USED UNIVERSE Masked Mascot attends Ai WeiWei protest at Chinese embassy, Berlin, 2011

thanks to the wonderful girl who took this foto, (unless she says otherwise she'll remain anonymous)

berlin june 2011
here we spend an incredible amount of time contemplating America. or the aspects that most interest us, at least. in parks and bars as years go by since we left... America is always bubbling and reintroducing itself to new and renewed parts of our mind with new and renewed interests... or can it simply not tolerate being unthought of?

we roll on and roll up our sleeves as if we are whitecoated scientists in a lab full of little aspects of it all sectioned off and petri-dished out, stacked up and waiting for comment and observation as they each either grow freakishly, wait patiently for the right conditions or or or simply do nothing at all.



meanwhile, now that the coast is clear the brits are showing up... feigning bohemianism or buying property.

Sometimes it is perhaps better to just simply participate in pop culture... because
somehow I have never watched That 70's Show, (I ended up discovering Mila Kunis via Forgetting Sara Marshall (2008) about 10 years after everyone else... and that other guy via Spider-Man 3) which has made for a lot of awkward converations.
"Oh yea, that girl/guy from That 70's Show...
"uhm... Aston Kutcher?"
"no, you know - XYZ!"
"mhhh... nope."

THING 1:
I made this collage on a screenshot on the ride from London to Cambridge. I had fun doing it. I love Paint (the program). (First things first: the above image is from the band Atlas Sound, not some questionable something else)
EXIT NOTES FROM 3 days in the UK. (And it is never a dull 3 days... it is always just sprinkled with surrealism and absurdity... it is always an issue I re-encounter every time I come here, brain says: "wait, ...I am not REALLY in America even though most sensory input tricks my brain into thinking I am... English: check. wildstyle-rampant-rodeo of capitalism/consumer culture wonderland: Check! People being automatically polite for no apparent reason: check. Constant overbearing police presence everywhere: CHECK." But thannk god I am in an English speaking country again so my poor brain can have a rest from German.

THING 2:
ME:"But that isn't even a liquid!"
Airport Security Searcher scanner guy who is taking his sweet-arse time to scan every piece of pocket lint in my bag: "Its a paste."
"Oh... But that... THAT bottle is only half full!"
"It is the size of the bottle in ml that counts, not the fullness..."
"Oh..." THINKING: "Where these rules here the other day?"
I constantly rotate DVDs from my parent's house - taking them out on loan and bringing them back a few months later. Most of them are mine anyways, but this time...
He pulls out Richard Linklater's Before Sunset. I shrink back and stare at the floor.
He pulls out a special edition DVD of Disney's Peter Pan which I automatically blurt: "That's my nephew's!"
"Sure 'tis, mate."
I wasactually bringing it for a friend's 5-year-old son...
I then watch in horror as he pulls out Dawson's Creek Series one DVD set-
"That... THAT's my sister's!!!"
"SUUUURE 'TIS, mate, SURE it is..." as he collects my shaving cream and shampoo in a plastic bin to have it particle-scanned.
We didn't agree on much... but one thing we COULD agree on: the greatness of Pilgrim's choice extra mature cheddar. (Or just cheddar in general.) Which he also pulled out of my bag, inspecting it with a notably special loving tenderness...
Ugh.