friends,
i am in berlin composing on a german keyboard so forgive any punctuation today that may prove even more annoying than my usual punctuation. its taken me some time to get settled here but i shall return to regular blogging form starting tomorrow.
neil young once said of a town in north ontario All my changes were there…i could say the same about berlin…maybe not all my changes…but some big ones…i used to say i became an adult in berlin…i said that cuz it sounded cool and because i thought it was true…but it wasnt… perhaps the more accurate sentence would be in berlin i stopped being a kid…what went on between then and now can best be described as a long day in limbo…
im thrilled to be taking a passing strange brain break for the remainder of the year and there are a multitude of things to distract me from it. the usual large number of compelling exhibitions which i plan on attending and writing about here. plus im going to be taking in a bit of theater here which im very excited about. heidi and annie join me here in about 3 weeks. it will be really interesting to work on the play while in europe. heidi and i have cruised berlin before and played here…she loves it here…annies been here too… but im excited to show annie all the old PS related haunts…
berlin is still its wonderfully complex self. that will never change. if you dont have mixed feelings about berlin yer not paying attention. its both a pain in the ass and the most important city in the occident. if you think you know a western city that has been the nexus for more darkness and light meet me in a bar and i will set you right. and i dont mean the pageantry of capitalist triumphantilism that passes for culture…stop spreading that news…i mean the long blurry walk home from the bar when history sneaks up on you in the dead of night in the shape of a looming facade and you get scared…scared because here even the all night decadent hoopla cant distract from the fact that history has you in its vice grip…its punking you…history as airborne virus…history as an outbreak on your skin… ugly, pretty, elegantly bruised…when history checks it look in the mirror… it looks just like berlin…somewhere george grosz is painting us clutching our cell phones like zombies…buy a jar of face cream…apply it liberally to your skin…now stand before the mirror…nice try…you still look like berlin……
.s
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