The Grey Notebooks

unawares . . .

2008-04-23T21:37:00.002+02:00

Apologies for not posting an EDW today. This afternoon my father-in-law, who lives in Dublin, unexpectedly showed up. And as the chivalrous little daughter-in-law (& hostess) that I am, I should now return to the dinner table . . . Thank heavens Mac keyboards are quiet.

Also, it looks like tomorrow I’ll be taking a short holiday with my mother-in-law to the Baltic. I return on Monday. I’m sure there be lots to share. Pray for me.

Best to all and a lovely weekend.

August

say cheese

2008-04-22T14:13:00.005+02:00

It must’ve been my dishevelled appearance which elicited the many pitying smiles from passing strangers. But after what had just happened I didn’t care if my hair was doing its electrocuted thing, for I was truly shaken. My knees trembled and my left eye started to close. A mean headache was crawling up behind my eye.

A teenage boy was riding towards the dogs and me. I could hardly believe his speed and the rather impressive stunts he was performing. So taken I was by his manoeuvres I didn’t have time to anticipate the disaster about to happen. My German Shorthair Pointer, roaming freely, had got on a scent. Just as the boy came riding by she jumped in his path. Both boy & bicycle flipped three times. It happened quickly, yet it was like slow motion. I watched his head twice hit the pavement, until finally he landed flat on his back, the bicycle horizontally atop him.

I ran to him, removed the bicycle, and helped him up. Are you OK? I asked breathlessly, not giving a second thought to not speaking German. I could tell he was hurt but was too embarrassed to say so. “Shall I phone a doctor; may I take you home?” He said no and started to cry. I was embarrassing him more by all the fuss. . .“I’m really so sorry, I didn’t know she would do that⎯I was just so taken by your⎯” I stopped myself, for now he was verging on the hysterical. “No,” he said. “Really, I’m Ok. Don’t worry about me.” He seemed more worried about reassuring me than about his pain. I felt awful and walked away with the image of his head bouncing off the pavement.

I wanted to pinch Stella in the arse for being such a dumbass. As we continued to walk, I saw by the curb a freshly dead & headless pigeon. So that’s the scent, huh, you booby? She looked up at me with those large amber eyes as if she’d understood. Sorry, old gal, I said and watched her run ahead like a galloping pony. I tried not to think about the headless pigeon.

You know something’s wrong when a group of Punks try consoling a stranger who is the antithesis of Punk. But there they were, huddled around the entrance of Kaiser’s supermarket, with their green Mohawks, clanking clothing, and litter of dogs. “Lady, alles ist gut; no wörries, okeh? Just say cheese.” I smiled, suddenly feeling like I was back in New York where every Juan, Kim, and Finkelstein will start chatting you up because you look downtrodden.

When I finally made it to my destination⎯the main library branch of East Berlin⎯I had no idea why I was there. Fortunately, my aching shoulder reminded me that I’d gone to return books and films. The cue was long; and the woman ahead of me pretended to fidget with her ear, though I could feel her scrutinising me. My quick impatient glare startled her. She hesitated and then asked if I would mind telling her from where did I buy the pretty earrings I was wearing. My countenance softened. Now I felt like the booby.

I made them myself, I told her, stammering out my German. “Oh,” she continued, kindly in English, “they’re very pretty, and the colour looks beautiful against your eyes.” Now I was the one who was startled. We all know compliments are not abundant in Berlin; and after so many years I’ve accustomed myself to the verbal venom to which I’m usually prey.

Feeling good, I took the arduous route home, in order to get in a bit of exercise. As I heaved up the steep hill, an extremely overweight American woman beside me started shouting at her toddler. “Allison, come here, NOW!” The toddler had run far ahead and was absently approaching the street. There wasn’t any way that woman would’ve caught up to her child quickly enough. Without thinking, I calmly shouted, “Allison, honey, look at the dogs. Come look at them, the big one loves little girls.” I don’t know if it was my unfamiliar voice or the word dogs, but Allison halted as abruptly as she was hurtling. She turned around, looked for the dogs, and giggled. The woman thanked me endlessly in English & German. I shrugged it off and pulled Stella to meet Allison, remembering to keep a tight hold on Herr Vicious.

Kneeling beside Allison as she belly-rubbed Stella, the woman continued to thank me. “Oh, please; forget it,” I said. “By the way,” she added, “your earrings are so, so fun⎯and pretty.” I looked up at her and smiled: “My goodness, thank you. If you can remember what they look like, you can make them yourself. There’s a bead store on Kollwitzplatz. It’s called Tukadu. I think I paid six euros in total.” Her face lit up, in that excited way women get when they talk of crafty things.

I walked away with a little bounce in my step, wondering what about my deliberately flawed & cheap earrings would generate two anonymous compliments. “We’re a family of boobies,” I told my furry children, “and your Mum is booby numero uno.”

birdy num-nums

2008-04-18T14:57:00.005+02:00

When I travel there are two things I scout for before I can even begin thinking about visiting museums, monuments, whatever. Vintage pearls & stationery are my thing⎯my A-List of must-finds. The former is always the more difficult, considering I won’t pay more than 20 Euros, or its equivalent. The latter however is another thing. Handmade paper and fountain pens can be found just about anywhere, which means, if there is no one to snap me out of my obsession, I could spend an entire holiday visiting one stationery shop after another. No doubt it’s the reason why my memory of Tokyo is something of an origami of origami paper. Between sampling the Japanese version of Challah bread and paper shopping, I know nothing of that wonderfully overpopulated city.

On my B-list of must-finds are old books, maps, photographs, letters, botanical lithographs, vintage printing press paraphernalia, and used bookbinding materials. Over the years the collection has amassed, but with neither the time nor the space it has pretty much collected dust. But now⎯Now that Husband has found himself an office outside of our flat, I’ve begun setting up my very own workshop studio. Finally I’m able to get crafty.

Now before you start calling me Martha Stewart and buying me vintage aprons, keep in mind it’s only been a week. So if the blank journal I’m binding is a little over-stitched, I’m still giving myself an A for effort. And so what if the note-cards are a bit sticky from too much glue; they’re supposed to look that way⎯deliberately flawed. You know, to show that a human being created them and not some perfect paper-cutting machine. Or even worse, some South American minor being paid a dollar a day by a mega American corporation.

Anyhow, as my creations get a little less “deliberately flawed” I shall send each of you a little something. But keep “A for effort” in mind when your fingers get stuck on the note-card.

That is all I have to say. Unfortunately, I don’t have anything spiritually profound to share like Mercurious always seems to, or kindle provocative pillow talk like Puss’ & Jocelyn’s latest posts, or find hidden messages for London like Ben has, and finally, what’s the point of looking for beautiful design photographs when there’s Ms. Felicity at All Things Bright and Beautiful.

Happy Weekend.

*After-note: If any one of you Germanophiles can tell me the German word for shrink plastic (aka Shrinky Dinks) I’d be most appreciative. I’d send my thanks with a lovely, deliberately-flawed piece of jewellery.

*Photograph by Picnic by Ellie at Flickr

Elegantly Dressed Wednesday: Mary Ellen Mark

2008-04-16T15:57:00.011+02:00

Twelve years ago, living alone along the Yucatan Coast, I saw a torn copy of the above first photo. The girl’s deadpan confrontation shook me to the core. And like any work of art which speaks to me, it was as if both the girl and the photographer (artist & muse) were holding a mirror to my face. At that moment I decided to return to New York, face my demons once and for all, and begin making pictures. But it would take me many years of taking photographs before I could make them.

’s work as a whole shows individuals on the fringe of society. Content aside, the images themselves are visually stunning. Her sense of composition, the range of greys and blacks in each print, and her use of angles are simply magnificent. For as much as she gets her hands dirty, she always returns with something beautiful.

For her commitment to photographing outsiders, her elegant visual sensibility, her sense of humour, and for giving me the push I needed to get out of Mexico, she’s my Wednesday gal for this week.

peace

2008-04-13T17:26:00.006+02:00

Here are some of the questions asked to random Americans, and some of the responses:

What’s the religion of Israel?
- Muslim.
- Catholic, probably.

Who is Fidel Castro?
- A singer.

What religion are Buddhist Monks?
- Let me think, Islamic?

Who won the Vietnam War?
- We did⎯⎯wait, were we even in the Vietnam War?

How many sides does a triangle have?
- Four.
- There are no sides.

What is the currency used in the United Kingdom?
-Possibly American money.
-Queen Elisabeth’s money.

In terms of the war on terror, who do you think should be the next country to invade?
-Somebody in the Middle East
-Cuba
-India & Pakistan
-Italy
-We’ll make a big blast crater out of the fucking Middle East for all I care.
-France⎯because they weren’t our allies.

What is a mosque?
-An animal.
-I have no intelligent guess.

Which countries are in the axis of evil?
-Ok, I’m a little bit mixed up over the Palestinians and the Israelis. Which one is throwing rocks?
-The fella with the turban thing. I call it a diaper, really.

What is Al-Qaeda?
-A group, a suicide group in Israel, in the Middle East, that they do bombs and stuff. And the president is Yasser Arafat. Everybody knows that.

Where’s the Berlin wall?
-I have no freaking idea.

The language they speak in Latin America is Latin⎯true or false?
-The what?

***

I have to say when I saw the video I was too ashamed to fully process it. Not only the responses but the cockiness with which they were delivered. In my initial anger I thought to myself that these people should not have the right to vote until they’ve passed a course in geography and world history. If that sounds Fascist, so be it. And now that my anger is digested, I’ve not changed my opinion.

Exactly because of those above responses is why I fear Obama hasn’t a chance. Firstly, because he’s Black. Secondly, his name rhymes with Osama. Finally, because he’s young. And the last time I checked, three strikes in any game still means you’re out.

I know⎯there are stupid people everywhere. But I don’t see those people dangling their national dicks around and then pissing on other people’s countries to mark territory. And for the record, for those questioning my fidelity to the U.S., I was there on the 11th of September. I saw it with my own eyes. And each day thereafter I was at Ground Zero photographing the firemen, the Mass Transit Authority, and ordinary citizens⎯watching their tenacious efforts to find a breathing body and clean up the titanic mess. I watched citizens from as far away as Nova Scotia & Florida drive to New York to help. And I was there, on behalf of the Red Cross, fruitlessly collecting toothbrushes of the dead from their family members⎯⎯for possible DNA identification. Everyone knew it was pointless, but the victims' family members⎯along with everyone else⎯needed to reach out to people. They needed to see their own shock mirrored in the eyes of others, so as not to go mad.

To be honest, I was too sad to be angry. Still, I didn’t judge those who, on October 11th, marched down Broadway shouting, ‘We’re gonna nuke those motherfuckers’. I didn’t agree, but I understood the need for an outlet; the need, amidst utter helplessness, to want to see something done. Revenge is primal, and it takes a great deal of effort for me to tame it, so I understand.

In the same breath I can say that I vehemently denounce any religion, ideology, or fanaticism which impinges on an individual’s right to choose. Any “ism” based on fear, or under the banner of “My Way is the Only Way.” And that includes the hostile canons of evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins.

* * *

Three hours later I return now to these thoughts. Curiously enough, I’ve just returned from a flea market in a ramshackle district of Berlin which is predominantly Middle Eastern. On route, my husband assures me that I’ll find whatever I’m looking for, for half the price. He says it to convince me. He knows I loathe visiting poor districts. Unless I am visiting a person, I feel I’ve no right to be there, just as I do not like visiting caged animals at the zoo.

It’s an outdoor market and yet everywhere is the smell of poverty. Cheap perfume, filthy clothes, the sweet cheap smell of mothballs, cheap detergent, cheap soap; and the thick smell of fried food. I am suddenly back in the South Bronx. This is what my childhood smelt like, I tell my husband. This is dreadful, he says. Well I’m glad you see this, I add, for the next time you think it’s simpler being poor, you keep this in mind. Being poor is about survival, which is another word for hustling.

I have about three dollars in my bank account and minus three-thousand in another, but I feel guilty about being at the flea market. Never mind that the vendors are driving BMW’s, it’s a poverty of the mind I can’t bear to see. It’s the same mental poverty which I see in the Latinos in New York. They drive fifty-thousand-dollar cars, but they’re driving them right to the ghetto. They’d rather have a brand new car than move to a safe neighbourhood. I don’t understand.

I’m not sure how I got on to poverty, but somehow in my mind it’s all tied in. In the same way that I received an e-mail from someone about Obama possibly being the Anti-Christ because he fits the description described in the Book of Revelations. It’s almost too ludicrous to get upset over, yet I know there are people who read those kinds of e-mails, with their pastel-coloured fonts, and believe them. The person who forwarded me the e-mail is someone I love unconditionally, but I reply in anger. “I know you’re a Christian, but I can’t deal in the realm of fantasy; do you think we can work first with the facts?” I am suddenly no different than Dawkins, for I sound like a pompous ass.

Illustrators: Part II

2008-04-10T14:57:00.006+02:00

Achtung! Another long post

My apologies for adding no information on the illustrators in the previous post. Yesterday evening while forking a falafel ball and mentally whispering a prayer to the gods of proper digestion, I realised it was Wednesday. What I wanted to add was a personal note, a memory invariably linked to contemporary fashion illustrations:

Time: Long ago
Place: Henri Bendel on Fifth Avenue

I was the gal overseeing the newly opened Catherine Malandrino boutique on the 2nd floor of Henri Bendel. I had been working for Malandrino at her downtown boutique in SoHo. When Bendel’s agreed to section off a corner of its trillion-dollar interior for her clothing line, Ms. Malandrino felt I better suited the old-money folk of uptown. I felt vaguely insulted, but off I went.

It was at a time of unremitting self-flagellation. For 9 hours a day I would stand in 4-inch Stephane Kélian heels without looking like I was sniffing my upper lip. The agony was something I’d felt I deserved. It also distracted me from wallowing in the rather critical situation in which I found myself.

Day after day as I watched window-dressers hang large watercolours by the fabulous Izak and Ruben Toledo, I fought the doomed feeling that I had ruined my life. And for what? For being so wet behind the ears I was still dripping on my killer heels.

I’d been charged in criminal court with a Felony D. In short, it translates to a minimum of four years imprisonment. The “gentleman” who was pressing charges claimed that I was a complete stranger who’d burgled his apartment. With emphasis on the word stranger.

The suffocating rage of injustice tormented. In less than a month I’d lost 30 pounds, and violent dreams left me ragged. All I could do was work. Neither Bendel’s nor Ms. Malandrino had any idea what was fuelling my massive increase in sales. All my personal clients would spend no less than $10,000 per session. My male CEO clients spent twice as much. Mistresses, dirty old men, JAPS, (Jewish American Princesses), fox-fur ladies⎯⎯I had them all and enjoyed their demands and the challenge of making them look fabulous. All I wanted was to be the mythic stranger who instantly knew what people needed. With emphasis on the word stranger.

But on slow days when distractions were lacking, I had to face what was looming.

The gentleman pressing charges, “Mr. Black” had been my boyfriend. He was a fashion photographer thirty years my elder. We’d been together for a year; the latter half of which I lived with him in his loft. Reluctantly I’d given up my cosy duplex studio on the Upper West Side. He’d grown increasingly paranoid about my loyalty, so I took the plunge, hoping it would make him feel better and prove that I hadn’t anything to hide. Mistake number one.

Needless to say, the relationship was blustery. Between his jealousy and utter debauchery, I quickly chilled. At the time I was feverishly working on a photo-documentary on a young man growing up in the Lower East Side ghetto. I adored & genuinely respected him. And perhaps because a large portion of my days was spent happily in the young man’s presence, I could not fully grasp how miserable my personal life was.

And so, one fine late spring evening I walked into the loft, deciding to call it quits. I half-expected, as was typical, junkie models crashing in every corner of that loft. But all was dark, except for the glare of a computer screen.

There was Mr. Black retouching some model’s thigh in Photoshop. I told him I wanted to speak with him. When he turned to face me I noticed his large hands. What’s that ring you’re wearing? I naively asked. He was startled and tried to hide the hand behind his back.

It was the longest monologue I’d ever heard. He admitted that when he’d tell me he was going up north to repair his country house, the truth was he was visiting his wife and two toddlers. He was ‘happily’ married but wanted to have his own life and didn’t care who he was hurting so long as he had his own life. He then pulled from a drawer a bag of mini cassettes. “You see these, these are all your conversations with your stupid friends and that goddamn boy you’re pretending to photograph. I know what’s going on. All those flirtatious codes you two speak in, but I know what’s really taking place. You think I’m stupid or what? You think you can play me and have some young thing on the side? You’re lucky I have a thing for whores like you⎯⎯”

I didn’t let him finish. The injustice blinded me. Knowing perfectly well I never had a thing for minors and that I’d never cheat on him, he nevertheless continued the accusations. I wanted to punch him in the face. Instead I kicked the wall. Needless to say it didn’t relieve a thing. Meanwhile on and on he went about my being a whore.

I started to pack my belongings. He told me I wasn’t going anywhere, and threw my things all about the loft. When he tried to pin me down, I suddenly felt like the incredible hulk. Effortlessly I pushed him away; and thinking of a way to shock him quiet, I pulled the Andy Warhol from the wall and tossed it out the window. I begged Andy to forgive me, whilst praying that the Dominican drug dealers outside would steal it. My efforts silenced him. When he returned to his senses, he phoned the cops to say some crazy junkie woman had broken into his apartment and was now threatening his life.

The cops arrived and asked no questions. I was handcuffed and sent to Central Booking. Because it was one of those consecutive Jewish holidays, I slept in a cell with withdrawing crack addicts for 5 days. (A gem of a post those five days would make.)

My lawyer, Mr. Levanthal, upon getting me released warned that if I could not prove I knew Mr. Black, I would be charged with robbery. And Mr. Black was filing damages of over $100,000.

At this point I was working for Malandrino at Bendel’s. As I’ve said, my thoughts tormented as I waited for my court date.

Out of the blue, the District Attorney phoned my lawyer. Having browsed at my file, the D.A. wanted to meet me. My lawyer was baffled: “What’s the D.A. doing reading files? Why would he want to meet you? I’ve never heard of such a thing.” On the morning of my meeting, I suddenly remembered I had taken a rather intimate photo of Mr. Black, and had possibly left it in my mother’s apartment. I ransacked her flat until I found it.

At first the D.A. refused to let me speak. “There’s no point in trying to get outta this one, Missy. You knew he was a photographer, you wanted to steal his stuff. Admit it and we’ll cut a deal.” Blind rage once again curdled within. Calmly I asked for permission to speak. He didn’t believe a word. “Honey, you can’t prove a thing. You got nothing, so admit the truth.” I slid the photograph of Mr. Black before the D.A. and said nothing.

D.A: This is the guy? This is Mr. Black? Hey kid, what are you doing with a man like this? He looks like a goddamn pervert. He’s old enough to be your grandfather. Hey Charlie, look at this, this guy’s older than me!

The only other time in my life I wanted to kiss a New Yorker was when I accidentally collided with Woody Allen. With the D.A., I could’ve collapsed in gratitude.

Eventually Mr. D.A. dropped the charges.

So if I sweat a little whenever I see these fabulous illustrations, a few people now know why.

*Illustration by Izak

Elegantly Dressed Illustrators

2008-04-09T21:25:00.017+02:00

David Downton

Tanya Ling

René Gruau

Erté

George Barbier

bestowal

2008-04-07T11:49:00.006+02:00

We all know the scene. Audrey Hepburn, dressed to the nines, walks along New York’s Fifth Avenue. Nibbling on a croissant, she stops to admire the window display at Tiffany’s. It is shortly after first light. The streets are empty.

