Berlin Revisited (Literally)

© Joselito Briones

As last time I was here, it's dark. Only now it's cold and raining too. Argggghhh!!!


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Hearst HQ

© Joselito Briones

I was browsing through magazines and saw a full-page photo of this building, so I thought I'd show you my version of it, taken early this year.

The building is the Hearst Corporation Headquarters, in 8th Avenue and West 57th Street in Manhattan, designed by Sir Norman Foster.


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Delineated Sunset

© Joselito Briones

This train station is somewhere in Germany, of course. I wasn't paying attention when I took this digital snap, and I was probably half asleep, so I didn't see where exactly.

The only thing I find interesting in this photo is the geometirc sunset, which is the reflection of the overhead lighting inside the train on the window, through which this is the view.


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The Siemens Sun Also Rises

© Joselito Briones

It's always nice that the Schlaffgutzimmer is filled with sunlight every morning, it's one of the things I like most about this apartment. Sometimes though, it gets confusing when, after leaving the sunlight-filled bedroom (photo, above), in the east side of the apartment, I see that the sun is shining just as brightly in the kitchen and dining area, west of the apartment (photo, middle).

© Joselito Briones

I've got Siemens to thank for it, of course, as the westerly sunlight in the morning is a reflection in their tallest building (photo, bottom).

© Joselito Briones

In the afternoon, it hailed. I was planning to go to Frankenlabor, I decided to just stay in. Goodbye golden October. Hello cold!


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How stupid of me

© Joselito Briones

...I just wade the tides that turned
Till I learn to leave the past behind...

...Press my face up to the window
To see how warm it is inside
See the things that I've been missing
Missing all this time...

-Beck Hansen, "Guess I'm Doing Fine"
(from "Sea Change")


How could I have mistaken this song for something from an eternal optimist? I guess it's not hard, if you just listen to it while doing something else, it's easy to see "It's only lies that I'm living, it's only you that I'm losing" as someone saying there's a lot worse that could happen, he could brave anything. I've been listening to this song for years without really knowing what it meant. Today I got tired of listening to my German Language audio lessons from my iPod and decided to switch to music, the song came up, I guess I was still in "pay attention" mode and heard differently from the other times I listened to it. It's sooooo depressing! How could someone who wrote such songs as "Sexx Laws", "Loser", and "Where It's At" write such a downer!

Hmmm... now that I think about it... maybe I just haven't been really listening to those other songs. I don't really want to find out later that they're just as tragic, so I'll just keep on listening to them while multitasking. Meanwhile I'll just keep on picking this one song apart, after all, who doesn't like lingering on miserable songs?


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P.S.

Googling Beck, I found out that he released a new album last month, "The Information"... and it's supposed to be as dark and moody as "Sea Change"... can't wait to get my hands on it!

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Golden Pond

© Joselito Briones

I always passed by this puddle in the middle of an empty construction site, on the way to Frankenlabor, here in Erlangen. There's something about it that made me keep looking at it, and I didn't know why, so I thought, I'll just take a digital snap of it and see what's in it. I picked the image apart and saw that there's actually plenty of color hiding behind the murky grayness of it, so I thought I'll just process it, turn it into something that resembles more a pond, sort of an hommage to Monet (pictured left is the result). I thought his paintings of ponds and water lilies were awesome, first time I saw them in Rouen, when I went there to study basic French many many many moons ago. I visited the actual garden that he painted, his own, in Giverny, just to see what inspired him to paint such wonderful pictures.


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No more classes, No more books, No more teachers' dirty looks

© Joselito Briones

Well, one more day. On the 7th of next month. But next week is Bavaria's fall break for schools, and this includes us. So, yay! The next level starts on the 10th. Not much time in between. Aline, our Lehrerin, said though that unless there are more than 10 students in class, there might not be a class for the next level. Petra, our other Lehrerin, is leaving after this level, to teach high school. Me and my classmates (picture, left), the beautiful women of Wysteriastraße, planned a farewell potluck for her, on the 7th.


