So how do you relax?

As I sit here, I am listening to a Joy Division live album on a Sunday afternoon.  My mind is somewhere else.  I am embracing fifty million thought pathways at once.  Some are productive, some are diverting me from the act of writing.  When I am not relaxed can I still write?  Indeed, can I even think coherently?

Relaxation is an unusual phenomenon.  If you consider human beings as biological entities, even when we sleep, our bodies are a mass of processes.  Our blood flows through each vein and artery, allowing our heart to pump vigorously and our brains to operate this complex shell of water and matter.  So essentially, when we are talking about relaxing, we are only usually referring to our thought processes.  Our bodies are always by their nature pushed and challenged.  They can take more than we allow them credit for.  In typing that statement, I surprise myself as I am feeling quite tired. 

Physical tiredness is nothing like mental fatigue for most people (it can be if you suffer from certain conditions).  Feeling mentally exhausted can lead to physical exhaustion and it is interesting to consider how one constantly offered piece of medical advice for depression etc is to exercise for at least thirty minutes a day, as it increases the serotonin levels in the brain.  So in other words, the lump of matter in our head should be the primary focus of our attention.  If we can address the needs, worries and concerns of the day, some of the ailments of the body could ease up.  It disturbs me how medication is used so regularly for headaches, without addressing the causes of the headaches.

So providing you are prepared to at least partially accept my belief that the brain by its nature is the most important part of the human body (remember that it not only controls the biological impulses but also the emotional, psychological and neurological aspects of the body).  But that leads to an immediate problem?  How do you relax something that is by its nature, constantly active  (Sparking synapses will stop for no man or woman)?  I would suggest through stimulation.

Returning to the question, so how do you relax?  I relax through stretching myself.  Stimulation through books and cultural products.  Objects, people, sensations that engage me and help me to feel.  I need to feel.  Emotional stimulation, sensual stimulation, intellectual stimulation.  Give me a park bench with someone I care about, give me bird song and a rippling lake.  Air tearing through my head.  Give me a space where I can think in a way that excludes superfluous details and leaves me with the things that matter.  I would say love to but it's a word that has been corrupted and packaged for too long.  No one remembers what it means anymore.

So how do you relax?

                                                                Barry Watt - 22nd September 2013.


  

Berlin Misadventures - Day 5 - 'The toilets are no longer in service.'

I woke up this morning at 12.30 am.  One of the hotel guests decided this was a good time to have a bath.  Sleep deprivation meant that I spent the rest of the day semi-functioning.

I began the day with the mad idea of visiting the Aquarium at 9am when it opened followed by the Bauhaus Archiv at 10am (ish), prior to checking out of the hotel.  The Aquarium was great.  I finally came to terms with the fact that at heart, I like lizards...  Stealthy little beggars.  Also jellyfish rock in their upside down shower cap kind of way.

Are you looking at me?

Can you tell what we are yet?



 

As a casual frequenter of zoos and aquariums, I do enjoy seeing feeding time and the cleaning processes.  Out of nowhere, a mop appears in a water tank and the fish admire their new neighbour despite its lack of fins.

After the Aquarium, I went to the Bauhaus Archiv.  Amazingly, not signposted clearly and a very impressive building and the exhibitions were worth a visit.  The Bauhaus School was one of the most innovative art movements advocating a creativity borne of an understanding of the materials being used and indeed, the potential functionality of the object/work being created.  A very influential school and it's interesting to consider how the colour charts they used seemed to inspire the colour charts we use today when we frequent a D.I.Y. store.

Bauhaus Archiv - The perfect realisation of concrete and its application.  Discuss...

 

 

Then I checked out from the hotel and experienced the joys of Berlin Airport.  The vending machine in the men's toilet offering a mini vibrator, some kind of vibrating penis ring and a 'Travel Pussy' described as an 'artificial vagina'.  Additionally, a certain low-cost airline created their own Wall using their barrier tape to encourage the schism between those who pay a little more to board more quickly and everyone else.

 

Today has been another day of learning.  There is still so much I need to explore.  Berlin will serve as the cataclysm for these changes.  The local people were warm and friendly, laid-back and somewhere permeating everything is an unnecessary sense of guilt.  Atrocities were committed yet to have to carry that burden forever is criminal.  The horrors of the past must be replaced by the inspirational, the entertaining and the thought-provoking.