In a modern rendition of this scene, the woman is dressed to the nil. (Or curiously null?) We see neither her face nor that she is savouring her favourite crackers because her face is buried in the pages of a tantalising book. This modern-day retelling should not be mistaken for cerebral porn.

What this poorly rendered rendition of Breakfast at Tiffany’s should be taken for is my way of saying thanks to Puss for sending me a love package. The Carr’s biscuits are safely hidden from dogs & husband. And Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber is exactly what I’ve been in the mood to read.

It’s wonderful to feel cared for. I shall smile brightly today, feeling very special indeed.

Thank you thank you thank you. xo

*I know what you’re all thinking: the impudence of some people to compare themselves to Audrey Hepburn. I’ll have you know I secretly liken myself more to David Niven. But that’s another post.

remembrance

2008-04-04T12:42:00.006+02:00

On the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s death I include a one-minute clip of his final speech.

It's almost difficult to grasp that this period in U.S. history is less than 50 years old.

Elegantly Dressed Wednesday: The Ziegfeld Gals

2008-04-02T16:10:00.006+02:00

* Myrna Darby, Susan Fleming, [I've forgotten her first name] Henderson, Muriel Finley *

My head hurts too much to write anything about these sensual gals. But I hope you all enjoy the photos.

aviso

2008-04-01T21:23:00.012+02:00

They’ll be no resting if I don’t let off steam, so I beg you all to make allowances for my self-indulgence. If I wasn’t so annoyed at the German language, I’d preface this post with a bold Achtung.

I don’t know how translating a 20-page German document (more like Prussian pontificating manifesto) could turn so sour; but by page two I was already questioning my move to Berlin, my love for Rilke, and my marriage to an otherwise wonderful German. I should add that in two pages I came across two periods. No commas, no new paragraphs, just one longwinded brain-fart. In no less than four hours I managed to make those two of twenty pages sound something like a request for donations (what it’s intended for) and not the “hear-me-preach-about-what-I-know” document that I was given.

Perhaps it touched a nerve because all my life I’ve been called Prussian, thanks to my obsessive-compulsive love for order. Perhaps I turned hysterical because it’s that time of the month. Perhaps it’s both. Whatever the reason it wasn’t long before I was sitting in the bath telling my husband how I knew all along I never wanted to marry a German: “Don’t take it personally, my love. It’s a thing of sensibility. I can’t handle being with anyone who has thoughts without punctuations. Can you at least understand my point of view? Understand at least what that may mean for our children. Between my bipolar disorder and your garbled ramblings, it sounds like an experiment gone wrong. I don’t want any experiments; I want fat-cheeked puffa-lumps for children. See?”

With his large blue eyes and an oddly Puerto Rican expression, he replies, “It must be that time of the month. Just let me know who or what you’re hating right now and I’ll try to make it go away.”

Don’t think for a second I can be manipulated by that kind of reverse psychology, better known as being kind to the devil. I know those kinds of tricks. My sleeves are stuffed with the likes of them . . .

I don’t know why letting off steam on my husband and letting in bath steam made me feel better, but it did. Moments later, calm as a pea, I was swimming in the tub and pretending I was one of those mythological sirens whose singing lured sailors onto rocks. As I sang and splashed about, my dachshund, Herr Vicious, charged into the bathroom⎯pushing open the door with his long nose⎯and began barking. In my moment of self-indulgence I’d forgotten Herr Vicious loathes splashing.

Now if anyone is the manipulator around this household it’s Mein Herr. One look from those kohl-rimmed eyes and I feel like scrambled eggs. As I watched him hop over to try and bite the water, I figured it was time Herr Vicious had a bath. I drained the bathwater, put on my robe and refilled the bath at the temperature which would not give him reason to bark or bite. After 11 years I know if the water is too cold he’ll bite the faucet.

I lathered and massaged his delicate back for over twenty minutes. I watched his little tail wag frantically, the loud splashes sending Herr Vicious chasing his tail. I teased him by squeezing his rubber ducky in his face, until he warned me that my shenanigans could cost me my wrist. Finally, towel in hand, I lifted him from the bath and watched him wriggle himself frizzy. In the end, he licked my nose, almost as if he’d read my thought: You’re the one reason I’m never entirely angry, not even at sermonising Germans.

note

2008-03-31T14:58:00.005+02:00

A brief note to say I’ll be offline for a few more days. The early signs of another torture headache are warning me to rest my eyes from the computer screen. In the meantime I'll continue to pop in on everyone. Hope you all enjoy these downy, dreamy cherry blossoms.

Photographs by Miwa at Flickr.

Elegantly Dressed Wednesday: Lee Miller

2008-03-26T13:20:00.009+01:00

Imagine your lover is Man Ray, your mentor is Edward Steichen, and your circle of friends include Brassaï, Jean Cocteau, Picasso, Edward Weston, Eugené Atget, and Paul Strand. With such an artist A-list crackling around you, lack of inspiration would seem unlikely.

By her mid-thirties, already flooding the covers of British Vogue, Lee Miller chose to be at the other end of the camera⎯in order to document the end of World War II. (She was one of only five female war correspondents.) Her photographs of London’s rubble & decay are amongst the finest war records. In Germany, at times her eye was cool – perhaps for self-protection – as when she photographed SS soldiers and their children⎯all dead by suicide. Although, when she encountered Hitler’s bathtub, she jumped in and playfully took a self-portrait. Her sweeping landscapes of the Middle East are like a lesson in geometry; and finally, the abstract female torsos she photographed can still moisten a few pants. Her knack for finding beauty in the most wretched places had quickly earned her “one of the seven most distinguished photographers.” [Vanity Fair]

As fashion model, photographer, muse to the innovators of modern art, gastronome, full-time socialite, and legendary bed-hopper, Lee Miller reigned supreme⎯⎯and is my kind of gal for this week’s Elegantly Dressed Wednesday.

tics & stones

2008-03-21T09:16:00.006+01:00

Achtung! Content may be offensive to those with no appreciation for the occasional indecorous (but harmless) wisecrack.
Achtung II! A long post.

Religion is not a topic I ever bring up. Should someone open a discussion I’ll have my say, for in fact I have a lot to say. For the most part my experience has been that people are either positively intolerant or deeply convicted in their beliefs. Being of a judicious sign, the balancing scales, I tend not to be too hasty. But with religion it is difficult. It has always felt like that self-righteous cousin one can’t stop staring at on Thanksgiving. As you stare, you think: Ok, I’m trying very hard to find something likable about you. (Like my cousin Sarah who never shared her toys. “It’s not my fault you can’t afford better toys,” she’d say. The only thing I ever liked about her was that she’s half-Jewish, something she had no say in.) But alas, one ends up more interested in the wafts of turkey roast making the stomach roar. Once again, the pleasures of the flesh take precedence.

At the age of 14, fed up with those doe-eyed, buttoned-up Mormons harassing me on the street like urchins, I decided I would read the Christian bible in full. (Just so I could have something to say other than, Hey Buddy, you’re blocking my way.) I read the bible four times as if it were my favourite book⎯⎯one of those unputdownables. It was not. But by the third go I was rooting for Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego as they defied King Nebuchadnezzar. I worried a great deal over Joseph. If anyone ever earned their prophetic stripes, it was he. Though, later I would find Thomas Mann’s interpretation far more compelling. As for David, when God told him he could not build the temple because his hands had known too much blood, I was genuinely heartbroken. Solomon was different. Solomon and I were on the same page. He had chosen wisdom over wealth & fame. Solomon was tall, Mediterranean-kissed, (from all his divine ruminations whilst outdoors) and he had Semitic curls like mine. While none of these features are exactly seductive, I was sure Solomon was a first rate dream-beau.

As stated in the previous post, God’s reply to Moses in Exodus, I AM THAT I AM, in my opinion is the most powerful ever made. But that is not what I told those blonde, blue-eyed Mormons.

First of all, I wanted to wipe that robotic veneer off their faces. You know, the Tom Cruise look which says: I’m so calm I look possessed. But I didn’t want to be too mean because I figured they each had like thirty mothers. And we all know one is plenty. One is a lifetime in therapy. And a lifetime in therapy in New York means watching your psychiatrist come in weekly with a new pair of Manolo Blahniks, which you no less are funding.

But I’m being cynical and I don’t much like myself for it. However, at the age of 14, I was not cynical. I was rage⎯rage incarnate. All I wanted was to lock myself in a large, orderly closet with my flattened Snoopy and wooden dachshund pull-toy (I was a late bloomer) and read. Read, read, read. Though, not the bible. I wanted to read more stories of family disasters like the ones I’d miraculously discovered at the New York Public Library. In one visit, I randomly pulled from the stacks: Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?; Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night; Tennessee Williams’ Suddenly Last Summer; and Truman Capote’s Music for Chameleons. If ever there was a moment when the clouds parted and God found favour in me, it was then. As I devoured each of those doomed stories, I knew they would influence me for the rest of my life.

All of those men were gay, excepting O’Neill who was just a bastard (albeit brilliant). But they were NOT gay writers. They were writers who happened to be gay. Because of their impact on my innocently degenerate 14 year old mind, I too wanted to be gay, hoping that through gayhood, I would be attuned to such depths.

But gayhood, or even non-gayhood is difficult when you’re afraid of human touch. At 14, the thought of it made me want to wash my hands, which I regularly did anyway. Whenever Patrick, my best mate at school, touched my shoulder, I’d punch him in the Solar Plexus, then would wash my hands. When Patrick ended the friendship, I had a lot of time to myself. That’s when the urge to start counting grew inside me like oatmeal gone wrong. I counted the cracks on the walls and I counted my footsteps. However, I never understood why it was 3,065 steps to school, and 3, 003 from school. (Physicists, feel free to explain.)

And now we return to the Mormons.

They were always hustling either whilst on my way to school or on my return. It was problematic because those were peak moments for my counting obsession’s obsession. Should anyone interrupt, I’d have to walk back to the train station (or back home) and begin again. Since I’m a stickler for punctuality, the Mormons’ interruption caused a great deal of stress. It didn’t matter that I knew how many steps my journeys required, I had to hear my inner voice say each number or else something ominous would happen. Something too awful to Name. That was the forced agreement between the Counting Obsession & me.

So imagine having to stop at say, 2,471 (an unremarkable number not easy to remember) to explain to the Mormons that you have no interest in their divisive notion of Salvation. “For how can you tell me Salvation is freedom [note to self: 2,471] when, if I don’t choose it, I’ll go to hell. Is that freedom or fright? As it is, I’m already in one fear-based contract with Counting, do I look like I need another? My insurance won’t cover another fashionista psychiatrist, and I certainly can’t afford to lose my stride. Now if you don’t mind, I have a meticulous path to take.” 2,472, 2,473 . . .

Elegantly Dressed Wednesday: Krzysztof Kieslowski

2008-03-19T11:50:00.009+01:00

Part of living in exile means coming to terms with feeling disconnected⎯more from people than the place itself. It also means grappling with not being able to express oneself spontaneously, as one would amongst those who speak the same language. The few people with whom I do converse⎯I can see in their eyes how they feel too different from me. I’m too much an “other” for them to get intimate with.

The handful of friends I had in New York, all over the age of 65, are now dead or angry with me for leaving. What I most miss is our conversations; over pots of coffee and cigarettes, we’d quickly & effortlessly get down to the nitty-gritty.

As an only child I’m used to being alone, and have always up to a point needed a lot of space. However, some days the need to connect, to simply laugh, is unbearable. Yet, experiencing this sort of isolation has turned my gaze inward in a way like no other. I was too cosy back home in my West Village apartment to search as deeply as I have here. ⎯Cosy in my love for the city, in spite of the stress and demanding hours of work.

My point is, when human exchange is lacking, I automatically turn to another kind of dialogue, and that is art. Agnes Martin’s large but simple line drawings do it for me. Likewise, Rilke’s poetry. Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night describes who I am and my struggles better than I ever will (minus the decadent wealth). For film, three directors immediately come to mind. John Cassavetes (Opening Night), Woody Allen (Another Woman), and everything by Krzysztof Kieslowski.

You need only look at that beautiful face to know. It’s all there: the kindness, generosity, the inner searching & turmoil, the love for life, and finally, the elegantly undressed mind.

The Decalogue series is by far my favourite of his films. Made for Polish TV, the ten-part series deals with the nature of sin. As each episode philosophically interprets one of the Ten Commandments, we follow the lives of different individuals all living in the same ramshackle tenement. Visually, it doesn’t get any more depressing. The concrete-slab proletarian aesthetic is enough to make you believe that Socialism works only in theory. And yet, one gets a sense of community, of people looking out for one another, instead of, as in other communist countries, turning against each other. (Notice I’m not naming names.)

Only a very special & quiet soul could take such a verdict-laden theme as the Ten Commandments and turn it into something life affirming. And all without preaching. . . Last night, as I watched one of his early low-budget films, (Camera Buff) I was thankful to have someone, though now dead, reach out to me so profoundly. Once again, I felt human.

Why is there no word for someone who loves things Polish? Like Anglophile or Francophile? Between the country's poets & film directors, it's enough to make me a Polski-phile.

double exposure

2008-03-17T13:54:00.005+01:00

I am walking the dogs, shielding my eyes from the cold yellowless sun. From my peripheral I see what appears to be a man rubbing his crotch. Aloof, I continue with what I’m doing. I pull the plastic baggie from my pouch and stare absently at Polish construction workers mounted on a rickety scaffold. I am waiting for Herr Vicious (my dachshund) to finish his business, but he is so caught up in growling at Mr. Crotch that the whole affair is going slowly. A Polish worker waves. I return the gesture with a smile. I will not give Mr. Crotch the satisfaction of my attention.

I suddenly remember “my” Central Park flasher. For the four years I would cross the park twice a day, he was always there, by the same oak tree, his monstrosity in full view. He was clearly mentally ill and er, clearly half African American. After the initial horror, I figured the best way to handle the situation was by simply waving hello. Not facetiously or anything, simply hello, as in Hey, how’s it going neighbour? And on bright autumn days, seeing how New York is at its most beautiful, I would shout: Good Mornin’! It didn’t prevent him from opening his trench coat twice a day, but it sure took away some of his shock-naughty pleasure.

But I’ve no patience for this Mr. Crotch before me. We are not in New York and there’s simply no need for anyone to be so excessive first thing in the morning.

By this time, Herr Vicious completes his business; and as I bend to pick it up (my pouch colliding against my chin, my dachshund pulling and barking) I hear a ghastly, sexually-repressed moan. With an evil glare I look at his crotch. The venom I am about to spew is stopped short by what I see. He is rubbing a digital camera against his crotch whilst taking my picture. I have to give it to him for shocking me; son of a gun. But between the smell of organic dog-food waste and my aging back, I lose my cool. “Hey, asshole, if you want to take a picture you ask first, then you can click, rub & moan all you want.” I can’t help think how this is a very modern scenario. Pixel pleasure rubbing?

I walk away, talking aloud to myself: “What’s the matter with people, I haven’t even had breakfast yet.” A mother, pushing a twin-holder pram walks by, clearly not seeing what Mr. Crotch had done. She mutters something about foreigners, a.k.a. me because I’ve obviously criticised another German. I’d like to say, And F***k you too! but Herr Vicious, in his own way, does it for me. Like the crafty little Weiner that he is.

Photograph: Unknown Park, New York City; 2003

Interlude

2008-03-16T16:09:00.005+01:00

There’s nothing more insulating from a city’s hard edges than rain & fog. And when I need to purge, a brisk, aimless walk always rescues me.

On Schönhauser Allee the goose-neck lanterns hum and flicker; a single pedestrian walks by, wary of my camera. For whatever reason the dogs are calm. I am happy and don’t know why⎯am almost afraid of knowing. In moments like this, a proclamation utters itself, from a place that feels centuries old: I Am that I Am. In moments like this, I understand its authority; and understand how it is the most complete statement I can make.

Elegantly Dressed Wednesday: Babylon of the 20’s & its Queen

2008-03-12T17:08:00.004+01:00

What’s a girl have to do around here to get an Elegantly Dressed Wednesday invite? ⎯This I asked myself before browsing the sidebar menu of Ben Locker’s blog, a treasure chest in itself of sundry goodies. It appears no invite is needed, so unless I hear otherwise I’ll suppose my forced entry isn’t rude.

As a disillusioned expatriate I thought I’d begin with the first person who comes to mind when I think of the Weimar Era, Germany’s own Anita Berber. If anyone embodied the hedonist decadence of the period, it was no doubt she.

Born in 1899, the daughter of a classical violinist and a cabaret singer, she left her native city (Dresden or Leipzig) for the sultry wreckage that was Berlin. As a model, actress, expressionist exotic dancer, and prostitute⎯she took her professions to eccentric proportions. According to Wikipedia, “she was reportedly the sexual slave of a woman and the woman’s 15-year-old daughter. She could often be seen in Berlin hotel lobbies, nightclubs and casinos, naked apart from an elegant sable wrap⎯with a pet monkey and silver brooch packed with cocaine.” I don’t know how often I’ve wished I could blink and see an instance of this voluptuary era where individuals of her kind were the norm.

She may not have been a model of morality, whatever that means, but she was daring, both ferocious & tender, and fearlessly outlandish. The above photograph alone, with that stylish kimono-wrap and unselfconscious audacity are enough for my vote.

wakefulness

2008-03-05T12:37:00.005+01:00

Just as I suspected; an anonymous caller phoned the Polizei to complain about the neighbours’ birthday bash. Except, when the cops arrived at 3 a.m. and rang their doorbell, the music & chatter was so loud that no one at the party heard. Lucky for the authorities I was home, in phase three of my sleep. Between the cop’s thumb relentlessly pressed on my bell, and the ferocious barking of my dogs, I awoke feeling my heart in my throat.

Thinking it was some ass-wipe from the party who locked himself out, I woke my Mr. August and asked him to handle the situation. I was too afraid of all the cruel things I would say. In my foggy fright I forgot what a thundercloud he can be. He picked up the intercom receiver and quickly got to the point: “Who’s the stupid asshole ringing my bell at this hour?” It was like listening to German hip-hop. A long pause followed and then he said: “No, I’m not letting you in. Why not ring the jerk-off spy who phoned you. Goodnight.”

Absently petting both dogs, I lay in bed thinking how much my Mr. August has changed. Before our move to Berlin he never would have spoken to anyone in that manner. When we lived in Tuscany⎯within the first week⎯he had a host of acquaintances, in spite of the language barrier. In New York, and during our short stay in Maryland, he seemed to have this aura of kindness & curiosity which people from all backgrounds naturally took to. Here in Berlin I watch simple transactions, like buying bread, turn aggressive and rude.

As I lay with the darkness, listening to the muffled sounds of Britney Spears, (the only reason I didn’t entirely mind the cops’ invasion) my husband was already fast asleep. I wondered what I had done to contribute to his hardened aspect. Between my confrontations with xenophobia and his love for Fassbinder, (the only German director who criticised post-war Germany) my Mr. A. had no more patience for Germans. He could hardly tolerate his brother for being “too German” which in translation means, inflexible. I wanted a cigarette to help me think how to make things right.

