Butler 4

It was Lincoln's birthday on Tuesday. To celebrate Martha and invited him over to play a game of Scrabble. Martha Won.

Sorry it took so long.

This is the entry to our apartment in Berlin. This lead to the courtyard and then the back apartments. Courtyards are great. Jared is holding the typewriter.

The is the buzzer to our place. It's called "Kompact Living Space"
Jared is putting on the finishing touches of his center piece. He's got the head band on cause he lifted everything on there by himself. (i was out shopping)
Here is the master piece. It scared me because it was on these little legs and I felt like it could come down at any moment. But it didn't.Here is the dojo that we slept in. It was in the same apartment as the art studio, but across the hall.

When Jared first extended the invitation to fly to Berlin I asked a series of questions. They were as follows:
1.Can I help make art?
1.2 If assisting in art production is possible do I get a jump suit?
2. Will not knowing the language cause any problems.

Jared responded yes to the first two questions and no to the last. So I bought my ticket and was on my way.

Upon arriving in Berlin I discovered that it was Berlin fashion week. Lucky me. When out at some of the fashion week events Jared and I stumbled across a most excellent find. A tuxedo jumpsuit that would fit me perfectly! The secret was at work. I'm going to make one of these for myself. I told Jared that when he gets married I will make him a tuxedo jumpsuit. The way I see it if you can get baptized in a jumpsuit you should be able to get married in a tuxedo jumpsuit.

Jared travels with his jumpsuit at the ready in case any dumpsters that he comes across yield any art materials. This is a great way to get to know a city by the things that people throw away. Below Jared prepares to dive into a dumpster.
With his bounty on his shoulder he begins the long walk back to the apartment. In the background you can see the dumpster. I think this building was a school that is being cleaned out. It was behind some other buildings. Access to this building was through a small alley way. It was a surprise to find this big building stuffed away behind some apartment buildings. In the court yard they had two stone top ping-pong tables with metal nets. I'm jealous that my school didn't have those in our school yard.
This is a good shot of the neighborhood that we stayed it. All the buildings were about this height and painted these nice colors. Jared is a real lumber jack carrying this monitor all the way down the street. I wonder what the Berliners thought about this full bearded man in a blue jumpsuit cruising around with all this stuff.
Later that day I explored stores around town. When I got back to the Kompact Living Space Jared had been hard at work setting up all the things that he had collected.

On another note. The doors and windows in Germany are amazing. They can do all these fancy things. If you turn the handle on these doors a quarter turn it opens like a normal door. If you turn the handle a half of a turn they open at the top a few degrees and swing open from the floor to allow for ventilation. It's the small things like that that attract me to Germany.

Labels: Dumpster Diving, Tuxedo Jumpsuit

I love old things. I love old 8mm and super 8 movie cameras. I love old movie projectors. I love old mechanical knitting machines. I love old record players. And I love old typewriters. I have a few in my collection. I only have one here in NYC with me. That was until Berlin happend.

Jared Clark's art consists of walking around picking up items that people have discarded. In some circles this is referred to as trash or "junk that don't work no more". Top on the list of sought after refuge are the following:
1. Styrofoam
2. Appliances (oven, washer, range top, microwaves, dryers)
3. Electronics with knobs and dials
4. Lumber
5. Suitcases

While looking for materials I saw a black box. I didn't pick it up because I knew that if I did I would be taking it back to the states with me and I didn't want the extra luggage. Luckily for me Jared picked it up and handed it to me. I went right home and opened it up and it was exactly what I thought it was. An old German typewriter. The kicker was that it had a cache of documents with it.
First was the instruction book. This is my little German typewriter. It has extra keys for the accent marks. The 'y' and 'z' keys are switched. Those are the only differences. It's a beautiful little thing.
It also contained the original invoice. It is dated 25 September 1939.
Our previous stake president, President Belnap, went to Germany on a mission. Last night after institute I asked him to translate a bit for me. Dated 11 September 1939, this letter is the offer to buy the typewriter. It gives a price with and without a wooden carrying box (Josef Hossmeister sprung for the wooden box). It also talks about how great the key action is and mentions other features.
The thing that really makes the story cool is the way the salesman signed off. Not a 'Regards' or 'Sincerely' or even 'Thanks', its a "Heil Hitler !". It was a different time and a different place.

Labels: Germany, Hitler, typewriter

This was one of my favorite galleries in Berlin. As seen in the previous posting the wall of portraits is very large. Half the fun was picking out who the portraits were of. It's like the ultimate test of Pop Culture knowledge. "Do you know who this one is of?"

I believe here I am pointing out Barack Obama. Just above him is James Brown. James Brown and I share the same birthday May 3rd. Two left of James is Marvin Gaye, and two left of Marvin is Curtis Mayfield. Side note: people in Europe are excited about Barack Obama.
This was the first one that I recognized. George Clinton. He was in a funk band called Parliament. They sung songs like "Flashlight". With lyrics like "put a glide in you stride a dip in you hip and come on down to the mothership" they were a favorite of the seventies funk music scene.
I knew this was a legitimate show when he had a portrait of the Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. "It never got fast enough for me." Above him is Chuck Close. Next to Chuck is Spike Lee.
Andy Warhol... nice shout out.
Then in the back there was a picture of me projected. I don't know how he came to know of me, my popularity or my international famousness but I appreciated that I have been included with the others. This is one of the reasons why I like Berlin... I'm already famous there.

Welcome to Germany! This is that big gate. It's really pretty
This is the TV antenna that is the land mark of Berlin.
I saw amazing art there. I'll post more pictures of this one.
This was one of my favorite things that I saw.
We ate wursts of all kind there. The fries were great. Better than McDonald's