Berlin Transformationplatz

A year and a half ago I visited my cousin Della and her family in the Charlottenburg/Wilmersdorf area of Berlin. She grew up in Yonkers, her husband Martin (my “cousin-in-law?) grew up in Berlin.

This was my first visit since my drunken dawn arrival on a midnight train out of Poland 16 winters earlier. At that time, the wall had only recently come down -- there were still stretches of it standing and wild amounts of rubble. The buildings, just east of where the wall stood, were all dull, grey and then more of that very dull thing. In a few short years, the place would be utterly transformed. I knew back then, that I was walking through the architectural equivalent of a hormone sodden 13 year old.

 In 2010, it was as though I’d never been there before. Completely unrecognizable, in fact. It was even a wee bit disconcerting -- like seeing an old hipster friend now decked out in Brooks Brothers by way of Beverly Hills.

I asked Martin what it was like for him -- having grown up there. This what he told me:

"The actual realization - sensation - that something had changed came to me quite a while (a few months maybe) after watching the wall come down on TV. My friends and I were invited to a party in the former east. So instead of passing through checkpoints (which always included some form of humiliation, even if only slightly) we SIMPLY DROVE TO THE EAST - no border police, no visa that had to be applied for 3 days in advance, no more compulsory exchange of money, and you could even stay there overnight, too. It felt very strange to wander around the other side of town which was only a few blocks away but always difficult to get to.

In the early nineties everything still looked dreary, and you'd see that every single building was in dire need of fixing and restoration and that the streets needed to be improved. Now, about 15 to 20 years later you find that the east of Berlin has become the shiny new center of Berlin, everything is either newly built or has been restored - smart contemporary architecture next to beautifully ornamented buildings from Berlin's past, a whole island of influential museums, two opera houses, major theaters, new and varied restaurants … The western part of town starts to look a bit pale in comparison.

Unique about this whole situation is that the pre-war center of the city - Berlin-Mitte - has become a center again. Before the wall came down, the west side bordering it was not well cared for because no one liked to live next to the wall and of course, the east was the heavily guarded so-called "death strip" (Todesstreifen) which tried to block people fleeing to the west. Where the wall once ran, the new downtown has been built.

New focus on the east of the city has made the west less attractive. West Berlin had once been the alternative forward-thinking place in Germany* and has now become second best. Artists, the alternative crowd as well as expensive fashion stores and car showrooms now show off their goods in the east. People under 30 who now move to Berlin tend to move to the east while the older crowd chooses the more quiet and settled west to stay in.

* When the wall surrounded Berlin it was theoretically "owned" by the allied forces. This meant that it was illegal to draft anyone residing in West Berlin for the compulsory one-year training in the German forces (which will be suspended throughout Germany p.s., next year)."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Martin Wenzel isn't just my cousin-in-law, he's the father of two awesome teens, husband to my fab cousin Della AND he's a type designer -- check him out at his site Martin Plus!

Upcoming Holiday Action

At the end of the month I’m flying off to Berlin to visit with my cousin Della and her awesome husband Martin. YEA! Della’s been suggesting things we can do during the week I’m there.

Ya know, I’ve not been away from home for a whole week since about six or seven years ago when The Amazing Bob’s health hit the skids. I’d grab a day or three (TOPS!) here and there but that was it. This is gonna feel new, different, WILD!

On the menu is the Bundestag (Germany’s parliament buildings) where I can see more than just the cool architecture of the Reichstag Building. In addition to fab building design and government shit, they’ve work by both German and other country’s artists on display.

At the Sammlung Scharf-Gerstenberg there’s the show – Surreal Objectivity: Works from the 1920s and 1930s from the Nationalgalerie. They’ve got Otto Dix, Max Ernst, René Magritte and a bunch of artists whose work I don’t know yet.

At the Martin-Gropius-Bau there’s a show of Robert Doisneau snaps. Sweet!

The Bröhan Museum caught my eye. There’s an exhibit of Günther Kieser’s designs right now. Amongst others he designed concert posters for Hendrix and the Dead.

Museum Berggruen has a retrospective of George Condo’s work. A funny – he’s just a year older than me AND comes from Concord, New Hampshire, (80 miles north of me here in Valhalla) and I’ve never heard of him before. His work looks intriguingly weird. I think I need to see this show.

The Berlinische Galerie – Museum for Art, Photography and Architecture (Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst, Fotografie und Architektur) looks like it has some neato-keen odd shit.

