviously not possible here but what can you do?

The collection of art from different centuries, from artists like Dali, Picasso, Casper David Friedrich, Warhol, Dürer, Munch etc etc. - all about the topic melancholia in it’s different forms - is well sorted and actually almost all of the exhibited forms of art do have something to do with melancholia.

All in all it was worth a visit and I can advise everybody to have a look at it today - the last day of the exhibition.

Just to let you know: If you visit Germany, watch tv and you see some ordinary people on a stage - they could be your neighbours from downstairs - singing and dancing like probably your neighbours would do - this is called german carneval. In between there might be some other people standing on the stage talking, signalising with their costumes “gee, I am funny” and the audiences laughs no matter if its funny or not - probably due to the rising alcohol level. All this is being shown on many german tv stations at the moment so with german tv program often being not very good anyways there is even less to find.

That I’m understood correctly: I do think carneval is an ok idea and the parades outside where many people celebrate together are apparently fun for a lot of people but seriously I do not know why there is such a huge interest in these inside carneval parties being shown on tv.

It is friday at the red carpet again. The last big movie premiers at the Berlinale, “Capote”. The crowd is by far not as big as when George Clooney visited but still a lot of people showed up. What a different situation though. Oscar-nominated Catherine Keener (”Being John Malkovic, “The Interpreter” etc.) gets out of the car, nobody claps, just a few shouts from the photographers. She walks over to us and while she signs autographs she says something sarcastic like this to a one girl “I bet you don’t even know who I am, but as long as I sign here it is ok for you, right? - well, that is ok for me too” .

A few minutes later oscar-nominated actor Philip Seymour Hoffman gets out of the car - no clapping again, so he doesn’t feel the need to go to the “normal” people, he just stays by the press and tv stations that interview him. A lady behind me isn’t sure whom she is watching there, “That blonde guy there, I guess he is famous, he is even nominated for an oscar. “Yeah, I think his last name is just Junior” she says in german.
Everybody walks into the building after a short while. That was it.
As I said, what a difference.

A movie with Woody Harrelson, Kevin Kline, Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones ,Lily Tomlin etc. etc. in it - and directed by Robert Altman - automatically pushes the expectations very high. After watching “A prairie home companion” at the Berlinale film festival, Berlin, Germany, I can state that they are being fullfilled completely. And it is not only about the brilliant play of the actors (I noticed especially Kevin Kline here) and the fact that many of them must have studied singing for a long while - this is a movie with a lot of music in it - but it is a movie with a lot of soul and humor.
The story - the last day of a radio show and how the participants deal with that - is filmed very well and the dialogues are witty or contemplative. And I think that makes the movie interesting because you’ll find seriousness as well as humor in this movie.

I don’t think this will win the golden bear at the Berlinale, because movies with a “heavier” story often tend to have bigger chances to win film awards than “just” comedies, but looking at the very positive reaction of the audience in the theater this movie will be a big success. So, if you see this movie starting in your theater go and watch it.

Among the visitors of the “Long Night of the Museums” you’ll basically find two visitor groups - the “economists” and the “moodists”.

Economists: They are the ones who run around with a calculator in their head, they start with the idea that they spent 12 euros for a ticket and subtract after each museum how much money they would have spent there if they actually would have come on a normal day - so, the single ticket price. After they reached the 12 euros or are above it they are satisfied since they know it was now “worth” it taking part in the Museum Night.
These are the people who are basically interested in numbers - “gee, we visited 13 museums in 8 hours and only because we couldn’t find a parking place soon enough before 2 am prevented us from entering the 14th museum”. Asking them if they enjoyed the art that they saw and wondering what they saw deliveres poor results but they surely can tell you exactly how long they sometimes had to wait until they could get into a museum and how long they were in there.

Moodists: These people are taking part because for one reason - They love the special mood and atmosphere that museums create at night, they literally see the presented art in a different light then and they enjoy the extra events that are taking place too.

I think this second group is the one that I belong to. Admittingly I am a little bit a “economist” too - in that way that I often visit museums during that night that I normally would not go to or pay money for but since they are somehow for free I have a look at them. One of these decisions led me to the “music instruments”-museum, one that surprised me a lot in a positive way since it was much more interesting than I thought it would be.

There is a significant connection between human behaviour and the society that influences this behaviour in a positive or negative way. This is analyzed and described in many theories by scientists, for example by sociologists. But what if human behaviour influences society? There are some remarkable examples, one for instance can be observed on Berlin’s streets and public places on a daily basis.

Back to the beginning of it all - at the beginning society reacted with head-shaking or negative in public if a person did something that was embarrassing or deviant from the behaviour that was seen as embarrassing or deviant by the society. That person then tried to stop his or her embarrassing actions in order to not stand out and to immerse into the mass of people.
There was also a time - and now I finally come to the concrete and already announced example, where a person thought it is embarrassing if his mobile phone suddenly started to burpse, make digestition noises, shout “C’mon, pick up the phone, dude!” or play the duck dance.
Apparantly these times are finally over. Lower body part noises, dumb statements and the newest inanities downloaded for much money seem to not impress the public anymore, neither on streets nor in subways (and there it is especially silent and noises are being noticed) or other public places, this noise garbage is accepted.