I remembered a conversation I had with my English bookseller. He asked me how much longer did I plan on staying in Berlin. Without thinking, I said: I’m not leaving this city until I come to terms with it, and that means having to accept certain disagreeable sensibilities. His chiselled British face looked at me and smiled. Having lived in Berlin longer, he knew exactly what I meant.

Mentally smoking a cigarette and travelling back in time, I noticed how my thoughts kept stopping at certain incidents. I tried connecting the incidents and eventually saw how they had one thing in common: injustice.

I can always tell if a person grew up in poverty by the way they respond to injustice. Every place across the globe I’ve visited, the reaction is the same. It’s a primal, savage rage at the sight of injustice⎯and I, of course, include myself. . . So with my faux cigarette, I remembered the injustices of my childhood, not only toward me, but others who also looked different. In my case it was my green eyes; on others it was a turban, a pair of inexpensive runners, or someone’s parent who was a junkie or a prostitute. Later, I watched my father’s name smeared by the New York Post, the Daily News & the New York Times. It wasn’t enough that he’d been murdered while making an honest living⎯ no, for hype purposes one paper printed lies about how he was part of some drug deal, and all the other papers followed. No questions asked, no fact-checking, nothing. Day after day, in between having to identify his hardly recognisable body and make funeral arrangements, I let the silent rage simmer as a new headline appeared. I suddenly understood how someone was capable of murder in a moment of blind rage.

By this time, the eye of first-light blazed the sky. The deep, rhythmic breathing of two dogs and a husband made me sleepy. I shut my eyes and told myself, regardless of what’s happened I have fought to never be victim to those circumstances. Nor will I ever allow anyone’s way of thinking harden me, for nothing touches me more than a face that is open to life. And that is always what I wish to be: honest & open, without walls or bitterness.

*Photograph from Mel Rosenthal’s In The South Bronx of America. The view is almost identical to the one I remember from my childhood bedroom.

*Forgive me, dear Readers, for mentioning all this dread again. I never discuss it with anyone. If it creeps into my posts, it's unintentional.

*the other kind of mean reds

2008-03-01T13:39:00.006+01:00

Once in awhile, particularly during that trying time of the month, I need to put away the books, cast aside thoughts of work, of what’s happening in Iraq, the presidential candidates, etc ⎯ and simply go shopping. Nothing extravagant, mind you, but something that requires removing myself from my desk and indulging my eyes. And no, I don’t want to go tonight to my neighbour’s birthday bash. I rather count the dust on my bookshelves.

Shoes are my thing. For fifteen years I’ve mostly worn only two types: driving shoes & ballerina flats. For my large & flat feet both are perfect for pounding the NYC pavement. (We’ll just ignore that I live in Berlin and how really one should wear Wellingtons or snow boots.) And so, off I went to Mulackstrasse and other boutique-y streets in search of flats in size 42 or 43. To make a long story short, I should’ve stayed home and counted the dust, for unless I decide to wear men shoes, my size no longer exists in Germany. Perhaps the German foot is shrinking.

I could wait around until I inherit my mother-in-law’s shoes. But that’s too morbid and frankly I need shoes now. I’m tired of stitching up holes or waiting until evening to get away with masking the unstitchable.

To make a longer story visual, I trekked back home and ordered these:

Since my teeny-bopper days I've been a fan of J. Crew. ⎯Actually, since the days I moved out of a certain dangerous neighbourhood and could wear the clothes I finally wanted without worrying about being knifed or shot for not dressing in ghetto code. (When you suffer from an eating disorder, the last thing you want to wear are denims three sizes too large.) Ahh, memories. . .

Amazing how a little indulgence can rejuvenate the mind. With my red & indigo-polka dot numbers, I feel ready once again to wallow in things out of my control, like how America will never vote for a certain elegant black man whose name rhymes with Osama.

Happy Weekend to all.

*My thanks to Ben Locker for posting about the vintage Vogue covers.

come & gone

2008-02-27T10:39:00.008+01:00

From my desk I can see a man in a navy-blue housecoat standing on his balcony. Shaving cream lathered on his beard, he shakes off some leopard-print fabric. Absently he looks at the sky. Shall I tell him? It may be a bit complicated.

Forget it, Herr Neighbour, I’d say. Ain’t no more sunshine comin’ round these parts, because Puss took it with her. The moment that plane of hers took off, the rude cold rain returned. If Herr Neighbour misunderstands, it is because he has a puss of his own, a beautiful white one who sits all day on the sill, watching the raucous ravens.

One thing that immediately resonates about any individual is their generosity of spirit. It is something which, the longer the I stay in Berlin, I fear I am losing. Or if not losing, have gradually shut off. The bit of sunshine Puss did leave behind is just this spirit⎯a spirit of sharing from within, without ego or hang-ups. In short, a person whose friendship you hold dear and want to nurture to the utmost. I must say, I wasn’t surprised to find that same spirit within Beau de Toujours & The Pink Pound.

In case no one’s heard, I’ve won this year’s academy award for Worst Berlin Tour Guide. Reading a map is like reading Russian, and after so many years of isolating myself from English speakers, I could barely utter a sentence without stuttering. The simple task of finding a nice café on a Saturday afternoon (peak hour for Berlin brunchers) seemed impossible. Once we did find a café, the waiter, being Arab, refused to make Beau a Bloody Mary, simply because he hadn’t the first clue how. They were kind enough to shrug it off, including the best part: my not having cash to pay for my red-lentil soup because I’d given it all to my husband. Good one. All my New Yorker neuroses were on overload.

When the boys left, in search of, er, German sausage, the ladies went to Fishbelly, Berlin’s exclusive lingerie shop in the heart of the old Jewish quarter. I can’t remember the last time I did something so wonderfully girly with another woman. If funds weren’t so low I would’ve loved to buy those thin-lace knickers for 100 Euros. Incidentally, while Puss tried on a gorgeous pale pink glittery number, I watched a succession of older men stand by the window, deliberating over the shop. Nothing like a host of Sugar Daddies to make a girl smile.

That evening, feeling mildly derelict in my tour-guide incompetence, I remembered there was a special book in my handbag, given to me by Puss. I sat with Carol Ann Duffy’s verse, red pen behind my ear, feeling the poet’s wisdom wash over me. Before long the pages looked like a red colouring book, as I underlined stanza after stanza. During the second round of reading the book whole, I realised it was Puss’ voice I was hearing⎯⎯and that brought an even greater smile.

Photograph: 3rd floor display-poster at KaDeWe

a heart so white

2008-02-22T08:26:00.005+01:00

Before anything, a note of thanks to Puss, Jocelyn, & Ben for the dear get-well notes. I was very moved, especially since I’ve rather quickly become attached to you three. ⎯Hey, I’ve been ill, so I’m allowed to gush . . .

I’ve no news really, other than as much as I love my old Berlin flat, I wouldn’t mind a holiday from its white walls. In fact, if I were not earning in dollars (meagre ones, at that) I’d take the first flight to London. But we all know what bullies those Brits are with their currency. Anyhow, if I did go to London I’d miss my Saturday date with Puss⎯in Berlin! Sehr schön.

Two days ago, feeling better but thirsting for some visuals & music, I had the strangest urge to re-watch Joseph Losey’s Don Giovanni & Orson Welles’ Macbeth⎯⎯one after the other. Now, anyone who knows me well will have had the, er, privilege of hearing & watching me sing Leporello’s lines, beginning with the thumping opener: Notte e giorno faticar . . . ! If one is going to play Don Giovanni’s master, then one must be willing to go all out, which I did, with both dogs on my lap. Needless to say Herr Dachshund was unimpressed. Arrogant little bugger.

Macbeth followed and I immediately slipped into its silver-rich black & white revelry. I’ll admit it didn’t have the same punch as when I was in the ninth grade watching it for the first time. But it did bring back the sensation, as well as remind me of a promise I made to myself: that I would one day write a play in verse. Anyhow, what did once again move me was the poor player soliloquy. Forgive me, I must write it in full:

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Perfection. What a delicious march of the tongue in “That struts and frets upon the stage”.

And finally I realised, the next time another woman deliberately rams my ankle with her pram or shopping cart⎯⎯instead of my usual hostile reply, I will like Lady Macbeth keep it short & to the point: My hands are of your colour, but I shame to wear a heart so white. At the very least, in German it sounds like a threat from a schizo:

Meine Hände sind blutig wie die deinen. Doch ich schäme mich, dass mein Herz so weiß ist.

Here’s to Shakespearean grace.

kopfschmerz

2008-02-06T18:29:00.001+01:00

Am slowly recovering from another relentless cluster attack. Will return in a day or two, once my vision clears up . . .

Regards to all

-A

*Film still from The Sacrifice by Tarkovsky. (I’d sure love to have this image hanging on my wall.)

unknown girl with doll

2008-01-28T19:38:00.000+01:00

It is one of the first photographs I bought upon arriving to Berlin. We had just moved to the east⎯on Arkonaplatz⎯where on Sundays flea market vendors sell everything from flapper hats to printing press gadgets. A woman with a harsh voice and a tired but kind face smiled at me, gesturing for me to look at her items. She had no teeth. There were piles of leather-torn photo albums all about the table. It took me an hour to look through them all. I noticed there wasn’t a single colour photograph.

When I found the image of the girl I was overwhelmed. Aside from the rich silvers within the print, (nowadays replaced by an inferior though eco-friendly chemical) something about this child moved me to tears. I was not crying because of the photograph’s moment, as beautiful and Diane Arbus-like as it is, but for the fact that I was holding a snapshot from a family album and it was for sale. How does it happen that family photographs end up at flea markets? Furthermore, the girl may still be alive, albeit as a senior . . . Of course, any photograph taken during WWII makes one think the worst. So, one euro later I sandwiched the photo between my shabby edition of John Clare’s poetry book and promised to provide the girl with a loving home.

For months I kept the photograph on my desk until I realised, as with any image of my father, it was weighing me down. I mocked myself for being overly sensitive but soon found I was able to work better without those little black eyes staring at me.

by its cover

2008-01-26T11:27:00.001+01:00

When it comes to book covers I’ve two obsessions: the Faber poetry series and every paperback published by the New York Review of Books. Faber’s simple matte covers, mostly in earth tones, and NYRB’s striking photographs & illustrations make me want to devote a wall to framed book covers.

And thanks to NYRB, Americans now have access to some of the most interesting literature published throughout Europe, as well as those forgotten treasures from North America.

depression as style

2008-01-24T13:33:00.001+01:00

One of my dearest friends in New York incidentally was also my professor. (Not the dirty old man professor.) This 6’7” Lithuanian-Briton had emigrated from northern England to New York over 30 years ago. He was the brainiest man I knew, yet he was witty, silly, and had something southern about his manner. Furthermore, this gigantic creature was a mush. And we all know for Ms. August here, there’s nothing more endearing than a colossal genius oozing a bit of schmaltz.

There was a moment when we both knew we would become friends. Directly after my first class he approached and said, “You know, you make depression a grand style.” It was the first in a long time that I’d laughed so vigorously. Then, in that deadpan & clever Brit manner, he asked “Tell me, from where in Brazil do you come?” When I told him P.R., he quickly added, “It was probably one of your thirty uncles who tried to beat the shit out of me in High School⎯⎯you know, the one with the battered Buick.” That was it; he’d stolen my heart. From then on we spent the next three years drinking vodka after class and talking about art, poetry, photography, cartography and, er, “proper” English.

After the close of my first semester under him, he bought me a vintage pipe made of ivory. Pipes are another fetish of mine, so I was deeply moved. That’s for acing my class, he said, and then quickly asked the bartender for two vodka doubles. Before long our Tuesdays and Thursdays lasted until 4 a.m.⎯with him slouched over the bar, and I with blisters burning my mouth from so much pipe tobacco.

Eventually we parted ways. Mostly because my then new job demanded everything of me. Once I quit I used the free time to travel extensively throughout Europe and Japan. Again we did not communicate. Then began the cluster attacks & seizures, the latter causing a speech impediment and eerie bouts of amnesia⎯and so decidedly I did not want to see anyone.

Two years ago I decided to write him. He quickly replied. I was touched by his warmth and familiar generosity. I was so touched that I got homesick and sick for that sort of easy breezy manner to which I’m accustomed. Unlike what Berliners believe, easy breezy does not mean shallow. Our conversations had many degrees of intensity; we’d cry, turn bleak, whatever, but we were open to one another in spite of our differences. Key word: open. Anyhow, the letter pained me so much that I never wrote back. Foolish, foolish me.

I don’t know why Professor Venclova came to mind yesterday. Could be because of my oh so stylish depression caving in on me. I don’t know how it happens, but one moment you’re in the middle of something and suddenly you want to die. No theatrics. No opening the balcony window and measuring the distance below. A blink turning everything black will do. Second to death would be the ability to jam your hand down your throat and wrench the dense fog obscuring your wellbeing. To the analytical it may be tempting to look closer at this emotional plummet. I however, lacking the company of my humorous Professor, decided to go shopping. After all, when Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s felt the “mean reds”, what did she do? She strolled on over to that vaulted dream-blue showroom: “What could possibly go wrong there?”

I can’t remember the last time I bought myself something other than books. Thankfully, unlike at other cities, I’ve little to tempt me. But that’s beside the point, for East Berlin’s staunch adherence to Socialism makes it difficult to buy nice things. Unless you dress like Cindy Lauper or G.I. Jane, you’re likely to get a spit-ball on your new navy mac. In a city of the categorical, if you’re a vegan, then you must wear felt shoes and eat falafel sandwiches; if a rebel, then the obligatory Mohawk is included in the package. But what happens to the rest of us who like to mix fabrics and designs, who feel rebellious but prefer to dress like Katharine Hepburn? We keep our fingers crossed each time we walk out the door and hope no phlegm stains our vintage blouse.

There was nothing I desired, except a new journal. I bought a beautifully bound red book and wrote to the Professor. I wrote until my eyes blurred. Nearing midnight I shut the book and felt a sting of the bittersweet, knowing I had no intention of sending the letter.

*Pictures: Louise Brooks. Now she made depression a grand style. Such touching melancholia.

an homage to tradition

2008-01-20T09:23:00.000+01:00

This beautiful series belongs to photographer Kim Kyung Soo for the October 2007 issue of Vogue Korea. The stunning & layered dresses are fashioned after the traditional Korean dress, known in South Korea as Hanbok.

Now I’m not one to drool over fashion photography, but these are irresistible. The apples and kittens are exquisite touches; and the soft colour palette is dreamy.

*My thanks to one of my favourite interior design blogs All Things Bright and Beautiful

succulence

2008-01-19T12:20:00.001+01:00

I love waking to a rainy, bruise-coloured Saturday. The streets lose their threatening edge as people dash, huddle, and hunch into themselves. Street life is louder; moving cars sound like someone pushing air through clenched teeth; the heavy tread of boots on cobblestones is like horses breaking into gallop. Nothing draws me closer within than certain sounds, particularly rainy-Saturday sounds.

At the age of seven, feeling neither angry nor asocial, I would lock myself inside my mother’s closet. What I wanted was to hear those small, hollowing sounds of Mother’s belongings. I would gently bump one of her shoes (preferably high heels) next to another, or unlatch and latch her favourite handbag. Those dull thuds resonated in a way I’m still unable to describe. I swore I could taste their vibration on the back of my tongue. They made me want to take exaggerated gulps.

Last night as I watched The Draughtsman Contract, I felt the same sensation wash over me. At some point I closed my eyes. The delicious enunciations of those 17th century characters left me in the sheer light of epiphany. I could hear who had a bit too much saliva, which of the men had a dry tongue, and who had smoked a cigarette, most probably between takes. It was complete nonsexual erotica.

Try watching Bergman’s Cries & Whispers or Woody Allen’s Interiors without feeling the violence of silence, which is another kind of resonance. Or the ten-minute scene in Bela Tarr’s six-hour opus, Sátantángó, in which a severely overweight doctor is taking notes, in pencil, about his neighbours’ private affairs. Between his painful struggle for breath, the scratch of the pencil and all the wet sounds of his throat⎯I felt as if I’d died and gone to heaven.

In moments of inner tumult, my inclination is to listen to poetry of a foreign tongue. Oddly enough, what Germans call the language from which one must shield one’s dinner, or the spitting language, is the one that most moves me. All those chewed zz’s of the Polish tongue, literally, send vibrations down my spine.

I’ve no idea what brought me to this subject. However, I shall close with this hilarious and classic scene from Annie Hall, subtitled, “If life were only like this.” Aside from its brilliance, I love the sound of Annie’s newspaper as she folds and refolds it . . .

crude & lactose free

2008-01-17T10:44:00.001+01:00

I’m not sure why the male profile has less drawing power, but there’s something irresistible about a woman’s facial contours. The upward draw of the jaw-line to the forehead, down to the nose and lips, in all their variations, is simply delicious to observe at close range. Any woman who allows unobstructed access by wearing her hair short or pulled away from the face will always receive my half-smile acknowledgment.

With my moon-face complex and coarse curls, I’m a bun kind of gal. But I’d love to wear my hair short & wild like those Solomon Islands black boys, who, like me, are born with blondish hair. We shall see. Already this year I feel a new kind of stamina, in spite of this viral lethargy. After three years of feeling autumnal, it’s exhilarating to find relief in release.

***

Yesterday afternoon as I wrote the above paragraphs, I was interrupted by a knock on the door. The neighbour across the hall, clad in a dazzling red housecoat, asked if I would like to go with her to a café. Blankly, I blinked, as if I’d missed something. On the two occasions we did speak, she seemed perplexed by what I’d said. On the first, she had tried to tell me how much she likes Berlin, but kept pausing, struggling through her German. Politely, I interrupted and said, in Spanish: “You can speak to me in Spanish, no problem. You’re Basque, yes?” How did I know, she asked, in German. “Because you have those beautiful Spanish-Basque eyes, so large and expressive” I said, continuing in Spanish. By the look on her face, the large expressive eyes turning hostile, I wondered if I’d misused a word in Spanish. She did nothing to assuage my confusion. Furiously, she walked away.

Needless to say I was ruffled by the invitation, not to mention feeling slightly like the yuppie Lesbian, in my stay-at-home writer’s outfit. I asked for a few minutes in order to change and agreed to knock on her door.

At my suggestion we went to Anita Wronski’s on Kollwitzplatz, a lovely, Weimar-era café with an oversized (immense) 1920’s photograph hanging above the bar. She admitted to never having tried the café. I pointed out the photograph, “Isn’t it beautiful, look at that family taking tea outdoors, those gorgeously-severe faces. Notice how no one is looking at each other . . .” ⎯She interrupted to say she hates “old” photographs. I was speechless. Strike one.

After ordering a double espresso and she a “milch kaffee” which is 99% whole milk with a drop of coffee, she said she was hungry, but for something light. I suggested the Japanese chicken soup, adding that the chef is a Japanese woman, so it’s the real thing. Again, she interrupted: “I hate Asian food.”

Excuse me?

I hate Asian food.

Er, which? Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Indonesian⎯which?

All.

Have you tried all?

No. None.

Strike Two. I don’t know why but I wanted to get my fat-ass up and leave her sitting there with her milky-ass coffee and unfounded prejudices. Spitefully, I said to myself, this is why I have no friends in Berlin, for even the foreigners have the most absurd prejudgments. Who, pray tell, doesn’t like Asian food? We’re not talking about some dinky island, but of the largest continent. Samosas? Cashew Chicken stir-fry? Pad Thai? Pho Ga soup? A bloody tuna roll? Nothing, damn it? Breathe in, breathe out, August.

