Calamity In Berlin.

2010-06-19T13:31:00.002-07:00

In case anyone is still reading this shizz, I would like to formally invite you to look at and enjoy my new blog, Sexy Depressed Berlin which details lotsa Berlin crap in comic diary form. Also, I'm blogging for Art:21.
So folks, please join me in my newer, more spacious online abodes. Seriously, come over. I won't do anything untoward.
Yes I will.

xAli

2009-10-03T08:37:00.004-07:00

So I was thinking about why I haven't blogged in a while, and after sifting through my dreary and cliched attempted drafts, which resembled the verbal dry-heaves of a Bush speech writer (wassup Matt Lattimer!!!), I realized that I was blocked. My blockage came about because of three things: My root chakra being completely undone and not at all like Ms. Chaka Khan, (who I thought birthed the chakra through incredibly danceable beats and sassy hip swivels), crippling Morrissseyed introspection, and quitting smoking.
Now, quitting smoking sounds like a good thing, but what happens when your sexy throaty sputter goes away huh? How do you seduce people? With your looks? By NOT slowly killing yourself? I don't think so. Killing yourself is like those Axe commercials and is inndddddubbbitably hawt.
How do you look cool at parties? How do you hide your cleft palate? How do you pretend to be Marlene Dietrich in the rain? I mean, do high waisted pants work without the requisite lip-dangling cigarette???? How do you replace that tiny phallus in your mouth? An elf? An ancient ceramic virility bong? Those dumb Chinese electronic nonsense cigarettes?
*I will never smoke anything Chinese....never! Reds!
Anyway, it's been 4 months now, and for once I have not cheated. Not even a little bit. Although I did cozy up to a subway regular once to smell his sweet, sweet Gaulouise scented flannel. He looked away, coyly, but I could see the tendril of smoke rising softly from his chapped bottom lip, beckoning me to suck more, saying, "I don't want this to end, drink from my odor, and then let's go to my cardboard gazebo and make out"*
*The last paragraph was written by guest contributor "that lady who writes the Twilight books."
*Seriously though, I read part of one at the airport and it is like porn for babies.

My point is, and I feel weird saying this but it's true, is that I lost part of my identity after quitting smoking...really. Also, I gained like 10 lbs which makes me feel like I look like the fat version of an American Girl doll.
Also, too much has happened really. Here are the highlights, and yes, this is all true.

-My Italo-German actress-roommate Lucia went to the mental hospital after having a psychotic break. She left me a note which consisted of a picture of Frank Zappa giving the finger with a caption that read "and fuck you too." It was surrounded by candles. She also stuck lasagna sheets in our mailbox and spread baking powder over the floor of our apartment to see who was coming in and out. This was disturbing and took up way too much of my mental time. Needless to say I have moved out and now live with a growed-up woman who enjoys rock-climbing and other mentally stable pursuits.

-My folks visited and we went to Venice for the Biennale which was amazing for me. And I will discuss my personal highlights soon.

-I went to New York and Austin, and got drunker and fatter and have now imposed an only-vegetables and water routine until I become the svelte young girl I never was. Like that American Girl doll that was actually hot.

2009-07-02T12:26:00.002-07:00

It's really been a long time now, blog. Probz the longest I've ever gone without, you know, touching my keys. I mean, I was sharing a bunk at camp that one time, but somehow I still found the time to nudge a spacebar once or twice.
Anyway, I don't know, I have weird blisters on my feet today, it's finally summer here in Berlin, I'm re-reading Siddhartha in order to claw my way back onto the path of the buddha (clawing is not very zen, but is totally effective against weak, self-flagellating monk types). Also, I have been smoke-free for 48 hours and because my brain is drying up like a menopausal woman and giving me headaches, I have been replaying several murderous scenarios in my head:
One: Knifing the stupid fucking kids who harass me in the subway.
Two: Knifing the stupid fucking adults who harass me in the subway.

I met some interesting people and saw some interesting showzen lately. Mike Smith had a great screening at The Building and a subsequent show at Homie, which is run by Dan Seiple.
I saw a whole bunch of shit last weekend including a group show at September, which looked shitty until someone explained it was curated around a bauhaus collaborative idea. And then it somehow it seemed less shitty---as these things tend to do after clever exposition.

Carson Chan curated a good show at COMA gallery, called Back to the Future, which dealt with the passage of time etc. There was a nice video piece that spliced different time-travel scenes from movies I believe.

Earlier, new friend and sometimes artcrush Lisi Raskin had a show at Tanas, which was a precursor for the Istanbul Biennial and was really interesting.

Marie Lorenz and Jeff Williams visited from Rome and I took them to the gay parade where we enjoyed a beautiful drag queen vista from the idyllic location of a sticky bar stool.

New bestie Jesper Nordahl was in town for a few weeks and we ate cheeseburgers every day.

2009-06-09T13:18:00.002-07:00

Things I have eaten while in Germany: lamb heart, lamb liver, liver cheese, blood sausage, sliced fat, pig tongue (a slice of barely cooked pig tongue on bread, mind you....the first time I have been truly, and not just melodramatically, horrified by food).

I wonder how anyone gets laid in this land of cool demeanors. I bought skinny jeans at some point. And they make my stomach hurt from the soul compromise and the unnecessary tightness around my beerholdingplace.

It rained as I explored old city Leipzig, so I saw "Terminator: die erlosung," to get out of the wetness. I understood 90%, but mostly because it was just explosions and the overwhelming sound of no Sarah Connor.

My future is a pastiche of possible nightmarish scenarios like a David Lynch movie. And I am a misogynist like Lars Von Trier. And the movie "Up" is awesome. And the movie "Drag Me to Hell," is awesome and Bob would have liked it.

I saw Lucia play at the Kinski Bar last weekend, which was amazing; she strangled herself with her microphone cord and married herself onstage. Soon I will post her myspace page, and also the flyer I made for her performance.

I went out for Nicky's birthday and smothered my depression with a joint, which made me happy, and make-out-happy and I think I'll do that more often, partly because I was born in Oakland at 4:20 a.m. which means my destiny as a stonerbaby is probably written in sanskrit on an ocean wall somewhere.

2009-06-03T15:52:00.000-07:00

http://blogs.utexas.edu/cap0104/stories-and-memories/

For my blogfan, mentor and friend, Bob Anderson.

2009-06-02T07:47:00.004-07:00

Bob died. He was a good friend I like to think, and a great, absurd man. I am sad. He read this blog just about every day, and used to quote me to myself when I was his teaching assistant. I quoted him too, because he had a blog as well. We both knew too many of the mundane details that comprise a person's life and in the end, our conversations went like this;
A: I ate the best Ethiopan last night at....
B: Yeah, I know, I read it on your blog. I went there 2...
A: Weeks ago, yeah I know.
(We both drum our fingers on the table)
B: Have you read this Chris Ware?
A: No, can I see it?

I can't believe he's gone, partly because he was and remains a kind of emblem of Austin for me. I mean, he was everywhere, all the time, supporting his students, his colleagues---I'm pretty sure most of UT enjoyed a bit of drink with Mr. Anderson at one time or another.
His visage is just so burnt into my brain, his long hair and consistently mischievious smile; a soundtrack of truly spooky noise music playing in the background. He loved that stuff. He was a big part of my life at UT, and he really supported me and his other students in their art-making and basic life stuff. He listened to me complain about so much stupid shit over the years, and I acted all the more dramatic and ridiculous because he was so calm and understanding about it all. I really felt I could tell him anything and he would remain amused yet without judgement. He was equally non-judgemental towards his students' art, and he was a great teacher, and he loved it, and he loved his students.
Here's some amazing stuff about Bob, I wish I could remember more, because I really enjoyed some of the weirdly wise things he said over the course of our 4 year friendship:
Every year on Halloween he stayed at home dressed like some kind of ghost and scared neighbor children when they came to ask for candy.
At Nohegan he wore a balloon hat and made intricate little pen drawings on rocks. They were totally fucking beautiful and bizarre.
He made drawings for all the grad students during their oral exams. He made one for me just months after I purchased a drawing of his at Arthouse's 5x7. I think I was kind of pissed that I spent 75 dollars on a drawing, only to have a similar one given to me a short time later. He told me afterwards that he made it with a blue ballpoint pen bought in Berlin, where I am now living. Somehow this seems important.
His three drawings were the only things adorning the walls of my room while I lived in Austin, and I'm pretty sure they are the only pieces of art I didn't lose or mistakenly put gum on over the years.
He swam every day, and was a fellow Pisces and sometimes we would talk about how fucked up we were because of our sign. We both had a lot of nightmares about sinking ships. And if I remember correctly, he was a glider in his flying dreams, while I was a flapper. And I might be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure he chose invisibility as his preferred superpower.
He came to every party I ever threw. I remember having a robot party with Erin Curtis and he wore a Mexican Wrestler's mask. I've never been sure how he misinterpreted our robot theme, and frankly I don't remember him giving much of an explanation but he was never really the most orthodox thinker (or costumer apparently).
He introduced me to some of the most perverse comics ever. S. Clay Wilson I remember in particular. Man, it was so disgusting and so good. I remember really vividly his excited and naughty expression as we poured over some of those lurid pages. I mean there were others too, Charles Burns and company---that was kind of our daily ritual. Sometimes he would copy stuff he thought I would like and put it in my box at school. Really grotesque woodcuts of birthscenes and the like. In return I would lend him some of my favorites like Dick Tracy and Flannery O'Connor. He loved Flannery and Evil Dead II and The Exorcist and all of those other things that are dark and ridiculous and poignant.
When he met my mom he told her some really sweet things about me, giving her a false picture of me as a better adjusted human being than I was at the time. As a consequence, she always asks about him.
In the fall of 2007, I TA'd his shared class with Michael Mogavero and it is that time that I'm trying to hold on to the most. When he came back from Italy to resume teaching he was like a changed man. I mean, he was fucking ecstatic. Definitely the happiest I ever saw him. He talked about his trip all the time; the wine, the students, the swimming, the conversation, the beautiful Tuscan landscape. Right now actually, I am drinking red wine and remembering him talking about those Italian days of wine and ping-pong. He loved friends, and I think he made some good ones in Italy.
Thinking about him so much today, I realize how many friends the man had. Every one involved in any facet of the arts in Austin knew Bob. That's lovely, I am not trying to eulogize him really (although I think Bob would find something inherently funny in that) but it is really beautiful how many lives and currents he was connected to. Bob was a sweet, sweet, sensitive man and even though I'm so far from Texas I can feel how acutely painful his absence will be. God Bob, I really will miss you. I'm trying to download Evil Dead II right now but it's not working.

http://conduitgallery.com/artist_pgs/anderson.html

2009-05-23T05:11:00.002-07:00

Newsies:

Not much is actually happening in my life besides my monthly ovarian revolution. Little bolshevik bastards, pounding outside the doors of my beautiful palace and makin' my palace look all bloated and shit. So bloated that I can't wear any of my palace pants, and have to resort to the only pants that will accommodate such rancor for the monarchy and abdomen beating...they happen to be plaid.
Nor can I wear my normal palace shirts because they make me look like a big bratwurst with ill-measured casing....or Star Jones-Reynolds. Zing! So, instead I have to wear my special palace shirts, which are large, were purchased in the 90's and also happen to be plaid; but of a different variety than the aforementioned pants.

Lessee, I'm working on a installation for Leipzig, but the wardrobe I'm making is frustrating me. To find the line between deliberately crappy and accidentally crappy is hard. Like finding the appropriate tone of jibing with your close friends.
statement: "Nice shirt Ali, you look like a pirate."
rebuttal: "I despise your outlook on life and have slept with both your siblings."

Berlin is good and alive, yesterday I slipped on a half-eaten apple and some youths called me a "schlampe."

2009-05-12T02:06:00.003-07:00

Subj: Bail me out.
My enchantment with the drooping ornamentation, hilariously undersized doors and naked piping of Cold War housing has ended. It has given way to disgust and anger about my lack of hot water, my flickering electricity and the equally mysterious substances that my studio shower drain emits. Oh shower drain, why do you have to communicate with me in garbled dirtspeak, when we both know your job is just to swallow my junk. Miss Soggynist.

Oh, that big landmass across the sea, where people are fatter, aspirin is cheaper and they have fantastical drying machines that whirl and spin like the palpitations of a young lioness' heart.

