The Pit of Babel

2010-03-02T23:35:00.004+01:00

Lost in the deep space of the internet, I was somehow reminded of the summer I lived in Chicago and made pitchers of sangria from juicy, overripe peaches. Yummm.

Seattle reminds me quite a bit of Chicago. Something about the neighborhoods and riding the bus, I think. When it rains, the city is like London. Strange, pollarded trees and Victorian apartment buildings. These recent days make me think of spring in Paris. The air has an excitability, freshness and aroma, as if my senses have just woken from a deep hibernation. Steaming espresso, wet dog poo and the fabulous avenues of cherry blossoms.

2010-02-28T06:24:00.003+01:00

It tickles me to see that spammers have found my blog. At least somebody is putting it to good use. I have had a busy, busy week. In addition to my part-time retail gig, I have committed to a three-month stint with Square Tomato, an advertising agency based here in Seattle. I am having quite a blast with it. My biggest deficiency is my familiarity with television spots. That is what I get for choosing not to own an idiot box. The only times I even watch it is when I make deposits at the bank, wait for my departing flight at the airport or visit my mother's house. Who would have thought this absence above all would obstruct my expertise?

It is my personal belief that it takes two full months to become acclimated to a new environment. As of this date, Seattle has been my home for 1.5 times that long, although our apartment is still technically in its trial stage. My conclusion thus far? I think I like it. I still feel like an outcast. In fact, it seems to be a town of outcasts. As a city, Seattle definitely allows itself to be modeled to suit the needs of its inhabitants. And they, the individuals and their needs, are diverse.

I catch myself on the bus, playing the well-groomed young woman with important places to go, turning a blind eye to the goons, drunks, gutter punks who pick fights and dismiss the bus driver's orders. Other days I am the eccentric, dashing in front of traffic to make the bus, chatting up the driver, catching a free ride.

Outcast. To fit in. Does not every thinking man, whose existence is defined by his self-consciousness, feel apart from the masses? Most of my life I have felt, to some degree, an outcast. In elementary school, attending speech class made me feel different than the rest of my class. As I grew a little older and become too preoccupied with adult matters, I spent a lot of time hanging around my teachers and reading novels that should not be given to children. Every other weekend, the slight social life I had cultivated was disrupted to spend time with my dad in Traverse City. In high school I spent most of my time working on different extracurricular projects, and my social life was principally conducted online. I remember several Friday nights from my junior year spent hanging out alone at Borders, hoping to meet someone new. In Chicago, I was too busy working and going to school to drink and do the sorts of things many other college freshmen do. The first time I felt that I had truly found my place was, ironically, as a foreigner abroad. The expatriate community was one I could claim as my own. That gusto for self-assertion travelled back with me to Ann Arbor, and together we found happiness and home -- or at least, a sense of belonging. Somehow over the course of these past few moves it has become detached and has lost its way.

Anonymity. The plight (or pleasure) of every city dweller.

Most likely, society did not reject me at all, but rather I unwittingly withdrew myself.

How do adults make friends? Why do we need friends? Is it an instinctual, animalistic need to feel a part of a community? Apart, a part. Why do some people need more interaction than others? A simple chat over breakfast completes M's social needs, but I am not content to write my thoughts to myself. Happiness is a sunshine-infused cocktail and banter shared with a friend or two.

Do performers -- when they perform -- feel separate from the audience? Or is the urge to put themselves on display a way of connecting with others? When actors raise their eyes to meet the audience, do both sides not feel an almost awe-inspiring sense of solidarity?

Is it by becoming one with the crowd that the individual pulls away the most? By forgoing an exchange and forfeiting a contribution of independent thought, he is not working to benefit the collective.

What drives people to perform? How do they benefit from minimizing the distance between reality and imagination? Why is this lack of distinction between the two defined as psychosis?

2010-02-12T01:31:00.003+01:00

After weeks of checking the movie listings of every independent theater in Seattle, I finally tracked down and saw North Face (Nordwand, 2008). The promotional material for the film described it as being about two German mountaineers who, in anticipation of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, are provoked to climb the north face of the Eiger in order to further prove the supremacy of the Aryan race.

The Eiger is a danger out of this world. The formidable north face juts 1,800 meters out of the Bernese Alps and has earned the name of the "murder wall" on account of the great number of climbers dying in attempt to scale its rugged and icy ascent.

During their climb, Tony and Andi, the film's central characters, are joined by a competing Austrian team. While I anticipated a story full of adventure and foreign politics, the film also contains a romantic subplot that many find unbelievable and unnecessary. I accepted it as a much-needed stress reliever. The drama and suspense of the action sequences themselves left me shaky, sweaty and moderately nauseated. (No, boyfriend, you will have to reconsider this cockamamie plan of yours to climb Mt. Rainier.) It doesn't take a check on the Wikipedia entry to know that the climb does not end well. The movie is built on a true story, though it appears that it incorporates elements from actual climbs in 1938 and 1957 (one successful and, the other, not so). Also, many of the details must be imagined due to the fact that foggy weather obscured the face from hotel-deck spectators, so no one can truly know what happened to the group.

As Matt pointed out to me, the movie is built on "what-ifs" and "if-onlys." Each step the climbers make represents, both literally and figuratively, a decision made -- or not made -- and a path not taken. Leave it to the Germans to make a film so gut-wrenching, so horrific and so delicate in its relation to everyday life (for us non-Alpinists, at least).

And for those who are avid mountaineers, you will find it an interesting study of how drastically sports equipment and technology have since advanced. These men sleep in canvas sacks and climb in what appear to be Alpaca fleece mittens.

North Face will be coming to the Detroit Institute of Arts on March 12-14, 2010.

Note: Don't get me wrong, I found it to be a wonderful film. If you take delight in films of physical and emotional hardships that you will (hopefully) never have to face yourself, then I can promise you that you will enjoy this one.

2010-02-04T01:00:00.001+01:00

Perhaps they are a teensy bit late, but I finally posted some pictures on my Flickr from our last month in Berlin. These pictures also include a few from our camping trip to Ruegen! Enjoy.

2010-01-30T00:09:00.004+01:00

An amazing photo of Armenian-American dramatist William Saroyan and J.D. Salinger's former girlfriend, Oona O'Neill.

2010-01-29T05:02:00.003+01:00

Here is a poem by the talented Rachel Zucker, "Long Lines to Stave Off Suicide." Her collection, "Museum of Accidents," is published by Wave Books in Seattle and is one of the best I've read lately. I highly encourage you all to find a copy at your local independent bookshop.

Note: Please pardon the spacing. I'll try to duplicate it as closely as Blogger will allow.

Long Lines to Stave Off Suicide

"One can live without having survived." (Carolyn Forché)

or
I could keep having children which helps a little (hurts
a lot) because everything for a long time is so
keep-the-baby-alive, or I
could keep more to myself gathering
daily facts inwards in towards but this makes for
less interior space
if the line's too short
drown --
too long -- I'm not the first to be beguiled by and not the first to feel
there's something [--hang--] I've swallowed that won't go down --

on Thursday at pre-K
I make pancakes with Abram's class and he asks Ami
and the teacher chose Luna and Derek cried and cried and I
let him measure flour because he kept saying,
that's your mom? your mom? I love your mom! it was weird
so I gave him butter and a blunt knife, hoped the teacher
wouldn't mind and later found out Derek's mom
died in the towers

I couldn't breathe when I heard it or believe what a good mother
I've been just by staying alive

do you think? Joan asks, it's better to die now or back when they were babies and didn't know better? I almost say better to have died when they were babies
but. not true. every good night book. spoon or puréed pear. banana
after brush-your-teeth time. how I held him (restrained in a hospital sheet)
while the idiot doctor who didn't want to dirty his dress shirt
stitched the busted lip. and when I weaned him off the binky and the boob
and the floaties and from biting and kicking and unbuttoning my shirt
in public and from climbing out of the crib and from standing up on the subway
without holding on--better, I say, to
die now

or,

when he reaches an age
(what age?) and I find I can finally swallow it down -- will I?
loosen?

perhaps if I can get the color just right in my study I will not need to stand
in the back of the synagogue and miss the shofar again this year
but it's not right, too light, like springtime. gray-green not gray
or green. not yellow. not blue. it will not do have I done this
on purpose? I picked the color of the inside of a seed I should never have opened?

...where is my breath is...

can barely hear above the clicking of my thinking why
am I so obsessed with paint color and the properties of the seasons
material objects I'm crazy so lazy and driven, relentless, no one could stand this
they call it cyclical negative thinking the constant self-checking
am I okay now? now? now? worse? better? now?
above the well-deserved charge of narcissism, above the thrum
of how many people alive now and now how many dead. I've not read
the New York Times for four years and one month but it hasn't helped.

or would I be
worse?

every touch too much but imperceptible perhaps a fever somewhere? and
people dying faster than I can write poems.

when my student want to write poems
I want to say wait for everyone to die.

instead I say: the poem must have a surprise and needs images
and where are the things? the real world matters. one fish
in a barrel of fish. one bird in a flock of birds.

was it a bass?
a blue jay?

oh, for fuck's sake, there's no difference between "stones" and "rocks" in Virginia's
frock, down, down, down into the world of objects
which the students haven't got
has nearly killed me.

my soon has a dream. cries. is afraid to tell me.
later he says that many, many people
came into his room at night all missing
something: an eye, an arm, a leg, a head
he knew them by their voices instead
and did not like what they were saying

I have everything. even a job.
a child. a child. notebooks I cannot quite
get down.

why, asks my son on the subway, should you
say something if you see something?
pointing at the poster of an abandoned black
duffel on a subway platform. I am trying
to breathe but he's asking and pointing. I say,
birds don't have teeth and need to eat
small rocks, stones, sand to break down food. he
nods, pats my hand.

I'm trying so hard not to show him
my worldview I can barely breathe. gave him
a brother want to give him another and never
tell him there are things
and things that explode and no easy way to know
the difference. I drop him off at school, go to class
where the students say something and say
something and rarely see anything.

I wonder,
what if the black bag is filled with not-bombs? filled with
long, smooth seeds surprisingly soft to the touch
each containing a human baby? shall I swallow one
down?

This morning, alone,
I'm listening to music so as not to hear
the explosion
if there is one certainly eventually will be one
(today an alert)
every moment is not yet
exploded or gaseous or biolgical,
not yet infectious. should I
not ride the subway? I ask. the husband:
you've felt pretty low lately
anyway. we both laugh.

In class a student says, living in a metropolis is good because it helps you have an open min which is good so you're not ignorant.

so here I am again with 8,168,388 people.

Good morning, I don't say to anyone, I'm experiencing panic. And
depression. No, actually, nothing's wrong but thanks for the Kleenex. Sometimes
the subway sets it off. Or the bus. Elevator. Small spaces. The vacuum
cleaner. Ambient radio. Things inside other things as if myself a Russian doll or
that everyone has masks my unmedicated eye can't help but notice --

I like short lines, say a student.
I like poems without images, says a student.
I wanted everything to sound very superficial, says a student.
You never said it had to be interesting, says a student.

I want someone to ask me if I like my job.

I want someone to explain why I put a large duffel bag of explosives
into my mouth and tried to swallow it down when I was just
trying to stay alive, terrified my sons could see my missings, and how is it the cops
don't stop me and my open-minded subway neighbors smile sweetly
as we hurtle along and I tell my jostling boys, no, no you must hold on, hold on,
any moment it could stop, suddenly, stop
short, I must
hold on.

2010-01-28T21:00:00.007+01:00

One of my favorite authors, J.D. Salinger, passed away yesterday. Four years ago I started a collection of his ("Raise High the Roofbeams," I believe) and quickly devoured all of the short stories he ever published. I never made it more than a third into "Catcher in the Rye." I was, perhaps, the only young American who simply couldn't sympathize with Caulfield. But the enigmatic Glass family had me charmed. Salinger's use of literary irony and his way of astutely crafting dialogue between family members -- intimacy without being overwrought with affection -- warmed and delighted. So, thank you, Mr. Salinger, for being a writer. Thank you for publishing these stories. They have had such a tremendous impact on my writing as well as modern America and its literature. Even if you never wanted to achieve such success, you did.

Update: I really cannot recall with which book I started. But I recall afterward recommending all of the books, though they were (in my opinion) best when read in a particular order. I will have to see if I have it written anywhere which order exactly it was.

Here is one of the excerpts from "Raise High" (a very funny one, though not the absolute best) I quoted on my blog in 2006:

As the Matron of Honor followed me toward the bedroom, where the phone was, the bride's father's uncle came toward us from the far end of the hall. His face was in the ferocious repose that had fooled me during most of the car ride, but as he came closer to us in the hall, the mask reversed itself; he pantomimed to us both the very highest salutations and greetings, and I found myself grinning and nodding immoderately in return. His sparse white hair looked freshly combed - almost freshly washed, as though he might have discovered a tiny barbershop cached away at the other end of the apartment. When he'd passed us, I felt a compulsion to look back over my shoulder, and when I did, he waved to me, vigorously - a great, bon-voyage, come-back-soon wave. It picked me up no end. "What is he? Crazy?" the Matron of Honor said. I said I hoped so, and opened the door of the bedroom.

Salinger, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters

2010-01-23T23:10:00.005+01:00

Just when you have given up all hope, here I am! Where? Here, at my desk in our new apartment -- a place that deserves the title of "home," the object of a mission I have assigned myself to for over three years now. The apartment is in the sort of Victorian building easily found in Seattle. It has smooth, wooden floors and a picture rail from which we will hang pictures. The kitchen is small, but the appliances new. The space is bright and warm. The apartment sits high, on the third floor in a building atop Capitol Hill, which is one of Seattle's highest points. I am a couple of blocks from a district known as "Millionaire's Row" as well as the Volunteer Park Conservatory. But I am also walking distance to the co-op, a few independent movie theaters and a branch of the public library. When I look out of this Craftsman-styled window, I see a residential street and wide strips of grass. Beyond the trees rest the snowy Cascades. Is it snowy here in Seattle this January? Not a bit -- over the past few days the temperature has hovered around 50 degrees. It has been fairly sunny, too, I must add.

Is it an adequate substitute for Berlin? No. But what city in America is?
Am I better employed now than I was in Europe? Not really.
Do I feel the tiniest bit caged?
Does the jealousy of my youthful romps rot through the surface of my soul? Yeah, it does.

But nothing means that I can't again cave in to my wanderlust. For now I ought to accept some responsibility and put my education to "practical" use (if I can manage). There are some things that must be tended to.

2009-12-01T18:25:00.006+01:00

A day or two before we embarked on our cross-continental jaunt, my mom presented me with a Garmin Nüvi 255. Matt had been suggesting that we pick up a GPS unit for the trip, but I wanted to do it the old-fashioned way, relying on our instincts and a Triple-A atlas.

While I have no doubts that we would have reached our destination just fine without the navigator, the Garmin helped tremendously in ways I had not anticipated. Whether we needed to find a Papa John's pizzeria in Billings, Montana, a motel to stay for the night in Kadoka, South Dakota, or the route to tourist attractions off the highway (Corn Palace, Mitchell, SD), the Garmin was there. Riding on those long stretches of highway with little in sight, you often wonder when you will have another chance to stop at a rest area or gas station. Even though it wasn't always 100% accurate, the unit was able to give us some inkling of what was to come.

Seattle driving is a bit of a mess. Downtown always has heavy traffic, streets intersect in the middle of steep hills, parking is expensive ($1.75 an hour at the meter -- if you can find a spot). There are many one-way streets and thick highways criss-crossing one another. It gives us directions to the entrance of the Arboretum, to the co-op, to the movie theater and, when we can't find it ourselves, to home.

Like I said, it's not perfect. It doesn't have every single destination in its pre-programmed list. Sometimes the route is not direct (three left-hand turns?!), but all in all, it is incredibly useful. The size allows it to be stashed in a pocket in case I'm shopping downtown and want to find a specific store. I look forward to taking it on all my forthcoming trips as I get more familiar with the city -- even if it means sacrificing the better (read, more engaging) way of doing things.

(Plus, it's just one new gadget to accessorize. Last week I ordered this little, leather protective cover in brown.)

2009-11-27T19:46:00.006+01:00

With mountains as its jagged teeth, the horizon loomed ahead like a devouring mouth stretched wide, hungry. With nothing to block the way save for a rare tumbleweed or cornstalk snake, the smooth highway lapped us deeper inside.

Like this, we drove across South Dakota, through southern Montana and on into the slick, snowy hills of Idaho. The small towns along the way hosted truck stops and the occasional IGA, selling knives and bison jerky to the pilgrimaging hunters. Schools resembled penitentiaries. The pit-stop motels of these towns are tropes for the modern-day writer, plucked by the likes of Cormac McCarthy and the beloved Nabokov, signifying the simultaneous freedom and imprisonment of anonymity. No one knows you, no one can track you down. But no one will save you, and no one cares. You become a target.

On the highway, the scenery romances its tourist. A cattle ranch in Montana doesn't sound so bad after all, especially considering the easy access to four-packs of sarsaparilla.

The Badlands, as Matt describes them, resemble some alien planet or lunar surface. For hours there is little to see except for flat grasslands, then with a slight detour off I-90, long-eroded ravines and towering rock formations in gray, yellow and sienna dominate the landscape. Signs warn of rattlesnakes and cars pull off the road to photograph mountain goats. Just outside of the park, we passed a large prairie dog colony and, nearby, a patient hawk.

Idaho possessed none of the flat potato fields I expected. Instead, we drove nervously along high ridges, overlooking the snow-covered evergreens of national forests and wondering if it was too late in the season to spot a bear. Our iPod, fueled with over 24 hours of short fiction and other storytellers, kept us going.

We arrived in Seattle midweek, reaching our short-term sublet just south of downtown. The next day I began a Netflix account (our apartment has a projector and large pull-down screen), and Matt walked down to the central library. Yesterday - Thanksgiving - we went for a run around Green Lake on the north side of town, putting up with a little drizzling rain. Our dinner was late (9:00), but neither of us minded. We made a small vegetarian feast complete with pumpkin pie. For our main course, we made a broccoli-portobello-gouda quiche with homemade crust. For our sides, we had a cranberry-walnut sauce, garnet yams with a butter and mustard vinaigrette and garlic sauteed green beans. And with plenty for leftovers!

2009-10-10T22:16:00.009+02:00

As it currently stands, my blog is a poor representation of what I'm up to. By the time I get to writing, events pass and my news is no longer relevant. Without a web-enabled mobile device, such short entries struggle to stay current (though a personal Twitter account would be too much so). So what's the best solution? I should make a point to write more often only if I have something to say. An idea I like much better is to write longer articles, but reader interest wanes with each additional paragraph and side note. Especially when my blog has no particular focus other than to provoke communication about art, sociology, literature, language and travel. And myself, of course.

My new site will have separate divisions, based less on subject than on the type of entry. I am planning two types, one for a Twitter-like feed that still is not instantaneous, but archives short and sweet (one-paragraph) entries about what I'm up to and links to articles or sites that I find interesting or relevant. These will help my readers track my points of reference (in case you notice that I'm obsessing over environmental non-fiction, that one host on NPR, the latest SEO strategies or peanut butter-based Thai cuisine and question the validity of my sources). The other division will house longer entries -- products of my own writing, whether in the form of essays, stories or reviews.

I hope to make some long strides over the next few days in the development of my site. It's a slow process, as I taught myself CSS and am only now putting it to practical use. Once I get this site done, I can focus on other design projects (like the brochure for the animal hospital or my jewelry design portfolio). And then there is always the nitty gritty: the actual job search.

Now, back to rebranding the super-ego.

2009-10-10T22:16:00.001+02:00

It's snowing in northern Michigan!

2009-09-27T20:14:00.051+02:00

Well, folks. Well, well. Matt and I have been finishing up our last few days here in Berlin, seeing the sights that remained on our list, trying the supposedly best cakes and Vietnamese food the city has to offer. We leave on Wednesday. In the morning, but not too early. It is predicted to be cold and rainy.

We sold our bikes earlier this week for even more money than we had anticipated (thanks Craig's List). Without wheels we have been bound to the limits of Kreuzberg. Today was absolutely beautiful. The sky beamed a bright blue and the air was warm. Matt explored photo ops around Köpenicker while I dozed on a bench near Künstlerhaus Bethanien. Then we went for ice cream and watched from the grassy meadows of Hasenheide the sun fall behind yellowed trees.

My job search has been active but so far without great success. It surprises me how many new listings pop up each day. I have quite a few bookmarked, though at this point I'm only applying for the positions that really excite me. I suppose in a couple of weeks -- if I don't find something good by then -- I'll alter my expectations. For now, I stay hopeful.

Still working on the new site. If all goes according to plan, I will have entirely transformed the set-up. Last week I finalized a site and started on the design. I will have to wait to pick up on it until I get back state-side.

2009-09-17T09:23:00.003+02:00

Fall Clean-up: I updated the visual theme of The Pit of Babel only this past spring. Still, I'm looking forward to putting my new skills to use and designing a new template. Not sure if I'll try to create something from the ground-up, or if I will merely tweak a theme someone else has already made. Stay tuned to find out!

2009-09-14T18:35:00.003+02:00

Just came back from the camping trip, where even isolated in a national park we ate delicious, real food (except for the marshmallows -- forgive me!). Due to some confusion over the placement of the bus stop, we missed the connecting bus to the campground. We were stranded; only pastures and fields surrounded us. We tried hitching with no luck. So we started walking. Not far up the road we came upon wild apple and pear trees. The fruit was still young, but crisp and juicy enough to make for a delicious snack. We filled my purse and nibbled on them for the next couple of days.

The first thing I did coming back to the apartment was jump online and watch the second class of my six-month Photoshop course put on by CreativeTechs. The second thing I did was redirect to NYT.com.

And just what did I find? A new op-ed piece by Michael Pollan. I know there are some mixed opinions on Pollan (in case I didn't post it before, please read the article The Omnivore's Delusion), but I find it impossible to find any wrongdoing in stating the facts that America, condemned to eat itself sick and spend itself bankrupt, pays ridiculously low attention to nutrition, fitness and and preventative care in general. We are famous the world over for producing the largest and strongest athletes, but the average citizen seems to have no idea how many calories he is meant to consume in a day or how many hours of exercise he needs to log in order to make a significant fight against heart disease. For many, especially us Midwesterners, corn and potatoes count as vegetables. Seeing sugar as the enemy of good health, we turn instead to sugar substitutes so that we can still drink our daily Coke.

In Obama's recent speech on healthcare reform, he says that everybody needs to take responsibility to do his own part. This means that every citizen needs to have insurance, regardless of who is providing the policy, but it also means that we need to our part to not strain or exploit the healthcare system.

Please click "Read More" below to, you know, read more!

I always found it silly when I saw sniffling, coughing and physically-drained students in the waiting room at university health services. Despite what many people seem to think, there is no good in going to the doctor for a cold or the flu. For simple aches and pains -- wait a week or two, see if you still notice a problem. Sleep more, buy a better mattress, drink more water, take leisurely walks, try herbal remedies. Good health demands more than regular visits to the gym, and good health care is so much more than prescribing pharmaceuticals.

And when we keep poor diets, we are not doing our part. There is no shortage of scientific evidence proving that poor eating habits contribute directly to a number of health problems.

Last night Matt and I watched "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart," a documentary about the production and release of Wilco's album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. For those of you who don't know they story behind the album, here's a recap. During the '90s, Wilco released three albums with Reprise Records, a subsidiary of Warner Music Group. They were a solid, mature group that were proving to be a worthwhile investment, so Reprise offered to pay for their next record. The band wanted to take it in a new direction creatively and hoped that Reprise would appreciate their work. They didn't. Reprise refused to release the album, and despite having already paid the production costs, decided it wasn't in their favor to cover the costs to market the album. Reprise dismissed the group from the label, leaving the rights to the album in Wilco's hands. In the end, the album was bought and distributed by Nonesuch Records -- whose parent company is also Warner Music. Warner paid twice for the same album. Now it appears as if the U.S. government is doing something very similar. As Pollan wrote in his piece: "...the government is putting itself in the uncomfortable position of subsidizing both the costs of treating Type 2 diabetes and the consumption of high-fructose corn syrup."

According to Robert Bryce on Slate.com, "between 1995 and 2003, federal corn subsidies totaled $37.3 billion. That's more than twice the amount spent on wheat subsidies, three times the amount spent on soybeans, and 70 times the amount spent on tobacco." The government has been adding tariffs on sugar and handing out subsidies for corn. This means that any profit-driven food manufacturer will choose high-fructose corn syrup over sugar, when given the option. So our money is going to support corn farmers. Okay. If I've learned anything this spring, it's that farming is very difficult work and most of its laborers are underpaid (and that's putting it modestly). But these subsidies also allow companies to use HFCS (and we know they do, and you would be shocked how many foods in your cupboard contain it), excessive consumption of which leads to Type 2 diabetes. Considering how many foods contain it and American eating habits in general (i.e. super-sized portions), it doesn't take much. Great, now we have a problem.