So, uh, what do you eat, I asked delicately, trying to control my Touretters blinking fit. With not a drop of shame, she says, “creamy stuff and pasta and lots of meat. I need to eat beef three times a day”. I wanted to gag.

Hmm, I say, . . .

The pause is dreadful, so I continue, “Well, I’m, uh, allergic to milk” ⎯

Excuse me? she now interrupts.

I repeat.

But how do you live? she asks.

Now I really wanted to gag. “Er, water, tea, espresso, . . . homemade iced-tea.”

The large expressive eyes are wider now. “I don’t understand, please explain.”

I thought it was time to elaborate: “Because, (cough) you know, I’m Puerto Rican, but I’m also from the Canary Islands, and that being the case, I’ve both European and African blood. As you know ⎯er, maybe not⎯ most Africans don’t digest milk too well. (cough-cough)”

The look on her blushing face was clear. She didn’t understand how anyone would dare admit being of African extraction.

It was time to go, but I felt my old New York crudeness taking over: “Well, my dear, from whom do you think I’ve inherited this massively plump ass? Certainly not from my Canary Island ancestors. And from whom do you think I learnt how to shake it before uttering my first words? . . . You should see my cousin Sarah, she’s a quarter Jewish. Don’t think we don’t go to her to sort out our financial accounts. And then there’s the Asian cousin in Florida. From whom do you think I inherit all the Burberry jackets and Louis Vuitton handbags? . . . though, I admit, I was the one who turned her on to Barbour when we were teens. . . ”

I wanted to go on, go down the line to each mixed member of my loony family, and lay it on thick with all those prejudices. She sat there with her milk moustache, appalled that someone could joke, innocently, about prejudices, yet she saw nothing wrong with her repressed racism.

It was time to go. As I flagged the server for the bill, I mentally clicked my sparkly red heels, like Dorothy, and pleaded, “There’s no place like home”.

update

2008-01-16T17:28:00.000+01:00

New posts begin tomorrow. Hopefully the fever and lethargy will have gone.

August

jolly folly

2008-01-10T10:07:00.000+01:00

Day five of running a temperature of 104˚F has left me feeble, each day feeling more like a glass of skim milk. With Mr. August away on assignment, it’s a real number walking the dogs three times a day. ⎯Particularly these two who love nothing more than hunting half-eaten (preferably stomped) falafel sandwiches, of which East Berlin is not lacking. It makes me wonder the thought process of individuals who, decidedly finished with their sandwich, choose to toss the remainder on the ground, as if the world were their personal bin. It’s so South Bronx 1957.

Berlin can be such a charmer.

My favourite: the piles of dog shit littering the streets. As a lifetime dog owner I can assure you it never becomes pleasant picking up dog shit, no matter how many years of expert experience you acquire. One does it because one respects the streets and other people’s shoes. (⎯Especially in summer when most Berliners parade the streets barefoot.) Every day, mid-baggie in hand, someone compliments me (slightly Prussian patronising) for cleaning after my dogs. My response: Must be a foreigner’s thing.

Mind you, I’m not complaining. I promised myself this would be the year I come to terms with exile in Berlin. So no cavils here, just cool observations.

Another resolution, though not nearly as daring as Puss and her fire-walking, is to take more risks. I need to get over myself, damn it, and get out there. I need to make a fool of myself and stop trying to be perfect. When you type it so simply it sounds foolishly obvious, yet trying to control everything about myself has been a lifetime struggle. (Never others, mind you, for I’m more than enough.)

The control obsession accounts for the horrible years of my adolescence in which I was terrified to eat and gain weight. Even at 100 lbs, wearing my 1o year-old cousin’s clothes, I could not look at my reflection without feeling grotesque. Yet I could look at others with perfect clarity and admire a shapely figure. On myself I could only resort to calling myself a moon. “Look at this moon face,” I would say, even though I looked as if I were on my deathbed. In spite of the years I’ve put in to tame it, an eating disorder never entirely goes away. At every meal its ghost still whispers the calorie count of every morsel. Though I must say, now the pleasures of eating a good meal outrank almost any other indulgence.

One of the reasons I created this weblog is exactly because I wanted to put myself out there more, but not with anything I’m good at, like a photography weblog (or a complaints forum). I wanted straight up prose because nothing is more difficult for me. The rule: each post had to be improvised and unedited.* No deliberating over making it better. Simply going with the flow and not looking back, or fretting over mistakes. . .

Here’s to a year of faux pas.

(*Sometimes I correct a grammatical error or two. But you get the drift.)

pictures with words

2008-01-07T23:41:00.000+01:00

In 1904 Kafka wrote to his friend Pollak:

I think we ought to read the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we are reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we should be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us. That is my belief.

The quote is beautiful, very Deutsch in its severity, yet somehow very un-Deutsch. In it I find something of my own belief, though slightly reworded: Poetry is the axe for the frozen sea inside me. Both the axe and frozen sea are appropriate images with respect to how I see myself. Had the quote read something about a daffodil for the dry fields inside us, I would not have found the rather brutish image of myself within it. By brutish I mean not dainty, as in large hands and size 43 shoe. (US 12). ⎯As in, don’t try buying clothing or shoes in Tokyo.

However. As a photographer I eventually found that my camera was not the axe around which these large hands needed to grip, for the packed ice was anything but superficial.

Initially what I loved about photography was its ability to lie. No. Better, its ability to make the viewer believe, if shown in a real enough fashion, what they’re seeing is truth. With that in mind and my obsession with Semiotics I began a series in which I photographed myself disguised as a “Lady of the Evening” with older men in squalid hotel rooms. (Don’t ask me what’s this obsession with hotels.) Each photograph shows what looks like an all-out raunchy sex scene. Aside from the challenge of trying to make each scenario look real, I also tried to make “seediness” look beautiful⎯irresistibly so, so that even if you were uncomfortable with the content, the deliciousness of the colours and light would pull you in. Ultimately however the goal was to show you can’t always believe what you’re seeing, no matter how close to reality it may look. In short, semiotics 101.

When I felt the series had come to an end, I sat in my apartment pinning each photograph to the wall. Editing being the music of a photographic series, I knew exactly the sort of visual composition I wanted. For weeks I shuffled the photographs, patiently expecting the music to play, my poor thumb suffering in the process. When the music finally rang, it did so with a thunder I had never experienced with anything I’d created. I had outdone myself and was awful proud. For someone who has to search long for things to like about herself⎯it was the first time I’d ever been able to utter: You’ve done good, missy.

At the insistence of Mr. Professor, aka the Old Man, a well-known artist in his own right, I reluctantly presented the photographs to several galleries. It seems absurd now to think how reluctant I was to share them. But back then I was very much of the mind that my “challenges” were my private affairs and their success depended on my own standards. Hell, it was the first time I’d been able to live up to my own standard⎯and it was enough.

The first gallery immediately phoned. They wanted to do an exhibition. But as endless adjectives drooled in I felt myself pulling away. I gripped the receiver feeling time slowing down. I knew if I said yes my life would be forever changed in a way I wasn’t sure I wanted.
And, for that matter, though I’d “done good,” I still wanted to push my ideas about photography. As with everything, I wanted to do it alone, without the brooding pressure of having to live up to my last work before the public.

I’ve never regretted declining the offer. By the next series, I’d pushed the envelope (my own standards) so far, I’d touched an area of madness that is I believe within us all. The end resulted in not only feeling proud but realising it was time to temporarily close shop. I would need years of growth before being able to top what I’d completed.

So on the fine afternoon shortly thereafter, whilst walking the three miles back home from therapy, writing verse had suddenly seemed the natural step forward. The feeling did not come softly, rather like a crack. The first crack of ice bludgeoned by an axe. The decision was made, my fingers feeling the porous wood of my new tool.

riding the orient express

2008-01-03T10:04:00.000+01:00

It has often been said one cannot write verse daily. Its demands are both physical and emotional, and can leave one eating away at one’s own juices. Regardless of aesthetic value or content, whether one writes of ice cream or of loss, each poem is to hold a mirror to your face and scrutinise what light makes visible. As a body of work amounts, one sees how each of those mirrors is but one mirror. A three-way mirror in which even that ghastly view of the ass is visible.

Under the spell of a poem’s making, the moment is both a 31st of December, that is, the day in which we look back, as well as an intense present [moment]. Some poets are exclusively December 31st poets. My beloved Robert Lowell comes to mind. Time allowed him the space he needed to see what time itself had both provided and taken away. Conversely, most Asian poets are stricken with a rapier-like Now⎯⎯with what I see as striking a match to darkness. A one-stroke flare that seems aligned with other Asian sensibilities.

As a crippling Libra, past and present struggle to take centre stage in each of my poems. When successful, the struggle is not a flaw but the undercurrent of the poem itself. When not writing verse, my life remains a struggle for balance. Like a good pagan, it is not an angel and a devil perched on each shoulder, but Apollo and Dionysius, both of whom, in comparison to the former, are more lenient toward each other. Like yin and yang, each understand the need to have a bit of the other. In daily life however, having two strapping figures whispering in each ear is nothing short of exhausting.

With that, I begin resolution number one. I’ve placed muzzles over both Apollo and Dionysius’ mouths as I attempt to align myself more with Flow. I will try to call a cease-fire within and try to ride the wave of the moment. Aside from all the jasmine rice I eat, I could use a little more Asian aesthetic, that is, to give in to the rapture of the intense present.

a modest resolution

2008-01-01T18:59:00.000+01:00

In the film a man and a woman are on a date. They are dining by candlelight, slowly chewing each mouthful, careful not to clean their plates. The man excuses himself to go to the washroom. The woman sets down the silverware and lowers her eyes. She is pleased with how smoothly everything is going.

Time passes. The woman consults her wristwatch. For the first time she raises her eyes to look about the room. Softly she realises the man will not return. She remains seated, her eyes absently inspecting her fingers, looking like a wilted flower.

Enter my Mr. August with one of his million interruptions: I don’t believe it⎯men don’t do such things. No? Have you ever met a man like that?

With a clipped exhale I scramble to find the remote in order to pause the film. “Actually, I have,” I say impatiently.

“Yeah, tell me.”

“The four times I accompanied Rachel on a blind date the men excused themselves just like this man and never returned.”

“But that’s incredible.”

“What is?” I ask.

“Four men! And that it happened to Rachel. She’s so beautiful.”

“I know. But would you like to hear a woman swearing and spitting for two hours about why other women make her so jealous she can hardly sleep? Anyway, the billionaires she always went for were looking for southern belles and not a belligerent Mediterranean.”

Between my seething hormones, the pull from a poignant scene, and the reminder of unresolved matters with Rachel, my impatience had quickly soured. I would have given anything for a swig of chilled vodka and a bag of Lays potato chips.

I don’t much like myself when under the influence of my hormones. My face takes on an unflattering sheen that makes me look like I’ve eaten too many pork-rinds, the glint in my eye is of an indigent savagery; and the heart palpitations make it difficult not to grind my teeth. I told myself it was time to phone her.

Come morning, with the glowblue of first light, I decided instead to write her once the hormones have settled. Pleased with my moment of common sense, I noted the clusters of detonated paper littering the streets. Everywhere was the smouldering overlay of a war zone. An eternal Sunday.

Writing and reading, I realise, are similar to pulling a drag from a cigarette. They’re a kind of pause, opening up the space in which the unspoken rests.* All my life I’ve obsessed in one form or another over this theme, that of listening in to what’s not being said, or to what simmers beneath the seemingly simple surface of a sentence. It is why when first introduced to semiotics it was as if I’d come home. Everything about the study of signs, from Barthes to Baudrillard, was familiar. But I’ve deviated.

Writing to Rachel will open the space I need to see where in our relationship the mould had grown, to see when I eventually tired of being the city dump for her poison & bitter frustrations. We’d found each other through our similar sensibilities, and both suffered the loss of a parent at an early age. The fracture occurred when she decided her emotional stability depended on a man. Not just any man, and not the man for whom she feels love, but a Texan oil billionaire turned drawling New Yorker.

Suddenly there was paranoia between us. On Bucko Billionaire, she spied and haunted his personal files, mobile calls, emails, etc. Bartering sex for huge sums of cash soon followed. Shame turned to anger and bitterness. Along the way I was the single person on whom everything was released. Finally when Bucko found himself another toy with the same name as mine, guess who suffered? Not the overly-Botoxed, permanently horror-stricken August, but the devoted one, the one who must’ve donned a fat-ass sign on her head that read: New York City Sanitation Department: Dump Here.

Of course the most reasonable part about writing a letter is one’s ability to edit.

*I’ve suddenly the feeling this thought is appropriated from John Berger.

breeding & brooding

2007-12-31T13:07:00.001+01:00

In my dream the old man watches me. I am sorting elaborate jewellery pieces I have collected for a photographic series on women in dodgy New York hotels. The old man and I are still lovers. I know because of the way he looks at me. When an older man looks at his young lover, the eyes are always a bit wide, as when one is trying to ward off sleep by forcing the eyes open.

“Look, Old Man, can you believe these were a dollar each at the second-hand shop? They must’ve belonged to someone on Broadway.” I say, holding up a single earring 5 inches long. “I think I’ll give this one to Madge. It suits her.”

Madge is a young frail thing of 23 years. When we first met I complimented her wavy bob, adding that she reminded me of one of my favourite 1930’s actors, Madge Evans. I am sure it was the compliment that made her decide to work with me.

The old man grins and stares at me without blinking. “I know what you’re thinking, and you can forget it.” I say, coolly.

“Yeah, and what’s that, Lola?” he asks, deepening his voice.

“If one lover isn’t enough, I’m sure you’ve a dozen other students more than eager to participate in your twosomes. And stop calling me Lola, damn it.”

“Say it in Spanish.”

“What?”

“I want you to swear at me in Spanish. Come on, give it to me in hard Puerto Rican.”

I am suddenly aware that I am dreaming. It explains the fuzziness around the old man’s white hair. “You know, Old Man, you’ve lovely hair, and when those eyes aren’t lusting, they’re brilliant. But I’m glad it’s over. You’re a regular bore with your Lolita clichés.”

“Over? It’s not over until the Puerto Rican delivers.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Yeah, I want three. Preferably two boys and a girl. No one else is fit to continue the old man lineage. Think of our semiotics.”

“I’ve enough semiotics of my own to unravel, thank you very much. Now will you please slap me so I can wake from this ghastly dream?”

“I’d love to. Bend over, Lola.”

***

I’ve written out this ridiculous dream hoping to uncover its meaning, which, along the way, I have. Everything in the dream did actually happen, excluding of course, the part about being aware of dreaming. What was unclear was why the old man would subconsciously come to mind after so many years. Then I remembered my talk with my Mr. August.

We’ve recently discussed having children. (I already feel my throat swelling.) The thought filled me with horror, not unlike when the old man asked me to be his lineage carrier, as if I were a disease. The difference being, I knew my relationship with the old man would not last.

From a distance I adore children. Perhaps because of the distance⎯as in, I can say goodbye whenever I please⎯I can appreciate their bundle of magic. Not all of them, mind you. I’m not one of those people who thinks all children are divine, especially if they decide to drop their pants in the middle of a dinner, jump on the table and piss on the food. But I’ll save those details for another post.

As I was saying. I like them but it is always tainted with a bit of fear. In part, no doubt, because of my own mother. Having been born to a mother of 16, it is safe to say we grew up together. The struggles were immense. I was not sheltered from the youthful rages and frustrations. Yet her determination to pull me away from that dreadful neighbourhood was unshakeable. When now she tells me about “her girls” at her firm, how they secretly call her The Dictator, I dare not giggle. Though I know exactly what they mean.

I’m well past the age of 16, yet, I don’t know, it’s the first time in my life I can devote myself exclusively to what I want to do. I’ve the time now⎯barely the means, but so be it. I don’t have to worry about coming up with $3,000 a month for rent for a 1 bedroom flat like I did in New York, which is utterly inhumane, unless you’re a bloody hedge fund broker. I write my silly little reviews to pay for rent and other minor expenses, otherwise I am free to devote myself to my own work. I tell you, it is a blessing for which each day I am grateful. I’ve taken full advantage of my time, and so now, just when I feel I am beginning to understand myself, I feel a bit cornered to start the breeding process and once again take away the attention from my desires.

Why can’t women be able to begin having children at the age of 40? It seems such a nice turning point in a woman’s life. And I’ll have a bit more time to be selfish, damn it. Unlike my vulgar sister-in-law, I’m not trying to hurry the process to ensure I get a cut of the slim August inheritance. I’d like to come to the process with an open hand, without feeling slightly cheated out of my own self-understanding.

There. I’ve answered my own questions. Forgive me if all this seems fatuous. I needed to think aloud.

soup & Godfrey

2007-12-29T17:02:00.000+01:00

It’s been a week of German ginger snaps, Stollen, goose, herring & beet salad, more cookies containing those Catholic communion wafers, in-laws, and friends of the in-laws (all aptly involved with the World Bank). So you’ll forgive if I’ve not a spit of me left. In between I managed quite a bit of reading, but really my throat is dry from prosting after ever comment:

World Bank Member No 4: So, Ms. August, how do find Berlin?

August: Disconcerting.

World Bank Member No. 4: Prost! To Berlin!

To which we had to rise and raise our glasses. No wonder I’m bloated. Luckily, my mother-in-law, not involved with the World Bank but a born diplomat, and having lived long enough outside of Germany, joked the whole way through. She is both lovely & feisty, over 6 feet of Westphalian elegance & strength. I’m glad my Mr. August takes after her.

Anyhow, I am so tired now I should like nothing better than to shut off everything and prepare a week’s worth of light Vietnamese pho ga soup. It is nourishing, tender on the digestive tract, and yummy.

For now I leave you all with this fabulous clip from one of my favourite comedies: My Man Godfrey (the original). At the height of the Depression, a New York socialite (Carole Lombard) goes to the city dump and asks a man to participate in a contest. She needs to bring to a party something no one wants. She meets the wonderful Godfrey (William Powell) at the city dump and offers to pay him to be her “Forgotten Man”. He accepts and the adventure begins. It’s a dashingly witty, feel-good film, perfect for post-holiday blues or relief.

grace

2007-12-26T12:39:00.000+01:00

Through a mouthful of toothpaste foam, Mr. August tells me today is an official holiday in Germany.

What do you mean? Today is the biggest shopping day of the year in America, I say.

Not here, it’s the first day after Christmas. . . Everything is closed, if that’s what you’re really asking.

But what happened on the first day after Christmas to mark it as an official holiday?

(spit) I’ve no idea.

Shall I consult the German Lexicon to find out?

(tapping corners of his mouth with a towel) No. Let’s just appreciate the fact you can’t spend money today.

Excuse me, young man. Books are not spending money. I have two waiting for me at St. George’s, and I’d like to pick them up.

Why don’t you practice your new cello instead? It’s free and perhaps you’ll find a little peace of mind. . .

Yeah, well, sauer macht lustig! (to which I stick out my tongue and exit the washroom).

The cello Mr. August speaks of was his Christmas gift to yours truly. In the early days of our courtship, when Mr. August was a starved, green-coloured vegan, I’d told him I used to be first cellist in school (almost 20 years ago) and how much I loved getting to know this Dionysian instrument. Much came naturally to me, and whatever I found difficult I worked long and hard on trying to improve. My enthusiasm eventually afforded me take-home privileges, including weekends. I took full advantage, even at the daily risk of getting beat-up or stabbed for carrying around such a large instrument in a tough neighbourhood. Between my green eyes (uncommon for a Puerto Rican) and the overwhelming cello, I was prime target. At some point, the bully of the school, who had her eye on me, decided to slash my friend across the cheek. She had nothing against the girl. It was simply a warning to me. She was showing me what was coming my way. “Hey, green eyes, you think you’re hot shit because of those eyes?” she often yelled. To be honest, I never really knew I had green⎯different⎯eyes until she pointed it out.

