Pirate Cinema has a dream

[pirate cinema berlin]

Pirate Cinema has a dream

Und zwar, dass die Mohrenstraße in Möhrenstraße umbenannt wird(1). Möhren sind 
gesund (angeblich sogar gut für die Augen), niemand hat was gegen Möhren, 
Möhren spalten nicht, sondern verbinden, Möhren haben keine antisemitische 
Vorgeschichte (im Unterschied zu anderen Kandidaten), und vor allem: 
Möhrenstraße - das wäre billig zu haben. Selbst in Berlin wäre das in zwei bis 
drei Tagen komplett realisiert. Alles andere wäre nicht nur eine sinnlose 
Verschwendung notorisch knapper Steuermittel, sondern auch eine sinnlose 
Verschwendung kreativer Energie. Denn was an 2020 leise nervt, das ist diese 
unangenehme Fixierung auf Symbole: das Umbenennen, das Denkmalstürzen, das 
Statuenkaputtmachen. Klar ist Mt. Rushmore eine Frechheit, aber: so what? Statt 
der Verhältnisse selbst immer bloss ihre Repräsentationen anzugreifen, und zwar 
umso vehementer, je aussichstloser das Verhältnisseverändern erscheint - das 
bringt nichts, ausser vermutlich kurz ein gutes Gefühl, gefolgt von anhaltender 
Frustration. (Und wer sich mal anschauen möchte, wie es in einer Gesellschaft 
zugeht, wo sich die Leute tagein tagaus gegenseitig ihre Statuen und Idole und 
Symbole zerkloppen, während der Faschismus landauf landab fröhlich und 
mörderisch Urständ feiert, sei herzlich eingeladen, und zwar nach Indien.)

Den Traum hatte Pirate Cinema schon vor ein paar Wochen (die Umbenennung der 
Mohrenstraße in Möhrenstraße fordern wir nun auch schon seit 15 Jahren); er ist 
im Folgenden in englischer Sprache wiedergegeben. We didn't manage to verfilm
it in time, but maybe that is something for Season Nine. Other than that, 
"Watch Pirate Cinema Burn..." is already live, even if not on twitch - but we 
weren't seriously planning to do that anyway... https://youtu.be/KDbWzESM_OE

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the dream, the first thing I did was wake up. I was really tired. I found 
myself surrounded by various painting utensils: brushes, spray cans, buckets 
filled with black oil paint. I had brought these to my apartment on the 
previous day (that was part of why I was so tired), with the intention to 
vandalize the housing block I live in, in a silent but visual, and hopefully 
viral, protest against the corporation that owns the housing block. Given, 
though, that I was rather tired (and it was also late at night), this appeared 
like a daunting task to me. So I thought why not do something much simpler, 
something that would double as practice for my spraying skills. I would go to 
go to U Mohrenstraße and rename it to U Möhrenstraße, ad hoc and on the spot.
I packed my bag (probably REWE, or maybe NORMA) and left the apartment.

The elevator didn't come, and after a while, my neighbor appeared and joined me 
in waiting. My neighbor had once said to me: Our elevator is like the U8 - on 
average, you have to wait for five minutes. Tonight, it was taking considerably 
longer, and the dream became rather static. A metal door that wouldn't open, 
and a display that would display numbers, even though not always in ascending 
order. I was thinking about the U8, wondering if it was still running, 
wondering what time it was, and what day of the week, wondering if U1 (which 
wasn't running anyway) would be shorter, and realized that I was getting tired, 
and slightly dizzy. This went on for a while. But when the elevator door 
finally opened, and I saw my own self in the mirror (my neighbor had given up 
and gone back to bed), that dizzyness gave way to sudden clarity, in form of a 
rather fantastic idea. I wouldn't leave my neighborhood at all, just walk up 
one block, and rename that bar I sometimes frequent to Chez Moineau(2). (The 
bar will remain anonymous, but it's near Oranien Ecke Adalbert, and it's named 
after a flower of a specific color. Bit cliché, but who cares.) I really liked 
that idea. However, for some reason - the elevator was moving downwards, but at 
a velocity that seemed unusually slow - I was worried that everything was 
taking forever and that I was getting late. Even though that bar is pretty much 
24/7, and renaming it wouldn't require it to be open at all, but that wasn't my 
line of thinking. My line of thinking was, basically: Lets go, lets do this.

I rushed out the elevator, out the front door, out the yard and up one block of
Adalbertstraße, just to find out, to my absolute horror and amazement, that the
bar in question had just (the red paint was still fresh) renamed itself - not
to Chez Moineau, however, but to Chez Michel(3). It was immediately apparent to
me that this was a *really* bold move: they would prey on tourists with a
dining plan, catch them one block early and serve them fake belgian food out of
a fake french bistro, just for fun and profit, even though a bit of desperation
must have played a role. In fact, the "terrace" (no more than two or three
tables with wooden benches) was filled with foreign visitors, and the bar staff
was busy serving them moules frites - a stunt that, in a month without the
letter "r" in it, and at 30+ degrees celsius (it was a hot summer night), even
the original Chez Michel would have very much refrained from trying to pull
off. I thought (or at least I think that I thought that, but it could be that
this is a post-factum addition from when I shared the dream for the first
time): Oh man, Corona will be _so_ over... food poisoning is going to be the
big new thing on the block. Still awestruck, I walked into the bar, which I
knew had no kitchen, only to find out that the moules were coming out of a
white bucket that was sitting on the floor in front of the slot machines, that
for some reason the moules were all rather white-ish, or beige at best, and
that one staff member was busy painting them black with oil paint. (I had long
lost the bag containing my utensils, but in the dream, I didn't realize that.)

The end of the dream came rather quickly. I must have ordered a drink at the 
bar, I had put some money into the Jukebox, but the interface was rather 
complicated, just like IRL, and I ended up selecting Nirvana's "Rape Me" twice 
in a row, by accident. I turned around, the bar was full of hipster tourists, I 
knew they wouldn't like the music, I think that someone beat me, but not very 
hard. Either way, I ended up on the floor, uninjured, but kind of tired, and it 
was also rather hot, so I decided that this was a good moment to go home. 
Looking at the ceiling, which had been painted red and white, including some 
social distancing advice, partially obscured by hipster tourists, I knew I had 
a plan, and in a sharp upward movement, I woke up from the dream. (I didn't 
find myself surrounded by painting utensils, because I had forgotten to fetch 
them the day before, and I would give up on that plan a few days later anyway.)

(1) http://decolonize-mitte.de

(2) https://www.google.com/search?q=chez+moineau&tbm=isch
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letterist_International

(3) https://www.google.com/search?q=chez+michel+berlin

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

         ()
         ><
pirate cinema berlin
www.piratecinema.org