how the lost sheep returned

of course the matter with the cheese (see my last post) weighed heavily on my heart. after all i'm a good catholic girl. not that i felt compelled to go to confession. i mean it was just cheese and i've already destroyed the evidence. still, i felt it would suck big time if one day i realized that my reservation on a fuzzy cloud had been exchanged for a spot in a giant pot of boiling water. so i tried to prove my goodwill by attending a mess again last weekend.

it actually wasn't the first time that this idea had crossed my mind lately. about five month after moving to b-town, i received the monthly leaflet of "st. marien" in my mailbox. not only did this show me that god had ultimately blessed my move, but it also reminded me that it had been over eight years since i went to church the last time. and not that i've ever been there on a regular basis. of course i did the whole enchilada of baptism, first communion and confirmation. but in germany people tend to be rather fickle about religion and just try to get by with the big milestones of getting baptised, married and buried there. and of course they'll go to the interesting messes like christmas or easter.

my family is pretty typical of that. except maybe for my late grandma who went to mess every sunday. she even had a fluorescent "virgin mary" miniature on her nightstand. i think it was filled with holy water from a pilgrimage to lourdes. when i was little and stayed over at her house, i used to sleep in her bed. and like all grandmas, mine snored like crazy. so i would pull the blanket all over my head and try to fall asleep like that, clutching the "virgin mary" tightly against my chest. though as the cheese affair has proven, that didn't seem to have made me any more devout.

i've always been rather conflicted about religion anyway. when i was in 7th grade, my religion teacher asked us to draw god one day - just like we imagined him. and mine turned out to be rather traditional. an elderly bearded man in a robe and sandals, sitting on a cloud and holding the bible. i figured he should look a bit like jesus on those ancient paintings. after all, he was his dad and i had never heard that jesus came after mary look-wise. i drew the picture with crayons, but i didn't have a red one. so i used a red marker for his lips. and since man do have eyelashes, i also drew some nice long ones on god's face. but then in class we all had to present our pictures and the other people had to express what they saw in the picture. so when it was my turn, there was complete silence in the room before somebody shouted "he looks like a tranny" and people started to giggle. and as somebody else asked why my god was wearing lipstick, my teacher explained that what i wanted to tell people was that god could also be a woman. i actually didn't, but i nonetheless agreed with her. so i became the freak-girl who drew god as a bearded woman with flaming red lips.

anyway, i went to mess last sunday. and actually it went by pretty quickly and the priest even made a joke or two. the only thing that bugged me is that i couldn't find that one easter song i had always liked in the prayer book anymore. i guess it must haven fallen out of the christian church song charts.

i stole cheese AKA the reconstruction of a crime

yep, i stole a "president le roux french country cheese" this week. an "extra creamy" country cheese for matter of fact. for 2.40 euro. and i know this sounds like a pretty shameless attack on the already weakened german economy, but i can assure you that it happened totally by accident. really. but in case you wanna try your own hands at shoplifting, this is how you do it:

look for a rather crowded aisle so you need to leave your shopping cart behind as you approach the cheese shelf. select your cheese carefully and take it from the shelf.
then -and this is the important part- you need to lose concentration for a moment. i recommend to either yawn generously or to reflect on that cute boy you kissed the past weekend. whatever works for you. then just as this moment is about to pass, you'll thoughtlessly slip the cheese into your tote. and i recommend you're going to use a tote for the day of the planned crime, as this kind of bag usually has a pretty big opening. this movement should come very naturally for you as your shopping cart isn't at hand, remember?
then you'll just walk back to the shopping cart and continue loading it with food. (if you get baguette, grapes and a bottle of wine you could have a "french dinner" that night.)
and now the tricky part. the check-out. you'll place all the product on the band for the cashier to ring up. but not the cheese!
after about half of your stuff is rang up, you'll carefully open your tote to take out some cotton bags. and then of course, you'll discover the cheese. you might have to practice a shocked facial expression at home in front of the mirror first, but for me spontaneity always works best. just, don't overdo it. you don't wanna attract the attention of your fellow shoppers or -even worse- the cashier. feign just enough, so that the security camera is able to register it. this is really important in case it comes to a court case about the stolen cheese.
now you've got two choices. a decent human being might take the cheese out of the tote, apologize to the cashier and then be arrested for shoplifting. but if you're a smart human being like me who values her money and loves her cheese, you'll discreetly drop that cheese back into the tote and then fill up the tote with the already rang up items. see, that way you can always claim that the cheese was with the other items on the band as well and that the cashier just might have not rang it up.
anyway, the unassuming cashier will ultimately present you with your total and you'll pay it and say goodbye, but not without displaying your most charming smile. which should come easily as you bask in the awareness that you just saved 2.40 euro and now got extra money to buy yourself some ice cream.