 

Berlin should be seen as the bright hope for the future.  It has a lot to teach the world at large.

 

Berlin - Religion, commerce and illumination in unison.

                                                 Barry Watt - Friday 13th September 2013.



Berlin Misadventures - Day 4 - The music forms and seals your name in my heart or within the department store, your porcelain fish smells of Aphrodite's succulent armpits.

Well, it's 6.35 pm, I am sitting by my hotel table, armed with a glass of orange juice and some rather obvious looking chocolate treat called Lilly, I purchased from the vending machine in the station.  Three bars for a Euro.  Lilly is a wafer based confectionery, a tiered mass of substances, a metaphor for the human body that will digest and form a brand new substance, substantially different yet no less rewarding as it makes its erstwhile journey to strange new parts where it can float and mingle with its nutty colleagues, offering solace in those lonely hours between dawn and dusk.

Just to reassure you, they taste pretty disgusting, yet after the edifying day I have had today, they are as tasty as the elixir of the Gods.

Lilly, anyone?


I began today with a visit to the Beate Ushe Erotic Museum.  Now I am not sure what you expect when I use the word 'erotica' but I hope that you realise the material was obviously sexually explicit but not predominantly, nude photography etc.  The Erotic Museum serves two purposes; it celebrates the life of Beate Ushe, a fascinating woman who deserves a film and helped to propagate the more liberal approach to sex and sexual pleasure that we are still hiding from today and it also explores sexual iconography and erotic engravings/illustrations.  In short, it does everything and museum admission also gives you a discount on the goods in the sex shop downstairs.

Believe it or not, at 9am there were only two random strangers exploring images of fellatio, masturbation and golden showers, one man and one woman.  If I were feeling blasphemous, I may make reference to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden but it was nothing like that, the Serpent had long since been put out of his misery and probably provided a key ingredient for one of the dodgy aphrodisiacs in one of the cabinets.  I will never look at a Tiger's penis in the same way again.  I left the museum with a desire to learn more about Beate Ushe.  She certainly helped to redefine the sexual morals of her day and we have a lot to learn.  What struck me as strange was how uncomfortable I felt leaving via the sex shop, which also contained a section where you could watch adult films in booths.  I must explore these feelings because I am not a prude and actually enjoy the attention that goes into the development of certain undergarments.  Silk befits a lady as leather bondage wear I am sure upholsters a fine young man.




Erotik-Museum.  A mirror rather than an eye-opener.

                                              Fetish wear for those who long to hang around with the right people.

 

After the Erotic Museum, where else could I visit but the Zoo.  The perfect metaphor for the procreative and recreational instincts.  The Zoo smelt in places but that's to be expected.  The complex blend of excrement and cheap sweets filled the air.  There were so many animals and birds.  The trip was a veritable feast for a guy who loves taking blurry shots as a metaphor for fading memories.  Alternatively, he simply can't get the focus right?  You decide!  I was particularly interested in the Monkeys.  The scientists and biologists are not kidding when they compare us to Monkeys.  We too grope and spend half our lives, preening, cleaning and touching each other up.  All in the name of human interaction and endeavour.

 

I learnt that Goats and Donkeys are natural poseurs.  Unfortunately, most other animals and birds are not that photo friendly.  'You can look but don't capture our image and steal our souls, strange Londoner!'

 

Adult Monkey stopping Little Monkey from falling.

 

Polar bears.

Giraffe.  'No photos please!  I am having a bad hair day.'

 

 

Following my zoological exploits, I met up with a friend who had thoughtfully volunteered to be there if I needed her.  Marie initially took me for a little walk taking in a church built in the Sixties that illustrated to me how the interior of a building can be so much more stunning than the exterior.

 

Church.

Jesus framed by the beauty of glass, cubes and light.

Marie took me to lunch in the department store, KaDeWe.  I am not someone who usually gets excited in a department store but wow!  They had everything and the amazing thing was the fact that little areas were dedicated to dining.  I believe we had Sole or Salmon.  Whatever it was, it was good.  I learnt more about Marie and her connection to my friend.  Also I learnt of Marie's connection to my London neighbourhood.  She lived in a road near mine about thirty years ago.  She lived in one of the police houses (properties specifically built with the families of policemen/women in mind.  My road also contains them.  After gazing admiringly at expensive wares I will never be able to afford (and in some cases, quite frankly, why would I want to?) we left the department store and I went to the Sammlung Scharf-Gerstenberg on my own then finally to the Brohan Museum.