...one of the youngest museums in the capital and showcases art made in Berlin from 1870 till today. Among its areas of focus are Dada Berlin, New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit), Eastern European avant-garde and art created during the Berlin Wall era as well as in the reunited metropolis.

I REALLY wanted to hit the Boros Collection but they’re closed through May.

The collection is housed at an unusual location, namely a bunker built in 1942 that after the Second World War served as a Red Army prison, then as a warehouse for fruit from Cuba and then, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, as a techno club.

Yeah, I’m as interested in being inside a building with such deeply wild history as anything else.

There’s a Dali exhibit at the Potsdamer Platz – that’d be fun.

AND I just found the Spy Museum!

The German Spy Museum Berlin gives a unique insight into the gloom of espionage right where the Wall once divided the city. Visitors are welcome to use the most recent multimedia-based technology to detect all the bizarre and sneaky methods of agents and secret services. An exciting time travel from spying in ancient Bible history to the present and future right in the middle of the capital of spies. Decipher a range of secret codes, negotiate the laser-beam obstacle course, see how secure your favourite password is and hack in to your favourite websites!

I’ve GOT to pay them a visit!

And then there's all the different food options. Christ this is gonna be one fabolicious, MUCH needed escape!

I’m trying to be smart

purse/carryall WITH mega wichtig knitting and backpack

Really and true – I'm making a solid effort.

I leave late this afternoon (TODAY!) for a week in Berlin with my cousin Della and her fab husband Martin. Yes, I’m very much looking forward to this but I’m also panicking a tiny bit. Warum? I’ve not been away for an entire week since before The Amazing Bob’s health hit an iceberg.

I need to get a bunch of shit done before I leave. Like what?

1. Purchase enough cat food to keep the herd happy. We’re back up to four now – Coco, Rocco, Ghost Cat and our new, as yet unnamed, beautiful black visitor beastie.
2. Clean! I do not want to come home to dirty dishes, smelly laundry, stacks of crap everywhere and nasty floors. Yeah, I want to come back to home significantly cleaner than the one I currently inhabit.
3. Taxes – I’ve GOT to at least begin the prep shit!
4. People's Sculpture Race application. For a coupla years now, I’ve been saying that I really want to do this. Entries are due via email by next Saturday. I must get the idea solidified and drawings completed and scanned before I leave. I can always email the proposal from Berlin but I want to nail down all the details NOW.
5. Packing. After I load my books, knitting, cameras, laptop and cords in my rucksack, will there be any room for clothes? GOOD question!
6. Get to the Y for one last swim/workout before I go. Yes, I’ll be walking a LOT while in Berlin but I won’t be swimming or ellipticalizing for a WHOLE week. Yes, I have early onset guilt.
7. Go to the credit union to let them know where I’ll be for the week. It’s a safety procedure – my debit card won’t work unless I specifically tell them “Hey, I’m in Berlin. That really is me using the card at the Keramik-Museum.”
8. I need to spend focused time with Coco and Rocco before I go. Loads of pats, skritches, holding and, of course, they’ll get a special treat for lunch – haddock. Yes, it’s true, I occasionally bake them a piece of haddock. They LOVE it. Also too, I may be a vegetarian and half-assed vegan but my cats don’t need to be. I do make sure their fish is wild caught though. I’ll support their carnivorous lifestyle but the haddock MUST have lived a full, free, happy life first!

Speaking of laundry, (and we totally were!) with the ongoing Flea War, I’ve been washing the bedding daily – this on top of the usual. I think I’ve got the wee varmints on the run now but JAY-ZUZ this is exhausting shit. Before leaving, I’ll do one last round of flea-be-gone spraying around the house and hope the wee varmints have vamoosed by the time I return.

And then there’s the wretched and vile state of the U.S. Will I read the news while in Berlin? Yeah, I won’t escape it but will certainly make every effort to keep it in the background. I’m so horribly embarrassed for my country. Also wondering if I’m gonna run into trouble getting back in here. Why would I? Why not. Border patrol agents have Trump inspired and sanctioned Jack Boot Fever. I’m not wealthy, young or blond AND I’m an outspoken deaf feminist. In Trump’s America I'm an enemy, a mooch and a drag, right? How long before citizens, like me (!!!) are tossed (OR sent to camps) for the crime of being an undesirable. Remember, it’s not just Trump – he has the full backing of the Republican party.

Obvs I need a break from the daily insanity. Also, just FYI and shit, blogging will, most likely, be a little erratic over the next week.  I’ll DEF be writing but may *GASP* be absent here and there.