The good news is that we can choose what we eat. We as consumers hold the purchasing power. We choose what we eat, how much of it we eat and how we prepare it. Sadly, our culture has been putting less and less emphasis on the importance of quality food and healthy eating habits. Short, regulated lunch breaks. Rushed family dinners. The invention of Pop-Tarts. And just take a look at what's being served in school cafeterias.

Let's go back for a moment to Pop-Tarts, the deliciously sweet treats that cause second-degree burns on the tender thumbs of our beloved youths. Just the first couple of sentences on the Wikipedia page for Pop-Tarts suggests that perhaps they are nothing we ought to be putting into our mouths.

Pop-Tarts are a brand of flat, rectangular, pre-baked toaster pastries. Pop-Tarts have a sugary filling sealed inside two layers of rectangular, thin pastry crust. Some varieties are frosted. They can be eaten without being warmed, but are often warmed inside a toaster. They are usually sold in pairs inside foil packages, and do not require refrigeration.

What kind of pastry comes in a foil package? What kind of frosting can last several months without needing refrigeration? What are "flat, rectangular, pre-baked toaster pastries," and why is there more than one brand of them?

With the economic crisis, we learned that we had to start spending responsibly. We were enraged by the recklessness of large corporations gone unchecked and the advertising of luxury goods, which convinced us to spend outside of our limits. With the healthcare crisis (and it is a crisis), we need to learn to eat and act responsibly. We need to be equally upset with manufacturers that trick us and our children to eat products so processed that we really have to stretch the definition of food.

And although exercise is important for a number of reasons, there stands the simple fact that most people find it burdensome and unenjoyable. This has to change, too, of course, but allow me to let you in on a little secret. If you don't eat garbage, you don't have to exercise as much! That's right, become healthier and lose weight without adding that extra lap, step or squat.

Over the past year and a half, I have lost between 10 and 15 pounds. And for those of you who know me, I've never been overweight. First I cut out of my diet as many foods as I could that contained high-fructose corn syrup. (I replaced them with foods containing sugar, raw sugar, brown sugar or honey -- not any diet-orientated artificial sweetener.) I bought a new brand of bread, unflavored yogurt, natural peanut butter, etc. I didn't go crazy over it -- when I ate out at restaurants, I would pick entrees that I expected would have a lower amount of HFCS, but I never bothered to ask the waitstaff about the actual contents. I still had the occasional candy bar and sweet treat. But after making the majority of my meals HFCS-free, I easily lost 4 lbs. Then I started a primarily vegetarian diet (again, I'm not at all strict about it. It's not for ethical reasons, other than the fact that I don't want to unnecessarily offend my boyfriend. I do that enough as is). Since cutting out pork and beef and limiting my intake of chicken (I've never been a big fan of fish), I've lost another 3 or 4 lbs. For the past year I've limited my intake of alcohol (a natural result to a change in lifestyle, not a choice I've been particularly conscious or even fond of), which also made a significant difference. When I was living on the farms, working lots of manual labor and eating small, leafy meals, I was under 115 lbs (admittedly underweight, even though I had built new muscle). I don't have a scale at my disposal here in Berlin, but I know that since then I have reached a healthy and stable median weight.

A sidenote must be added here: a lower body weight does not necessarily mean better health. The point is, I consciously altered my eating habits and as a result, I feel lighter and healthier. I sleep better. I don't have as many headaches. My skin looks great. It was a relatively easy change, and it allowed an interest in cooking and nutrition to develop naturally. Because these decisions weren't forced or part of a fad diet, I will be inclined to keep these habits for years to come.

I discovered recently that, when I prepare our meals, I more or less follow Dr. Weil's recommended food pyramid. Instead of as much pasta, we eat a lot of legumes. I like lentils, but we also cook quite a bit with chickpeas, kidney beans and dried peas. We use dried beans as often as can, but chickpeas take forever to soak. Those we buy canned. We ditched basmati rice for bulgar -- not the tastiest substitution, but it's much healthier and tastes earthier, for what it's worth. Nuts, seeds and flaxseed oil work great in oatmeal. Avocados are a nice snack and work well in salads, and as far as the "healthy spices" are concerned -- bring 'em on. I never realized turmeric was especially good, but according to Dr. Weil, it is. And I want to believe him. So Matt sometimes throws ginger in the oatmeal, too. Ginger, turmeric and garlic make it into almost every dinner recipe. Again, I'd love to get a list of some of our recipes up on here, along with a "shopping list." If there's enough interest, I could be convinced if pressured!

A query I posed to Matt the other week still stands unanswered. It breaks down to what is easier to achieve, all-organic or all-local? Which would be better? Organic has been around for awhile now, but I have only felt the push for buying local food products within the past couple of years. Are there any stores and restaurants that serve food that is both organic and local? The argument for local food is that it supports the local economy and cuts down on the carbon imprint. The downside is that bringing industry closer to home potentially means side effects to the local population, particularly from chemical run-off. Organic produce, on the other hand, gives us the peace of mind knowing that we aren't consuming chemicals, but it doesn't necessarily pack more nutrients than its non-organic counterparts. Organic is arguably more sustainable agriculturally than non-organic.

For the sake of our wallets we have been buying most, if not all, of our produce from the neighboring Turkish markets. Most of it isn't local. Bananas from Ecuador, apples from Spain, bell peppers from Turkey. It's not organic, either, I presume. They pick the fruit before it's ripe, and it usually turns en route to the markets. Sometimes the produce looks right -- but tastes completely off. The avocados often feel ripe, but once we peel them find that they are bruised on the outside and completely firm inside. The apples seem okay, but biting into them reveals that they are mealy and inedible. The green beans look like green beans, but taste inexplicably strange. We look forward to returning home, where it's reliable. But at home, it's also more expensive. And most of it is still shipped halfway across the country. Here we can track the prices fall systematically throughout the week, tomatoes starting at 99 cents a kilo when delivered and dropping to 50 cents when they are soft like water balloons. At home, often the price stays stable unless there's a tropical storm or other natural disaster that affects the area where the particular crop is grown. Michigan boasts plenty of corn, soybeans, apples and sugarbeets. It produces less, though still a substantial amount, of wheat, potatoes and berries. I wonder what my diet would be like if I committed to an all-local diet. Clearly the avocados, peanut butter, and turmeric would be out. Ginger? Tea? I'm not sure.

I learned this spring that I am not a daughter-of-the-earth hippie. I do care about the earth's well-being and my own, but there is only so much work that I am willing to put in. Partly because I don't know how much of a difference it will make, whether or not we can still "save the world." Matt says it's worth it to make the effort. I want to believe him. As far as everyone else is concerned, I know that most people can't be much lazier than I am. I suspect that if they really gave a minute to look at the information we have, they would make the right decisions. Better decisions, at least. But they're busy worrying about other things and don't have time to ask questions at their local health food store or read Pollan's books. That is why as mainstream types (read, non-"crunchies") -- particularly the influential Alpha-Hubs responsible for the success of word-of-mouth and other types of viral marketing, whether they be authors, talk-show hosts, or politicans -- need to start taking a look, step up on the soapbox and, above all, lead by example.

2009-09-11T17:31:00.004+02:00

I just finished reading the speech on healthcare reform that Obama gave earlier this week. Good work, Team Obama, at calling out the talking heads, the politicians, all those responsible for spreading the seeds of misinformation. Congratulations on figuring out a promising solution that can appease the majority, and most of all, thank you for not giving up. For the past couple of years, I have been one of those risk-taking youngsters who didn't have the money (or didn't want to shell it out) for health insurance. When given the option to register for vision and dental coverage, I took it. I know the value of preventative medicine. For general health coverage, I paid out-of-pocket for routine examinations and tests, finding the health services at my alma mater to be the cheapest option. There was no way I was going to pay $32 a week for the health insurance offered by my employer. I'm young, athletic, a non-smoker, a relatively good driver. I take vitamins. But at the same time, there was always the fear that something big could happen. A car accident, a skiing accident, a bookshelf or a mannequin that takes a tumble onto my foot. (Why else do you think I wear thick, leather cowboy boots?) I learned from someone -- a friend, a fellow blogger, I don't remember -- that it was possible to lie at the emergency room, that they were required to treat me even without insurance, and that I could give a false name and address to avoid ever receiving the bill. I prayed this wouldn't happen for my physical well-being as well as my ethical and emotional well-being. That's reckless, but what else can be done when one is earning $8 an hour and faces an $8,000 medical bill?

Last night, just before falling asleep, I started a post on yet another side of the healthcare debate, that of Michael Pollan. Stay tuned for more to come.

And while you're waiting, you should also read this short column, "Summer's End," by Judith Warner. Really, I do things besides reading the Times online!

2009-09-06T11:34:00.004+02:00

I'm a little worried about my computer. I know that it's young (just a baby, really) and could fall from a tree branch 10 feet high only to spring up onto its feet and take off for the neighbor's slip 'n slide. But I haven't shut it down in days, maybe even weeks. I've been so intrigued by what I'm finding on the internet that I keep each new blog, interview and Etsy shop in its own tab, sometimes even a private window. It's really getting out of control.

Last night around 8:00 Matt took off to attend some sort of ambient, experimental concert in Friedrichshain. It was chilly and wet outside so I chose to stay in. I remembered that earlier that day, on our daily walk around the kiez, I stopped in front of a newspaper shop to read some of the magazine covers. Remembering how much I liked reading Monopol in the past, I made a mental note to go to their website. So there I was reading the homepage article on Monopol covering this weekend's Miss Read, an art book exhibition with related discussions going on at Kunst-Werke. I took a short trip to KW, where I found a list of other art-book and independent publishing events going on this weekend, one of which was a 12-hour self-publishing event at Motto near Schlesisches Tor. To Motto I went. There I learned about a presentation and conversation with critical graphic designer and theorist Zak Kyes at the art bookshop Pro qm in Mitte, starting in just five minutes. Yowza. So I threw on about four layers of clothing, jumped on my bike and started pedaling.

One of the most basic points discussed, but that I found the most relevant, concerned the politicization of graphic design. Apparently Daniel Birnbaum, the director of this year's Venice Biennale, described national flags as capable of “being broken down to basic visual shapes that display unexpected painterly qualities." National flags -- purely graphic interpretations of a country's culture, history, politics and identity -- as painterly? So the question that was posed to Kyes was approximately whether or not graphic design was losing its political power in the face of (excessive) formalism.

Kyes answered No, of course not. Certainly I agree with him. The meaning behind any given design is malleable, constantly evolving to fit its context and (previous and present) associations, of which new ones can also develop. For an example we can choose any iconic image. Consider how it was viewed when it was designed, first presented, when a generation changes favor, when a government changes favor, after being reworked by other artists. After being maneuvered through post-modernist dialogue like pulled taffy, an image only gains meaning. That most laden with allusion wins friends and influences people. Isn't that how any art essentially works?

2009-09-04T15:36:00.003+02:00

If the government knew how happy we are eating chocolate fudge, they would make it illegal.

But seriously, what's the deal with Murdick's fudge? Why can't they keep one name and franchise it to all their nieces and nephews?

Murdick's Fudge has two locations: one on Mackinac Island and the other on Martha's Vineyard.
Doug Murdick's Fudge is located only in Traverse City and Acme.
Doug Murdick's son, Dale, owns Murdick's Fudge Shoppe in Leland and Suttons Bay.
Fran Murdick's Fudge is in Mackinac City.

Then there's Murdick's Fudge of Petoskey.

2009-09-03T16:09:00.007+02:00

The difference between Ponys, Bangs and Fringe (and other things I've learned over the past 12 months)

I don't want to live in New York City. According to Facebook, approximately 85% of my social circle has made a break for it. It's a fascinating city. It's huge, a mammoth metropolis pulsating with creativity and cheap ethnic food. And it has Central Park and the Met. But it is an expensive city to inhabit, and I have no intention of overexerting myself so that I can afford a small apartment an hour's commute away from my workplace and then struggle to make time for my personal projects. I love cities, but what is about them that I love? I expect a good city to have a large selection of restaurants. Dining out is perhaps my favorite pastime. I want cheap food, fresh food, foreign food and the option of elaborate 5-course dinners. I want bakeries, specialty coffee shops and at least one hip bar with a dance floor. I need nature, whether it be found in a nearby ocean, mountain range or hidden arboretum. I like public transport, and I like being able to ride my bicycle wherever I go. Fair weather and flat landscapes don't hurt. I can't live in a city that clogs my skin and soils my shoes with pollution. I need personal space; studio apartments don't cut it, and I should be able to sunbathe in public parks without being harassed. Sure, I could find both an apartment and a job in one neighborhood, Brooklyn, for example. But if I don't leave my neighborhood, then why don't I just live in a smaller city? Having made more professional contacts over the internet than at bars, gallery openings or conferences, I don't buy into the argument that NYC is where it all happens.

When my back was turned, Technology excused itself and slipped out the bathroom window. For someone who went straight from dabbling in fingerpaint to pulling all-nighters tapping the keys on her family's PC, it's painfully embarrassing to admit. But that just goes to prove it could happen to anyone (and will happen to everyone, at some point). While I was plucking vegetables from the ground, my peers were becoming new media specialists and information designers. I'm sorry, what? Gone are the days when a firm understanding of Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop and Pagemaker, and a basic knowledge of HTML make the cut. In an effort to catch up, I have enrolled in a couple of online courses that start later this month. (Sign up for the free online courses put on by CreativeTechs in Seattle!) And over the next month or two, I will be working to develop a website and online portfolio for some of my creative work.

More of a reminder than a new revelation, but the world is constructed to crush hope. I hate to sound cynical, but the truth is that many people enjoy preventing others from achieving their aspirations. Insecurity coaxes them out of pursuing their own dreams and selfishness persuades them to interfere with yours. To put it less negatively, most people are naturally risk-aversive. And what sounds fun to you sounds to them like a terrible risk that they (and you, likewise) cannot afford to take. Compromising your desires for the sake of others is an open invitation for regret.

Setting aside all the information I absorbed during those two unforgettable months farming in France (like how to milk a goat), I have learned much in the realm of practical skills necessary for everyday living. I have learned to patch and replace the tubes on a bicycle. I have learned to successfully operate an old-fashioned, all-metal can opener (it's much more difficult for lefties). Out of fear of early arthritis and osteoporosis, I have overcome the terrible habit of cracking my neck excessively. It probably helps that I have a desk to work at, compared with my old routine of curling up on my bed against the wall with my computer set on my thighs.

I am through with working in retail.

If left to my own devices, I am susceptible to shopping addictions. Fortunately, my anti-capitalist boyfriend, tiny bank account and love of Berlin's aesthetic anarchy keep me in check. That said, when I shop for clothes, I dress to impress. But the sole target of my efforts, the object of my affection, couldn't care less how I dress (so long as it doesn't bring him unwanted attention). I should be falling to my knees in gratitude. He doesn't want me in heels! He doesn't like make-up! I can use the money on things that matter, on things I really care about -- on food! But it doesn't work that way. Instead I try twice as hard, committed to changing his perception of fashion and to show him all a woman can be.

Though I care only for his opinion, it's a grand shame that no one else was there to witness the farmer version of myself. Bearing a golden farmer's tan and a body overworked by manual labor suits me well. I discovered a new muscle in my arms (perhaps an appendage of the triceps), which unfortunately develops only after hours of lifting hoes and swinging sieves. I suspect it to be that muscle that forces bodybuilders to walk with their arms lifted from their sides. The sensation is akin to putting a little pillow underneath your armpit.

For myself, I have always been fond of one-length, blunt haircuts, short or long. Layers are associated with Jennifer Aniston and teenagers at the mall. But after being pestered for having just so much hair, I decided to give them a try. As it turns out, layers create movement, add volume and free my curls. Who knew. I went to a salon in Prenzlauerberg (Schlumilu), negotiated with the stylist and in the end lost more hair than I originally wanted. But when I walked out of the salon, I felt fantastic, young and sexy. I didn't take a picture and most likely won't be able to style it that well on my own. But I felt more chic then than I have in a long, long time, and that feeling will stick with me for awhile.

My second beauty discovery was another surprise. The secret to shiny, healthy hair is to not shampoo it. I tried the "no 'poo" method before with mixed results. Now I realize that I have to sweat. On the farms, I would sweat through most of the afternoon and couldn't shower every day (one must conserve the resources most precious to us, fudge excepted). I wash my hair with both shampoo and conditioner approximately once a week. I can't brush my hair much in the morning, otherwise it will fall flat. But if I brush it after I'm done sweating (either from yardwork or exercise) and before I go to bed, it keeps its body and most of the waves. In the past my hair was too fine and oily for this method to work. Now that I have more texture (and more hair), there seems to be no problem. The only downside is that it sometimes starts to smell like bedhead.

Moving in with a boyfriend is not as difficult as they make it out to be. When Matt and I first began thinking about WWOOFing and moving abroad, we discussed what it meant in terms of sharing a living space. It was proposed that we could either stay in the States and try living together, or to move abroad -- but that we shouldn't try living together while taking our first international trip together, that the strain it would put on our relationship would likely be much too great. But as it turns out, we are good friends and compatible living partners. We have not been separated (defined by a distance of 30 feet or more) for more than a total of 15 hours since the end of April. That is a lot of together-time. There are times we both get moody, but the experience has absolutely brought us closer together. Within our experience as a couple is an entire treasure trove gleaming with gems of self-discovery.

Once again, this is not a lesson recently learned, but of which I have been gently reminded. And that is just how much my family means to me.

2009-09-02T14:54:00.006+02:00

Yestuhday was muh birthday. Like those of recent years past, it went more or less as expected and not at all wild and unruly. As my friend Susi wrote to me in a birthday-SMS, I got my present: Beautiful weather. It was perhaps the last hot day of summer, with blue skies straight out of a first-grader's painting.

I started my morning with a walk up to the Turkish market to grab a melon and some vegetables. Matt and I had our usual breakfast of oatmeal and fruit, then went off to Matilda on Graefestrasse for tea and coffee. Cake wasn't necessary; my mom mailed me three slices of Doug Murdick's fudge, straight off the slab in northern Michigan. In the early afternoon I rode my bike up to Mitte, where I helped to hang the upcoming exhibition at Komet. Denise surprised me with an impromptu gift of sparkling wine and several tubes of Crystal Balls -- a toy that creates colored, saran-wrap balls that are light and sticky, kind of like soap bubbles that don't pop when you touch them. After we were satisfied with the show we went to Arkonaplatz for cola and schnitzel. Matt met me there and we left the group to wine and dine at Belluno, an Italian restaurant with candlelit outdoor seating in Prenzlauerberg. By 11:30 we were back in the apartment, and I had finished the day without any angsty, tear-filled breakdowns about turning 25.

I was happy.

2009-08-26T23:07:00.006+02:00

There's a noticeable change in the length of each day. The paths are bestrewn with yellowed leaves, dried and curled like hundreds of miniature canoes. My puffs and pants turn to asthmatic wheezes in the last mile of my run. It's early autumn, our favorite time of year. It seems to hit Berlin sooner than Michigan, not too surprising considering how much farther north we are. The season makes us anxious to return to the Midwest, where we will devour cider doughnuts, pumpkin pie and, most of all, apples. But until then, we will make the best of our European summer.

A special event currently in the works involves a two-night camping trip on Germany's largest and perhaps most scenic island, Rügen. It is located in the far northeast of the country on the Baltic Sea. In anticipation, we bought a large tent at the flea market last Sunday. The trip will be a birthday present to myself.

And what else do I blog about this time of year? My semi-annual fitness kick. This year hasn't afforded me any more Bikram yoga. Instead, I've been participating in urban bike rides and evening jogs in Hasenheide. After a couple of weeks timing myself, I was disappointed that I wasn't able to get my time down to what it was in high school. But then I realized that what I have now, but previously lacked, is endurance. In 2002 I could run a 5k in 22:30. That gave me an average pace of 7:26 a mile. Now I am running 4.5-6 miles with an average per-mile pace of 7:46 (8:00 on slower days). I might not be finishing a marathon any time soon (though I might!), but I am very pleased with the results of these recent efforts. And with this upcoming camping trip, I'll even get in some hiking.

The Champions Run was on Saturday afternoon. The day started off sunny and relatively cool, picking up warmth as start time approached. The IAAF world championship men's marathon race began in the morning, so we came in time to cheer for the final lap. It is so utterly amazing what these men are capable of! The loop started at Brandenburg Gate, cut south through Potsdamer Platz, then northwest through Tiergarten, down Oranienburger Strasse and finished with a straight shot down Unter den Linden, ending at Brandenburg. 10,000 runners reserved spots three, four, even five months ahead of race day. The starting line was so packed with people I couldn't see Matt despite his hot pink racing t-shirt (thanks T-Mobile!). In the end, he didn't make the time we were hoping for, but he still did very well and finished in the top 11%.

After we reunited at the end of the runner's corral, we shared some of his complimentary bananas and granola bars. Then we went down to Potsdamer Platz to see the first half of an avant-garde dance performance, Bodies in Urban Space. There were about a dozen "dancers" in whole, wearing sweatsuits and sneakers of bold, primary colors. They moved through the city streets, the audience following excitedly behind, creating formations and manipulating their bodies to showcase the urban environment. They crouched under telephone booths, wedged their bodies upside down behind traffic signs and built a tower in the middle of a tall spiral staircase, among other things. It was really quite cool. Even though the dancers weren't moving by the time we "found" them, to hold these positions for five minutes at a time requires great physical strength and agility.

Expect soon a blog with some of our favorite recipes. As I've mentioned before, we have been cooking nearly every single meal. A few weeks ago my mom emailed and asked if I was "getting sick of lentils yet." The truth is, of course not! I love lentils. Besides, we don't eat them too often. There are a lot more cheap, healthy vegetarian options than I imagined. Each week we purchase more or less the same ingredients, which never cost us more than $40. Then we combine them, often repeating favorite recipes though sometimes experimenting. I would like to give you a compiled list so they are easier for you to find when you want to give them a try yourself.

2009-08-25T13:01:00.007+02:00

Here is the result of a creative writing exercise. The assignment was to write a scene with a one-sided telephone conversation. It resulted in a study on perfection.
(Not for those easily offended by verbal profanity.)

***

He is the kind of man who, these days, would be described as handsome, but he is not. What he possesses is not an ineffable, philosophical beauty, but a prudent, almost calculating attractiveness. All the same, when I sit across from him I feel my spine grow straighter. My wavy hair falls naturally into place, into the style I have been working to achieve since my senior year in college. Talking with him I find myself speaking smoother, the vowels drawn from deep in my throat, slung from one corner of my cheek to the other and then exhaled fluidly, like a flawless stream of smoke.

Like him, his home invokes an unguarded contentment. The apartment was recently refurbished, but the walls were left unpainted and the wooden floors given a pale, natural finish, its owner preferring casual, uncomplicated furniture and having an all-around blasé approach to interior decoration. His armchairs are more comfortable than mine, allowing my legs to cross effortlessly without any need for continual readjustment. Despite his being somewhat shorter, when sitting we are of equal height, as if by some phenomenon his lightness allowed him to float or for him gravity did not exist.

Every time I have visited him in this apartment, a pair of black cowboy boots waited by the door, though I have never known him to wear anything other than canvas-top sneakers. An allergy keeps him from owning any dogs or cats, and the required upkeep has meant a forgoing of tropical fish. The apartment’s only other cohabitant is a philodendron placed thoughtlessly to the left of the bathroom, so in closing the door a fair amount of foliage is gobbled up with it.

Stacked on the counter surrounding his kitchen sink were never any less than a week’s worth of coffee mugs. Stacks of papers – presumably manuscripts, deemed complete by someone else’s standards – laid scattered about the living room and dining table, leaving little room for neither living nor dining. In spite of a clear indifference to the condition of his flat, he was always a good host, punctual and quick to offer coffee and hand-rolled cigarettes.

For him I was a ready listener, patient while he kicked around ideas for a new project he was set to embark on, which in the case of its failure would be quite costly. Sitting opposite of him, I watched his hands explain and convince, surrendering the tilt of my head to the flip and pitch of each gesture. His smooth face and hairless wrists suggest an age much younger than his curriculum vitae would present him as. He chuckles, exposing a buoyant Adam’s apple, and I laugh with him. He rarely gives a full smile. As he talks he separates his lips but widens his mouth only slightly, often teasing it to the side to suggest a semi-permanent smirk. This quirk seems playful, as if he is letting me in on the joke. His bottom teeth show only when he is irritated or when the sun catches him in the eye. I became distracted by the way his nose ducks when he talks of his work, as if nodding in agreement to his schemes and propositions.

He had just begun to tell me a story about a recent encounter with the new concierge, who was Guatemalan and unaccustomed to the strange, nocturnal habits of the neighborhood and its creative types. He spoke Spanish almost fluently, as far as I could tell, picking it up after numerous trips to the Caribbean despite claiming to have a crippling fear of the ocean. He could flirt with this woman while asking after her children, with all the social ease of someone who has been introducing himself to industry heavyweights and debutantes since he was able to say his name.

The telephone rang. On the way to answer it, he stopped for two seconds in front of an antique buffet, where a small selection of unopened envelopes was stacked on the glass top.

“Hey-ya,” he answered. “How did the rehearsal go? Did Simon behave himself this time?” One of his sneakers was coming untied, and he pinned the loose lace with the other foot.