*Anyway, I am really frustrated on a number of levels, most of them being shower-related.

In happier news, I spent the weekend enjoying some of Berlin's performing arts action. I attended Nicky's dance performance entitled "cuppachar" http://www.ballhausnaunynstrasse.de/?p=3654 and went to see Lucia's friend Randy Twigg Perform at Lovelight. Both were fun, although the latter ended with my desertion in the rain in Friedrichshain. Ugh. Cold water hearts me.

2009-05-03T11:58:00.002-07:00

Omg, I have been updating my website for like 9 hours straight. I h8 stuff like that.
*Re:"omg" & "h8": I've found that more and more, my writing sounds like that of a misanthropic 16 year old girl. Which, perhaps is what I am inside. So I am going to embrace younger, angstier Ali, who pierced the belly buttons of her friends and threw a rollerblade at her sister's head.

Succint!
*My Swiss studiomate cooked a dinner of lamb heart the other day and I ate it! Oh forlorn lamb of god, how your pulsing little instrument has fortified me in my physical quest to be more like a Anthony Hopkins in his greatest movie role to date. It was, by the way, delicious. Stop judging me....now.
*I saw a lot of art openings over the past couple of weeks, Carsten Holler, Simon Starling, Amy Sillman, Thorsten Brinkman etc, etc. I must, however, comment on the WORST SHOW I HAVE EVER SEEN. Thank you Katharina Grosse, you are so terrible. She constructed (or rather, had fabricated) giant amorphous glory holes and covered them with her signature cliched-tired--borrowed from E. Murray-on-the-rag-barf-paintings. I walked out of her artist talk. What you may have been feeling when I said that I ate a lamb heart; that is how I feel about Ms. Grosse and her work.
*A gallery in Leipzig asked the Extraraum folks and myself to redo our Liste installation there, which should be fun. I also have another exciting show possibility, that I am...um excited about.
*My German still sucks.
*Although only half done, please to check out my website.
*I have a beer belly, but getting rid of it involves drinking less beer, a compromise of catastrophic proportions in the hinterland.
*2 people close to me have had a shoe intervention with me, explaining that functionality does not have to come at the price of aesthetics. I thought I was in the land of non-judgemental sensible shoepeople (hellooooo, birkenstocks?) but apparently I was mistaken.

2009-04-28T11:50:00.002-07:00

Mmm, aggression is certainly in the air here in ole' Berlin. I have witnessed two major fights in the past two days. One was in one of my local bar and involved a young American woman screaming and slapping patrons and the bartender. Speaking perfect German, she noted that Hitler's ascent made sense because all Germans suck.
Then, last night, Nicky and I were eating dinner outside and two old men started punching each other. It was a whirlwind of stonewashed denim, beer bottles and white hair.
One was accusing the other one of calling him a "child-fucker" and the other one was just screaming, "I know where you live. It's 109 Hobrechtstrasse!" Eventually the polizei came and took one of them away.
Today is May 1st, public holiday for the workers. I'm skeered because apparently it gets a bit out of hand here. Nicky said a bunch of Greek anarchists are coming to town just to start stuff. And I really don't like people throwing things at me or getting harassed. Some of the banks in my neighborhood are boarded up for fear that people will damage/burn them. I was also told not to wear black, so as not to be confused with one of the unmentionables. But I love black!
I also love drama and protests, just not when it involves food, violence or police interference.
*maybe when it involves food.

pictures of blin and Frnkfart Oder.

2009-04-17T12:01:00.021-07:00

Bild.

2009-04-14T08:11:00.003-07:00

Today I went to work, where my student didn't show up (and I spent 10 minutes slavishly printing an article from the nytimes website for her!). Soooo, I went to the Deutsches Guggs and saw the new Photorealism show. I've never been wild for photorealism, but as a strategy in the 70's it makes sense to me. The wall text at the show really annoyed me with its over-emphasis on the impersonal, objective nature of the paintings as a rebuttal to AbExers. For one thing, the painters included approach things very differently--I think Richard Estes and Audrey Flack don't necessarily have the same aim. And I don't always think that aim was to visually pants Mr. Pollock.
That's all. I like the Deutsches Guggenheim because it's small and underwhelming and intimate; very dissimilar to her big bullying brothers and sisters.
I have pictures to share with you, but Blogger is blocking me like a fat girl.

2009-04-06T11:06:00.002-07:00

I am so exciting and new! Try me out!
Well, I had the laziest weekend ever, basically just lounging outside and psychically spooning the sun.
Hey sun, that was amazing, let's spoon!
Yeah...totally...I understand, I have somewhere to go too. I have to meet my friend Gary....yeah actually I'm late *cough*, so I better head out...but call me if you want!....you know, just to hang out...right, actually I'm pretty busy the next couple of days as well, you know, I have that thing...with Gary. I'll see you when I see you then, I guess. I had a really good time sponging you up. Who's that calling you? Is that Mexico? You're still seeing that bitch?! Fine, bye.
There were many sights to see. It's like thousands of molepeople emerge when the sun comes out and Berlin suddenly feels like a very different city. I saw a group of 8 year old boys floating down the canal on some innertube-raft thing, and I was transported to a simpler time. One where a Mr. Finn and a Mr. Sawyer had lots of wacky race-based misadventures devoid of pesky parental supervision or child labor laws.

*Seriously though, those kids were 8 and flopping around next to a ferry. The canal is still freezing I'm sure, and there are dirty, dirty swans lurking all up in that shit. So dirty.

New things:
-More pictures in the future because now I can see.
-In the next month I think I am going to start a weekly comic strip chronicling my life here in Berlin and make a lil' website for it. I'm hoping it'll be good and not another exercise in self-indulgence (see "body chocolate for children" project circa 2005).
-I learned how to tie a tie, see previous entry.

2009-04-04T03:38:00.001-07:00

I bought a tie the other day, you know to be adorable. But, I really had no idea how to tie a tie, until I stumbled on this informative site, come and take a look with me!
http://www.tie-a-tie.net/windsor.html

craigslist ad.

2009-03-29T06:06:00.000-07:00

You're a single mom with limited time? Do you want to remain being Single? I am the counterpart as a dad! Currently have no place for a traditional relationship. I am in spite of everything
spontaneously, since Best Private Babysitter - Grandma / Grandpa. Do you want to physical proximity, stroking, kissing, but also on pure lust. At the tender, hot, crazy hours (or nights?) Do you want really long time and often again ...? Sign up! Then we can see if the chemistry is right. We are: Woman 3.5, men years 179/71 and come from the northeast of Berlin. 'm Mobile.

2009-03-24T03:24:00.003-07:00

Well, there's like a hailstorm right now. So long brief, dewy respite, hello Faustian promise in exchange for better weather. Listen Mephisto, you get my self-respect, I get the Caymans in the middle of Kreuzberg (pssssst, joke's on him, I gave that shit away years ago at a keg party!).
Setting the scene:
Last week, on Wednesday or something, the sun came out. I was sitting outside a Greek restaurant with my friend Emily, drinking too-early-to-be-acceptable-wine and I swear to god that my eyes had grown so accustomed to darkness that they hurt when in the presence of that fickle harlot slut, the sun. She comes only to taunt me, then retreats into her brothel of awesomeness (Mexico).
I swear though, if Spring doesn't happen within 10 days I will start a holy war and lead the way with my newfound nightvision, massacring all those who were not lucky enough to be endowed with the superpowers that accompany seasonal depression. I will spew cough syrup from my puffy, swollen face! I will complain incessantly about my wind-exposed kidneys until their heads explode! I will leak acid from my overused, poor people boots.
Sun, ladyfriend, stop collectively blueballing Berlin. Give it up gurl.
Cultural things I have been doing: (note: tltl--toolazytolink)
As stated before, my skowfriend Alejandro is in town and this weekend we went to a bunch of art openings and a "leggings" party. I will only offer up this explanation: there were a lot of leggings and it was a celebration of leggings.
The exhibitions were unbelievably mediocre, like a Sandra Bullock movie, German-Thai cuisine or SNL post 1992.
But here they are, sans a good description:
September Gallery:
I was really excited to go to this place, I think they are one of the most exciting new spaces in Berlin. But then the show just blew my mind with it's infantile mimicry of hip, designy but not too designy art. Also, the people were really snooty.
The next 3 shows were different spaces in the same building:
Future Perfect Gallery:
This was the only show I would label "good." And it was good enough for me to link to one of the artists, whose sculptures I found v. interesting despite his allegiance to the sameness-of-design model mentioned above.
http://www.stephanweitzel.com/3dsculpture.html
Gelerija Gregor Podnar:
Didn't hate or love it, but am becoming enraged at being enraged for the same reasons all the time. Same problems as mentioned above and above.
Galerie Opdahl:
Libia Castro and Olafur Eliasson's video work.
Honestly, I can't really comment because there were too many skinny jeans in my face to actually see the work. And the collective rustling of tight denim and ironic windbreakers prevented me from hearing it either.
Chert Gallery:
This is Alejandro's gallery, and I love the space and it seems like they put on interesting shows, but this one didn't do it for me. Text was required and it was most definitely missing something to hold my attention.

2009-03-14T21:47:00.010-07:00

2009-03-12T13:12:00.002-07:00

There's a black guy in the White House, we have toilets that flush themselves, we have this blinking box I write words on top of, how do we not have a hangover cure by now? I need something stronger that 2 aspirin and a beer, I need some kind of miracle panacea. In a goblet. Welded in Hades...for those days when Bacchus just HAD to keep orgy-ing through his pain. Oh man, my head hurts.

2009-03-05T05:17:00.002-07:00

As an antidote to my last post of very little substance and a whole lot of bullshit, I am going to write something more concrete. Here are some things I received for my bday last week paired with some artists I'm interested in lately.
Champagne/Nina Katchadorian
Comic book by famous German gay dude/Lisi Raskin
Full body massage/ Sarah Oppenheimer
Vietnamese dinner/Dan Attoe

Gross Emo Expat Rant.

2009-03-04T04:13:00.004-07:00

Lately, I've been thinking that the world is ending. On some level, I believe this. I believe at least that the world as I know it, chockful of superfluous sitcoms, self-induced life melodrama and oblivious egocentrism is over. In a way, I am America.
Do you want to know what I think the biggest difference between Europeans and Americans is? It's not creative hygeine or an overabundance of pork products. I think it's that American ideology is so entrenched in isolationism that it borders on Courtney Love crazy.
Which I love and hate at the same time. We are awesome and have things like Sonic and the Great Plains (which I think are on par btw). But, Europeans are much more well-versed about us than we are about them. It's a rather obvious statement, I know.
Europeans were incredibly invested in our election, but do most people know who the chancellor of Germany is? Or that Belgium has the longest highway (as compared to the size of the country) in the world? Or that Greece has the greatest number of smokers in terms of it's population? Or that Luxembourg leads the world in equine-sex related casualties?
Jk on that last one. Or am I? How would you know? These people were and are our allies, and we ignore them like the girl who wears press-on cat t-shirts to school. Hmmm, maybe I'm Europe actually.
Why don't we know this shit? Why are most Europeans fluent in multiple languages while Americans lead the world in retardo text-message dialogue? Idk.
Oh god, I'm aware this sounds so "I'm an expat living in Europe and I smoke Gauloises and eat unpasteurized yogurt" preachy, but it's true goddamit. And I also know that a lot of this has to do with simple geography, but still. And I know my man Barack has made a pledge of multilateralism, but living here, I am struck by this realization constantly. And I'm kind of mad about the way I was educated.
I admire Europe's cooperative and informed political sense *gross generalization, and I admire even more education systems with global priorities.
At the same time, I miss and think I better understand the ambition that comes with America's self-insistence. The American dream, man. That's the difference. A national lack of impulse-control that drives us to gamble on success. I think I love it...but it's kind of gross. And maybe, truly, over? At least the incarnation that once was?
I've been thinking about art fairs as symptomatic of a bloated, overfed economy. And now? Now nothing, there's the itchiness without the pox to make it matter.
I guess I'm writing about this because I feel both happy and sad about the fat, ailing blind man that is America. Or me.
Or Orson Welles.
Idk.