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Old Manhattan pictures

© Joselito Briones

When I saw "The Devil..." last night, I realized how much I miss living in New York. There was a scene in the beginning when the main character bought something from a bakery and started eating it, while walking, and in the subway, on the way to work. I just blurted "That's me!" in the cinema... I used to buy "everything bagel" with cream cheese extra and coffee from a shop in 48th and Broadway, close to where I used to live, and have my breakfast while walking south along Broadway, past Times Square. I was usually done by the time I reach 40th. I worked in 37th. The story in the movie pretty much took place within this stretch of blocks.

© Joselito Briones

Anyway, I dug up some old pictures and posted them, both in my photography site and in flickr, here they are. The one on top was taken in Midtown, close to the Carnegie Deli (remember that one?) and the other one, in the bottom, was taken in Central Park, looking south.


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And The Devil's Assistant Wears Jimmy Choo

Promotional poster for "The Devil Wears Prada"

I know, this one's quite old. So... 2 seconds ago! But where I am it's fresh, so bear with me.

Style-wise, it wasn't there yet. It's more Hollywood's idea of stylish and fashionable. It's got all the glamour but very little of style. I'd bet that the gods of the fashion world must've thought it unworthy of even raising an eyebrow for. But let's face it, Nobody makes movies for these visionnaires. Movies are made for the masses, and this ordinary folk here liked the movie.

Meryl Streep is Meryl Streep. Is she capable of doing anything wrong? She was great as the Anna Wintour stand-in Miranda Priestley, head of Vogue stand-in "Runway Magazine". One could only wish she was given a more memorable "visual design". She was beautifully styled, of course, but it was just that. No "Waaaaahhhhh!!!!" factor in her appearance. Any actress other than Meryl Streep would have faded in the background in the movie. Emily Blunt, the actress playing Emily, Miranda's second, was also great. She was very much believable in her role as the fashion/style victim/champion, mostly because she acted really well, and partly because she wasn't beautiful enough to be anywhere close to being in Giselle Bundchen's league, who happened to have a cameo in the movie, as Emily's chum. Adrian Grenier, the token grounded character in the movie, was easy on the eyes, but I had the feeling any actor other than him wouldn't have faded in the background of the movie.

And then there's Anne Hathaway as Andrea, the transformed character. I'm sure if this was made 5 years ago, before Babs conceded to doing a maternal role due to lack of ugly-duckling-turned-big-white-swan role, her forte', Ms. Streisand would've fought to play this character. But, no worries, Ms. Hathaway did a perfect turn in the Babs role. She was most convincing in the metamorphosis that, in the end, when even she was made stunningly beautiful by the movie's make up artist and Patricia Field's choices of clothes, one would really believe in the power of fashion. Now, had they casted Babs in the role and got away with it, THAT would've been real magic.

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Right smack in the middle of nowhere

© Joselito Briones

In the absence of anything even remotely similar to New York's Century21, the closest thing that comes close here in Erlangen is the Adidas and Puma factory outlets. It turns out these two brands were actually founded somewhere close by, and still have their main headquarters here. It's about a 15 minute drive from the apartment, in Herzogenaurach, in a very modern-looking building in the middle of farm fields. Like an alien spaceship found this deserted spot and decided to land here, to sell sports outfits for cheap. We ended up not buying anything. Not because it was so cheap. Because we spotted an announcement saying they'll have special limited sales, starting Monday. We'll be back.

Before we left, the someone from Ben's Balikbayan Services picked up my box... let's see how long it takes to reach Carmona.


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Jane

© Joselito Briones

I dug out this photo of JL's when I was looking for my nephews' photo. This was taken 1999, her debutante's party. Now she's got Sey and Yuri.

I went to Nuremberg to exchange the chordless German keyboard for a, ehrm, chorded one. Also got a mighty mouse. Also chorded. On the way back to Erlangen I went shopping for the kids in the Philippines, as Christmas presents. Mostly t-shirts. And a very cute red skirt for Sey. And a tiny shirt for Yuri. And a hat for Mark. Not sure what their sizes are now, so I just bought different t-shirt sizes. I hope they fit. And most importantly, I hope this Balikbayan box that I'm sending makes it there on time for Christmas.