 

The first attraction, the Sammlung Scharf-Gerstenberg was set in a former palace.  The artwork (primarily the Surrealists) was in some ways charged with a greater potency as a result of the majesty of the surroundings.  I was reminded how much I like Max Ernst's work and how inspiring the Surrealists and their antecedents, who were also included in a space that seemed like an old chapel, are to me.  I left the establishment buzzing.

 

'Welcome' indeed!

 

Did you see the Surrealist?  He placed a moss on the butter dish and carelessly mislaid his second rib.  He saw you yesterday and misheard you next Thursday.

 

 

Lockers in the Bauhaus style.

 

 

The Brohan Museum opposite was just as much fun but more conventional.  Art Deco furniture and objects complimented by Art Nouveau statements.  Possibly now as parochial as egg on toast but reactionary for their time and still visually striking.  Outside the Brohan Museum in the Gardens (okay, how you can call a patch of grass with a couple of sculptures performing a grotesque dance is slightly beyond me!) Anyhow, the sculptures are absorbing.  The bizarre cousins of one of Lewis Carroll's characters.  Well, they seem like something like that.

 

Brohan Museum

But how can we dance when we are tied together?

 

On the way back to the hotel buzzing with energy, I took so many weird and random photos that a psychiatrist would have a field day trying to piece them together.  'What you see a drain cover as a symbolic representation of something?  A womb like vending machine containing the detritus of life, the smoked down cigarette butts, the weird plastic loops and hoops from bottles and the green algae, all struggling to be noticed in a dark world.  Send the guy to therapy!'  But seriously, my head contains an explosion of ideas that with a little bit of appropriate channelling could be quite interesting and possibly, sensical in the end.  The signs and symbols which confine and direct our existences are an interest of mine and Berlin is a topography yearning to be heard and misappropriated.  The old and the new in barbaric union.  Even advertising slogans become slightly less real when you eat, drink and sleep in their shadows.

 

What do you see through this drain cover?

 

 

 

 

The end or simply another beginning?

Today, I am a spoon.  I stir the sludge of each synapse, sugar coated and caffeine addled, assured that the truth subsequently revealed will mean nothing in its whispered form yet everything when shouted visually on a forum or social networking site.  You don't need to be understood to be heard.  Just open to the stimuli.

 

 

                                                                                Barry Watt - 12th September 2013.

 

P.S. The Lilly wafer is called 'Lilly Kakao Waffel' in German.  I think that warning is in the second word.  'Don't do it' as Stuart would say.

 

 

 

                                                                                                               B.W.

 



 

 



 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 



 

 



 



 



 





 



 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 








Berlin Misadventures - Day 3 - Masonry, Memory and Manic Punk Revelry by Candlelight.

Today, I partied in the non-alcoholic sense of the word.  I visited a lot of places and got a greater understanding of Berlin and indeed, of Germany.

I began this morning raring to use the transport system to reduce my footfall (I still walked miles but hey, my body needs the exercise).  I found it as awkward as the London Underground system yet also paradoxically as useful once I got the swing of it.

I visited Brecht's house (Brecht-Weigel Gedenstatte) as it opened at 10 am.  I was initially the Guide's sole visitor and she kindly gave me an English account of Brecht and his wife.  It's fascinating to inhabit the spaces of creative people.  Brecht used one floor and had two exits, which enabled him to disappear if he wanted to avoid people (Exit stage left).  Also he possessed a number of desks and tables, which facilitated his creativity.  Movement apparently stimulated his concentration, so he would go from table to desk as he felt like it.  His wife, Helene Weigel was also a fascinating character, although as the Guide explained she ended up with about three jobs when Brecht died at the relatively young age of 58.  They were both chain smokers.

Sign pointing to Brecht's House. 

