überlin

Remember Second Life? Of course you don’t! I was watching a feature-length documentary about the super-immersive virtual world and I wondered, of all the places and people and lives that have been created there, if anyone’s bothered to make a version of Berlin. Turns out they have, and it’s imaginatively named newBerlin.

Here’s a showreel, inexplicably soundtracked by the Dallas theme tune. Look out for Alex, the Fernsehturm, the Berlin Wall, and – naturally – a gross purple-breasted lady monster…

…and the “trashy trailer”!

Here’s a fashion show that marked the opening of the virtual version of Alexa, which is at least as classy as anything that’s ever happened in the real-life mall…

…the newBerlin Art Festival 2008 “fire girls”, who may just blow your mind….

…there’s even a virtual Christopher Street Day celebration!

Think that’s weird? Check out Star Trek’s version of New Berlin!

Photos by Zoë Noble Photography

Bet you didn’t know The Cure were once signed to Berlin’s Hansa Records. For like, a second…

On the pointed club crossover 12-inch in question (Boys Don’t Cry), Smith balanced out its somewhat grotesque ambition by lampooning their early days: Included on the flipside were the slinking, original 1979 track “Plastic Passion”, the faltering pop/punk stab “Pillbox Tales”, and an in-studio disco joke, “Do the Hansa”. Recorded under the name Easy Cure in 1978, the last two tunes were leftovers from the group’s first big break, a contract with Germany’s then-largest independent label, Hansa, whose interest in the band proved superficial. After being pressured to record covers of Paul Revere & The Raiders’ “Great Airplane Strike” and the Bobby Fuller Four’s “I Fought the Law” (which, by that time, The Clash were already well known for), Easy Cure took their £1000, their tapes and their pride home with them, then recorded “Do the Hansa”, an embittered shot at the suits.

– Pitchfork

There are plenty of great places to get American food in Berlin – California Breakfast Slam and Dirty South are just two of them. But nowhere looks as authentically “American diner” as Nalu Diner on Prenzlauer Berg’s hip Dunckerstraße. You can just imagine Agent Cooper sitting at Nalu’s counter and enjoying a slice of pie and a “damn fine cup of coffee”. Sat in our booth, as soon as our generous meals were set down on the table covered in “Presidents of the United States” fact sheets, we knew we’d love the place. Nalu had me at their bursting-at-the-seams Reuben sandwich; by the third free coffee refill, I had promised them my first-born. All this place needs is a lady with a log, and it will be perfect!