Timing is Everything

The bad thing about not wanting to take the train, and also not having a bike, is that I have to walk everywhere.

The great thing about not having a bike, and also not taking the trains, is that I walk. Everywhere.
Even though it is always with an extra jacket—which I always realize I don’t need, thanks to global warming gracing the city with yet another unbelievable sunclear autumn day (until night when the temperature plunges ten degrees in ten minutes)—and extra books (German dictionary?)—which I already know I won’t take out because I won’t be sitting long enough to want to read—I get off the train early and walk the rest of the way to the university. Afternoons, after lying a moment on the university's grassy square, I wind my way back home, each time taking a slightly different path (translation: I get distracted and then slightly lost every time). It takes a long time to walk around even just the middle of this city. But if there is anyone who has enough time and inclination to walk distractedly around Berlin, I do.
Today I got distracted by….BONBONS. Ok, really, I wandered into a hinterhof and found steps down to a bonbon shop-cave where you get to see the bonbons being made. It was magnificent. The bonbon maker had to knead this enormous mass of sugar, the bonbons-to-be, which was so hot he had to wear gloves and then use a huge leather blanket to knead in the flavoring (in this case anise oil). The leather was also to keep the bonbons-to-be mass from cooling too quickly. You see, if you are kneading bonbons-to-be and stop working (because, perhaps you have to answer the doorbell) you can quickly end up with one..big..bonbon. Fun as that might be, how would you give it to kids? I imagine you’d have to set it up somewhere and let kids have their chance to lick it, one by one. Or it would be your personal lifelong bonbon, which you took out when you had the yen for a sweet, and then put back into (clean) storage. Or you give the bonbon to a dinosour?
Have you ever tried a sticky-warm anise bonbon?
Have you ever tried to say ‘bonbon’ twenty times in a row?

Still somewhat sugared, I happened to pass Denkraum, an exhibit on, or themed around, Hannah Arendt. I had meant to go see it but hadn’t known where it was. Well, there it was. And there happened to be a lecture in just half an hour about Hannah Arendt’s language. Timing is everything.
I had actually heard the woman giving the lecture (which was a beautiful lecture) at Bard last year, giving a different lecture on Hannah and Heidegger. Coincidences.
The exhibit was many rooms; recordings of Hannah in interviews, large clear plastic sheets hanging from a ceiling with extracts of her writings in German and English, clay figures, film, a reading room…I needed more time to go through the exhibit. More time to get frightened at Arendt’s description of the States, er, I mean, of a state becoming totalitarian.
There is so much returning-to that I intend to do here, and never get back around to, but I hope I do go back to this.

ECLA and School Systems

(this is an informational entry.)
Today I visited ECLA which is a one year university program started because there are so few places where students in Europe can go and have the experience of a liberal arts education. Unlike what we are used in the states (bursting with small liberal arts colleges) that type of integration of subjects is exceptional. Normally, studies are very delineated. When you begin at universities you choose a certain program and you can pretty much only take classes in that area. On average, because of the structure of the school system, students are a little older in Europe when they start universities, but still they don’t have this ‘discovery time’ where they can try out all different areas of study (like, oooh I’ll take gamelan, and environmental ethics and acoustics and revolutions…).
That’s the way it’s been, but attitudes are changing all around Europe, coming concurrent with a shift of the degree system (in Germany anyway) to include BA’s: towards more transnational system.
So
I visited this Central European University, which happens to be in Berlin, since that is the center of Europe, and liked everything about it immediately. Maybe it reminded me of bard (small, slightly isolated and strewn with drying maple leaves) except with less awkward architecture and generally in miniature. The 39 (!) students come from all over Europe (a few from Asia). They all take essentially the same ‘core class’ and then a couple electives. Everything (except language classes) is conducted in English. I sat in on one seminar, (which was supposed to be about Thucydides but ended up being more about translation ethics and why Sappho is married). I was impressed, and depressed. Everyone spoke intelligently and it’s hard enough to talk in a seminar, so imagine everyone is doing it in their second (maybe third) language. The German boy sitting to my right had such a perfect British accent I was convinced he was English for almost the whole class. Why can’t I speak four languages? Or even two that fluently?