“You what? Again?” His voice began to pick up speed. “No, I will not come pick you up. I am busy. Take the train – or a taxi, if you have to.”

Taking the phone with him, he turned his back to me and stepped into the hall, the cord loyally trailing behind. He headed toward his bedroom, though I could still hear him, the agitation in his voice bouncing off the bare walls down the hallway.

“I simply cannot believe this has happened again. Jesus – I mean, we just had a second set made so this would not happen again. You can be such a fucking flake.” His accent began to show.

“I knew you were utterly clueless, but this is unheard of. No, I can’t. I can’t talk now.”

He stepped out of the hallway and back into view a minute later wearing sunglasses. What could be seen of his fair cheeks was flushed red. He walked over to the stack of envelopes and opened one. Without reading it, he set it back on the tabletop. He stood staring down, arching his shoulders forward and leaning with all his weight on his back foot. He stood like that for some time, his thumb in his mouth, its nail clicking against the back of his teeth. After some moments passed, he released his shoulders and returned to his armchair.

He looked at me, or so I presume, and opened his mouth just enough to display the small chip on the left of his front tooth. The phone rang again. He took a sip from his mug and followed it with a swig from a small water glass, then stood up and went to the phone.

“Has Simon already left? And Gabriela? Could you ask her for a ride? Good, okay.” I could hear him speak with a restored calm.

“Yes, of course I am sorry. Don’t be so silly. No, I did not mean that. You know how – no, not like that. Yes, exactly. Good. You are okay? Good. Yes, I will be here. Do not forget to ask Lucia for the mail. Can you remember that? I am expecting a package from my sister. Oh, and maybe you could pick up some jajangmyeon from Bonjoo? I feel like noodles. Yes, the one by Jackie and David’s. Extra chunjang, okay? That sounds wonderful. Perfect, even. I can’t wait. See you later, yes. Ciao.”

When he returned he emptied his mug and raised it toward me, asking if I needed a refill. He lifted his chin slightly and then turned to face the window, offering me his profile and a view of his lower bicuspids. The evening’s remaining sunlight bleached out his hair so that it matched the beech picture frame hanging on the wall, holding what appeared to be some movie still from a film I did not recognize. He raised his elbow and ran his hand over his head. For a moment he appeared to me as Endymion, impervious to the sun’s beam.

“Ever since that project in Seoul, I have been hunting all over the Village for the best Korean.” He turned away from the window and the city and looked straight at me. “I simply cannot get the taste out of my mouth. The street vendors, everything I tried. It was unbelievable. You have to go, if for nothing else but the food.” He sighed although I had not argued against him and removed his sunglasses. Before the trip, he had been vegetarian for almost seven years. Now he eats fish.

On the way to showing me out of his apartment, he picked up another envelope. This one was manila and much larger, thick enough to hold a technical manual or some papers of comparable size. He volleyed the envelope between his hands undecidedly. He set the package back on the table, underneath a ceramic dish that slipped a little on the lopsided surface.

He stepped past, opened the front door and came toward me. He took my shoulder in one of his soft, hairless hands and then embraced me, although a bit stiffly.

“Thank you for finding the time to stop by. I think it is a shame we have not been able to see each other more often.” I felt his embrace slacken.

“Have you heard from her at all?”

He took a step back and in a moment of fraternal comfort and support, we watched one another. He nodded, shook my hand and opened the door for me to leave.

2009-08-25T12:01:00.005+02:00

Last fall I wrote a creative essay for my German class. The assignment was to create a description of the contemporary social and political climate paralleling that of George Grosz and Klaus Mann's Weimar Republic. I am rather proud of it but have not gotten around to posting it until now. An English-only creative writing project will be posted next for those of you who happen to not read German.

***

Wie Fliegen auf einen Kuhfladen kamen sie

In jenem Jahre 2008 gingen wir, sowohl die Alten wie auch die Jungen von Kneipe zu billiger Kneipe, um uns vor den Anderen in Dunkelheit und vor uns selbst in Alkohol zu verstecken. Die Fassade dieses Verstecks wurde von fluoreszierenden Ladenschildern in den Neonfarben blau, rot, und weiss beleuchtet. Die Meisten rauchten, obwohl sie wussten, daß es für die Gesundheit gefährlich sei. Alle verschwendeten viel Geld, obwohl es sich die meisten nicht leisten konnten.

Überall konnte man von der finanziellen Krise über Lautsprecher hören. Draußen feierte eine Gruppe, die stampfte und jubelte auf, als ob sie beim Rodeo wären, jedoch hasste die Gruppe den einzigen Mann, den sie kannten, der aus Texas kam. Alle feierten, weil sie dachten, daß ihre Kredit nicht zurückbezahlt würde. Sie trugen die Kleidung – Stiefel, einen Hut, Levis – wie Cowboys, aber es war weder Pferd noch Kuh in Sicht. Dahinter kam eine zweite Gruppe, die grunzte rhymthisch im Chor die Schlachtrufe der Affen. Und so waren sie die Affen in dem Urwald der Meinungsverschiedenheiten. Sie bekleideten sich als ob sie ziemlich übele Strolche wären, aber sie kamen wahrscheinlich aus der fünftsichersten Stadt in Amerika. Sie hatten die Nachricht noch nicht gehört.

Die Stadt war steril, durcheinander und voller Glashäuser. In einem unterirdischen Klub wurde Musik von dem jungen Schwarz, Otis Redding, und dem seligen Bob Dylan über afrikanischen Stammestakte und die Gurren der brasilianischen Rebellen gespielt. So tanzten die Gebildeten, erschütterte ihre Körper wie Fliegen in einem Insektenzapper. Im Nu fiel einer, bald fielen auch eine andere hin. Aber warum trugen sie Sonnenbrillen, wenn sie nur im Rampenlicht stehen wollten? Ein paar junge Amerikaner, die gestern noch der König und die Königin von Soul gewesen waren, sagten zu einander, “Ich habe genug von Soul. Gehen wir auf die Funkparty!” Im Nu fiel noch einer hin.

Man war fröhlich, kolossal fröhlich. In dieser Stadt war jeder Moment die sogennannte “Happy Hour.” Die einzelne Tatsache aber blieb, daß in dieser Stadt “Ängstliche Stunde” sich nicht verkaufte.

2009-08-21T23:08:00.003+02:00

As I am not too keen on watching American TV news anchors relay mass amounts of misinformation to our often gullible public, I have only a limited idea of how much publicity the IAAF World Championships are getting stateside. In case you didn't know, this year they are being held in Berlin. We found out about them a month or so ago and debated buying tickets, but decided they were too expensive (they are). It is a bit of a shame, really, because a slew of amazing events have taken place and we have to watch the races broadcasted on big televisions in the bars on Potsdamer Platz.

A holy-cow congratulations to Usain Bolt for breaking the 100 (9.58) and 200m (19.19) world records. He runs like a crazy man with limbs grown too large for his body.

This evening was the 4x100 relay (everyone's favorite to watch). The Americans had another tricky hand-off. Saw it when it happened, but it is very difficult to tell. Even more difficult to see on a grainy television screen through the rain. They won a spot in the finals along with Trinidad & Tobago but have now been disqualified.

Suspicions have been raised over the sex of South Africa's top middle-distance runner (and female world champion) Caster Semenya. Seems she may have an unexpected Y chromosome, or produce extra testosterone. Officials are still waiting for the results of very thorough genetic tests. Even if there are proper grounds to strip her of the medal, this is surely an emotional, if not traumatic, experience for an 18-year-old woman.

What's more, you ask? Tomorrow is the men's marathon, in addition to the Champion's Run -- a 10k road race following part of the marathon's course. Registration closed in May or June, but I found an online contest through Tip Berlin magazine giving away 20 spots. I knew Matt has been running six miles regularly and had the desire to try out a race. So without telling him, I entered his name in the contest. And guess what -- he won! This past week we have been training (although I'm only the trainer, cheerleader and masseuse). Tonight we ate the pasta dinner. Tomorrow afternoon we will head up to Brandenburger Tor, stop by the Deutsche Telekom sponsorship booth to pick up his shirt, number and chip and at 3:45, he will be off. (Good luck, Matt!)

2009-08-04T20:39:00.002+02:00

Looking for a little extra English-based socialization, the other week I began a hunt for good audiobooks and podcasts. That's when I discovered The Moth, a New York City-based live storytelling event. Their podcast features some of their best stories, and I've been enjoying it tremendously. Maybe you will, too.

http://www.themoth.org/podcast

2009-08-03T12:14:00.003+02:00

Yesterday, after a long day at the market, we rewarded ourselves with an Eiskaffee (think root beer float with coffee instead of soda) at Kauf Dich Glücklich in Prenzlauerberg. We are making conscious efforts to cut down on the sweets. Less sesame ice cream from the café on Grimmstrasse. Fewer slices of cheesecake from Avril. No more sweet and sour gummies, even if I'm at the movies (Wednesday night, Jarmusch's Night on Earth, Lichtblick Kino in Prenzlauerberg). Of course, I don't know if it's wholly necessary. The effort to cut down, that is. Matt's running quite regularly and I join him at least once a week. The other day went particularly well and we ran 7.5 miles. I felt totally fine until I tried to make a 300-meter gut check.

Of course, not all of our days are spent snacking at decrepit public pools and lying in the sun. Much of our time is taken up by the domestic demands of adulthood. Especially because we have been cooking so much at home, a significant amount of time has to go into the shopping, preparation, enjoyment and clean-up of each meal. Either the peanut butter container needs to be rinsed or the kidney beans need their water changed. Excuses, right? But add that with the fact that each week presents us with a new challenge. Last week it was the internet. If you think compromising with Comcast's tele-personnel is a challenge, give it a try in German. Kabel Deutschland was, surprisingly, more sympathetic than Comcast. But only once we had the technician out to our house to replace our modem were we told that our router was also kaputt. In the end, after a long call to D-Link's service line and an unusual reset procedure, we were able to get it up and running without purchasing any replacement parts. Soon we will have to deal with more bicycle maintenance -- Matt's bike won't shift gears, mine has only one functional brake. And yesterday my headphones stopped working.

All of this costs money. But we have our venture selling Einkaufstaschen. If by chance any of you want one of these 100% cotton, long-handled shopping bags (save the environment and look great doing it!), let me know and I'll reserve one for you! I would be very honored, of course, to have some of you fine folks carry our bags. Only $9! All bags are printed on natural-colored cotton. The Berlin bag and the Bicycle bag are printed in black ink, the one we nicknamed Waves is royal blue. Check them out below, additional photos are on Flickr.

2009-08-03T10:53:00.003+02:00

So much to get to. This week awarded us with the first summer-appropriate weather since arriving in Berlin. The last thing I have been wanting to do is sit in front of the computer. But today -- a chilly, gray Monday with rain falling slowly and steadily -- seems to be a good day to catch up and recover a bit from market day.

Like every Sunday, yesterday we hauled our table and totes up to Mauerpark. I thought that the hot, sunny weather would make for a productive day. But it also makes for a very sweaty and thirsty 8-hour market day, especially without the shelter of an awning or beach umbrella. We consumed enough sun the day before, when we took the train to the beach at Wannsee. (A one-hour ride from Kreuzberg. S-Bahn lines 1 and 7 stop at Nikolassee, from there it's just a half-mile walk to the beach. Entry costs 4€ for adults, 2,50€ for students.) Wannsee is one of the bigger lakes in the Berlin area even though it stays quite shallow. Dozens of sailboats tacked and jibbed their way across the greater part of the lake. The beach boasts volleyball courts, beach trampolines, giant chessboards and (our favorite) a waterslide. For those wanting a proper European beach experience, there is also a nudist section. The food is cheap, the beach, hot and the water, cool.

Friday was the closing day of the Urban Affairs: Extended, a large exhibition of some of the world's best urban artists, most notably El Bocho, Alias and Banksy. Although Philadelphia is attributed as being the birthplace of modern graffiti, Berlin has the right to claim itself the center of contemporary street art (think graffiti, stenciling, postering). I found the exhibition fascinating for the very fact that it was a professionally-executed art exhibition. The work was great, it was carefully curated, there were videos and interactive displays, and a gift shop sold streetwear, stencils and prints. It was put up in the Stadtbad Wedding, a public swimming hall that was closed down in 2002 and has since been hosting art exhibitions, concerts and parties, each event leaving behind an increasing number of broken tiles and pipes and fewer of the pool's original signs. This past winter the Grand Palais in Paris also hosted an urban art exhibition, thus legitimizing graffiti as fine art. I am curious to know how these artists feel about this fact. I'm sure they love the recognition (even if they only receive it under their pseudonym) and the money probably doesn't hurt. But I imagine that what brought these artists out late at night, sneaking around city streets and scaling walls in black hoodies, had more to do with the thrill of doing something illegal, engaging in an energetic and artistic rebellion. When the governments they were protesting begin to pay them to exhibit their work, or when art critics respond approvingly, does this thrill wear off? These artists are undeniably real artists -- they understand composition and color and can handle paint better than any art student I've ever met. Their subject matter is usually intelligent, critical, even witty. When it's not, it still passes as above-average graphic design. I hold an enormous amount of respect for these artists. It doesn't matter if anyone ever sees their work. They understand that their medium is very short-lived -- weather, city clean-up crews or even other artists can destroy hours' worth of work in a matter of minutes. And many of the murals just blow the sponsored contemporary art I've recently seen out of their art houses and galleries.

The best gallery show we've seen this summer was at the Lucas Carrieri gallery, a post-graffiti art collective in Mitte. Eron, an Italian street artist, creates realist portraits and landscapes using spray paint. Ebon Heath is a graphic (and more) artist based out of Brooklyn. He works with three-dimensional script.

My interest in contemporary art for the past couple of years has been directed at the rather vague "new media" and its computerized, interactive installations, but I made it a point earlier this year to start paying attention to and learning about contemporary painting. So soon after redirecting my attention, I'm faced with a new term to contemplate: post-graffiti.

2009-07-21T17:16:00.003+02:00

Late Friday afternoon a heavy storm swept into Kreuzberg. We were walking home from the Maybachufer Turkish market when the rain started, so we stepped into someone's front hallway (fortunately the front door was unlocked). We waited there for about fifteen minutes with a Turkish woman and her three young children. Meanwhile a power surge ravaged our apartment, destroying the power supply to the modem. So we are without internet at the moment. The girl we are subletting from is contacting the internet provider to see what we can do. Apparently it isn't possible to go to an electronics store and buy a replacement adaptor. Okay.

So now we're in the lovely Graefekiez at a (someway pricey) outdoor café. Chocolate cake (at only two euros per slice, probably the cheapest option on the menu) is on its way.

Speaking of prices -- there was another leg of our travels I forgot to mention in the previous post. On our way out of France and into Berlin, we spent a long afternoon in Geneva, Switzerland. I was very much looking forward to Geneva. We left our luggage in a locker in the train station (one very large locker for 8 Swiss francs). The scenery is beautiful -- it is situated right alongside the Alps, after all. And the lake has a very nice-looking harbor. As expected, it was a little windy along the waterfront. Eating lunch on a bench viewing the lake reminded me of summer afternoons in Charlevoix. We walked around the whole of downtown, plowing through the banking district and stopping for churches, statues and parks. Great shopping, of course -- not that I went into more than one shop. It was probably a good thing because Geneva is an incredibly expensive city. Having some euros and only a few francs left, we had to find dinner. We finally came across a pizza place that would give us a simple basil pizza for 16 francs, dividing it between our euros, francs and our American credit card. That was the cheapest entree we were able to find. Most cafés and restaurants were selling pasta dishes for 25 francs -- keep in mind that the franc is pretty close in value to the American dollar. All the same, I recommend it to a traveller who is looking for the most cosmopolitan city in Europe.

So, now I return to Berlin. Matt and I spent the first week tracking down bikes and then riding all over the city to view apartments. We finally found one -- a sublet that will last for our entire stay here in one of my favorite neighborhoods. It's a studio with a separate bathroom and kitchen for 350€ a month. That's just under $500. I was a little nervous about a studio being large enough for the two of us, but it hasn't been a problem at all. The only problem is the small and narrow kitchen. The cupboards have glass doors and there is hardly any room to open them without smacking one another in the head. We have broken a few glasses only because there just isn't enough room to stand AND cook AND open the refrigerator. Our subletter moved in with her boyfriend and took most of her furniture, leaving behind a mattress, a table, two chairs, a clothes-drying rack, and some dishes. Our first night we made an Ikea run and found dishes, pillows and more for only 20€. We found a large wooden pallet at the Turkish grocery store next door and have used it to lift our mattress off the ground. Three weeks later, I still need to find a pillowcase that fits my extra-large square pillow. More than one coffee mug would be nice, as well.

And for those who want to know where to find a bike in Berlin -- we had luck at a shop near Treptower Park. Two warehouse-style rooms of used bikes. We bargained the price, as we were buying two bikes. It seems a little suspect, but if you give him your passport then you can ride all the bikes down the street. He also gives a receipt -- so the transaction is not schwarz. At first we actually bought a bike off of Craig's List -- as is usually recommended -- but it turned out to be a scrap bike. Fortunately, we were able to sell it off (again, Craig's List) to someone interested in bicycle maintenance.

I gave Matt the grand city tour that first week. We have been to a couple of gallery openings, free museum nights. Anything and everything free and/or very inexpensive. Not many nights out. Not many cafe or restaurant visits, today being an exception. We cook all our meals at home (still going vegetarian, having eaten meat only seven or eight times within the past three months). I have taken over as the primary cook and expanded our recipe repertoire to include Thai, Japanese and Middle Eastern in addition to the usual Indian fare. Matt still prepares the best burrito-style wraps. After dinner every night, we take a walk around the neighborhood, sometimes stopping for ice cream near the Admiralbrücke to watch the papadum salesman harass the young people sipping beers along the canal. One of the most memorable days for both of us was the day of the Mediaspree demonstration.

The Spree is the river that divides Berlin in two. In the SE of central Berlin, there are two neighborhoods (technically one, joined by the Oberbaumbrücke): Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg. Both are known for housing leftists and artists -- you know, lesbians and vegans. As a result, squatter villages, cultural co-ops, bars and arthouses have been built up along the river. And so there is a very creative and liberal atmosphere that makes Berlin so darn lovable to someone like myself.

The Man -- the local administration, the corporate world, etc -- has decided to sell off this land to developers. They call the project MediaSpree. The idea is to build large office buildings to house marketing and media companies (that would, somewhat ironically, employ creative, young people. Or that would recruit them to the dark side, depending on precisely which side you're on). The problem is that this would destroy the DIY-scene that has been there for the past decade (or even longer).

So the alternative force did what they do best and created a counter-movement. The climax of their protests was the MegaSpree demonstration. Three separate parades started in different parts of Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg. Each parade had floats, performers and people from every possible subculture out in the streets. Many in costumes. The roads were blocked and the three parades met in front of the city council. It was a peaceful demonstration. Fun, in fact. One float had an icy slide for vodka shots coming off the back. Lots of loud music, dancing, people-watching, the whole lot. What we expected to take 45 minutes (the parade didn't have far to go) took at least five hours. We left before it was over.

One of the places that would likely be abolished if the Media Spree contract continues is Kiki Blofeld, a beach club on the Kreuzberg-side of the river. We went there last night to watch an open-air viewing of Coffee and Cigarettes. About thirty of us piled on top of wooden pallets and blankets and the weather was kind enough to cooperate. The vocal track of the movie was often interrupted by the roar of the nearby S-bahn, a tourist boat on its final loop or electronica coming from another riverside club. Despite the movie's premise (in my opinion) falling flat, the evening made for a very romantic and memorable experience.

Perhaps what made the experience even sweeter was that one of the 30 attendees was carrying a very cool-looking totebag -- a very cool-looking totebag that, as it so happens, I designed. Yes, that's right. Matt and I got sick of being poor and took matters into our own hands by becoming graphic designers. Last week we stayed in the apartment almost all day everyday working on our designs. We found a local screen-printing shop to work with and ordered a whole bunch of cotton-canvas totebags. This past weekend we had a go at selling them in the fleamarket -- and it was a success. We won't become millionaires anytime soon, but we should be able to cover our living expenses while we are here. This self-sufficiency gives both of us -- me, especially -- great satisfaction. And I've been wanting to start a screen-printing venture for years but never had the financial backing (or the guts) to go through with it. Finally, one of my creative efforts reached completion and actually transformed into a finished (consumable) product. To see people on the street wearing my designs -- oh wow. Or to have them buy the bags for friends and then distribute them all over Europe. It feels wonderful, and most importantly, revives my latent creativity by giving me a great confidence booster. Whoever thought that such a simple idea and a bit of effort could give so much back.

2009-07-17T11:00:00.005+02:00

Well folks, I've waited long enough. Let me get to retelling that next adventure of ours.

After Ben and Diny dropped us off at the train station, we traveled across southern France, cutting through the larger cities of Toulouse, Montpellier and Nîmes. The best part of the journey was seeing the Pyrenees -- beautiful, snow-topped and peaked mountains -- off in the distance. (If you plan on taking this journey, sitting on the right side will mean a slightly better view and significantly less interaction with the people sitting on the other side of the car.) Our trip ended in Valence, where we had to stay the night. There are only a couple of buses that run out to our third host, and we arrived after the last one had already left. A night in a beautiful Mediterranean city -- boohoo. A visit to Valence (one to three days is enough) is absolutely recommended. I found it almost perfect. The downtown area is full of narrow streets with charming bakeries, restaurants and boutiques. There is an intriguing view from the city plaza and pavilion of a large, mountaintop ruin. The park Jouvet is lovely, full of cultivated flowerbeds and students on their lunch breaks. We ate dinner at Le Rabelais on the Place des Clercs; we both had the regional specialty, ravioli. Matt's with mushrooms, mine with cheese. Chocolate mousse for dessert. We met the two French girls at the table next to ours on the terrace. They bought us manzanas -- a green apple liqueur.

The next day was the Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré -- a regional bicycle race, a smaller race than the Tour de France but is also very important to cyclists from all over the world. Many of those who win the Dauphiné go on to win the Tour de France. Parts of downtown were blocked off for the race, so we watched the introductions of all the participants and cheered at the starting line.

We stayed at the Hotel de Lyon, a very small and basic hotel, but that was also clean, inexpensive and offered free Wi-Fi in the rooms. Also very close to the train and bus station. (Note to travelers: Valence has two train stations -- Valence Ville and Valence TGV. TGV is outside of the city and requires taking a cheap bus from Valence Ville. The ride is only 10-15 minutes and costs 1.80€. Purchase tickets in advance at Valence Ville bus station.)

The ride out to the village took approximately two hours, cost just under 9€, and had me gripping Matt's arm, fearful of a fall from one of the mountain bridges or over the cliffside.
Arriving safely in the village, our new host was already waiting with her truck to take us up to the farm.

This farm was the one we were the most looking forward to (goat cheese!), but also expected it to work us the most physically. We were quite right about this second part. We originally planned to stay just short of a month; we left early. I feel a bit torn about what to say of our experience. Considering everything, I was not pleased with our experience there. I'm happy we went, of course, and I learned much about myself, about Matt, and about at what point it's okay to give up and throw in the towel. I don't want to give a bad impression of the farm as a whole, as I suspect many of our frustrations to be purely situational. Our host was having some difficulties in her personal life -- her girlfriend was just laid off from her factory job and one of her coworkers had committed suicide. So at 45 years old and with seemingly limited skills, she was unemployed. Our host's husband -- they have been separated for two years -- was also coming to visit for a long weekend. We were once again the only WWOOFers on the farm, and I think we felt a bit neglected.

Rather than to reflect back, I will post something I wrote in my journal during our stay. (We had limited internet access on the farm, so I took to journaling in my Moleskine.)

***

It's our third full day on the farm and it's our day off. We slept in until 8:00. (Note: Normally we woke up at 7:00, ate breakfast at 7:30, were in the stable to milk the goats by 8:00.) We ate our muesli and goat milk breakfast and took off for a day in the valley - that is to say, in the village. (Note: Everyone on the farm ate more or less the same food. Especially the muesli, from the WWOOFers to the goats to the dog.) The village has two sports bars, a couple of churches, a boulangerie and butcher shop, a library that's open 3.5 hours a week, an auberge. Everything closes at noon, so we bought fixings for lunch and ate on a park bench. Matt explored for a bit and found a local's cherry tree, and I watched men lean out of their windows to get a signal good enough to talk on their cell phones. We went to the beach, where we bathed in the river Doux. The water was cold and refreshing, and we prepared by bringing bathing suits, a razor and a bar of soap. After sunning ourselves dry we visited the snack bar near the beach -- a Heineken, in the can, and a Coke, in the bottle. Fountain, caged birds, Nestlé umbrellas and a breeze. A man in a blue Ringling Bros. Circus t-shirt, carrying a green backpack, wearing a ponytail and beard and thick glasses like I've seen Cortázar wear in pictures. Now, I feel like I'm in Florida. Beautiful nature, casual conversation, wet swimsuits draped over plastic chairs, cheap artificial decoration. A caravan.