 

Oh yes, prior to going to Brecht's house, I went to the cemetery next door (Dorotheenstädtischer Friedhof) where Brecht is buried with his wife.  I missed his grave the first time and returned after my trip next door.  The cemetery was a wonderful example of a 'celebrity graveyard'.  Also rich with iconography and some of the biggest family tombs I have ever seen.  Some cad had perhaps ironically chucked Euros on Brecht's grave.  I also began the mystery which I still haven't solved concerning who 'Claudine' was as her tombstone was quite frankly, the most unusual memorials I have ever seen.  Was she an actor?

Bertolt Brecht and Helene Weigel-Brecht's graves.

 

Coinage on the area in front of Brecht's grave.

 

Understated family tomb.

 

Fungal growth on a grave.  Beauty comes in many forms.

 

The identity of 'Claudine' is driving me nuts.  She is wearing a mask.  So perhaps, she was an actor?

 

After the cemetery, I negotiated my way to the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, only to discover it was closed until next week when the new exhibition was due to start.  A curious comment had been written on the wall that led into the courtyard where the art venue was, which I photographed.  Something about being a 'good neighbour'.

 

                                      Ah, the joys of cryptic yet profound inscriptions!

Being the music fan I am, I negotiated my way to the Ramones' Museum by foot only to find it closed for another twenty minutes.  As such, I found a park and was moved by a lone trumpet player in a viaduct.  His music encapsulated an overcast late morning in Berlin.  Also I continue to be overwhelmed by the blasé little birds scrounging in packs for food.  In London, their equivalent cousins would come under the category of 'neurotic', escaping from the company of humans.  These little charmers are practically asking, 'Do you want your shoes polished?'

 

Lone musician playing melancholic tunes for yearning hearts.

 

Cute little bird.  Unusually, on its own.  Normally, they came with an entourage.

 

 

Back to the Ramones' Museum, where I was offered a ticket and a drink, which you were allowed to carry around the exhibition.  Whether or not, you like the Ramones, you have to respect the care and attention that has gone into this exhibition.  Concert posters, set lists and photographs adorn the walls, many signed and the visitor is provided with a good overview of a band who continued touring until most of the band had died.  The fact that the Ramones' Museum was essentially just half of a pretty busy pub made me respect it even more.

 

By this point, my body wanted to collapse, so I pushed it on...  I attended the Deutsches Historiches Museum, which should be shortlisted as one of the best museums in Europe.  I could have spent all day there.  It offered an objective overview of German history, whilst exploring issues of gender, culture and politics.  The Deutsches Historiches Museum was so involving, it was hard not to feel exhausted and emotional by the time I reached the section on the Holocaust and the concentration camps.

 

Wonderful museum

 

 

From there, I headed to Checkpoint Charlie and the Mauermuseum...  Checkpoint Charlie was one of the checkpoints in the Berlin Wall and serves to symbolically illustrate how much Berlin has grown since the political schisms between the various countries were thrown aside.

 

Uncle Sam's favourite restaurant right next to Checkpoint Charlie.

 

Checkpoint Charlie.

 

Checkpoint Charlie.  Something about the checkpoint disturbs me.  I blame the Coke sign and McDonald's.

 

 

The Mauermuseum in contrast to the other museum was too wordy.  Huge lumps of text covered the walls.  It really only improved when you went upstairs and gained an insight into the lives of human beings and their attempts (some successful) to escape to the other side of the Berlin Wall.  One woman was concealed in a loudspeaker and that's not counting the tunnelling exploits aided and abetted by a number of philanthropic individuals. 

 

Even the sign reads like a restaurant menu!  Less is sometimes more.

 

Section of the Berlin Wall.  I would imagine that in its complete form,  it was a work of art as relevant as the Bayeux Tapestry.  As it stands, it's like looking at lots of little paintings in the largest gallery possible, The World.  The Berlin Wall is everywhere.  I even purchased a bookmark which purportedly contained a chunk of wall.

 

Once I finished in the museum, I decided to get something to eat.  I am currently stuffed and also in awe of the tipping system.  You physically give the tip to the waiter and they put it in their purse/wallet.  This allows a personal approach to what has always seemed a rather dehumanising process.  This way you are personally commending someone for their help, attention and affinity.  Everyone wins!

 

I feel exhausted now, but I also know that I can achieve anything I want when I give myself the benefit of the doubt.  You are an okay guy, Barry Watt.

 

                                                                       Barry Watt - 11th September 2013.  

