Berlin: Taqueria El Oso

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Pam worked hard to find the best dining options in Berlin. Located in the Markthalle Pfefferberg on Schönhauser Allee 176C, Berlin, Germany, Taqueria El Oso was Pam’s choice for dinner one night. The Markhalle Pferrerberg is a collection of pop up restaurants in a communal hall. The place was packed.

I opted for a simple hot dog with lots of toppings. There was no line for that, so I had my hot dog in hand before Pam decided what she wanted. She stood in this long line to order some tacos. I decided this might offer enough time to get a sketch done, so I let my hot dog sit and I started sketching. An English speaking couple crowded in next to me at the counter top I was sketching from, but they were desperate to get a better table. The couple had found a table before Pam got back.

Pam tried my hot dog and I tried her taco. The taco was a bit greasy for my taste but reviews said it is the best taco joint in Berlin. Some English speaking lady tapped me on my shoulder and said to me “That is amazing.” I thanked her but in my mind there are plenty of faults in the sketch. Did no one in this market speak German?

After we ate, we waited outside for a train back to the hostel. Across the street was a bus stop. A burly looking man stood there. Another smaller man entered the bus stop holding a bag of flowers. He must have gotten too close to the burly guy who started shouting in German, “I am standing here!”  The burly guy kept shouting. The smaller guy backed away. I thought a fist fight might break out, but the German expletives just kept flying. Lesson learned, never get too close to a German in a bus stop.

Berlin Short Film Festival: Babylon Theater

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Pam and I walked up to the Babylon Theater lobby on the evening COVID Dystopia was to be screened at about 6Pm in the Berlin Short Film Festival. There were lines of people crushing into the theater. The Babylon is a gorgeous movie theater build back in 1929. It can seat close to 500 people. The organizers had informed us by e-mail that they would supply 2 complimentary tickets to the screening. We were told to meet them in the lobby to pick them up. Rowan and Claudine were at the reception desk. We had purchased tickets for the previous evening’s film block, so they welcomed us with a shout of “Hello Florida.”

Films in the Berlin Film Festival are not screened in the large historic theater but in a much smaller theater in the back called Kino 2 that seats just about 80 people. For some reason, Pam decided to walk around to the back theater entrance and I was to pick up the tickets. Claudine gave me a single ticket and said, “We sold out the seats, unfortunately we can only give your one ticket.” I took the single ticket and went out back to look for Pam. My thought was I would give her the ticket and I would wander off to sketch somewhere. I couldn’t find Pam. She wasn’t at the small Kino 2 entrance.

Another film maker and Pam eventually came to the back entrance with Claudine. They had been arguing in the lobby. Michele Meek, the director of a cure LGBT Short Film titled Bay Creek Tennis Camp, had also flown all the was from America to see her film on the back room screen. She was furious, but in some was pleased that the theater was a full house. The film festival organizers had made a horrendous mistake in offering tickets to film makers and then reneging on that promise. Several Berlin film makers were also being denied entrance to it became an international incident.

Claudine said she would get the 5 or so filmmakers who had been denied tickets in. When we got in the entire front row was empty, so I got to see my film distorted from below and VERY large. I noticed a few things from that close that I hope to correct in the weeks ahead. I don’t judge people based on the mistakes they make, but by how they correct their mistakes. Claudine pulled through. Surprisingly there were still empty seats in the theater.

COVID Dystopia: Wins Best Micro Short Film Award

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COVID Dystopia was shown at the Berlin Short Film Festival. It won an award as the Best Micro Short Film. Pam and I traveled to Berlin and spent a week exploring the city.

The Berlin Short Film Festival wasn’t the experience I had hoped for. The films were to be shown in the historic Babylon Theater which was build in 1928 which seats about 500 people. It is a gorgeous theater with a huge balcony and large screen. However the festival films were screened in a much smaller room, Kino 2, at the back of the building. Although technically in the same building as the historic Babylon Theater, it was a much smaller space that seated about 80 people. Next to the Berlin Festival screening room was the rehearsal space for an orchestra. They could be heard tuning up through the walls as the Berlin Film Festival films were projected. I am glad my film is rather loud which meant it could drown out the rehearsal.