Germany and Urlaub Enden

This post is for all my pals in Germany who, like me, are self-quarantining, sheltering-in-place or otherwise attempting to NOT come down with the Trump Virus.

Translation courtesy of my dear, Berlin-native, cousin-in-law Martin.
 ~~~~
Als ich das erste Mal in Berlin war, vor Milliarden von Jahren, als die Erde noch kühl war und die Mauer gerade gefallen war, litt ich an einem wohlverdienten Killah-Kater. In der Woche zuvor war ich in Krakau gewesen und hatte mit einigen Australiern ein steinhartes Saufgelage (na zdrowie!) mit polnischem Kartoffelwodka. Lektion gelernt? Versuchen Sie NIEMALS, einen Polen zu trinken oder mit einem Australier mitzuhalten! In der Morgendämmerung nach einer schmerzhaften Nachtfahrt in einem Zugwaggon, der aussah, als wäre er gerade aus einem sehr gruseligen Film-Noir-Film hervorgegangen, stolperte ich durch den Bahnhof Zoo. Ich war absolut nicht in der Lage, eine große Stadt zu bewältigen.

Ja, ich bin herumgelaufen - habe einen coolen Flohmarkt in Kreuzberg besucht, habe einige großartige Kunstwerke gesehen (eine George-Grosz-Retrospektive und das Pergamonmuseum!), hing in einigen stimmungsvolle Cafés ab, bin an Teilen der Trümmer entlanggegangen – alles, was von der Mauer übrig geblieben war. Aber dieser Kater hat meine ganzen Besuch gefärbt. In diesem Zustand war Berlin viel zu groß – wie L.A. über Chicago und NYC, aber VIEL GRÖSSER und, scheinbar, unfreundlich und unerklärlich. Stromness oder Portree wären genau das Richtige gewesen. Wissen Sie, mehr Schafe/weniger Menschen das läuft sich überall besser.

Ich hätte nicht gedacht, dass ich jemals nach Berlin zurückkehren würde.

In diesem kürzlich erfolgten, dritten Urlaub in Wonderburg (mein zweiter war, als ich meine Cousine zum ersten Mal seit meiner Kindheit traf) macht der Besuch bei Della und ihrem Mann, der hier aufgewachsen ist, alles zu einer ganz anderen Erfahrung. Jetzt bin ich wahnsinnig verliebt in Berlin. Es ist eine schöne, vielfältige, ruhig aufregende Stadt, vollgepackt mit faszinierender Geschichte, ja, sie ist immer noch gigantisch, ABER sie fühlt sich jetzt viel besser an.

Gestern waren wir auf einem großen Flohmarkt und verdammt, da gab es Fabola-Mäntel, Porzellan, Bücher, Schmuck und Stoffe. Ich wünschte, ich hätte die Hälfte des Platzes mit nach Hause nehmen können! (Offensichtlich brauche ich einen größeren Rucksack) Danach machten wir uns auf den Weg zum Spionagemuseum (!!!). Auf dem Weg dorthin tranken wir Kaffee im spektakulär futuristischen Sony Center. Es ist wie in einem P.K. Dickesque Sci-Fi Streifen.

Am Potzdamer Platz bekam ich auch einige stehende steinähnliche Überreste der alten Mauer zu sehen. Es war kühl. Nach dem Museum (kühl-gruselig und sehr interessant) ging es zurück nach Schöneberg für ein verdammt leckeres vietnamesisches Mittagessen und dann nach Hause zum Mittagsschlaf, Packen und Martin's brillante Pizza zum Dinner.

Ich kann nicht glauben, dass die Ferien schon vorbei sind. Allerdings vermisse ich mein Zuhause – Jen, Oni, Rocco und meine kleine Prinzessin Coco. Es wird toll sein, meinen Ozean wiederzusehen.

Das ist doch klar.

Aber ich muss bald wiederkommen – im nächsten Frühjahr, glaube ich.
~~~~
Original post in English here.

Walls

I am, or was at any rate, the Queen of Bad Photos. Possibly I've mentioned this already?

 I’ve finally finished going through that mammoth pile of pics. You’d think I’d have put them in albums but no. They’re now mostly all sorted into two big accordion folders with each section clearly labeled. Yea me. Albumizing can come later.