Our present farm leaves much to be desired. There are at least three large vegetable gardens, too much to care for in addition to the goats, cheesemaking, and the three-month-old puppy, Tuey. (Et tu, Brute?)

We live in a quickly-restored room that has a ruin on one side and a cellar on the other. Next to the place where they slaughter the goats. On the wall hangs an old scyth and a pitchfork. Goat skin carpets. A dry toilet that we have to empty regularly, no drinking water, spiders the size of our fists that our host forbids us to kill.

The hamlet is high on the mountain with little around to offer shelter from the sun. The soil is very dry. Great view of the valley, especially at night, and the moon has been swung strikingly low in the sky and is big. When a car drives up one of the hill's winding roads, the headlights glow and curve like a fluorescent snake.

We work from seven to eight hours a day. Outside it's 30 degrees (86 for us Americans). We haven't been taught how to make the cheese, but at 8 am every day we do our best to milk the goats. Our host is Belgian, has lived in Germany and Africa, is not very talkative to us. We receive privacy but no place to spend it. This farm feels more like France than the others, maybe because we hear the language so much more.

***

As time went on, the puppy went from adorable to annoying. No shoe or leather glove was safe. We continued to work 7-8 hours a day, always milking the goats twice a day (8 am and 7 pm). We ate an unsound amount of goat cheese and milk. The milking was all done by hand, so we joked that should one of us ever be stranded in the mountains, we could always milk a goat for food (presuming, of course, we could catch one, and one that was giving milk). When we first arrived, our host gave us some of the fresh milk in champagne flutes. It's her version of champagne, she says. Still very warm from being inside the goats. Politely, we finished the glasses.

We never did get to make any of the cheese -- which is what we really wanted to learn. In the gardens, we picked berries (I realize this sounds like a task for farm girls in whimsical fairytales, but is really quite laborious), strung wires for tomatoes, cleaned the goat stable, spread manure and of course, pulled weeds. One of the hardest tasks was using hoes to break-up and build the soil around the potato plants. But the highlight of our stay for me was harvesting (accidentally or otherwise) potatoes. I could dig for potatoes all day! Very rewarding, even when they are the size of marbles. Real cute little things I liked to stick in my pocket.

Here's a story I'm sure at least one of you will enjoy. As previously mentioned, our living quarter was outfitted with a dry toilet. Not the fancy kind of dry toilet you see in green-living magazines, but a bucket with a wooden seat built over it. After using the bucket, we would take a trowel full of sawdust and dump it in the bucket. This covers the smell. It works quite well, I admit. I came to the decision that it would be one of Matt's duties to empty (as we so endearingly called it) the shit bucket. So every other day or so, Matt would take out the bucket, clean up any spots that resulted from poor aim (oops), and walk down the driveway to the dumping hill. One day, Matt concluded that it was my turn to empty the shit bucket. Okay. If I can sleep within ten feet of spiders that probably could and happily would feed on a small bird, I can empty a bucket of feces. So I walked with the bucket and the dog down to the hill, grabbed the rim with one hand and used the other hand to hold the bottom, and tossed. But instead of tossing the contents of the bucket, I threw the whole bucket. The little slick flew out of my hands. So I had to climb down into the pile and retrieve it. Eugh.

Our last working day coincided with Fête de la Musique. We spent the later part of the afternoon at the outdoor concert and around midnight, after a hot dog and some wine, we made our way back up the mountain in the dark. Another WWOOFer arrived our last night, so she was given our living quarters. We were transplanted to an unfinished room with no door or windows. The room is where they slaughter the male goats; blood stained the concrete and a large meat hook hung from the ceiling. There was electricity, so we plugged in an industrial floodlight so that we could see our way up the ladder into the loft area where our mattress was stored.

By the time we were finished, we were very tan and very thin -- but also strong. Unsurprisingly, meals heavily composited of muesli, salad and goat cheese don't offer the same heartiness as, say, meatloaf and baked potatoes. But after working farm tools and climbing up hills long enough, even skinny people such as us will bulk up.

So where did we go, after having had enough of the isolated farming life? The big, bad city (MY big, bad city) -- Berlin. And after spending a week hiking and looking for the right view, what did I get to see from the plane? The peak of Mont Blanc.

2009-06-12T12:34:00.001+02:00

Here is a poem I started at Le Bourmier and finished at La Bouyssette.

It's high noon and you wouldn't know it
if not for the paternal sun, benevolent though
by and large mischievous, and the more certain papal bell,
its cast iron clapper signaling to a vacant
and outdated village square.

The neighbor herds her plucking hens
before their operose bird-blood overheats,
but the laggard chick Phaeton, dressed in dust,
totters eastward, his tiny feet stamping ground
feeling for the spring.

Just as the peaked summer teases the aged farmstead
for its tenacity despite another sparse harvest,
each methodical toll of the steady bell mocks the seasons
for their affected, medieval rituals and for their
idle revolutions.

Meadowside the lonely wether Quasimodo bleats
for his mother, who deafly feeds his she-twin.
Suckling greedily, her inbred knees buckle and
her hind legs falter, a result of some infantile,
milk-borne disease.

The resonant and lusty knell finishes, its closing note
carried away by the western zephyr. The stale soil
cracks under the sun, whose ray, thick
and august, surveys the hamlet -- a tragedy
flanked by superstition.

Excused from terrestrial constraints, the spider,
ensconced in the dun shade of the belfry's eave,
defends her citadel, a neurosis detected in the perfection
of her lacework. A horde of her kin abscond from
their webbed asylum, relieved.

The stoic bell pitches soundlessly over
the calloused fields, an idol among rogues.
The predatory sun keeps even the ruffed buzzards
from savaging the deserted estate. It's high noon and
wouldn't you know.

2009-06-10T20:38:00.000+02:00

How we perceive ourselves, as Americans: Big. Much too large for European homes. We were always knocking shoulders, hips and knees on the doorways of the gîte. Stubbing toes. Dwarfing teaspoons. Eating the most out of everyone.

Annie -- another of Diny's neighbors, an elderly German woman married to a Russian -- feels similarly about us. She told us stories of WWII and the Occupation. To her (being a child) the war and air raids on Munich were amusing. She was young, an only child. Her family built a bunker. She remembers being sent by her school into the windows of bombed buildings in order to pull valuable items out. Her and her classmates were instructed to help clean and set-up a veterinary hospital that had been bombed -- only to have it bombed again once they were finished picking up broken test tubes and needles. When they liberated the work camps, all the real criminals were also released. It was a dangerous time and all they had was stolen. She recalls the Marshall Plan and the planes dropping candy and shoes. Later, her family owned a villa and the American officers staying in the area demanded to stay with them. The first thing she noticed about them was their gigantic size. They opened the door to find giants before them -- all of them wanting, above anything else, a long, hot bath.

Corinne also told us her impressions of Americans. She says, most everything she knows of America and its citizens comes from movies. Of course she knows better, but she has the impression that we are all movie stars. Tall, confident and good-looking movie stars. Who speak the "nose language." She traveled to the States when she was younger, taking a grand tour of the country with her family. But the most memorable part for her was staying at a holiday ranch in the Southwest -- riding horses in the morning to eat breakfast prepared over an open fire and watching real cowboys.

2009-06-10T20:34:00.001+02:00

Matt and I found the privacy we were hoping for at our next farm. Again, we were staying in the gîte, but this time it was a separate house from our host's. We had our own bathroom, bedroom, kitchen and even a TV. (We satisfied our nostalgia for American culture with tapes of old Simpsons episodes and a viewing of Jaws.) The property was big, but enclosed by trees. We could hear the neighbor's dog bark from farther away, but not much else. On hot, sunny days (of which there were many), we could swim (European style -- topless) in the bio-pool. A bio-pool does not contain any chlorine, but is heated by the sun and salted to keep down the growth of algae.

Diny and Ben are Dutch and retired to France after careers in pedagogy and engineering, respectively. They treated us with respect, generosity and curiosity -- we were their first WWOOFers. They kept two llamas (Louis and Victor), two donkeys (Eeyore and Maya), five sheep and a few chickens. Diny had a large vegetable garden and some fruit trees, though still not anything we would call a traditional farm. She sells her produce to guests renting the gîte and to a couple of neighbors, but generally keeps it to feed Ben, herself and company they have. Once again, we ate very well! We ate mainly vegetarian meals, but there were a few treats for us omnivores. I especially loved Diny's chicken curry (and took the recipe) and another dish with red currants and duck, along with some sort of savory sauce. One evening, Ben and Diny were going to a dinner for a cultural group they belonged to and invited us along. We ate a proper, multiple course French dinner at the Hostellerie de Goujounac. The restaurant is owned by a Dutch couple, but they prepare French food -- and do it very well.

Many of the neighbors in the area make foie gras and paté, so I had some of that, too. Plenty of Gouda, and strawberries! Diny's garden produced so many strawberries we couldn't pick and eat them all. Much of our garden work involved harvesting, which in an obvious way is more rewarding than planting. We plucked and shucked broad beans (known in the States as fava beans. We love these!), and spent several hot hours picking currants, strawberries and raspberries so Diny could make jam. Jam-making is something everyone seems to do here, and it is a surprisingly easy process. I certainly plan to bring my knowledge back home. Fig jam and chutney, oh, oh.

Diny taught us how to care of growing tomato plants, like how we are supposed to remove the thieves growing between the branches every few days. Diny had the benefit of using organic manure to fertilize her garden and her soil was practically ideal. It didn't have as much clay as in the Dordogne and very few slugs.

For the animals, we built an electric fence around one of the meadows on the property and moved the llamas and donkeys. Our last day it rained, so we cleaned the sheep stables. The job was exactly as one might imagine: pitchforks, a tractor, a stall of straw and manure. Not so bad, really -- if you don't mind getting a little dirty.

One of our other tasks was to split the firewood. Preparing the firewood is a two-year process. First it is collected from a tree that has fallen in the surrounding wood. Then it is stored to dry out. Then split. Then stored again. Then cut to the proper length. Then placed near the house to be used when necessary. Of course, we were only on the farm for a couple of weeks, so we only had to worry about taking the trunks and quartering them. Ben keeps a hydraulic-powered machine in the garage that wedges into the wood and forces it to split, but sometimes Matt had to hatchet the thick or flexible pieces that resisted the machine. His persistence is something to admire -- except when it involves fatigue and axes. Then I had to step in and tell him to give it up. After all, we aren't exactly insured.

In our free time we took walks and rode bikes to the neighboring city of Puy l'Eveque (dating back to the middle ages). One day we went with Diny to the market in Prayssac -- a pretty market full of vegetables, fruit, honey, meat and cheese in a busy town. Highly recommended. Another day we took a walk with the llamas to one of their neighbors, Madeline, a 94-year-old French woman. The house she is living in is 400 years old and was owned for several generations by the family of her husband, who had died at least a couple of decades ago. Now she never leaves the house, but is more than happy to accept visitors. Even for ones who show up unexpectedly, she will pull out a box of cookies (madelines) and pour peach-flavored syrup and water cocktails. She spoke no English, but I could understand her French almost perfectly -- even though most of the conversation revolved around village gossip. It was inspiring to see a woman so full of life at that age. She has the most amazing memory, reciting dates and antecdotes with no trouble at all. She even remembers where she was and what she was doing the day of the Normandy invasion.

On Sundays we all took the car for touring the Lot valley. I never realized until this trip that south of Paris, France is very rural and very hilly. Actually, the Lot valley seemed to be a hybrid of upstate New York (the mountainous terrain), northern Michigan (the sounds of birds, crickets and lawnmowers, lots of evergreens), and Malta (the villages with ridiculously steep, narrow roads that are only accessible on foot). There are several famous grottos, some with paintings and others with spectacular rock formations. It seems that any worthy town has a grotto or medieval ruin to offer its tourists. My favorite trip was to the grotto in Padirac (le Gouffre de Padirac -- l'incroyable aventure souterraine).

First we took an elevator (and then climbed down stairs) down over 100 meters. Once underground, a boat that could only hold eight people at a time took us on a trip 500 meters long, floating on a subterranean river and twisting through the vaulted passageway of the grotto. It was cold underground -- the air stays at a temperature of 13 degrees Celsius, the river only 12. In some parts, the river is as deep as six meters. After the boat ride, we disembarked and continued with a guide walking us through the grotto. In one "room," a giant stalactite drops down 60 meters into the middle of the lake. In another, a stalactite 75-meters-long hangs from the wall. The vault is 94 meters high, which means that only 9 meters of earth separates the grotto from the earth's crust. As for the stalagmites, this huge vault means a long fall for water droplets. Instead of slowing forming upward, these strike the floor and spread to create formations that look like shells, or piles of plates -- or as I observed, brain coral, cauliflower and mushrooms. The lack of lighting made it difficult to take pictures. It is impossible to think of E.A. Martel, the man who discovered the grotto in 1889, exploring its depths without adequate light, steps or ladders.

We headed ground-level for a roadside picnic. We also drove by the medieval town of Rocamadour, which is built into the cliff and is known for its church. I didn't get to see it, but Rocamadour's plaza houses a fragment of a sword rumored to be that by Roland. Of the Song of Roland. You know.

On our second Sunday, we headed to a small church with relatively well-preserved 15th-century frescoes. The left wall illustrated the seven sins, the right wall depicted angels passing on souls to St. Peter at the gates of heaven. Check them out in my photos on Flickr! We also visited the bastide of Monpazier (a perfectly quadrilateral village founded in the 13th century), and the Château de Biron (a beautiful hilltop castle, seized by the Cathars in 1211 -- according to Wikipedia).

Sometime in there (June 6) was Matt's birthday. It rained intermittently. The cabin fever raged. Where are we going to stay in Berlin? After Berlin? Diny prepared a special almond and raspberry cake for Matt and we closed the evening with a round of Yahtzee.

Halfway through our stay, I began to feel that we were at summer camp. We would work outdoors and call it fun, beat off the sun and bugs with bandanas, made sure to eat two big Brownie bites of everything and we would look forward to the occasional swim and venture into town.

2009-05-26T14:05:00.002+02:00

We filled our final week with Leni at Le Bourmier with various projects -- cleaning the barn, installing tomato stakes, planting beet root and various greens. Our final project was to wrap planks from a large, antique wooden barrel around the bathtub using some sort of awfully sticky and gray roofing caulk and Matt's hiking socks as a wedge. It tested our ability to work as a team, but we're still both here and the tub looks great. By the time we left the farm, our corn grew taller and even some spinach had begun to sprout out of the dirt.

We had a bit of fun, too, like a trip to the château in Hautefort, a live concert with Ronnie Caryl (Phil Collin's former guitarist) in the nearby village of Genis, and swimming in the park with Corinne and Michael, an Irish WWOOFer.

Leni drove us down to our next host's farm. We stopped several times, turning the two-hour drive into an expedition of Southwestern France. One in Domme, a very pretty medieval town with an excellent view, albeit too touristy to stay for long. We also stopped at the Ossip Zadkine Museum in Les Arques (in the department of Lot). Les Arques is also home to the well-known restaurant, Le Recréation, but we had to save our money. Zadkine was a Cubist-Expressionist sculptor born in Russia in 1890, but lived most of his life in France. He kept a house in Les Arques, hence the museum.

Our stay at Le Bourmier provided an excellent introduction to life in rural France and to gardening. We were able to put the principles of Slow Food into action and really enjoyed the results. I felt healthier, lighter. It was no surprise to me to learn how much I enjoy the act of eating, but making meal preparation (and consumption!) the central part of the day required a real shift of attention, and one I would like to maintain, if possible. However, maybe not 2-hour long lunches and 3-hour dinners. It's difficult to get much else done, but what else in life matters except for good conversation and good food?

2009-05-24T10:40:00.005+02:00

Looks like the NYT is trying to scoop us yet again. Here's an article on recent liberal arts students and graduates turning to organic farming to learn how to live sustainably. I find the article degrading the new crop of interns and their efforts, though its probably partly true in its reflections of the students' expectations. It reeks of that typical NYT, Generation Jones reporting -- patronizing the younger generation's dependence on technology, suggesting that our enthusiasm for social change will putter out once we realize hard work is involved. Anyway.

2009-05-19T10:46:00.006+02:00

Early yesterday evening Leni hosted a small gathering in preparation for Sophie's upcoming exhibition in Excideuil. Leni and Rebecca, another British ex-pat, are preparing the amuse-bouche for the opening, so they had a test run with the bread, cheese and selected ham. (Side note: with Leni operating as head chef, Matt and I made the bread. He was in charge of two walnut loaves, while I made a couple with onion, rosemary and sage.) It was another pleasant social event, and this time we weren't the youngest of the bunch -- Rebecca's rambunctious 8-year-old daughter, Olivia, also joined in.

The guests arrived just as the two of us were finishing our yardwork. At a creative seminar she hosted almost ten years ago, Leni made a tall wooden totem more or less dedicated to the history of troubadours and the art of reading. She had a large tree stump that had rotted, so we dug a hole in the middle and planted the totem so that it overlooks the herb garden and meadow. Standing at the top of the valley looking down at the totem, along with the old exhaust pipe Leni found and placed upright in the garden, I am reminded of the photographs of David Smith's sculptures juxtaposed and framed by hilly, rural landscapes.

For the record, life here is not as glamorous as one might imagine being described here in my writing. As simple, yes. While there is little that could tempt me to trade my time here, this lifestyle is not for everybody. Take the food, for instance. In many ways, it is wholesome and satisfying -- but I've had no coq au vin, nor any of the legendary local veal and beef. The vegetables are grown organically, most are taken from Leni's garden. The grains -- oats, flour, rice --and legumes -- beans, lentils -- are primarily organic. We have porridge every day for breakfast and usually some lentil-veggie-rice combination or soup for lunch and dinner, complemented with locally-produced bread and cheese. I think everyone knows that vegetarian meals, aesthetically, can leave much to be desired.

Matt washes much of his laundry in the tub, and then it's hung outside on a line. Okay, that's not so unusual. We might go four days without showering. Leni says the air is cleaner out here so it becomes unnecessary to shower as often. I say, when we're digging around in the dirt each day, what's the point. We may all have gone that long while, say, camping, but this has become somewhat routine over the past three weeks. I worry about ticks and stinging nettles. We find slugs in our salads. And when I fantasized winter-long about this trip, the thought of sharing living space with giant house spiders didn't once cross my mind. My extended stays in northern Michigan should have taught me better. If it's rural, damp, and you are living in a house built of wooden beams -- there are going to be spiders. Hundreds, no, thousands of them. In the garden, there are small jumping spiders and ones with large, tan abdomen. In the house, there are leggy vibrating spiders and three-inch-wide house spiders that squish like grapes if you kill them with a paper towel. I have become much more comfortable around smaller spiders than I was before I came, to say the least.

One of the most difficult parts of daily life is to act as the secondary homeowner. Obviously this is Leni's home. She welcomes us as guests, but still expects us to share household responsibilities. Everyone has his or her methods to run a home -- how often to clean, whether to use sponges or rags, how to properly wash the dishes, where to store the whisk -- and I have to continually find the proper balance between following Leni's preferred methods and wanting to accomplish something without needing to ask her how she wants it done. As a competent adult, I would be able to complete any of these tasks (to my own satisfaction) entirely on my own. But it's not my home and not my place to exert control. So far I haven't had any major trouble, of course, but I am constantly reminded of my experiences with my host mother in Paris, and how much everything I did seemed to upset her (and let us not forget, vice versa).

I'm outside in the patio area now, utilizing my post-breakfast quiet time to update this blog and enjoy the intermittent sunshine. There's a darling hummingbird, no larger than a silver dollar coin including the wings, I had first mistaken for a bee, suckling a flowering sage. A home-brewed tonic for the tomato plants is sitting in a large stew-pot beside me on the table. This afternoon I'll boil it so that it's ready for when Corinne returns from work. Every now and then a speedy military jets soars overhead, a sound and sight so unfitting to this locale that it causes my heart to beat manically every time it happens. Otherwise, it's just the sound of my fingers tapping the keyboard and the birds.

2009-05-18T00:04:00.008+02:00

Well, things have certainly picked up around here. We had a real Friday evening (including dressing up out of our work clothes and into clean jeans). With Leni and an American friend of hers, painter Sophie Hawkes, we drove to an exhibition and poetry reading at the Centre des lives d'artistes in Saint-Yrieix-la-Perche (about 45 minutes by car). The national book collection is housed in a very beautiful, modernized space -- except it is still quite small (apparently has only two or three full-time staff members) and needs to improve its access to the general public. From what I understand, the center is a free viewing and research library, except the books are at least presented to be off-limits to visitors. Perhaps one must make a reservation or have a membership to really explore, or maybe I was just too shy. The exhibition was on Romanian collagist and poet Ghérasim Luca, but also showed a hodge-podge of documentation from a number of artists associated with Fluxus. The reading of Luca's writing, half of which is what I would call concrete poetry, was performed by Michael Lonsdale, a recognized Anglo-French actor. Lonsdale has a sophisticated, well-practiced voice and the reading was a pleasure to attend. Audio of Luca's work can be found on UBU -- check out one of his poems read aloud (in French, désolée) with additional music provided by Colleen.

After the reading, the four of us went out for pizza, where the pitfalls of applying critical theory to poetry before the aura of a reading dissipates was the hot topic for discussion.

On Saturday we returned to the exhibition space to spend a little more time with the Fluxus documentations, and then Sunday morning was our village's randonnée. At 9 in the morning, we stumbled over to the village square (the parking lot of the restaurant) with Corinne, Leni's daughter who is visiting from Paris for her birthday, for a 12 km (about 7.5 miles) hike through the forest, past farms, along the river, and up steep, muddy hills. Despite the group falling apart and a little confusion about the right directions to take, it was lots of exercise in the sun and it felt great. Afterwards was a large potluck, starting with an apéritif, various salads (coleslaw, macaroni, beet, carrot), then a slice of pork, then sausage, camembert, and ending with far too many slices of cake (tiramisu, fruit pie, custard, crumble). We relaxed for an hour or so to digest, and then got to work in the garden. The project for the next couple of days is to prepare the duck house in the meadow. Yesterday we lined the base of the house with a thick stone barrier to prevent drafts. Today we'll paint the sides with a turpentine and linseed oil mixture to prevent weathering, as well as mend a fence and hopefully put up some wood or metal on the front door to prevent foxes and weasels from sneaking in and eating the poultry.

Our big project over the weekend was mainly decorating the bath in the barn (also known as the gîte, where we are staying). The tub sits on the wooden floor, and Leni found an old barrel that she wanted to take apart and use to line the outside of the tub -- so that it looks like a barrel bathtub. We put some wax on the wooden planks and then situated them so that they fit evenly around the tub. Now we're waiting for some industrial glue to affix them into place. I think it looks great, and when it's finished (and if I remember) I will post a picture of the project.

Good news! The corn we planted the other week is growing. For some reason the red corn is germinating easier than the yellow, so we will have to investigate.

2009-05-14T19:00:00.003+02:00

It has been calm, cool and quiet, these past few days. Clouds and drizzly showers throughout the day, thunderstorms at night. Plants (and weeds) are growing like crazy, especially the roses. The church chimes its bell three times daily, the sound carries far, the number of rings indeterminable.

I've become a little restless at being cooped up inside for so long. Yesterday I swore I could feel my anxiety pulsating inside my ears, if not actually hear it. I have been alternating cooking days, eating leftovers every other meal. This week we experimented with eggplant parmigiana, an Indian curry, baked macaroni and cheese with Gouda and Parmesan, and both sweet and savory crepes. Matt's at his computer. I have picked a couple collections of poetry from the library, forcing myself to stop reading when a mood is brought on.

We have found projects around the house to take on (dusting, killing spiders, running the Hoover). But when it hasn't been raining, we have been going on small expeditions. Like 5 km bike rides along latitudinally-enhanced country roads. On Monday we woke up very (frightfully) early to bike to Excideuil, where we caught a bus to Perigueux (the capital of the Dordogne). There they have the very striking cathedral of Saint Front, which has been named a Unesco World Heritage Site. The original entrance dates to Merovingian times, and the remainder of the church was built in the 11-12th and the 17-18th centuries. The cathedral was renovated by the same architect (Paul Abadie) who designed Sacré Coeur in Montmartre. Perigueux is a very old city -- it is also famous for its Gallo-Roman towers and ruins. The ancient amphitheater is now a public park with stone arches marking the multiple entrances. A tower, a former temple, was constructed in the first century and reaches nearly 90 feet high.

Other days for us are less busy. Maybe a ride to local villages like Genis or Chervais-Cubas, or a hike down muddy paths that run along the river and past the old paper mill. In the evenings we like to watch a movie. So far we've see some real pick-em-uppers: Dog Day Afternoon, Memento, and Badlands.

2009-05-14T18:42:00.004+02:00

I.
Your arrival came unanticipated, an interruption
To an otherwise uneventful evening.
We had hastily abandoned our comfortable station at the faucet, leaving
The water to run and the basin full of soaped up dishes
And had thrown our bodies to the floor
As you made your manic circles over the stove.

