überlin

“I grew up with two dogs at home, and wanted one as soon as I moved out but was afraid of the commitment. I was always obsessed with them though, to the point where my boyfriend used to text me photos of cute dogs he would see in the street waiting for their owners or hanging out at cafes.

“We live across the road from a big park, and one day we were standing outside the Hundlaufen, looking like creepy stalkers while watching the dogs play. At that point my boyfriend said something like ‘What are you actually waiting for? Just go for it!’”

“I knew I would always want a dog and that there would always be plenty of reasons why I could tell myself to wait. Sometimes you just have to take a decision and make your life work around that choice.

“I started looking for a rescue dog right away and found Pauli through an amazing organisation that rescues dogs from the streets in Spain, called Tierhilfe Anubis. My partner and I took the train to Dresden to meet him with his foster mum and when he curled up in my lap, I couldn’t imagine not taking him home. Now I can’t imagine our lives without him!”

Since Ballet School dropped this a couple of weeks back, it hasn’t left our virtual turntable: their cover of Madonna’s “Justify My Love” and Beyoncé’s “Partition”. Something of a statement of intent ahead of the band’s US tour, their dream pop mashup of Ms Ciccone’s critically-panned creative peak and undeniable, world-domination Bey comes with good reason. Here’s singer Rosie Blair:

When “Justify My Love” came out, it made perfect sense because it is the sound of the world’s most powerful woman reaching her early thirties sexual peak. Like, it figures. For about five years after this Madonna released nothing but explicitly sexual music and was totally punished for it. She rarely refers to it now but it was the lowest period of her career, critically speaking. Every time she did an interview one of the questions would invariably be “Do you think your career is over?” I mean, how rude. Beyonce’s “Partition” is the same vibe, a woman in her early thirties reaching maximum velocity with her sexuality except this time, Beyonce was critically acclaimed for her work. The juxtaposition between the two songs is one that is just as important for me culturally as it is musically. It makes me think that it’s worth putting your ideas and perspectives out there as a female even if you get a kicking, ’cause there’s always a bigger picture. This is the definition of “influence.”

The ins and outs of dating in Berlin.

I recently stumbled upon a beautiful essay about postwar New York, and one quote in particular caught my attention:

“Many of its settlers are probably here merely to escape, not face, really. But whatever that means, it is a rather rare gift, and I believe it has a positive effect on the creative capacities of New Yorkers – for creation is in part merely the business of forgoing the great and small distractions.”
Here Is New York, E.B. White, 1949

I immediately thought of Berlin today – of everything it’s given me, of the way the city has changed me and how it manages to make me feel more complete every single day. That’s when it hit me: I am in love, and I have been ever since I moved here. Not with a person – because if there’s one thing I have failed at, it’s meeting someone whom I could love in their entirety – but with the city itself.

I have fallen in love more times than I can remember. I fell in love with the way this guy’s curly hair would stroke my forehead when we kissed. With that old woman, her face covered in chocolate, who insisted on offering me candy after I gave her a cigarette. Her blissful smile, her stirring insanity.

I fell for this other man’s mind, and pined after our compelling discussions about privilege and feminism. I couldn’t hide my smile as I received yet another dinner invitation from a boy who was probably just fooling himself into thinking that he really liked me.

All these brief moments have been more than enough to fill my heart with joy. These, and the realisation that I am changing, every single day. I am constantly creating new experiences and doing things I never ever imagined I would, all because of the beautiful, fascinating people who call Berlin their home.

Not just the fabulous DJs, the ice-cold bouncers, the startup founders who firmly believe they are going to change the world and their fellow creative minds, but also the rude bus drivers, the surly Späti owners, my building’s concierge…

After all these months, I finally understand why Berlin is always described as the Stadt der Singles. If you run down the list of the advantages that a relationship provides, you’ll quickly find out that Berlin – yes, a city – is able to provide you with all of them.

The city’s cultural life knows no limits, so there’s always something interesting to do. Rent is still relatively cheap, so you don’t need to find someone to share a bed with to be able to afford a nice flat. It’s entirely possible to rely on your friends for emotional closeness and support, and regular sex is, well, quite easy to get.

Berlin allows you to focus on yourself and to grow as a person. It makes you more independent, more aware of the world that surrounds you, more in touch with the alternative ways to live your life. Having a nine-to-five job, a stable monogamous relationship, going out on Saturday evenings only and spending your weeknights in front of the television, just isn’t the norm here.

The norm, however, is to be hungry for life.

To be curious, political, involved and determined to find out all about what this world has to offer.

And this, to me, is love.

Berlin is the adopted home of an almost unbelievable number of formidable female performers and producers. Just a week after XOSAR’s none-more-black metal mix, we discovered some equally dark, but more pointedly danceable music from Sophie Ruston AKA Ghettozoid. She seems to have been laying low for a year or so, so we’re dusting off some classics that remind us of peak-time Miss Kitten being sternly told off by Anne Clark. If you’ve got the good sense to like your synth music shrouded in smoke, and your bass be-bootied, then get more Ghettozoid right here.