2009-02-22T08:16:00.002-07:00

I've been such a negligent mommy, little blogbaby. I haven't nursed you with my nectar of self-loathing in weeks. You must be famished. You've missed my Munchausen verbal displays of affection, haven't you????! (shakes macbook like British nanny).
Well, not much has been happening. Same old shit I suppose. Berlin is cold and miserable and I want Spring to come so that I can stop wearing ugly clothes and turn into the sexy Mexican sun goddess I know is inside of me...beneath the layers of sloshing pilsner fat, pasty snow-moistened skin and sensible sweaters.
Lessee, showzen: I went to my friend Alejandro's opening at Chert Gallery, which was fantastic. He is an amazing artist, and I like anyone who plays on the intersextion of sex n' death. Here's his website:
http://www.alejandroalmanzapereda.com/
I also went to the Temporary Kunsthalle to see the new Simon Starling show (winner of the Turner Prize) but I was somewhat disappointed as it felt so anesthetic. It takes a lot to carry that space; the Temporary Kunsthalle is gigantic and daunting and makes me dizzy.
After Ale's show, we tried to get in Lido, a huge dance club in Kreuzberg, where the gallery had put us on the guest list, but no. Stupid Frankendoorman wouldn't let us in. So then we went to another club called West Berlin which is Alejandro's favorite place because it looks totally "Matta-Clark." Alejandro slipped on a beer while twirling me on the dance floor and brought us both crashing down until we crumbled together like a brown and white injured cookie. My knee still hurts.

Yesterday, I went to fancy gym Elixia to visit Willi, who works at the front desk. I went swimming and sauna-ing. Woo, those Germans are not shy about nudity. So much unnecessary bratwurst.
I had lots of mishaps as usual: I set off the alarm in the handicapped bathroom while dressed only in a towel. I went into the men's locker room by accident, yada yada. The crazy things that happen when you are a flaky American girl participating in the confusing German gym system.

2009-02-16T12:40:00.003-07:00

Today I went to Frankfurt Oder, unaware of the snow situation and unable to return home to fetch more sensible footwear. Needless to say, I wore Target-ish boots that leaked and then had to buy 4 pairs of socks. However, that cunning fag Jack Frost still managed to seep into my bones.
Soooo, for fear of losing my digits I swaddled them in a sanitary napkin (as the British say) to keep the moisture at bay. Then I went to class and draped all 6 pairs of socks on the heater and taught barefoot with rolled up pants like the professional rodeo clown I am.
Between this and my previous experience with homemade thong eye-patches and splints made of underwear, I think it's safe to say that I'm a "MacGyver" with ladywares.

2009-02-11T14:35:00.002-07:00

so cold...cannot function...sleet-y brain...love new studio...going to see Nicky dance at the Deutsches Oper next week...loved the movie Rachel Getting Married...my friend Alejandro Almanza's show opens at Chert Gallery on Sat...saw 3 subway fights this week...one was with an old lady and a vagabond accordion player...sat in dog pee on the train to Poland...werewolf in a women's prisonnnnnnnnn......

2009-02-01T13:48:00.002-07:00

I went to Peres Projects last night for a performance. It sucked ballz. Boring, pretentious, infuriating. Performing in drag doesn't make something funnier, more edgy, more anything. It just means people are wearing clothes of the opposite gender.
Take note, performance artists of Berlin.
I love gender-fuckery, but don't temper your heavy, philosophical text with a hearty dose of dragging just to add a sprig of levity---I think it might very well be misplaced and irresponsible. Why is it funnier and edgier to see a man in a garter belt reading Proust?
It's reverting to some kind of Adam Sandler-esque humor, only cloaked in lofttier aspirations---I think its barfy. I'd rather see that stupid "Zohan" movie anyday.

2009-01-28T15:25:00.002-07:00

First Question: When will the Winter of my not-really-discontent, but mild discomfort end?

My class informed me today that February is as cold and assholey as January.
Aside: I can't believe you hit on my sister January. I thought you were cool...but that was totally uncool...totally uncool.

After they alerted me of this protracted Winter, I had an instant urge to strangle myself with my hideous thigh dungeons. My Lycra sausage casing leg cells. My solitary calf-finement vehicles. My Ladyparts prison?
*"Long underwear" is what I was going for.

Second question: Is Hilary Swank hot?

I know what you think January...stupid asshole with a Chevy...all checking out my sister and Hilary Swank and passing off your douchebag torch to February. That's my month! My birthday's inside of it!

2009-01-21T03:22:00.002-07:00

Sketchy adventures in Turkish Imbisses, part 2.
I worked on my graphic novel at Silver Future last night. I was hungry, so I stopped for a cheeseburger at "Superburger" (or something like that) on my way home. It's one of the only places in Berlin that has a good burger besides the "Burgermeister" which is underneath the subway and housed in a former public urinal.
Anyway, I always compliment the Turkish guy who runs the place on his "American-style" cheeseburgers. So last night, he repaid me by giving me free shots. I had to work this morning, but I took them out of politeness and love of free stuff. Anyway, I started to feel unusually weird after the second one, and I asked him groggily, "Was ist das?" He said that he didn't know, then he brought out the whole bottle encouraging me to take as much as I wanted.
It was absinthe. He gave me absinthe.
Everything moved very slowly and I went home and listened in rapt attention as my roommate Lucia read emails to me for an hour.
I was still a little out of it this morning in class, but luckily I was energized by one of my student's stories. She is assistant to the head of arts and culture in Germany (or something like that) and always gets to attend movie premieres etc. Anyway, she attended the Valkyrie premiere and VIP reception and got to talk to TomKat!
Her synopsis: Tom is short and skinny and intense. And apparently doesn't know how big soccer is here in Europe. Wtf? She said he also kept talking about training for the movie at West Point, where they gave him an honorary degree? huh? Also, Tom asked her if she would like a picture with him and she replied, "no," which I think is hilarious.

According to my student, Sandra, Katie Holmes has the weakest handshake ever and is basically a mute barfstick. Sandra said that she didn't speak the whole night. She was also, very "thinny" in Sandra's opinion.

I watched Valkyrie already and I thought it was kind of annoying. Tom has an American accent and the rest have British accents. C'mon.
Sandra had a good point though, she said that it's good for Germany to have someone like Tom star, and for it to be American-produced because so few people are aware of the resistance movement and Stauffenberg and obviously it's been getting some attention (at least in part because of it's suckiness).

2009-01-18T13:29:00.002-07:00

Wacky Sunday!
First I went to this Feminist art exhibition at the Akademie der Kunste with a friend, which was interesting and I will talk more about later. Basically: 1970's body performance is humorless but meaty and contemporary body performance is funny and self-referential but seems superficial. Didacticlishus.

Get out of my life, Kate Gilmore! I've seen like 5 of your videos in a week.
*I looooove some of Kate Gilmore's videos.

I was feeling all feminist, walking tall, and swathed in a quilt made of butterfly vulvas, when I went to a Turkish place on my way home for a Doner Kabab. A young, adorable Turkish employee gave me free Turkish teas and asked me about my life---in German, mind you.
The incredible thing is, I understood him and he understood me!
I'm not saying it's true love or nothing, just that maybe my German isn't all that horrible after all. Goodbye what little remains of my Puritanical work ethic.
Then, some of his Turkish friends came and I felt pretty conspicuous but wished someone could take my picture: me wet from rain, drinking tea and smoking cigarettes with 4 Turkish men while Donna Summers played from a weird disco machine, the smell of hooka wafting through my waspy euro-caucasian fingers. Oh my, how authentic.
The shitty part is, I gave him my number and he said he's going to call me tomorrow morning. Erg. He comped my meal, and made me feel good about myself for a second, so I guess I owe him a BJ right? I mean, I owe him a "Big Jaunt" to Alexanderplatz or something.

2009-01-17T16:34:00.002-07:00

I've always been a tad socially awkward, straddling the poles of unnervingly confident to unnervingly quiet. Here, it seems my awkwardness has been magnified into a speechless Nell neurosis, as I have a habit of gargling out half-German/English hybrid barfwords, motioning without sound and slinking in corners to make shadow puppets with my own deformed hands.

I have a constant dialogue of shame going on in my head; "is she going to speak German to me? Will I be able to answer her? Will she laugh at my bad German and think I'm stupid? Did I just order banana juice instead of beer? Do my snow boots look ridiculous? Are the German people eavesdropping because I'm speaking English?" (the answer to the last two are invariably yes by the way).

Nicky says that I should just feel comfortable speaking English to people. It's ok. But, I am ashamed really. Deep down I think it's shameful to live in a place and be so disconnected from its language.
Appropriately, I am watching an incredibly bad pirated copy of Valkyrie right now, and omigod Tom Cruise is such a douchebag.
I don't know what the answer is exactly, but I do know that I should stop being such a pussy and talk to people in whatever language and stop acting like such a swamp-raised freak.

Also, I should really try and be more comfortable with the euro double kiss, it does draw attention when I shirk and squeal and try to escape some relatively harmless cheek love.

2009-01-14T19:50:00.002-07:00

I just ate so much chocolate. I was on the phone with my friend Emily and I told her about how the other day I was walking to work at 6 a.m. and multiple tears froze on my face. How sad, how poignant, how Morrissey, how 8th grade science museum field trip.
Here are some movies that suck dick (sans explanation, I am bloated with 2 dollar wine and frozen fish and have high mercury levels like actor Jemery Piven and therefore cannot think in a non-mercury-poisoned way):
Seven Pounds
Itty Bitty Titty Committee
Vicky Christina Barfalona
The Dark Knight
I don't care what anyone says, these movies blew hard. I have mixed feelings about Vicky Christina Barcelona, and it probably is not that bad, but I like the "barf" wordplay, and really that's all you care about, right? Barf.

2009-01-13T11:37:00.002-07:00

I'm sitting in a cafe called Silver Future with Nicky, beholden to that visage I've mentioned before, a painted lady with pasties and an Angela Davis fist. Oh, how wacky!
My computer is going to die, but I thought I would sodomize you with data. Oh god, I don't know.

I saw the Anish Kapoor show at the Deutsches Guggenheim, and I saw some showzen at Duve and Nice and Fit. Nice and Fit had videos from Kate Gilmore, Kara Walker, Jason Phelan (?), Robin Rhoade, and others. Of course, Kara stole my already stolen heart. Later that night, Nicky and I met a couple of puppeteers, which complemented nicely my Kara puppetlust.

2009-01-11T13:28:00.000-07:00

Oops, not every day.

2009-01-09T03:25:00.002-07:00

Some love from Women and Their Work:
http://womenandtheirwork.wordpress.com/2009/01/09/read-this-calamity-in-berlin/

Tonight, I plan to go to openings at Klosterfelde, Duve and Nice and Fit. I'll letchu know what they're all about.

2009-01-08T14:03:00.003-07:00

I'm going to try to update every day now. Why? I don't know, some kind of continuity in my Piscean world of psychic tumult. Clear directions on the inter-nutty highway!
wtf?
Interesting new phrase I learned from The Canterbury Tales: "Nether-Eye."
Used in a sentence, "He was surprised by the hairiness of her Nether-Eye."
See, in between inquisitions and having plague-battles with poxy limbs, those mideval folk let a few jokes fly. I bet they would have liked Adam Sandler movies.

2009-01-06T01:01:00.002-07:00

Ok, well here's some new content:
My lips are chapped and raw from the cold and I look like Goldie Hawn circa...um never, because she always looks awesome and I don't. Actually, my lips more closely resemble Heath Ledger's Psoriasis smile as the Joker (I saw The Dark Knight, and I was not that impressed. Blah, give me the over-stylized, hypercolored streets of 1990's Gotham anyday).
Time home was nice, I got a lot of work done and went to my sister's local bar and drank my weight in watered down whiskey cokes. I saw my grandma which was heart-wrenching and difficult to talk (or write) about. She is getting better though.
I rode first class back to Europe thanks to a lovely US Airways employee named Anne. On the flight I acted totally Caligula, eating, drinking and otherwise consuming everything that was offered to me. Those airline slippers do not go down easily let me tell you.
Cymbal clash.
*I did however, spill a Mimosa all over the seat next to me within 10 minutes of boarding the plane, which really didn't help the refined, potential D-list celebrity image I was trying to cultivate.
I feel unjustifiably enlightened after reading the Kite Runner, re-reading Persepolis, watching House of Saddam and talking for 15 minutes to an Iranian political refugee slash cab driver. We're all the same inside! I can solve the middle-east situation McGyver style with a heart-shaped blowpop, chestbumps and an issue of O Magazine.
I'm re-reading the Canterbury Tales now as research for my, as yet, unrealized graphic novel.
My class didn't show up today and I woke up at 6 in the morning for it. Blurg!
It is fucking, fucking cold and to be honest, I am seriously suffering from a prolonged seasonal case-of-the-Mondays. I hadn't really missed Texas since I left, (the people yes, the place no) but recently I have begun fantasizing about drinking Mexican Martinis on porches and other warm-weather related activities.
It's really fucking with my self-image. I always envisioned myself as a black-clad, east-coast, rainy type of lady, but somewhere along the line I became an arid, hawaiian shirted lothario.

