User-Friendly Picture Portion

I am finally posting all of these photos from the past week and a half or so! They are sort of all over the place, I am sorry if you are a linearly-minded person.

I want to start with a picture of the cat, and since this is my blog I get to do what I want:Maußi is just as weird and adorable as this picture implies. My room’s previous tenant was firm on the No Cats Allowed rule, so I’ve had to get Maußi used to the idea that she is now welcome to come in and bother me whenever she feels like it. This long-haired wonder looooves having her ears scratched, and when I have nothing else that requires my attention—or at least my hands—we can have some long, soothing scratch sessions. However, when I try to get smart and start thinking about anything besides her very particular ear rub needs, Maußi will get impatient and begin to knead my legs and chest, which is to say repeatedly sink her claws into my legs and chest, thus motivating me to stop typing or reading and get back to the ear rubbing. It is a pretty efficient system, provided we’re defining “efficient” as “most pleasurable for the cat.”

Speaking of cats: I took the long way to school the other day and dilly-dallied for a while in front of what I think was the New National Gallery, where I photographed this awesome bronze of a lion hunt:Is it bad that I am rooting for the lion?

In the middle of the plaza out front (that’s the New Gallery in the background) I found one of my favorite fountains in Berlin so far:The basin is actually sort of a small dome with a trench around it, and the dome is made up of these layered, geometric planes. I like the parallel between this very squared off yet irregular cascade:And these organically outlined yet still composed of flat planes little geyser things, complete with their own atomizing spray nozzles and pretty rainbows:
I thought these white boxes on poles all round the plaza were speakers, and I wondered what sort of music/announcements they played, and when. Opera every morning seemed like the obvious choice.Closer inspection suggests the white boxes are actually banks of lights, presumably designed to illuminate this plaza at night. I’ll have to come back when it’s dark.

The Lustgarten was not looking especially lusty today. Lots of buds on the trees, though!

More fountain fun:

I. I’m pretty fond of this flounder fountain:
II. I wrote about the Neptune Fountain a while back and gave the Best Animal Fount prize to the seal, because it could spout water out of both nostrils. Turns out I missed this awesome alligator, who is also doing the double stream trick and could totally beat that seal in a fight:I tried to get a picture of the bizarre shrimp centaurs/half-man-half-horse-half-crab things that hold up Neptune’s clamshell throne, but the spray sort of got in the way. Can you see how weird they are?

Then I went to some classes and stuff (see my previous post, "Classes"), and came upon this scene on the way home:According to his signs, this guy was a 30 year “alcoholist” who gave up drinking in favor of standing on his head in public. In this position he feels secure. I like his hourglass.

I wanted a picture of the English version of his sign, but I waited too long lining up the shot and the dude bent his legs to come out of it a split second before I could hit the shutter:
I was waiting at a stoplight just off Alex (i.e. the Alexanderplatz) the next morning when I noticed that God had turned around His Divine Pencil and rubbed out the top of the Fernsehturm:It got recreated a little later, don’t worry.

Now as you may recall I live in Bezirk (neighborhood) of Mitte. “Mitte” means “middle,” and my location is conveniently central, but Mitte is generally considered a pretty second-rate, marginal neighborhood for young folks: touristy, gentrified, and expensive. The high prices and lack of evening activity keep away the interesting poor folks and minorities and further impoverish the scene, much to the delight of all the boring young professional families with their purebred Dalmatians and matching black Jack Wolfskin jackets (basically the German equivalent of North Face) and thousand dollar strollers.

BUT, this is all just popular opinion, largely fueled by elitist hipsters eager to talk trash about any neighborhood besides their beloved Kreuzberg, or Neu Kölln, or whatever. In an effort to get to know my neighborhood and maybe dispel some rumors of boringness I took some new routes through Mitte last week and found a surprising density of neat things.

Exhibit A: This very old military graveyard:People have been burying other people here since the 1730s. It is a very peaceful place with a high brick wall and a palpable amount of history. I suppose it was maintained as a stable little sanctuary as the city grew up around it.