voila. who said leading a life of crime doesn't pay?

a very happy 4th of july to all of my american friends!

a reason to celebrate and get absolutely sloshed today

my two homes b-town and LA celebrate the 40-year anniversary of their glorious city partnership today. and i do think that many other relationships, especially between humans, could also get to that mark if they just stayed an ocean apart from each other. anyway, i decided to come up with a list of great things specific to each town. and as it's a very personally colored list, feel free to add your own stuff in the comments section!

LA:

the hills and the ever-present opportunity to crawl up one of them and get an instant view of the mayhem beneath. the classier alternative for a view is from the observatory, of course. and the laziest of people can always take the elevator up to the top of the arclight cinema parking structure. but it doesn't really matter where you do it, but when. and the best time is between 6 and 8 pm when the lowering sun wraps the city into a golden light. never seen a light like that anywhere else. maybe it's filtered by the smog?

i'm also still rolling around in my bed every night panically shouting: joe... joe... where are you, joe? where's my beloved trader joe's? which is german-owned by the way and still nobody has ever complained of a german supermarket invading the american market. but even the most beautiful trader joe's couldn't compare to the hollywood farmers' market on selma and ivar. it's got fruit and veggies, cheese, cut flowers and handmade gift articles. the soundtrack is delivered by some jazz musicians. and the best of all is that it never stinks. no fishy smell or else. which could be caused by the absence of fresh fish on the market or maybe it's just all absorbed by the smog?

the fairfax farmer's market.

great sushi. everywhere. the breakfast quesadilla at backdoor cafe. the mishmosh at canter's. the burrito ultimo w/ shrimp at baja fresh. any ice cream at mashti malone's. the pad thai at natalee's. yum...

old movie theaters like the egyptian or the mann's chinese. in places like those you can always take the risk of a movie turning out to be boring. after all, you can always admire the amazing ceiling for two hours.

nightly pool parties.

the LA times, especially the sunday edition. it's not a paper. it's a book. it takes you two hours to dig through and i can't imagine a better way of relaxing. plus, it's got an amazing calender section, the steve lopez column and dear abby. which is probably the best place to learn about the pitfalls of being a human being.

also, i do miss Us Weekly. the german edition of In Touch just doesn't cut it.

forever 21. urban outfitter t-shirts.

the buzz of the oscar season. well, i pretty much lived on the red carpet for the past 5 years. so besides shaking my head about the campaigns and banging my head on the coffee table by the end of the show-marathon, i also got to see the physical build-up. first it's just the bleachers. they usually arrive ten day early. then they lay out the carpet and arrange the flowers. the big statues follow about five days before the show. this is usually also the time that you get really angry at nicole, reese and denzel for taking over your hood and causing you to miss the bus every morning due to not knowing where the bus station moved to. but all of that is forgotten by the sight of the TV reporters on the day of the show. all dressed up in tuxedos or glittery gowns - at 8am. and of course, as a resident of the area you pretty much have an all-access pass with security. "here's my ID, sir. see that? cherokee 1733... thank you and keep up the good work." if there was just something that could be done about the swarm of daily helicopters over the house. like the smog will devour them.