2008-12-16T18:10:00.002-07:00

I'm watching A Charlie Brown Christmas in my USA bed after a particularly long bout of willful insomnia. Two days of traveling, 10 hours of a coughing chairmate practically straddling me thanks to US Airways' orgiastic inside joke disguised as comfort seating, 2 hours too many of Sex and the City Movie "aren't boys jerks?" quips...but then coming home to Charlie Brown's colorful, flat, slightly melancholy Christmas? So perfect, really.

2008-12-12T06:21:00.002-07:00

Reviewzen.

http://www.fluentcollab.org/mbg/index.php/reviews/review/112/96

2008-12-11T07:38:00.003-07:00

Things I do not care about or for:
Davidson Basketball. Please stop sending me emails requesting my e-participation in online "Wildcat Waves" and such. Please stop sending me messages in all caps about the consistency of whatever Coach RuddyFace spat during these "sporting games." Please stop sending me petitions to keep Stephen Curry--that living emblem of Greek athleticism and moral purity---on the Davidson Basketball team. I don't care until you make the final or whatever, and then I'll pretend like I cared all along and buy a t-shirt that is slightly too tight and draw your name on it with marker like I did with my man, Barack. But I have grown weary of this dramatic enthusiasm and quasi-collegiate nationalism, it only makes me wonder how long people rehearse basket-induced squealing naked in front of their mirror.

My short review of the Capitain Petzel show should be in tomorrow's ...mbg, I'll let you know. Today I'm going to the various Weinachtsmarkts around town to shop for Xmas gifts. I'm not sure where I'll find "liposuction," which is my sister's request for the holiday season. Perhaps I'll get a little wooden spoon and knife and cut that shit out Inquisition-style.
*Speaking of cutting, I really need to cut down on my hyphens, they are totally wiggedy-wack.

On Friday I'm going to the National Arts Club for a party hosted by Program where CocoRosie is DJing. Yesssssssssss. However, before that I have a Christmas partay at my workplace, Inlingua. Apparently, it's not horrible, but my roommate and I watched the British Office for a while to prepare me for the requisite slow-dance sequence and awkward exchange of specialty pens.

I'm coming home on the 16th! I am so excited to see Grammy, Andie, Momathan and Ms. Beach. I am also excited to give my full attention to my favorite member of the family, that metallic mediator that binds us all together; the television. Helllllllloooooo reruns of True Blood, hello new season of the L Word. Hello, I've missed you. Occasionally watching The Golden Girls in German doesn't actually get me off, I need your special touch baby.

2008-12-06T14:57:00.000-07:00

yes.
http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/bos/798916222.html

2008-12-02T06:20:00.002-07:00

Blurrrrrrg, sometimes I feel like such a fuck-up.
I'm making a lot of art and drinking less, but still manage to be tardy and forgetful. I just bought a second alarm clock from a Turkish market that is probably a hooka and not an alarm clock at all. I guess I'll know when my morningtime smells of cummin and tobacco.
I would attribute my flakiness to the the whole "artist mythos" thing, feigning Terence Koh-ness and flaunting my otherness, but I think that's bullshit, so I'll attribute it to my Freudian child love; chaos. Which is totally not bullshit.
This morning I brought Nicky O.J. (he's got a case of the sniffles) and watched a video of his performance in this absurdist "trilogy" of dance at the National Kunsthalle or something. It was fascinating. I heart absurd narratives and the dance that accompanies them.
Tonight I'm going to some acting school in F-hain to see my roommate, Lucia, perform her carrot scene. It should be interesting.
I'm also going to re-czech out Troy's show at Capitain-Petzel so that mayhaps I can write a thing or two about it.

2008-11-26T15:51:00.002-07:00

Crap. I slept through class today, I am officially an asshole.
I dunno, it's so fucking cold. I am over the snowzen.
Other than that:
Grams is doing better and is now at a rehab facility and jokingly threatens to leave by kicking up her right leg. She is sharing a room with a spunky 97 year-old who loves to dance. I am going to remix Daft Punk and the "Charleston" and bring it home with me for Christmas. And then I'll turn their room into a little bitty Berlin. And then I'll tear down the separating curtain and declare it a free zone....for dance!
*I'm making a faux wooden wardrobe right now, I'm hoping that it will be both sweet and somewhat functional since my winter clothezen have no place to live.
*I've been to Poland twice in 2 weeks. I crossed the bridge over the Oder river and went to the small, cigarette-rich town of Stubice. I even went to the same restaurant both times; "Ramzes," the Pharoah-themed Polish Applebees. They had hieroglyphs and everything, shazam! Polish cigarettes are like one euro. And the Polish women are even cheaper! (No idea what that means or where it came from. No bother.)
*My roommate, the German/Italian actress slash musician is practicing for a role where she slices carrots in a scene. Our apartment is full of carrots. I just realized that I'm sitting on a carrot.
A sliced carrot! perverts.
*I have been slack about the art eventing, but I think Candace Breitz is speaking this weekend at the Temporary Kunsthalle, so I hope to go.
*I have a beer belly. No more beer for me until my sloshing, unruly Pilsner spawn goes away.
*As a replacement for my friend Risa's "Baby Thanksgiving," (see previous entries about unsettlingly small birds and baby-themed entertainment), I am spending T-giving with my new friends Joe and Emily who just moved here from Chicago. They are going to make Mexican! I am so happy. I miss tacos from El Chilito so much that sometimes I wrap myself in my blanket and pretend I am made of fish. And that I'm eating myself?
I think I'm delirious on art fumes; I can't open the window anymore because then I'll freeze to death. And I don't want to die with a beer belly.

2008-11-22T20:03:00.002-07:00

S0, grams is doing better and regaining her speech (my main concern), and thank you for your nice words, they made me, and grams feel better.
*They read her my blog and comments--more than once. She requested a second time, I believe. So thank you--sometimes conscientious self-indulgence becomes something more.
Otherwise, life is much the same. I accidentally dressed like a nazi yesterday, which was inappropriate, horribly offensive and totally accidental. I have a long, dark green leather coat that wad given to me by my mother, which I put over a suspendered ensemble with dark shiny boots. Sig Hell-yeah!
*offensive.

Grandmother.

2008-11-18T15:42:00.004-07:00

My grandmother just suffered a severe stroke. She can't speak or move her left side. For those of you who know me, or who have read this blog often enough, you know how important she has been in my life.
I can't be by her side, and I can't sleep, so I am going to write down the things that mark a strong and unusual constitution; things she possessed that were admirable to me even before I knew why I should be so impressed.

My grandmother, Virginia Arnet Hill loves beignets, ancient Asian art, drinking mimosas (and flirting age-inappropriately), Mah Jong, and telling stories about her days living in the Hollywood Hills, where Clark Gable once "gave her moon-eyes" at the Brown Derby.

At seventeen, she left the pig farm in Iowa where she grew up to move to California where she attended parties in a jalopy that sounded more like Radio Flyer or some kind of rogue death machine. She worked as a stewardess on the railroad during the war and lived in the French Quarter in New Orleans. She dated more than one FBI agent, often trading boyfriends with her roommate Dot. Her favorite parties are still Mardi-Gras parties. She threw one this year for her neighbors. She wore a green mask and looked deliriously happy in pictures.
She's traveled around the world, and since I was 12 she has kept me at rapt attention with her exotic stories. She didn't leave the U.S. until she was 50, but after that found adventure everywhere: Egypt, Thailand, Australia.
She loved the unknown and just last year, at the age of 89, she visited me in Austin and Miami for art shows. My friends commented about her long after she had left, noting the magnetic personality that is her trademark. She never needed to read the book How to Win Friends and Influence People.

She took me to art museums and plays throughout my childhood (one in particular about killing nuns called Nunsense), and gave me a Chinese Calligraphy set when I was 8. I won my first drawing contest with a portrait of her. I've drawn and sculpted her more times than I can remember, and although she alerted me to the fact that these were not "flattering" depictions, she kept them anyway. She even kept a basket I made in a weaving class despite the fact that it looked like a lopsided rainbow cantaloupe.

When my father died, she helped my mother to raise my sister and I. And as she got older, she begrudgingly allowed my mother to take care of her, although never at the expense of my mother's own life.

She has the most beautiful hands, and in recent years I had to hold them to balance her. Her nails are always impeccably maintained, and when she speaks she gesticulates in the coy way that actresses in 40's films do. She loves the word, "Damn!" and often sounds like Rhett Butler, even though she is an Iowan by birth. She bought me a copy of Gone With the Wind when I was 10. That book changed my life, I think.

She wore Tina Fey glasses long before they were popular and donned a red leather jacket for most of my youth.
She never let me feel sorry for myself, urging me instead to do something productive with my time. She often quoted her husband, my grandfather, who said that "Boredom is a matter of personal choice."
She's in several book clubs, and she was the one who introduced me to books like Middlesex and The Kite Runner. She would say things like, "They're queer, but I like them."
*She meant "queer" in the older sense of the word.

Up until this week she did the crossword every day and still swam and played tennis several times a week. She loves movies with Queen Latifah. And she loves the book The Secret Life of Bees, the movie version of which, I believe, stars Queen Latifah. This will be the first movie I take her to, when I go home for Christmas.

My grandmother was never effusive, never pandered to me, never knitted me anything. On more than one occasion she critiqued my hair, weight and clothing choice (most of these were well-warranted).

But she is and always has been honestly caring. Over the course of my life she has cared for me honestly, sensitively, respectfully and unconditionally. I don't know where one finds a better example of will, intellectual ambition and loyalty.

I love you grandma and I want you to get better so that we can go see Queen Latifah try to act again.

*Although she can't speak, the hospital staff is already impressed by her sassiness and determination.

2008-11-12T03:52:00.003-07:00

I just bought and began listening to the audiobook "How to Win Friends and Influence People." No joke. It is changing my life. For instance did you know that people "care more for a boil on their own neck than they do for a hundred famines in Africa."? The quote is something like that anyway. The point is, if you want people to like you, you must inquire about their neck "friend" and not start with your normal Sub-Saharan borefest.
I am learning lots of interesting facts about Franklin Roosevelt, who the author uses as an example of a well-liked man. Of course he was well-liked, he didn't have usable legs! Nothing to resent or distrust below the belt.
That's why, in an effort to become more popular here in the existential heartland, I have decided to break all my limbs and talk about people's boils.

2008-11-07T01:17:00.003-07:00

Well, I was going to start this particular entry off with a big heaping of self-pity gumbo. All chunky and full of sour fishy bits and bitter swampiness. Ingredients:

-a chipped tooth that makes me look like Ron Howard as Opie, or some other old-timey childstar whose access to dental care is limited in idyllic Appalachia. But I manufacture adorable lispy slogans like, "Shucksies!"...or something similar.

-a somewhat bitchy boss, who was not down with me missing class for election day---I only cancelled class because I was invited by a CNN correspondent in Berlin to this CNN election night viewing party. My dream? Yes, but then it fell through. I was. so. sad. Goodbye sassy weatherwoman job, goodbye colleague (totally professional) hugs from Christiane Amanpour. Goodbye.

Anyway, I WAS going to write about that stuffs, but then I remembered Obama's triumph, and the tears in my fellow expats' eyes. And then I felt petty and ungrateful. And I have to say that McCain's concession speech moved me to tears as well. The country can begin anew, and the Euros are pretty happy about it too. My god, the history that was made....still can't believe it. He is so smart, so somber, so stable and so what we need.
Living here, you feel acutely how the world views us: and damn we need someone to mend our global image. And the election of Obama has already gone a long way towards that. I feel a little less shameful walking down the streets.