I found a bunch of shots from my first visit to Berlin, a few years after the fall of the Wall. This trip was a big fucking deal – I went to Auschwitz/Berkinau, the desecrated Jewish cemetery in Krakow and the Berlin Wall. This wasn’t just eye opening, it was brain shakingly horror show (ahhh, the thrills, chills and terrors of the empathically endowed). When I got home, I needed a quiet, seaside holiday surrounded only by cats.

Our tangerine hued, criminal twat of a hate filled prez wants to build a wall of his very own. Does he not recall the cruel barbarity of the Berlin Wall? No, don't answer that. If you rock a darker shade of flesh tone, in his deranged mind, you're not quite human OR not human enough to deserve even a miserly shred of beneficence.

On August 13, 1961, the Communist government of the German Democratic Republic (GDR, or East Germany) began to build a barbed wire and concrete “Antifascistischer Schutzwall,” or “antifascist bulwark,” between East and West Berlin. The official purpose of this Berlin Wall was to keep Western “fascists” from entering East Germany and undermining the socialist state, but it primarily served the objective of stemming mass defections from East to West. (source)

Just FYI, from the Merriam Webster dictionary:

Facism
noun
a political philosophy, movement, or regime...that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition

Gee, sound like any one you might've heard of?

The despotic spooge bags who throw around that term are the real fucking fascists. McConnell fer instance – that nefarious piece of rancid cockroach shit, tried to sell the Democratic bill that would make Election Day a federal holiday, a “power grab.” Yeah, making it easy for EVERYONE to vote, making democracy accessible to ALL citizens is a “power grab.” How fucking transparently tyrannical can you get?

As Ten always says, they can only win by cheating.

Left up to Preznit Lazy-Slag Shit-for-Brains the US would have it’s very own barbarous, insane and clueless fucking Wall – our very own Todesstreifen (death strip) along the border with Mexico.

How many of us need to die for them, the Orwellian Right, the idiots incapable of remembering OR learning from history, to feel all happy and secure?

On the Book List

Oni just lent me the series The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin. I was sitting at their kitchen table, enjoying a lovely glass ‘o’ the grape, when I couldn’t help but notice the blurb BY OBAMA on the front cover. Just two words: “Wildly imaginative.”

Yup, between Oni’s thumbs up AND Obama’s I’m mega eager to read.

"Fans of hard SF will revel in this intricate and imaginative novel by one of China’s most celebrated genre writers. In 1967, physics professor Ye Zhetai is killed after he refuses to denounce the theory of relativity. His daughter, Ye Wenjie, witnesses his gruesome death.

Shortly after, she’s falsely charged with sedition for promoting the works of environmentalist Rachel Carson, and told she can avoid punishment by working at a defense research facility involved with the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. More than 40 years later, Ye’s work becomes linked to a string of physicist suicides and a complex role-playing game involving the classic physics problem of the title.” (source)

Seems kinda timely, n'est-ce pas?

And what is this “hard SF” stuff anyway.

"Hard science fiction exists inside the realm of scientific possibility. That is, anything that occurs in the story is not outside the known physical laws of the universe. In these stories, there is often an emphasis on this accuracy." (source)

OK, so I guess I’m gonna learn while I read, eh?

Also, on my long list of books to borrow from the Thomas Crane:
The Lost Girls of Paris by Pam Jenoff

"A woman finds a forgotten suitcase in Grand Central. It’s filled with photographs.
Grace soon learns that the suitcase belonged to a woman named Eleanor Trigg, leader of a ring of female secret agents who were deployed out of London during the war. Twelve of these women were sent to Occupied Europe as couriers and radio operators to aid the resistance, but they never returned home, their fates a mystery.

...inspired by true events" (source)

Yeah, stories about women living lives NOT limited to biology – mothering, whelping the bairn and shit – are always gonna rope me in.

And, south of London, east of Grand Central another collection of tales unfolds in Here In Berlin by Christina Garcia.

"The city itself is a character--vibrant and post-apocalyptic, flat and featureless except for its rivers, its lakes, its legions of bicyclists. Here in Berlin she encounters a people's history: the Cuban teen taken as a POW on a German submarine for five months, only to return home to a family who doesn't believe him; the young Jewish scholar whose husband hides her in a sarcophagus until he can find them safe passage to England; the female lawyer haunted by a childhood of deprivation in the bombed-out suburbs of Berlin who still defends those accused of war crimes, setting personal guilt against the larger flow of history; a young nurse with a checkered past who joins the Reich on the Russian front, at a medical facility more intent to dispense with the wounded than to heal them; and the son of a zookeeper at The Berlin Zoo, fighting to keep the animals safe from both war and an increasingly starving populace." (source)

I want to read them all NOW.