Next came another friend. She too was knifed across the face, including on her ear. Except this one happened a foot away from me, and I decided without thinking I would intervene. I was tired of being afraid whenever I walked out the door. I jumped into the crowd and pummelled my way through her. Six of her male & female goons jumped in and attacked me. Luckily the police intervened and I was unscathed. I thought my heart would explode from the adrenaline. I’d never felt so strong. It was the first time I experienced the rather scary power behind adrenaline.

So. Unravelling the cello, touching it, and holding the bow, brought back all those memories, the daily fear of being disfigured or killed, wishing for an opportunity out, not wanting to have to be tough. All I’d wanted was to go to a school where my insatiable appetite for learning could be nourished. Every night I prayed, “if You get me out of here, I promise to return and give back.”

Shortly thereafter, Father was killed. Several months later whilst exiting the school, I saw a young man shot in the head. The sound of the gun was so booming I unthinkingly looked at my chest⎯I thought it was I who was shot. My knees no longer functioned; they’d turned into water. It was the last straw.

Then an angel appeared. One morning the school counsellor approached and told me he’d been reading the student files and wanted to know how a grade A student like me had turned into a failing one. Through pent up hysteria I told him everything. He said, “if you can hold out a little longer, I can get you out of here and into the school you deserve.” I took 10 rigorous exams over the course of four months and finally received a letter from a private school offering me full scholarship for four years.

This angel, Mr. Johnson, I want to add, was a young black man with a PhD from Princeton. Only later did I realise how incredible for this man with such a hefty degree to work at that wreck of a school. I’m sure the school was not paying him anywhere near what that hard-earned degree merited. I am pretty sure he too was trying to give back.

Needless to say the private school changed my life. Never mind that I was attending classes with New York’s wealthiest, everyone made me feel at home. We called our professors by their first names, chain-smoked with them at the lounge . . . At that time it was the only high school in NY crossing the line in a good way. I choreographed elaborate operas, put on theatre pieces, sculpted, painted, and slept in the library until closing time. At some point I didn’t want to go home anymore. I asked the headmaster for permission to sleep overnight in the school, adding that I could sleep on the nurse’s bed. He said yes, but that I should not share the information with any of the students, since it was illegal and grounds for a lawsuit. Of course I never slept on the nurse’s bed, but on the warm rug of the library, a pile of books all about me.

25 December

2007-12-25T12:55:00.001+01:00

I must say I’m awful glad to be home on this day. Since Father’s death it’s been difficult to digest and would rather be alone with those dearest to me. I hate having to be “on” whilst trying to recall all those funny little things Father was known for on Christmas day.

What I remember most was his creeping into my room at 5:30 am, tapping my shoulder and whispering, Hey, Pal, don’t you want to open your gifts? It’s Christmas, you know. ⎯his bulging thyroid eyes smiling. It always made me feel like it was he who couldn’t wait to watch me tear open the presents. Of course I’d instantly wake up and dash to the tree. (Ah, the days when one didn’t need a double espresso to function.) Mother would already be awake & alert⎯having always woken up at 3am⎯in the kitchen, preparing scrambled eggs and prosciutto. (Pre-vegetarian days, it was a favourite.) Later, after we’d had our solo family time, they’d knock on various neighbours’ doors and invite them over. Only later, years later, did I realise it was those without families. At the time I was too young to put it together.

There wasn’t one visitor who wasn’t a character. I remember them all better than most of my college friends. There was Willy the blind man who had a permanent up stare, as if he was eternally condemned to look at the sky. Then the two boy twins who were my age, Edwin and I forget the other. Their father was missing in action, so to speak and their mother was a junkie. Then Cecilio. His mother had AIDS, and no one knew his father. Cecilio was in my class, and this was only months after the disease had been discovered. My classmates and people in the neighbourhood were terrified to go near the boy because of his mother’s illness. Both my parents were meticulous about demythologizing AIDS, telling me what was OK and what wasn’t. Little then did I know how much their open-door/open-hand way of being would play a role in my adulthood.

Anyhow, thankfully in Germany Christmas is celebrated on the 24th. Mr. August and I spent the day at his mother’s in West Berlin. A different world, still so divided in aesthetic & mentality. I helped her cook for nine people, trimmed the tree⎯as in sawing off thick branches and decorating. I tried neither to overeat nor under-eat, for fear of another cluster headache. (It’s a lifestyle on eggshells, this perpetual balancing act.) All in all a cheerful day in which I could slip into my own reverie of father and his silly fish face, once pushing me aside to say, “Now let me play, Pal. I always wanted an old train”.

*photograph: Unknown Man on Columbus Circle, NYC

good tidings & cheer

2007-12-25T10:00:00.001+01:00

Merry Christmas to all from the House of August . . .

special delivery

2007-12-21T13:21:00.000+01:00

Yesterday afternoon a large box stamped with blue & white eagles arrived via post. From its height and weight I knew it had to be Mother’s annual “love package”. Mr. Vicious, the mini, sniffed at a corner and quickly scratched away at the trimming. Even I could smell Mother’s fragrance. I swear I think she sprays the packages before sending them off.

Given Mother’s impatience, (she is only 16 years my elder) I knew she’d expect me to open the box upon delivery. So I dragged the monstrosity with the help of the big dog, over to my office and slashed & tore away like an over-stimulated seven year old. When the lid burst open, Mr. Mini Vicious leapt inside, took a present between his teeth, and leapt back over to his chair. We all waited and watched as he scratched away and his box revealed a large case of holistic weight management biscuits. (Oh, yes.) Then the big dog ran over to Mr. Vicious, sniffing out what all the fuss was about, until Vicious snapped and bit her big chocolate brown nose.

Anyhow, here are the highlights:

Two boxes of English water crackers from Gourmet Garage. Don’t ask me why normal non-Finn Crisps do not exist in Germany, but they don’t. I grew up on water crackers & saltines, not those heavy, malt-laden, bloat-brown crackers. They’re not bad but they’re not saltines, for crying out loud. Whenever I didn’t feel well my grandma would bring me a plate of crackers and cheddar and a large cup of Genmaicha tea. All of which is like instant feel-good. And in Berlin I need a lot of it.

Four framed photographs of Father, each the size of a palm. There is one in which he is very young. His arm is around Mother and I can see his fingers. When I saw the perfect details in his fingers it was as if I were sitting beside him. Of course, I couldn’t help crying. The photographs now occupy the place of honour on my desk, though I may have to move them.

Other highlights: Burt’s Bee hand cream & gloves, a black turtleneck, pink pyjamas for a two year old (me), 4 jars of Mitchum deodorant, 4 cases of Maxalt for my headaches, which is totally illegal to ship, and a large tin of poppycock from my grandma for Mr. August. Oh and an argyle sweater for Mr. August as well. Thankfully Grandma decided this year against underwear for him. I never again want to discuss with her the logistics of his plump behind.

That is all for now. I must return to the kitchen and mind the fresh batch of peanut butter chocolate chip cookies I’ve baked. Now if only Puss would get her bum over here so I could make her some Puerto Rican anti-cold chicken stew.

I’m still alive

2007-12-21T00:51:00.000+01:00

. . . in case anyone's wondering. News to come tomorrow. . .

thankful

2007-12-17T08:14:00.000+01:00

It is 5 a.m., the hour of a few lucid moments, though my body is tired. Whatever ghosts know my name draw near but do not haunt. I am careful not to move lest I disturb the silence.

The baker is opening shop. His keys make my mouth water. In another hour the French neighbours will put coffee to brew and I will remember them at Rewe when we simultaneously reached for the same espresso beans. The young woman, in her pretty dirndl, smiled, though it was clear she was sad.

At first light I watch the sun detonate over the Wasserturm. I do this daily. Standing on the mock-balcony I breathe in whatever promises the heavy dew contains. The cold air stings my lungs and I am thankful for nothing in particular. Simply thankful. I do not always realise I am reciting the same poem:

My quietness has a man in it, he is transparent
and he carries me quietly, like a gondola, through the streets.
He has several likenesses, like stars and years, like numerals.

My quietness has a number of naked selves,
so many pistols I have borrowed to protect myselves
from creatures who too readily recognize my weapons
and have murder in their heart!

though in winter
they are warm as roses, in the desert
taste of chilled anisette.

Grace
to be born and live as variously as possible . . .

[Frank O’Hara; In Memory of My Feelings]

dear all,

2007-12-16T17:17:00.000+01:00

I am just recovering from a three day cluster headache. Will resume shortly.

In the meantime, for all you educators, here’s a very interesting article.

august propriety

2007-12-12T12:32:00.001+01:00

The postman rests his thumb on the buzzer for longer than is decent. The dogs cock their ears, leap off their respective ottomans and run to the door. Mr. Higgins, the mini, better known as Mr. Vicious, waits by the door. If his tail is wagging it is because he is eager to get at the postman’s crotch. Anticipation sends his entire backside in a momentum of wiggles.

In New York Mr. Higgins attacked no one except Asians. The trifle could not be dismissed, particularly since we regularly went to Chinatown to buy produce and rice wine vinegar. In Berlin it is not really an issue because we hardly come across Asians. Though when we do, it is doubly embarrassing. On a crowded street of Germans, he will spot the one unassuming Asian and pounce. The fact that I click my heels like a German soldier and shout, “That’s enough!” makes the situation all the more awkward.

Funny. There was just the two of us in those days. No second dog, no husband. I worked 12 – 14 hours a day for a publisher, walked 5 miles, spent time with Mr. Higgins and worked on my own projects until my vision blurred. Occasionally I’d make room for someone, but soon felt guilty about it, as if I’d been violated and needed to return to the order and privacy of routine.

When Mr. August is feeling a tad impatient, he likes to tell me I am more German than any German he knows, including himself. He is referring to my strict obligation to order and discipline in work. “Who would’ve known in marrying a Puerto Rican I’d end up with a German?” It’s an inflexibility that can turn ugly, I know, yet for all my effort to change, to ease up, I still get flustered when disorder strikes.

So when Mr. August is feeling hostile his favourite attack is: “That’s why you have so many issues with Germans because you’re just like them⎯stiff as a rod!” Which of course is disarming in its silliness. But I never let him know I am in my office giggling inside my sleeve.

But here now, I am hardly flustered today even though I know in a few hours my routine will be ruffled. Mr. August expects company. Actually he is working on a photo-documentary on a boxer from Cameroon. If I am not complaining it is because “Sam” has one hell of a physique. Bless me, I’ve never seen a more sinewy body.

Last time Sam visited⎯when he took the cookie I offered him, every ligament and muscle snaked within that arm. I stood there like a bimbo holding out the cookie tray, in a reverie of how beautiful the body can be. Mind you, the admiration is from a distance for I like my men with big bellies. When Freud asserted that our social drive is towards beauty, order and cleanliness, he forgot to mention safety. For nothing is more beautiful.

August Franklin

2007-12-10T12:27:00.000+01:00

I am slowly recovering from an unrelenting pain in the head that looked something like the above picture. Benjamin Franklin is lucky he was born before me, thereby having plenty of time to execute this masterful work of precision. Otherwise all those light bulb moments might have had my name all over them. Hmmpf.

Depressing news from the Siberian front will resume shortly, just in case all three of my concerned readers were starting to, uh, worry.

the long hammer

2007-12-07T09:27:00.001+01:00

It is a crisp October afternoon in New York. I look up through the barred window and note the voluptuous Caravaggio sky. It is noon and I’ve already put in nine hours of uninterrupted work. There is nothing left for me to say. I am free to rove the West Village and do my shopping rounds. I may even stop in at Out of the Kitchen for a peanut butter cookie.

In the bedroom my big toe kicks a ball of crumpled paper. For a few seconds we play cat and mouse. As I bend over and hold the paper a hammer strikes me at the back of the head. My knees collapse and my right shoulder takes the fall.

Darkness is warm. Darkness is a warm cloak, like my Mr. Nice blankie. If I could turn my head and look the Thief in the eye he will see I am not as easy as he’d imagined. He will see Father’s death pooling my eyes and he will know I don’t intend to die as he did, bound with wire, blindfolded, then shot. But it is warm and cold on the floor and if I could slip into one of those deep pocket sleeps then all will be well. Why don’t I sleep enough? Not a single person knows I am dying. The hell with you, Thief, I’ve been hit on the head before. It doesn’t hurt as much as you think.

The bedroom is suffering vertigo. It may be conspiring with the Thief. But I am standing so Come on, you dirty bastard. You’re a rat for hitting me from behind. Oh, hiding again, are you? Well there ain’t too many places to hide because I have no closets. What about that⎯I have no closets! Bloody city . . .

Bp. Bp. Bp.

Ms. August, can you hear me? I am touching your forehead, can you feel my fingers? Bp. Bp. Ms. August, my hands are cold. Do you feel my cold hands? Ms. August, this is Dr. Weinstein speaking. Can you hear me? You are at St. Vincent's Hospital. Squeeze my hand if . . .

No, Father, I won’t. If I wake up you’ll be gone. I’ve forgotten, you know, about your freckles. And the little crook on the tip of your nose. Time is unkind. It has smeared your face. No, I won’t wake. Screw ‘em. Nothing has been the same since . . . I don't feel safe anymore. But I don’t want to speak. Let me hear you, Father. So long since I’ve heard . . .

***

It is four years since the episode in my apartment. There was never any hammer and no thief had broken in. It was the first in a series of brain haemorrhages that continue presently. Twelve doctors later, both American and German, and the attacks have not let up. Surgery or mild pain-killers are my two options. I despise medication but I refuse to have my brain operated on. So medication it is, though I am afraid of addiction.

I am admitting to this rather large detail of my life to be neither dramatic nor self-indulgent. I certainly do not intend to submit this sloppy story for publication. This blog is my journal and as such it remains. I write about this dreadful secret because since its onset I’ve not allowed myself to think about it. And so I suffer the bottled up consequences. In four years the “hammer attacks” amount to almost 1,500 episodes. There’s been little time to look back at the event. Between trying to work and live a fruitful life whilst enduring pain, I’ve thought it best to keep present, or simply keep moving, or enduring, or both.

Strangely enough, nothing of what I’ve so far written is difficult to “admit”. What is difficult is a small though significant detail that I can only guess is a result of the haemorrhage. Screw it, I’m coming out of the closet⎯because in Berlin I have many closets! But in the name of tactfulness I shall reserve it for another post.

posion & vomit

2007-12-04T19:08:00.000+01:00

A mud blue sky. Five days of warm rain has left the city in dirty dampness. Useless to attempt any sort of elegance when my frizzy hair makes me look like I’ve undergone electric shock treatment one too many times. Mind you, this is warm & pleasant weather for Berliners.

The first year I arrived the weather dropped to minus 25 degrees. Call it a hearty welcome, but I was sure I would lose a limb just walking to the baker. I hunted down every neighbouring thrift store so I could buy myself what would be my first ski suit. Like the prostitutes on Oranienburgerstrasse, except mine was for a 6 ft 8 German woman. Between the cold, the long hours of darkness, and every German word looking like Scrabble on amphetamines, I was sure I was unfit to survive this altogether cruel experience. I was a living vial of poison and I made sure every inflexible and xenophobic local knew so. It was the year a menopausal woman kicked my dog with her winter boats ⎯for no reason other than I’m a foreigner⎯and I almost went to jail for breaking her shoulder. Had she kicked me I would have left the situation alone. But an animal who has survived 5 operations, throat cancer, and paralysis is not to be touched. Not in my presence. It was the same year a man on a bike circled the platz I lived on everyday and shouted: Kill the Jews. It was the year a woman, roughly the age of my grandma, shouted at me: I know exactly what your home looks like. All you foreigners are the same. You come to our country and steal from us. . . Whilst deciding how to deal with Grandma Hitler, a Russian woman sitting beside her said: how dare you talk like that? You should be ashamed of yourself. I’ve lived and worked in this country for 30 years and have never stolen anything from anyone. It was the first instance in a long while I once again felt love for a stranger. Perhaps not love, but humanity. I felt this woman, 20 feet away, extending herself and caressing me with her large, tired fingers.

The problem with spewing poison is that it continues to leak within. It is like an old New York faucet, with its blue calcium ring deposits staining the sink. One needs a coarse brush and a rigorous hand with which to scrub. After the first year I did nothing but scrub. By evenings, I felt I’d vomited meal-portions of the poison.

Today I take each situation as it comes. I don’t allow one person to take the fall for everyone who has been unjust. Though if I am honest I know it is easier to do the latter. I don’t know why that is in Berlin. But there remain many things about Berlin I don’t understand: the tight-lipped interactions, the unapologetic colliding into one another because no one likes to swerve, passive-aggressiveness, fog-thick xenophobia, and the eerie surliness that comes from swallowing your history’s bad conscience.

It is why I started this blog. It is my vomit.

Glenn Gould

2007-12-02T21:09:00.000+01:00

The love of my life. . .

brief encounter

2007-11-30T21:58:00.000+01:00

The handsome Taiwanese man is frisky today. When I ask for a lollipop he asks where I am from. I tell him. He opens his palms and rests them on his cheeks. He sings: “Puerto Rico, my heart’s devotion, let it sink back in the ocean. Always the hurricanes blowing, always the pop-u-la-tion growing. . . I want to live in America. . .Ok by me in America, everything free in America . . .” I compliment him on the fabulous rendition of Rita Moreno’s number and he bows. You know where I from? He asks. Of course, I say. Taiwan. How you know? he asks with his startled O mouth. Because, I say, like the song, I grew up in New York. Anyway you clearly have Taiwanese cheekbones. I do not tell him about my close friend from Taiwan.

For a year now I have visited the Taiwanese man’s deli nearly everyday. Each time he is there I look at his handsome face and think, this man’s beauty will never be appreciated in Deutschland. Neither his fabulous ch’i. I should have told him he has good ch’i.

I am ten cents short. He pats my hand in that gentle choppy way so particular to Asians. No problemo, ok? he says and frowns as if the whole matter were petty. I thank him with a bow and leave. The cold damp feels good on my cheeks. As I dash across the street another German bumps my shoulder. Not today, I say, darting at the rude stranger. I won’t let any of you get to me. With that, I walk through the newly erected Christmas market, proud not to have given in to coarse language and smiling at the brief exchange with the Taiwanese man who decided to open up to me today.

questionnaire

2007-11-28T12:27:00.000+01:00

As the Vanity Fair list circulates around the web, I’ve decided to take it on. What a way to begin the day…

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Being satisfied. Forgiving myself. A house full of dachshunds. A house full of dachshunds in a secluded stone house in Sicily. “Feeling the fear and doing it anyway.” Clarity of mind. Clinching the moment. Appreciating more. Loving the slow process of wisdom. An ear cocked to all the delicious sounds this world contains. A moment of truth. Being surrounded by thousands of old books. Letting go of the awful way in which my father was murdered. A perfect poem. Telling those I love how much they mean to me and why⎯regularly. Barging through an animal shelter and shouting “I’ll take them all!”

What is your greatest fear?
Not being able to write the kind of poems I feel. Death.