amoeba records. it's got cute boys. and of course, you feel automatically cool when you enter.

ucla. i had a teacher that had worked with marilyn, audrey and judy garland. can't top that. oh, wait. there was the other teacher that told us about liz taylor and how she would only show up on set every morning if she was given a gift. a purple git.

the movie history in general.

wasting countless hours, reading in the aisles of Borders.

sneaking into hotel pools. which of course is so much easier when you've got an accent. but let's talk openly here. i've had been swimming at the roosevelt hotel way before lindsay discovered it. actually i would add the roosevelt hotel here on the list, but it was so much cooler before they renovated it and put a pool table into the lobby. like greta garbo would approve of that...

non-judgmental people. when somebody in LA speaks about his dreams, he's actually encouraged to do so. nobody says: "you can't do that." of course, people might encourage and then crush that person later on. but that's another story.

target. ultimately the greatest thing about LA.



part 2 with my observations about b-town follows underneath.

more great stuff

a shout-out to LA from the berlin zoo. that means, you guys over there are only about 6460 miles away from knut...







b-town:

ice cream at karademir. especially the sour cream-honey-sesame. lecker!

the in-LA-impossible-but-oh-so-encouraging sight of a rather mediocre-looking girl with a really good-looking boyfriend.

the public transportation is a dream. there's the subway, the street cars and the tram which is a cute small yellow train from the GDR era. and then there's the endless stream of double-decker busses. they truly never stop. (unless you're standing at the station at 1 am and hail corns as big as a small finger nail hit the ground to your left and right.) and then there's of course the soundtrack. it pretty much seems impossible to take the subway or else without being accompanied by the sound of a violin or accordion. it's all quite melancholy really.

it's flat, so it's great for riding bikes. though it's not so great for pedestrians that are run over by bikes.

being able to go grocery-shopping at supermarkets that i've been practically raised on. there's some sense of comfort in getting my food at lidl or kaufland again. i've been eating it through all of my childhood and teenage years, so i've established a level of trust in their products. which i will never have in campbell's soup or sara lee cake.

no smog.

there's knut, of course. enough has been said about him, but here's an update. he's still kinda fluffy though he weighs about 60 pounds by now. at least they estimate that as he apparently refuses to step on the scale. oh, those celebrities...

it's cheap.

beautiful churches. castles. buildings that are older than 100 years in general.

the libanese restaurant across the street from my apartment. not only is their food yummy, but actually they're originally from near my hometown. which begs the question if that makes me libanese?

the countless lakes and parks. the spree river with its many bridges. there are even real swans here. the only halfway living things floating on the LA river are probably people that have been killed and thrown in but aren't totally dead yet.

more ikea-stores than in LA.

the rich cultural life. the theaters. the museums (you know i do love them, just not their guards). the gorillas-improv group. the man that stands at the ku'damm street in front of the wertheim-department store and performs with a balcan-style violin player-puppet to the sounds of classical music. the boheme sauvage-20's parties. it's a good place for musicians. (apparently rufus wrainwright has found love here). the diverse bar and club scene. not having to go home at 2am.

surprisingly many great public pools and beach bars along the spree river. who needs the pacific?

karstadt department stores. to say it in the rather freely adapted words of truman capote:
when i get those horrible mean reds, the only thing that does any good is to jump onto the bus and go to karstadt. calms me down right away. the hustle and bustle and the commercial look of it, nothing very bad could ever happen to you there.

ready for my close-up

another update on my still-so-hot extra career.

for the past few days i've been doing this cool short movie that's being shot at film school as part of an all-european project about human rights. and it's not only cool and carrying an important message, but it will actually be shown at the next berlin film festival. which as you might know is one of the top three film festivals in the world. i've also been logging a lot of hours in make-up every day, as it's set in the late 40's. and not only did i wear a lovely dress and elegant hairdo, but they even aged me. which made me feel like nicole kidman donning that prosthetic schnooz for "the hours". it's so important to be able to sacrifice one's good looks for the sake of art, right?