Urlaub Enden

The first time I was in Berlin, billions of years ago when the earth was still cooling and the Wall had just come down, I was suffering from a much deserved killah hangover. I’d been in Krakow the previous week going on stone sodden Polish vodka binges (na zdrowie!) with a few Australians. Lesson learned? NEVER try to out drink a Pole or keep up with an Aussie! At dawn after a painful overnight ride, in a train car that looked like it just stepped out of a very creepy film noir flick, I stumbled into Zoo Station. I was in absolutely no shape to handle a big city.

Yes, I did wander around – caught a cool flea market in Kreuzberg, saw some awesome art (a George Grosz retrospective and The Pergamon Museum!), chilled in a coupla fab, atmospheric cafes, walked along parts of the rubble – all that was left of the Wall. BUT that hangover really colored the visit for me. In that state, Berlin was far too big – like L.A. by way of Chicago and NYC but MUCH BIGGER and, seemingly, unfriendly and unknowable. Stromness or Portree would've been just the thing. You know, way more sheep/fewer peoples and everywhere is WAY walkable.

I didn't think I'd ever return to Berlin

In this recent, third holiday to Wonderburg (my second was when I met my cousin for the very first time since childhood) visiting with Della and her husband, who grew up here makes everything an entirely different experience. I’m now madly in love with Berlin. It’s a beautiful, diverse, calmly exciting town and it's jam-packed with fascinating history.Yes, it's still gigantic BUT it feels far more grok-able now.

Yesterday we went to a great flea market and damn, there were fabola coats, china, books, jewelry and fabrics. I wish I could've taken half the place home! (Obvs I need a bigger rucksack) Afterwards, we set out for the Spy Museum (!!!). On the way there we had coffees in the spectacularly futuaristic Sony Center. It’s like being in some P.K. Dick-esque sci fi flick.

I also got to see, in Potzdamer Platz, some standing stone-esque remnants of the old wall. Chilling. After the museum (coolly creepy and very interesting) we went back to Schöneberg for a tasty as all hell Viet Namese lunchy and then home for naps, packing and Martin’s brill pizza for din din.

I can’t believe the vaca’s over already. Mind you, I miss home – Jen, Oni, Rocco and my little princess Coco. It’ll be mondo fab to see my ocean again. Of course.

I gotta come back soon though – next Spring I think.

Berlin by Way of the Twilight Zone

I dreamed that I was lost in Berlin on a chill Halloween night. I was trying to get to the apartment of some friends but the streets were jam packed with revelers. Young 20-something bacchanalians were everywhere, spilling out of apartment buildings and pushing to get into others.

This was Berlin but it wasn't.

Phantasm City was as vast and boundless as Berlin but had all the ingeniously confounding urban planning of Venice or Boston—that is, Grid system? We don’t need no facking grid system! Added to the mix were the steep slopes and scrawny thoroughfares of a Beacon Hill. The city-wide Halloween celebration was decidedly tight—claustrophobia inspiring even.
 
If that wasn’t enough, everything and everyone appeared as though drawn by Red Grooms  channeling the spirit of Basquiat. Yeah, nice to look at in a museum but not so fun to live within. Twilight Zone-ish is what it was.

While running down a spiral staircase within a red brick tenement, whose shindig could only be better attended with the generous infusion of KY, I lost my security blanket. Yup, I’d been clutching my beloved bunny appliqued flannel from crib days tightly to my chest—possibly the only thing that’d been keeping me from dissolving into a puddle of screams. I didn’t stop though—I couldn’t. I HAD to get out of that mass of humanity. Severe regret had taken up residence in my heart but agreed to chill until after I was safely out of the crowds. Mighty decent of it, eh?

Finally I escaped the madness and found myself in the near empty, high ceilinged, Japanese tea house styled loft/office of an architect where I asked for help/directions. She offered to call my friends so they could come by and collect me.

In radical contrast to everything that’d come before, the architect's digs and appearance were more along the line of a Marisa Acocella Marchetto drawing by way of Diebenkorn.

Ahhhhh, I could breath out finally.

The dream ended there with the wonderful sleek woman making a call while I sank into the comfort of clear sight-lines, floor to ceiling windows, room occupancy nowhere near max and a martini—Sapphire, extra, extra dry, straight up with olives.

Yes.

What does all this mean? Got me hangin' but I think I'll be sending my regrets to all party invites for the foreseeable future.