2008-10-29T04:34:00.002-07:00

Ich habe ein installation gemacht auf der Berliner Liste, und die vernissage ist hotte, aber du hast dieser gehort schon. Farfignugen. Birkenstock. Wolf Blitzer.

www.extraraum.net

I know that I've expressed extreme discontent with, disdain for, and general bitterness towards art fairs, but I think I like Art Fairs in Berlin. Something is different. Maybe it's that I'm not being drunkenly trampled by coked out Murakami sycophants. Maybe it's that I prefer bratwurst to 13 dollar Cuban sandwiches. Maybe I just hate America.
Anyhoo, the Berliner Liste opens tonight, and I'm exhibiting with Extraraum. The space for the art fair is fucking amazing, period. I would live there. I would raise my children there. I would forgo my chastity promise in order to have children just to rear them inside this crazy old hotel. I am having a hard time even finding words to describe it. First it was a hotel, then a tax office---everything has a forgotten Art Deco meets Roccoco appeal to it. Dark wooden reliefs, bright purple hallways, a red carpet, winding staircases, non-functional fireplaces, faux tiled bathrooms with reliefs of Grecian goddesses, gray-green floors in all the rooms. Beautiful.

2008-10-25T10:54:00.002-07:00

Willi put me on the guest list for the International Porn Festival afterparty, it wasn't nearly as debaucherous as I thought it would be, but here are some things I saw/did:

*Willi tended the bar in a scandalous unitard, with a really creative zipper running in all sorts of irrational directions.

*There were women (mostly Americans I might add) who donned pasties, had mohawks, and handed out sex-themed goodies and gum for 50 cents.

*There was a large plastic-coated bed in the center of the bar/warehouse, which apparently was well-used in past nights. Last night people (including myself) just stood on it to see the "Porn Karaoke." Luckily, one cannot get Gonorrhea through one's feet.

*"Porn Karaoke!" Enough said. My introduction to this particular art form made the whole thing worth it. The stars were a Brasilian couple who displayed impressive range with their homemade horror porn movies. I especially enjoyed some of the close-ups, so cinematic, totally Fellini-esque.

Afterward, I went to the "Ping-Pong Bar," a favorite of Vice readers and the superhip to hear my roommate DJ. This bar was really cool. the centerpiece was obviously a very large ping-ping table, with Germans rotating around it commie-style. Germans are v. good at ping-pong and even have ping-pong tables set up in public parks. The kicker: the tables are made of concrete. Hail Mother Russia!

2008-10-22T02:50:00.002-07:00

Things I can't get enough of, or understand in any sort of aesthetic way:
German haircuts.

2008-10-17T06:25:00.002-07:00

Well, I've been so slack about this blog. It's because I've been busy, busy, busy, not so busy, drunk, and busy.
Anyway, I'm working on my installation for the Berliner Liste Fair, which opens October 29th, and trying to stay on top of all the bureaucracy my job demands (somewhat unsuccessfully I might add).
My best friend Nicky, the Belgian dancer of my right aorta, left to dance in the Middle East for a month on a tour sponsored by Porsche and geared towards rich dance-hungry shieks.

I couldn't give him a copy of "Persepolis" or a plane-Xanax, lest his head be cut off. Did you know that bringing drugs, even prescription anti-depressants into Saudi Arabia can result in the death penalty? Oh Saudi Arabia, all the oil in the world means nothing without medicinal hand-holding.

I got over my one-week seasonal affective disorder, in part because it is warmer outside and I am busying myself with work. Also, I am staying part-time at Nicky's apartment, and he has cable! Thank god, I missed that little magic square who speaks to me more than I missed breakfast tacos, timely service or Federalist, mavericky attitudes.
Berlin is good, my Californian friend James and I go to this bar near our apartments called "Silver Future," which is fast becoming my favorite place. It has cheap drinks, and strategically placed felt on murals of naked ladies.
In a couple of weeks it will be art craziness with the Artforum Fair, and the two satellite fairs that accompany it (Berliner Liste and Preview). Maybe more, I dunno. I will really try to write about it, I pwomise.
*Also, I got a new digicam from my momz, so watch out, it's about to get a whole lot mo' visual up in this piece.
*Also check out Domy's Monster Show, I put a little something in it. Plus, I think it opens on All Hallow's Eve. Plus, Monsters are cool.

2008-10-15T05:59:00.002-07:00

Things I am taking very seriously:

Devil Facial Tumors

Things I am trying to take un-seriously:

My job.

Things that come up when I google "Sarah Palin hell":

2008-10-14T14:18:00.002-07:00

Just saw Terence Koh at the tiny Vietnamese place in my 'hood. He started taking pictures of goldfish in the aquarium. It was so Terence Koh! He had on sneakers!

*I am a whore and need to stop reading Artforum Diary.

2008-10-08T08:48:00.002-07:00

I'm teaching 4 English classes and one of them absolutely hates me. Not just the way I teach, they hate me.
One particularly onerous German woman just glares at me all German-like, visions of Durer's four horsemen trampling me into a winter sheath that she can then use as a tourniquette for my ego. She undermines me, sighs loudly and today wrote a review of me as "uninterresant und langweilig." That's uninteresting and boring for you Amerikaners.

Now, I have been called many things in my life, the C word, the B word, the S word (solipsistic).
But never have I been called uninteresting. Now, I know I don't compare to the thrilling German television programs such as "Hot or Not," or the emotive, theatrical way in which Germans electrify a room, but I'm not boring. Unqualified maybe. A little dreamy perhaps. Overly sensitive, yes. But for the love of Christ, I am not boring.

I analyzed Britney Spears using business terminology. Is she boring? Is shaving your head boring? Somehow, the assertion that I am boring rather than incompetent bugs me. Actually it all bugs me. I plan on living here for a while, so having this job is relatively important. But as Sarah Palin misquoted Madeline Albright as saying, "There's a special place in hell for women who don't support other women."
Go to hell Frau Gerlind.

2008-10-05T12:00:00.002-07:00

This week was the first time I've felt really homesick since I've been here. I think this is because of the following:

-The Bierhimmel, one of my favorite bars, played Bon Jovi all night long on Friday. I don't even like Bon Jovi, although I do have fond collegiate half-memories of shimmeying on Fraternity tables to "It's My Life."

-Actually having a job and the necessary waking-up-early-ness that accompanies it suh-xx. It's really impeding my arting, coffeeing, daydreaming and snogging. I've been getting up at 5:30, which is like insanely out of sync with this city of hopped-up beerheads. I've become all responsible-like. I took the subway to work the other day and nearly barfed up my morningtime Snickers when I stood next to these two men who were literally oozing wisps of Berlinner Pilsner. I was wearing a blazer too. A blazer of resentment. Aaaaaah, who am I becoming?!

-German people tend to be really reserved, which I appreciate, it's just that I'm quite reserved too, and I want people to hit on me. I just feel like no one cares what I'm wearing, you know? Loooook at me Germans! I exist!!!!!

-It is cold here. So cold already. It went from pleasantly brisk to a Dosteovsky novel overnight.

2008-10-02T05:20:00.003-07:00

Sorry guys. I've been busy. I've been teaching English to Germullets, working on this: http://www.extraraum.net/berliner_lister_2008.html, writing a show proposal, and googling Sarah Palin obsessively. So, no time to blog unfortunately.
Did you know that regular ole' Sarah Palin killed 12 caribou, pleasured her man using only the barrette that holds her brainjunk together and rode a bedazzled Polar Bear all while approving underhanded legislation making little girls pay for their own rape kits? She's amazing. I'm so impressed with her multi-tasking. I tried to eat a candy bar on my way to work yesterday and it ended up in my shoe somehow.

Awesome.

2008-09-27T00:54:00.000-07:00

http://thegreatschlep.com/site/default.html

2008-09-26T05:25:00.001-07:00

I fell asleep like a homeless person in the Frankfurt airport. I wouldn't have made it to Berlin except a kind couple rustled the Guardian newspaper I was using as a pillow to tell me they switched gates.

2008-09-18T15:00:00.003-07:00

Emergency dental work. Wish I could have had it done in Germany, so that I could have participated in the burgeoning sport of "medical tourism."

V. painful process, both in the drilling and the billing. No insurance. Oh, the agony.

The only thing that redeemed my day was the prescription for lovely happy mouth pills, the purchase of Zadie Smith's On Beauty (finally!), and buying some much-needed craft supplies from Michael's. While in Germany, I have missed Michael's more than I have missed any other Michael. And I know quite a few Michaels. But none of them give me fake snow and wooden knick-knacks like my frumpy yet sexy superstore.

2008-09-17T08:30:00.002-07:00

Within a 24 hour period I traveled by foot, subway, high-speed train, bus, tram, taxi, plane, and finally car. Now I am in North Carolina for my mother's low-key wedding.
She just infomed me that I am "giving her away." I'm so proud yet protective. I'm going to smoke cigars and grill her husband-to-be during the rehearsal dinner.
But let's talk about the day before I left Europe...doodley-doo, doodley-doo (accompanied by Wayne's World hand motions).

I woke up at 6, and dutifully took to subway to work whilst listening to Kanye to garner a little fighting spirit.
I taught English to a very stern German Frau who yelled at me afterward for leaving town to attend my mother's wedding and for speaking with an Ameican accent which she couldn't understand.
Of course I went outside and cried some baby tears into my second or eighth Latte. I felt really dejected and like a bad teacher.
A few hours later, I took the train to the border town Frankfurt (Oder)---that Neo-Nazi haven only a sickle's throw away from Poland. It was SO weird. I loved it. All the women had really strange dyed hair and seemed to know each other. The town itself was completely deserted and seemed like Cold War era snowglobe or something. They even have this tiny train that looks like a toy which runs throughout the town. Their Burger King was like the diner from Happy Days only with more Germullets. There was also a lot of stonewashed fabrics going on. And everyone was super white.
I took the tram (with another teacher) to Technologie Park, which is where the Solar Energy Complex First Solar is. So weird.
I taught a physicist and a safety engineer, and we talked a lot about beer. Loved it. During the class introduction, the safety engineer talked about growing up and living in a small "willage" of 600 people. I nearly peed with glee. "Willage!"
Now I'm back in the states, and still delirious from so much traveling. I'll post pics of the wedding---me in a dress!

2008-09-13T15:36:00.001-07:00

Also, I'm doing a lil' somethin' somethin' for Extraraum in October, for the Berlinner Liste fair. Check er' out.

2008-09-13T13:07:00.002-07:00

I just watched The Orphanage. I'm kind of freaked out.
Ok, I like Guillermo Del Toro, but that movie has almost the exact same premise as Pan's Labryinth minus the looming figure of Franco. And why do the children die, Guillermo? Why? You make me feel sad and horrible in my heart.
Lessee, other things, other things:
Had my first Business English teaching lesson: I made them do a S.W.O.T. analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) for Britney Spears. Gotta liven up the business terminology somehow. Plus, what English lesson is complete without the magical words "Kevin Federline." It's both a tongue twister, and a great networking tool!

I know that doesn't make sense, leave me alone.

Today I went to visit Willi at Elixia, the gym where he works sometimes. Don't worry, I didn't actually break a sweat, or do anything else that would impede my progressive bratwurst induced gut-expansion (I smell my next class in that sentence!).
Instead, I leisurely shared a lane of the pool and went to the sauna and drank cappuccinos. Even though it is cold as SHIT here (seriously, it's fuh-reezing), I am still holding onto my Summer sloth with all the tenacity of Sarah Palin and a moose carcass filled with babies.

2008-09-08T05:47:00.002-07:00

Part of my intensive *scoff* English teacher training today involved learning Hungarian for an hour. It was supposed to teach us how to instruct beginners using only the target language. I wouldn't even be telling you this except the teacher (who is Hungarian) said I had the best Hungarian accent she'd ever heard. This proves my previous assertion that I am indeed only good at things that are useless, obscure or communist. Or all three, like grown up Bobby Fisher.

I start teaching on Wednesday (my first lesson involves banking terminology *shudder*), then on Monday I go teach employees of a solar-energy company in the small border town of Frankfurt Oder, which is literally just over the bridge from Poland.
I am going to go over that bridge and eat meatballs and figure out what Poland's national identity is comprised of...because I really have no idea.

Is Polanski Polish? Are all the citizens angry and lumberjacky? Do they still have consumption there? Is the polka Polish? What the fuck is Poland?
The other interesting thing is that Frankfurt Oder is known in part for it's large Neo-Nazi population. Woot-woot! I'm totallies gonna wear my knee high shiny black boots on Monday---just to be sure and impress all the cute boyz.

