… winter’s going to be upon us soon enough, is all I’m saying. (image source).

Midnight City by M83

The Rapture – How Deep Is Your Love by DFA Records

Chucha Santamaria Y Usted – Fiebre Tropical by MixtapeMuse

The Qualia – Guess I Lied by rslblog.com

Apparat – Black Water by Mute UK

For somebody from Hawaii like John Maus a winter landscape must seem like a refreshing paradise.

Photography: Kai von Rabenau

Many Queenslanders and Victorians in Australia have been ‘up shit creek‘ quite literally ie ‘in dire circumstances’ with the recent widespread flooding. You can help and get a cool tea towel in the mix! Our friends at Third Drawer Down are donating half of the proceeds from their sales of Jon Campbell’s Up Shit Creek tea towels in January (today is the last day of January!) to support the Disaster Relief Appeal. They are also donating $2.00 for every online sale in the month of January. If you would like to donate on your own, you can also do this right here.

You know, these days I exercise for mental health rather than physical fitness, but gyms make me sad. There must be another way to keep fit when it’s cold outside, oder?

Fittingly enough, the first little piece in this tiny booklet is entitled “First Emotion”: When I first discovered TrueTrueTrue and this Dutch writer called Nescio at this year’s book fair at Berlin’s fine Motto store, I somehow felt immediately drawn to it: had to pick it up, had to keep myself from reading too much right on the spot (it only has 12 pages and I didn’t want to spoil it too soon), had to talk to the guy behind it (Sam de Groot, who did an amazing job translating Nescio’s work from Dutch to English), and ultimately: had to take a copy of it home (which isn’t too much of a pain since it’s only 3 Euro bucks). “When the blood sausage was through he said again: ‘Now I could well use a pipeful’,” writes Nescio, who died in 1961, and I certainly could use an entire shelfful of this, though unfortunately, his Little Titans book, a longer read also translated and published by Sam and his buddy Ian Adams, is already sold out. Truly a shame.

Photography by kvr

The present winter season has been particularly hard on Berlin, and not only because of the sub-zero temperatures and icy streets. The sun for sorrow will not show his head. We’ve just emerged from a record sixteen days without direct sunlight. A new art space in Mitte might provide the perfect treatment: a light therapy room, with an accompanying Icelandic soundscape.

The venue is called MMX (think Roman numerals). It’s a temporary gallery, bar and general creativity space occupying the ground floor of a soon-to-be-renovated altbau in Linienstraße. MMX occupies over 1000 square meters of floor space, with several gallery rooms, a video screening room, a bar, a courtyard and a front garden that will come alive in summer. The do-it-yourself aesthetics of the location contrast strongly with the rest of the street. It’s relieving to know that such underground art activities can still take place in this rather-gentrified district.

The light therapy room is an installation by artist and MMX co-founder Rebecca Loyche, who has collaborated with sound artist Björk Viggósdóttir from Iceland. It will be part of the venue’s first exhibition program, which runs from January 30 until February 28.

MMX celebrates is opening this Friday night, with live performances and general festivity. It will remain open for several months or longer, depending on the impending renovation plans.

MMX Open Art Venue
Linienstr. 142-143, Berlin-Mitte
Opening night: Friday Jan 29, 19.00
Regular hours: Wed-Sun 12.00-18.00
www.mmx.mx