Two things found out, first, the school is technically a non-profit company and also, students have their credits recognized by, and are provided with an extra transcript from guess who…Bard. Leon’s long fingers far reach.

Swimming

I visited a real class, finally.
Lead by a striking woman with cat glasses, ironic smiles and...dressed professor-chic in plum velvet.
So I got my first look at how the humanities classes work (or don't) at Humboldt. More on this later.
Oh, right, and the class was zur Philosophie der Gefühle.

Then I went and did the most tourist-y activity EVER.
I took a boat tour around the middle ‘museum’ island. Sightseeing by ship. It was actually fabulous. I had to admit I liked it, and highly recommend it to anyone who visits. (So now you will have to excuse a few tourist pictures, which you can easily find instead on postcard stands citywide, or the internet sites about Berlin.)
The announcer man, who talked all about the history of the buildings we passed, would surface on deck every once in a while and pretend to get hit repeatedly on the head by the low bridges crossing the Spree.
The Spree is the river that flows through Berlin. It splits and creates a little island where there are a bunch of museums near Unter den Linden, where the stadtschloss (the prussian palace) used to be located. When the original was destroyed during the war the Palast de Republik was built, a great rubiks cube of reflective bronze-orange glass. Considered a bitter reminder of the East after the wall fell, and an eyesore, it is being torn down, as you read this, so that a faithful new replica of the original palace can be built. With all the zero money that the city has.
People are, of course, complaining that the old newer palace was itself a landmark and have plenty of nostalgia for its bronzed glass, fallen victim more expensive and abstract nostalgia.

Then I just walked. for. hours.
Used to the overwhelming, but highly concentrated ny, it isn't easy to realize just how spread out this city is. But I am finding more and more that there is such a lot of space.
not least where you can't see it, as in hinterhofs...but more on these later.

Berlina and Orjan and Naima in Berlin

It’s harder to find people who speak German here than you might expect. I could imagine living for years here without ever having to learn. In fact, I know people who have.
What’s really fun is when your second language is the common [second] language. I spent last evening with three Swedes and a Deutscher. We spoke mostly German, mine being second best [brag brag], and occasionally english. Sometimes swedish slipped in and three languages flew around at the same time.
It was, in general, a lovely night. Swedes are wonderful. I will generalize. It made me miss olds friends with whom I’ve sat on pillows on the floor around candles, food and wineglasses. But also more optimistic about the idea of meeting people the world over with whom it is easy to laugh, in meager words.

oh yes, and I met up with Berlin! I mean, Berlin in Berlin, I mean Berlina, as she is called here, in the city of Berlin. Berlina (the person) of Berlin (the city) formerly Berlin (the person) of Bard. She had just gotten back from Morocco (the city). But this is all only interesting for those at Bard (the college) who knew her.

Eleusis or The Winery

Wandering around the next night I discovered the Weinerei (which had actually been recommended to me, by a former philosophy professor, of course). On a corner near the imposing Zionskirche. It’s a festive and happy place, a cafe by day, run by an organization after 10pm. For one euro you are given a glass and can try as many different wines as they offer that night (maybe 12?). You drink as much as you want and there is food cooked by the same organization which is free for all. Then, as you leave, you pay again giving whatever you can afford, or think you ought to (i.e., if you were an ungrateful mooch you could throw another 50 cents in and leave). Fantastic! It was packed with laughing gesellig people, but I could also imagine it being a dangerous place! It can be easy to lose track of wine consumption from this Bacchian fountain of sorts, so you need to watch yourself. Well, I guess that goes at anyplace.

Flug by Night

Berlin is getting colder. The sky is starting to match the cobblestone gray, the sidewalk granite blue-gray, the old building brown-gray, the stone still chipped from bullets steel gray. There must be more words for gray, but I don’t like the sound of puce.
This area is decidedly nocturnal. After the business people leave their apartments at sunrise, passing the remaining stragglers of the night before, there is no one around until almost five, when the businesspeople get off work, and everyone else has finally recovered. There is this element probably in all cities, its true, but it seems especially marked here (whereas new york breathes people steadily, all hours of the day and night, save for a small inhale at maybe 4 in the morning). I can’t speak much past this kiez (area) for now, my experience of which has been almost entirely after dark.

