Unscene Berlin

“Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before! What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!”   Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas For the New Year's party listing, please scroll down. If you believe that the mid-winter holidays are about sharing, relaxing and hanging with friends and family, you may be feeling a bit like a Cindy Lou Who in a world full of Grinches right now.  Every other news broadcast seem to be tracking pre-Christmas sales like they're the pulse of an ailing patient, and the unseasonably warm streets have emptied of people, while the artificially-lit sweat shops of Ku'damm et al are full of shoppers grimly chomping up deals like pie-eating contestants about to explode.  Not caring about money and, well, stuff at this time of year almost feels like sacrilege, and wanting to share for sharing's sake feels a little bit naive.  But if you...

Banksy, ducks and the Mayan apocalypse. Just another Xmas in Berlin! I have some appalling fantastic news: there's only two days left until the 2012Apocalypse Winter Solstice!  After Friday, everybody can breathe a sigh of relief because they'll never ever have to go through Christmas again the days start getting longer!  Better yet, the End Times carnage New Year's Eve is just around the corner! Sorry for all the scratched-out phrases.  I just wasn't sure whether this week's entry should be about the surviving the end of the world or about having a 'holly jolly Christmas'.  Should I be telling readers to stock up on stollen and head for the nearest Weinachtsmarkt , or to stock up on ammo and head for the nearest air-raid shelter?  Should everybody be singing "peace on earth and good will to all" or screaming, "OMFG the aliens just touched down we're all gonna dieeee"?   Sigh... every year writing these Christmas previews...

Bad Santa street art in Ostkreuz There are dozens of Christmas markets (known as 'Weihnachtsmarkt' in Germany) in and around Berlin where a person can sample fine chocolates, buy luxurious doilies and perch on outdoor stools under a gas heater while sipping hot cocktails.  I am not  going to talk about any of them in this entry.  No - this entry is about the kinds of places Santa goes after a hard day of waving at tourists to dwell on more pressing themes like gentrification, greed and Guantanomo Bay, while chugging a Sterny.  There is a reason why he wears red and black after all, and it's not to please his corporate masters at Coca-Cola. Read on for a shortlist of the places that Santa goes to when he feels like stuffing a lump of coal in some capitalist's stocking... They can't afford Christmas turkey dinner, so the organizers of the Cult of the Personality: Commercial Christmas Special at Food/ZMF are going to 'eat the rich' instead.  Every prod...