“Forty two keelomeeters”, he said. We both smiled and nodded then smiled again. He was late and explaining that the distance he’d had to travel meant being any earlier was impossible. At least that’s what I imagined he was saying.
The car was large, a six seater. The back seats pushed forward to make room for the large mirror I had been carrying. Later on, when stopped at traffic lights, he jumped out of the car. He went around the back and opened the boot to check if the mirror was still intact. It was.
Turkish Techno reverberated around the space. The bass lacked the umph to spread further than the car.
“Sie hören möchten diese?”.
”I don’t understand”, I said.
He turned the volume down then back up and I tapped my fingers on my knee to the beat.
A took us to our first opening this week, which is ironic as she doesn’t live here. She was obliged to go having travelled from London to place a box in front of a wall for the exhibition and we were most willing to accompany her. It was a large and tasteful group show at the Former State Mint.
The short description of the Former State Mint (no money, no more) on berlin.unlike.net (the definative city guide for the mobile generation) states:
“the former State Mint now hosts cultural events. Maybe, just maybe, you’ll find some good old Deutsch Marks tucked away in the wall cracks.”
A got a small blue plastic cable tie from the exhibition's organisers which entitled her to free drinks. The quantity of free drinks she got at any one time depended on the attractiveness of the member of staff she asked. The better looking, the bigger the quantity.
I don’t think M understood my joke about the explosion. I told him it immediately after he’d told me about the conversation he’d had with the two government workers in the restaurant. They had said to him how surprised they were that the studio group were going through official channels, applying for planning permission for their new gallery. He expressed pride in his gang’s anarchic reputation and so I thought he would enjoy the story about D telling me to contact him should I want to blow up the studio. M looked at me blankly. I quickly changed the subject saying that the portions of food served in restaurants in Berlin are as large as those served in any American city. M did not response.
A dark curly haired American woman on the train stared at me for a long time, then opened her bag, took out a notebook and pen and wrote something down. I didn’t blush. This was good because I then realised she was writing down information from the poster above my head.
B’s performance the following night was fun but I can’t imagine it translated being so Brit specific and full of accent. The gallery opens just three hours a week but they’ve got a decent window shopping facade.
I’d arranged to meet L there. She texted me saying she was wearing sliver shoes. I was wearing metallic boots but tempting as it was I didn’t enter into a game of text back, instead scouring the floor to find her. She said she had been looking for someone who looked Irish and that I wasn’t what she imagined.
2 comments:
Hi Miss, hello from London.
The palace looks great. I hope Berlin is treating you well. I have not seen the Baader Meinhof Komplex yet, I just remember reading the book by Stefan Aust when I was a teenager- he was or still is regarded as somewhat of an authority on recent german politics/history, and involved in politics quite a bit as he run the magazine Der Spiegel till earlier this year. And i still remember,years before reading the book, being on my way to school and seeing the "Wanted" posters for the second generation of the RAF hanging at the door of the local post office. The book I remember as very serious, shocking and a bit disturbing. But very realistic and believable in the description of the transformation of this group from protesters to terrorists. I hope the film manages that too...?
From this side of the channel-
do you want more news from the wet town? The usual October art madness and - the Andy Warhol show at the Hayward is terrible, but hey, terrible is standard at the Hayward by now-at least downstairs- although upstairs Robin Rhode is good. The South London Gallery has a very nice show on, and so the Shoreditch Town Hall- Heart of Glass.
Oh, and I read - for the first time in 5 years- a positive comment in the papers here about the advantages for Britain to join the euro zone. Rejoice! But then- the pound is up again. So i bury my hopes for a bridge and continue to feel stranded in the middle of the Atlantic-
like Pirate Jenny waiting for her Savior "..the ship with eight sails and with fifty great cannons.."
xx t
There were never any wanted posters around Dublin when I was growing up for either Nationalist or Unionist terrorists. Wanted posters are something I associate with American Western films.
There was however, loads of graffiti. IRA was badly painted all around Dublin's north inner city and at the time of the hunger strikes in the early '80s the name Bobby Sands was also scrawled everywhere. Another graffiti slogan which was popular around that time was 'Free Nicky Kelly'.
In 1978, a member of the Irish Republican Socialist Party, Nicky Kelly was sentenced to 12 years in prison for his alleged part in a train robbery. Evidence of torture committed against him and his co-accused, Irish Republican Socialist Party members Osgur Breatnach and Brian McNally, galvinised a campaign for his release. Kelly continued to proclaim his innocence throughout his incarceration and even spent a period of time on hunger strike. After campaigns by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and Amnesty International he was released in 1984.
The most memorable piece of graffiti of that time for me was "Free Nicky Kelly with every packet of Cornflakes"
Nicky Kelly is now an Irish Labour party politician who is currently Mayor of Arklow in Co. Wicklow, Ireland.
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