"Ooh, Henrich's hair is getting kinda' leftist, what with it's extra millimeter in the back, next thing you know he'll be watching Weeds. This isn't Frankfurt Am Main, Henrich! Let's shank him with my esoteric Hitler-bobblehead lance."

Reading public: If you don't hear from me, it's because I did something really liberalese and am probably being held hostage in some skinhead's sex dungeon. Please send Sarah Palin in with her crazy mooseguns and Hockey mom diplomatic powers.

*Please do not send in Sarah Palin, she would probably just stay up playing World of Warcraft with them.

2008-09-05T02:44:00.003-07:00

I had the best night.
Firstly, the ABC art fair was a breath of much-needed fresh air for me. Nothing presented there seemed made to sell, and each gallery only showed ONE artist. And it looked great. My one qualm was that there was little to no painting---it was all sculpture and installation. But what a weird qualm to have, after being inundated with 5,000 psychedelic-ready to stuff down the pants of rich white men-paintings in Miami. So, maybe I'm happy there was no painting.

Secondly, the artists presented were really exciting. They had Mr. Thomas Hirschorn (a personal fave) and John Bock, and Daniel Buren (who disappointed a little bit) and Agathe Snow, and lots of other famous Euros. Not so many women....but this is Germany folks.

Ok, art, blah, blah.....Peaches performed! And I was literally 6 feet from her! And it was, I swear to god, the finest performance I have ever seen. She didn't even play her own songs, she just covered songs from Whitney and others. But man, not only can she sing, she is mesmerizing. She was wearing this unisuit that displayed all her bodily faults in very...um blatant ways. She also had a cape and occasionally donned some kind of chintzy Grecian mask. I almost cried when she covered "Turn Around." It was simply incredible.

Because I am so down with O.P.P.P. (other people's pictures of Peaches), here's some visual candy for ya':

2008-09-03T06:25:00.002-07:00

Parti-time in Berlin has ended and I am somewhat relieved---as is, I'm sure, my liver.

I've begun to eat groceries instead of mysterious rotating meats.
I've spent an inordinate amount of time watching 30 Rock online.
I've started using weird German grout that comes in large toothpaste tubes.
I've said goodbye to all my transient friends now.
I might start teaching a business English class once a week in Frankfurt.

I'm growing up! In Deutschland! And growing out, German food is like a potato Hindenburg in your stomach every day.

2008-09-01T06:39:00.003-07:00

For those few of you who care more about the Berlin art scene than my menstruation and/or emotional state, here are some art happenings I've attended lately:

http://www.galerieimregierungsviertel.org/
This is a tiny bar/gallery who showed some Assume Vivid Astro Focus last month. It's a superweird and interesting space...so Berlin.

http://www.extraraum.net/
Our very own Andy Coolquitt is in this fun group show.

http://www.wilde-gallery.com/index.html
This exhibition made me cringe with it's perfect angles and painting. They were hyper-realistic paintngs of the gallery itself. meta-barf.

Annnnnnd, here's what I'm up to this week. Katharina and Gemo, my new German freunds who run the space Extraraum--which is a space connected to a bookstore/publishing press that specializes in printing underrepresented artists' books--invited me to go to this new art fair in Berlin, a possible competitor for ArtForum, called ABC (Art Berlin Contemporary). I'm pretty psyched about it actually, I like upstart fairs. I do not like fairs that begin with "B" and end with "Asel".

http://artforum.com/news/week=200817

Pluuuuus, Nicole Eisenman, one of my art crushes of all time is opening at Galerie Barbara Weiss on Friday. Mmmm.

http://www.galeriebarbaraweiss.de/

2008-08-28T10:18:00.002-07:00

Today was more than a little bit Belle and Sebastian. Someone I really liked left, the first of my transient family to return stateside.
Outside it is already fall and gray and Gattica, which seems premature, but maybe will be work-inducing.
A close friend of mine was betrayed by someone he loved, and it breaks the little cheneyheart I have left. The things love does to us...it's crazy...like a fox in the snow.
Sigh, I'm going to watch 30 rock in my underwear and work on my graphic novel and start relinquishing my rock of negativity so that my garden may grow.

*Italicizing puts me in a better mood.

2008-08-24T09:24:00.002-07:00

Also, Sister Mary Joseph, I know you punished my Gomorrah type ways by giving me some strep-throat-ish disease. Thanks a lot. From now on I'm using my Rosary beads as a thong.

2008-08-24T08:27:00.003-07:00

I don't even know where to begin. I've been lagging behind like Dick Cheney's sad, forked reptillian tail. You know, the thing that creaks behind him as he lunges towards you in the dark. Dick Cheney is the crocodile man.
I went to a series of short lectures at Program (http://www.programonline.de/). It was fab, I don't know nearly enough about architecture, but at least I'm learning what an idiot I am. Self-awareness is the first step, or so they say.
Brian Boyer, my friend Katie's cousin and her current collaborator, has an interesting take on architectural theory; he uses the mantra, "form follows fable" to come up with initial designs for buildings.
For example: After studying Nordic folklore about sea-monsters, he designed this building that was engulfed by structures that resemble rows of teeth. Yes.
On Sat. Simone, Emily, Katie and I went to a club called Scala, where we heard Simone's tiny, polite German friend Sabine sing about her cha-cha Peaches-style. Then we tried to go to a boat party but couldn't find it anywheres, and instead just wandered the Spree for like an hour.
In good news, I have a couple of exciting show possibilities...perhaps. In not good news, my boss man is out of town until the first week of September, so my money-making has to wait even longer. Remember the time I almost became an online escort?
Them times is coming up again.

2008-08-19T15:27:00.002-07:00

Today was one of the best days ever. I went with my friends Simone & Emily (http://www.nootnatdit.net/SEA/) and Katie to Schlachtensee lake, where we ate brats, went swimming, smoked a joint, and walked around the small town of Schlachtensee. It was one of the more magical (although slightly THC enhanced) times I've had.
The conversation was really lovely and the following topics were discussed at length:

-Getting pentagrams tattooed on our ladyparts.
-Building fairy houses out of sticks and other forest detritus.
-Fairies in general, Norwegian fairies specifically. Apparently 85% percent of their population believe in "hidden people."
-Gang violence in L.A.
-My special fish skills (I am some sort of fish magnet because of my Piscean nature).
-My future career as a dolphin trainer because of my fish skillz.
-The smell of nuns.

2008-08-18T03:48:00.002-07:00

Work Visa success! Sooooo tired, no stress and fear of deportation to keep me on edge anymore. Wasting away into blissful relief. Mmmm.
Woman was like dominatrix: but only a soft one. Domilight.

2008-08-16T03:38:00.003-07:00

Awwww, my freunds Willi and Nicky cooked me a real German dinner with delicious meatballz and potatoes and veggies and buttermilk.
Afterwards, we watched Schwarze Schafe, (Black Sheep) which is a German movie about quirky Berlin characters loosely tethered to each other by their surroundings. It's not a novel storyline to be sure, but there was a scene where this goth kid....um, takes advantage of his comatose grandma during a satanic ritual. It was really disturbing considering that this movie was a comedy. Germany's version of funny = penetration of the elderly.

The other day I went to this cool space that also hosts residencies called Programm. It's an effort to join architects and artists and force them to collaborate despite their nutty sitcom-like differences of opinions. "That's my t-square, not a back-scratcher!" *laugh track*

There was a lecture about "ha-has," but don't ask me what they are because I am still really confused. Most, if not all of the other people there were architects and so the speaker made no effort to navigate away from archibabble. Thank you for not patronizing me, dear sir, thank you. But next time, treat me like a 12 year-old Appalachian because I had no fucking idea what you were talking about.

Someone called the lecture a "proquiem" as opposed to a "requiem" for American superhighways. And he did talk quite a bit about the theories behind current American highway systems and what the highways of the future would look like, which was cool.
My newish friend Katie is staying there right now, executing a project with her collaborator-cousin that entails, waiiiit for it.....feng-shuing the Panopticon! How fucking sweet is that.
Here are some of her paintings, she is also a librarian:
http://www.circus-gallery.com/artists/herzog.web/bio.html

2008-08-13T08:13:00.002-07:00

I'm done with my Catholic guilt complex. Yes, I'm having fun and becoming a partymonster like Macaulay Culkin. Yes, I am tonguing way more people than is normal or orally hygienic. Yes, I am going to clubs called "Roses," and "Cookies" and "Cake." I am decadent and Caligula-esque. Chocolate-youtube-vomitorium.

But for 6-9 months in Austin I worked constantly and wouldn't even go out to lunch with friends. I was like a phantom and was socially negligent.

So I deserve this. Sister Mary Joseph (a nun I remember from my brief stint in catholic school) I deserve this.
And if fucking Germany would just give me a work visa, then I wouldn't have to explore my fat-kid gone wild issues through alcohol and dirty dancing.

*This post was more about appeasing my sense of self-doubt, and if you noticed, I am really, really not done with my Catholic guilt complex. Will I ever be done? I'm sick of chastising myself constantly and feeling bad about things. How did you indoctrinate me so, Sister Mary Joseph, how did you?
*Answer: through cookies and a graphic novelly version of the bible.

2008-08-10T10:09:00.001-07:00

I missed the "Fuck Parade" yesterday. Fuck.
Berlin needs to get less fun before I die of exhaustion and embarrassment.

2008-08-09T07:03:00.014-07:00

Firstly, I want to commend you guys for actually reading a blog with a boring black template, a verbose and self-obsessed author, and no pictures. I myself don't look at things without pikchurrs.
So, now that my digicam is kind of working (I can't fix the file size) I will give you a little insight into my new Berlin life. Very little, considering all the pictures were taken in my room. But my room is awesome. And as an interesting architectural sidenote, all of the bedrooms I've seen in Berlin are huge, while the common areas are tiny. I'm sure there's some commie significance to this (space to think about Marx and masturbate to photos of similarly dressed stocky women working on assembly lines?), but I don't know what it is.

The other pics are a lil' sneak peek of my graphic novel, "An American Artist in Berlin, or The Sad Little White Girl Story." And I decided to give you a sneak peek of my new haircut as well. I'm sorry, but I feel adorable.

2008-08-05T09:43:00.002-07:00

Can't seem to use words. English getting worse, German not getting better. D'oh. Or Doch?

Went to S&M themed apartment replete with black and white tiles, hanging harness and Mapplethorpe-type photo. Watched a beerfest from above.

Some Canadian thought I was Canadian based on my accent (or lack thereof). Sigh, if only.

Moved. Again. I think this is like the 5th time I've moved this year, counting the moving of my studio.

Might start a job as a tour guide soonish.

I'm not funny anymore. I blame Germany. Here's an anecdote to illustrate this point (see! so succint and unfunny):

I was at an art opening and this severe German man said something he thought was funny, but no one laughed and he announced, "I just made a joke."
Then I said, "I thought Germans didn't make jokes."
And then he said, straight-facedly, "But I just made one."

2008-08-03T12:28:00.003-07:00

No one reads when I detail my work saga, only when I'm a sexitime talker and art-hater. Well, I've been having my share of both sexitime and art-hating. However, I will only indulge my Emin-esque diary entry bullshit impulse when I cannot hold it in any longer. It's like pee.

To tide you over, here's some stuff not related to hole-punching, number staring, form-filing and omigodI'mgoingtokillalltheGermans-ing.

I've been going to these Wed. night film screenings in this big warehouse called "Basso."
Last time it was Logan's Run (fuck me, that film was amazing), and this time they showed some stuff by Kenneth Anger, but I didn't really go in because I am too cool and also because it was too crowded. Anyway, it's an amazing place/initiative, and I think they're staging La Estrada sometime next week with all the characters in speedos (speedoes?).

I just moved to a new place in Kreuzkolln. Upon arriving, I realized there are no light bulbs and no internetz---Oh, Berlin! You're such a crazy commie city. You care nothing of amenities, only utilitarian thingies!

But really though, the internet has become my only form of entertainment, I've been watching "French and Saunders" every night before bed. Jennifer Saunders, I love you. What am I going to do?

