One Dove by Antony and the Johnsons
I first moved to Berlin at 20 years old. I found my roommates on Airbnb. Deciding to chat on Facebook messenger instead, we agreed to a sum of 450 EU per month for a large room on Urbanstraße, a nice and quiet part of Kreuzberg. It was a five-room flat with high ceilings, cavernous windows, and a long balcony which I never went on. The building was constructed in the late 60s, relatively old for Berlin.
During my first week living there, I made good friends with my flatmates, one a theater director and writer, the other, at the time, a writer and actor. To this day, they remain two of the closest friends I have, which is why I won’t mention their names nor write in any further personal detail about them.
What I will say is that from the first day I moved in they were very gracious with me, introducing me to all their friends, inviting me out almost everywhere they went, imploring me to eat with them in the kitchen whenever they would cook something. They taught me how to use a Moka pot. They showed me how to enjoy having breakfast in the morning without worrying about everything I might have to do that day (same with lunch, dinner, afternoon coffee, pre-dinner drink, after dinner coffee, the drink that would need to follow the after dinner coffee). Bohemian would be a cliche way to put it, thought I would accept some iteration of that label.
They instilled in me the notion that rebellion against any social norms I found disagreeable was not only a good thing, but an essential thing. They introduced me to the idea of living in the present and enjoying the little parts of everyday life. They helped me eliminate the impulse of stupid, needless ambition. It was all more of a perspective than a concept, detached from any spiritualism or dogma—more just, like, it’s nice sitting here and doing nothing, isn’t it? I think that there was a true, preternatural connection between us all, which is rare and astonishing. They were (and are) both older than me, and came to exist in my life as social and artistic mentors of sort. I felt very comfortable around them. The thought of having a sense of belonging even came to mind from time to time.
One night we went to an Italian restaurant with one of their friends, a now famous theater director whom I’ll call K. He was a gay, second-generation Berliner, born to Turkish parents who never naturalized nor learned the native language. He had a knack for power. The first time we met he said I had a big nose. The second time we met he said I had gained weight since our previous encounter.
‘He does it normally,’ my roommate mentioned afterward. ‘He puts the person down to gain a sense of authority over the evening’s social dynamic. Theater directors are very controlling, sensitive souls.’
Very Controlling Sensitive Souls.
‘He’s not a bad guy.’ My other roommate added. ‘His desire for control is an unavoidable outcome of his inherent, consistent need to put forward his perspective in a clear and coherent way. He ends up manipulating, but manipulating and having power is not what he’s going for. It makes him hard to be around, sure. Yea. It’s a shame. No one is perfect though.'
Drunk, K would regularly drive us around Berlin from gay bar to gay bar to nightclub to nightclub in a dilapidated gray stick shift that seemed to be out of a bad early-aughts action movie. ‘It’s better with a car, you have more freedom,’ K would tell me regularly—something I didn’t often hear living in Berlin.
K had a disdain for popular music and an eye for the irregular. I think he threw me out of his car once for playing Kanye West, or it might have been his apartment. He would play, over and over and over again, One Dove by Antony and the Johnsons. ‘This is the energy. No one has a voice like hers.’
‘But isn’t she popular?’ I asked.
‘Her popularity is an unintentional consequence. It wasn’t meant to be and it was not the goal. I knew about her before, anyways.’
When we met, K didn’t have a lot of money, but, like a lot of great artists, he was incredibly generous. He’d pick us up and drop us off door-to-door, buy round after round of drinks, and lend money to anyone who needed it. If one of my roommates was broke that month and needed to Airbnb their room, K would let them stay at his small apartment for free. In a cynical way, one could tie this behavior into his directorial desire to control, but I knew that this generosity came from a place far more benevolent and pure.
Love it. In Berlin is always a place or two for you!