[Update] Former article title: [Muzaq] Dukes of Windows: It’s A War. Yes, you’d better not ask. And no, (sadly) Microsoft is not paying us for those typos…
That’s the sound of Australians living here in Berlin. The song “It’s A War” is taken from their upcoming album “It’s A War”. Until then enjoy the latest single from the Dukes of Windsor.
YouTube might have disabled access to this song from some countries… Did we tell you about swedish VPN services yet? No? Ok, we’re gonna catch up on that soon ;-)
Don’t ask, better listen. Emika‘s debut single is scheduled for january 2010 on NinjaTune.co.uk. The Scuba’s Vulpine remix has already been released and is a free mp3 download. Enjoy…
Born June 13, 1935 like her later husband Christo. She first met him in Paris in 1958, when he had just fled from the communistic Bulgaria.
While she was eduated in Switzerland and France and finished her academic studies of latin and philosophy in 1952, he was studying arts at the Fine Arts Academy in Sofia and in Vienna. In 1964 they moved to New York, where they developed steadily growing ideas.
Wrapping was their topic.
In 1961 they wrapped barrels of oil in Cologne.
In 1969 they wrapped a part of a coast in Australia.
And in 2005 they made “The Gates” in New York’s Central Park.
It is said Jeanne-Claude and Christo often took separate airplanes. If one airplane crashed and one of them died the other one would be able to maintain their work. Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon passed away on wednesday November 18, 2009 in a Hospital in New York.
Today 20 years ago, the last hours of the Berlin Wall are precisely known. At 6.53 p.m. Günter Schabowski, a spokesman of the eastern german Politbüro was asked when new regulations for the private travel of eastern German citizens will take effect. As he was not fully updated that these new regulations were due to November 10th, 1989 he just answered
As far as I know effective immediately, without delay.
(german: “Das tritt nach meiner Kenntnis […] ist das sofort, unverzüglich.“)
That answer was like a big bang for the citizens of eastern Berlin. Thousands went to the Bornholmer Straße demanding to open the wall immediately. At 10.30 p.m. the eastern german border patrol man Harald Jäger surrendered and opened the Berlin Wall on the Bornholmer Straße with the last words
We’re flooding now.
(german: “Wir fluten jetzt”)
Now 20 years later, not many relicts from that time have remained. Today at 7 p.m. a thousand dominos as a symbol for the former Berlin Wall are gonna be knocked over in front of the Brandenburg Gate.
To get a better insight how the world looked liked in the 1980s here in Berlin, the Deutsche Welle made an amazing documentary about how the inner German Wall was secured.
People who were into electronic music in the 1990’s do know the E-Werk rather well. That location has become known all over the world for its amazing parties, and as an experimental playground for what has later been named Trance. The E-Werk and the Berlin Tresor were some of the places were the science fiction soundtrack for the upcoming turn of the millenium has been played first.
Berlin Mitte’s Ruins in the 1990s and today
The E-Werk and the Tresor had a distance of about 200meters. When the E-Werk closed its doors at 12am, people were going to the Tresor for the after hour. Berlin Mitte at that time was undergoing major changes. Buildings were just about to be renovated. Streets and lanterns made almost dark lights. Berlin Mitte was terrain that cried for being experimentally explored.
It was the time where the building across from the E-Werk could just not be imagined as the future german Ministry of Finance. In fact, the forecourt of the current German Ministry of Finance has been freely adopted by party guests as parking areas. Police men have been rarely seen.
Now, 12 years after the E-Werk officially closed its doors as a techno institution in 1997, Berlin Mitte has changed almost completely. The Ministry of Finance is covered by uncountable security cameras. Major parts of Berlin Mitte are now no protest zones with special rights for police men.
Pleasant anticipation with bitter aftertaste
Anyway the pleasant anticipation was very high when we heard that the E-Werk will open its doors for a retro party with former E-Werk resident DJs like Woody, and Clé.
Sadly, like the surroundings changed in Berlin Mitte with all its galeries and stores that almost nobody can afford, the door policy of the E-Werk has changed aswell. When in the 1990’s there was only a single entrance for everybody, you now got three entrances. One for the hoi polloi, another one for the VIPs, and a third one for so called special artists.
