My friend James, the silicon valley refugee turned artist in Germany, sent this latest poignant reflection on life in Berlin....
Hey Hey,
What can I say? It was one of the craziest "placements" I have ever had. I don't know about you, but sometimes, when I am in a strange place and things happen to me, it almost feels as though I had been placed in a movie set and was watching; following the action, but not really a part of it: a voyeur maybe, a documenter, maybe?
Today in my neck of Berlin – Kreuzberg – there was a festival called "Karneval der Kulturen (just so you know and for your "edumekation", Kultur is a feminine noun, and therefore it should be called die Kulturen, but because it is the indirect object of the sentence, however, you must change the article, as it is now in what is called the Dative position, so the article changes to der, which is actually the masculine form in the nominative, but, whatever: don't you just love German grammar?) Anyway, this carnival of cultures is exactly that: it is actually more of an excuse to make noise, and that is exactly what they did.
Now, I don't know if you know this or not, but here is a glimpse into German culture....
They never do anything half-assed (and I am not talking about the full pendulum swing of the something that happens to them: weather, either). No way. It is either gung -ho balls-out and move forward, or nothing at all. Normally, the day life here is very sedate and Sundays you might as well talk to yourself as there is normally nothing doing.
Well, this carnival comes to the street and I swear the entire city and half the nation must have been there. I forgot that this Monday is a holiday, but who knew? I have never been to any parade, etc. and experienced this many people – and I am taking Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade into factor. Just over the top with people. Drunken people. White people in dreadlocks. Stoned people. Adults with Chardonnay people. Every kind of people. By the millions (I am not joking, the crowd was estimated at 1 million or something by the paper).
When the Angolan float came by carrying all the dancers and the thousand-strong (I am not kidding) member dance troupe behind them came into a dance trance mode, the entire surroundings were mesmerized. What follows was some scene out of a futuristic Stephen King (was it The Stand) movie where are the people are driven by some inner force that they cannot control. A float with a humongous DJ tromped by and, as if called by the piper himself, thousands of people got up or turned around and started to follow this float and dance. I must say, the music was trance-like and very appealing – calling a basic core to move and shake and let it all go. I too, was caught in the fever of the moment and walked with the crowd.
The overcast day finally let some light rain down and the wind rushed at us from our back. The music routinely crescendoed and re-built as if in some motion of pre-programmed delight – like a cult that reuses material that continues to work on the weak minds who pay to be a member. Like a scene out of the rapture, the masses danced under the heavy leaves of the tree-lined streets moving to a cult beat that could only be described as "possessed" all the while walking with the wind as the clouds overhead opened and closed like regurgitating hydras. The spiritual power of this music and the day was so strong that I had to pull away to a side street and watch as the throngs marched past, oblivious to my existence. The wind died down and the rain stopped as they rode out of range. I wondered if it only continued for them, under the shadow of something bigger, more ominous.
Then I saw them – the parade of Berlin girl/women. I can't really call them teenagers and I can't really call them women, but for pronoun purposes here, I will. They don't fit the moniker of teen, either. I have seen these women on the U-Bahn and in the streets many times, but today I saw them en masse and I finally got put together something that I have thought about for a while with regards to Berlin women: they have a characteristic that was displayed by Marlene Dietrich. I could not put my finger on it before, but today I got it:
The difference between Marlene Dietrich (the "Goddess of Potsdamer Platz") and other women of her movie-era. At first I could not pin point it, but now I know why that famous Berlinerin had that something special. Like the other European screen goddesses, Greta and Ingrid, she was beautiful, but there was something she had that the others didn't and I saw it today again in these girl/women: the sense of a worldly soul combined with a look of absolute, almost aggressive defiance. This is the Berliner woman: defiant to anyone who tries to shape them and deflective of, well, just about everything. It is, or course, a protection, but at the same time, it can be very endearing. Garbo had a bit of it, but she always melted. Ingrid never had it because she was, deep down, too, well, just nice. Marlene had it in spades. She would, in the typical Berliner sense, never back down. Never. I always wonder about that physcological make up, but I think it is part of the psyche of this strange, strange, and interesting town.
I always have a number in the back of my head – the one about the Battle of Berlin, where over 100,000 Russians lost there lives in one month trying to break this city – and this was at the very end of the war when it was just the Berliners – the old men and the boys – defiantly protecting the city even though they knew the end was near anyway. The Russians, of course, finally won, but that is a staggering number for one battle. The defiance of the city shown through.
At the end of the parade, I saw an American country music float with lots of American-country-music lovers locked in a hoe down doing a two step on the platform of this huge truck. The site was amusing, and it made me a bit, well, sad – my feeling of living in "exile" was heightened by this scene. I actually love my country, with all of its flaws. I just wish that people would be more educated and rise to the level of America's promise – do the right thing and honor love and honor hard work. America is a powerful draw, but I look from afar and feel sadness at what America could have been in 2000 and what it became in these Bush years. It is just so sad that one person and one party can set the tone for the entire nation. So incredibly sad. I miss America – the America before Bush and before September 11th (and Bush and 9/11 can be, uh separated, you know) – the America of promise and hope. Sigh. That is so far gone in my mind now that I don't look to America for the future, and I think, many places do not anymore either, if they don't have to.
Speaking of policies set by one man, I spent the early part of the day at the Jewish Museum - the one designed by Daniel Liebeskind. It was brilliantly sad. So moving. The brilliance is that you are led through all the policies that were created by Hitler and co. (one man, basically) and then you see the people actually hurt by the policies ( i.e. holocaust) and then you are led to a door in the far back of the room. Once you open the door, you are in the base of a very dark tower. You can see a tiny window at the top of the tower and you can hear the street noise, but you are totally alone and it is very dim. That was brilliance - trying to protray how the jews must have felt as the policies started to come down around them with a huge and powerful force and how the outside world was there, but they felt utterly cut off from it and helpless, like I did in the tower. Policies do matter. They affect real people. As a side note, I saw the special exhibition on Freud, his life and work. It was brilliant. I learned more about human pyschology today in one hour at the museum than I think, well, ever.
The layers of Berlin are interesting. My ambiguity is still here, as I am not convinced this is the place for me; the weather is only one small piece, not the entire thing. It still, however, has yet to warm up. It is June 4, 2006 and we have seen the sun maybe 20 times for any duration since January 3, 2006. This is getting very, very old. I saw the weather channel that stated it will be sunny next weekend and it will begin to warm up. But that is like telling a cancer patient that they will finally get their medication they need, even though their body is already worn down and the pateint has already given up; it is too late. I am worn down. Maybe I am not a Berliner. I am worn down and it does affect me and no matter how much defiance I put up and no matter how strong I try to be, I still have one opposing emotion that counters any defiance I may have: resignation...to a point beyond of repair. Methinks.
Hence, the ambiguity.
Tschuss aus Berlin,
James
Comments