March 2024

A rocking chair next to a vinyl player in a cosy and colorful hotel lobby

This past month has marked the end of a four-month break from work that was an overwhelmingly positive and transformative experience. It gave me the time and the peace of mind to follow up on many ideas, promises and chores that accumulated over the years.

Now that the sabbatical is over, it became harder to keep up with life with the same consistency. Being late with this episode of the lookback is a prime example. I was afraid this will throw off and demotivate me but it wasn’t the case. March was about adjusting back into my work routine and learning to appreciate what can be done with less time.

In the week before coming back to work, I managed to play my first DJ sets at Eddy Breaks and Roderich. These were the so-called “open decks” nights where you sign up on the spot to play anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour. I was terrified to play in front of strangers, but after participating in a couple of these my fear dissipated, allowing me to relax and enjoy the process. I'll be dropping some of the mixes on DJing page.

DJ Shadow came to Berlin around the same time, and later in the month also 96 back. The former concert took place in a lofty Festsaal Kreuzberg full of middle-age hip-hoppers, and the latter in an actual boiler room of a building that is about to be demolished and was taken over by an artist collective for another year or so. They’re playing in different leagues and genres but it was mesmerizing to watch both perform.

96 back is on top of a table in a room lit with fluorescent blue and red colors. He holds a cigarette in his left hand reaches to the laptop that runs the audio for the performance. The fog machine is working hard, and so do the lasers that can be seen on the walls.

Seeing others squeezing their own music into the mixes, I felt inspired to start producing music again and signed up for an Ableton course. I put out a few tracks before but they all sounded out of place. I wasn’t proud of the result, and wasn't sure how to fix this. After listening to tons of records when preparing the sets, certain things became a lot clearer, i.e. the importance of a predictable song structure and proper mixing, now all I lack is a routine and practice to try out different ideas without external guidance.

Also, super proud of the Ninja Turtles UKG edit that Alex has been working on in March and my little contribution to it. I couldn't stop giggling when he played it to me and doodled a turtle like in the old times, which he ended up using as the song cover art 🐢

My friend Andrey has organized a session of Mork Börg, “a doom metal album of a game” that I anticipated since trying CY_BORG. It was an immense fun with betrayal, revenge and fleshthursty goblins, and I was the only one from my party who survived (sorry not sorry, Gustav).

I was surprised to find out how underdeveloped my fantasy vocabulary was: I was sure that “waterskin” is a piece of clothing, and had no idea what some of the other words in my character description meant. To be expected when you grow up playing dubbed games and reading translated books.

A table at c-base with some artifacts of a TTRPG scattered on top of it: some dice, character sheets and empty bottles of fizzy drinks

On March 17th we’ve spent more than 8 hours waiting in the line to the Embassy of Russia to participate in a farce of an election. After the sun went down it became obvious that we won’t make it, but we stayed till the end, shaking from the cold and anger, and they closed the doors even before the line turned the last corner.

Following up on promises to myself and anticipating the changes to the German citizenship law, I started learning German again. My longest learning streak brought me to B1-B2 level but I only felt comfortable speaking it with my teacher at the time.

Since then, I was busy telling Yasna that I’m no good at doing homework, and no tutor would be able to change it. Ironically, it took just one lesson with her tutor to prove me wrong, and now I’m having some steady progress every week. Here’s to Yasna’s “I told you so!”.

Fahrradmarkt Moabit on a cloudy day, plenty of people and bicycles

To motivate myself ride a bicycle on a daily basis, I was on a lookout for a comfy, sustainable used bike that won’t be a target for thieves. I've been to a few used markets but the prices there come close to a brand new one, and whatever I buy there wasn't going to make me want to ride more often. The trade-off was to buy the basic Triban from Decathlon and keep it in the cellar.

Along the way I learned that Berliner Fahrradmarkt runs three times a month and you have to come really early to get a nice deal. Bikepark Berlin has some nice bikes, but the prices are outrageous and you need good German to explain what you look for.

Tyoma has decided to stay away from messengers for a while, and we switched our communication to emails. It’s been a while since I exchanged letters with friends, and there’s magic in this format. Kinder, deeper discussions can be had this way. Feel free to drop me an email at hello@grains.cc.

I’ve enjoyed watching Holdovers, a boarding school movie similar in spirit to Good Will Hunting, Dead Poet Society and The Rushmore Academy, kind and lighthearted. It looks and feels like a movie from a VHS era, and I mean it as a good thing. Dune 2, on the other hand, felt terribly outdated in its message, despite being technically impressive and breathtaking.

Feeling nostalgic about Serbia, we rewatched Ko to tamo peva, and I couldn’t get the main song out of my head for weeks. After a few friends came back from a trip to Japan, I bit the bullet and continued watching Rebuild of Evangelion, which is as confusing as the original series, but at least it is shorter.

I haven’t yet decided whether I should ever go in details about work matters on grains – probably not – but thanks to the long time off, I now have a lot more clarity and enjoyment in what I do.

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