grains

April 2024

April was busy in a good way. The sun was officially back from hiatus, calling for picnic blankets and silly fun with friends in a nearby park. The month was also rich on parties, and since this monthly update has turned into an electronic music column anyway, I’ll start by highlighting a few.

My dear friend DJ Omlet has played at Holzmarkt for its 25th anniversary. The line for the omelettes was never-ending, he must have made at least a hundred people happy. The vegan one was especially delicious and won a few skeptics over.

The same night we went to Gretchen to see Flowdan, The Bug and Dillinja. It was the first time I experienced a proper dub sound system in action, and the pressure was real. African Head Charge was another pleasant discovery and their performance was sort of a religious experience.

African Head Charge performing on stage at Gretchen

I played again at Roderich and EddyBreaks. The set at Roderich turned out especially nice, but I was happy about the EddyBreaks set too, as that one was improvised on the spot, and I’d like to do that more often.

Alex, Chris and myself discussed organizing our own event, and we started by throwing an open air party for Alex's birthday a couple weeks later. We’ve placed ourselves strategically at the highest point of Volkspark Hasenheide, where random people were able to hear us, locate the spot and join the party.

Dom Whiting’s third Drum and Bass On The Bike ride in Berlin has been cancelled by the police shortly after the date it was announced. Apparently, an event of this size has to pass some bureaucracy rite, which is to be expected given that we're in Germany. Luckily, he found a loophole and played an set at the Gleisdreieck park under a disguise of a demonstration for better bicycle infrastructure. It wasn’t the same, but it was still a good fun.

A picture of Yasna taking picture of a rooftop

The highlight of the month was our trip to Porto. The city reminded me of so many places, yet it was unlike any other place I've been to before. Lots of modernist architecture that manifests itself in multi-story car parks, neon lights and beautiful fonts everywhere.

For vegan francesinhas go to Kind Kitchen, and for pastel de natas check out A Padoca. Don’t miss Vegana by Tentúgal either, it offers simple, cheap and really good food.

Besides the colorful centre, the parks are the places to be, Serralves and the city park alone have made the whole trip worthwhile. The weather didn't give us much time explore the beach properly, it was windy and rained most of the days.

Because of all the humidity, I didn’t feel well for a couple days, so we exchanged the sightseeing for movies at home and playing chess at a nearby cafe. The place we rented shared a roof with a seagull clan, which was charming throughout the day, and terrifying at night, adding some ambiance to the scarier moments of Scavengers Reign.

Yasna’s mom visited us for a week and we took her to Werder and Wittenberg. Traveling to cities not far from Berlin is always fun, as there’s plenty of trains, the city centres are very walkable and packed with history. In Werder we visited the city windmill that underwent a restoration not too long ago, it is quite an engineering spectacle.

Perfect Days is a beautiful movie you should watch if you haven’t already. It tells a story of a toilet cleaner who lives a predictable, solitary life full of dignity and joy. He thinks that Spotify is a record store, shoots film and doesn’t set an alarm on his phone, and somehow this life remains in absolute harmony with the noisy, lively Tokyo of today.

Watching Fallout and Master & Margarita was entertaining but absolutely optional. The Hackers movie didn’t age well, but re-watching it every now and then is my guilty pleasure and a reminder to not be too serious about things.

We are reading Radical Focus in the book club. I can recommend it to anyone who is skeptical about the OKR framework, as it focuses on the practicalities and doesn’t do much preaching. The book reminded me of The Phoenix Project, as its first half is a fictional story about a struggling company with a few recognizable characters. If possible, try reading it with your co-workers, as it sparks important conversations.

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