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Roll Call

© Joselito Briones

I found out today that most of my 12 nephews and 5 nieces are now online, so I've put a link to their homepages... I looked at their profiles and my jaws just dropped. I haven't seen them for sometime, and the last time I saw them, they all pretty much spend all their time playing video games. Now in their profile - "status: taken". "10 Golden Rules in Drinking" Huh? I guess no matter how old they are, they'll always be these small kids in this picture to me. The boys: Don Don, Kevin K., Mac(second from right), Gio, Kevin B.(second from left), Louie, Neil, Chris, Gil, JC (right), Cez, Omar(left). The girls: JL (the eldest, married, with two babies of her own, Yuri and Sey), Joie, Jaja, Janelle, and Krisi.

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More of Erlangen

© Joselito Briones

If only the weather can be like this always...

I went to the post office right after German class, to pick up a package that was supposed to have been delivered last Saturday by DHL. We were having breakfast when the delivery guy came. We heard the buzzer, and, in less than a minute, the time it took to get to the intercom system in the reception area from the kitchen where we were having breakfast, he was gone. He must be in quota system, or just very very eager to go home. When we picked up the intercom from the reception and heard nothing from the other end, we even went out to the balcony and yelled a loud "hello?!?". No answer. The time it took for him to ring the bell, write the note that he left on the mailbox notifying us to pick up the package from the post office, and be beyond the distance where he could hear our "hello" could not have been any longer than the time it took for us to get from the kitchen, pick up the intercom, and yell out from the balcony.

© Joselito Briones

From the post office I passed by the city center and got myself a Leberkase sandwich. That's meatloaf sandwich in plain kitchen speak.

I then went to Frankenlabor, after dropping my bag in the apartment, to pick up some films, and on my way there took the pictures shown here. The first is a Siemens building, next block to the apartment (city blocks here tend to be big). On clear days like these, the stark contrast between the silvery metal of its enclosure, with its yellow awnings, against the clear cloudless sky is very striking.

The bottom picture is of a residential development. I always pass by here in between Frankenlabor and Handelshof. Next to it are huge areas of land that are currently under developement. In the next few years the whole area will become one huge suburban heaven.



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Too bad he didn't get there first

© Joselito Briones

Heard of the latest James Blunt clone? He's not as extreme, and will not make you cringe when he does the high notes. He's actually good, Paolo Nutini. Depending on what he sings, his voice sometimes veers towards a sound-alike of Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, and often Ray Charles-ey. It's also obvious he can pretty much imitate Blunt's voice if he try. It's a good thing that he doesn't. His music can be sampled by downloading this week's free iTunes song "New Shoes" or from his own website "Loving You (Live)".


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P.S.
I've always thought of Blunt as the aural answer to hyperrealism (a visual style)... it's like now that there's so much out there, and the average attention span of an adult is shorter than a blink of an eye, it makes sense that one needed to be exaggeratedly emotional (or exaggerated anything) to be noticed.

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She should be glad...

© Joselito Briones

I dropped by Handelshof this afternoon on my way back to the apartment from Frankenlabor. When I was emptying my bag on to the merchandise belt by the cashier, I noticed that the bag was wet, and the contents of the oven cleaner that I wanted to buy was all over it. With the politest German that I know, I asked the cashier if she had some paper towels so I can salvage the other items I had in the bag. What did she do? She sneered at me and told me to twist the bottle cap tight. That freakin' beeatch! Like it's my duty to check that all their merchandise is properly closed. If I were fluent in German I'd have told her what a piece of contemptuous shitty twat she truly is.

Anyway... food update again: Pictured, left, was last night's dinner: farfalle in onion and cream sauce, with grilled shrimps (marinated in ginger, lemon rind, and coriander), plus butter and garlic baguette. I know, the sauce looks a bit icky.


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Here's something slightly amusing.

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Cutting the Flo

© Joselito Briones

It's gotten officially too cold this morning, I decided to bring in Flo, Godfrey, and Ronnie indoors. I had to trim most of them though, the summer heat left quite a lot of dead branches. I should've waited, by late morning it got very hot again, but I was too lazy to bring them out again.

The photo above is from a roll I thought I've lost, from Toulon, south of France, late last year. When I was going through the box of unexposed film rolls to take to Prague, this one was inside a film box, but with indication that it's been exposed, I had no idea what was in the roll. I took it to Frankenlabor with the Prague films, and surprise, surprise... this one came out.


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An interesting BBC newsfeature for today: Cutting the flow.


