Schöneberging

Yesterday Della, Martin and I motored over to the Schöneberg neighborhood to check out a show at the Gedok Gallerie. A friend of their’s is currently showing along with a half dozen other very interesting artists.

Absolute standouts for me were Celia Mehnert, Frauke Beek, Gwenllian Farah (whose name I'm utterly in love with – how damn poetic!), Nele Ouwens AND their friend Antya Umstätter. Intriguing and inpiring stuff.

Schöneberg’s a lovely, engaging, sedate-seeming but way hip neighborhood. Time Out notes that the Schöneberg district - especially the streets between Motzstrasse and Fuggerstrasse as well as Nollendorfenplatz (formerly home to Christopher Isherwood) - have been the epicentre of the gay scene since the 1920s. 

Gotta say, I fell even more in love with the place after hearing that this is where Isherwood wrote Goodbye to Berlin and The Berlin Stories which went on to become I Am A Camera and Cabaret. Turns out the tales were loosely based on Isherwood’s own experiences there in Schöneberg and Sally Bowles really existed. Her name was Jean Ross and it doesn’t seem the author embroidered much on Ross when he created Bowles.

TOO awesome!

Afterwards we hit a fab falafel joint which Martin’s been frequenting since his childhood days. (food was great!). We hit another neato-keen place for coffees, checked out a flea market (just as it was shutting, sadly) and wandered about, soaking up the atmosphere before heading home to Wilmersdorf.

It was a tremendously dandy, low key day. Much needed since – get this – I’ve come down with an annoying cold! A cold on vacation? How fucked up is that? Luckily it’s not a knock-mr-down-for-the-count type – just slowing me up. Thank the little baby Bast.