also, i could have done another student project these days. but i didn't feel like the script was up to my level. i'm sure you understand that i gotta be careful about my choices at such a crucial time in my career. and of course i don't wanna be over-exposed by filling the background in every freakin' picture. but you gotta admit, i totally rock the business these days. especially if you consider how hollywood has refused to acknowledge me for all these years. which i really didn't understand. well, there's been my participation as audience member in a simulated episode of "deal or no deal" for the nbc executives. and i've been in the booty parlor training video as a guest at a sex toy party (you understand my concern about choosing appropriate projects in the future). but i'm the first to admit that i only got that part because of my company connections rather than talent. on the other hand there was that teacher a few years back that remarked what a great adrian i had been when we re-enacted a scene from "rocky" in class to analyze it. and of course there was that japanese student that followed me into the restroom stall during the break of that same class to tell me "how great my face had looked within the frame". they must have seen something that nobody else did.

another major obstacle on my road to now inevitable stardom had of course been the vicious attack on 9/11. i don't wanna shout here "i'm a victim too!" (which of course i am but you also know i'm humble as hell). but just a few days prior to the attack i was discovered in the most classy way by one of my customers in a restaurant who had asked me if i wanted to participate in her final project at film school. the part had just a few lines, but i would have spoken them with my german accent. of course it never came to be as my impending break-through was ultimately stopped by al-kaida. the movie shoot was delayed another month and took place at a time i was visiting germany :(

so i do wonder, how long it's gonna take those fuckers in hollywood to realize what got away. of course, everything could have turned out differently if they had just seen that 10th grade high school project about violence in which i played the naughty girl who steals the purse of an old lady.




look at me with my 40's hairdo. don't you think i look like ingrid bergman?

just a remark on the side... pretty redundant actually, but do feel free to read on

i think we all do agree on how awesome IKEA is, right?

but did you ever stand at the check-out with your new "furuhult" kitchen table or "leksvik" book shelf and realized that you might need to use the restroom pretty soon? and then of course you started to curse yourself for not going before you hit the store and filled that giant blue ikea bag with all kinds of stuff that you don't really need, but you took it anyway because it's cheap. and then you crossed your legs and paid your stuff and desperately hurried to the car to load it up and then you weren't so sure that you can still make it from the far end of the parking space back to the store and jumped into the car and drove off because you live just five minutes away anyway - just to be caught in traffic for another 20 minutes before you finally arrive at the safe harbor of your bathroom.

well, i've got good news. ikea not only has special restroom stalls for kids - which is already pretty amazing - but they apparently also designed their stalls to fit peoples' new furniture as well. i didn't actually do any studies yet on how much you could take in there and still comfortably pee and i seriously doubt that my "pax brevik" closet would fit. but i know for sure that that stall can hold

1 34x34 "lack" table
1 20x20 "lack" table
1 12x12 "agen" wicker basket
1 "dokument" paper holder
1 "alarm" alarm clock
1 "debut" candle holder

besides my purse and another full shopping bag. pretty impressive, huh?

and it's not that this is super-important or will save the world. but it does make the world a slightly better place to know that there are companies out there that are not only out for your money, but also treat you like human beings. including accommodating your needs. like peeing with an armload of furniture.

in summer the typical berliner loves to go for a dive

btw, this is a skeleton in an aquarium. but you saw that, right?

meryl, watch out ! AKA update on my rapidly rising extra career

i'm so totally freakin' hot.

and it's not only because it's been 90 degrees in b-town for weeks and humid as in the jungle. no, last night my career as an extra was marked by an important breakthrough. remember my post from april "side notes on my small screen debut"? it's only been six weeks that i had my first part in a german daily soap. and i didn't even get to ride a bike like the other more experienced extras.

