First We Take Manhattan...
Berlin gentrifies faster than any other place I've been. Since Berlin in the center of much Internet Freedom activity, I come through there about twice a year. The first time I went, Prenzlaurberg was the hip place to be and Potsdammer Platz was the world's largest construction site (soon to be overtaken by...well...everything in China)--which made a big impression on a Cold War girl raised on angels walking through Berlin in Wings of Desire. East Berlin felt edgy and a little dirty and there were bars wedged into every available corner. People lived in giant warehouses. Alexanderplatz seemed like an enormous communist relic. Everything was an art collective. J and I walked down the street holding hands and said it felt like SOMA.
These days, only American ex-pats and upper middle-class couple with children in strollers live in Prenzlaurberg. N jokingly calls it "Pram-berg." The forces of cool have moved South to Freidrichshain, then further South into Kreuzberg (scene of last week's conference), and finally into Neukölln. I still have (American) friends who live in Prenzlaurberg, near Mitte, and German friends who live in Kreuzberg to be close to the clubs (which you don't go to until at least one in the morning), but people who need cheap rents move to Neukölln or else they tell me they've given up and moved to Hamburg.
Berlin is a little bit like Burning Man. It's always an amazing place the first time you see it, even if everyone you meet is always telling you it's totally over.
My talk did not go quite the way I wanted it to, since it was supposed to be a workshop, but the space I had did not lend itself to anything other than a lecture, so I lectured for approximately half of the allotted time and then I let everyone go. Perhaps this is why I didn't feel as if I really found my groove, even though I was at a conference where I knew a lot of people and we were all well-positioned to conspire and I had purchased a giant latex unicorn head for us to all try on in a series of increasingly-bizarre photographs.
I was properly social, but my favorite moments were the ones in which I ditched my conference and spent time with friends in Berlin who did not care about Internet Freedom much. My pilot friend had just flown into Berlin to attend some fetish ball and we had coffee at Bikini Berlin, which offers an excellent view of the baboon island inside of the Berlin Zoo. S, my painter, wandered around the city with me while I looked for a pair of replacement sunglasses and I bought her art supplies.
S had moved to Berlin with her husband only six weeks ago and was finding the whole process somewhat more difficult and expensive than either of them had anticipated. We soothed ourselves by browsing housewares and imagined the fantastic studio she would soon set up. S nests harder than anyone I have ever met. She is the only other person I have met to whom the thought of living in an apartment with white walls is anathema. You can see us both twitch in sympathy. S is anxious and sensitive and prone to depression. She has translucent skin and always looks as if she is glowing from the inside. She is also talented and pragmatic and utterly fearless. The first half of her third wedding was spent telling stories of the swath she cut through San Francisco's pretty young men after divorcing her second husband.
S stood up in front of all her friends on the night of her third wedding and said, "I have never had thin thighs or good credit, but I have always had a lot of courage." I do not love a lot of people. I love S, and when I feel as if I will never have thin thighs and I am only getting older and more invisible to the world, she is the creature that I try to pretend to be.
"Your hair is beeeeautiful!" she tells me. My hair is pale violet, very on-trend with my dark green dress. We talk about peacock feathers. She is very into the peacock feather color palette right now. "I will get my studio set up and I will paint you." S has painted a dozen and a half portraits of me, two of which are hanging in Bunker 3. I do not photograph well. I am not even remotely photogenic. No one asks to photograph me. I am not a pretty girl. I am "poised." I am "striking." I am "charismatic" and "interesting." But S is the one person to whom I am always beautiful, and the person in her paintings is recognizable as me even when photos are not. And I do her every kindness that I can, including organizing her bachelorette party (can you imagine me doing such I thing? I did!) because I am so profoundly grateful she exists.
If you are a woman in this world, no matter what you look like, every day that you look in the mirror and you don't hate what you see, you've stabbed the patriarchy in the face. I try to remember that even when no one is painting me, even when I am not in Berlin. Let's see if I remember it tomorrow.
These days, only American ex-pats and upper middle-class couple with children in strollers live in Prenzlaurberg. N jokingly calls it "Pram-berg." The forces of cool have moved South to Freidrichshain, then further South into Kreuzberg (scene of last week's conference), and finally into Neukölln. I still have (American) friends who live in Prenzlaurberg, near Mitte, and German friends who live in Kreuzberg to be close to the clubs (which you don't go to until at least one in the morning), but people who need cheap rents move to Neukölln or else they tell me they've given up and moved to Hamburg.
Berlin is a little bit like Burning Man. It's always an amazing place the first time you see it, even if everyone you meet is always telling you it's totally over.
My talk did not go quite the way I wanted it to, since it was supposed to be a workshop, but the space I had did not lend itself to anything other than a lecture, so I lectured for approximately half of the allotted time and then I let everyone go. Perhaps this is why I didn't feel as if I really found my groove, even though I was at a conference where I knew a lot of people and we were all well-positioned to conspire and I had purchased a giant latex unicorn head for us to all try on in a series of increasingly-bizarre photographs.
I was properly social, but my favorite moments were the ones in which I ditched my conference and spent time with friends in Berlin who did not care about Internet Freedom much. My pilot friend had just flown into Berlin to attend some fetish ball and we had coffee at Bikini Berlin, which offers an excellent view of the baboon island inside of the Berlin Zoo. S, my painter, wandered around the city with me while I looked for a pair of replacement sunglasses and I bought her art supplies.
S had moved to Berlin with her husband only six weeks ago and was finding the whole process somewhat more difficult and expensive than either of them had anticipated. We soothed ourselves by browsing housewares and imagined the fantastic studio she would soon set up. S nests harder than anyone I have ever met. She is the only other person I have met to whom the thought of living in an apartment with white walls is anathema. You can see us both twitch in sympathy. S is anxious and sensitive and prone to depression. She has translucent skin and always looks as if she is glowing from the inside. She is also talented and pragmatic and utterly fearless. The first half of her third wedding was spent telling stories of the swath she cut through San Francisco's pretty young men after divorcing her second husband.
S stood up in front of all her friends on the night of her third wedding and said, "I have never had thin thighs or good credit, but I have always had a lot of courage." I do not love a lot of people. I love S, and when I feel as if I will never have thin thighs and I am only getting older and more invisible to the world, she is the creature that I try to pretend to be.
"Your hair is beeeeautiful!" she tells me. My hair is pale violet, very on-trend with my dark green dress. We talk about peacock feathers. She is very into the peacock feather color palette right now. "I will get my studio set up and I will paint you." S has painted a dozen and a half portraits of me, two of which are hanging in Bunker 3. I do not photograph well. I am not even remotely photogenic. No one asks to photograph me. I am not a pretty girl. I am "poised." I am "striking." I am "charismatic" and "interesting." But S is the one person to whom I am always beautiful, and the person in her paintings is recognizable as me even when photos are not. And I do her every kindness that I can, including organizing her bachelorette party (can you imagine me doing such I thing? I did!) because I am so profoundly grateful she exists.
If you are a woman in this world, no matter what you look like, every day that you look in the mirror and you don't hate what you see, you've stabbed the patriarchy in the face. I try to remember that even when no one is painting me, even when I am not in Berlin. Let's see if I remember it tomorrow.