Which living person do you most admire?
My beautiful mama.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Never believing I am good enough.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Cruelty. Injustice. The trait that makes people ignore the homeless.

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Decency. Or being nice.

On what occasion do you lie?
When another may be hurt.

What do you dislike most about your appearance?
My thighs, dammit.

What is your greatest regret?
Not running back upstairs to give Father a kiss when he asked. It was the only time I ever said no. (I was running late.) Later that day he was murdered.

What or who is the greatest love of your life?
My beautiful dachshund, Mr. Higgins. Then my husband.

Which talent would you most like to have?
Being able to write exactly as I feel. Play the piano like Glenn Gould or Evgeny Kissin.

What is your current state of mind?
I am always hungry for life. Anxious. Unsatisfied. Bi-polar. Craving.

If you could change one thing about yourself what would it be?
This damn shyness. Stepping up more. Owning my shit, as they say.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Making sure Jay had someone beside him during his last years. He was a total stranger to me and when I heard he’d been shunned by the community for having AIDS I introduced myself and we immediately became friends. I was juggling high school, an after-school job, and daily visits to his home, making sure he had all his meds, had taken them, and making sure he felt loved. It was the only time, outside of with my father, I was fearless about showing my love. I wanted him to go in peace. I am sure he did.

If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?
A delicious word on the tip of a tongue. Or an inspiring book of verse.

What is your most treasured possession?
My memories. My eyes, ears, & voice.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Not believing there is a way out. Or to be tacky: The sun will, because it must, come out.

Where would you like to live?
Portugal, Krakow, Sicily, London, a brownstone in the West Village.

What is your most marked characteristic?
Tenacity. Hunger for life, for sound, for the written word.

Who are your favourite writers?
Oh, no, please don’t make me answer this. How much time do I have? From the top of my head: Fitzgerald, John Berger, WG Sebald, Joseph Brodsky, Curzio Malaparte, Eugene O’Neill, Robert Lowell, Fernando Pessoa, Wallace Stevens, Zbigniew Herbert, Julia Hartwig, Eugenio Montale…

Who is your favourite hero of fiction?
Dick Diver in Tender is the Night. (*sigh…)

Who are your heroes in real life?
Anyone who gives with an open hand. Anyone who is perceptive.

What is it that you most dislike?
Dishonesty. Prejudice. Ignoring the homeless.

What is your motto?
“…the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.”

Favourite journey?
Anywhere with good company, good food and a fabulous book lodged in the back pocket.

What do you value most in friends?
The comfort of knowing one another. The pleasure in knowing I don’t have to be “on”.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
“Hun, could you get me a….”

Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Caterina Sforza & Queen Tiye.

What is your greatest extravagance?
Setting aside time to relax.

If you could change one thing about your family, what would it be?
The volume of their voices.

What is your favourite occupation?
Reading on a plush chair with a duvet over my legs and a cup of tea at arm’s reach. And spooning my two fur children.

What is the quality you like most in a woman?
Openness. Not taking one self so seriously.

What is the quality you like most in a man?
Sense of humour & perception.

How would you like to die?
In my sleep.

winter of the mind

2007-11-26T22:26:00.000+01:00

At half-past four the sky darkens. The clouds, like finger smudges, slide past my window. I want to sit and recite delicious Polish words I’ve overheard.

Another cluster headache brews. Each attack is a hot, rusted knife entering my left eye. For three years now it strikes no less than 4 times a week. It’s as if I’m living with a dark secret that can’t be named, lest I wake it from its murky lair.

For two weeks now I’ve been working on a poem about a Georg Flegel still-life. There has been no progress. Just the word ochre and a mild och och sound stuck in my throat. It is such a beautiful, mysterious painting⎯ochre & vinegar dipped! It makes my mouth moist as if urging my tongue to speak it into being. But I keep colliding against the dirty water confusion lodged in the centre of my forehead.

Tomorrow I’m scheduled to meet R and already I’m nervous. If a cluster attack wakes me in the middle of the night I will have to cancel. R is the first German with whom I can easily talk. She is like an open hand and I’m guessing it’s because she has lived mostly outside of Germany. She’s the face of a young, august stallion. A neck so long she should never wear her hair loose. Yesterday while quickly stir-frying spinach, she tied her hair in a loose bun. You’ve a marvellous profile, R, such a long neck, I said. Her husband, a kind, soft-featured German, looked at me. Having grown up in Germany, I could tell he was not used to women complimenting other women. But loveliness in another person should be spoken.

My homemade yogurt, oat, and lemon face mask is flaking now. I am sure I look like a three day-old corpse. Between my “I’m-depressed” flannel pyjamas and sopping hair, it is not possible to look any more unattractive. And as a random note of useless information: because Berlin is so damp my hair requires 27 hours to fully dry. Presently, I'm on the fifth hour. With 22 hours left I should like the pleasure of cloudy absence.

the hour before sunrise: a memory

2007-11-24T18:52:00.000+01:00

I am sitting by the window, slumped into my high waist. I know nothing of awkwardness. The rubble and urban decay looks back at my six year old face. All is indifferent like a clock. It is another silent morning and another person has died among those weeds. I pray it is not another dog. It is there the starved dogs go to die. I don’t want to find another dog’s corpse, ravaged by slithering cream-coloured worms. Forgive me, dear god, but it is the dogs that hurt most. My prayer fogs the window.

On my daily walks to school I learn to look neither left nor right. Best to look at my oversized feet hiding inside black penny loafers. When the penny no longer dazzles, I count my footsteps. I count past the gunmetal playground, past the corner where the air turns sour, past Mrs. K’s window. I can hear Mrs. K belting the foster children. Mrs. K’s granddaughter is my best friend. I already know B will never pull away from this wretchedness.

At school I am the only one unafraid to speak. The other children are nervous. If a book falls they jump or duck their heads inside their arms. Their bodies already know how to react to late night gunfire or beatings with leather belts.

Everyday father buys me an oversized bag of mixed candies. Make sure everyone gets at least two pieces, Pal.

At lunch I share my sandwich and pass around the bag of chips. I make sure S is first to try. S’s mother and father leave for weeks at a time. Both are crack addicts and often forget about their daughter. S is always scratching her head and arms.

Father often visits during recess. The kids scream after him, extending their arms through the fence in order to touch his hand. I already know he is making sure all the kids have proper coats. He waves J over. J has just lost his mother and his father is nowhere to be found. Everyday Father drives J 45 minutes north to his grandmother’s apartment. He won’t allow J to take the subway. That boy is far too young to ride those trains, he says.

Twenty years later I am walking along Fifth Avenue. Someone calls my name, my childhood nickname. It is J. He is the same little boy with large curious eyes. Before I can speak, he says, You look exactly the same. So do you, I say, fiercely hugging him. He looks at me for a long time. I know what he wants to say. I heard what happened to your papa, he says, I was so hurt⎯⎯for you, your ma, for the neighbourhood.

I stare at my grey suede driving loafers. I want to count the stones embedded in the pavement. It never goes away, J, the hurt is still there, still pulsating, still fresh. He squeezes my hand and we walk southbound on Fifth Avenue. We were always the silent ones.

the arrival

2007-11-22T09:51:00.000+01:00

A certain older gentleman enters the apartment hugging Alpine flowers. His face is soft and ripe. You look well, Papa, I say, handsome as ever. I forget to say his face opens like a book of memories.

I hang his coat, blazer, scarf. A Hanly scarf: Irish-green, blue; a thin scarlet stripe.

He looks at his shoes. He’ll need a chair. Here, Papa, let me help, feeling the sting of thrust as I bend. If he were my Papa, I say, undoing his laces, I would have dashed to his neck and rested my chin there. But I am sad now so I stop saying.

The teakettle whistles. His snowy eyebrows lift. Of course it’s for you, Papa. Come, tell me about Ireland.

a moment

2007-11-20T10:57:00.000+01:00

I am walking home from the old Jewish quarter. It is nearing five o’clock and the sky is a black cavity. My navy wool coat shields my chest but my face must bite the crisp whiplashes of the wind. Tears run down my chin. Fiercely, the wind snatches away the salty rivulets.

On Schönhauser Allee a man approaches. He is speaking in quick, broken German. His face has bluish edges and his eyes smile. I watch his teeth chatter. I tell him I don’t speak German well but I understand what he’s asking for. “Ich verstehe Sie, aber mein Deutsch ist nicht so gut.”

From my pocket I pull the honey-coloured change purse and give him a two-Euro coin. “Entschuldigung, is this Ok?” I ask, utterly ashamed I cannot give him more. He accepts the coin but does not remove his hand. His large brown eyes, pooling against the night lantern, lock onto mine. Before I understand what is taking place, his arms wrap around me. He kisses the centre of my forehead over and again. “I am from Poland,” he says. I smile. “I love Poland. It is one of my favourite countries,” I say. “Yes? Poland? . . . You have beautiful eyes. You beautiful person. Yes. Thank you.” He makes a fist with the hand holding the coin and taps it three times against his chest. “Thank you,” he says again. I walk away ashamed and sad that I cannot speak with him in the way I would like.

I am already by the pizza shop when I hear shouting. I turn my head. He is far away now but signals me to wait. I walk back towards him. He tells me that he only wants to say I am the first person to be kind to him; I am the first person who has looked him in the eye; I am the first who did not insult him. He then tells me about his mother who passed away six months ago.

I am filled with things to say but I say nothing. I am happy he has called me back. I would like to invite him up for a cup of tea and tell him we all just want to be seen. Everyone of us. Indifference is the cruellest gesture towards another person. But I say nothing and let him kiss my forehead again and walk away. I turn the corner. The wind smacks hard my cheeks. I deserve it, I say. I am stupid for being so shy. Softly, I ask the night sky to protect him.

Bornholmer Straße November 09, 1989

2007-11-19T12:34:00.000+01:00

(My thanks to the folks at Another Country for the heads-up on this tremendous footage. It is overwhelming.)

Re: the art of correspondence

2007-11-16T15:32:00.000+01:00

Crawford, darling⎯⎯

Naturally, as the man of letters you are, I think of you whenever topics turn to the art of correspondence. I suppose you’ve already caught Bookforum’s review on Henry James’ early letters. If not, then run on over to our good Indian man on Hudson Street. A notable Jamesian one-liner awaits. It’s also very Crawford.

You stand alone in whom I can discuss letter writing with, and the only person who hardly blinks when I say I’ve read Robert Lowell’s letters six times now and how I can’t wait to go another round. We’re together on this, so buck-off to everyone who says it’s so seeped in the sentimental. I’ve never denied it isn’t, not sentimental, but romantic. It involves distance, travel, isolation, loneliness, and endless cigarette pauses with which to reflect. It also requires the discomfort of removing oneself from what is familiar and then reaching out to someone who is. Some of the most marvellously rich places I’ve been to have been via letters.

It’s why I ultimately gave up photography. Its nature can only provide a fixed image. Altogether different with words. You provide me with a few descriptions and in a sense it’s a collaborative effort⎯your words together with my imagination. Like I say, I need mental-elbow room, and only writing & reading allow one to create one’s own images. Always my challenge is how to create an image with my words, enough to keep the reader’s mind quickened, yet with room enough for their own imaginary rendezvous. . . Whew.

My medication’s working. I’m sure you can tell. Perhaps I’m just giddy because I’ve completed an assignment. Another looms but we’ll ignore it until it disappears. No, I’ve been afforded an extension, so I’m already easing into the weekend.

Some light flurries here, together with frizzying spritz-mist. Seems like ages ago since we last saw one another. You, darling, came to mind earlier whilst taking a pausa from the review. Actually, my OCD was in full effect and I found myself reciting Blake. You know which, the “Abstinence sows sand all over &tc” and I suddenly remembered your two-week summer visit. We sat outside Wohnzimmer every morning and more often than not, Mr. Creature would show up in his kimono and 40 scarves-turned- turbans and would read to us from Blake. Meanwhile, all the yuppies & hippies drinking their milky latte macchiatos would stare in utter terror (of him). Unlike in NY, the homeless in Berlin don’t normally carry around rare editions of Blake and commit it to memory in between asking for a dime.

That was long ago and I’ve not since seen Mr. Creature.

Finally, thank you for the phone message. I was still at the doctor’s when you phoned. I don’t want to spoil the giddiness by telling you the results of the brain scans. So we’ll skip it. Or, ignore it until it disappears. Ciao!

Besos y abrazos,

A.

poetry, Poland, unsaid despair

2007-11-15T10:39:00.000+01:00

Dearest M⎯⎯

You’ll forgive the slapdash tone, I hope. I want to get these thoughts in while your letter is still fresh. Plus, I’ve now two reviews due before the end of the week⎯as in, tomorrow⎯and I’ve only written 80 words.

First. I adore your new work. Those photographic vignettes are a distillation of your off-the-cuff brilliance, though I know how carefully manoeuvred they are. The quiet compulsion brings Sebald to mind: magnificently peculiar, ruminating, and the homesickness urging you (like he) to feast with the ghosts of history. One senses as well a chronic purging, with something of Montale’s personal language. You, my dear, really ought to feel proud. I’m guessing the hurdles have cleared?

Last night I watched Kieslowski’s Camera Buff. It was as if we were having one of our ridiculously-girlie pyjama parties, where we both feel a little too old to even use such words. This wonderful film brought so much of our old days to life. What stamina we had in our talks about failed relationships, Sydney Bechet, the depressing Duane Reade in Soho. We never could figure out why everyone thought we were lovers.

In New York one doesn’t get a real sense of the Poles, the richness of the culture and the beautiful earthiness of the language. As poets they are unrivalled. Impossible not to taste that difficult soil in their immense poetry. The moment one crosses the border the change is unmistakable. Socialism takes on a new meaning. The aesthetic may not be lovely or even cosy, but somehow there’s a plain nobility to the Poles. Their weather-beaten faces are resilient and kind, in a way I’ve yet to encounter in Berlin.

Here’s the last thing I want to say regarding what we talked about earlier. I remember once your walking me to the New York Public Library. The main branch on Fifth Ave (my second home) with the beloved, noble lions. We’d just come from admiring some unaffordable necklace at Bendel’s. It was a rare moment of guilty pleasure. We were talking about Robert Lowell when I said something like, ‘the reason he is the poet dearest to me is because he perfected the flaw. Somehow I don’t know where I’d be without those galvanised eruptions.’ It was something along those lines, but I could not properly explain. I could only see what I meant, without being able to articulate it. Then you, with your bright watery eyes turned to me and said, ‘I think I know what you mean.’

You said no more until we’d reached the lions. I rubbed one of the lion’s paws and I could see you didn’t want us to part. You had something to say and you were thinking about how. Then you caught sight of the lion’s paw I was rubbing and tried looking away but you couldn’t. It was then you said, ‘It’s an unsaid sadness, that’s what it is and I’ll have to live with it. It is larger than not having money, greater than everyday struggles. It’s an unsaid despair. Yes.”

It seemed to me at that moment whatever ‘unsaid despair’ I also felt had been diminished by your poignant choice in words. It was the first time I would hear someone name that thing I’d always felt, that bottomless sadness that grabs hold at any moment, under any circumstance. It was a beautiful gift that I should like now return to you.

all my love,

A.

another dirty old man

2007-11-13T13:56:00.000+01:00

[letter to BW]

I’ll say, it must be my week. You’re the second Old Man to write after years of silence. Strangely enough, shortly before both your letters, M wrote me (remember her?) asking about some tempting gentleman she met, whom I’m guessing is your peer. Sounds like a pilot for a bad telenovela. Or could you all be conspiring? I thought you hated one other.

Thanks for the thoughts on my latest poems. Glad they ‘stirred’ you enough to write. I had no idea they were already published. How professorial of you to reminisce about my days as your student. Only don’t let your memory glaze over, lest you forget what a pain in the ass you thought I was for being a little too familiar with everything you’d assign. As for the other, the messy affair, as you call it⎯no, I don’t think either of us will forget. For the record, Old Man, you’re lucky I’m kind because what a fuckhead you were. Anyone else would’ve ratted you out to the school, then taken your position just to shove it in your face. Let’s hope your present student is just as kind.

Glad the household is holding up and you’re back with Mrs. Old Man and she’s as tolerant as ever. . . I don’t know what’s up with all my ex-Old Men having only boys, but I’m glad yours are also doing well. The little genius wants to be a mathematician now? Did you expect anything less?

You know, I completely forgot about that last time we saw each other. Glad you liked my reading, though I vaguely remember fumbling through it. No need to apologise for not saying hello. I hardly expected it, what with Mrs. Old Man giving me the evil glare, even though you claimed she’d separated from you. Oh, no need to explain anymore. Old news now. Really.

I must make this one brief because I’ve a review due, about which, as usual, I’m unsure. But I will reply to the rest of your curious questions once it’s sent off.

A.

one dirty old man

2007-11-10T13:48:00.000+01:00

[letter to a friend]

Well well, Old Man, it’s been a long time. Strange the arrival of your letter, since I’ve just written a shoddy discourse on dating older men. Not quite, more trying to convert the already converted, albeit dubiously. It seems I’ve been eternally pegged as Lola with Asperger’s, or worst, Lola Asperger. You see why I despise post-postmodernism.

Glad the gossip lines are still intact in my beloved NYC. But now, would you have written if I were living in a city you didn’t love? Consider before replying, because I won’t be able to supply you with loving titbits. I know in your heyday it was fun to be homeless in Berlin, but when the possibility of truly being homeless haunts one as a child, a simulacrum has no appeal. Hence the ridiculousness of camping. Or my favourite: watching upper-middleclass Germans drive onto camping grounds in a Mercedes. When the real thing lurks there’s no need to play house⎯or refugee house⎯ later in life. I’ve not changed much, Old Man. Harder, perhaps.

Now if you’re interested in a seasonal apartment barter. . . Mind you, you’ll have to take your boys with you. I hated myself enough as a teenager, no need to spread the joy.

Enough. What is lovely is this piece of sky through my window, with its wool cloak comfort and promise of snow. It’s going to be one of those storms like the one that came down on us while food shopping in my old hood. Remember the sudden shock of silence along Hudson Street? The way the snow muffled the cabbies, the crisp crunch of our footsteps, my blank-faced sobbing, resisting the passing moments, wanting to snow-globe that rare instance of serene inertia in NY. I know you remember.

I’ve missed you, as I know you have me. If I am languid of spirit it is because I am dry. When I moved to Italy my spiritual sensibility (poetry, art, ease, open-mindedness, variety, good food, Montale, for goodness sake!!) had not been tampered with. My move to Berlin stripped me of these and more. I’d taken it all for granted. With my voluptuous hunger I arrived with a stomach growling for Herr Issyvoo and his kind. But he and Nollendorfplatz have long been buried.

Anyhow, Saturday chores call. If I don’t hurry to the Kollwitzplatz markt all the farm-fresh produce will have sold. You would say the market is too posh. I’m just grateful to find vegetables that aren’t the colour of parsnips. Come to think of it, I’m now the colour of a parsnip.

Be well, Old Man.

L,

Ms. A

The Toothsome Dirty Old Man

2007-11-09T21:14:00.000+01:00

[From a letter to a friend]

Dearest M ⎯⎯

It’s good to hear from you again. Glad you’re not dead and the tea stains have washed out. That prickly pimpled wall with its ooga-booga stare is somehow special. It always reminds me of my good friend, Jim⎯the amnesiac with burning blue eyes, always straining towards his last thought on the tip of his tongue. Really, darling, I’m glad all now is well with you.

