2005-02-09 - 11:24 a.m.

the expatriot took me record shopping in prenzlauerberg on monday and we ended up also chocolate shopping and wine shopping. my task now is to learn enough german to ask someone to mail my loot home for me.

we also went to an evening function at transmediale, a 'new media' festival being held all over berlin at the moment. i must admit here that i found it a bit underwhelming. at the main exhibition space in the haus dem kulturen welt, the pieces i most liked were those that seemed to reverse the effects of computers. 'physical pong' used telephone relays and wires to make a table-sized version of the classic atari game. an elaborate display of the inventions of prisoners (cigarette lighters, papier mache dice, drinking cups) included diagrams and schematics. we were there to see a streamed presentation of larry lessig watching television. larry was in one corner, sitting in a aeron chair at stanford with a remote in his hand. on the other screen, the audience could see what he was watching on american tv. he spent his time commenting, beavis-and-butthead-style, on the images he was surfing. almost achingly postmodern in concept, but i was interested to see what would come up. the presentation was plagued with technical difficulties, but even if it hadn't been i was frustrated by larry's surfing style. he skipped over all the stuff i wanted to see. his wife must never watch tv with him, he's a remote hog! i got pissy and beat it early. but it could have been all the free wine.

last night i went up to friedrichshain for dinner. i have to cross the oberbaum br�cke across the spree, and as i did, a barge was breaking the surface ice on the river. it made such a beautiful sound that almost everyone on the bridge stopped to watch the lights of the universal building reflected on the shattering water.

i managed to find club transmediale late in the evening and it may very well have been the coolest event i've ever attended. it takes place in this weird concrete bunker on the schillingbr�cke, all done over inside with three bars, a horde of video projectors, an overwhelming sound system, and more milkcrates than i've ever seen in one place. last night's theme was 'the voice' and i was treated to one-hour sets by korea's electro opera (tiny woman sopranoing and muttering over waves of electronically generated waves and thumps) and norway's single unit (a young man and woman with laptops sampling her vocal clicks, whispers, and shrieks). it was some of the most intense performance i've seen in a long time. all over the club folks were listening, watching, chilling, lying on sheepskin-covered couches in the chill room, chatting up the chef at the sandwich bar. there was even a vinyl/CD concession set up right next to the toilets.