 

 



 







 



 

Berlin Misadventures - Day 2 - Of Bears, Bread and Bemusement

Today, I walked and walked and... You get the general idea.  Before I started this trip, I decided to create an itinerary for myself to give me some idea of what to do.  An antidote to possible boredom.  Well, it finally ended up consisting of about thirty things to do and see.  Of course, I am unlikely to complete this list on account of my sense of direction, which is not the best.

Before starting today's proceedings, I found myself getting lost trying to find the locations where I could obtain my Berlin WelcomeCard (pre-ordered online, you pick up at various tourist information offices scattered around Berlin).  Basically, the card provides money off of entry to a number of the attractions, free transport and discounted meals in some restaurants etc.  I was originally going to go to the Tourist Office near the Zoo, which I couldn't find (I found the Zoo but the Tourist Office remains as vital and elusive as Atlantis).  My second option involved me attempting to traipse to the main railway station through Tiergarten.

Tiergarten is enormous.  It provides a pretty green counterpoint to the many concrete buildings that occupy Berlin.  Having said that as is the case with most parks, signposts are not in ready supply.


Okay, they did have the odd signpost and map but where was the 'You are here'?  Tee hee.

 

A sculpture or monument.  You decide!  It could also suggest a foot fetish on the part of the writer.

Lamppost like egg.  Illuminating the dreams of lovers by night.  By day, simply raw potential.

Beautiful lake in Tiergarten. 

Piece of art or simply brickwork with delusions of grandeur?

Tree.  I still marvel at the beauty of trees and their gnarled perfection.  Nature's fighters, humanity's saviours.

 

Quite by chance, I probably managed to cover at least a third of Berlin by foot today.  I have visited the Potsdamer Platz (Modern style centre, not unlike the o2 consisting of restaurants, museums and a big Lego giraffe), Brandenburger Tor and Pariser Platz (strikingly impressive and out of place in modern Berlin.  The American Embassy lurks behind it.  I was confronted with the very curious sight of a couple of men, carrying respectively the American and Russian flags.  In the distance, outside the American Embassy, paranoid looking security guards watched the crowds) and also the Holocaust Memorial (picture lots of blocks on an uneven surface of various sizes that people can run around and hide behind.  It seemed oddly sacrilegious seeing kids sitting on the blocks).

 

   Brandenburger Tor

The image speaks volumes and does not need me to tarnish it.

Sony Centre, visually stunning component of the Potsdamer Platz.

Lego Giraffe.  Plastic lovers stop here then pop off to the Legoland Discovery Centre.

Holocaust Memorial.  Strikingly original yet loses its meaning as kids whoop and run bumping into the people who wish to remember.

Dead flower on Holocaust Memorial.  Somehow, the most poignant photograph I took during my trip.

 

I also went to the Dali exhibition, which was lovely.  I was made aware of how important butterflies were to his work, which led me to realise how influential Dali must have been to Damien Hirst, who is also fascinated by butterflies.

 

I was curious to detect how important the sex industry is in Berlin.  I walked past the Beate Ushe Erotik Museum (I may go tomorrow) and various strip clubs).

 

Today also brought home the realisation that like London, Berlin has a problem with homelessness.  I was saddened when I saw a guy looking in the bin, clearly praying that his luck would change.

 

The Film Museum was fun, although confusing to negotiate being on multiple levels and ironically, focusing more on T.V. than film.

 

This evening, I am just going to read 'Sons and Lovers', have a bath and plan tomorrow.  I can vaguely use the transport system now, so potentially tomorrow may not be a three hundred mile walk.  (I was pleased to get my Berlin WelcomeCard from Brandenburger Tor's Tourist Office).

 

Oh yes, the Bears are part of some weird 'Spot the bears' thing.  They have all been designed by different artists (I think?) and capture something of Berlin's cultural, economic and political scene.  It's a bit like that Olympic Mascot thing in the U.K. (only these bears are pretty!)  The 'bread' reference in the blog title concerns my breakfast in the hotel today, nothing more profound.  (I am occasionally a man of my stomach as opposed to my heart or mind). 

 

 Picasso Bear.

 

 

Not much more to say, except I wish that my esteemed German companion were traipsing around with me.  She would have laughed when on two occasions, I was mistaken for a German citizen.  One lady asked me for advice on the transport system and another where the local McDonalds was in German.  Ouch!

