this post's got the Devil in it..

NHL Playoffs started earlier this week. Coincidentally, the same day they started I came across the Wikipedia page for the New Jersey Devil, from which the team derived their name. I'd never really thought much about the name the Devils and just assumed they were claiming to be 'a hell of a team to play' or some such play on words. Now that I think about it, that would be kind of strange for a team hailing from such a god-fearing place as the U.S. of A.

But so, it turns out the name stems from a local (not-so)-urban legend: a prehistoric flying creature still living deep in the New Jersey Pine Barrens.

I came across this through another bizarre stroke of synchronicity. Last Sunday I had a horrid night of sleeplessness, passing out right after coming home and waking up at 4 am dehydrated (damn! those Sunday evening sponaneous park raves), then going on an early morning mission for rolling papers. I never did fall back asleep, and sometime around 8 am I suddenly got it into my head to rewatch the Blair Witch Project, which I hadn't seen since it was in theatres. No idea where the urge came from, but the movie was surprisingly as good as I remembered, making me think all the hate it received was nothing more than an ADD-inflicted mainstream backlash.

The next day, Tuesday, we went on a day-trip to Teufelsberg -German for 'Devil's Mountain'(!)-, an awe-inspiring abandoned American spy base outside of Berlin. To get there and back, one must take the S-Bahn twenty minutes, hike through some woods and over some hills, and finally sneak through one of the many holes cut into the fence. During the journey there and back, I noticed a lot of man-made weird stick statues/structures throughout the woods. Negin mentioned that Veronica made several Blair Witch references during their previous visit (was my first time). Having just watched it the day before, I came home and started reading on the making of the film. According to the wikipedia entry, the Blair Witch Project was criticized initially for it resemblance to the film The Last Broadcast, which told the story of a group of documentary makers heading into the New Jersey Pine Barrens in an attempt to film, you guessed it, the legendary New Jersey Devil.

Well, not sure if all that made sense. On a more straight-forward note, anyone interested in seeing my photography of Teufelsberg and the spy base? I must say that if there was any movie this place reminded me of, it was definitely another of the great 90's horror flicks - Session 9.

Karmanoia

Sunday night we were over at Tom and Veronica's place on Karl Marx Str. after eating a quick dinner with Paraic and Fernelly. We figured there's not much to do on Sunday night ... but in Berlin you're nearly always proven wrong from such thoughts.

Since they live right around the corner from Karmanoia and there were rumours going 'round that they were about to be shut down by the Polizei, we blazed a quick J and headed over there. There was a small crowd out front and we learned that the Polizei had indeed shown up the night before and this was it .. the final night for the club. They were holding a private party but the word on the street (hehe, literally) was that the doors would be open to the public at midnight. The time was 11:56!...perfect for a quick spatkauf run for roadbeers. We get back and we're waiting, chatting and laughing. Oh, and outside the doors was a pile of scrap wood, possibly the first pieces of the soon-to-be-dismantled labyrinth Karmanoia was so famous for. All of a sudden the doors burst open - one guy outside was hit by a wayward piece of lumber - and a steady stream of people filter out ... there's music, interspersed with the single file line are orchestra members dressed as skeletons, a dog ... CHAOS, essentially.

What followed was an eerie silent street procession winding up through Kreuzberg and to the canal. The band played a lonely, sad tribute while the M.C. for the funeral said a few words and launched Karmanoia's front door key into a watery grave. Then ... the party started, with fireworks, firedancing, people on fire ... kinda. The walk back was much more enjoyable; everyone's mood seemed to have righted itself back to positive. Sensing this, Tom and I took a moment to duck into another spatkauf for roadbeer replenishment.

We caught up again just in time for the finale. A spontaneous dance party took place in the middle of Hermannplatz, including a hobo-ish guy (inexplicably wearing nice white pants) took an extended flute solo. Afterwards they convinced everyone to lie down there in the square, staring up while the finished with some gritty, smokey jazz tunes.

The cherry on top came right as the last composition faded out: a Polizei Paddywagon pulled up and emptied out - I really can't believe they can fit that many popo in there. There was a moment of tension as the final saxophone note drifted off, and then everyone sat up and started applauding. The Polizei didn't quite no how to react, and actually froze and started smiling bashfully. And appropriately, the crowd disintegrated, moving on to the next project.