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Egg Wrap

© Joselito Briones

Here's another foodie. I'll probably be putting up a lot of architectural photos later, so I'll show you this one now. It's for tonight's dinner. What is it? If you want something very descriptive, I'd call it an eggwrap with chargrilled aubergine and minced meat filling, sauteed water spinatch on the side. Purrrrty fancy, eh?

If you understand the Filipino language though, you can see plainly that this is "tortang inihaw na talong na may giniling, at may kaulam na ginisang kangkong".


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Food update

© Joselito Briones

My apologies for not having written anything about food to you lately, I remember you said you liked that I was always telling you about food that I make. So here's the update.

Let's see... tonight I made Tom Kha soup with shrimps, the best I've done so far of this variety. I didn't want to eat anything else, so I had to make it more substantial, and I didn't want to put noodles in it either, so I put tofu. The soft and somewhat sweet kind. It went really well with the coconut milk and the rest of the ingredients: ginger, galangal (lots of it), lemongrass, coriander, garlic, lime, kaffir lime leaves, fresh chillies, and shrimps. Oh yeah, and fish sauce (yep, the smelly stuff).

© Joselito Briones

The night before, having discovered fresh mussels in the usually non-existent fish corner in Handelshof, I made steamed mussels in green thai curry sauce (pictured, above). I wasn't planning to do this dish, tonight's food was supposed to be steak and corn-on-the-cob, and some rocket salad (pictured, left) with pears, walnuts, and parmesan, but when I saw the mussels, I just had to do it. I made the steak and salad anyway.

Three nights ago (before Colonel Sander's excellent catering service in Prague) I roasted a leg of lamb (with rosemary, thyme, and anchovies, always a treat) and made potato gratin, to celebrate the completion of the paper lamps in the dining room. I remember making also some egg pancakes for breakfast, with caramelized apple and roasted walnuts, but anything beyond that, I can't remember anymore. I'll try to remember to take photos of them before even touching the plates, next time.


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Herbst

© Joselito Briones

I went to Frankenlabor again today (I'm becoming some kind of a daily fixture there) to bring the film rolls from Prague. I like this lab, I think they've got really good and professional service, and Andreas, the guy I always deal with there, is very friendly. I only had a couple of rolls for processing, it was way too dark and gray in Prague the whole day that we were there, I only took pictures mostly of Fred and Ginger.

As if the color shift on the leaves everywhere isn't enough to show everyone that autumn is here, the clouds thought they'd reinforce the season by going crazy (pictured, left). It's nice and cool again, but I'm apprehensive about the coming cold season. This will be my first winter in Bavaria, I'm just hoping it's not gonna get any worse than New York. Eric told me that there's a mild winter forecast in your side of the pond this year.

© Joselito Briones
Btw, about the lamps that we installed (pictured, left), It was a nice surprise to see that even during daytime, when the lights are off and there's brightness coming from outside, the lamps still look nice and very light and not chunky at all. Am very pleased with the result.


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Chaos Deity

© Joselito Briones

An old friend from high school in Biñan, Laguna, who goes by "Deity" in the blogworld, linked this photo in an entry in her and her man's joint blog, "Chaos Meets Deity."


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Meet T-Bo and Yumi

© Joselito Briones

My feet were in so much pain from so much walking that I didn't really want to get up so early today, only I really had to go to my German class because I've been absent the past couple of days. Right after lunch I went back to Frankenlabor to pick up T-Bo and Yumi's pictures, including this one (left).

Frau Mueller came in again today to help us with cleaning the apartment (okay, fine, she did all the work). And surprise! She brought us some spring rolls (lumpiang shanghai) ready to fry! Eheheheh, nice. She prefers to be called Cathy Rose. Which reminds me. It was Cathe's birthday yesterday... wonder how she's doing.


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Images from the upper deck of a tourist bus

© Joselito Briones

The stupid sun decided to come out today, now that I'm going back to Erlangen. Oh well...

© Joselito Briones

I slept the first couple of hours in the bus, and the rest of the time I decided to pass by taking pictures from the bus window. The best images from where I sat though, were the ones I thought best left undisturbed, even by my lens - the child-like joy in the faces of the much older passengers, when they alight from the bus to see friends and family waiting for them, and their careless hugs and kisses.