but yesterday everything changed. first of all, i got hired for a real movie. big screen. it's a romantic comedy/musical (!). and it stars one of germany's hottest young female stars. and guess, who was chosen among all the extras to be the ueber-extra? the shoot was taking place in a restaurant. and while the other people had to be the restaurant guests and can call themselves lucky if more than the back of their head is noticeable in the movie, i got the part of the waitress. guess, five years of international serving experience finally paid off. i was the one serving the food to the two lead characters as they were having their first date. and i was good. as my hands were shaking when i set down their plates of pasta aioli (garlic on a first date? i bet that screenwriter is single.), it totally fit into the awkward mood of the date. you could actually say that i melted into the scene's atmosphere. and i know it's just the part of the waitress, but audrey hepburn's career started with a cameo as cigarette girl.

and the best of all was that i even got the whole make-up deal. and not only did i get that, but i actually got to share my time in the make-up trailer with the female star of the movie. and she and the male lead totally acknowledged me, eye contact and smile and all. and as if that wasn't enough, one of germany's biggest actors dropped by the shoot to hang out with the director for a bit. and since this shoot was so special and i will always remember it as my big break, i also stole a totally cute sheep from the easter decoration of the restaurant. it was just perfect. though the other extras must have been pissed, uselessly sitting around and having absolutely nothing to play with. but it's a tough business and there are only so many winners and lots of losers. just that since yesterday i'm not one of them.

still, i don't want to get too ambitious yet. you know how important it is to stay humble and not lose the ground under your feet (or the contact to less interesting people like you guys). but on the other hand, the town is abuzz with talk about the new bryan singer picture starring tom cruise. and i've been stalking them for a job behind the camera without success (fuckers!). so now i'm hoping for a call from my agency for that. because, where else could i go up now but hollywood???

hanging with the old fritz

the old fritz would be king frederick the great. of course he's already bitten the dust a long time ago. but that's essentially a good thing as i got to visit his old haunt of sanssouci last week and i'm pretty sure i wouldn't have gotten that far during his lifetime.

apparently sanssouci is considered one of the 1000 places to see before you die. at least i once read so. thus i had been pretty excited and must admit that my first impression was rather subdued. with my memory of visiting versailles fifteen years ago still vivid, i discreetly turned up my nose at sanssouci's size at first. it's just got twelve rooms. this proletarian princess grew up in a house of thirteen rooms (plus one closet and a guest wc).

and then i stepped inside. where i was promptly informed that this had of course only been fritz' weekend getaway. ah. actually he resided in another castle on the grounds. with 200 rooms. oh. and then i stepped further inside and... ooh...aah... is that real gold all over the room? ooh... aah.

i got to see the room that voltaire used to chill out in. apparently he and fritz were pretty close chums. and then there was the library with its more than 2000 books. and then there was the music room where fritz used to play his flute all day long. no pun intended. although it is to note that the castle doesn't include any rooms for mrs. fritz. after all, sanssouci means "without worries". makes one wonder if fritz might have been the original creator of "no woman no cry". ultimately i found no info on that, though i found a pop art portrait of fritz by andy warhol.

now this all seemed pretty suspicious to me. hanging out with voltaire all the time instead of the mrs., the warhol worshipping, his love of music and gardening. so upon the return to my very middle class 5-room-digs, i looked him up and got confirmation that he was indeed a homosexual. which also explains all that glittery room deco. also, he never wanted to be king and even tried to run off on a regular basis - sometimes in male company. desperate measures which his dad countered with sending the poor chap to prison. ah, the good old prussian discipline. also for sure is that it was fritz who was responsible for cultivating potatoes in germany. which causes my compatriots to lay down the lovely earth apples on his grave site.

but back to my visit. while wandering through the park, i eventually came upon two buildings that i couldn't identify at first. they seemed to be two smaller castles and i supposed that they were separate ball rooms or something like that. but one look at my map of the grounds and i learned that those were the staff quarters. which was the final blow. i admit sanssouci is impressive and the old fritz seems to have been a rather cool dude too. even though he probably never would have socialized with me.

one down. 999 places to go.


some side notes about my own humble or not so humble origins:

my dad's side of the family owns a family crest and apparently a castle somewhere in switzerland too. though i don't know how many rooms it's got. but it sounds pretty good, right? especially if you consider that my mom's family consists mostly of coal miners.