In the Babylon Theater itself. the classic silent film Metropolis was being shown with a live orchestra. I honestly wish we had gone to that showing instead, which reflected back to the classic early Hollywood era.

Each film maker in the Berlin Short Film Festival was promised tickets for two of the crew members to attend the festival screenings. In Chicago Pam and I sat in on every short film to show our support for fellow film makers. Perhaps we were spoiled by the experience.

COVID Dystopia was to screen on Sunday in Berlin, but the festival started on Saturday. We made our way to the Babylon to meet the Festival organizers in the lobby. I simply introduced myself as the creator of COVID Dystopia. They seemed confused. Since COVID Dystopia was not on the line up for the first night they said, “We changed our mind, you must pay to see the films.”

I would have turned on my heals and left, but Pam stepped in and politely decided to pay. Every film we saw that first night was about death and murder. It was a depressing endless stream of existential dread. I can see how my film fits into the festival’s curated line up. Berliners like dark shit.

Of course Pam and I were the only people wearing N95 masks in the audience.

COVID Dystopia: Burials

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It has been an incredibly long day exploring Berlin. Emperors get incredibly ornate sarcophagi in cathedrals while people considered gypsies in WWII were sent to concentration camps and murdered. The site of one of the camps was converted into a pig farm and it took decades to convince the government that this was a desecration.

How we honor the dead says a lot about society. Nothing has been done to honor the millions of dead due to the ongoing COVID Pandemic. People need to pretend that it never happened and that it is not still happening. To honor the dead would be to admit to a horrific injustice and acceptance of mass infection that was and is completely preventable.

COVID Dystopia: Death Chorus

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This shot of the Death Chorus is based on the incident at the start of the pandemic when a church chorus held a rehearsal. They thought they were doing the right things by not hugging and avoiding hand shakes. They didn’t however wear n-95 masks. At the time people were being discouraged from buying masks because health care workers needed them more and there was some worry that supplies might run out.

The two guys in hazmat suits are animated walking forward for a step. They were reworked to keep them high resolution.

I don’t think any other animation is needed. I could open the skeletal jaws to make it look like they are singing but the shot is so short I don’t think such subtle animation would be noticed. Scenes like this don’t seem to fly in America, but Germans seem to love macabre scenes like this.

COVID Dystopia: Assembly Line

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In the Assembly line shot, one robotic arm thrusts forward toward an ICU patient on a ventilator. A nurse in a hazmat suit also reaches forward and places her hand on the patient’s forehead. I had sketched this gesture from a friend taking care of her bed ridden mother.

I am satisfied with the animation in the scene. I might consider using ZOE Depth as opposed to Volumax Depth for this shot. That is the only possible improvement I could make. With travel to NYC and the Berlin Short Film Festival, animation is on hold for a bit.

The film was turned down by the Atlanta Film festival today. I need to get used to the idea that it isn’t the quality of the animation that is being rejected but the overall message of the film. I am releasing this film that states that the pandemic is far from over, just as events coordinators want to believe that life has returned to the former 2019 normal.The truth is that several thousand Americans continue to die every month due to COVID and millions are disabled due to Long COVID, which has no known cure. Repeat infections increase the chances of developing Long COVID. Exactly 100 years ago the exact same denial and wishful thinking played out with the Spanish Flu.

143 Washington Street NYC

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While Pam was meeting with 9/11 Museum colleges, I decided to sketch at 143 Washington Street, which was the home of the Hickey Family. My grandmother Josephine Marie Hickey grew up here. Augustus Arthur Thorspecken met her while he was stationed on Governor’s Island during WWI. He didn’t go to Europe because he caught the Spanish Flu. The Hickey store might have been on the ground floor of the 143 Washington Street address.