I am sitting in my chambers. Siberian winter is upon us, the ill season of absent skies and corpse-coloured faces. As of late, I’ve let less and less light in. Its bleach brightness stings. My eyes cannot withstand such purity distilled to evil. Perhaps it’s the other way around. Forgive me, dear the bipolar/Asperger scale has reached a record low, which has led to random bursts of alliteration.

You want to know about the “old man thing,” presumably because some toothsome paterfamilias appears from the city’s cramped horizon. (?) I know you all think me the Lolita expert, but a lady needs more information. For instance, the age gap. Are we talking 40 years older? 30? Anything less than 25 years is a joke and hardly a rift. Trust me on this one.

More importantly, how does it feel (finally for you!) to be indulged and spoilt like the darling you’ve always known you are? I can hear you now: “I know, I know, you’ve told me all along. Once you cross over, there’s no turning back.” My thought exactly, so you’ll never hear any I told you so’s.

This may be the girliest letter to date.

I’ve lost my trail because some drunkard’s voice rises to my window, “üüggggghhh.” I swear, one more umlaut out of him and he’ll swallow his tongue. Now the piano teacher is giving lessons to some three year old who obviously prefers the drums.

These days I am altogether restless. This city drags like chronic constipation. I’m up to my bowels in stupid comments from stupid people turned Prussian lecturers. I must have a fat neon sign on my head that reads: I’m a foreigner. Hate me. Of all the cities in which I’ve lived, never has this been an issue. It is utterly intolerable, but imagine, in Berlin of all places. Did these faux hipsters skip a chapter in history class? Really, dear, the 2007 version of the Stasi shoud be the slap police. For every stupid comment: a mighty, German-boned slap across the face.

More later, for it’s that time of the evening: what of all these pale vegetables to stir-fry for dinner? Please pray on my behalf to the god of variety. Tell Her to send exotic manna from heaven.

2 hugs,

Your Ms. A

Pussyfooting

2007-11-09T10:08:00.000+01:00

It’s easy to slip away to horizons of the mind. As a perpetual daydreamer, it seems I am always struggling to blink away the hazy veneer from my eyes. Like Peter O’Toole’s character in Venus, I have to slap myself awake. It is not sleepiness from which I suffer, but more the unconscious irresistibility of sidling off to my imagination’s cosy alcoves. They are sheltered in homeliness, a boiling teakettle here, a crisp and waiting duvet over there, and farther off, a muffled-silent corner. Nevertheless, in the physical world it presents a problem. When forced to partake of what’s happening around me, I am often misjudged. “Is everything alright? You look worried.” For all the times I’ve had to apologise, it might be easier to count the hairs on my head.

Now imagine living in a foreign city amid the sword-like inflections of a foreign tongue. The urge to flee from the physical world is as irrepressible as that of a Tourette sufferer seeing curly hair for the first time. As a child in grade school I was often tempted to do something mean just so I would be sent to the corner to “think about what I’d done”. Later in life, any friend who talked too much was instantly cut. I have always needed elbowroom to mentally roam about.

As much as it is possible to objectively observe oneself, I think my sneaking off has to do with our built-in fight or flight mechanism. At some point I realised fighting comes to me all too naturally, my defence always on the alert for possible danger. Frankly I am downright afraid of myself when threat corners. I fear the severity to which I will have to react. It is possible then, in an attempt to balance such blood-boiled lashings, I have chosen to flee. Or perhaps the first time I fled I foresaw a less messy life, and decided it was the lesser evil.

More thoughts later. . .

random thoughts to and from the dentist

2007-11-07T15:31:00.000+01:00

On the Richter Scale of bipolar & Asperger disorder, yesterday evening allowed me to reach a record low. When too many neural malfunctions occur, I can be awful. The French neighbours must think I’m a savage. Especially the neighbour from the provinces. I don’t know why she has so much fear in her eyes. She hates bumping into me in the hallway.

I always wants to say Ass-berger’s.

A Kafka day⎯ misty rain, damning sky. I love my rain outfit. Two Barbours may be a bit much.

My dentist must be an East Berliner. I’m always shocked when East Berliners are kind to me. I would understand if they hated me because I’m a foreigner.

Dentist sees me for five minutes. Whilst rinsing my mouth, he shouts, “You have voondafu teeth. They will live until 100 years. You want to too?” ⎯Natürlich, I say, and watch a dapple of my spit land on his lower lip.

I didn’t know how to answer when he asked, “Are you under a lot of stress?”

Next time he talks to me I must look at his teeth. I can’t believe I don’t know what my dentist’s teeth look like.

I should not have been so direct with the dentist when he stopped me. I was putting on my second Barbour. He asked, “Is your life Ok in Berlin?” I should not have said, “No, Berliners hate foreigners.”

The dentist has beautiful teeth.

Why did I keep calling him doctor? How does one address a dentist? Mr. So & So?

My teeth are sting-sensitive now.

Berlin is beautiful when wet.

Reciting Kafka: “Opened the Bible. The unjust Judges . . . I am never visibly guided by such things, the pages of the Bible don’t flutter in my presence.” (repeat 5x’s)

What peculiar words Lowell gives Clytemnestra. I can’t wait to get home and finish his Oresteia. Love the spelling.

God, don’t let me forget to start writing about the old man after I finish that damn review.

No one knows how to write about the subtleties between an old man and a younger woman. Forget the dirty old man thing. There are so many other interesting layers, perverse because of their innocence.

My new love-poet: Robin Robertson. I am so so feeling him right now. Must be the apocalyptic weather.

Bi-polar alert: If this guy rams my ankles a second time with his shopping cart without saying a word, I’m going to fucking punch him in the ear.

I was never one for commas. Germans use too many.

I can’t believe I just pushed his cart back at him. I didn’t mean to hit him there. It so happens the handle is levelled with his wee-wee.

I can’t believe I just said wee-wee.

I can’t believe I just yelled at him.

He’s terrified now.

I bet his name is Jan.

Book Autopsies by Brian Dettmer

2007-11-06T18:40:00.000+01:00

Find Brian Dettmer's incredibly intricate "Book Autopsies" here

James Nachtwey

2007-11-05T22:34:00.000+01:00

The beautiful James Nachtwey always helps me put aside anger and focus instead on urgent issues.

Daily Sparring with Supreme Inflexibility

2007-11-05T11:26:00.000+01:00

Yesterday evening my hostile levels reached a record high. Not quite. There’s the time I was wrongly arrested on Mulberry Street. Four days in Central Booking, packed with angry Boriquas and crack addicts forced to withdraw, was no fun. Especially if you’re the single cellmate in fabulous Catherine Malandrino and it’s back-to-back of Jewish holidays so all judges and lawyers are missing in action.

Case aside, everyday in Berlin is an extreme effort of preparation when leaving my apartment. I am not self-condemning in anticipating how someone, without fail, will need to prove they are Prussian and have to comment on some trifle. Or will simply bump into me because when a Berliner walks in a straight line there is no curving or veering around a person. No, I’ve had it with the daily sparring and supreme inflexibility that seems to be the German inheritance. Frankly I’m tired of saying the cruellest things I can think of at the spur of the moment.

And yet. . . and yet, sparring, at least in boxing, requires supreme flexibility.

I don’t understand why when arguing with a German the rebuttal is always something on foreigners⎯⎯you foreigners, bla bla, spew, spew, spew. To which my reply is, “You petty-minded piece of shit, haven’t you learned anything from your history?” I walk away asking myself not about the piece of shit but about myself: how could I talk to someone like that and so effortlessly?

As for the punks, the so-called anti-establishment, anti-everything including sunlight, here’s a little sample of what I overheard whilst walking on Schönhauser Allee:

Punk (to a man roughly in his 60’s): You Zionist Pig! You Jews are all the same, greedy money-hungry bastards! (…etc)

The street was crowded. No one said a word. Everyone’s eyes did that glazed over thing, “if I don’t see it, it doesn’t exist.” Only a fool would not feel like they’ve suddenly been transported to 1939.

I’m afraid even the “nice” Germans I have met⎯three, all doctors⎯in all these years, I simply can’t make the effort towards friendship. The numbers in the other direction are too overwhelming, and I’ve no desire to make friends with individuals who either talk about the neat gadgets on their mobile or about how great and free Berlin is. My reply to the latter, “Berlin is a village, non-members not welcomed.”

Word Play & Free Rice

2007-11-04T16:10:00.000+01:00

Test your vocabulary skills for a good cause. For every word you get right Free Rice donates 10 grains of rice through the United Nations to help end world hunger.

My total for the past 20 minutes: 900 grains.

White-Knuckled Horror

2007-11-03T08:48:00.000+01:00

A soft contraption sits on my head. The contraption bears an eerie resemblance to parts of the nervous system, except it is the colour of malnourished flesh. Attached are many wires and a kind of reading lamp that hangs before my eyes. The reading lamp flickers in hyper-neon. Headache-neon. The technician in charge sits behind me. With trumped up neighbourliness she says, Augen auf. A passer-by stops and stares.

Rarely, if ever at all, is it unwise to read too much on a subject of historical significance. Yet as I sit in one room after another at Charité Hospital, I’ve decided what I know of the Third Reich and the DDR is presently too much information. An overflow of horror rattles at my nerves. To borrow from beloved poet, Derek Walcott, a sort of white-knuckled horror. The silent kind with flesh-pink edges.

Why do hospitals furnish walls with bad copies of Impressionists? This is a question to distract from the horror. It is not an interesting question.

I am sitting inside another waiting room. It is hospital-white. The floors are slippery. Nurses dash by in bright Crocs. Their faces, pinched. Birkenstocks must be out of fashion. The air smells of absence. Best I turn to the window.

Autumn continues to bloom. It is phasing into yellow. Through the dirty glass everything looks like a fantastic effort of the imagination, to borrow from another beloved poet. A fantastic effort is a beautiful coupling of words. If there is something beautiful I must lock my eyes on it, suck it whole, devour it. It is the only way to endure life in Berlin. Otherwise one could find oneself in the waiting room of a hospital thinking of a time when the euthanasia program was in effect. Or, of how a group of insane individuals ran out of the hospital during the time of the DDR. They ran and ran absently towards the West. Until guards opened fire. In the background doctors pleaded, “Don’t shoot. They‘re insane.”

The Impressionists are stealing all the colours.

My name is called. The doctor has correctly pronounced my name. It means he will be polite because it means he has travelled.

For 45 minutes I lay inside a tube, listening to the equivalent of machine gun rounds. Halfway through the procedure dye entered my bloodstream, the contrast allowing for accurate results of my brain.

I am holding the accurate results of my brain. For all I know I am holding the results of an anomalous brain. Regardless it is a magnificent brain. Bulbous-beautiful. The dye will not explain the mood swings. It will not explain how a fantastic effort has failed.

In Search of Heirs and Variety

2007-10-31T10:22:00.000+01:00

Rainer Maria Rilke is my salve for any ill feelings I bear towards the German language. I am not Jewish, so I’ve no direct German-Jewish associations. Yet within the German language, even in the everyday communications between customer and proprietor, lies a hostile and patronising verbosity. Perhaps for foreigners it exists in voz alto, or perhaps Germans are tired of being poster children for guilt. Who can say the many reasons a collective may have for a perpetually renewable chip on the shoulder.

As for Rilke⎯magnificently peculiar, child-like, unremittingly bewitched⎯who is all breath and flutter⎯his is the voice by your bedside whispering your childhood fears. If you are torn between fear and strive, it is because of the way in which those fears are delivered.

He was a full-blooded Dionysian, sentimental without being ridiculous, gorging on the stuff of life with perfect manners. When he describes the Archaic Torso of Apollo, it is someone striking a match to the cold statue and watching it come to full illumination. The magic is in the pace, selectivity, and fiery sexual charge.

We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,

gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark centre where procreation flared. . . *

As I pace the streets of this city, this city that has forgotten itself, I ask myself where are all the heirs to masters of German-language criticism and literature. Where is Walter Benjamin, Wittgenstein, Celan, Adorno, Zweig, Mann, Walser, Schnitzler, Kafka, Musil⎯⎯these men who left me spellbound beneath their infused voices.

Many have said it is not my place to judge, that it is I who ought to remember myself. Unlike other cities a foreigner in Berlin remains an intolerable guest, regardless of their duration. And yet, I believe what makes a city like New York the breeding ground for innovation is its population of fresh, outsider’s eyes. Similarly, what American in the late 1950’s could have portrayed the nation’s backwaters with the modern, “non-member’s” perspective of Robert Frank? In all one’s ways one must acknowledge the heir of Dionysius, the god of Variety.

*Translation by Stephen Mitchell

The Parade Ends . . . on Asperger

2007-10-30T15:47:00.000+01:00

I’ve no centre today and because of it my nerves pounce without objective. I am too involved in experiencing the mania, so I’ve no time really to rationalise its sensation⎯⎯in the attempt, at least, of taming this keyed up beast. Instead I succumb, like a fool in an undersized bikini on an oiled down surfboard, riding dangerous waves. Whew. I already feel better.

It is raining and the afternoon hovers in darkness. I am happy for it, for now I’ve no reason to go outside. It is important to have rain and days that permit you to be a fulltime stay-in. As far as I can remember I have been a fulltime stay-in, at least at heart.

When I had to be a fulltime public person, I would awake each morning five hours early. I did not know, down to the final hour, how I would manage to talk myself into leaving the apartment. Somehow I always managed, but it required excruciating will.

Several months ago I was reading an article, about what or whom I can no longer remember, except I was astounded by the similarity between someone’s daily social resistance and my own. At the end of the article was a link to a wikipedia entry. The entry was about Asperger Syndrome. Then I remembered years ago when a close friend of superior intelligence said to me on the fly, I think you have Asperger's, my dear.

I am thinking now what I’d done to make her believe so, but I can no longer remember. It had something to do with a task I’d undertaken and my exacting single-mindedness towards it. Also, I was in the process of finishing some minor details to the language I had created, a code, so to speak, for whenever I am writing in my journal in a café and the busy-bodies start looking over my shoulder. My one-man’s language was the only way to ensure privacy. . . How quickly curious little eyes can glaze over in confusion.

How did I come to this? I meant to say, how did I get to this topic, and not how did I come to being an Asperger baby. Anyhow.

Just now the rain has changed its tune. There is more silver to it, a metallic edge, sprinkled with grey-wash undertones. Something about this tonal shift makes me think it is sexy to be anonymous. I dare say I’ve no clue as to how the two connect, but I can trust myself enough to believe they do. I love the endless possibilities of anonymity. One of those possibilities is a veneer of the real, the so-real-I-can’t-share-my-identity. Mystery. We all love our mysteries, except in alimony agreements.

It is good to have a keyboard that goes click click on your every word. Sometimes I think I only want the click click and not the words. Sound without substance, like the opposite of snow. Though, I love the way snow swallows whole all urban ruckus. It is similar to those few seconds into sleep, that succulent sucking in and downward. Beautiful rest, if only I knew how.

Speaking of finger tics & rest, I am reminded of a much-loved poem by Cuban poet, Reinaldo Arenas. For those who can read Spanish, The Parade Ends can be found here in my supplementary blog of verse. I’m afraid I’m unwilling to murder Arenas’ lyrical piece by attempting translation. So take it or leave it.

Earl Grey vs. Espresso, Travel Troubles & High Art

2007-10-29T20:00:00.000+01:00

In giving up espresso, I’ve taken up black tea now. Instead of drinking a double, three times daily, I now drink 15 cups of tea, or two pots. Never did I think the day would come, though I’ve always admired tea drinkers for choosing the more elegant afternoon ritual. But neurotics are not tea drinkers, neither are the hyper-sensitive, phobic, obsessive-compulsive, high-strung, or hysterical. Somehow, its diluted wood colour seems an inappropriate aesthetic for those with nervous disorders. Ask for tea in New York or Rome and experience the silent rebuke as you get pegged a vegan or a Californian. Conversely, ask for an espresso in Tokyo and experience that whiplash-like facial reproach from the Japanese.

It has only been a week, but I must admit I am thoroughly enjoying the shift. Here I am presently taking a break, my pot of tea kept steamy on a brass warmer, and a gorgeous teacup from an early 19th century Westphalian home. Mind you, I can say the same thing about my former espresso rituals, with my beautiful Italian cups and snotty espresso machine. Anyhow, in letting go of my most beloved addiction⎯actually, my only one⎯I feel just a tad bit stronger. I’ve no patience for baby steps, but darn it, when I do they work.

Much too late in life did I learn many people are not given extra-stark espresso as children. In my homeland it is tradition, like a rite of passage. By the age of seven I had already learnt how much water to boil (yes, boil), how long to let the ground beans simmer, how to recognise the crema, that beautiful chestnut-red layer. I was already lactose intolerant so I could altogether forgo milk.

***

It is early evening now and the sky is as dark as a void. Winter darkness is officially on duty. Time to pull from the shelves the literary sagas no shorter than a thousand pages. Actually, what better with which to begin the cold season than Polish or Russian literature? I wish someone would tell me why both countries produce so many first-rate poets.

One remarkable Polish poet, whom I discovered much too late, is Julia Hartwig. In the April 27th, 2006 issue, the New York Review of Books printed her poem, Old Fashions:

I remember an old, meticulously executed print.
Swallowed by a whale, a small man with a frock coat sits inside its belly at a small table, lit by an oil lamp.
But from time to time the whale gets hungry. And here is the second print.
A powerful wave of seawater rushes through the throat to the belly, with a shoal of swallowed small fish.
The table with the lamp is knocked down; the small man, diving, nestles against the slick wall of the whale's massive bulk.
After the wave's retreat he sets up his table, hangs the lamp, and begins to work.
Perhaps he is studying the Old Testament? Perhaps he is studying maps?
What else could be of interest to a traveler miraculously saved from a shipwreck?
I often think of this print as I lay books down on my table for work, after tightly closing windows and doors.

(Translated from the Polish by John and Bogdana Carpenter)

I don’t know why the first line so absorbed me. Perhaps it is the clipped simplicity and the unspoken assurance in the tone of voice that promises a cleanly told and haunting story. Anyhow, since discovering Ms. Hartwig I’ve searched and searched for translations of her complete works. Sometime last week I accidentally learnt of her first English translation book: In Praise of the Unfinished. I am near certain it is a beauty, but I’ll just wait for the book to arrive before prematurely running my mouth.

In other worldwide news, New Yorker staff writer, Susan Orlean writes about her travel experiences in Bhutan with a fertility group, following the break-up of her marriage. As always, she is forthcoming, clear, and funny. She begins:

The second worst travel experience I ever had was on a misbegotten trip to a marvelous place that I had returned to for all the wrong reasons. The trip was a few years ago; the place was Bhutan; the reason was love, or what I mistakenly identified as love, which is probably, statistically speaking, the greatest and also the stupidest reason to ever go anywhere. It was not my first time in Bhutan. I had gone there about six months earlier for a story about couples who were attending Bhutanese fertility festivals in hopes of heading home with the ultimate family souvenir. The timing happened to be quite awkward for me – I was writing about happy families fulfilling their dream of having children, but the trip itself, coincidentally, marked the beginning of the end of my marriage. My then-husband had planned to come to Bhutan with me, and we figured a trip somewhere interesting and beautiful might extend the lease on our relationship; instead, I headed off with the fertility group, and he stayed back in New York to start clearing out his half of the apartment. I was pretty blue, but after a few days in Bhutan (where, by the way, most houses are decorated with large, celebratory paintings of penises) I fell in love with the tour guide and I started to enjoy the trip a whole lot more. When I returned to New York I was ecstatic. I was convinced that Tshering was my soul mate, notwithstanding the fact that he lived on the other side of the Earth, was somewhat age-inappropriate, and shared with me no cultural, social, intellectual, or religious common ground.