so recently my dad claimed that his family were wealthy land owners who apparently left switzerland for germany 250 years ago because of the decline in moral standards (!). i decided to do some research on that and it didn't take me long to dig up some of my ancestry online. and the emphasis here is on "digging up". instead of land owners, my ancestors' occupation was commonly described as field workers. the old fritz would not have been amused.

the fate of ernie

ernie was one of my most beloved childhood toys. and he wasn't just one of those very common ernie dolls. mine actually wore real jeans, had a dense head full of fuzzy hair and cool converse-like sneakers on. and then one day, he was gone.

it happened around the time i was about ten years old and my interest shifted from stuffed male buddies to the un-stuffed kind. his departure came suddenly and at the hands of my evil mom. at that time, the family living next to us had relatives living in the GDR. and when my brother and i had outgrown certain clothes or toys, my mom would give them to the neighbors so they could send them to their relatives. and so in one of those really cruel turns in life, one day i discovered that ernie was gone - sent to live with the communists! sure you can imagine that i was sick with worry at the thought of my beloved ernie falling into the clutches of an eastern regime.

my mom actually tried to make up for it by giving me an "ersatz" ernie for my 18th birthday. but he wasn't nearly as cool as the original one and the pain was still too big as that i could ever develop any deep feelings for this one. the closest i actually came to the original one again, was when my family vacationed near the border to the GDR very shortly before the wall came down. i still remember the high fence with the mine field and shooting towers behind (and i still remember my mom panically shouting: don't touch the fence!). there i was, sad-eyed and longing for my buddy on the other side. at that point i wasn't even sure if he was still alive or - being a symbol of a liberal western childhood - he had been confiscated by the greater powers.

so now after all those years, i finally decided to get some closure. i went on a valiant mission to look for ernie in berlin. this also led me to the GDR museum where one can look at all kinds of objects once used by the people "over there". in fact, the museum consists of cabinets in the form of plattenbau buildings that you can open up and inside you'll find stuff related to a certain area of eastern life. so there i was, standing at the childhood-themed plattenbau. my hands trembling, i opened it only to find some schlumpy teddy bear who had certainly seen better days. but no trace of my beloved ernie. i finally left, resigned to the uncomfortable truth that i might never get a confirmation on ernie's fate.

but then just a few days ago it happened. i had been on my way to my favorite ice cream parlor when i passed by a funky clothing store and suddenly spotted ernie in the shopping window. he was sitting on top of a wooden box among the clothing on display. and not only was he apparently making his living in a decent manner, but he looked as good as he ever had. no signs of torture or broken arms. and not only that, but i was truly comforted by the knowledge that he actually lives in my neighborhood.

and a long life he may have!

geographic truths

recently i've come upon a street sign in my neighborhood which was titled "manteuffelstrasse". roughly translated this means " street of the man-devil". not only did i think it was kinda cool to have a street warn you of the facts of life, but i also had gotten inspired to look for more of these geographical truths here in b-town. unfortunately i didn't find anything else.

the street where i'm living is called "rich hill street" and all people i see outside my window seem to be either unemployed, poor students or turkish families of 7. and the district where i'm living is called "cross hill". there's also a "prenzlau hill", a "beautiful hill" and a "hill of lights". they all sound pretty, but berlin is as flat as it gets. absolutely no hill in sight. actually there's one, the "devil's hill". but technically speaking it's just a mountain of rubble from WWII. i didn't fare any better with the "tiergarten" district, where one should find a "garden of animals". i've been there, but all i've seen in the park was a man who was jerking off behind a bush :( though one could say, that he showed some animalistic behavior. which brings me back to the man-devil...


note:

the picture up there shows the "paris square" with the brandenburg gate - which features lots of japanese tourists besides a huge starbucks and the jfk museum. and then there's the story of napoleon trying to steal the triaga on top of the gate... not so appropriate, huh?