II.
A few minutes into daybreak, we readied
Our foolhardy selves for the hunt.
Wearing a Panama unraveling at the crown and wielding
A feather-duster flail, Matthew led, as I, his Pancho,
Cloaked in deerskin gloves and a veil of terry,
Brought up the rear of our two-man procession.

III.
We journeyed throughout the house, leaving in our wake
Ignited lamps and open windows, portals for your escape,
Hoping to ensure we would not have to bear
The brunt of your brutal assaults and virulent hate.

The chimney was empty and the library clean;
Not until we had climbed the precipitous stair,
was your wicked and outlandish lair,
frightfully foreboding, finally seen.

Slowly the curtain was pulled, exposing your den,
And with waves of confusion did this sight send,
For there laid a thick trail, littering the approaching path,
Not of victims nor jewels, but mid-century bric-à-brac.

Yet, still haunted by your winged hand,
Not a minute longer could we withstand.

My hero took up his weapon, handing the wall heavy blows.
I stood behind, To Hell with Thoreau!

Envisaging a ferocious brood, an enraged family
To screech, barrel and swoop, (at best) a calamity,
We had at that moment caught on
That you, black ghost, were not just solitary,
But wholly -- and embarrassingly -- imaginary.

Sometime late last week we discovered there was a bat in Leni's half of the house. As our hostess was spending the week in London, it was Matt and I's duty to get the thing taken care of. Here's a little poem I wrote about the experience, with (as some of you may recognize) apt guidance and inspiration from the great battle epic, Beowulf.

2009-05-10T14:22:00.005+02:00

From "Neighbourly help in high Pyrenees" by Kathy Flower:

Seventy years ago, in the harsh winter of 1939, [Madame Genis'] family were among half a million Spanish refugees who poured across the French border.

They were fleeing the firing squads after Franco's victory in the Spanish Civil War.

Initially interned in camps, the refugees eventually settled, finding jobs in farming or the vineyards. Their Catalan work ethic blended in with French rural traditions of self-sufficiency.

The remoteness of the Pyrenees has attracted other settlers too.

After the social upheavals of 1968, many hippies abandoned the big cities and came here, bucking the trend for people to leave the land.

They scratch a living from their scruffy farmsteads, and keep up the tradition of neighbour helping neighbour.

Last autumn, on the day that Lehmann Brothers collapsed, my neighbours Henrique and Gianno appeared on the doorstep, armed with chainsaw and rope.

They offered to cut down some dead trees in the garden if they could keep the wood in exchange.

The reality of this simple transaction was in sharp contrast to the unreality of the virtual fortunes, vanishing like smoke across the world's capital cities.

Matt and I were just chatting about this on yesterday's evening walk. We feel so much calmer here, and not only because of the fresh country air. We are currently unemployed. If we were lacking work at home, the media frenzy over the failed economy would have our anxieties running high. Here, we have to go out of our way (about an hour's drive) to find a recognizable newspaper. In fact, I find myself a little crazy to be checking the online versions of the papers at all.

That is not to say the community here is immune to financial woes. Some people in this village are trying to retire -- but cannot find someone to buy the farms that have been in their family for generations. The community buys the goods because they are what's available, in addition to the fact that it has been buying them for years. But without the founding family standing behind the farm, there is really no way to keep it afloat. The cost of renting the land and the equipment would equal, if not exceed, the net profit. Perhaps with an overhaul of pre-existing marketing plans (or, as the French are lagging behind, even an introduction of contemporary marketing schema) could turn this position around.

2009-05-10T13:04:00.003+02:00

Perhaps strange

The world is full of goods trains
The passengers are cows
And milk and butter.
And cheese and lovely marmelade
And bulls and horses,
And cocks and hens.
The cow is mother to the milk,
And grandma both to cheese and butter.
The cheese is cousin to the marmelade.
The horse is cousin to the cock
The hen lays eggs.
The egg is cousin to the cheese and butter,
The son and daughter of the milk.
Isn't it strange?
It is.

Kurt Schwitters, "I Build My Time"

2009-05-09T12:20:00.006+02:00

From "The Starter Garden," by Michael Tortorello, in this week's NYT online:

If I had started my garden at almost any point after 1940, I likely would have fertilized it with bagged chemicals from the store. These products come with clearly labeled dosages of the three essential plant nutrients: nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. Without this trinity, my starter garden would be a stunted garden — or a cemetery.
Initially, I’d been willing to experiment with chemistry. There’s nothing “natural” about a vegetable garden, after all; my patch would be the product of thousands of years of human meddling. But a few calls to green-gardening evangelists convinced me that spreading synthetic fertilizers is now considered roughly the equivalent of spanking a child: bluntly effective, but verging on criminal. And definitely not something you want to do in the front yard. These products work quickly but their effects don’t last, and they have a dirty habit of trickling into waterways.

Many farmers in this area look down upon those who are still using synthetic fertilizers, as well as chemical weed killers, of course. Leni keeps two compost piles so that she will always have compost available for use. She doesn't add chemicals (she might use nettles as an activator), and she only puts in raw food (cooked food attracts rats). She also has been experimenting with weed drying (versus burning) so that she can use the weeds as additional compost. She keeps a large tarp spread open in the meadow, throws the weeds on top to dry in the sun, and flips them every few days to make sure all of the roots have dried out completely. One Englishman Matt and I met who has been living in the Dordogne claimed that he had seen people (anti-growers, it seems to us) equipped with the pump and pack familiar to all weed killers spraying along walkways or in front yards, slaughtering imaginary beasts. Surely a manageable compromise can be reached.

2009-05-07T16:24:00.005+02:00

Our days have been starting at about 8:30 in the morning, much to our delight and surprise. I always had the idea that, as farmers, we would have to rise with the sun. Perhaps this is because the farm where we are staying is not exactly a farm. It is not commercial, at least.

Leni, our hostess, has been living on the property full-time for about eight years. With a love of gardening and a strong commitment to the Slow Food movement, she has turned the grounds into several plots of vegetable gardens, a terrace with herbs and a collection of blossoming walnut and fruit trees. The part of the house where we are staying is an 18th-century barn that Leni has restored -- it is absolutely beautiful, with limestone brick walls and a combination of wood and natural stone floors. For the entire day the building is full of natural light. For the most part, we keep the doors and windows open. The barn is not heated, and without the assistance of the sun and the breeze, it would never get warm.

Our first day was chilly, so cold we were positive we could see our breath. I regretted packing so many t-shirts and only one sweater (cashmere, no less). Since then it has been wonderful, just warm enough for jeans and a tank top, but not too hot for a bit of work outdoors.

Our village, Anlhiac, is quite small, with a population hovering around 300. To better understand the scale, the regional map labels each village, and within each village, shows a small black square representing each farm. That is to say, Leni's house is represented on the regional map. Anlhiac has one restaurant, which also is the local café, bar, tabac, and bread shop. There is also the local church, but everything else is rural residence. We are in the department of Dordogne, also known as Périgord. Périgord itself is divided into four smaller areas: the white, black, green and purple. Black Périgord is where the infamous black truffle mushrooms were originally found and are now commercially grown. The region is the next-to-last most populated region in France -- the last being the island of Corsica -- but over 5,000 castles can be found within it. Nearby there are Roman ruins, as well as the ancient Lascaux cave paintings. To our northwest are the towns of Excideuil and Thiviers. To our southwest, the capital of the region, Périgueux. To our direct east, Brive. The landscape is very hilly and especially green this time of year.

The nights are still and quiet with the exception of an orchestration of frogs living in the hillside spring. The cockrel next door wakes us in the morning (in the case that our cell phone alarm doesn't). The owls woo-HOO throughout the day. And the cuckoo's incessant call is enough to pull anyone into their deep madness. The neighbors have a couple of dogs, the one directly across the street keeps a beehive. Leni herself has two fluffy, blue-gray-colored cats, Dexter and Ella. So far my allergies have been fine, except I can feel the asthmatic pull in my chest when working in the sun.

For our first few days, we shared the bedroom with another WWOOFer -- a curious and brave home-schooled teenaged girl (Sunshine) from a large family in Arizona. Last Tuesday she left for another farm farther south. Before Matt and I arrived, there was another couple WWOOFing with Leni. Their names were Eric and Katie, and if you are curious, you can follow their blog here: bagues et baguettes.

Leni is a (almost) 60-year-old published poet, coming from a half-British and half-Dutch background. She left London for Anlhiac several years ago, and she has managed to immerse herself fluently with the local community. We share many interests (Brazilian poetry, Bob Dylan, Pedro Almodóvar, David Lynch, tracking the effects of internet culture and other predominant social trends), so I consider her library and music collection a blessing. She possesses a near-encyclopaedic knowledge of plants and is eager to pass this information along to her volunteers. Already Matt and I have planted herbs, geraniums and lime trees, and have sowed seeds to grow corn. As part of our WWOOFing experience, we went on a walk with Leni to collect trees for her live willow bench-weaving project. We have weeded, spread mulch, and hacked clay to soften the soil in her vegetable garden. Last Saturday, she generously arranged for Matt and I to participate in an orchid walk, originating in nearby Excideuil. The walk was mapped at seven kilometers, but took several hours considering how often the group stopped to leave the path in search of rare specimens. I pictured groups of middle-aged French women walking through a field, possibly even sipping tea, while pointing fingers at colorful buds. Instead, the randonnée involved guidebooks, walking sticks and extraordinarily large camera lenses.

An integral part of our stay here is the focus on growing, harvesting, preparing and eating of food. Slow Food, they call it. Leni doesn't use pesticides and tries to avoid food products (and even manure) that may have involved the use of pesticides. Working within these limits has been an entirely fruitful (har) experience thus far. The milk and cheese we use comes from a nearby dairy farm. The bread, a local baker. When I made a salad the other day, I walked out to the garden, identified the spinach and started cutting. It's fresh, healthy, incredibly cost effective and, so far, fun! Sometimes the plants have already been looted by snails or tent worms, and to see everyone's hard work go into their mouths and not ours is a bit of a drag.

Our daily lunches and dinners are abundant, vitamin-rich meals. Packaging is kept to a minimum, so our carbon footprint is, too. Leni has a great selection of cookbooks, some of which are entirely vegetarian, so it has not been difficult for us to take turns preparing meals. Wednesday we assembled crêpes with eggs and cheese. To work off all of this energy, we spend approximately four hours a day outside in the garden or the meadow. One morning Matt and I cleaned the windows of the barn, and we did a fine job of dusting out the cobwebs -- and killing the largest spider we've ever seen outside of a zoo.

2009-05-05T19:40:00.007+02:00

I will be posting from barns, meadows and surely surly cafés in Southwestern France. Disenchantment with the small city of my Alma mater and discouragement from the current economic situation has sent me packing once again. This time I have a partner, Matthew, and we have joined an international group for young people learning about serfdom and voluntary servitude first hand -- in short, WWOOF. In all actuality, it is an incredible organization where people looking to reconnect with the earth and other cultures can contact farms who need some extra help in exchange for food and board. If any of this sounds interesting to you, read on.

***

It's 7:40 in the evening here in Anlhiac, and dinner's late by ten minutes. I'm at the kitchen table reading today's Herald Tribune (a struggle between Donald Trump and a Scottish land-owner, more protests in French prisons and universities) when Matt calls me over to stir the polenta. I make my way to the stove, hobbling as the rugged stone floor kneads my weary feet. As I stir the cornmeal in the classic volcanic orange, cast-iron Le Creuset casserole dish, he slices carrots that were organically grown and harvested less than one-hundred meters away. Out of the window I can see the neighboring farm's cattle graze on the hillside meadow, led by a large bull the size of the devil's kitchen table and who occasionally bellows something out of Jurassic Park. This particular breed of cattle is named Limousin, after the region where they originated -- and where I am currently living. They are perhaps one of the most famous breeds raised for beef (and, here and in Italy, their veal) and their chestnut coloring makes them easy to spot among the lush countryside. They are found lurking behind bends in walking paths, and after being warned my first day that they could be a bit aggressive, I learned to watch for the first defensive move: a turn sideways, showing their great size, is guaranteed to intimidate.

What took me out of Ann Arbor's safety net and transplanted me on this small, rural estate? When I met Matt just over a year ago, he told me about WWOOF. He was interested in organic farming and had learned about the organization from a stall at the Kerrytown Farmer's Market. He didn't know where to go next, but was a little anxious to leave Michigan. I was less than enthusiastic about sticking around, and with all of the current economic turmoil, I figured I could get away with postponing (still) important decisions -- mainly, sorting out a satisfactory, introductory career. With the management job I held this winter, I was able to pay off most of my debt and save something sufficient to make this trip happen. Sometime in the middle of winter, between working late nights and groaning about having found no resolution to the endless exploration of graduate schools, scholarships and potential careers, we decided to WWOOF.

His original destination was Italy. When we decided to be partners in a cross-Atlantic journey, a compromise was made. I speak French and German. Neither of us speak Italian. We planned two-and-a-half months on farms in southern France and possibly three months in Berlin. Now we are in the very first leg, but I feel great progress has already been made.

2009-02-01T03:46:00.004+01:00

I wouldn't mind waking up to find this stashed in my sheepskin slipper.

Tea Attack, the sharkfin-shaped tea diffuser: http://www.chow.com/pick/7120

2009-01-17T16:58:00.002+01:00

I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the new Jóhann Jóhannsson album, Fordlandîa.

2009-01-16T22:17:00.004+01:00

Outside it is beyond-freezing cold (currently 1° Fahrenheit), but in my apartment I might as well be roasting chestnuts. As usual, I'm about three weeks behind Time and am just now catching up to Christmas. The record player spins the Nutcracker Suite (Bernstein, the New York Philharmonic), and a loaf of pumpkin-carrot-raisin bread bakes in the oven. The first loaf turned out heavy, moist, and especially well-seasoned. I made my own pumpkin pie spice out of allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. The recipe calls for one tablespoon and two teaspoons of the spice, but I guessed there were four teaspoons in a tablespoon and, well, there's not. I will be using the leftover pumpkin puree to make some cookies. Today I bought a glass bread pan from Meijer, but it seems to have partially broken in the oven. Sadly, the loaf has some shards here and there. I suppose it will stop me from inhaling the whole thing at once.

Matt has another show this evening at the Blind Pig. Something tells me this is not the last of the band's shows before we take off. (As for the band, they recently won the third spot for MTv's Subterranean Indie Music Video of the Year award, and this week they received a rather favorable review on Pitchfork.) And as for taking off, I have no more information to offer. We have set up a half-baked Plan A, and here's to hoping we will not be needing to cook up a Plan B. We are currently waiting for some e-mails from Berlin and my job, letting me know whether or not I have been granted a store transfer. Until then, no vacations, no silk tops, not much of anything (except for baked goods). Matt's been awarded a writing scholarship to Prague, but it is still all up in the air at this point.

For Christmas my dad was generous enough to give me money to buy a new laptop. I have had my Powerbook for over five and a half years. I am in no hurry to give it up, but my 'T' has a permanent stick, and it lags like an an overweight labrador. May I say once more, this has been the best machine I have ever worked with. I have doubts that the new MacBook will be able to perform up to my expectations, but I will try to be a bit more optimistic.

Optimism. Isn't that the word of the season.

I was especially (and not terribly wrongly) optimistic about my first loaf of homemade bread. Last week I made a loaf of white (with a little bit of wheat flour worked in). It was delicious, made good toast just like the recipe had promised. But it didn't rise enough. I beat the hell out of the dough, but it still wound up looking like a run-over baguette than a bread suitable for peanut butter sandwiches. I will be trying again. Hopefully this time I will get started before 9:30 at night.

On Wednesday, Matt and I made plans for a date out to Detroit; our success was moderate.The MOCAD (Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit) is in between exhibitions. Due to terrible weather, our arrival to the Detroit Institute of Arts was delayed and we only had an hour and twenty minutes to run through the museum. We were unable to find a decent café (the Cass Café was a bar, Amsterdam Espresso burned down last year, Traffic Jam was too much of a restaurant, the Mercury Coffee Bar was not at our fingertips), so we inched in rush hour traffic through metro Detroit up to Birmingham, ate some gnocchi and fettucine alfredo at Buca di Beppo, and snuck into the movies. It was our fate to see Gran Torino, a Clint Eastwood modern-day samurai western with race cars set in none other than our Motor City. It is a strange movie, folks. The bad acting is overwhelming. The racial slurs are not funny, although a large majority of the audience seemed to think they were. Some of the thugs wear American Apparel. Not to say that it was all bad, but quite unusual for a Hollywood blockbuster-type. The blatant criticism of upper-middle-class Midwestern family values was a first for me, but spot-on.

This past New Year's Eve passed peacefully. Matt and I house- and dog-sat in his brother's farmhouse while he was down in Oklahoma. We burned a few firecrackers that I picked up from the dollar store, and we prepared what is perhaps my favorite dinner to date. Coconut tofu keema over basmati rice with flatbread and sautéed spinach. I don't recall the exact alterations I made, but I cut out a substantial amount of the tomato sauce and in place of the red pepper paste added in some red curry paste. With only one glass of scotch and some coffee, we all (the two of us with the two dogs and two cats) watched the ball drop on CNN. The next morning we watched The Assassination of Richard Nixon on television, and went to a New Year's Day showing of Milk at the Michigan Theater. I never realized how great Sean Penn is until I saw these two movies (or who he was, for that matter). Milk comes from me highly recommended.

The beginning of this month I purchased a continuing student membership to the University's gym facilities. Several times a week, usually after work, I go to the CCRB and run laps (3 miles' worth) around the indoor track. Despite it making quite a difference being inside and on a completely flat track, I still impress myself by keeping an average of 7.5-minute miles and by running a near-5k in 22:30 the first day -- my best time seven years ago.

Ah, Nina Simone. You come close to being the cure to my recurring nightmares. My post-graduation anxieties have not gone far -- I still struggle to find things that I am good at doing, to recognize those that I am not, to discover how much ambition is healthy to have, to realize prestige is worth only so much, to strike the balance between adult independence and familial abandonment. I suspect that these troubles plague all adult lives, that they will not be coming to a stop anytime soon.

2008-12-24T17:58:00.002+01:00

This article was not written by me, but if you take a minute to read through, you will see why I wanted to post it here.

http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/commentary/imomus/2006/06/71172

I love his description of the Turkish market and the strange commerial/restuarant/living room/atelier spaces one finds scattered around"Neubeca." The "cultural organization" he refers to is most likely the Klaus Kinski one I photograped and posted in my Flickr.

2008-12-17T03:16:00.003+01:00

Almost four months. Already? Is it really possible? I thought that after the four-month mark I was supposed to feel somewhat settled. Instead, neither my apartment nor my job suit me. The apartment keeps me warm from the outside elements. The job pays. But I'm as anxious as ever to move on. It pains me to spend each new day in Ann Arbor when there are so many other places I could be (for better or worse, I suppose). I'm starting another lap around a track small enough that I can see every bend from the starting line, but large enough to make me want to sacrifice my remaining dignity and feign a sprained ankle. No one is even keeping time. Maybe I could duck out halfway through and jump over the fence without anyone noticing.

Last week I took the German proficiency test (the equivalent to my final exam). I did well, even better than I had expected -- a High Pass (Or A, or 1, depending on with which system one is
familiar). I am very pleased with myself. Theoretically, my German and French should be equal. I have finished the 2-year programs in both languages, and spent just about 4 months in both Germany and France. Although it has slipped significantly in the past year, I feel more fluent speaking French. But German unleashes my writer's voice. I hated writing in French. German has such wonderful words (again, Raumkultur) and forces me to clarify my structure.

I took my mom to the Jerusalum Symphony Orchestra for her birthday, when they played here at the Hill Auditorium. Last week I went to the Wilco and Neil Young concert with Matt and his parents. I have watched Herzog's "Aguirre: The Wrath of God" and Wenders's "Der Himmel über Berlin" ("Wings of Desire"). Yesterday I downloaded Bon Iver's album, "For Emma, Forever Ago" and Department of Eagles, "In Ear Park."

This morning I made myself some treats. After following a recipe from The Flexitarian Diet that called for chopped dates in my usual bowl of oatmeal instead of brown sugar, I found a recipe online for oatmeal date bars. I replaced the date sugar with brown sugar, used quick-cooking oatmeal, unbleached white flour, and organic chopped walnuts. I don’t have a square pan, so I used a round one and ended up with slices instead of bars. They taste delicious, but the best part was the warm, lingering smell of roasting nuts and carmelized brown sugar.

2008-11-13T02:34:00.003+01:00

Despite the reality of mid-November rain showers and sleet storms, the proverbial clouds have lifted. Since last week's elections, things have been feeling good. Late Tuesday evening, I, like millions of Americans, felt proud to be an American. When I was living in Paris, my distaste for the local culture charged me with a new-found americanism. But when I was back in Europe, disenchanted by my experience with the culture and politics of my own fatherland, I hardly resisted being identified as Dutch. Scandinavian. Anything else. Any sort of exoticism would have done me well.

I realize that many of us will be disappointed with Obama's future performance as president. He won't be as liberal as we want him to be. Or if his proposals are, they will also be controversial enough to be checked by other legislative bodies. I am impressed with what he has (we have) achieved so far, with Obama's amazing swoop of a campaign. I can't wait to see what happens with our country, regardless of which side of the lake I'll back watching from.

Of course it helps that I have found a job. And that they will pay me well. And will give me more responsibility than most of my former employers saw fit.

This past week I engaged myself in a sewing project. I made myself an early-winter poncho from tan plaid woolen suiting and a charcoal "lightweight polyester fleece that transports moisture moisture away from your skin and is inherently flame resistant." (Pictures coming soon?) Because it's not knit, it should probably technically be called a cape, but I would prefer to keep the image of a superhero strolling the streets of Ann Arbor out of your head.

While scooping myself dinner from the hot bar at the People's Food Co-op sometime last week, I decided to give kale a try. It has a bit of a bitter taste, but I find it far more tolerable than arugula. Anyway, this evening I tried a recipe for kale chips. After tearing the leaves off a few stalks, I ripped them into chip-size chunks. I rinsed them well in cold water, drained, and dried them off with a paper towel. Then I tossed them with a teaspoon or so of olive oil. I spread them out on a baking sheet, then sprinkled them with my roommate's coarse kosher salt. 12 minutes at 350 degrees did the trick.

They don't really taste anything like potato chips. But they are greasy, and they are salty. So they are delicious. Plus, I figure they retain a lot of their nutrients. They aren't thick like potato chips are, and they shatter very easily. I warn against stepping on any of the chips you may accidentally drop on the oriental rug, and I do not recommend baking sugar cookies on the same baking sheet before (at least) washing it off.

Yesterday I spent a couple hours making lasagna. I followed this recipe with a couple alterations. I used:

1/2 lb. ground beef
1/2 medium sweet white onion, diced
1/2 large green pepper, diced
1 glove garlic, minced
1 large box of dry lasagna noodles
26 oz. red pepper and garlic-flavored pasta sauce
14 oz. stewed tomatoes (sliced, but not diced)
3 oz. tomato paste
1 tub of ricotta cheese
3 cups of mozzarella
1 1/2 tablespoons light brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons oregano
dash of chili powder
splash of white wine vinegar

(Note: I left out the mozzarella)

I don't have a large pot in which to cook all of my lasagna noodles at once, so I snapped them in half and boiled two 3-quart pots of water, one after the other. To keep my first set of noodles from sticking too much, I left them piled in a shallow pan sitting in the sink filled with cool water. Every ten minutes or so I would run more cool water on the noodles and carefully separate them. In the end, one could say I ran out of sauce -- I prefer, that I was making my own low-calorie recipe.

Things I would do differently the next time:
Make sauce first and let it simmer while boiling the noodles.
Borrow lasagna pan and aluminum foil before starting to cook.
Invite friends over to help me eat the damn thing.

Yes We Can

2008-11-04T15:11:00.001+01:00

2008-11-03T00:31:00.007+01:00

It's been just over two months since I've been back in the States, in Ann Arbor, the city I thought I left behind forever six months ago. I intend to keep this (the blog) going. Some of you had your doubts. For that I can offer an explanation. In short, I have been busy, without the internet, and without much desire to start writing again.

In the past two months I've trudged over sand dunes in northern Michigan, made my longest drive alone to visit Karen and her cozy gingerbread house in Ithaca, and visited my family more often than I have in a long while. My job at the bookshop stopped much sooner than I had anticipated, and for all of October I was left unemployed. As a result I have been implementing the spectacular budgeting (and cooking!) skills I cultivated in Berlin. I have done a minimal amount of shopping since returning, which is especially difficult given that they opened a new Whole Foods not too terribly far from my apartment. This week I finally caved in and purchased some warmer pants for my chilly fall runs and (as yet unrealized) trips to the gym.

After a few tough weeks of looking, I found an apartment right downtown. My roommate is generous, amusing, and predominately absent. We have both slept in the apartment at the same time only once. The apartment has wooden floors, a living room spilling over with Danish modern furniture, books of impeccable taste, a record player and plenty of LPs, and a working Rhodes electric piano. The privacy lends itself well to practicing my Beethoven, and it is only a block away from the food co-op and the bus that takes me up to campus. The only downside is an apparent infestation of house centipedes.