© Joselito Briones

© Joselito Briones


© Joselito Briones


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Gray Day in Berlin

© Joselito Briones

Nothing's quite right today. I woke up with a headache. It started before I went to bed last night, there was no place I could go to to buy some paracetamol. Or maybe I just didn't know where, but sure enough I asked several places. I went out after shower, hungry for breakfast, determined to go to the first place I see that serves anything digestible. The sky's gray. My only full day here in Berlin and the sun decided to play hide and seek. Bleh.

© Joselito Briones

First thing I saw was KaDeWe. Sure, those Dior clothes look yummy, but not in a nourishing way, the opposite actually, it made me want to not eat ever again so I'll fit in them. I'm sure though that if the store was already open I'd have gotten in and procastinated on getting headache relief. Thankfully, the KaDeWe apotheke around the corner was already open, so I got myself some painkillers.

© Joselito Briones

I wasn't so lucky food-wise. The first place I saw was McDonald's. I had mcMuffins. It did the job. It didn't stop me though from stopping at several wurst vending places while walking and talking pictures all day.

© Joselito Briones

These are all taken with a digital camera, the one I got as a present on my birthday. As you can see, in all the pictures, the sky is consistently gray.

© Joselito Briones

First two pictures, left and above, are of the same building, in the Museum island, something something dome, my map said. The first one was taken while I was walking along the river bank, just before it rained. I let the rain pass while having espresso in a sand bank (made to look like a beach) cafe, then continued on to the island itself, the next picture.

© Joselito Briones

I went around the island, until I got to where I started, the east tip of it, and took this picture (left), which I'm sure so many others have taken before, a visual gag trying to make the TV tower look like it's on top of the dome of another museum. I think this is going to be the theme for today: taking cliche' pictures. Only doing worse version... one with gray sky on every picture. Hmmm... come to think of it, this had always been the theme of all my pictures. Oh well...

© Joselito Briones

The digital camera actually adjusts the brightness, so that instead of dark gray which I see in reality, the images have a very bright gray sky.

© Joselito Briones

It's all museums basically, this area, so I decided to go somewhere else, and headed towards the Reichtag (left). Last time I was here in Berlin was 1999, and the only two places I remember from then is Liebskind's Jewish Museum and this, the Reichtag. The rest are all a jumble of cranes. This city was full of promise. And if anyone's to gauge its fulfillment, now's the best time.

© Joselito Briones

The next few pictures were taken in the same area. Except for the last one and the one before that, taken in Mitte, and the third one from the last picture, taken in Galleries Lafayette (designed by Jean Nouvel), close to Unter den Linden, where I bought a couple of socks.


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2006.12.01
As you may well know by now, i've reformatted my blog, and some pictures are too big (and I now deem unnecessary) to put here, so if the text refers to a picture that isn't shown here, that's because I've taken it off.


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What kinda hellish comedy is that?

Publicity photo for "The Breakup"

Sunday night Roxy night again last night.

So yeah, so I got to see "The Break-Up", you know, the one withJennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn. Jen looked gorgeous. She should give the movie's lighting guy a bonus.

Anyway, the movie's really funny, I liked it a lot, until of course, when, close to the end, it got too close to home. I mean, come on! They might as well have recorded our conversations in the apartment and used them verbatim. So not funny. Damn fools.


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A family portrait

On top of my down-time literature is the Vanity Fair issue featuring the long awaited photo of Suri. It's been long rumored that Annie Leibovitz took photographs of her for this magazine, but for a while it seemed like it was just that, a rumor. I was actually surprised to see it upon tearing up the paper envelope containing this subscription issue. Thoughts, in order, were: "Oh. Suri". "I wonder how much it went for." and "So what happens to whereissuri.com now?" "Wow, Katie looks amazing in this photo". "Ms. Leibovitz did a great job." "Tom still looks creepy."


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Eye Candy

© Joselito Briones

Someone notified me that he featured one of my older photographs as the first of a series of "eye candy" in his website. I always appreciate it if someone (especially strangers) shows some appreciation to things I do, so I thought I'd cross link his site here.

The photo was taken in the spring of 2003, when I lived in New York, with a Rolleiflex, Tmax100, and Mark Citret's +3 developing technique.


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Floren's flowers

© Joselito Briones

I guess he's happy.


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