100 F today - how crazy is this

I HAD to tell you this immediately: 37 Grad Celsius!! That is 99 F!! it is ubelievable. you walk outside and get thrown right back, you hit a wall of heat. And it is 10 am at the end of October. These Santa Anas, I hope they won't get us into trouble, causing more fires. I sit here sweating in my tank top while you at home are probably quite cold.

cultural input

I finally even learnt to say "Hi, how are you!" without the slightest interruption, that makes me be not always the one who has to greet the opposite with "Thank you, fine, and you?" because usually the other person doesn't respond to that 2nd phrase then and you feel kind of stupid afterwards.
I want to read so many more world literature books, this huge library here in the Villa (20.000 books) motivates me. But when? The weeks are to be counted and there are still sooo many things on my list to do and see. I am very glad I will get to be here on Halloween and also for the presidential elections. My god, they are only talking about that in the media. It is gonna be exciting. As for Halloween, it's one of the biggest events of the American year. What the Christmas light strings are in December (blinking, colorful, glowing, planted all over the place in every front yard), are the artificial cobwebs for October. Three weeks before the 31st people start to decorate their gardens with white thread stuff, horror masks, witch statues and the essential pumpkins, the pumpkin patches open (little fairs lines with pumpkin mazes) and the shops sport all the huge candy bags for trick-or-treat, orange colored paper decoration and cards. I have been in America once for Halloween, which was fun. I dressed up as... a pumpkin! oh my. This year I am going to be grapes. That's for sure. Actually, hey guys, I am not kidding. Picture will be posted after the 31st.

Recently at the Getty Villa (a museum for antique art, some rich dude bought all the stuff from Europe), an African-American museum guard saw the Obama badge on my bag and asked "Is that Obama? That is so sweet. Thank you!" But he didn't know I was not American... The Getty Villa by the way seems awkward because everything looks new and too neat, no charme to that place at all. But then a bunch of porno pictures. Yes, it's funny how the Americans don't care - as long as it's antique art. All these amphores with Dionysos having a hard-on... INteresting.

And the Feuchtwanger Memorial library is equally interesting when it comes to that. There are some original sketches of Heinrich Mann, very obscene, but very. We could actually flick through his very sketchbook. And we could touch and look at Brechts "Kriegstagebuch", the original photographic one. And there are also books from the middle ages that Feuchtwanger collected. I found all those funny misspellings in the titles of the pages. The book is such an early work, that it is not even fully "printed", it is a so-called Incunabel from before 1500.

The bouncer

Ok here comes the cultural explorer: As easygoing as everything seems here in America and open and "not a problem" - some things drive me up the wall. Once more I experienced the discriminating processes that go on in front of clubs... We started the evening around 7 at the Roosevelt hotel. On the rooftop with pool there was the opening reception of the Media Festival "Hollywould" going on. We somehow managed not to pay the $25 and still drank wine and ate for free. (The valet parking was already $12.) We looked at the projections that appeared on the surface of the pool and on the baloons that swam in there and met a couple of interesting and hollywoodesc characters. Fotographers, filmmakers and a real estate woman called Suzanna who was like straight out of "American Beauty". We got a hint to go to the "Kress" instead of the Knitting factory. There would be a CD release party going on with some celebrities. In the Knitting factory there was indeed not so much going on, which was sad because Christine, a former Villa fellow, was DJing. So we went to the Kress and the usual thing started at the door. Lot's of very important looking guys in black suits with headsets and walky-talkies hanging around the fenced entrance area, enjoying their power, very self-conscious. You stand there in line, not really knowing what you are waiting for because inside the club is empty. Lot's of dudes waiting to get in and from time to time some people arriving and just let in past the socalled "bouncers" (Türsteher). There is no rule, it's totally arbitrary who they let past. You either have to know one of them, or you have to be on the guest list (means you know one of the person's who throw that night's party inside) or you pretend to be on the guest list or you are just young and good-looking, preferably a girl. The bouncer chooses who he likes and "gets them in". They make a big deal of it. Anyway, we stood there for a second time and finally two guys said they knew a friend of the bouncer. But they needed us to get in because they won't let a group of only guys in. With Lena walking ahead very self-assured and smiling at the big doormen, we did not have too much of a problem to even get hold of the sought-after wrist-band that entitled us to step into the VIP area three floors up. What an intimidating experience. We did not so much like the crowd up there - probably some B class prominent people, TV show stars, band members and the like, from their looks, but.. pew.. we danced 3-4 songs in the basement club (black, R&B, HipHop), with all the chicks around in dresses that hardly covered their boobs and their bums and a large African-American crowd. Well, why not try this for a night.

