TRAVEL DIARY

A weblog regularly updated by Jodi Rose.

Friday, September 28, 2007

11:14 AM
Posted by jodi rose

Having a gentle reflective morning. Thre huge oak tree in the courtyard is already curling into autumn, soon it will be bare. I love the changing seasons, growing up in constant sunshine is not all it's cracked up to be.

Dancing around now to Modest Mouse, bop bop bopbopbopbop, there's an eterntal teenager in everyone, love or rock'n'roll it's the same effect. They're so upbeat and pop, but still dark and melancholy. OK, and maybe I've been OD'ing lately on experimental music. My god, something with a beat and a melody. Joy!


"I'm gonna find another place, maybe one I can stand (...)
got to the door and then I couldn't stop (...)

The days get shorter and the nights get cold, I like the autumn but this place is getting old, I pack my belongings and I head for the coast
It might not be a lot, but I feel like I'm making the most (...)

I like songs about drifters, books about the same,
they both seem to make me feel a little less insane..."
(Modest Mouse, The World at Large)

...although the music is making me want a cigarette, yes it's all downhill from here. that beautiful skin ahhh ok maybe I won't ;)

Took myself to the opening of Berlin Art Forum at the old BVG (trams I think) factory at Gesundbrunnen. Indeed, out in Wedding. The police had barricaded one of the big intersections when I arrived, riot gear, crime scene tape... it looked very intense. No idea what was going on.

The art was a whole other crazy trip. You walked in through one huge warehouse space, and into a series of shipping containers, then across to another enormous warehouse, through hundreds of artists work jostling for space on the walls, floor and roof, then out of that one and into another vast space, then across the road into another one, and I think maybe even one more right at the end. Waaaaaaaay too much art for one night. Imagine all the galleries on the main art street in town and multiply it by ten... no, by a hundred. Insanity. Remember a few pieces that intrigued me, but it was hard to concentrate on anything for long. Had a chat with a nice young artist who was sitting with an installation of dummy bodies that had come to various bloody ends. 'It's called "Kill your Galerist"', she told me, laughing, and promised a cocktail party with angels on saturday afternoon at the new artists anonymous space.

So, am happy that life is taking me on a different course, eschewing the sound/art for a moment and concentrating on words words words.

And now that the hyper-speeed warp drive I've been on has spat me out and I'm starting to come down from the five year high of constant travel, a few key things are emerging.

One: do less.
Two: be receptive
Three: go deeper

I know, I've said it before, but it bears repeating. Eventually it will sink in. And for now, there are all those highly prolific experimental band bios to collect, which I have to tell you are making me feel somewhat of an underachiever. Then again, when you're in the middle of it, life looks completely different to how it appears from outside.