Photos: Alexanderplatz and the TV tower. Maya in front of our home away from home, the Babylon Theater on Rosa Luxemborg Platz....
Maya and I bought a donut--it's a very minor holiday here and only for couples. Good for the blumenshoppe, flower sellers. We slept in and wandered around our neighborhood which I have come to love, and went to the Puppenmuseum, the puppet museum. Its a tiny museum in the back of a courtyard on Karl Marx strasse, which looks a lot like Manhattan's Canal Street used to look in the 1980's. The collection has a marvelous home puppet theater that is 100 years old that they let you play with. They had a special display of a Spanish fellow's work carved from foam and painted. They looked like escapees from a Hieronymous Bosch painting with modern jewelry. The hands were especially eerie, and they were for the most part, life size. We had gotten a picnic lunch--can't let my teen starve cause she gets cranky. Then we hunkered down for 3 back to back features at the Babylon Theater. I ended up getting shut out of the middle film and walked around Alexanderplatz for 2 hours. It was a bit nippy. Don't like cold, wet and grey for sightseeing. By the time I met up with Maya, she was kind of overmovied and ready to go home, but I wanted to see this animated feature: Sita Sings the Blues. I love the Ramayana story and I told Maya that it was a Dinerstein tradition to sleep through cultural events, and it was warm and cozy in the theater and she was just going to have to put up with me and she had my full permission to snore through the picture. I have let go of the idea that I am going to operas and ballets and dance classes here so that I can get her to her program, and I am back on duty worrying and caring for her food, shelter and clothing, so the least she could do is let me watch a film. Lucky for us it was FANTASTIC. Its a bit controversial since right wing Hindus want this wacky creative woman dead for relating her life to the epic tale. Many are also upset in that it takes Sita's perspective--the tale is normally told from the eyes of Rama, a god. It is a marvelous retelling of the tale that uses 7 kinds of animation, Bollywood music juxtaposed with 1929 blues/jazz/cabaret singing of an American singer
Annette someone. This movie was funded by a devoted band of anonymous internet contributers so in addition to being a completely fresh retelling of a thousands year old tale that is known by more people on the planet than the Bible, it sets the film funding model on its head. Mostly though, its damn fine entertainment. We went out for pizza afterwords and all was well in our world.
Everything from the lace curtains in the windows to the period graphics on the old books to the chocolates in the store, reminds me of my grandparents. I expected the language to be deep in my limnal brain, part of my youngest memories, but the visual aspects of this strange familiarity is still surprising to me.
We move to a new house today--my current host is about to be inundated with relations in town to meet up with their agents for an upcoming exhibition of their work at the Tate in London, way cool. We will all go out on the weekend, but this may be the last internet connection I have for a while. We are staying in this artists neighborhood, which is fine by me. I lucked into the part of town with the best junk shops, hip cafes and flea markets.There are acupuncturists, dance and yoga studios, and cheap delicious street food. My people. As far as I am concerned, life does not get any better than this
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