Relics of the Mauer Park Technology Dung Heap
Every Sunday, Berliners converge upon Prenzlauer Berg's Mauer Park for the city's largest weekly flea market. Shopkeepers set up rickety tables and mottled cardboard boxes filled with any old trash they pick up and think they might be able to sell, while thousands of Berliners drink beer, eat wurst and look out for hidden treasures, the price of which is hotly negotiated, Turk-style, the moment the whiff of a sale hits the air.
Needless to say, Mauer Park is filled with old technology, most of it junk. This is some of it.
A delightful table of gorgeous old Pouva brand analog cameras. They were remarkably light: in today's digicam and DSLR age, it's hard to remember that there was a time when most cameras' only real heft came from the roll of film slotted into them.
Lovely Elisabeth — friend, neighbor, face-melting keytarist non pareil — puzzles over a mystery gadget. Although it had a ridge, it did not open, eliminating my first theory: amorphously heart-shaped waffle iron. With no lights or speakers or displays of any kind, I can only guess that the device vibrates or heats up when plugged in... but for what purpose?
Even German Linux geeks love beer. Some filthy Chaos Congress hacker would probably defile this with Club Mate.
The only way to telephone the West, once upon a time.
The Uher brand of cordless phones was ultimately discontinued after optometrists conclusively linked them to a string of spontaneous retinal fryings in the late 1980s... thankfully the last time the press was forced to report on a rash of irradiated eyeballs spontaneously exploding like microwaved hard-boiled eggs.
After the city was re-united Of the many strange technological advancements East Berliners had to contend with was the strange prospect of color television and sound in three dimensions.
We will never know how many sweaty hours of amateur Scheiße footage has been filmed on these...
... or viewed on this.
Mauer Park's saddest toaster, having conflagrated itself.
The greatest box of toys conclusively proves that the errant apostrophized plural is one of the true constants of international illiteracy.
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Those Pouva cameras are delightful. Absolute crap, but still delightful crap all the same.
make sure you check out the market at arena in treptow as well: even more crap there. (I once blogged about it.)
Post needs pictures of Elisabeth rockin' the Keytar...
That mystery thing its a bed/butt warmer. Grandma had one wand would warm her rum(p) on it.
Also I want a vintage camera sooo bad
They have my VCR!!!
And does that phone really fry eyeballs? If so I have... eh... uses for it.
I miss flea markets (with the emphasis on the fleas). Tokyo "free markets" (no really, thats what they call em) tend to be little more than piles of last seasons clothing.
Also, the proper term is not "keytarist" but "keytard".