The brownstone is gone. 140 Washington, across the street is a huge hotel. The 9/11 Memorial is one block north. A large synagogue is between Washington Street and the 9/11 Memorial. The site where the Hickeys lived is now a utilities storage lot. The fence around it is covered with images of brownstones but they are not historically accurate representations of what used to be here.

It was bloody cold. I had to keep warming my drawing hand in my coat pocket. Shadows of the skyscrapers in the financial district downtown mean that you only have a half hour at most of sunshine. When I started sketching I was in sunlight reflected of the glass facade of a skyscraper. I was then plunged into the fridged shadows of a skyscraper. Just as I was about to give up, since I was so cold, the sun flooded out from behind a tower and warmed me up. With the sketch line work complete I was thrust info the shadows again. I decided to add color across the street where it was still sunny. Wearing a mask is actually helpful in the cold since it kept my lower face warm. Since I didn’t have my art stool, I kept dancing around as I sketched. Moving around probably also help keep me from freezing.

 

NYC COVID Cabanas

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Pam and I flew into New York City for a weekend. The first thing we did when we arrived was go to a restaurant. She isn’t as COVID cautious as I am but I insisted on outdoor seating. Thankfully the first restaurant we went to had a COVID Cabana. It was built in the street in front of the restaurant. The indoor restaurant was packed which to me seems insane, but no one was in the outdoor seating area.

The Maitre d’ was wearing a mask and seemed thankful that I entered wearing a mask. The outdoor cabana had plenty of heaters and was fully enclosed. One waitress was working on paperwork out there but she left shortly after we were seated.

COVID Cabanas popped up all over Manhattan at in the first years of the pandemic. Recently the mayor has decreed that the outdoor seating areas can stay with restrictions. They are to become seasonal after November of 2024. That means restaurant owners will have to foot the bill of tearing them down and putting them back up every year.

Some COVID Cabanas are beautifully destined and built. One is in the shape of a London Bus and another is in a classic art Deco style. I think that restaurants that invested so much in creating unique outdoor dining experiences should not have to tear them down. COVID has not disappeared. Over 8000 Americans died this last December from COVID yet that is not being reported.

If I had more time in NYC, I would want to sketch all the COVID Cabanas and write bout which restaurants still take COVID precautions. They deserve the patronage of people who remain sane.

COVID Dystopia: Blossoms

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Trump declared that when the weather got warm COVID would disappear like magic. Four years later and the virus continues to spread and mutate making it impossible to contain. This scene had a subtle movement on the arm holding the cell phone and full animation on the guys in hazmat suits wheeling a body screen right. They are rolling the body head first or backwards which makes me a bit uncomfortable but I am sure it is done all the time.

I could animate the foreground couple moving closer and locking lips or rather clicking teeth, but I think I prefer that they are already locking teeth.

I have a few hours before I start teaching class here in NYC. I think I will start animating several rhinos turning their heads. I considered sketching on the streets of NYC but I don’t have my art stool and I think my hand will freeze as I try and get a sketch done on my iPad. I may at least get a sketch done of the view from the top floor of this brownstone. I tried twice but didn’t finish either of those sketches.

COVID Dystopia: Gone by Easter?

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Back in 2020 Trump declared that COVID-19 would be gone by Easter. Now four years later, COVID continues to spread unchecked as we approach yet another celebration of rising from the dead.

I am satisfied with this scene. If I decided to add animation, I might have the skeleton parishioner raise the hymnal a bit. I could have the skeletons who are around the hymnal sing by animating their jaws, but I think that might be overkill.

Churches are back to holding COVID superspreader parties every Sunday. Masking has fallen to the wayside and instead the faithful believe in promoting mass infection. One in four people who have been infected by COVID have developed Long COVID symptoms. Long COVID can leave you bed bound and completely unable to function. Long COVID is a disease that doctors don’t understand and are unwilling to treat. Each repeat infection increases the chances of getting Long COVID and yet people are getting infected multiple times every year. The growing population of people disabled by long COVID is depleting the workforce.