Although the reasons are becoming (immer mehr) unclear, I have been continuing my German course at the university. Nearly all of my friends have graduated and left town, leaving the folks at NPR as my primary sources of entertainment. I notice a similarity between being in Ann Arbor now and being abroad. When abroad, I do a lot of listening and not so much talking. That's due equally to not knowing anybody and having to deal with a foreign language. I am restricted to ordering food and telling someone I like their shoes. Now I might pass a whole day without saying anything of substance, and it's even more disconcerting in a city I've lived in for over four years.

That said, I haven't been going out too often. Four times to the Blind Pig, twice for Soul Night, once for Matt's band's cd-release party, and most recently for the Yeasayer concert. (I missed most of their set in Berlin, making it for the last two songs only, and bought tickets shortly after coming back.) I did go out this past Friday night for Halloween (I dressed as a mouse -- sort of). I have restarted my semi-obsessive film nights: The Spider, The Mistress and the Tangerine (a documentary about Louise Bourgeois) at the Detroit Film Theatre with Alison, Burn after Reading (which I found entertaining at best and strange that John Malkovich can be more attractive than Clooney and Pitt) at the Michigan Theater with Kebra, several German movies (Gegen die Wand, Auf der anderen Seite/The Edge of Heaven, Die Stille nach dem Schuß/The Legends of Rita, Sonnenallee, Goodbye Lenin), The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (which I loved despite it being very painful), Down by Law (I had to round out my Jarmusch), The Shining (which provoked a number of embarassingly audible squeals), No Country for Old Men (excellent, but not nearly as good as There Will Be Blood), Be Kind Rewind (unfortunately boring), Le Gai savoir/The Joy of Learning (a dare I say "instructional" Godard), the very beginning of Alphaville (I fell asleep, film noir is not my thing), and The Other Boleyn Girl.

I recently finished Calvino's The Baron in the Trees, which was magical and sad and everything Calvino's work is and should be. Also picked up: In Praise of Idleness by Bertrand Russell (my god-send question-mark), The $12 Million Stuffed Shark by Don Thompson (who by explaining the economics of auction houses completely kills the personality of art), and A Short Life of Trouble: Forty Years in the New York Art World (the memoir of curator Marcia Tucker), and some of the house Rimbaud. Currently I am re-reading Amy Hempel's collected stories in preparation for her upcoming visit to the university.

And what have I not mentioned? My god, the Election! Two days! This is an exciting time for us Americans. I am looking forward to being a (small) part of this (pathetically huge) accomplishment. My absentee ballot has already been cast. And may I never speak to the soul who doesn't get out there this Tuesday and vote. (Let's hear it for Obama, the man who is willing to actually work to fix our country!) There are also two proposals on the Michigan ballot: the first wants to legalize the use of marijuana for medical purposes and the second wants to extend state laws on stem cell research to match those on the federal level. I personally recommend voting yes on both of these. If a desperate, but all-around healthy man can ruin his life with alcohol, then why shouldn't a terminally ill man be allowed to ease his suffering with an altogether natural and time-tested medicine?

What now? Last year I made Berlin my goal, my project, my pet and my love. When I decided to come back to the States, it was under the general assumption that I would be returning to Europe in the not-too-distant future. If things failed to work out with Matt, I would resume my German adventure where I left it. In the ideal situation, he would return with me as my partner in crime. In some ways, everything is going according to plan. But perhaps that is only because the plan was always very simple: return home, resume the relationship, decide on the next step. I feel it's about time to be giving serious thought to this Next Step. Moves, especially when they involve crossing large bodies of water or driving across the country in the middle of winter, aren't planned and executed overnight. I'm ready to start conquering this project -- but time (and money) is needed before much more can be done. One fantasy we've come up with so far includes WWOOFing (volunteering on organic farms) in France and Switzerland, and then moving on to settle semi-permanently in Berlin (my choice). A more realistic alternative involves moving out to Seattle, where Matt can find a farm and I can find a museum or publisher (or, gasp, Amazon) to take me under their wing. In short, we aren't sure. It depends largely on what employment I find in the meantime -- how much money I'll be able to save, what professional experience I accrue over the next four months.

Have I regretted leaving Berlin in the first place? Sure. The days when I am happy with the decision I made outnumber the others, although my regrets have been increasing over the past couple of weeks as my anxieties over having to make decisions about what I want escalate. I am eager to stay in touch with Berlin any way I can... and I miss very much the few good friends I made while I was there. I wish some of them weren't scattering elsewhere around the world, that I could just keep them leashed to a particular place so I would always know where they are.

2008-09-15T03:44:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I was hit by death when
it fell from a second-story window
like droplets, real heavy fucking droplets,
off an air-conditioning unit I didn’t
recognize until I climbed the fire escape
and peered down below
at the middle-aged couples
on the café terrace and saw balding heads
turn bony shoulders wrapped loosely in thinning skin
away from glasses of red wine, slowing their easy movements
in hushed respect of the man and his pastoral sobriety wheeled away
from his evening broadcast and nightcap,
cool in his undershirt dirtied with bread crumbs and
unruly toothpaste and boxers of dust bunnies and dried urine maybe
a little rust and sweat from leaning out the window to adjust the satellite
to get a better signal.

My luxury box allowed me
a view of the passing that made me so dizzy I took great caution
to climb back down the iron ladder
to find only the morning’s concrete
unchanged.

2008-08-21T04:14:00.002+02:00

It is 4:15 in the morning. I have cleaned the apartment and packed my bags. Now I wait, trying to finish the bottle of delicious Ukrainian vodka Rachel gave to me. It is a little early/late to be drinking, I admit, but I want to be deep asleep 45 minutes from now. In about 20 minutes, I will leave and head to the airport. After three flights, with a connection in Barcelona and another in Newark, I will be safe and sound back in the States.

This evening I shared a lovely dinner (complete with cupcakes for desserts, of course) with Laszlo, Tom, and Laura at Tom and Laura's Schöneberg apartment. Unfortunately, I do not have much to say other than that I will really miss their company. I am so blessed to have made the acquaintance of these three wonderful people, and I hope to see them all again sooner rather than later.

So, bis bald... und nach Amerika!

2008-08-16T23:36:00.011+02:00

And so I continue on with my thoughts, my fantasies. The weather has been particularly conducive to long bouts of daydreaming. Already the shop mannequins wear tweed newsboy caps and wool gauchos.

Yesterday, for instance, it rained so hard my jeans, sweatshirt, and tote were soaked through by the time I rode my bike to Coffee Cult to meet with Laura for fica (tea and cake). I sat shivering, hands warmed by a glass of yogi chai. At home, I took a warm bath, made some more tea and oatmeal, and curled up under my comforter. Today was quite similar.

The temperature feels like mid-October in the Midwest or like Paris in early spring. I'm not the only one to feel the cool crispness, or to glance suspiciously at the brown fallen leaves as I trample them jogging alongside the canal. My playlists have also shifted toward autumnal sounds; this year the Buena Vista Social Club made it less than a day in my iPod.

I went to a café (San Remo, Falckensteinstr. 46) to eat brunch and to read (Paul Auster, "The New York Trilogy," page 79 or so). I ended up spending most of the time gazing out of the window, watching the rain, watching the bees, watching passerby. Sitting at my table, sheltered from the dreary and damp Saturday afternoon that was waiting for me outside, I was steeping my darling Darjeeling when I watched three musicians (wearing guitar cases on their backs and Rastafarian dreads on their heads) stroll by passing along a joint. I don't think Berlin will ever need to have a designated Hash Bash.

To eat, I ordered an omelet with onions and cheese. The taste of eggs and onions together sent me a year back, thinking of Rodrigo and the Spanish potato omelet he made me in his small Parisian apartment. And later, of our time in Madrid, which was also rainy and chilly, and of trying to explain to the pharmacist that I wasn't pregnant, that I had a bad cold and needed some paracetamol and a large box of tampons.

After having realized I was the last person in the café, I hopped on my bike and returned to the apartment. Mira's picnic was cancelled due to the rain, so I have spent this afternoon at my computer, once again huddled underneath my landlord's comforter and drinking herbal tea.
I have been thinking more about the conversation Laura and I had yesterday, about friendships. Both of us made friendships while abroad with people who we probably would not have been friends with had we been in a more comfortable, familiar situation. For better or worse, we had met people who were also feeling stranded and alienated from a lack of peers, and we befriended them despite large differences in personalities and interests. Sometimes it's easier to connect with these people on a much deeper, more intimate level, because we realize that superficial differences (such as what kind of music we like) truly don't matter. But sometimes it's purely out of panic that these two souls find solace in one another, large amounts of booze gets involved, and the friendship is built on a mutual desperation... not exactly the most stable or healthy foundation. But it's true, this experience does at least temporarily bind two people together very closely.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, it is possible to travel across the world and meet someone with whom I share many interests, with whom I feel intimately and spiritually connected, and yet with whom I can hardly speak a common language.

It's amazing we make friends at all, really.

I love that there are people (only a few, but that alone is plenty) I feel so in touch with that months or years can pass by, or continents can separate us, and our friendship never faults. And (hopefully) they feel the same way.

That's progress.

2008-08-16T20:58:00.003+02:00

This week I made it to the Hamburger Bahnhof, the city's museum of contemporary art. The space is absolutely beautiful -- a former train station, with a glass roof similar to that in the Musée d'Orsay. Lots of natural light filters into the galleries through fogged windows and muslin shades, so the art doesn't have reflections like we saw in the Met (which was beautiful in its own way, but terrible for viewing the art). The façade of the building is decorated with fluorescent blue bars by minimalist Dan Flavin. (Is it not peculiar to decorate with minimalist art?) They had a room exclusively for Joseph Beuys, another for Warhol, and another for Cy Twombly. As I was alone, I decided to pick up one of the audio guides. I found it really helpful for the paintings by Rauschenberg (such as "First Time Painting," 1961) and Twombly ("Free Wheeler," 1955, "School of Fontainebleau," 1960, and "Thyrsis," 1977), neither of whom I have studied much. In the central gallery were several large sculptures and three-dimensional paintings by Anselm Kiefer, whose incredible painting "Athanor" in the Toledo Museum of Art I fell in love with this past year. In the central gallery of the Bahnhof, they have his "Volkszählung" (roughly, "Population Census") from 1991. The installation is a room, a library of oversized iron books sitting on oversized iron bookshelves. Three shelves, stacked on top of each other, reach about 15' high. Look at my pictures on Flickr to get an idea of the scale of the shelves and books in comparison, as well as their texture. Embedded into the pages of the books are thousands of little dots, little peas or seeds, perhaps to represent individual people not to be reduced by the act of conducting a census. I know I'm not alone, but I find Kiefer an intelligent, aware and most importantly, wholly sincere artist. Too many contemporary artists are obsessed with postmodern culture and can't produce anything of substantial merit; there is much to be learned from artists like Kiefer or Richter, theoretically and aesthetically.

There was another gallery showing works by Bruce Nauman and Matthew Barney, a couple pieces from Rachel Whiteread (the mattress, the underside of a table), several minimalist sculptures by Donald Judd.

The two special exhibitions showed sculptor Alicja Kwade (winner of the Piepenbrock Förderpreis, 2008) and photographer Wolfgang Tillmans (winner of the Turner Prize, 2000). Kwade's work impressed me very much. She questions the authenticity of what we consider something's "value" or "worth." For one piece, she took 100 pebbles and stones from the street, shaped and polished them like gemstones, and scattered them on a low, rectangular pedestal. In another, she took over a hundred bricks of coal and plated them with 24-karat gold. She also plates wall and desk clocks with silver, so that they are no longer functional (the time can no longer be read). One of the first pieces in the exhibition was a gracefully poured pile of sparkling green dust -- created by smashing and grinding bottles of champagne.

Tillmans's show was supposed to be the highlighting exhibition. However, I found it too self-indulgent. The show itself was too large, containing way too many pieces. I personally enjoyed the curatorial creativity with which some of his photographs were displayed. And the tables of collaged newspaper clippings and photographs. But too many of his photographs I found too... empty. In one of his statements, Tillmans said that he hoped through his work to reduce all the physical value of his subjects, to make clear that all objects have the same physical value, weight. While I admire this ambition and think his photographs accomplish this, I feel that this fact is also inherent in the photographic medium. I could make the case of a few artists who work with the opposite, who rely on their composition and color to create varying distributions of weight and form. But Tillmans goal has already been reached by many other photographers before him. He doesn't articulate it in a special way. Interestingly, I actually felt a void when viewing most of his work. It was non-photography -- but not in a provocative way. It sounds a little ridiculous, I know, but in my notes I wrote that "he should not be allowed to explore so many topics in one exhibition." There were some great works, but in this particular context it was too much work to seek them out. My favorites might have been from his "Lighter" series (2007/2008), in which the high-gloss images of color fields are bent and crinkled to reflect light and change the hues. These I found very lively and engaging -- perhaps because they were so glossy that it was impossible for the viewer to avoid looking at their own reflection. I also liked: "Tapestry" (2006), the series of the total solar eclipse, "Springer" (1987/88), "Faltenwurf II" ("Submerged II," 2000), and "Kneeling Nude, Dark" (1997). "Kneeling Nude" is a very dark photograph (as it was taken at night), and the viewer has to get very close in order to make out its subject -- a young, nude man wearing a mohawk and nipple pinchers, kneeling so that he faces the viewer, grabbing his dick. I also really liked the "Memorial for Victims of Organized Religions" (for the title, if for nothing else), which is a series of perhaps 48 dark, high-gloss photos arranged in a corner so that they reflected each other, forming a cross or some sort of wheel.

On one of the museum's walls was a quote of Kiefer's, taken from Isaiah: "Grass will grow over your cities." I fully support the truth of this statement. It also reminds me quite explicitly of Weisman's "The World Without Us," which I started reading on the cruise, have yet to finish, but am still recommending to nearly everyone I meet.

My visit to the Bahnhof led me to write up a list of my favorite artists. Here is how it currently stands: Hesse, Beuys, Louise Bourgeois, Claes Oldenburg, Rauschenberg, de Kooning, Sugimoto, Kiefer, Twombly, Rothko, and Cézanne (and Braque and Picasso and the other late 19th-early 20th century modernist masters, of course). There are too many, I suppose, as this list is already so long and yet still not fully comprehensive. And what about Cai Guo-Qiang, or Richard Serra, or all of the amazing contemporary artists I have only encountered once... I just don't know where to stop. How about right here.

2008-08-15T20:54:00.004+02:00

My mind is split in many directions, which means this post will either be incoherent or inclusive, depending on how you look at it.

In just a few days, I will hop on a plane (three of them, actually) to head back to Ann Arbor. Quite often lately I have been asked questions such as: aren't you going to be sad to leave Berlin? are you ready to face the life you thought you had permanently left behind?

And the answers are yes, of course I'm sad to leave Berlin. But the excitement I have about returning to Michigan overwhelms this disappointment. I have done much of what I was hoping to accomplish here, and I will never be done tweaking my life and creating new challenges. Returning to Michigan is my next step, and there is no rule saying I can never come back to live in Berlin.

Of course, there are some things from my summer here that I will not miss. Such as fighting to protect my prized fruits, vegetables and fresh bread from the plague of flies that recently fell upon my kitchen. Or smacking my head onto the wooden shelf that has been nailed next to my pillow when I wake up every morning. Or crashing into clear glass telephone booths when I ride my bicycle in the rain. Or sitting at my computer with a comforter on my lap in the middle of August. Or having nightmares nearly every time I fall asleep.

There is no one who can guarantee me that everything in Ann Arbor will be perfect. I am a rational woman -- I don't expect that to be the case. But, so far, plans are shaping up as well as I could imagine. I have a place to live, which happens to be only one floor below my last apartment. I will be living with a good friend of mine. I have a job -- for now. I ought to be able to continue my German classes. I have a renewed excitement for the arboretum, for Washtenaw county's yoga studios, and for the farmer's market and the co-op. And to see my friends again, even though so many of them have moved elsewhere.

Health-Kick Month began two weeks ago. Every year in early August, I start up a regular exercise regime and attempt a well-balanced diet. I like to ensure that, come my birthday on September 1, I am in the best possible shape I can be. And what are birthdays for, other than to celebrate that we are alive? It seems rather ungrateful to have birthdays pass while taking our health for granted.

Sure, I reflect each year on how I have grown emotionally. But like every other living creature, I also mature physically. And if I am healthy and in good shape, these changes can be welcomed as part of maturation. Otherwise, they are blamed on an ignorant and negligent lifestyle -- which is not nearly as sexy. I prefer to be conscious of what I am capable of, and how these capabilities change from year to year.

So this year I found a Bikram yoga studio here in Kreuzberg. It's a fast 15-minute bike ride from my apartment. For only 10€, I was given an unlimited pass to the studio for 10 days. I attended 7 classes, so I think I definitely got my money's worth. I never tried Bikram before this month, but I really, really enjoyed it. For those who don't know, the room is heated to 40 degrees (about 104 degrees Fahrenheit). I loved having sweat drip off my thumb onto my face during Trikanasana (the triangle pose). I loved having my shorts completely soaked by the end of our 90-minute session. I learned some very specific German vocabulary -- it would be foreign to me now to take a class in English. And after the first week, my flexibility had improved noticeably. I advanced particularly in the 5th (Dandayamana-Janushirasana), 12th (Padangustasana), and the 21st (Ustrtasana) positions. Hopefully there will be a similar course I can take in Ann Arbor. Unfortunately, due to the overhead costs, Bikram is pretty expensive. I will probably have to settle for pilates or another yoga course. We'll see what I can find -- and what I have time for.

The late-evening ride home from class became the highlight of my day. The roads were mostly empty, so I could cruise in the street and listen simply to the city at night. I would pass a beautiful cathedral which was lit up at night. The breeze dried my sweat by the time I reached my apartment.

On the days when I didn't go to yoga, I ran or rode my bike. I am not running regularly, but I have an average distance of 3.5 miles. I do not know how that is possible, but some time spent with Google maps has told me that it is. I have also discovered that if I eat a large lunch, I can manage to run in the evenings. If it is possible to keep that up, I will have a running buddy back in Ann Arbor.

Okay, more to come later. I have a picnic to search out.

2008-08-08T22:24:00.020+02:00

I don't know if I have taken the time to explain my love for Berlin. Before my move (and for the entire first month living here), I truly had no idea what about Berlin drew me in. I was initially interested because I heard it was cheap and alternative. Two Germans I met while vacationing in Barcelona last year made a hard sell, and I promised them I would see it for myself soon enough. After graduating from university, I needed some direction -- and it's my nature to make this a geographical direction rather than something metaphysical. So my attention turned east, and I made Berlin my goal.

Now that I have spent nearly three months living here, I have a much better idea of what the city has to offer. My experiences only begin to touch on all there is to do.

General things I have noticed and love about the city:
Berlin is incredibly colorful. I don't mean to reference its multiethnic population, but that also plays a big part of it. The streets, the water, the trees, and, of course, the architecture are so sensual in their colors and textures. Paris is always gray -- when it's sunny, it's a tranquil, passive gray. When it rains, it's a somber, depressing gray. When it rains in Berlin, it looks like pebbles under shallow water -- the colors and patterns come out even stronger. Of course, there's nothing better than the sunset in Kreuzberg, the golden yellows, petal pinks and cobalt blues doubling themselves in their reflections in the canal.

That said, it is very green. There are many trees and one doesn't have to go far to find a quiet park with benches, ponds, or bocce courts. People are free here to picnic, to barbecue, and to sunbathe nude -- to really enjoy the nature surrounding them.

In many of these parks, there are huge playgrounds with zip lines, climbing walls, and -- best of all -- water fountains in which the kids are allowed to play.

I think other cities could take a cue from Berlin and invest in some man-made beaches.

And bike paths.

The architecture is all over the place. There are Constructivist apartment buildings built of gray, red, and yellow blocks, which are seemingly balanced precariously on top of one another, situated across the street from towering Gothic (Revivalist) churches. Allow me to re-iterate. Especially the Altbaus (the old-style apartment buildings, built before 1949), are painted in every color. There is no shame in living in a lavender or buttercup apartment building. And if there is a free wall, it will be decorated with a mural or in graffiti.

It is just so international. This is globalization, folks -- and I would say, globalization at its best. The languages on signs, food options, lifestyles and cultural quirks from all over the world mesh and work together. From my personal experience, Berlin is less divided than any other city I have lived in. In my neighborhood, for example, I hear more Turkish and French than German, but it only takes a couple of blocks northwest until this changes completely. If I go even a half mile farther, or to the northeast toward Friedrichshain, I hear almost exclusively English. I haven't paid witness to many accounts of overt racism -- unlike in Paris, in Madrid, in Ypsilanti (of course).

There are many, many good-looking people. There are many young people. Still, Berlin has not yet chosen any specific style. It isn't Mediterranean, it isn't Scandinavian. You can get away with wearing whatever you want. Tonight, for instance, I went running (tank top, shorts I never would have dared wearing in Paris) and went I returned to my apartment, party-goers were gathering outside of my door (there is a club hidden in the alley behind my building, naturally). I stood outside for awhile, watching limos arrive, stretching and sweating -- and not feeling too far out of place. Sure, there are parts of the city where men walk the sidewalk in expensive, well-tailored suits and drive BMWs, but there are also corners (not too hidden) that house artist co-ops, squatter villages, and camps for alternative living (sort of like a gypsy camp, only with organic gardens and solar panels on top of the wagons). There is nothing that I would feel uncomfortable wearing in Berlin -- or not wearing. As I said, it's not unusual to find people sunbathing topless or entirely nude.

When I wake up early (or even not so early) in the morning, there are still people coming home from the previous night's parties. They know how to have fun here. And with the exception of smashed glass littering the sidewalks, the families and bio-fiends get on just fine with the party kids. There is a special race of modern hippies inhabiting Berlin. Many people carry monk bags, wear hemp, ride bikes, exclusively shop organic. There is a 5-story department store that carries only organic products. But there are also French gutter punks, Danish shopgirls, Swedish (and Spanish and Italian) architects, African cooks in the Turkish market, British booksellers, American gallerists... you get the idea.

It's just such a real city. Again, I compare it to Chicago, which is also both rough and modern, drawing (and holding on to) many different types of people. Paris is too fantastical; I couldn't find the romance of Paris because I was always too self-conscious of my surroundings. It felt like I was acting in a movie -- except that I was an extra in my own biography. Only the city mattered, the film flaunting the beautiful curves of Haussmann's lavish apartment buildings, historic architecture and monuments, baked goods, and high heels. I can understand what led to Godard's films and the French New Wave movement in general. The subjects simply are not the characters. Living in Paris made me feel so unimportant, useless, and weak. That's French existentialism -- leading me to reject the ego I previously built, which relied so heavily on my existence as a human being who lives in a particular city, and replacing it with the understanding that the city, the world, will go on just fine with me. The lesson to be learned is to enjoy yourself, to delight in the pleasures of the world: strong coffee, long debates, buttery pastries, and beautiful women.

In Berlin, it is much more of a mutual exchange. I feel like I own a physical presence in the city. I feel safe -- but I feel that if I fell down, I would skin my knee on the hard concrete rather than land in a cloud of cotton candy at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. It develops in me a certain existence that I cannot help but find inspirational. Of course, this existence is not entirely self-important. Berlin plays a big part -- politically, socially -- in the contemporary world and I am forced to be aware of it.

Cities like Paris and Rome are described as being like museums. In this analogy, Berlin is both a museum and a gallery. Riding around on my bicycle I see so much history, but also so much potential for a future. This is mostly derived from the incredible amount of public art -- and I do not mean only graffiti.

Berlin has no shortage of housing, so the city's planners can focus on other parts. Cultural development, or, for example, cleaning up the Spree and canal system. Currently, people can boat or kayak in the water, but it is not safe to swim in. They hope to change this and have invested in a project that will have it cleaned by 2011.

In spite of the high unemployment and poor economy of Berlin, the crime rate is surprisingly low. At least in the summer, many take advantage of their free time by lounging in parks and by the canal. I attribute this not entirely to the general passivity of post-war, guilt-ridden Germany. There are too many non-Germans here, and too many young people, for this to be the sole explanation.

In spite of the city's general lack of wealth, there is still a very strong local economy. When the American economy is under pressure, we hide inside our homes, basking in the glow of the television and eating unimaginable amounts of pasta. For less than 5 euros, I was able to purchase today fresh arugula, several tomatoes, peaches, a bunch of bananas, a generous hunk of fresh goat cheese, and a loaf of Arabic bread. Here there are just so many independent cafes, bookstores, galleries... And the rents are just cheap enough for them to survive on minimal business. For now, at least.

Take a look at this article, which I agree with on many points. (It even references Granholm's efforts to revitalize the Michigan economy by nominating and pouring the state's financial resources into chosen "cool cities.")

As a citizen (new, but a citizen nonetheless) of Berlin, I feel that I have a right to say that it is not hollow. It is exactly the opposite of that; I find it incredibly well-rounded. The problem is that internationals move to Berlin to play. They all fall in love with the city, but rarely stay for more than a few years. They have to return home, rekindle relationships with family and old friends, actually earn some money and develop a career. If this group was willing to make the commitment to stay in Berlin and to give back to the city as much as they have taken from it, it has the potential to become an even more incredible place. Presently Berlin is too dependent on these cultural leeches (I should be more sensitive, I am equally at fault on this point).

