Unscene Berlin

When I started writing this blog in 2011, Berlin was a city that was all about finding itself, finding the right way of being 'authentically Berlin'.  Every organizer of every event seemed to be clamouring to prove they had that original, underground Berlin spirit.  Droves of people were coming here to find a piece of the Wall, some 1960's clothes or anything else that wasn't nailed down that they could drag back and display like a trophy of the unrefined, undefined Cold War landscape that was vanishing as they watched.  Every weekend I'd see them clawing oversized 1980s jackets off the rails of Humana and scurrying furtively through the streets schlepping musty chunks of GDR furniture like packrats, afraid to run out of supplies.  Supplies of character.  "See?" I could just hear these droves of new Berliners declaring: "Even the chair I'm sitting on is a one-off that was hand-tooled out of old bed posts by an impoverished citizen of East ...