television is your friend - and itunes even more

at least they're mine. i know people that don't even have a tv these days. but to me it's a warm and fuzzy feeling to know i can tune in each week to see what "house" or all those con artists on "lost" are up to. especially when you've recently moved and it's taking a while to make contact to real human beings. which in germany are really just as mean as "house" or "the others". but its exactly this tv dependence which puts me in a weird spot this week. season finales are upon me. which means only ca. 250 days until lost returns in february 08 (banging my head against the wall here). and my "house" dates won't resume until september neither :(

so to keep myself entertained this summer, i've gotten all nostalgic and started rewatching "beverly hills 90210" online. this show debuted when i was about 13 and i'm not embarrassed to say that i religiously watched it until the bitter end. yes, i was there when dylan's mob dad got killed, when brandon almost slept with andrea zuckerman (twice!) and when kelly became addicted to diet pills, got shot, joined a cult, almost died in a fire, lost her baby and got raped (twice!). and not only am i rediscovering this old favorite of mine, but i'm also improving my swedish language skills as well. you see, the online episodes have gotten swedish subtitles and i only recently learned such important vocabulary like "har du skyd?" which means "do you have a condom?" and which you'll probably not find in any language-course book and which -as everyone knows- is really a cornerstone of every swedish conversation.

and there they always say that tv isn't good for you. apparently it's not supposed to engage your brain in an intellectual way. yeah, right! you people out there without tv, just go ahead and read books! but by the end of this summer it will be ME who is able to know how to speak swedish. and if i run out of 90210-episodes , i'll just go and re-watch "lost" for the 23rd time...

thanks god for itunes.

aww, this just made my day...

go, boys!

charleston or something like it

about once a month the so-called "society for glamorous entertainment" invites nostalgic berliners to their "boheme sauvage". and so last saturday night my 20's alter ego lotte blumberg (a 17-year-old, still unspoiled department store model) dolled up and made her golden age debut in company of her rich and influential heiress friend kara wittgenstein. the joint where the entertainment took place consisted of two rooms. one a swanky salon where swing, gypsy, tango and balkan brass were played among others and the conferencier coco warmed up the crowd with tap dancing before a charleston lesson took place. which was quite the bee's knees - and dangerous because of all the kick steps. the spiffy crowd willingly stepped up to the dress code of strictly bohèmian, burlesque, cabaret, cancan, dandy, decadent, diva, gigolo, glamour, mafiosi, moulin rouge, variéte and vaudeville and displayed the best of manners. and besides many big cheese society members the wide-eyed lotte even spotted sherlock holmes out on a nightly prowl, though he did keep to himself most of the time.

the second room proved much darker and was clouded by the heavy smoke of ciggys. here in the casino the crowd indulged in poker, black jack and absinthe. when lotte had entered the venue, she was handed 60 million reichsmark with the invitation to increase the fortune through gambling, blackmail or other deals. but the naive girl lost half the amount right away to the monsieur in the "separee du spiritisme" who's tarot card reading announced that -beware the heebie jeebies- her next daddy will be a brillant, intellectual man without a back bone. which seems to be exactly the kind of sap, poor lotte has always been goofy about. applesauce! to make matters even worse, lotte then gambled away the rest of her fortune at the roulette table by two am. fortunately her benefactor kara wittgenstein stepped in to provide her with further means which lotte eventually lost too. when she emerged back into the salon at five am, the hoofers were still going at it although the sun was already shining through the windows.

lotte finally went home by train with the other owls, happy about what a swell night it had been. now, let's hope nobody finds out about her shenanigans, so she can have a whopee when the next "boheme sauvage" rolls around...

poor baby is sick

lately i've not been feeling too well.
in fact, i'm all bored, everyday life seems totally bleak and i seem to be constantly bothered by a lack of superficiality in my life. i think i'm missing LA. this has gone on for a while now and so i finally went to see a doctor. five minutes in his office and he confirmed that i had a serious case of "missiotitis US weeklyosis". (i should be a patient on HOUSE!). but the doc told me not to worry and gave me a prescription for "defamer" and "the superficial" although i was warned that there are high risks of getting addicted to them.

