Our first story to start our creative publishing collaboration with Sophiensaele is from the quite famous Adam Fletcher. Adam Fletcher is a 30 year old, bald, Englishman. He spends his days creating largely unsuccessful products for The Hipstery. He’s the author of the online blog series and Spiegel bestselling book “How to be German/Wie man Deutscher wird” from C.H.Beck. Read his hilarious open letter to Berlin:
Hallo Leute,
It’s me, your old buddy Berlin! You may remember me from such important historical moments as “American president calls himself a donut”, “here come the Russians” and “black man outruns white men to the annoyance of other white men”. Yeah, that’s right, Berlin! Brandenburg’s noisy neighbour…
How are you? What have you been up to lately? Doing a lot of those fun human things? Arguing with your neighbours? Being cruelly overlooked for promotions by your idiot of a boss? Making selfies? I bet you have. You little cute, mobile, fun bags.
I’m sorry I’ve not been in touch lately. It’s mostly because I’ve been very busy not caring about you at all, because I’m an arbitrary grouping of buildings, parks, and lakes, combined together in a manner that allows for simpler transport, sharing of resources and government supervision.
I felt compelled to write you now though, in response to all the many, many words you’ve been writing about me in recent years. If I had ears, they’d almost always be red. So many words, so much discourse. It’s enough to make an eight hundred year old municipality’s head spin! So much passion and frustration, anger and euphoria. I’m the best city! I’m the worst city! I used to be the best city but now I’m busy selling out everything that used to be important to me in the pursuit of small pieces of paper that can be exchanged for spa weekends and sports cars. Berlin, you’re getting so expensive. Berlin you used to be cooler. Berlin, you’re mostly now just full of Americans selling baked goods…
While I appreciate all the attention, let’s get a few things straight. I’m neither the solution, nor the problem. I can neither save you, nor set you free. I’m not an ace up people-younger-than-thirty’s collective sleeve. I’m a collection of postleitzahls. Everything else that you like about me, is really just you, collectively. The magic of Berlin is just you, the people of Berlin.
It’s these very same people that form this special collection you are now holding in your hands. What follows are their stories, stories of love, life, loss and the daily search for meaning repeated by millions each day in me, a thriving, graffiti covered Mecca of delayed responsibility. They are special. You are special. I hope you recognise yourselves in them.
Loves, hugs and techno kisses.
B (deine Hauptstadt)
Text: Adam Fletcher
