TRAVEL DIARY

A weblog regularly updated by Jodi Rose.

Saturday, March 24, 2007

1:08 AM
Posted by jodi rose

the last few days are now mulched in my head, culminating with frenzied dancing to crazy polyrhythmic drums all over the gallery at the end of the reset improv gig last night. collected some strange and interesting conversations, with a range of old and new friends and people i had never met before.. working on the landing card interview technique - still finding the right mix of sudden interrogation and fluid conversation. which always leaves me completely bemused after travelling 30 hours and having to provide personal details and answer questions to a stern border guard. although entering germany this time, the man in uniform winked at me as i waited to approach the counter, then flirted outrageously and told me, here is a souvenir of your time in berlin when he stamped my passport. or did i already write that? time is all scrambled i have no idea what day it is.

we didn't make it out to the bob tribute bight, sadly but at 2.30am it was just so nice to relax and hang out talking nonsense with the people who have been working all night on the show. in fact, rob initiated the inaugural performance of the world's first acapella sound art band/choir - we had some lovely minimal noises going on. writing proposals for a tour next year. some practice to do though on keeping a straight face for more than two minutes.
today i walked down frankfurter allee to find the waschhaus, and discovered we are literally across the road from the stasi museum. so there's an intriguing excursion close to home for another day. it can be difficult to keep life running with those basic things like grocery shopping and washing clothes when you're so focused and in that project zone, where time just floats away and nothing opens until 11am. although there are people who work normal hours here, but even the regular workers complain or talk of the berlin luft, and kreislauf - low blood pressure related to the weather and air, which causes lots of sick days and general lethargy. mika told me last night that berlin is built on a swamp and is releasing some kind of gases, which is why the people are so relaxed - but then he said the germans need a scientific explanation for everything. the other story is that the city is built on an ancient spaceship, and alexanderplatz fuerturm (television tower) is the aerial or antenna - nipped next door to c-spase in the middle of the evening and there are definitely traces of the alien ship in that place, remanants of the bridge, and some very noisy laptop noise going on with hundreds of sombre black-clad young hipsters being very reserved and not dancing wildly like next door.
Govinda played a gorgeous DJ set in the bar, which was next to my transit lounge radio set-up, and intermixed with wild screams and high frequencies between the drumming in the gallery, all an excellent backdrop for the first series of conversations. which it's probably time to get into the computer and finish learning to encode and podcast them so you can all listen. next week helsinki. yay. berlin is good.
I'm having fun now. The studio space is great to be in, ready to churn through some proposals and deadlines for next stage of bridge art.