The apartment itself is supercool, incredibly priced (cheaper than what I paid in Austin), centrally located and next door to a heavenly Turkish bakery. I had Baklava today that was, quite frankly, unbelievable. It was so tiny and perfectly made, but I just manhandled it and smushed it in my mouth Lenny-style. Then I wouldn't shut up about it. And my new roommate probably thinks I'm some kind of Baklava newbie. Which I'm not! I've had plenty of experiences with Baklava! I'm just out of practice! I ate a lot of Baklava in college, but I was always drunk!

Um, anyway. I need to eat more Baklava. Take that as you will.

Toodles for now, I am off to meet that nurse mentioned in one the posts below. She speaks sooooooo fast (reciting overly personal anecdotes) and reminds me, I swear, of Liza Minelli, in, yes, Cabaret. Whatever, don't judge me for fudging my own hypothesis that Berlin in 2008 is the same licentious city of Chris Isherwood fame.

Scientists do it all the time. That creature that washed up on a beach is made of latex and Bubbalicious. Trust me, I know these things.

2008-07-31T11:27:00.002-07:00

Today I went back to the Auslanderbehorde with my friend Nicky. Not to get my work visa but to get an appointment to get my work visa. We saw the inside of a multitude of waiting rooms. I'm beginning to like watching the screen, it's like a numerical lava lamp.
In between the floors there was this netting that looked like it was supposed to prevent people from jumping and killing themselves. Either that, or the Auslanderbehorde is taking a tongue-in-cheek approach to the convergence of playground materials and suicide.
It was so perverse and "Kafkaesque."
While we waited, Nicky played Sonic the Hedgehog on his phone and I fidgeted nervously, imagining all kinds of German FrauDominatrixes that would slice my body with papercuts using giant thick folders imprinted with outstanding rules and loopholes.
*I also envisioned a lady with one of those commie mullets (think Billie Jean King) and a large branding iron that incised the German equivalent of "You're Going to Prison!" onto my chest.

Anyhow, it went fairly well. There was one woman who was nice and one guy who was kind of an ass. They looked at all my documents and said that I would probably get the work visa on the 18th of August (when my appt. is) as long as I get....private German health insurance.
Fuck me. I know this is the last thing I have to do, but what the fuck. I have insurance firstly (at least until sept.) and it works abroad. Nobody alerted me to this particular rule.
Anyway, this has been such a hassle that I am definitely going to do it and stay.

Germany, you will have me as your sassy, slightly amoral wife--whether you like it or not. I will eat your bratwurst, I will drink your bier, but I will not let you "slither into my ass" (this is a direct translation of an expression in Germany, one that my friend Willi used when describing Obama's speech: "Obama slithered into Berlin's ass").

*Also, I got a more permanent residence in what's called "Kreuzkolln," which is on the border of Kreuzberg and Nuokolln. My roomie is a Parisian/Italian woman named Ana Lucia, who is in acting school and has a few stories to tell I think. My new apartment is so "Berlin." It kind of looks like an old-timey submarine. There's a balcony. And some fake marble. And no furniture. And the ghost of a one-eyed seafaring man.

2008-07-29T13:34:00.003-07:00

I got so depressed today. I went with my Norwegian friend Julian to the Auslanderbehorde, which is the Foreigner's Office. It's soooo far away and it was so fucking hot. By the time I got there, the magical elixir of wet bodies, apfelsaft and doner kebabs that comprise "subway steam" had smothered my brain.
Yes, Texans, I know it's hot there. But the difference is that you have a/c. There is no a/c anywhere in Berlin except for malls like the one I went to yesterday that carry quasi-American brands like "New Yorker" and have pharmacies called "Bong."

Anyway, when Julian and I got there it was closed. It was only 2 o'clock. I would have known they close at 2 if it had been anywhere on their website. Which it wasn't. Anywhere. I was so upset. Then I came home and shed sum tearz because I am a baby and I want this to be done so I can stop boring my friends with lame stories about bureaucracy. And then I wondered if it would ever be done, and if my job would still be there, and if I should really stay in Berlin, and when exactly my money was going to run out etc. etc.

Basically I had a breakdown based on inescapable heat, which was very "Camus" of me.

Ugh, power of positive thinking, relinquish my stone of negativity:

Good things:

I'm meeting a lot of amazing people, here are some very cursory descriptions:
I met:
A novelist from NYC
A cokehead from Britain who basically read me his dissertation (at great speeds) for an hour.
A Parisian/NYC artist who had the most incredible accent ever.
A bar owner from Oldenburg who dated the girl below.
A nurse who works at the Charite Hospital (where the Medical Anomaly Museum is!) who is obsessed with American television and insisted that I talk about "Rock of Love II" with her for...well, an excessive amount of time.
A personal trainer from Brasil who looked like a really, really handsome inmate from a handsome prison.
A trio of British brothers who opened a clothing store (mentioned below) and deal in exceptionally witty repartee.
A former North Carolina boy who has something to do with Peres Projects and speaks perfect German and wears shortieshorts.
2 guys from Oakland.

2008-07-27T06:44:00.002-07:00

Ok, lemmesee I really have no new developments. I went to Peres Projects for an opening last night, which was fun, if somewhat mellow. Then one of my roomies, Simone took me to an opening at this clothing store, hosted by a bunch of brits in dandyish clothes; the event had something to do with an interactive experimental music-making machine, although it was turned off by the time I got there. Here are pictures of some of their wares:
http://www.georgekeeling.com/200706Sameheads/index.html
Leggings, screen-printed tees and a lopsided haircut, these are the things that comprise the social experiment that is Berlin fashion.
Then we went to the after-party at this British guy's apartment. It was fun, although incredibly hot and haseeshish (second time I've used the "ish" suffix....does it really make everything funnier, or does it just dilute my prose?...who cares).
At around 3 or 4, we went to a park and looked at the stars, which was lovely even though I got dirt in my tweener parts.
Then I ate a cheeseburger. Of course.

2008-07-25T07:55:00.002-07:00

So I went to see Obama in the Tiergarten Park with Willi and his two German friends, one of whom is a former speechwriter for the German Defense Department. It was really interesting to hear her take on Obama's speech. She thought it was good, but actually predicted the points he would make like 20 seconds before he made them.

Ok, I love Obama but his speech was disappointing. He didn't seem all that impassioned, and what's worse, he spoke about the history of Berlin using this really patronizing tone. Berlinners are very well-educated and they don't need an American (however handsome and charismatic he may be) to remind them that there was an airlift in 1949. They know that shit.

This made Obama's real mission---to channel JFK with a well-timed Berlin blockbuster that he can use as his "campaign backdrop" as German chancellor Angela Merkel commented--very obvious. Because he was really educating American viewers about German history, and using "the wall" as a metaphor for....I dunno...different walls.

It was a good speech, but it certainly was not a great speech.

It did feel incredible to be there, with over 200,000 people going nuts and wearing all kinds of Obama what-nots. I kind of cried at some point because I really do feel some kind of shift, a new hope. What else could make that many people see one man? And in Europe? I really think the world is excited and ready to support him, which is great.

Here are some interesting things about political events in Berlin:

*Uh, there was no security. Like none.
*People smoke doobies.
*There are beer stands everywhere.
*I only saw one helicopter the whole time we were there.
*There was a "cruising area" nearby.
*People climb on top of lamp posts and trees. And the police don't hassle them. Weird.

2008-07-24T06:26:00.000-07:00

Obama at Brandenburger Tor. I feel as though I'm part of history.

2008-07-23T07:14:00.002-07:00

Since my last post was a depressing diatribe on artists I don't give a shit about anyway, I think I'll devote this next entry to amazing things I've seen/done over the past few dayz:

-There was a man in a Batman costume accompanied by a girl in a Robin costume, and a man in black (?) and they jumped in some kind of military armored vehicle which was playing riotgrrrrl music and drove off. I really have no idea what this means.

-My roommate Caris and I went to Morgenland this morning and ate a hearty Deutsch breakfast that is growing exponentially in my stomach like a Germany-shaped nerf football. Or a sea monkey made of omelette.

-My friend Nicky and I went to the Bierhimmel last night for drinks and wound up being interviewed by British journalists for the brit magazine the New Statesman about cultural life in Berlin. Hawt. I told them about Adrian Piper.

-I am going to see Obama speak at Brandenburger Tor tomorrow with Willi. Uhmazing.

-There was this amazing fight outside the Bierhimmel involving two men trying to sell newspapers. One was very old, one was very young. The old man was ridiculously drunk and had this voice that sounded like gravel and bitterness (I can only describe his voice, not his words since they wuz in German). Eventually Nicky told me that the young man screamed, "Don't make me hit an old man!" Anyway, it was amusing and frightening to say the least.

-I saw the tiniest puppy today, it was seriously as small as my fist (and I have freakishly small hands). I almost killed him with my oversized orthopedic shoes.

2008-07-22T10:41:00.003-07:00

Today I went to Jablonka Galerie and Galerie Barbara Thumm, both of which I expected to be interesting. Neither were. Here is the snarkiest synopsis ever, complete with venom and an unwarranted sense of superiority:

Jablonka: Ugly, macho Clemente paintings coupled with super-slick photographs of young, nude Asian women engaged in Japanese Rope Bondage (there were also a couple Richard Prince and David LaChappelle prints). Something about it just reeked of pretension, exclusion, and misogyny although I guess that's a very slippery thing to describe.

*The only time I liked Clemente was when a young Ethan Hawke pretended to make his paintings in Great Expectations. And that had more to do with seeing the artist mythos transfered so cheesily to screen opposite Gwyneth Paltrow.

Galerie Barabara Thumm: It would be easy to say that this show is the opposite of "macho," considering it's a lady making portraits of unknown women and scribbling quotes from Gloria Steinem and the like in the margins. But they were really terrible, gross and were not at all challenging...to any kind of system...or anything....or anyone. In one painting, she likened selling her work to selling herself. What an unknown and original fact. And you paint that into your painting! How meta and incendiary!

Omg, I was so shocked that this woman was showing at a reputable gallery. Her paintings looked like Kippenburger if Kippenburger had painted on quaaludes and taken himself too seriously. Sigh, here's a link:
http://www.bthumm.de/www/artists/krystufek/exhibitions.php

No frills data blog.

2008-07-21T02:56:00.005-07:00

I finally got what I wanted (no, not my Work Visa yet, just a baby paper) from the dreaded Burgeramt. Lemme explain the process:

I went to get an appointment. That was 2 weeks ago. I went back today at my appointed time and received a number. That number was 419. I had to go to a waiting room to find out the next room I should wait in. Then I went to that room. Then I waited.
There were so many Germans and children, and all the chairs faced the same way, which doesn't sound weird, but actually was seriously weird. Everyone was sitting in this really stiff position, and I began to wonder if Germans have some kind of specially fused spine that allows them to appear so pencil-like.
Of course, I slumped in my chair with my legs billowing sideways like a true renegade North Amerikaner. Then I placed my spitoon underneath me and dribbled tobacco and beef jerky and arrogance.
Then, it was my turn, and thank god, the woman who helped me spoke English. Then I started sweating a lot because these types of things scare me. Then she grimmaced when I said I was from Texas. Then she stamped a little piece of paper and it was all over. Then I listened to Jay-Z's "Brush Your Shoulder's Off," as I walked home and finally felt like a pimp again. Then I started writing this blog.

Last night my roomate Caris (www.carisreid.com) and I met up with her Russian friend at Monsieur Vong's, which is a famous Vietnamese place in Mitte. Then we went to the Bierhimmel, then we met Nicky at the SO36, where there was gay ballroom dancing. Then Caris and her friend went to Bar 25 while I stayed behind and danced to "Bootylicious" encircled by gay men. Then we went to Roses. Then I realized the trains weren't running and I needed to go home and sleep so that I could be Germanically punctual for my appointment. Then I went to my appointment, see above.

This blog entry is so anachronistic eh? Like that Seinfeld episode that unravels backward. Except not as funny, or as smart.

2008-07-20T08:23:00.002-07:00

Also, I've been here one and a half-months now, but it feels like so much longer.
I keep chastising myself for not accomplishing more, but in reality, it hasn't been the meandering epoch-like passage of time that it seems. I guess. Or I'm still lazies like bumz.

2008-07-20T06:57:00.001-07:00

I don't really have much to report.
I saw some good shows, and some sub-mediocre shitty shows in Mitte. The shittiest was this giant xeroxed diorama of a leafy enclosure. It was so dumb and looked like a science fair project executed secretly by some third-grader's overly concerned florist/mom.
No, no actually through the window the other night I saw a shittier show that consisted of word paintings with sayings like, "you can never be too thin." They made me want to puke up my Thai Red Curry, although not in a fit of cultural outrage, but out of sheer disdain.
Sometimes art is so stupid.