I like the design on this little plot, and the gravestone tells a sad little story:Carl Creuzinger was an officer on the losing side of the First World War who lived out the last of his long years in the wildly unstable Weimar Republik of the 1920s. His wife Catharina, 13 years his junior, lived another nine years, long enough to see the collapse of the economy, the rise of National-Socialism, and the death of her daughter Eva at age 44. Eva’s sister, called Catharina like her mother, married a young man named Hugo Sprenger who died in Tahure, in France, during the Great War—his name is preceded by “Zum Gedanken” (“In memory of”), which suggests to me that his remains never made it home. The second Catharina lived through that World War, the Second World War, and the separation of Germany. She finally passed away at 79, just a few years before the wall went up. I wonder what Catharina did with her life, who she loved and who loved her, if she ever had children—she’s called Sprenger on the gravestone, so she apparently never married again, unless if Hugo had a brother. Maybe she never got over Hugo, or maybe all the eligible men were wiped out in the wars, or maybe as a 35 year old widow she just wasn’t marriage material, or maybe she was a fantastically independent woman who didn’t need a husband holding her down. I hope she found somebody.

I got a little distracted there. Enough morbidity! Let’s get back to the graveyard: As I mentioned, soldiers and their families have been interred in this particular Friedhof (cemetery) for hundreds of years, which makes for a very interesting mixture of gravemarker styles:I find the concept of trendy gravestones pretty odd, seeing as how they’re supposed to be eternal and all, but I guess the cultural conception of eternity is always in flux, like everything else.I liked this really elaborate gothic canopy:But I liked this terribly humble mossy rock more:There were some odd ones, but this thing still seemed out of place:I read the inscription and discovered that it was not in fact a gravestone for any one particular person, but a memorial to the hundreds of people killed in the streets during the invasion of Berlin and buried here in a mass grave. Kind of puts these individual gravesites and their elaborate monuments in a different perspective.

This very tall brick wall was cordoned off:Probably because it is crumbling and they don’t want any graveyard history buffs to get brained by bricks:
Right across the street, visible above the graveyard wall, was this handsome structure, home to some sort of leftist commune:Let’s zoom in a little bit on that message:It reads “Solders Are…Murders!”, which strikes me as simplistic and unfair. I’m not sure if I believe there is such a thing as a just war, but I know that human beings forced to do horrible things to defend what they love are not murders. Only a Sith deals in absolutes.

It also has that ellipsis for some...reason! I guess to create dramatic...tension! Or because there was a pipe in the...way! In any case it looks kind of...stupid!

So yes, this seemed unwarranted, especially next to a very old military graveyard, but as these fellows have also decided to declare themselves a “Left-Wing Terror Nest” I think I can safely write them off as idiots.“Dudes, your Terror Nest is looking a little down in the mouth. Sweet stockpile of sleeper-top microbuses, though.”

the vans will be used to strike fear into the hearts of our bourgeois oppressors, and then later to help Rick move when he finally figures out his girlfriend is cheating on him

I read about this type of restaurant on the internet the other day but did not expect to come across one on the way home:It is a dark restaurant, an eatery with all the windows blacked out and no lights inside. You are led to your table and must navigate your food by touch. Such establishments usually employ blind waiters and offer a surprise menu. I’ll have to try it out next time I am feeling hungry and rich and avant-garde.

This sign reads Adventure Playground, and this facility made me wish I was a little kid in Berlin:As far as I can tell, it is half awesome, hand-built playground equipment and half workshop where this dude and some other carpenters spend all day making awesome new playground equipment. Very cool.I also liked this wooden mole:
I suppose this worker is supposed to be envisioning something or reaching towards the future or whatever:But I couldn’t think of anything besides the Head Crusher from Kids in the Hall.

I'm crushing your capitalist hegemony

I found some pretty good but hard to photograph bathroom graffiti in the rundown building where my translation course meets. They will probably be more legible if you click on them to view a larger version. I chuckled at this one:Elongated Cyclops-bunny:Rectangle bird:
Finally, look at this super neat device I found on the sidewalk:That’s a handle on the bottom, and if that lock were removed, one would be able to pull said handle and swing it up, moving that brown pole on the upper left up as well.

Now, let’s step back and look at the larger structure:The brown pole runs up the length of this I-beam. When it is pushed up by the handle at the bottom, that second, smaller, angled pole near the top will push up as well, bringing these two contacts together:And in turn providing power to this entire network of overhead wires used to power the tram system! People are often surprised to learn that Germany has the fourth-largest economy in the world, but when I see simple, clever, efficient devices like this all over the place I can totally understand why Deutschland is still so competitive on the world market.

Okay! It is now almost 2:30 on Friday and I have been blogging for the better part of the day. Time to swim, then go get a big ‘ol cup of espresso in a coffee shop and write some postcards and study some French.

Give me your address if you would like a postcard, comment early and often, etc etc. I hope you are all doing very well and that spring is springing wherever you are!