On the first Friday night I wandered out of a photo show opening somewhere in mitte and got distracted by brightly lit streets, where people sat outside under those colorful Thai parasols, found myself in more galleries and a beruhmt graffitti’d artist space and former ss headquarters that lead up up up to a lookout over a sand bar (really, sand) with a film being screened on the building side. Back on the street I strolled into a salsa club and danced with polish girl, who I sat with, with bright red high bootlets, whose name I never even asked and who will always be that polish girl with the bright red bootlets, then, home? No,what lights? another gallery. found myself in a small room with space enough for three cramped people, absolutely covered, walls and ceiling and much floor, with what looked like dio de los muertos inspired painting and sculpture. It smelled like sage and candlewax. Then I stopped to talk to some hippie kids, one from Chile spoke english, we all sat down on the sidewalk, more friends of friends came to sit. there was a girl with a viola, which I played a little until a fight almost broke out nearby and we worriedly put it away. Two englishboys stopped, some of the people sitting had met them earlier that night on the tram. The bleachblond one pranced around like rambunctious drunk puppy, playing ‘I will survive on guitar’ for a moment before bounding off to something else. The sweet quieter one was there for a festival/conference on characters, where he’d been invited to talk/give presentations about his work, about which he was in a crisis, debating the superficiality of a life that was essentially drawing cartoons and designing figures. We talked. I was promptly smitten. Alas, he had a presentation again early the next morning and then was flying back to…Manchester? My chest hurt. “and I’ll never see you again...” he ran up the train steps. Manchester. I hope he got home ok.
Oh eartbreak.

Babylin? also, Aussie Alex

To his credit, and my relief, Alex did clean the whole rest of the apartment. And well. He had just been very very busy with work…so, it’s forgiven. Oh yes, Alex. So, introductions last, Alex is my housemate, (‘mayte’ ) a social and slightly distracted video/media artist from Sydney. We get along fine for now. I think his somewhat superficial friendliness will grow on me as the fall and winter progresses. We never talk about anything earnestly for long, which is sometimes better, I think, than sharing important views...earnestness in close quarters can get precarious.

The first thing I have been noticing is that Berlin is crawling with prams. Sometimes I think they are more dangerous than the bicycles that hurtle past you at fatal speeds. If I judged only by the nearby area, I would be convinced that the city consisted entirely of very cute toddlers in striped caps and their very hip mothers, who look, for the most part, to be only just this side of thirty.
Before I moved here, the subject of pregnancy came up a number of times. Not a lot, but enough to be remarkable. Either the joking warning not to get pregnant, or the perfectly serious suggestion (from a friend whose baby I was admiring) that I could easily get my own newborn since ‘it goes pretty quickly here’. At the time I was scandalized but…now I get it.

Chaos and Eternity

I arrived at the apartment on Pappelallee after traveling for six hours (it felt like) in a van, in the middle of seven people I’d never met. Two parents and their five kids to be exact. Big family.
It was nice actually, in the end it felt a little like it was my own family moving me into the new apartment. The mother squeezed me fondly— call if you need anything!—goodbye. It was a good thing because an hour or so away from Baerenort I started..to..panic inwardly.
Now, I’ve lived semi-alone, or been alone, been to Berlin by myself, gone plenty long periods without seeing family, or without seeing friends, and it’s not as though I didn’t think about this move a lot…but somehow I just suddenly wanted to go back. To say, no wait, I changed my mind…and to perch again on my window overlooking the birch trees. All the moments I’ve spent in that house con fuse together and stretch out into an eternity in my mind. It is out of time

Perhaps it is not really Alex’s fault, but the apartment that day was appalling. The rooms in various stages of disarray, the dishes and cups in various stages of being encrusted and covered by little flies, the bottles of cremesoaps, shampoos and toiletries in various stages of falling over themselves onto the soiled bath rug. And I walked through the rooms in various stages of dismay. I couldn’t handle it, in fact, so I walked out. I stuck two hours into the cracks between oversized granite sidewalk stones and fifty year old thumb holes still in building walls, and sniffed around asia markts, the nearby pharmacy, the chocolate café, feeling my way around the street-car vibrations, the female sex toy shop, the second hand stores, the sandy playgrounds.