But there were some good group shows at Petrowski, and Geoff + Rosenthal. I also went to an opening at ExtraRaum, which is a quirky and interesting space with an amazing bookstore behind it.

Life is more exciting than art:

Yesterday I was hanging out at the Himmelreich drinking coffee and smoking cigs outside with Willi and I started talking to the owner of Paule's Heavy Metal Bar and he told me crazy metal stories about famous frontmen and Elvis impersonators jumping out of coffins. He had long hair in a ponytail and mysterious sweat stains on his all-black ensemble. And he told me about a famous metal guy who posed in an issue of "Playgirl" and then had a book signing at his bar. The punchline was that only gay men showed up and the pages were all "sticky."
Badang!

I've been having 3-4 hour lunch/breakfasts lately, which, while amazing, can be quite frustrating. Considering how rule-abiding and upright the cogs in the German bureaucratic machine can be, I don't understand the "Pauly Shore, let's smoke a doobie we're on Deautsch Break" mentality of this country's waitstaff.

2008-07-15T12:40:00.003-07:00

I forgot to talk about this amazing and amazingly weird dance performance I saw on Sunday. The title was something I can't pronounce or understand. But it was so strange. It was in this old warehouse that shows experimental theatre/dance etc. called "Dock 11."
It consisted of a huge boxing ring filled with water and ladies wearing boxing gloves in their undies, and slow motion fights, and topless things, and lab coats and a weird synth soundtrack. It was so fucking awesome. Except I got all wet and one of my roommates commented that it was like "Gallagher." Except it was awesome. It was one of those times when I am really, really grateful to be here.

P.S. Cathy Horyn was here a mere 10 days ago. I'm so sad.

2008-07-15T05:20:00.004-07:00

sneeze. Trying to finish an ornate rug. Didn't get to say goodbye to my friend Meredith.
Don't know when my visa appointment is.
But enough emoting (it's totally not German), I am in Berlin and having a blast. Berlin Fashion Week begins soon, and I really want to sneak into sexy parties and steal Amaretto Sours and hair contraptions.
I am going to email Ms. Cathy Horyn to see if she's in town for the festivities and if she can snip me a piece of Karl Lagerfeld's hair for my black-clad Karl Lagerfeld marionette, which will dance and smoke and be a genius.

Some of you may remember Cathy as the NYTimes lady who I meshed names with, resulting in "AliCat." Which she then read about on here! Oh, my blogging hijinx!

2008-07-14T07:35:00.002-07:00

Jesus Christ I need to stop living this way. I stayed out until 6, woke up at 3 and am very adamantly hating life right now. I need to start my job before I turn into a giant red-faced man whose liver plops out and sings songs like that singing bass. Singing liver.

2008-07-12T07:10:00.003-07:00

Remember my W.N.E. (worst. night. ever.)? Well, today I had the W.A.D.E. (worst. animal. day. ever.)

Episode 1.) This morning (or noonish if you want to be specific) I walked into the subway at Frankfurter Tor and saw a dismembered bird wing lying on the ground. I came this close (makes pinching motion with fingers very close together) to puking chocolate croissant all over the other commuters. I don't know why this affected me so much, except that it was just gross and sad made me remember this really poignant Calvin and Hobbes comic strip about a dead bird.

Episode 2.) I was walking on Brunnenstrasse and czeching out the galleries there and saw a group of wasted punks and their dogs (the punks here, as everywhere, always have large dogs). Anyway, one of them picked up his dog by the collar and literally started beating it up, the dog yelped so loudly and painfully and I had this incredible heart-wrenching chest pain---it was a really disgusting sight. It reminded me of a time in Spain when I saw a gypsy couple kill a puppy to elicit sympathy.

Episode 3.) I was waiting for the train in Rosenthaler Platz (where I saw Adrian Piper!) and I spotted a mouse/rat scurrying near my feet. I almost jumped onto the tracks in a fit of pure fright. If my Adrian sighting was a sign that I was meant to be in Berlin, what does a rat mean?

I don't want to see any more animals today.

2008-07-11T08:35:00.002-07:00

In lieu of another overly personal entry misrepresenting the power of Neil Young, I am going to post a pic of my friends Willi und Nikky.
You thought I was stretching the whole Cabaret thang, didn't you?

2008-07-10T13:59:00.002-07:00

I am, once again, totally infatuated.
Sometimes I think I prefer massive, painfully calculated and infantile infatuations to real, lasting relationships. Actually I don't think that, I know that.
But man, those first few moments and kisses are heart-breakingly awesome and feel just like Neil Young's Harvest Moon or even Lionel Ritchie's I Call It love. I always thought I was a pessimist about zee love, until a friend told me the other night that I was the biggest "closet romantic" she's ever known. So, maybe I am. I fucking cry at rom-coms ok? And I came close to crying just reading about the robot-love in Wall-E.

The only thing is, after a couple of weeks I get bored, the Neil Young luster is gone and then it's just another humdrum techno beat, giving my ears relationship tinnitus.

Maybe I'm not so romantic after all.

*My new love interest also loves Neil Young.

2008-07-08T02:52:00.002-07:00

I went back to the evil place this morning with my friend who has a baby inside of her only to discover that those German Quasi-Stasi are on "streik." Fuck. At least I know their reluctance to help me wasn't limited to my Americanness, and that my coy eyelash batting and tasteful yet suggestive cleavage might have worked under different circumstances.

Last night I smoked a joint for the first time in 6 months or so and ate the following in roughly 30-90 minutes:

-loaf of bread with cream cheese
-3 pieces of cake given to me by a bartender. Later I found out he had made the cake for someone's birthday in his night class. How sweet is that? People here--*who do not work in a governmental capacity*---are extremely nice.
-A giant dish of mushroom orzo.
-A good part of my friend's gnocchi dish.
-A chocolate bar.

It's noon, I haven't eaten anything today and I still can't suck in my gut. Spring Break 08' ! Woooooooo!!!!!!!

*Pot is legal here as long as you don't have enough to "sell." Anyway, for this reason I do not feel bad divulging that I smoked a little doobie. I would say "sorry mom," but my momz was the biggest pothead ever and told me about crazy naval parties where she and her pilot friends would fly a plane from Sicily to Ibiza and eat pot brownies and get jiggy with it. So mom, at least I'm not operating an aircraft vehicle. You are the one who should be ashamed!
(My new strategy=preemptive shaming).

*My friend Antje showed me this form to fill out when I finally do register my address, which states that the government cannot follow me or keep tabs on all my personal information. Unless you fill this out, the government does that or something. Kuh-reepy.

*Antje told me she has already been to the Burgeramt 3 times to register her baby. To register her baby!

2008-07-07T07:31:00.002-07:00

Today I went to the Burgeramt (can't do umlauts, but please insert like 15 there) to register my address so that the Stasi can keep track of the amount of mucus I release as compared to the general European allowance for mucus release.
Anyway, the guy basically told me to fuck off, after I went there twice to fill out the stupid registration forms. He was old and judging by his moist nose/mouth area is definitely is in violation of over-mucusing.

I want to slip Germany a national Valium or something. I'll put it in a giant Weissbier and just wait.

So tomorrow I have to go back to the Burgeramt and see that guy again. Wtf.
Luckily I bribed my pregnant German friend Antje to come with me because nobody fucks with pregnant people.

2008-07-05T15:13:00.002-07:00

Titus O'Brien's blog about Kara's show at the Modern is pretty right-on (even though I haven't seen said show, curse you Texas for having the ballz to show her after I leave you for sluttier terrain). Anyway, I heart Kara for the same reasons I heart my therapist: calculated emotional manipulation.
Jussssssst kidding. I don't have a therapist. Just a conscience and a little calendar with puppies barking affirmations at me.
http://live.glasstire.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogsection&id=6&Itemid=22

2008-07-05T10:24:00.002-07:00

Well, I went from being innocuously hungover and periody to being a fainting barf-robot.

I was talking to this girl outside when I started feeling incredibly dizzy, then I woke up in a concrete doorway to the sounds of her crying "help."
Now I have a bump on my head and everyone thinks I'm a narcoleptic or something. I've never fainted before, it's so weird. My diet here, consisting mainly of schwarmas, pastries, cigarettes and vodka tonics apparently does not do my body well.
I've learned so much about health and safety here in Berlin, I just wish I could have learned it in a brochure, instead of on train platforms and concrete steps.

2008-07-04T07:57:00.002-07:00

This is a song my Grandpa taught me:

"Oh Thunderback, oh Thunderback, how could you be so mean?
To ever have invented the sausage-meat machine,
now alley cats and gutter rats are nowhere to be seen,

Ok, I forgot the rest of it, but in the end Thunderback gets made into sausage by his sleep-walking wife. I've just been thinking about meat a lot lately and thought I would share.

2008-07-03T06:13:00.002-07:00

I had to laugh at myself twice today already:

1. I woke up slightly hungover and periody and went to my nearest Turkish Imbiss and ate a whole rotisserie chicken at like 10 in the morning. It was gross, my face was covered in grease and a couple of people marveled at my ability to eat an entire animal before noon.

2. I had a sex dream about Martin Lawrence. How amazing is that?

2008-07-02T17:59:00.002-07:00

K, still drunk.

Two things:
I programmed my new German celly to play TATU's infamous "They're Not Gonna Get Us" as a ringtone, which became very embarrassing on the subway today.

Katalin Hausel is visiting and we went out to Oranienstrasse to get nasty tonight, and by the end the trains were gone and I had to walk home despite my newly found fear of Berlin. But I made it without incident, and so I am no longer afraid. I am like Jodie Foster in The Brave One except I am not a vigilante. And I am not buff. And I was not a child star. And my cheekbones, while amazing, are not made of granite and magic.

Also, a dog peed on me today. And a man spilled his apfelsaft on my new purse. But I got a job bitches! Nothing squirted, spilled or otherwise will wash away my pride.

2008-07-02T08:04:00.001-07:00

I got a job! Now I'm going to stay in Berlin forevers.

*If I get a work visa.

2008-06-30T07:40:00.002-07:00

I don't understand how Berliners do it. I stayed out until 6 in the morning last night, and I want nothing to do with life today.
*The reason I stayed out so long is because the trains stop running at 12:30 and only resume at 4:30, so my friend and I decided to wait it out on the streets.
There were many amazing things about last night:
The fooseball game was boring. Deutschland lost and I felt very sad for those hundreds of people who had dyed their hair yellow, black and red as a presumptuous sign of solidarity.
There was some renegade rock show inside of a truck that happened on Oranienstrasse. The band/person's name was "Henrick" and they only played for 5 minutes before the frightening German polizei shut it down.
But there was a giant mob protesting and shouting "Henrick! Henrick!" Then, Henrick rode off, waving his giant police fine like a flaccid little badge of coolness.
Then my friend Meredith and I went to this bar called "Roses," which it must be said is one of my favorite bars in Berlin. It's completely lined with pink fur! And there are cheap ass lovely chandeliers everywhere! And a mounted deer head made of glass! And a rotating silver gun with angel wings! Seriously, the decor was like a dream for me. Plus, they played 80's classics like The Smiths and stuff all night.
Then Meredith and I shared a shish-kebab and waited for the trains.

2008-06-29T07:31:00.002-07:00

Christopher Street day was awesome. Actually, as I was there, I was thinking it was one of the top 10 experiences I've had in my life. I don't know why I have constant lists running through my head, but I do--I blame it on blogging. Soon, it will be the 3 year anniversary of my stupid blog, and I can't believe I've been cataloging my life for that long. Why doesn't this self-discipline trickle like a little stream into other areas of my life in need of some consistent moisture.

Here's why CSD rox:

Caiprinha stands on every corner.
Rhythmic Turkish music blasting as people gel together, getting durrty in the streets.
A Parisian burlesque troupe performing a naughty teacher act to the Dresden Dolls (one of my favorites).
Drag Queens singing New York, New York (except they switched it to Kreuzberg, Kreuzberg), Highway to Hell and Coldplay?
A silent anti-gentrification type passion play starring a dreadlocked man feigning bourgieness in a necktie.
So much gender-fuckery. I've never felt so essentialized and conservatively dressed.
So many rainbows.