include me in your prayers during these tough times.

what are german people actually really like?

recently i've picked up a book that has been staying in the german bestseller charts ever since it came out in 2005. it's called "der dativ ist dem genitiv sein tod" ("the dative is the genitive its death") and deals with the difficulties and dangers of the german language. i tried to find out more about the subject by googling which ultimately led me to a web page that answers the question of what german people are really like. in fact, it invites people all over the world to send in their many perceptions about me and my landsleute. and since i see this blog among other things as a tool to inform the often unknowing US public, i will share this wealth of knowledge with you.

disclaimer:
the descriptions of german people below are entirely the views of an international public and represent neither my viewpoint nor the one of my compatriots.

here we go:

german people descend from apes

german people descend from farmers and artisans

german people don't wash their cars on sundays and never use toilets after dark

german women wear pigtails, have facial hair and mens' bodies

german men are bald and sport big moustaches

german people are efficient in organizing foreigners' funerals

german people are like dutch people, there are just more of them

german people are like british people, but have better teeth and sailboats

german people are physically and mentally superior to british people

german people are wimpy, surrendering monkeys (probably the view of a british person)

german people tan easily and are heavily taxed

german people love tidiness, recycling and oompah music

german people eat beige food and smell of sausages

german people are bony and stiff

german people are wild and sexy (oh, ja!)

german grandmas are always drunk

german women are amazing in bed, but controlling

german people wear lederhosen & alpine hats and are generally fat

german people tell fat people that they're fat

german construction workers are always trying to kill people

german people are doomed


please feel free to add your perception of german people in the comment section. dankeschoen!

see, germans are nice!

i've already mentioned the cute way germans create screenplays. and now after i gave my small screen debut last week, i've got further proof that germans are actually pretty nice people.

for years while i was in the US, i was watching WW II movies in which every single german character seemed to have a grim face and was generally shouting. which strongly supports the notion that germans are ugly people speaking an ugly language. but i don't think that's true at all. we might only smile once a month, first answer with a stern "no" to everything we're asked for and -grinding teeth- have a slight tendency to invade other countries, but you can't say that we haven't gotten any manners.

take this. in the american movie industry it is standard for the director to shout "action" to start shooting. but in germany the director calls "bitte" which means "please". and he's not shouting at all, he says it in an almost pleading manner. when i was working as an extra last friday, i needed about an hour to even figure out who the director was since he was all buried behind his monitor like a little mouse. so, what about that authoritative "action" in the US if you can also accomplish the work with a polite "please"? i mean, why make the effort to be polite in all other areas of life, when we treat actors and film crew like cattle?

side notes about my small screen debut

and i emphasize "small screen" here since i only did a tv show. this was made painfully clear to me by the other extras who all had done movies already. one of them was even in "the lives of others".

"you know, the one that won an oscar!"

i tried to counter that with my hollywood experience which solely consists of being an extra in "deal or no deal" but was immediately defeated with

"and i've done the bourne supremacy".

one can't argue with that. i tried to make up for my lacking experience by acting extra-affectionately towards the empty baby carriage i was given to work with. that was the only prop i was given, while the other more experienced extras got to ride bicycles. well, maybe next time...

on the other hand, i got to take part in an action scene. if that's what you would call a scene in which a hunky young man is chasing a clown (!) down the street...

i'm going to be a mom

now, pick yourself up the floor and read on.

earlier this week, i was chosen to be an extra in the german version of "ugly betty". and since i'm not the lead, that means i'm attractive, right? and actually i'm not going to have a baby, just the empty carriage that i will have to push around in the background of a scene. which pretty much will make me look like some crazy woman who's going out to steal babies from strangers. but an attractive crazy woman. anyway, it's shooting tomorrow afternoon. so mark it on your calendar and count the days until you'll see me at the emmys :)