German Film

Oh, and I forgot to say the rest of the German Film Currents festival was so wonderful! The last day I went to the Filmfrühstück in the Goethe Institute with Christine. We met nice people among which were two Berlin directors. I had a very good conversation with one, Dennis Gansel, finally someone who really knows the film scene and with whom I could share my opinions about the young actors' scene in Germany. He likes to work with a lot of the actors my age that I find terrific. Max Riemelt, Tom Schilling, Max Mauff and others. He is the director of DIE WELLE which was in German movie theaters recently and of NAPOLA which I had seen and liked. I was surprised because he seemed so young. The other director Max Plettau was also very nice. That evening I went to the screening of the WELLE, but unfortunately I missed Max's film. After the screening we had a lot of fun at a karaoke pub, also because the German actress Rosalie Thomas, who was with us, was in such a good mood!

Gogol Bordello and The Mars Volta

Watching the sunset on Ocean Avenue, in the small park on the top of the cliffs that separate Santa Monica from the ocean and the Pacific Coast highway... that just opens your soul and makes you think: life is so beautiful. The same emotion came when I saw the city of Los Angeles from above in the night, standing at a scenic view point on Mulholland Drive (that is closed at night, actually - but we climbed the fence)... Or being at the top of our road - Paseo Miramar - during dusk, also overseeing the whole city plus the other direction - Malibu. It's similar to the feeling you have when you lie on your board and ride in front of a wave towards the beach and you just see the world speeding by on either side. Or inhaling the eucalyptus scent when you go running through the canyon. Or standing in front of a stage and dancing to very good live music. I had this happen on Saturday night. I went to the "Detour" LA downtown music festival. 4 stages around the town hall of Los Angeles. A very young and very individual crowd, very stylish and/or dressed up, some wore outfits - man what a people watching opportunity!!
I saw great new bands, music that I have to research and get onto my brandnew ipod (that came out two weeks ago - but I have never possessed an mp3 player before, so I thought now or never) and two awesome headliners: The after dark concerts with the biggest crowds where Gogol Bordello (gypsy punk) and The Mars Volta (experimental rock, very 70s, very crazy). I was in the middle of the crowd and loved it. Eugene Hutz, the singer of Gogol Bordello is a real show off and he just made the show. The two Go-go(l)-Girls did stage diving and kept on dancing on their big drum over the heads of the crowd!! I spotted Elijah Wood on the backstage side of the open air stage when I climbed a wall on the side of the crowd, actually climbing over the fence to the backstage area. I wasn't surprised because the singer was in Elijah Wood's film "Everything is illuminated", at the set of which I met Elijah, too. But I was thrilled because .. well .. he is my favourite actor, believe it or not, and such a great person. I did not get to speak to him this time, though.
The Mars Volta, uhm.., the first half hour it was QUITE interesting. They improvised and it was just thick noise more or less. When I was about to leave to meet Lena at the "LA Burning Man Afterparty", they started to play their songs that everybody knows. So I stayed a little longer and upset Josh, someone at whose garage I was able to park my car at noon, very kind of him and lucky for me, just three blocks from the event. In between I had lost my camera and was panically looking for it in the crowd and on the ground when someone tapped at my shoulder and asked me what I was looking for - he had found it. How lucky is that?! The guy who helped me searching invited Lena and me to a nice bar in downtown to have another beer or two after the festival. They played "99 Luftballons", in German, and Lena and I just danced and decided we love the place and will be back some other night.

Some nice music we also heard the other night in the Roxy. The friend of a friend's album release concert was going on and we were invited. The band was called "Volumen Zero", actually a little paradox for a good band, but the music was great and the singer worth looking at :-). It was mostly Spanish rock songs, but often very melodic. Before that we had been to a gallery opening of one of Lena's acquaintances where we met a friendly and outgoing Polish actress who invited us to her home on Hermosa Beach. wow.

And I wanted to write something about how I got used to the American rules of driving. By now I do pay attention at the intersections where all 4 sides have a stop sign and whoever arrives first, drives first, and second and so on. It is a good solution indeed. And I love just turning right on every red traffic light if the street's clear. I hope I won't forget not to when I'm back in Germany. And I remember to collect quarters for the Parkuhren so you can always get rid of your car somewhere for 15 minutes or for 2 hours, whichever you just need.

Boogie boarding

This picture is old, but during the day we have 37° C, that is 98° F, for a 2nd of October that is pretty amazing... Beach time!

Hot Chip

So that's when we went to a concert of Hot Chip (great great music!) in West Hollywood. I plan more music events. Saturday I want to go do an LA downtown music festival with The Mars Volta being the headliner. I am excited!
On the picture you see Paul (writer), Lena (intern), Nico (writer) and Christine (film producer)

Venice

Some images of Venice, my favourite part of LA

Paradise in the Palisades

Me sitting in my favourite spot at the Villa Aurora. (If you can see me ;-) Some people say it's paradise...