Atomic

Joe and I met in town yesterday to go to the movies and grab lunch. What’d we see? Atomic Blonde.

The basic story: Theron plays MI6 agent Lorraine Broughton, who’s dispatched to Berlin in the late fall of 1989 to retrieve information vital to the safety of Western intelligence officers. Another MI6 agent, James Gascoigne, had been in possession of a list containing the identities of every espionage officer in the city on both sides of the Cold War conflict. Gascoigne was chased down and killed by a Russian agent named Bakhtin (Jóhannes Jóhannesson), who took the list, and now MI6 wants it back. The Brits are extra-incentivized, because the list will tell them the identity of Satchel, an MI6 mole who has been working with the Russians. But as Broughton finds out as soon as she touches down, she’ll be wading through a sea of KGB, French intelligence, Stasi operatives, and even rogue members of her own organization in order to return the list to British custody. (source)

The movie starts out complicated and gets more so. Lorraine’s to meet and work with the Brit’s embedded station chief who, from the get go, seems dirty. There’s no romance – Lorraine’s much too smart for the charms of David Percival – and this is in no way a buddy flick. 

Though kick ass female protagonist was expected, I somehow – incredibly – missed that this would be a spy thriller. I thought it was gonna be a gritty super hero thing. Wie ist das möglich and ‘the fuck?  Most trailers don’t come with closed captioning – all I saw was Charlize Theron ferociously fighting baddies and pulling off a move or two that, well, Spiderman would be proud to claim. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

Normally I’m not a fan of Mission Impossible/Bourne Identity/Fourth Protocol style movies. Too hard to follow and women are, more often than not, relegated to marginal roles – support or romance. Zzzzzzzzzzzz. Had I known it was an espionage story, would I have seen it anyway? Yeah probably. Theron could read the “How Mechanical Rubber Goods Are Made,” and make it interesting. Also too, I loved her in Mad Max: Fury Road.

Weirdly, I always confuse Theron with Scarlett Johansson. Do they often play similar characters or am I just easily confused – it's a puzzler in'nt?

In any case, Atomic Blonde was fabulous. I want to see it again when it comes out on vid. The story’s so intricately woven that I want to rewind and replay all the dialogue that zooms past. A libretto would be smart add too.

Here’s another thing – the soundtrack is unfuckingbelievably awesome. I’m pissed that I can only hear it in my head. It’s like a greatest hits from my 20s (more or less). There's 99 Luftballon, Voices Carry, Killer Queen, Under Pressure, Cat People (Putting Out Fire), Der Kommissar, Hungry Like the Wolf, Atomic (by Blondie, of course), London Calling, Moonage Daydream and so damn much more.

During the whole movie I kept thinking of an acquaintance, Kevin's close friend, roommate and fellow Cryptologic Language Analyst, Perry. He'd been a German linguist (Kevin was Hebrew and Arabic) and was stationed in Berlin when the wall fell – Atomic Blonde's time setting. Was this the world he lived in? I asked him once, "what was it like to be in Berlin when came down?" He replied that "it was a lot of fun for the first couple of days and then I just got tired of all the drunken revellers."

Not exactly the exploding, action packed crazy shown in the movie. I wonder where Perry is now.

Anticipation

Sculptures outside the Bröhan Museum

NOT just a great Carly Simon song!

The pleasure isn't in doing the thing, the pleasure is in planning it.
~ John Green, Paper Towns

I disagree BUT...

I’m generally not a planner – not when I go on vacations. I like to keep myself open to whatever might show up in my face. Historically, before venturing out, I read minimal amounts about my destinations. That right there, is a failing. It really is possible to read and learn, to do advance exploration, without locking myself into a rigid plan. Also, would it kill me to have a B&B reserved? Ya know, a home base, a place to drop my rucksack when I land, before I Begin the Beguine (and shit)?

But, but, but....what if I don't like the place? What if someplace else that I happen to pass on my way from the bus stop looks much more charming and darling? Gee duh, I can just change my digs. At worst I may lose a deposit. NOT the end of the world!

The first time I went to Berlin, all I knew was the romance and magic of Christopher Isherwood’s stories, the horror and grit of the wall and that they had some must see museums. On that trip I wandered the streets. Yes, I went to the Pergamon, the Berlinische Galerie and the Wall Museum at Checkpoint Charlie (at that point, Berlin was reunited but much of the wall was still standing) but, mostly, I meandered aimlessly, stopping in cafes to nosh, read and people watch.