As I previously described, I think Berlin is the perfect place to raise a family (assuming that jobs are to be found, which may sound like a big assumption, but I know it is possible for those dedicated few). There are elevators in many of the subway stations. It is possible to own a car in the city, but also totally unnecessary. It is not difficult -- or expensive -- to find fresh, organic food and products. There is a new scene for international, bi- or tri-lingual schools. And of course, the water parks. Today I even found a mini-golf course.

I have already fantasized about investing in the city, in purchasing apartments or setting up gallery spaces. I hate to say it, but I suspect I am a few years too late. At this point, the city can really wane either way. I am almost afraid that the popularity of Berlin as a Western European and American art scene, an alternative New York, will make it too trendy and after a span of five years, it will fade away.

It has not been very long since the fall of the wall and the city is still adjusting. Of course, there are the naysayers, those who want the wall to be rebuilt. It is currently run in a very utopian way, which I love, but I cannot always go on being so naive. I do not think it possible for a city this large to continue exactly what it is doing and to win out in the end. Do not get me wrong, I would love to see it happen. First, it must stop being so dependent on its tourism, surviving solely as a cultural hotspot, in order to fill its economic holes. Berlin has depth. It should not be so modest; there is just so much more it has to offer.

2008-08-03T22:03:00.001+02:00

On the express train to Vienna
she writes in her diary
notes about Rome and Naples.

Ink marks like parthenogenetic aphids,
pages like blood smears
of homing pigeons.

She is alone, gray, reconciled,
a Leda long after the swan’s departure,
Odysseus retired at Lotophagitis.

Back home, in Maryland,
the notebook will be interred
in the archetypal drawer,

among the yellowed love letters,
among the infant hair curls,
among the dried adult flowers,

near the cushion where the castrated cat dreams
while Mahler’s forever forever forever
chokes in the green wallpaper.

It is her message to imagined little sons;
it is her membership in the club
of Swifts, Goethes, Rimbauds, Horatiuses and
deathwatch beetles.

It is her monument outlasting bronze,
five-dimensional reality, the last engraving
of primeval man on reindeer bone,

The last drop
of the fluid soul
before evaporation.

-Miroslav Holub, "Creative Writing"

2008-08-02T15:25:00.005+02:00

Well, this has been a very full two weeks. As I mentioned in my last blog, the time had come to really start practicing my German. That Monday I sat in on a course at PSP-Sprachpunkt, which is only a two- or three-minute bicycle ride from my apartment. I liked the class, so I signed up for a month's worth. Every weekday morning I show up at 9:00 for three hours of German grammar and conversation. I'm actually much better than I thought I was -- an enormous comfort and relief. In general, the class is a bit easy for me. It is technically at the level A2, which means it is the second-part for a beginner on the CEF scale. (First is A1 then A2, followed by intermediate/conversational levels B1 and B2, finishing with the advanced C levels.) They aren't offering any B-level courses during the summer, but it is great to just hear and read the language again. Plus, there are a lot of tiny grammar rules I had forgotten or never completely grasped last winter.

Two weeks ago I also went to the doctor to get my ear checked out. I suspected I might have had a middle ear infection (lots of pressure, muted sounds, strange buzzing), so Denise sent me to the emergency room. I didn't want to wait, the following day I went to an ENT doctor up on the far north side of the city. He couldn't find the problem and told me to wait it out. The pain is much better now, but I think I am going to be a bit more sensitive to avoiding the speakers at loud concerts and clubs.

Last Friday Laszlo and I made dinner (chicken tikka masala) and ultimately decided to go dancing at the Bang Bang Club. We didn't even arrive until about 2 am, but that's Berlin. We even ran into my friend Susi on the U-bahn, although, I admit, she was on her way home for the night. The club was really great; there were two floors, the main floor played "indie dance hits of yesterday, today and tomorrow!" -- from Bowie to Babyshambles and The Cure to CSS. The DJ downstairs played a lot of soul, '60s rock, Dylan, Cash, the Violent Femmes... really good stuff.

Saturday night I stayed in to make a couple batches of cupcakes. On Sunday morning, I went up to the flea market at Arkonaplatz to sell them. I managed to make enough money to cover the batch costs, but then the police stopped me. They said it was too hot for cupcakes (who has ever heard of such a thing!) and that I ought to find a cafe to sell them to, that I can't sell them in the market. Psh. So later that afternoon Laszlo and I napped in the park near Kastanienalle, and then that night I returned to the Lichtblick Kino to see "Stranger Than Paradise."

On Monday, I went alone to the Badeschiff. It was packed full of people and I didn't have much time before the sun moved and left me in the shade. But it was still nice to lie on some soft sand and read. Tuesday I finally made it to the Neue Nationalgalerie to see the Sugimoto retrospective. For dinner, I had a real hamburger (with ham?) at Kreuzburger on Wienerstrasse/Oranienstrasse. I caught a late showing of "Night on Earth" on Wednesday, and after I closed the gallery on Thursday I went out for a drink with Laszlo and Frederick at Gorki's, a Russian café. Last night we hid from the thunderstorm in a bar located in Görlitzer Park, where Stina and Dominick had rented a room to throw a birthday party.

Yesterday was the last (regular) day of my internship. I will join Denise later in August to help prepare invitations for the upcoming exhibition, but I have turned in my key and even talked a bit with the girl who will be replacing me. It was a really great opportunity -- I expected to spend a lot of time sitting, completely bored, in a big, white room, but they kept me busy. I did a lot of work translating and writing new texts, which in terms of scholarly work was actually a lot of fun.

2008-07-21T22:31:00.006+02:00

It has been a little while since my last entry. That is only because for the past couple of weeks I have been much busier, out of the house and at times even working on special projects.

I open the gallery three days a week, spending most of my 21 hours a week there translating exhibition texts and artist descriptions from German into English. I also talk to the gallery’s visitors about the exhibition, which some times goes over better than others. With them I usually have to speak a little bit of German, and my coworker ensures that she speaks in no other language. It is quite clear to me that my conversational skills need a lot more practice than my reading and writing ones do, so today I sat in on a course at a private Sprachschule only a couple of blocks away from my apartment. The teacher and the course suited me quite well, and I think I will be enrolling in an intensive course that will last me the next four weeks. This means I’ll be forced to wake up at 8:00 or earlier every weekday, something I haven’t done more than three or four times since being here. A strict schedule like that will do me well. It’s pretty safe to guarantee that I’ll be the most energetic pupil in my group.

Let’s see how much of this past month I can remember. I have been to a couple more gallery openings (mixed media artists Michele O’Marah and Henry Taylor at Peres Projects, photographer Alex Flach at Pool Gallery, photographer Leonard Freed at C/O Berlin, and a group show at NGBK this coming Friday). I have not yet made it to the Neue Nationalgalerie to see the Sugimoto show but have been to the Helmut Newton Foundation and photography museum. There was a show on paparazzi photographers I liked quite a bit but not as much as the show on Man Ray at Martin-Gropius-Bau.

For a couple of days the other week I volunteered at Tuned City, a festival on architectural spaces and acoustics. Friday’s event was held in an old, abandoned train station located right next to techno-powerhouse Berghain. The building itself was an urban explorer’s gem, with floors were covered in graffiti, broken glass, and the shit of squatters who may have considered the place home. There I met sound- and video-artist John Grzinich after being assigned to sit in an empty room and keep watch on the film projector. His film looped for hours on end, and I found myself utterly entranced by the aural synchronization of the rather abrasive field recordings with the building’s own sounds and visual aesthetic. It was a cold rainy day with just enough wind to suck the blue, plastic tarps hung over the windows in rhythm with the clang of metal pots and broken concrete in John’s video. That evening there was a little field recordings festival, where a group played their collection of found sounds from their laptops, improvising and playing off each other’s sounds. It was set up in such a way, with speakers in each corner of a large, mostly empty space, so that different sounds were heard depending on where the listener was situated, creating a really collaborative yet sort of subjective listening environment.

That happened to be the 4th of July. Rachel came back to Berlin that afternoon, joining me at the festival. As we were leaving, we caught the tail end of a fireworks show from the bridge at the Warschauer S-bahn station. For Rachel’s birthday Chaz, Rachel and I went dancing at Lido’s At The Soul Inn (whose music was sadly no comparison to the booty-shaking funk and boogaloo played at the Soul Explosion up at the Volkspark Pavillon in Friedrichshain). Sunday evening we found a bar here in Kreuzberg, Würgeengel, named after a Buñuel film. We also discovered what is perhaps the most horribly (horribly) wonderful cocktail of all time: the aptly-named Berlin Station Chief. Its recipe revealed itself to be 3 parts Bombay to 1 part single malt scotch. Since Mondays are free at the Deutsche Guggenheim, we went to see Freeway Balconies, a show curated by artist Collier Schorr. The selection of the pieces and how they were displayed was the most intriguing element of the show and also the major topic of conversation, our own as well as most everyone else’s. That evening we stopped by Kunsthaus Tacheles, a rather historic alternative artist collective and topped off our trip to Oranienburger Straße with coffee and shisha.

Tuesday evening we made it in the nick of time to see the Martha Graham Dance Company perform at the Staatsoper. Wednesday was a lovely Italian dinner (rabbit, finally!) on Kollwitzplatz in Prenzlauerberg, followed by cake at my favorite baklava bakery in Kreuzberg. Thursday ended with just a little scotch from Room 77, a simple but neat, relatively intimate bar on Graefestraße. On Friday we traveled outside of Berlin to see Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp and old training center for SS officers in Oranienburg. The camp was designed to be a model for later camps. Probably the most distressing part for me was the room for medical examinations and autopsies, which imprisoned medics were forced to perform. They were required to declare a cause of death, even when the real cause would be quite obvious and an autopsy totally superfluous. Then again, the foundations of the execution rooms and crematorium were equally horrifying. The experience really does not leave one too optimistic about or sympathetic to the state of mankind in the contemporary world.

That afternoon we went to see the Richard Serra videos at Kunst-Werke but were pretty blown away by Riccarda Roggan’s photographs. There were several things I really liked about her work, but mostly how it reminded me that a photographer is also an artist. Not just someone who is meant to document the world around them. I often forget that a photographer holds the right to create a story, to construct an aesthetically based world just like any writer or painter would. The photojournalist and street photographer in me always fight against my desire to stage a photograph or to shoot anything that isn’t entirely true to life. I’m really excited about the possibility to start working from this realization, even though I would like to stay on the streets and out of the studio. (For those curious few, I have received two offers as a party photographer.)

After Rachel left, I had to adjust once again to living alone. Having someone cook dinner for me while I’m busy at work becomes addictive very quickly. Before hosting I also rarely went out, having had cocktails perhaps only one other night. My homebody lifestyle is for a large part due to the lousy weather. While June was quite lovely, July has been little else but cloudy skies and rain. Today, for example, I wore a sweater over my t-shirt as well as a thick scarf and still felt too cold. I have yet to turn on the heat register in my apartment, but the time might be fast coming.

To compliment my solitary condition, I went to a small cinema to see Taxi Driver, which I really liked and had never seen before that evening. It is a very powerful movie, and I caught so many shots, gestures and lines (not only “Are you talking to me?”) that I have seen referenced in other films. Going alone to the cinema is one of those pastimes I often forget how much I love doing. I certainly prefer it to going with someone else, though it is also nice to go out afterward to discuss what our thoughts and things. But sometimes I see a movie only for me, and I see no reason to share these moments with anyone else.

This past weekend I missed yet another fashion week (the first one being in Paris). I didn’t see any of the shows or attend any of the after-parties, though Laszlo talked me into going out on Saturday. We went first to a party in his apartment building (where I unloaded my first batch of cupcakes with great success), then afterwards to Watergate, one of Berlin’s less pretentious electro clubs. I left and went home quite early, as I have been suffering from some unusual ear pain for the past few days that has me nauseated and just plain cranky. I suspect I have a middle ear infection and will have to see how much it will cost to see a doctor as a completely uninsured foreigner.

Earlier that day I met my Australian friends Tom and Laura at the zoo to celebrate Laura’s birthday. We had a really lovely picnic there, and spent several hours wandering and watching the animals. I am sure I saw Knut, the famed (now-not-so) baby polar bear, though I am not entirely sure. The hippo habitat was particularly impressive and probably the best hippo exhibit I have ever seen.

Sunday morning I woke up early enough to go hunting for antique telescopes (for an exhibition, not for personal use) at the Straße des 17. Juni flea market. The afternoon was lazy and slow, consisting of a late (4:30 pm) brunch (a feta and arugula omelette and Eiskaffee, which is more like a coffee float or milkshake than the iced coffee drinks we have in the States) and, after, a long sit in the nearby bocce park with Laszlo.

And that brings me to this evening. I sit here reflecting on my past two months in Berlin as well as what I hope will come from my third. As has already been public knowledge for a week now, my life here in Berlin as I currently know it will end in late August. Then, I will return to the States (Ann Arbor, again) to work and, if I am lucky, take another class. I have not really had any income since living in Berlin and it is about time for me to stop borrowing and start paying off my credit card. I have been able to stay within my budget most weeks, which has been set at a very reasonable 35€ (about $55) for food and entertainment. This has allowed me fresh fruit, vegetables and bread from the weekday Turkish market in addition to my normal groceries and a decent meal out (Thai, Indian, Italian, brunch) once a week. Still, I find it necessary to return home for a bit and am even looking forward to it.

And so there it is.

2008-07-18T02:08:00.005+02:00

I feel like I have just stumbled out from a show on the Vegas strip. Ears ringing, eyes burned with strobing lights, mind temporarily blown. When it comes to saving this Word document, I can’t even remember the name of the act I just saw.

What I do know is that they are presently one of the “hot new things” coming out of good-old New York City. Of course they are from New York. They are a nothing short of a multicultural circus. They have a small Asian guy dressed in spandex and a neon-colored scarf jumping around playing the cowbell. They have an equally small androgyne dressed in some sort of loose sportswear singing back-up, though she happens to be the better of the two singers. They also have two black guys; their job is to blow the horns. The star of the show is a disco-singing, hip-swinging woman with tight abs and suspiciously large and full breasts who strips down to fringe-embellished hotpants and a cigarette girl brassiere, poledances with the microphone stand, and bears a frighteningly close resemblance to an old boss of mine. This adds only one layer to the incredibly mixed emotions I feel for this act. Oh, right, there are also three other performances onstage. Ah, and there’s the name: Hercules and Love Affair.

They play electro-disco (yes, it is exactly what it sounds like). One-third of the crowd seemed absolutely hog wild about the band (or at least the lead singer. The people in front were, for the most part, straight-looking, slightly older men). The second third seemed torn, like me. Their elitist tendency toward live music (or music, in general) finds the band absolutely repulsive. But it is impossible to deny – they put on a pretty damn good performance and the dance beats are impossible to resist. However, once they became for a moment just a smidgeon too sober, too aware of what they were witnessing, they lost all track of their rhythm. As for the last third, I really have no idea for what reason they were there, how they found themselves in this particular club on this particular night. (Strangely, it was a sold-out show.) Now, call me washed up, aged, boring even. But this scene was just a little too hip for me. Some guy in the front row, standing right in profile with the other photographers, was shooting with a Polaroid camera. Who takes Polaroids at a concert? Then again, who am I to judge?

By the time the band finished (they started after midnight), I was too exhausted, claustrophobic and just straight-up creeped out to stay for the music I actually paid for. Should you judge the band by their MySpace page? No way. Do I recommend buying a cd of theirs? Absolutely not. Do I think the band will be around in another four months? Highly doubt it. Should you see them perform, should you get the opportunity? Most certainly. But don't forget earplugs.

2008-07-02T22:56:00.005+02:00

I just came home from my second full day at the gallery (and my first day alone) and the Gala 2008 performance of the Staatliche Balletschule Berlin at the Staatsoper. Two separate works were performed: Serenade, a classical piece complete with mid-length, light blue tutus and orchestral accompaniment composed by Tchaikovsky, and one of the most flavorful adaptations of Romeo and Juliet I've ever seen. It was an inspiring performance (in that I am now inspired to sit up straighter and to maintain a body that can withstand a leotard). Some dancers were, of course, better than others. The two female leads were really quite phenomenal, and I found Romeo and Julia's chemistry very convincing. Considering the Berlin Philharmoniker won't be playing in town this summer, I will make up for it with dance (and theater!), whether it be ballet or something more modern. I'm contemplating purchasing advance tickets for the Martha Graham Dance Company; the first performance is already sold out.

Tomorrow I work again at the gallery, and the Sugimoto retrospective opens at the Neue Nationalgalerie. Thursdays are also when the city museums keep extended hours -- and, I think, even waive the entrance fee. So that's a plan. Friday and Saturday I am volunteering for Tuned City (tunedcity.de), a festival on architectural spaces and their acoustics. There's another soul party Saturday night.

Last weekend I was the party photographer, and I made a lot of good shots. Good enough to make me happy and want to give it another go. I was a little nervous, considering that I wasn't working with the best camera and that people move very quickly when they dance to soul music. One of the most important things I learned that night was that Germans do not like getting their picture taken. I'm accustomed to going to dance parties where people not only expect, but very often try, to get the photographer to pay them lots of attention. It's a whole lot easier to shoot people who are posing for you.

Friday and Saturday were both big nights for gallery openings, and I was kept busy until about midnight. Free drinks, easy conversation, what's not to love? Well, perhaps being obligated to stand in one room, blinded by the freshly-painted white walls, and being talked at by strangers and smiling until my lips lose their composure and fall into a grimace.

2008-06-26T13:56:00.000+02:00

What a game, boys, what a game.

2008-06-25T10:50:00.004+02:00

All right, so this week the nice weather has finally come back around. Monday I rode my bike up to the Deutsche Guggenheim, but it was closed for the installation of the upcoming exhibition. So I went to Humboldt University, where I read and napped in the courtyard along with dozens of other students also taking advantage of the sunshine. After I went to Buchhandlung Walther König, a really beautiful and large bookshop in Mitte specializing in art books (photography, film, painting, theory, periodicals). Then I met with László and together we went to the Badeschiff -- a swimming pool built into the Spree. For 3€, you get entry to the pool as well as a sandy beach and a dock lined with beach chairs, nylon hammocks, and a couple of beds. Lounge music plays over the speakers most days of the week, but on Wednesdays they host live acts. It's a really cool place and the day we went wasn't too crowded; the wind kept most at bay.

Yesterday wasn't much different. I went to the grocery store and Turkish market to pick up my weekly Lebensmittel -- yogurt, muesli, soup, bread, some fresh ravioli, a pineapple, grapefruit juice. Then I took a stroll through nearby Neukölln, stopping at a Canadian pizza place for lunch (Ron Telesky, Dieffenbachstraße 62). I was a good decision away from ordering a slice of the vegetable-pesto, but opted instead for the pie topped with sliced hot dog, french fries, and fried onions. They convinced me to put some Danish mayonnaise on it, too. It was so good. My second piece was baked with rosemary, sliced golden potatoes and sweet potatoes. Sweet potato pizza? Then again, french fry and hot dog pizza? Yes.

To work off my new gut, I took another sun-soaked snooze in the grass along the canal.

Do not be fooled. My life here isn't all... um, exotic... food and naps. The rest of the time I'm on my computer arranging interviews and Googling all things Berlin. That's just a whole lot less interesting to talk about.

For those who are interested, last Friday I finished helping Matt edit some of his stories to submit in a fiction contest. Now I have two internships lined up: one starting tomorrow at a gallery in Mitte, the other starting in August for the literature festival. I'm also scheduled to help next week with a festival on architectural spaces and their acoustics. I just scored a short-term gig as a party photographer -- I'm interested to see where this might lead. As soon as the last of my jewelry-making supplies arrives, I will put together some earrings and necklaces to sell at the market and possibly a boutique or two. Hopefully this will pay for my day-to-day expenses, like food. I'm still searching for more stable, more financially-rewarding work. But it looks like my long, boring days lounging in the park are over.

2008-06-24T17:55:00.005+02:00

When I finish reading a truly great piece of fiction, I am left feeling like the luckiest person on earth. The same can be said for music, performing arts, and occasionally even the visual arts, all when done especially well. Thinking of an emotion superior in passion or motivation than that stirred by such art is too difficult a task for me to undertake. The only possibility that crosses my mind is what follows creating -- to write, to compose, to perform -- such masterpieces. But the artist is plagued more than the product satisfies. Although it's not impossible for someone to be pleased with or proud of their work, it's rare for them to find it as perfect as their critics do. And this is not out of humility.

The artist is plagued in a way that the audience is not. It's relatively easy to be satisfied as a reader, a listener, a passive observer. The effort we put in is minimal, so whatever reward we gain is sufficient.

Yet some works go beyond the expected perimeters of artistic gratification -- and often go beyond the audience almost completely. Or do they? What I find so wondrous about these works is that they are so real. They have the capacity to touch people in the bases of their souls, to knock their asses off stools and send them sprawling on the floor. They lack majesty, by nature unconcerned with bullshit so they can reach for and dig at the roots of humanity.

I don't mean to sound like a snob; we don't have to be well-educated to find beauty or the sublime in art. And I don't mean to restrict this sensation to only the "fine arts" familiar to us. What I find equally inspiring and stunning is that people have found ways to communicate what cannot be articulated in everyday speech.

Which is what brings me back to literature. The only medium fiction writers work in is everyday speech, but they employ other tools to create something embedded with much more than can be implied through intonation or suggested with gesture. For whatever reason, people accept metaphor, for example, much more readily when its presented in fiction than in quotidian life. This is evidence that there are certain expectations that come with art, which separate it from "real life." We allow the artist to experiment (in fact, we expect him to) and are ready to forgive him if he fails to produce the desired effect. Why is this, why do we hold art in such high regard, even more so than our own lives? How is it that people view the mission so admirable, but don't attempt it themselves? (In contrast, upon learning the story of the self-made millionaire, we certainly don't lack the cowardice to try following in his footsteps.)

The only place I'm going with all this is right here. Today I finished Julio Cortázar's "The Pursuer" ("El Perseguidor"), which is going down as one of my favorite stories of all time. Until it's all been absorbed and forgotten, I don't want to read anything else. Not even the last story in his collection. "The Pursuer" is a tribute to all great artists. The narrator, Bruno, is a jazz critic, as well as the friend and personal biographer of saxophonist Johnny Carter (in reality, Charlie Parker). The story itself is a criticism -- of jazz, of Carter, of Bruno, of critics. By critiquing jazz, he inherently critiques Carter and vice versa. By critiquing himself, he critiques all criticism. . . . It's easy to see how it gets messy. But what I found most compelling was how Cortázar, or Bruno, described man's pursuit of some greater truth through these two voices, one of the said rational critic, the other a wholly self-absorbed artist who rambles schizophrenic daydreams to anyone who'll listen. And even more so, his skepticism of one being better off than the other.

2008-06-22T21:21:00.001+02:00

Sonnenblumen zu kaufen (zwei Haikus im Dialog)

Sie ist ein Geschenk
und ich wohne nebenan –
Packst sie nicht ein.

Doch, die Petalen,
sie sind anfällig für die
Brise des Sommers.

2008-06-22T18:49:00.002+02:00

Then Dédée said she'd make us some nescafé. I was happy to know that at least they had a tin of nescafé. I always know, whatever the score is, when somebody has a can of nescafé it's not fatal yet; they can still hold out.

***

He's the mouth and I'm the ear, so as not to say that he's the mouth and I'm the . . .

Every critic, yeah, is the sad-assed end of something that starts as taste, like the pleasure of biting into something and chewing on it. And the mouth moves again, relishing it, Johnny's big tongue sucks back a little string of saliva from the lips.

***

It's like in an elevator, you're in an elevator talking with people, you don't feel anything strange, meanwhile you've passed the first floor, the tenth, the twenty-first, and the city's down there below you, and you're finishing the sentence you began when you stepped into it, and between the first words and the last ones, there're fifty-two floors. I realized that when I started to play I was stepping into an elevator, but the elevator was time, if I can put it that way. Now realize that I haven't forgotten the mortgage or the religion. Like it's the mortgage and the religion are a suit I'm not wearing at the moment; I know the suit's in the closet, but at that moment you can't tell me that that suit exists. The suit exists when I put it on, and the mortgage and religion existed when I got finished playing and the old lady came in with her hair, dangling big hunks of hair all over me and complaining I'm busting her ears with that goddamned music.

