farms, performance art drag and winter

I will start with the drag... I saw an amazing show on saturday night of this group called ´Larry Peacock´who was doing performance art music drag.. out of control. Here is the link for their picture: http://www.ausland-berlin.de/offen/viewEventEntry.do?blog:blogid=3641.
There were songs about cows and their milk, butt plug microphones, experimental electro lesbian music, alphablets and symphonies for trousers, and more. That said. There is also a farm in berlin next to the place I tutor english and on saturday I am taking my roommates on a feild trip to the farm to pet the goats and horses and the huge cows... the also have a store where you can buy fresh free range milk, eggs and cheese from the farm. Things like this make me very happy... makes me want to live more in the country with an earth house and chickens and yet there is the contradiction here with this big city life... two loves.

I am most likely not going to be coming back to seattle in jan. to visit anymore, but sometime later in the spring. I bit sad about this, but this next weekend I have a performance and then the next weekend is milano and then warshaw, poland. and the x-mas at X-B. more on all that later....

polish families, lots of cake, bike rides to the forest and a nice dream state

Hello friends,

Things are well.. have been working tons (6 days a week) with different polish families teaching english and such... and being offered a lot of cake. Most mornings I wake up and feel out of myself and then after I dress and come into the kitchen and find some of my roommates I am reminded of how amazing my life is and I feel in such a good mood. The other floors of the house are on a different value system than me in so many ways and it feels best to be with the othe people who are artists and foreigners as well. Funny how I also don´t really have any german friends here... how the people from all over come together around their ´different-ness.´I have many thoughts on living on farms or communes and learning about how to make more things when I get back to the US... urban life here is good at the moment though and I love taking the train to work... snaking around berlin, through all the fall leaves and old buildings in the gray air.

Yesterday, catalina, courtney and I all went on a very long bike ride to the forest outside of berlin... started getting craby with getting lost and being cold, but once we got to the river and saw the amazing view, it was worth all the amaying smells of the leaves and dirt of the forest. We made out way down to the river and rode along it until we found a good place to stop for lunch. We sat on logs by the water, watching squeeky black ducks and posh people who were boarding a docked boat that served as a resteraunt. We stayed outside eating bananas, raisins, apples, carrots and sandwiches from the bakeri then going to the bathroom in the bushes, then leaving behind the people in the boat to thier food and watching of nature through glass. The bike ride back was so nice... mainly I think because we knew the way and were all bundled up, then as we came closer into town we started passing all of these amazing buildings and then the huge city centers with christmas decorations everywhere and a deep comforting cold in the air. The sky was so dark, but as we rode home I could catch glimpses of the moon through the clouds, shining bright in contrast to the sky and all the city lights.

Today I taught one of the girls I watch how to sing ´the insy weensy spider´song and the baby kept on crawling to me and then later was trying to bite her moms nose, and then I had cake and went home. Tonight I have a performance with Catalina at a local club that is having a womens sex party that tina and angie are organizing. I am still working on getting pictures posted... especially to show you my new euro hair cut! There is a chance I will be coming back to seattle for a quick visit in jan as a part of an artist residency at the university of mn... but more on that later.

kisses, elliat

Squat bars, zines, the gossip, spider in the web and system of a down...

so much to say with all that in a title... I guess I can start with the squat bars. There is one in my house called X-B to start with and everytime I am there I think of how it would be the ultimate dream for all my punk friends in seattle... have been doing little sketches of the house and other spaces and think I will be doing a zine about the house. Have learned a lot also about how housing projects work here... there are socialist-leftist organizations that help buy houses with projects and that is what my house is in the process of doing. There is also an info zine that comes out monthly with all the events happening at squats and other radical spaces and housing projects and I have decided that I need to start exploring more of these things going on here... revolations about what I am doing here, thinking about things as a bit more of research, etc.

Friday night at a bar called Suppamolly, spider in the web (oly-ex bikini kill) and party line (dc- new name for bratmobile) play and I chatted for a bit with Chris from spider in the web who I know from working at rainy day records for a long time while I was growing up in Oly. Strange to be seeing people from the US and I also have started to meet all these people from olympia who live here.. but I´m getting ahead of myself. Saturday not much happening, stayed at home and watched the breakfast club with my friend sara from sweden and the sunday was the prenzlaurburg flowmarket and then the house plannum after talking to my aunt on the phone for an hour. It looks as though I will be going with her to minneapolis in jan to do an arts residency and then come back to berlin... there is also a good chance that I will be coming back to seattle for the planning of the recidency... but nothing is set in stone. It is a strange feeling since I was planning on not coming back to see the US for 6 months at least and now I will be back for a visit sooner.... anyways.

So, last night (monday, 7.11) the gossip played at this really strange club called Knaack Klub and I went with my roommate Catalina. Before the show we went to Vöku (basically a secret cafe situation) at this space called ´the black girls coalition´and I met 6 people from Oly there... craziness. The space has two main rooms, one is a little bar in a black room with a little disco ball light and the other room had this Amazing trans woman who was djing and there were films abot the sisters of perpetual induldance playing in the background as all these kids sat eating. After that we headed to the club where the gossip was playing and as we pulled up on our bikes I saw stan and beth and nathan outside the club and basically ran stan over to give her a hug. It was so great to see them and I was able to sit down and talk with stan for awhile before the show.. about all her hot swedish eye candy actions and what not. As we were sitting there with our becks from Bremen, these really kinda tough looking dudes came and sat near us and I could hear that they were american also.. and it was ´system of a down´who I personally am not super familiar with, but they are an mtv hardcore band from what I hear... what the f*ck. After the show we were supposed to go do karaoke at this amazing bar in kreuzburg, but no one ended up going cuz there was drama with shitty equipment and some guy also came up to nathan and pulled out a gossip record and broke it and threw it on the ground... but anyways, and I ended up staying there with Catalina and these two german girls I met (one of who had been at the last homoagogo) and we stayed there talking about gender till 2:30am.

This morning I got up at 9am, took and shower and rode my bike to the hotel where the gossip was staying and we ate breakfast and talked gossip..haha. and about 70´s berlin fashion bound terrorists (... beinhofs). It was strange to again see so many people from home and on my bike ride home I stopped in the park for a minute and cried, missing the familiar. Now I am finishing this up and then going to work.. an now 5 day a week gig and the going to barbie dienhof tonight to see wassan dj.

till next time....