It wasn’t until MUCH later, after Della and Martin moved there (it’s Martin’s home town!), that I got to see so much more of the town. Berlin is VAST. I hope to visit again soon.

This loose, no-plans-please-we’re-free-spirits thing’s all well and good but I do think I’m missing out. I can read up, get ideas ahead of time, travel in my imagination without locking myself into a hard, unbreakable, MUST DO program.

We need the sweet pain of anticipation to tell us we are really alive.
~ Albert Camus

Hmmm. "Sweet pain" somehow that seems less than pleasant. And yet...

“Well," said Pooh, "what I like best," and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called.
~ A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh 

I don't want my anticipation, my imagination to outclass reality. Is that actually even possible though? While I have an inventive, interesting bean, I doubt that I can create a rapturous, Elysium universe so perfect and full that, in contrast, reality is nothing but a weak, dreary sister.

'scuse me, I believe I'm going to cut loose and enjoy some anticipation. Cheers!

Oh the places you'll go! There is fun to be done! There are points to be scored. There are games to be won. And the magical things you can do with that ball will make you the winning-est winner of all.
~ Dr. Seuss, Oh, The Places You’ll Go!

Life is a cabaret, old chum

We had Steve and Elaine over for lunch yesterday. Lunch is such a pale word for what we had. It was more party with astounding feast. Jen and Oni made THE most brill burritos. The Amazing Bob baked exquisite cinnamon-y chocolate chip cookies. Elaine made a dark chocolate chiffon pie (WOW!). My contribution? Wine from that amazing upstate New York vineyard—Amorici's.

The topic of fav movies came up. You know, ones that really stick with us that aren't Star Wars or Star Trek.

For me, the first flick to come to mind was Cabaret. A musical. Yes but, BUT you HATE musicals, Donna! True, this makes little sense.

Gavin Burke at entertainment.ie nails my revilement of this genre concisely and precisely: 

The musical is a contradiction. It wants you to enjoy the songs but for it to work, dramatically speaking, it asks you at the same time to ignore the song's existence.
~snip~
How am I supposed to get involved with the Von Trapp's flight from the Nazis if they're prone to sing at the drop of a hat?

True, TRUE! Cabaret’s different though.
From Roger Ebert's '72 review:

 This is no ordinary musical. Part of its success comes because it doesn't fall for the old cliché that musicals have to make you happy.

In Berlin in 1931, American cabaret singer Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli) meets British academic Brian Roberts (Michael York), who is finishing his university studies. Despite Brian's confusion over his sexuality, the pair become lovers, but the arrival of the wealthy and decadent playboy Maximilian von Heune (Helmut Griem) complicates matters for them both. This love triangle plays out against the rise of the Nazi party and the collapse of the Weimar Republic.

Yes, it's bleak and decadent with a big side of flash style and realism.

Another reason, and this is a biggie, that I loved the film was because all but one of the numbers happen inside the club where Sally performs. The tunes are happening logically—this is a cabaret after all. Even the one song done outside the Kit Kat Club happens as it conceivably could’ve in real life. It’s an anthem-esque folk song, sung by a bright blond Hitler youth at a beer garden. This is a big fat pivot point in the story too. Sally and Brian’s lives in Berlin have been irrevocably changed by both their own crazy personal lives as well as the insanity happening around them. Life as fun showtime grows even darker.

A funny, sort of, side note about that tune, Tomorrow Belongs To Me:

It was written for the 1966 Broadway musical version of Cabaret by John Kander and Fred Ebb. It was their attempt to write an authentically sounding German folk tune.

It's since been performed often by Neo Nazi bands, and is probably the only song in their repetoires composed by two Jewish people.

Certainly part of the movie's appeal was that, when it came out, I was 14 years old and just beginning to discover the vast world outside the confines of small town tastes, morals and customs. It was this movie that birthed my dreams of one day visiting and maybe even living in Berlin. It was here that I fell in love with the German Expressionists.

As for traditional-ish musicals, there really are a few good ones which transcend the clunky, often ridiculous formula. In my, ya know, not so humble opinion that is. There's Singin’ In The Rain and Grease. Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (because Every Sperm is Sacred!!!), Rocky Horror Picture (DUH!) and, maybe Tommy. This last one purely for that scene of Ann Margaret rolling around in a sea of baked beans, chocolate and champagne.

Of course.