Getcha Turkey On

(I'll let this one speak for itself - mostly because I have no idea what it's purpose is - but it needs to be viewed by more, more, more! internet citizens)

I.T.B.

Funniest thing seen today at the I.T.B. (International Tourism fair in Berlin): "Official Travel Korea Year 2010-2012"
Runner Up: a skinhead with a moustache.

Side Note - I got busted trying to enter with my friend's staff pass (apparently I'm not a Ms.). Security asshat wanted my passport or i.d. ..... Fuck! I didn't even want to go; was babysitting for my friend while she worked the Malaysian booth and she asked me to bring her son by since it was the final day of the fair. Anyhow I got in.

Side-Side Note - How bout that? I'm actually updating this blog regularly!

A Lesser Known Star

Another late follow up ... In January my attention was captured - and haunted - by the story of a man found frozen to death in a Detroit warehouse. Specifically, it was the picture that stuck with me, one of the most subtly disturbing yet realistic pieces of photography I'd seen in years.

It's one of those things that will probably re-enter my mind from time to time from here on out, but tonight was the first that I thought to follow up on it. I discovered that just a few days later, this man was identified by his brother as one Johnnie, Johnnie Redding, of River Rouge. "But he wasn't homeless. Please don't call him homeless. He always had a place to go. He was loved."

Filed under worth remembering, and not just for the fact that a game of hockey was played around his corpse. R.I.P.

Supposed Fun (and but so)

In September, David Foster Wallace hung himself in his basement in California. I briefly wrote about it, mentioning how I felt I owed it to him to finally pick up his essay collection A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again.

And but so .... that plan was delayed when I couldn't find it in Ontario, and further limited by my present location in a non-English speaking country.
At Christmas, Paraic went to visit relatives in Ireland and we all gave him book wishlists. I didn't actually expect him to come back with this book (one and only entry on my list) but am pleasantly surprised to now have it in my possession. Of the seven essays within only one is previously familiar to me - David Lynch Keeps His Head,which I wrote about as well on LJ in 2007.

So far I'm especially impressed with the titular piece in Supposedly Fun.... as it details his experience on assignment from Harper's in 1995, relating the time he spent on a Caribbean cruiseship. As someone who experienced the luxurious horror one of these floating mobile vacations has to offer in 2000 - under very awkward circumstances I'd rather not get into - I can sympathize all too well. But it's the painfully accurate way in which DFW lays it all out that really tends to impress, as it always will with someone of his skill.
I'll take the time to copy out one passage that really hit home as I read it late last night.

"Here's the thing. A vacation is a respite from unpleasantness, and since consciousness of death and decay are unpleasant, it may seem weird that Americans' ultimate fantasy vacation involves being plunked down in an enormous primordial engine of death and decay. But on a 7NC Luxury Cruise, we are skillfully enabled in the construction of various fantasies of triumph over just this death and decay. One way to "triumph" is via the rigors of self-improvement; ..... There's another way out, too, w/r/t death. Not titivation but titillation. Not hard work but hard play. The 7NC's constant activities .... makes your existence seem noncontingent. The hard-play option promises not a transcendence of death-dread so much as just drowning it out."
A.S.F.T.I.N.D.A. - p.263-264

(several of the essays I've read so far contain snippets that really jump out to the reader re:DFW's depression and eventual suicide and would likely lead the reader to label them as 'cries for help', but this does seem irrelevant when one considers that his depression was lifelong and never intentionally concealed from those around him)

Math Rock in a new Millennium

Something to satisfy both the geek and the rockstar within:

Over at Music Machinery, Paul Lamere explains how he wrote a Python script that will analyze the waveform of a song and automatically detect whether or not the drummer used a click-track.

He then goes on to have some fun analyzing Green Day, Led Zeppelin, Britney Spears, and a friend's band. I could never explain the process myself so take a look. Oh, and speaking of music plus technology, why not process the click detector concept while enjoying Kuriman's YouTube inspired-and-created mashups on ThruYou.