In stranger worldwide news, Australian poet and author, Peter Nicholson, reviews the Viennese television series, Inspector Rex, based on a super-sleuth German Shepherd, Kommissar Rex. In his column [“Gut Gemacht, Rex!”] Mr. Nicholson discusses the uses⎯rather, the usefulness⎯of popular culture versus the full-time occupation of “high art”.

It is mostly a poke at literary snobbery and how one needs plain ol’ trashy, silly, or unimportant entertainment added to one’s diet. What is even more interesting is how I’m inclined to agree, yet I know absolutely nothing about popular culture. I’m afraid I am one of “those” who reads and listens to what most call high art⎯on a full-time basis. It is nothing about which I feel snotty; it is simply my way. I’ll take Lowell, Brodsky, Milosz, and Stevens over X, Y, or Z. (I’m afraid I wouldn’t even know whom to include…) Anyhow, who’s to say high art equals snobbery? . . . Ich nicht.

unknown father & daughter

2007-10-29T18:49:00.001+01:00

Afternoon Tea with the Dead

2007-10-29T13:40:00.000+01:00

I’ve no idea what sort of day it is, for I’ve not yet left the apartment. Through the windows I can see it is sunny, a bleached sheen to the cold.

The whine of a speeding ambulance rises to my workroom. An impertinent inflection in its voice, like a complaining New Yorker.

I’ve decided today I would look carefully at the last black and white photographs I bought at the Boxhagenerplatz flea market. On that occasion, only five moved me enough to want to take home and care after. The saddest of the lot is of a father and daughter.

The father is perhaps forty and the girl, no more than ten years old. They are looking at one another; the father’s massive hand gently clinging the girls pinky. They have the same profile, the same protruding upper lip, the same churning intensity in the eyes, the same part in the hair, and the same curious smile, as if what they see in one another is fascinating in its detail.

The girl wears a white flower-print cotton dress that reaches above her knees. A white angora sweater covers her thin shoulders. Around her neck, down to the space between her breasts (one can hardly call this cleavage) hangs a black pearl necklace. Someone has parted her chestnut-coloured hair and braided the ends. Only a woman could have brushed her hair so neatly.

The father wears a dark grey suit and a white pinstriped shirt beneath the blazer. A black tie with white diagonal stripes eels out from his neck. So that father and daughter are eye to eye, the father sits on a baroque-heavy chair.

We know the two are dead. Do not ask how we know, we simply do.

There should be such a profession as “photograph nurses”; individuals who look after family photographs so to ensure they do not end up like stacked corpses on a vendor’s table. I am a self-appointed photograph nurse. It is the only way I can be certain these sad Things are held, spoken to, and looked at. After all, even the dead want to be seen.

I am not entirely comfortable playing detective. For example, this group here in another photograph, I cannot tell if they are related. The old man and woman have the same nose. The younger woman beside them bears no resemblance to either. But the two with the same nose, they might have been husband and wife. We do know how features tend to meld accordingly. By the mischievous squint in their eyes they might be siblings. Still, who is this young woman in the background elbowing her teacup and smiling at the camera. There is also the invisible photograph taker. It is someone with whom the three are intimate. Otherwise, they would not easily display their silliness and mischief in such a casual manner.

I am sure the three are labourers. In spite of the mischief, their eyes drag; they look at me worn and dry. Unlike father and daughter, the three think they have already experienced their most trying times. But again we know this is not how fate will play itself out. This time we know because on the back of the photograph, in tiny pencil marks, is written: 18 März 1935.

If you look at father and daughter longer than is decent, you will notice a peculiar premonition in their eyes. They are telling each other, in silence, that this is their last careless moment together. Both noses smell danger, and father’s eyebrows come together slightly in fear for his little girl. Their upper class life will be shattered but they’ve yet to understand how. That is why father is gentle with his little girl’s pinky finger, because he knows gentleness is the antithesis of war.

Debno – Mysliborz, Poland

2007-10-29T08:36:00.000+01:00

At Debno, the smell of coal and mist. The earth, a damp, pleasant rot. The market is filling. Vendors display plastic lanterns, candles encased in plastic, plastic flowers for the Saturday ritual of visiting loved ones at their graves.

A man walks by gripping his cane. His purse sits on his hip, the hip that protrudes. The purse is the colour of candy apple.

The signs read: Apteka, Sokolow, Sklep Odziezowy. Across the street from the market is a large supermarket, Biedronka, which I’m guessing, by the smiling ladybug design, means ladybug.

My face is unfamiliar. I can see my strangeness reflected in the people’s faces.

The woman selling the plastic lanterns wears a merlot jacket. It is corduroy and reaches her waist. She eats a sandwich with both hands and her eyes dart cautiously. Beside her stall hang many pashminas in tie-dye.

The sky is an absence, yet it hovers broodingly. Like a dead aunt who’s nagging words are impossible to extinguish. It is almost dinnertime.

In the room in which I now sit is the warmth of scattered, flickering candle flames. The house will need a day to warm. B is dashing about in a fluster over all the mouse droppings. Every few seconds she tells herself aloud, “I forgot how this is part of country living.” P is reclined on the sofa reading the current issue of Harper’s. B shreds carrots.

I am drinking Polish coffee, an inappropriate appetizer to goulash, but its fragrant heaviness, like that of shaved wood, is perfectly agreeable.

B again speaks aloud to herself as she prepares dinner: na, ja . . . öl . . . links . . . sehr warm . . . topfen . . . funny . . . hmm hmm . . . I don’t think we open this bottle of cream, no, the soup is ok . . . hmm hmm.

It is late evening now. B has gone to bed. I am thrown on the sofa, my muscles like warming honey. P is opposite me continuing with the Harper’s article. I’ve prepared a yogurt & sugar facemask but am afraid the mosquitoes might attack. Difficult to believe they’ve survived this late in the season. Never mind; I listen to my breath now. I am exhausted.

Will this, these words, one day matter? Will I look back on this moment with clarity because of what I’ve written? Will I remember the ladder leaning on the wall with its caked paint splotches? Will I remember the ash stain on the terra-cotta vase standing on the windowsill?

For that brief moment in which I feared a face would appear behind the window⎯⎯will that too go away?

I am tired; and the base of the white lamp is the colour of a ripe melon because of the reflection from the honey-wood table. I want to remember myself just as I am now, absently absorbing some opera coy-cooing from B’s bedroom as I wonder if she has fallen asleep. The candles have melted. It is country-warm now on this country-cold evening. I must shut my eyes now.

Saturday

2007-10-27T07:34:00.000+02:00

It is almost seven in the morning and the Germans are barking. Masses fill the streets. In East Berlin it is still Friday evening. Someone sounds like a Maltese.

The sky shows no sign of first light. To quote the beloved Welsh poet, it is bible-black.

In my dream another man has died. Embedded in his back, like a wind-up toy, is a lever in which one could turn and hear the man’s last dying words. Someone, a child, keeps fidgeting with the lever until the dead man looks as if he is having an epileptic fit. You little monster, I keep shouting, leave it be. I am afraid my own death will come to the same end, some brat messing around with my last words. There is no more dignity to death, I say, while watching the dead man malfunction. I must leave this situation and continue on my way.

The city through which I walk is an urban decay, one heap of rubble. Where have I landed, I ask myself, and for what reason? Strangers with odd faces keep approaching, wanting to tell me how they ended up in this hell. I beg them not to, but I ultimately give in. The reasons each give are too many to list. If I could I would draw those strange, green-hued faces. How is it possible to create entire human beings in our dreams? I bolt out of bed checking my back for mechanical levers.

Later when I am in Poland I will have forgotten the dead man and his lever. But maybe, just as I’m about to pour Polish coffee into a cup, I will remember the woman who begged me to listen to her ruin. Strangers who occupy our dreams are like that, like illuminated night lanterns, they puddle the night of our minds at unexpected moments.

Ooga Booga

2007-10-25T09:47:00.000+02:00

I am in the waiting room of another doctor’s office, my week filled with minor surgical procedures and check-ups.

I sit nearest the window. On the sill lies a yellow rubber foot like a cynical teething apparatus. The big toe is exaggerated. Through the window I can see only leaves and sky, the latter like fogged photographic paper.

A toddler has stumbled in. A dumb lollipop. The toddler may believe itself to be a ball, but the ball won’t bounce. Now it cries and sucks in with its great pink mouth the silence in which I was indulging.

The doctor’s office was once a residential apartment. What I mean to say is, someone once lived here⎯⎯many people once lived here. I must learn to say what I mean. It is important to follow the thread of one’s thoughts. I used to believe if I didn’t say a specific word a hundred and one times I would be punished by losing a family member.

The first time I met the Counting Monster I was walking up the stairs headed to kindergarten. The stairwell was all gunmetal and echo. The Wind Monster at the bottom of the stairs mocked me whenever I was alone. I soon realised I could run away from the Wind Monster but never the Counting Monster.

While walking to the doctor’s office I made sure to count every other of my footsteps. It was important I follow it with exactness, lest I be sent back to begin again. To avoid congestion I took the side streets, for they are usually still made of cobblestones. The ricocheting echo of shoes on cobblestones is a sound that swallows you whole, a hollow ache of a sound, a companion and a wonderful counting assistant. After three decades one learns to resist bitterness towards the demands of the Counting Monster.

It is evening now and I’ve closed all the windows. It is the only way to better hear the muffled street sounds. My surgery stings and a rusted object knifes my left eye. If I close my eyes I can hear the neighbours. The gentleman in the apartment to my left plays Chopin. I think he is trying to play like Peter Schmalfuss. I should like to let those notes rest on my tongue, patiently recording how they commingle with warm, metallic saliva.

The neighbours to my right are having a small dinner gathering. I was lucky this time to move into a building with more foreigners than locals. The last apartment building in which I lived, situated in the ashen heart of Mitte, was filled with thirty-something graphic designers turned Nazi spies, most of whom reported the most vicious lies about me. The final straw was their turning the Stasi-Nazis on me, those pinch-faced anaemics who demand to inspect your apartment due to a filed complaint. Mine was a woman young enough to be my daughter, so I was gentle on her, even as she insisted she was going to enter my apartment. I held open the door and said, “I dare you to step foot into my apartment. Where I come from that’s called breaking the law, so if you want to have your ass beaten to a pulp, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Instead of being a Nazi, your yogourt ass should be in college reading Walter Benjamin.”

White on White

2007-10-24T09:01:00.000+02:00

9:45 a.m.

I am in the waiting room of the hospital-white sanatorium. The winter light flares. It is hospital-silent. It seems I am first to arrive.

An older woman sits before me. She doesn’t remove her quilt jacket. It is Helsinki-orange. Her eyes cannot blink me away; I am a kind of curiosity, as if I were a visiting animal on loan for the current zoo exhibition. She doesn’t know I have exceptional peripheral vision. It is hospital-cold.

I am afraid of the sign that points to die Nerve experimentelle Klinik. The washroom is also in its direction, but I’ll just wait.

Listen carefully and those dirty cracks in the walls begin to hiss. They are so worn through that they don’t really say anything, but we know what they’ve seen because we have read and read and read, so that we can recite Malaparte and any number of anonymous diaries as if we were pointing out the darnedest thing Little Suzy said during breakfast.

One doctor has approached⎯a female in a hospital-white jacket and pointy black shoes. Her face, a bloodless drain. I hope she is not my doctor. I hope she will take away Ms. Helsinki-orange.

The frequency of dark things, the frequency of dark things . . . There’s no making it rest, so now I am counting how many times this half-phrase continues talking inside my head. I’ve counted 86 times.

Earlier this morning, at precisely 6:45, the sky was midnight-black. I stood by the balcony with a fresh cup of double espresso, prepared Polish style, watching the sky turn the colour one sees in the mind when under the surge of an electrical shock. A magnificent horror.

I can’t remember who used the words “white-knuckled horror” but it is an appropriate summary of how most people & things in Berlin impress me. I think those words come from Derek Walcott.

From my balcony I continued to watch the sky quickly pale, and the urban landscape return to its grey on grey variation of The Wasteland. At the moment I realised I was top to bottom in pyjamas of Loden-green shades, and how I most certainly could pass as the mentally ill child of Bavarian peasants, the sky had drained to a fuzziness, like a mass of shaved sheep hair.

Are there others who awake feeling like someone’s cold, dark memory?

What I love about the morning is how one’s groggy thoughts simultaneously resist and cling to first light. What are mornings if not a tug of war, as in a love hate relationship, though more towards the former. But now I must return to the comfortless surroundings of this waiting room. I must keep my head cocked so as to better hear when the receptionist mispronounces my foreign name.

Photograph by Arnt Sneve

A Slight Discomfort

2007-10-22T20:48:00.000+02:00

The room in which I now sit is cold, its minimalist effect allowing for a spirited rush of air. In the corners the lanterns burn like dying embers and the smell of books is pleasantly sour, not unlike the residue of pipe tobacco on a wool sweater. All about me is the warm reassurance of winter, and if I am happy, it is because I am alone with the silence of this cold evening.

⎯That is, until I begin reading about the high death rates in hospitals due to bacterial infections. Through no deliberate gesture of my own did I come upon this topic. Suddenly I am reading an article about a woman who died during labour because of shoddy hospital work by both nurses and doctors and I am grinding down so heartily on my teeth that I am sure my molars are pulverising onto my tongue.

I am not a hypochondriac, neither do I fear germs, but I do wish I had access to a set of eyeglasses that would permit me to scan the billions of germs circulating about this room. Why anyone would subject oneself to such a nightmare is best left to the obsessive- compulsives. That I was diagnosed many years ago with severe OCD is a topic best left untouched.

Talking about germs in Berlin is the equivalent of wearing a white t-shirt with an American flag splashed across your chest. Ditto for talking about your psychiatrist’s brand new Longchamp bag which you happen to admire. In the instance of the latter, it is the word psychiatrist and not the underlying Kapitalismus involved that is the impropriety. Though, as a general rule, the subject of capitalism is a no-no, unless of course, for the purpose of slander.

For those interested in visiting Berlin and wanting to know a little more about German culture than what guidebooks provide, I will soon be listing some of my own social blunders. I can only hope to offer useful information on what not to do.

Angst

2007-10-22T16:15:00.000+02:00

My mind is filled with ramblings and readings. The only way I know how to filter too much information is by clenching my teeth. It is no exaggeration when I tell others my molars are worn through. In another few years I may have stubs for teeth, though my German dentist says I have the most beautiful teeth he’s ever seen. The first time he saw them he assumed I was American. When I spent a year in Mexico quite a few locals wondered why I did not want to adorn my teeth with gold caps, since it is semiotics for wealth. Naturally, in the unspoken language of Mexico, anyone who is light-skinned is presumed abundant in wealth.

The sky is beginning to look alpine⎯that high, bright, overcast eye-ache. There isn’t a touch of yellow in this northern sun. It makes everyone look mossy green as if they were nauseous, or as if they’d died a week ago. My cheeks, neck, and ears sting with cold dampness. What seasonal fatigue one must pull through.

When I leave Berlin I’ll have neither molars nor loose skin around my fingernails. I have always been manic, excessive and edgy, though never as I am now. I think it is the fear that I too will become a week-old corpse, the kind that absently waits at the stoplight even though a single car isn’t passing. If only that blankness, marked on all these faces, were something beautiful, something along the lines of a Wallace Stevens poem.

Ah, yes, I remember now which poem I am thinking of. Strangely enough, it is the poem titled, The American Sublime.

How does one stand
To behold the sublime,
To confront the mockers,
The mickey mockers
And plated pairs?

When General Jackson
Posed for his statue
He knew how one feels.
Shall a man go barefoot
blinking and blank?

But how does one feel?
One grows used to the weather,
The landscape and that;
And the sublime comes down
To the spirit itself,

The spirit and space,
The empty spirit
In vacant space.
What wine does one drink?
What bread does one eat?

⎯Wallace Stevens; The American Sublime

It’s a magnificent poem, particularly the line, “One grows used to the weather,/ the landscape and that . . . ” I have re-read Stevens over and again since living in Berlin. It’s not that he’s especially appropriate for this ominous landscape, it’s more in my wishful thinking in how what is quiet and tragic about a Stevens poem may be found in Berlin.

For altogether different reasons I have clung to Robert Lowell while living in Berlin like I have with no other poet. It goes back to my fear of turning into a week-old corpse. Lowell’s marvellous rhythmical mania is something I can relate to, and when one is too long in strange surroundings one takes comfort where one can. I can recite Lowell’s Day by Day as easily as if I were brushing my dentist-approved teeth. Whether it is to recite his version of a tired, resigned Ulysses or of his walk near a pond with his wife, his voice lives inside me like my own. Take these words, for instance, dedicated to his long time friend, Peter Taylor:

We are dangerously happy ⎯⎯
Our book-bled faces
streak like red birds,
dart unstably,
ears cocked to catch
the first shy whisper of deafness. . .

We are things thrown in the air
alive in flight . . .
our rust the colour of the chameleon.

Even when Lowell’s poems don’t always succeed, they are always thrilling, momentous, a surging and urging forward with awkward backward glances that flush the cheeks with elation. What else can one ask of a poem?

Altes Europa

2007-10-20T15:39:00.000+02:00

SIBERIAN winter is nearly upon us, which means six months of enduring the altogether cruel and apocalyptic barrens. Everywhere begins the sickle shine so particular to the north; the smell of late autumn and wool, the sour-sweetness of burning coal, the air’s jagged edge. At another time these olfactory archives might have had the air of the tragically romantic.

“So this is where people come to live; I would have thought it is a city to die in. I have been out.”

Not a difficult sentiment to share with the young Danish nobleman of Rilke’s Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. He is writing of Paris, but never mind.

This is the time of year Berliners are exceptionally aggressive, silent, and xenophobic. To adjust to this sadistic city and its inhabitants is somehow to relinquish one’s power, whatever that may come to signify. Yet being the harbourer of animosity can grow tiresome. One is left perpetually autumnal in nurturing ill will to perfect strangers and their relatives and their relatives’ relatives.

Nevertheless I am staggered by the richness of German literature, and it is how I remedy my sustained distaste for the abovementioned characteristics so ingrained in the German collective. Presently I am revisiting some favourites and finally taking on others long due. . .

*The unforgettable Hans Castorp in Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain *Rilke's masterpiece and one of my favourite novellas; The Notebook of Malte Laurids Brigge * "Very deep is the well of the past. Should we not call it bottomless?". . . So begins Thomas Mann's colossal Biblical tales in Joseph and His Brothers

* The sometimes baffling but comical Arno Schmidt in Radio Dialogues I. An extra applause for the marvellous publications by Green Integer.

* I am indebted to J at St. George's Bookstore for introducing me to Gitta Sereny. This special woman's books are thoroughly captivating. There are moments when Speer is talking about his childhood that reminds me of a dinner table scene out of Fanny & Alexander. Speer's beauty, charm, and tortured spirit comes through with tremendous impact.

* A brilliant selection of Rilke's poetry. Mr. Mitchell's translations are superb.

Kulturbrauerei

2007-10-16T20:06:00.001+02:00