Classic solidarity outside only
Although we like strict door policy, this time some people were not let in, that we could not understand why. We’ve been waiting in the queue for about 15 minutes. That’s quite a short time compared to then. During that period three people from the hoi polloi queue were refused to enter. For us it clearly looked like an arbitrarily decision by the bouncers. And really it ain’t funny to see 35 year olds being refused to get in from 25 years old wanna be bouncers.
While two of the refused guys just ended up lonesome trying to talk to the bouncers. The third guy was with a group of about 15 people, estimated 30 to 40 years old. That group completely decided to not get in. Sadly seeing solidarity like this was one of the rare moments that we really felt classic during that classics night.
Berlin Mitte’s 2009 sociotope mirrored inside
After having gotten inside the holy walls of the E-Werk, thanks to the door policy the social mixture expectedly wasn’t matching the classic times. Among some classic people from the 1990s, there were streamlined gentrified 25 year olds all over, matching the nowadays upper-class Berlin Mitte’s and Prenzlauer Berg style.
End of the story: if you’ve been to the E-Werk in the 1990’s bear your romantic remembrance. You’d better not go to the E-Werk nowadays.
October 13th will be the day many people have been waiting for. The official iPhone competitor by Palm will be released in Germany. The Pre will be exclusively available from O2 Germany.
According to their latest information the Palm Pre will also be available without subscription for about 480€ (=700US$). There is currently no information about upcoming special Palm Pre O2 tariffs.
In Great Britain and Ireland the Pre will be released on october 16th.
In contrast to T-Mobile’s german iPhone tariffs, O2 Germany is gonna allow VoIP applications like Sipgate or Skype (via german Heise.de News).
The Berlin underground movie maker Michael Ruf premiered with his new short movie “Always Summer” here in Berlin. After his movie has been played around the globe on almost uncountable festivals (Bogota Film Festival / Columbia, Derby City Film Festival Kentucky / U.S., Max Ophüls Filmfestival Saarbrücken / Germany, International Filmfestival Madurai / India and many more) it now premiered in Berlin’s Babylon cinema’s at the Rosa Luxemburg Platz.
The Movie
An improvisation theatre piece inspires the eloquently spoken Elisabeth to divulge a poignant story about Paul, a man from her past, to her granddaughter Simone. The story deeply moves Simone and she is certain – Elisabeth must see Paul again.
Simone’s attempt to bring the both of them together wrests an uncharacteristic lightness from the perishability of her own life and makes her a dreamer who is no longer able to take compromises for truths and who could not make a greater effort to embrace her own existence.
ALWAYS SUMMER is not only a quest for closeness – full of yearning, disappointments and moments of hope – but raises the question of what is possible when we really thrust ourselves into the beautiful chaos we call life.
What we say
Emotions are basic drives in our entire life and this is basically what this movie is about. It is about the fineness of social interaction between men and women. The actors show that life is a search for moments of mutual emotions, thus allowing to find themselves in a situation that helps us to become aware of reality. A never ending struggle for awareness through emotions.
Although this movie is not real you see how close to reality emotions are getting re-assembled and re-constructed. From our point of view: this movie is a must see for everyone who likes to get moved by movies.
As recently reported the iPhone Dev Team held a lecture about the security systems in both the iPhone 2G and the new iPhone 3G here in Berlin at the Chaos Communication Congress 2008.
The lecture is very interesting and comprises known and some unknown facts about vulnerabilities of the iPhone.
There have been enduring discussions about european anti-americanism. The truth is: the so called anti-americanism always was disappointed love. And that disappointment now turned back into unlimited love. The american messiah has arrived.
What happened? The whole world was deeply sympathetic with the US when the World Trade Centers were attacked and thousands of innocent people have been killed because of ideologic hate-filled maniacs. And then? America’s leaders completely lost control over what their aims were. An Iraq War with loads of bogus proofs. Iraqi oil for the US but no real peace weather in Iraq nor in Afghanistan. At least Europe was deeply frustrated from what the Bush administration was doing then.
But the american people now showed the world that they “can” and they want to convince themselves and the world that a better world is possible. Though he will not be able to solve all the problems at once, his election is the first right step into the 21st century.
May he and his family live long and prosper and may he set free all the good powers that have been suppressed so long. Berlin loves Obama. Keep on smiling, man. Your smile heals the world.