Jet Lag

Ya know what jet lag is in German? Jetlag. Yup, sometimes language is easy. Berlin is six hours ahead of Boston so it's noon there. Della and Martin are prolly thinking about lunch fixins about now. While I'm happy to be home in my wee seaside cottage with my wonderful, evil, tux-clad, old kittens, I miss Berlin's architecture, sidewalks (!), trees everywhere and, of course, Della, Martin, Simba and Pepper.

With this big time shift the days ran into each other. If I hadn’t written down all I’d done and when, it’d be a giant jumble in my head. Günther Kieser's brill posters? Yeah, we saw those on Wednesday. No, it was Saturday. Ummm, it’ll come to me.

The whole jet laggy thing – I fall in with the majority of humans in that I’ve more of a struggle heading east than west. That is, when I jet to Phoenix to see Jenny, I’m pretty much AOKish on arrival. When I get there it’s night/cot time anyway so by morning I’m groovy (as groovy as I ever get, that is).

Granted Boston to Phoenix is just a two hour time difference. It's an overnight flight to six-hours-ahead Berlin. Given my inability to sleep constrained and sitting up (sadly, first class is WAY outta the budget), I spend the first day doing a brill zombie impersonation. My brain’s on autopilot and my mouth’s in overdrive. Good thing I’m not some high security clearance spy type – nuclear codes and the like would be out before I had my first dozen shots ‘o’ java.

Steven W. Lockley, Harvard Big Brain and consulting member of NASA’s fatigue management team recommends:

 if you are traveling east, you must expose yourself to light early, advancing your body clock so that it will be in sync with the new time zone. (source)

Yes, this all sounds just bloody lovely but who the fuck manages this before a big trip? Also too, I wake at 4AM anyway! Rilly, turning the lights on earlier than that is not so much EVAH gonna be a purposeful happening thing.

I know what I want – Star Trek transporter beams so's I can pop in for a day here, an afternoon there, dinner at eight.

Now that I’m home – east to west travel – I should be all ducky and with it, right? Well, if not for this wretched cold, I’m sure I would be. I’m taking another slow and easy day. Jen rescheduled my doc appointments (meeting the eye surgeon and then my annual with my beloved Beach Boy neurotologist) which means I’ve now got six whole hours that I can spend sleeping or sweating it out at the gym or sitting on the seawall watching the waves. HEY, mebbe I can do ALL three!

Sounds staggeringly ambitious. First COFFEE!

In Flight

Heathrow’s the 3rd busiest airport in the world but it's not even in the top ten in terms of bigliness. Coulda fooled me.

When I got on the plane in Boston I mentioned to the stewardess deaf here. May need help getting to my gate for the connecting flight to Berlin. I figured they’d give me a map or some helpful little elf would walk me from arrival to upcoming departure hall.

Nope. They wheelchaired me! Now, given how heavy my bags were (laptops – not heavy all by themselves but add it to my two books, hod and a half of meds, sack of clothes and other assorted detritus, all of a sudden I'm toting a coupla clydesdales) I figured Wheelchair, AWESOME! Reality? It was surreal (no one told me what was going on and I was stowed for a worrisome hour, like so much luggage, in a Stardust Memories-esque holding pen) but also wonderfully cool. Not only did I not have to hoof it though the insane maze of Heathrow but I got to whiz through security. Still had to take my shoes off and get frisked but, hey, I got to bypass the line!

Here’s what I wanna know, when did it become a standard thing that, on carriers other than JetBlue anyway, you can’t pick your seat when you buy the ticky? Sure, you're asked for your preference but you can pretty well bank on that being ignored.

On the Boston/London leg I didn't have my usual and much desired window seat BUT I was on the aisle in a bulkhead middle section row and NO one else was sitting there! Not so bad, though I couldn't lay down across that huge expanse of empty seat-age Still, I had acres of leg room and could stretch out practically into the fourth dimension.

Not so much luck on the London/Berlin segment. I was stuck in the middle seat of the VERY last row in a staggeringly packed plane. All business types too (this was a flight that’d get into Berlin during early biz hours after all). The joint was wall to wall suit and tie types with more shades of grey and black than a film noir pic.. Despite the obvs snooze factor, I did manage some reasonable people watching. Dude over there looks like a stock character out of a British spy flick – you know, the ginger-ish, sweat flopped, low level functionary who’s offed in the first reel. Chicky there just stepped out of central casting for an Ingmar Bergman movie.

In any case, I think I’m gonna try for window seats on the way back. Mebbe I can bribe the desk clerks?