Head Saint One-Eye

Today's entry is a stroll through Ostkreuz,
essentially up Hauptstraße in Lichtenberg.
All pictures flip when cursored over.

First an establishment shot of the main street of interest.

The hover image is of a skateboard and basketball park on Hauptstraße, which is directly behind you as you face the street sign.

Next, a view toward Hauptstraße from several meters back, with the skate ramp on the left. In the distance are containers for brown, green, and clear glass non-deposit bottles. The latter, apparently, in greater abundance.

Most of the hovers are closeups of something in the first image.

As we head back toward the street...



...and then around the soft corner to the left, there's this lovely building I call "Head Saint One-Eye" because of the street name (Haupt = head) & address number 1i, the latter of which you'll see in a moment.

Below is the building, the first of several pics featuring the Ostkreuz water tower in the background.


And again, cropped.

The hover is a poor shot from the front. It was here that it began to rain, again, which made photography difficult.

Here's a shot of the first door at Hauptstraße 1i - or Head St. One-Eye. The hover is a tight shot of the note on the door, which is translated below.

Since the courtyard party, our stroller is missing!
We need it very much because our small daughter
cannot yet walk on her own!! Please give it back!
Staircase 1H!
Thanks!!

One eye, and no baby buggy.


A short distance down the street looking back at the building.

The hover is a 180 degree pivot, heading farther up the road.


Continuing on, just a stone's throw away, we come to the Kynast Bridge.




First we'll go under the bridge to the other side where one entrance to the S-Bahn station Ostkreuz can be found.

The hover is bicycle parking behind us across the street.


Now, let's go back under the bridge the other way to the stairs that lead up onto Kynastbrücke.

The hover is the immediate view as you reach the top and look across the bridge. That's the way home to Friedrichshain.

Finally, in the last shot below and its corresponding hover-shot, we get an overview of where we just came from, with Head Saint One-Eye taking residence near the top center of the image. Hauptstraße runs roughly parallel to that train, at least for the short stretch we followed.

The final hover photo elongates because of the height differential between the two pictures. Flipping from the main pic to the hover is like turning your head to the right, away from the main image to the other side of the bridge, looking at Ostkreuz Bahnhof from up top.

Beyond the right side of the tower peeking up from behind the station is Berlin-Kreuzberg.

Aufmerksamkeitspannen (Pannen der Aufmerksamkeit)

Jamais vu or plus ça change

I wake. I sit. I look. Here I am. It's really how it is. I find myself places. I find myself. It's all brand new in spite of being well-worn, in spite of all the memory, despite the deeply felt experience of routine. Part dissociative disorder, part channeling circumstance instead of attention, I think I reckon.

temps perdu ou retard de déjà reconnu

And this thing that's been happening with accelerated frequency relative to its increased recency: a mere minutes after meeting a person for the first time, I recognize them as someone I'd encountered already, as opposed to having feeling as I normally would have, almost right away. I cannot determine in the least if it's an affect - an effect of time dissociation - taking a recent moment for the distant past, or that I'm just becoming slower at recognizing familiarity.

__

Retarded Regard

Friedrichshain had its first Singing Balcony Tour last night, or, more properly, three separate balcony tours of at least ten balconies each, whereupon a musical performance of at least partial vocal variety took place at each stop along the ways.

I caught one performance quite by accident, having first caught wind of applause from around the corner, remembered having read about the event, so went to suss the fuss.

It was a multi-instrumental hootenanny from the fourth floor for about a hundred, loosely peopled in the street and on the opposite sidewalk below; while amusing enough, it didn't grip my imagination so I wandered off.

Then, I decided it might be worth checking out the next balcony, circled round the block, and looked up & down the street to see if I could spot the tour-ists. Nothing.

I walked another block and again caught the waft of jubilation in the luke-cool night air. It turns out that this time I happened upon a different route, even though it was only a couple of blocks from the previous presentation.

Several of the gathered, I noticed, were drinking glühwein from paper cups, this time watching - if you can call it that - a guitarist/singer one storey up. Being the last stop on that path, he was able to play for about fifteen minutes before the cars began to insist upon passage, though the throng didn't give them more room than was absolutely necessary.

Among the final troubadour's repertoire was Sea of Love sung, partially, in the present tense: Do you remember when we meet, that's the day I knew you were my (something that rhymed with "meet").


Die Singenden Balkonen sounded like a cool idea when I read about it in the newspaper and it was successful & hassle-free enough to have warranted a repeat for next year, or so announced the organizer/cicerone upon its conclusion.

Can you hear a big but coming on?

For me, at least, the brief section of the evening that I witnessed featured the biggest pitfall of public performance: a public in attendance for many reasons other than to watch and hear the performance; often enough the case in traditional venues, last night's scheme only appeared to lend itself to a swollen deficit in conscious consideration.

One might think that a crowd could focus for ten minutes at a time, and then giggle & chatter and see & be seen on their way to the next balcony. Or that they would take the opportunity to just whisperingly walk away if what's on offer doesn't render raptitude.

As it was, too many people were too excited to be there for the singing balcony to cut through their scattered enthusiasm.

If I were to organize such an evening - and this is not meant as a slight to the organizers for, lemme face it, I couldn't and probably wouldn't if I could - I would fill as many balconies as I could with any & all assortment of musical mayhem. Each would play for the duration, an exhibition as much as a tour.

Then again, I probably wasn't really paying attention to what it was that was really going on.