 

                                                                                                           Barry Watt - 10th September 2013.

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

  

Berlin Misadventures - Day 1 - 9th September 2013

All good journeys begin at the end...  My arrival at Gatwick Airport was uneventful.  I was amazed how much easier the Customs' experience was this time.  Prior to that there was odd fun to be had watching people check the size of their baggage in the specially constructed 'if it fits in this slot, easyJet will proudly let you store your bag in the cabin.'  My borrowed suitcase fitted (borrowed precisely so it would fit).  I watched a family stick their case in the slot, only to observe it getting stuck.  The whole experience brought to mind Prince Charming attempting to find his true love by forcing lots of women to wear a discarded glass slipper.  Yes, how many women do you know who discard their footwear so carelessly?

In the departure lounge, which could only be accessed via the Duty Free shop selling overpriced pound store garb at ten times the price in pretty non-descript boxes, I took a seat.  As I sat in the departure area, I was confronted with 'Please wait' concerning the Gate number.  It eventually appeared but only after I became acutely aware of how much I dislike that expression.  I feel as though I have been waiting for so long.  I prefer 'Go to' as it's more liberating.

My easyJet flight passed in a haze of non-descript musings and yearnings.  My casual glances out of the window confronted me with grids of light that ranged from striking to terrifyingly restricting.  Some lights form grids of confinement, which are surrounded by a darkness that can only grow in its intensity.  Just as my brain reached a point of self-sedation, I looked to my right to see a guy watching a film on his laptop.  An actress I recognised being penetrated from behind by none other than... a stand-in for Ryan Gosling.  I quickly recognised the film as 'Blue Valentine'.  A film about a relationship from its glory days to its tragic ending, a final desolate fumbling in a 'Star Trek' themed motel room.

Upon arrival at the airport in Berlin, I was struck by the adverts and constant presence of a newspaper you could buy.  Just put the money in the slot.

I got a taxi and was overwhelmed by the brutal order of the city.  Its raw majesty, a curious blend of nature and concrete.  Trees standing austerely to attention by the road.  Corporate logos puncturing the darkness.

I managed to fluff getting in the revolving door of the hotel I was staying in (Hotel Pestana Berlin Tiergarten) but I was informed I had been upgraded.  I am currently sitting in a white dressing gown, sweating from every pore in a room where the air conditioning works.  I can't contact home as my mobile can't pick up a signal and my attempts to use the phone in my room was ultimately futile owing to my lack of international code.  I could phone Reception but I just want to sleep.

My abiding memories of today include the dodgy image of a woman covering her lover's eyes on a condom machine and the moment of reassuring cynicism about relationships that ate into my soul as I began to read 'Sons and Lovers' by D.H. Lawrence.  I have set the T.V. to wake me up at 7am.  It's stupid o'clock at the moment.  Hence, the frustration that permeates each word.

I am alone and in loneliness, I will find myself anew.

                                                                             Barry Watt - 10th September 2013


Something about mirrors revealing the ageing process.

Light again illuminating the passage as yet untrodden.

Self portrait in blue.

 

Strange wave design on the carpet leading to my hotel room.  Water seems an important theme in this hotel.

Afterword

Prince Charming is of course a major protagonist in 'Cinderella' and also the glass slipper.  'Cinderella' or 'The Little Glass Slipper' was popularised by the Brothers Grimm but also like most fairy tales has an interesting history.  Please see the below link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinderella

easyJet is a major low-cost airline and are part of the EasyGroup.

'Blue Valentine' is the ultimate 'date movie' if you are splitting up or just want a film that delves into the intricacies of human relationships.  It was released in 2010.  It was written and directed by Derek Cianfrance.

'Star Trek' may be known to some of you fine readers.  Lots of passionate inter species relationships, platonic of course.  The ultimate treatise on politics, imperialism and the dangers of science.

Hotel Pestana Berlin Tiergarten was the hotel I stayed in.  Well recommended!

'Sons and Lovers' is an equally cynical novel about relationships by D.H. Lawrence, who is an author that most readers shy away from.  Their loss.  'The Rainbow' in particular is superb. 

                                                                                                                                           B.W.