Grossstadtgeflüster - Big City Whispers

A post about big city life - a somewhat cocky, fresh Berlin post. This is the city we live in, this is what we experience every day. We live in a part of Berlin that is a bit wild and where at one point the alternative scene lived. Now in the 21st century things are quite a bit different, a lot of gentrification going on but you can still find some wild stuff - like this video. It was shot quite close to here, in one of the subway stations of the line we take every day. 

Ein post über das Großstadtleben - frech wie Berlin oft ist. Das ist die Stadt in der wir leben, so erleben wir es jeden Tag. Wir leben in Kreuzberg, einem Stadtteil, der mal wilder war als die anderen, in dem die alternative Szene lebte. Jetzt, im 21. Jahrhundert ist alles etwas anders. Wir werden gentrifiziert, aber man kann doch immer noch ein paar wilde Sachen erleben - wie z.B. das video. Es wurde hier ganz in der Nähe aufgenommen. Auch in einer U-Bahn-Station der Linie, die wir alle täglich benutzen.

Cyclades 24 x 30 cm mixed media on canvas by Karin Goeppert

A FEW THOUGHTS ON THE SUBJECT

According to reports 345 people

in the city go missing every year. That’s

almost one per day. Nobody knows where

they go nor seems to care. Still, it

does give us a topic to explore 

on a warm summer evening as we sip wheat beer,

an intermittent fragrance of ginger and curry drifting    

out of The Black Hole of Calcutta’s kitchen window. A cyclist

puffing on a joint is just enough of a dick

to hog most of the sidewalk, which infuriates my wife.

Sometimes she blocks the way, but that’s martyrdom.

I suggest a couple of hands-on solutions. Carry a sharp object   

with which you can puncture tires. Or one of those little 

hammers doctors use to test a body’s reflexes,

which would allow you to attack the problem directly.

In a sprawling, dirty, loud, indifferent city

pocked with inner-recesses  

deep inside brightly painted courtyards 

linked by graffiti-spattered catacomb-like tunnels

it’s not difficult to conceal a blunt object. After

you wipe off the blood and finger prints, you’re good to go.

Near the subway station in Neukölln you can still see holes

gouged out of buildings: Russian bullets, WW 2. Francis Bacon

painted violence as the governing force of life. Yet all we want is    

to sit on a sunlit bench, roll up our sleeves, and let the world drift away.