Playgrounds in Berlin are the best. They still have all those dangerous playpieces, high rope webs, towering slides, wooden castles or ships with fading paint, round metal spinning plates that dizzy children fly off of …things that in America I’ve either never seen or have been replaced by trashy plastic lego-like jungle gyms and banal corkscrew slides in the name of insurance costs, I mean, kids’ safety. There are these spielplätze and then also newer more innovative ones with elements like strangely carved and curving bridges around poddish elements. I sat on one of these a moment and then, it was time to go back.

Returning to the chaos, I think I have never seen so much dust, but somehow it all was conquered and now my room is…barren but beautiful. Not quite mine yet, but it is getting there.

some beings

The sheep or otherwise dissappearing
and what we are looking for.

Bear Place

(A warning. this is a month of catch up, so it might be a long post!)
I might as well start with the house.
Until now I have been staying in Bärenort, which translates roughly to Bear Place. In winter it is truly a place to hibernate, but we (the bearenorters) think it was really once Beerenort, which means berry place, because the woodland and wilds around the house are full of blackberry brambles. I think sometimes they could be the remnants of a spell covering the house with vines, because there is something fairy tale like about the whole place. I remember when my father first bought the house, eight years ago maybe. It could have been a shady ruin. Cold damp brick, dark moss, rotting birch trees, stark white but fallen.
It has life now and is peaceful and bright. The sun catches in all the room corners possible, and most hours find me sitting high up on the kitchen window ledge where I can see the coming and goings of all the people in the house and hear the birds racket from somewhere in the near woods.
On one side of the house the area is marked as wildlife preserve, and on the other a road goes up, past the sheep field on the right, the neighbors on the left, the abandoned factory, across overgrown train rails and finally up to the street which cuts through the small town on it’s way toward the Teutoburger Wald.
There are six permanent residents in the house altogether, and others (including me) who come and go seasonally. Besides my father and I on the second floor there are Tina, his niece, and her family in the apartment across the way. Laura, her daughter is just a month older than Dante and can produce the most shrieking high-pitched ear-shattering notes if she feels threatened. Steffen, the husband, smiles all the time and recently bought a ‘mini’ car to fix up as a project. It looks like a toy car, but is actually just British.
The downstairs floor is owned by the silver haired Ulrike, a petit potter on whose oversized sweaters there is almost always the trace of clay dust. While I was there she spent two weeks on a Grecian island, and came back, head still in the sun, with amazingly smooth white glittery beach stones.
Her older daughter, Gesine, soft spoken and all heart, lives in Fulda but her son Hannes (around my age or a little older) just moved back from Hamburg and was there all the time that I was away. The details of his leaving Hamburg are a little fuzzy but include a (manic?) psychotic episode precipitated (or worsened) by his, er…green habit.
This is not something you would ever guess of him; he’s the most mild-mannered darling boy ever. A good soul.
The last person in the house is Christoph, who rents a room downstairs from Ulrike. He’s a young blond southerner. He’s very active and friendly and has a really nice girlfriend (wife?) Lena, just barely older than me. My father and he don’t always get along. Ulrike and he have stopped talking entirely. I think he won’t be here much longer.
Sometimes Christina, one of our neighbors, a young mother visits bringing Anna, an amazingly intelligent two year old. And Anja, long-time friend of the family’s, comes over, with her huge black dog Pablo, for coffee, or when we grill, or to cut our hair (which she used to do professionally).
Now you know all the people and some of the drama. This is where I’ve been for…all time. There is no time here. The slow signs of fall, the browning of the birch leaves, the wind growing stronger, the first rainstorm, even these seem like a continuation of the summer I spent here last year. Even though I know, for example, that Hannes spent most of the past year in Hamburg, he is in this house now and that’s the way I’ve always known it, and where I’ve always known him to be.
The house is changing too, there is a lot of construction to be done on the top floor. My father is putting roof windows and solar panels in. But it still seems to change like mountains change, like people change when you are always watching them.
I’ve been here longer than I’ve stopped in any place since the end of school. So it is really a home, (though not for much longer).

how we began

next to me on the windowsill, below and above