-Julio Cortázar, The Pursuer

2008-06-22T17:24:00.003+02:00

crossing the bridge

Sunday afternoon

a man vomits

on my ankle

no regrets

2008-06-19T14:45:00.004+02:00

Today makes the length of my stay in Berlin exactly one month. In this month, I have lived in 3 apartments, attended 1 exhibition opening, watched 1 opera, visited 3 Holocaust memorials, and danced in 2 clubs. I have sat through 1 interview, bought 1 scarf, received 1 torturous sunburn, and laughed out loud and alone to 7 episodes of Arrested Development, Season Three. I have prepared asparagus 3 times, 2 ways, indulged in 5 pieces of baklava, bought 3 loaves of bread, and eaten 3 chicken shawarmas. I have sampled 6 crêpes (both savory and sweet), drunk 4 cups of coffee, tried 5 kinds of soup, 3 of which were canned. I have washed 3 loads of laundry, been frustrated at 3 copy shops, given away 1 business card, and stayed awake until dawn on 5 occasions. I have taken 2 baths, complained about 1 bad haircut, slept under a starless sky 1 evening, recorded 1 wish for public display, consciously confronted 4 fears head-on, and made at least 3 super new friends.

That said, I'm very happy with the way things are turning out. It's true, I don't have a job yet and need very much to find one within the next week or two. Though I've been looking and applying nearly every day, I have saved most of my time and energy for indulging other interests. I haven't even begun to exhaust my resources.

2008-06-10T14:27:00.002+02:00

Short fiction inspired by a singular Matthew Thompson's "Otis Redding in a Plane Crash."

So I’m sitting here listening to Otis Redding. Except it’s summertime, and I’m sitting at my typewriter topless except for a silk scarf. And maybe even that isn’t authentic. Maybe it’s polyester or a nylon-blend. Just over 7,000 kilometers away, I have a sweet, funny and wildly intelligent boyfriend. So I’m alone, listening to Otis Redding.

For dinner I managed to sauté some green asparagus (white is more popular in Germany) and white mushrooms (I typically avoid the green ones, as do the Germans) in lemon juice and sea salt. I think I did a pretty damn good job of it, too. I even took the time to trim off the mushy ends and scrape off the fuzzy growth that accumulated after a week of sharing the fridge with a bowl of green seeded grapes. Using the small, dull knife from the right drawer in my rented kitchen, I removed the unwanted bits, dropping them into the trash. I’m still wealthy enough to afford having undesirables. And there’s always my health.

So I’m sitting alone, except for my health, with a plate of soggy vegetables and a glass of Chilean wine, listening to Otis Redding sing about some baby or other.

I have a little theory, many of them, actually, but this one is that my ability to successfully open a bottle of wine, Chilean or not, is directly proportional to the intensity of my desire to get drunk off the wine. That said, I have more failed attempts and broken corks under my belt than any self-respecting adult would be ashamed to admit.

In front of me lay a few pens, of various color, a seascape from a family cruise (not my own), a roll of 35mm film waiting to be taken in to be developed, and a I (HEART) NY mug. I’ve never been to New York, city or state, but my lover has. It’s the only sliver of my country he’s ever seen, and already he can proclaim his love for it. That’s commitment. I can’t even commit to a color of nail polish, let alone a fixture in my domestic life, or a man, if there’s any difference.

So I’m sitting alone and nearly naked, drinking red wine from a ceramic coffee mug, listening to Otis wail about needing someone who doesn’t seem to need him back. My German Shepherd lies beside me, panting like a large, sweaty dog does on humid summer evenings in the central European valley. I walk to the kitchen to get him a bowl of cool water (and another mug of wine, for yours truly) when I realize I have been misapprehending dear Otis for the past two minutes and forty seconds. His valley has very, very little to do with central Europe, or melancholy, low self-esteem, or even runaway loves. How is one supposed to differentiate the sad Fa’s from the happy Fa’s. Where I come from, which sure as hell isn’t the South of the 1960s, a Fa is a Fa.

So here I am, alone, tipsy and sobbing softly half into a white ceramic mug whose message would assert me a hypocrite and half into a slobbery dog’s water dish, when I remember that Otis died young. A few years younger than I am now, maybe 26 or 27. In Madison, Wisconsin, no less. I start to wonder if he would like Madison when I realize he would never have the chance to find out. It’s New York he loves, not America, and especially not the Midwest.

I don’t feel quite up to listening to Otis’s happy song, so I stop the music and turn off the lamp while I’m up. The lights of the train station are enough for me to make out my keyboard, and the dog’s soft moans, caused no doubt by some regular, reoccurring summer dog dream, are quieted by the roar of the elevated nighttime commuter train.

2008-06-06T17:11:00.002+02:00

They walk slowly sandal behind shoe
reading the concrete for the prophecy
written in chalk and a man, teacup
and bottle of honey look on
at those who have the time
to give a poet a chance, to tread
upon the messages, separated by the cracks
all of them (the words?) wash away
with the first rain a canoe tumbling
a great fall it crashes first then splinters, sinks
later, finds buoyancy when it dries
and crumbles with age but still makes it ashore
to be spotted by beachcomber gulls
and sand lice hiding in its
cracks only to leap
at the surprise of those who stop to look
for the answer in the path
laid before their naked feet, cracked
heels and waterlogged toes.

2008-06-05T08:15:00.009+02:00

That’s right. Four days in a row of sunny skies and 30° weather (that hovers around 87° Fahrenheit. I don’t quite understand why Germany would use the Swedish Celsius scale when a German established Fahrenheit).

A few days ago I moved into my apartment. It’s located in what is, so far, my favorite part of the city. It’s a block away from the canal, a block away from a large park vibrating with bongos and eccentrics, a couple blocks away from the train station, a street full of hip cafés and bars, and the weekday Turkish market. I find the apartment much too big for a single, average-sized person like myself, but I think it will work just fine. I have a full kitchen, fitted with yellow tile and all sorts of dishes, pots, pans, cutting boards, and more pasta than I can eat in a month. There's even a washing machine for my clothes. I bathe in the tub, which without too much exaggeration is the size of a small billiards table, in the mornings (except for the past couple of sweltering days, which allowed for two cool baths a day). My living space, which goes without saying shares the same room as my sleeping space and my work space, fits a double bed, several shelves and wardrobes, a two-person desk, a futon and a large plant all quite comfortably. In all, there are four windows that overlook my cobblestone street and a café below. On several days of the week, bells from nearby churches can be heard. In the back, there are separate recycling receptacles for white glass, colored glass, paper, plastic, aluminum and organic waste. That leaves very little to actually be thrown away in the garbage. I'm renting the flat from a physicist (and part-time artist) who is finishing his dissertation in Hamburg. I'm in love with the apartment, and have already accepted it as my home.

As I'm doing my very best to save my money (and that I don't have much of it to save), I spent most of this week indoors. Every couple of days I go to the street market to pick up some fruit and vegetables (the strawberries here are amazing!) Für Frühstuck esse ich Muesli mit Joghurt und Obst. Nudeln und Tomaten machen viele von meinen Essen, aber Spargel ist auch billig hier. Spinat Creme (100g) kostet nur 1€ und Fladenbrot 0,50€ für 5 Stücke.

Last Sunday I went to Prenzlauerberg's Mauerpark flea market (der Flohmarkt) and picked up a typewriter. (This makes 3 out of 4: I have purchased a bike, an apartment, and a typewriter. All that's left to find is a job.) Die Schreibmaschine (Triumph-Adler Contessa 2) cost me 8€ and the ribbon, found at a local stationary store, cost 5€. The pleasure it has bestowed upon my restless summer days has already made up for its cost. The rest of the time, I ride my bike or take self-directed walking tours around Kreuzberg and nearby Friedrichshain. I've done a bit of thrifting (I have never seen so much hemp-linen clothing) and have perched several evenings on the edge of the canal to read under the setting sun. The sun rises here between 4:30 and 5:00 and sets shortly before 10. Of course, the winter is a totally different story, but for now I'll focus on summer.

A week ago I also went to the Komische Oper with László. The show was certainly good, but not great. The actors sang beautifully and I suppose that's what matters the most with the opera. My chief complaint was that the costume and set design was relatively contemporary, or at least kept itself free of a certain place or year. Yet it was still set during the Christmas season (I'm sure I'm alone in my opinion, but I really think they could have changed this without ruining the spirit of the story. I don't want to see snow in June!) and tuberculosis consumed Mimi despite it being a very dated disease. Because of this, I was distracted at too many points and was never able to fully submerse myself in the play. As for the set, the stage was left completely open, free of backing so that the innards of the backstage were exposed to the audience. Just a thin, wooden frame created structural depth for the actors to play. In the first act the chorus arranged a large Christmas tree center stage, complete with presents underneath wrapped in shiny foil. To mimic the disarray of the second half, the presents were ripped open and their wrappings left to clutter the stage.

I expected the play to be performed in Italian (is it ever done in French?) with German subtitles, but it was sung entirely in German. (I would have preferred Italian, I think.) Fortunately, I read the synopsis beforehand and understood nearly everything that happened.

The lesson I took from the evening was that despite having money, fame, or even good friends, life is still complicated and difficult. The Bohemian lifestyle is not to be envied or romanticized by the upper-classes, even though it inherently is by being transcribed into an opera (think of the social class of the typical theatergoer). Not that I mean to trivialize the plight of the playwright.

The cafés I've visited this week include Manouche, a crêpe shop run by an ex-Parisian, and Il Casolare, a memorable Italian café with a terrace and good pizza. Both are on Grimmstrasse here in Kreuzberg.

Just two days until the start of the European championships! This means that for the next two weeks, every evening at 18.00 football fans will fill the cafés. Those without televisions will either have to find one or shut down so their staff can still watch the games.

2008-05-30T12:19:00.005+02:00

For those of you on Facebook, I just posted an album of pictures from my last few days in Ann Arbor, the cruise, and this past week here in Berlin. Look for, "Time of the Season." My photo sets of Berlin can also be viewed on my Flickr.

Although I actually made it outside this morning (it's sunny and hot, sweaty hot), I'm back in my apartment listening to some street band music (Czech polka, perhaps?) through my window. Lately I've mostly stayed inside, spending all day online busy with applications and whatnot. But today my electric toothbrush beeped an unusual beep, threatening to lose power completely. So I went to Conrad's for a transformer and the post office for stamps. No luck at Conrad's, but I found a small one at Saturn that can control up to 45-watts (not enough for my blowdryer, but more than enough for my toothbrush) for only 15€.

I remember my electronics adapter-buying trip of Paris. It was after a class meeting at the bar, so I was feeling just tipsy enough to string together the necessary French to get what I needed in my hand and out the door. Today I didn't have any booze, but I think I did just fine. It probably helps that the word for "transformer" here is "Transformator."

Last night I was tempted to make it out to a gallery party, but I wasn't feeling particularly social so I went to a park and read a few short stories of Cortázar. I've decided that he inspired Etgar Keret's technique, but Keret replaces Cortázar's oblique, Borgesian poetics with contemporary politics. Maybe I only see the similarity because of the surprise rabbits and gory endings in each of their stories (Cortázar's "Letter to a Young Lady in Paris" and Keret's "Hat Trick"). Then I went to a street vendor and had an excellent roasted half-chicken and salad. After reading a bit more, they brought me a complimentary tea (I didn't see them give any to the men).

2008-05-29T15:06:00.007+02:00

I promise I'll get a new post up soon and some pictures are also on their way (and maybe even a video!). I found a new apartment, which I will be moving into on Saturday. Now I'm in the middle of applying for jobs and internships, which resists much discussion due to my superstitiousness.

That said, if someone wants to get me an excellent present (or re-gift an old one), I would really love to have all three seasons of Arrested Development. You can request my address for purposes of "mailing a postcard or brief letter" and surprise me with a much larger envelope, yeah?

Also: Kebabs

2008-05-26T07:56:00.002+02:00

I lost my sleep schedule somewhere between the EDT and GMT + 1 (well, +2 thanks to DST). During the cruise, I woke up regularly at 6:45 in the morning. Now, after three late nights in a row, I sleep until eleven or even noon. To tell you the honest truth, I'm craving coffee. I think this means it's just about time to get a job.

I'm looking into sitting in on an art history lecture series at Humboldt University. I imagine it will help my German more than my knowledge of the field, but it will be interesting to see how they approach same subjects I’ve been studying in the States for years. A couple of the girls I've met here have attended lectures there before and were impressed by how continental they found the faculty's theories.

Today I went to Radspannerei (Admiralstr. 16, Kreuzberg) to purchase a basket (der Korb) and bell (die Glocke) for my bicycle. 7€ for both, as well as the tools necessary to install them and to raise my handlebars. What a deal! I then went grocery shopping for my new apartment, came home, and purchased a ticket to see La Bohème at the Komische Oper Berlin. The show isn't until Sunday, so I'll let you know how it goes.

My fascination with life abroad has been focusing lately on what serves as cultural intersections, rather than what marks difference between people. In some ways it relates to the realization of the massive influence American culture has on the rest of the (western) world. The popularity of Curb Your Enthusiasm in Sweden, for example. Or more banal things catch my attention, like the incoherent babble of babies or the absolute melancholy felt in nearly all subway systems. How wonderful it is to live here in the summer, when a bicycle can satisfy all my needs for urban transportation.

2008-05-25T16:27:00.000+02:00

So, here's what I have found so far in Berlin:
Two nice cafés with semi-consistent W-LAN internet access. Café Morena (Wienerstrasse 60) has a delicious carrot soup that's sure to satisfy your daily needs for dietary fiber. Bar Bateau Ivre (Oranienstrasse 18) has previously been mentioned in the NY Times (I have doubts if Michael Kimmelman has left any place in this city untouched by his paint-, wait, ink, again, keyboard-stained hands). They do have a juicy fruit, almond yogurt bowl and serve excellent decaf.

The need to play Bob Marley in cafés is spread worldwide from Starbucks in Michigan to Paris and, as I can now confirm, to Berlin.

Some really tall men. So tall that my head doesn't reach their shoulders. So tall that I can't see around them when a band plays in a small bar.

Really beautiful Swedish women. Do I need to mention that they're tall, too?

Room 77 (Graefestr. 77), a small bar, possibly operated by Americans, that can pack the house with 20 year-old-girls who like to wiggle and 26-year-old men who like to sport fedoras and watch girls wiggle just to see a 4-piece American "bluegrass" band. This band had the requisite banjo and harmonica, loose tanktops and beards, and also a washboard and a lead guitar with broken strings. But it was all just so silly, so silly.

Hähnchenhaus, a stand near Skalitzerstrasse that sells half a roasted chicken for 1.90€.

A super flatbread stand here in Kreuzberg, shown to me by Chaz, where warm, delicious flatbread can be purchased for a euro.

2008-05-25T15:20:00.002+02:00

As is apparent in nearly all of my past blogs, I prefer to get my writing done in the late morning, sitting in my favorite café with some delicious treat by my side. Today is no different, but it does mark the beginning of my entries while living in Berlin.

I arrived in town just under a week ago after spending a week with my sister, mom, and grandmother on a cruise around the Mediterranean. My expectations of the cruise experience were met and my need for a vacation fulfilled. There were some trouble spots, but overall I'm very pleased that my family took up this opportunity to come see Europe and spend some time together before scattering across the map.

After my family kissed me good-bye just outside the drop-off spot of Terminal A, BCN, I checked all of my bags without a problem and headed off to Berlin. (As many of you know, I was a little concerned about the 22 kg weight limit imposed by the budget airline, but the airport employees gave me no trouble at all and I made it here with my small wardrobe, ceramic mugs and Bose SoundDock all intact.) It took the full 2-hour flight to make the language switch from the Mediterranean's latin-based languages to German, and about four days to learn how to ask a barista for wireless internet.

My search for a suitable apartment kept me busy all week. Today I move out of Chaz's apartment into a short-term rental. Next week I'll move into an apartment of my own where I can stay for the summer. I've been staying in a beautiful neighborhood in Kreuzberg, right by the canal. Nearby are oodles of vegetarian cafés, hip bars, and - best of all - large, lush and leafy parks in which I can ride my bike.

My first day in town happened to be the day of the Dalai Lama's speech at Brandenburg Gate, where over 2,000 supporters of a free Tibet came to hear his holiness speak (and release 3,000 Luftballoons!). After the speech, the crowd dispersed into Tiergarten and its surrounding areas as if after a summer music festival. Chaz and I took this time of reflection to visit the impressive Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and talk about his stay in Cairo. I've also had time this week to see one of the weekly markets here in Kreuzberg, visit briefly with my friend Patryk, who sold me a bicycle (deep purple, currently basketless), and go to Michigan's own Hans Papke's dinner party, where I met others who fell in love with Berlin despite coming in the late fall (summer is clearly the best time to be in the city, when swans court each other in the canal beneath weeping willows and the city swarms with bicyclists wrestling ice cream cones). Last night was László's birthday party, which meant a picnic of shish kebobs and roasted bananas in the park, followed by drinks and cake at Matilda (Graefestrasse 12) and dancing amidst the young and drugged in the minimal-electronica club, 103 (Falkensteinstrasse 47/48).

Despite feelings of homesickness that are going to be hard to shake, I'm doing well. My allergies are acting up and it's clear I'm going to have to figure out the local healthcare system in order to get some nasal spray. I haven't started to look for a job yet, but that's next on my list (after getting a basket on the bicycle, of course). The big difference between this journey and ones of my past is that I've already met lots of people and have spent only a couple of hours alone. I'm actually looking forward to having time to myself, to digest the move and develop a plan for the next three months.

I think learning German will actually be quite easy here. The class I took at U of M did a great job, I think. I'm sure my time abroad last year prepared me well, but I'm braving the language barrier and using my German much quicker than I ever did with my French in Paris.

The plan as it stands now is to stay for the summer and perhaps longer, if I find an appropriate job. Some of the people I've met said that it will be nearly impossible to find a job worthy of a permanent move and that I ought to lay back and enjoy the summer unemployed. Others said it should be quite easy, or at least easier than a German looking for work in the States. But, as some of you know, there are one or two specific attachments I have back home in Michigan I have no desire to cut free that may be bringing me back stateside sooner than I previously planned. For now, it's all fine with me. I'll stay flexible and see where my adventures lead me, doing my best to save my money all the while. Just in case.

2008-04-21T19:51:00.000+02:00

In Memory, a confidante reveals to a young Philippe Grimbert secrets kept from him by his own family. Each short chapter brings both narrator and reader closer to mapping out the devastating past his parents were forced to endure. In his boyhood journals, Grimbert envisions how his father met and fell in love his mother, but is later forced to revise this narrative as the true one unravels before him. Uncovered information concerning his parents’ former lovers and changes in the spelling of his surname encourages Grimbert to finally confront his father, who had always held his anemic and bated son in contempt. Having two superior athletes as parents, Grimbert’s physical shortcomings haunt him into developing an obsession with the human form that rivals Kafka’s. Between the shared narratives of father and son, this historical family portrait discloses, through self-pity and regret, the significance of accepting, forgiving and, most importantly, not forgetting one’s past.

I recommend this story to anyone who has ever fought invisible foes, has ever suspected their family of hiding something greater than a cookie recipe, or is interested in reading a beautiful and seductive study on the human body. Like most stories written on the aftermath of WWII, this is sure to break your heart and torture your soul.Memory is the second novel by Philippe Grimbert, who is also a published psychoanalyst. In 2007 Claude Miller adapted Un secret, as it is known in France, into a film starring Patrick Bruel and Cécile de France.

2008-03-14T00:35:00.000+01:00

The time to begin preparation for my big move has come yet again. In the quest for my resume, I unearthed a review written this past November when I was in London, café-locked near Brick Lane. Giorgio Manganelli's short story collection, Centuria: One Hundred Ouroboric Novels, was finally released in paperback.

Like many that have come before it, this collection speaks of the everyman, who, in Manganelli’s opinion, takes life far too seriously. For him, per vivere e godersi la vita romantica is to live without complication, with decisiveness, patience, and a gray linen suit.

With an earnest mind and clever hand, Manganelli makes light of the everyman’s plight, which is nothing more than to make it through life unscathed. Like his fellow Italian avant-gardist Italo Calvino, Manganelli writes of a reality where self-pity gets a man nowhere and self-love permits him a solitary contentment.

Manganelli limits each story to only one full typewriter page’s worth of text, thus eliminating the empty space that occupies most novels. This purges the stories of dialogue and restricts the number of characters to no more than three. The remaining actions only become more meaningful as a result. Mangenelli limits life to a series of habits, but replaces the nihilistic rationale with a moral direction guided by humanity instead of religion.

With the Borgesian belief that reality is nothing short of fantastical, Manganelli’s brief biographies are truly magical; he makes death superficial and love honest. The debate still stands of which rules his psyche, imagination or real life. But who's to say that there's a difference between the two?

2008-03-13T23:26:00.000+01:00

In effort to improve the relationship between bookseller and customer, I have initiated a revision of the staff picks section at the store. Each bookseller is to construct a little display with an introduction paired with reviews of their picks and a portrait of some kind. This is the introduction I've come up with, detailing two of my life loves: short fiction and desserts.

For me, there is nothing more gratifying in the world of literature than a well-crafted short story. To break a heart in fewer than 8,000 words is no easy feat, yet some writers succeed with less than two full pages. Short stories share the imagery and precision of poetry, yet don’t hide behind aesthetic ambiguity. They are bold and provocative, but above all, concise. They are the intriguing, thoughtful intellectual who rarely speaks, or the skinny kid with a strong punch. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be fun. Short stories are to the written word what cupcakes are to baked goods: a masterful balance of beauty and substance, the perfect size to whet an appetite, yet somehow too oft-forgotten. From Borges to Calvino, Kafka to Twain, and J.D. Salinger to Flannery O’Connor, I could easily consume them all.

2008-03-02T18:30:00.001+01:00

This morning I decided to spend a little bit of time researching the origins of my family names. This included a quick phone call to my mother (I have enough names to keep track of already) and an hour with Google. Here's what I came up with:

Mother's Father: Spelling changed from a French word for "cart," or the occupational name for a cartwright. Records found place the name in Quebec in the mid-1600s.

Mother's Mother: Of Irish origin, roughly translating to "the son of a champion."

Father's Father: Likely of Austrian or French origin, changing its spelling in the 1700s. The most famous man with this name was, apparently, a complete fool. He was an evangelist and prominent proponent of flat earth theories. In fact, he offered a widely publicized $5000 challenge for anyone to disprove flat earth theory. This was around 1900. He also frequently predicted the end of the world; his predictions that the end would come in 1923, 1927, 1930, and 1935 were all incorrect. He had stated that he would live to 120 due to his diet of Brazil nuts and buttermilk, but fell short of his goal by approximately 48 years.

Father's Mother: Its meaning denotes the status of a feudal tenant and is German and Jewish (western Ashkenaic) in origin.

2008-03-02T02:10:00.000+01:00

Money is to shit as guilt is to shame.

-David Lehman, from "The Old Constellation" in When a Woman Loves a Man

2008-03-01T23:20:00.000+01:00

In grief the person that you were is replaced by grief ...

not the person you originally were but the one you’d become.

Grief is opportunistic and uncontrollable

it doesn’t exactly come

from you, you “allow it in” It’s godlike

as in possession.

This was the night I was the craziest: near my birthday,

four months after Ted’s death, walking

on Second Avenue I thought “It’s possible

he didn’t really die.” I felt a maniacal joy

and then became sickened and distressed

I knew a depth of me had, up to then, believed he was alive.

That depth was now emptied of him and filled with grief.

I dreamed all that year; I divided into dreamer and interpreter

A gigantic horse blocks

the entrance to

my building; I wake up and think “The horse is a hearse”

blocking my life. Or

a dream with a dawn in it, the sky purple-black,

but a hint of dawn, and when I awake I know it’s the sky

in Lawrence’s “Ship of Death”—thin white

thread—trying its way.

If a self can

contain the deaths of others, it’s very large;

it’s certainly larger than my body

If the other who dies is partly me,

and that me dies and another grows, the medium it grows in

is grief.

The wish to locate absence, that contemporary obsession to

find the empty present—

grief will saturate the present.

Grief isn’t glandular; though becomes somatic;

gets far into your body. Eats it changes it.

One is magically struck down at certain

moments, can’t move, can’t arise,

and inside is poison: grief gets caught

in intensifying pockets which when opened

cruse sensations of illness. On Christmas morning

I can’t stand up.

If you immerse your feet in icy water

you forget grief for a moment. I did this once, my

brother-in-law made us cross a cold stream barefoot,

that winter, walking in the woods—I was emptied, then elated,

blissful; but didn’t try it again. Grief

returns vengeful after you’ve repulsed it.

-Alice Notley, "II - The person that you were will be replaced"

I know I've quoted Notley's work before, but that was a long time ago and I've only just discovered this poem. How true I find her work!

2008-02-24T21:17:00.000+01:00

This book certainly sounds one of the strangest I've ever been tempted to read:

The latest in Dedalus's Euro Shorts series is a surreal anti-fairy tale featuring a bizarre trio of star-crossed lovers. Plucked rudely from the sea, Lobster finds himself in a tank in the Titanic's dining room, watching in horror as Angelina, a beautiful young opium addict, devours his father. Lobster himself is dropped into boiling water three days later, but is saved when the Titanic hits the iceberg and, red but alive, he's sent careening through the flooding ship. He finds Angelina trapped in the death grip of her male companion, frees her with his pincers, realizes that he feels human lust for her and, in a startling scene, brings her to her first-ever orgasm. They escape to a lifeboat, but Lobster falls overboard, and the book's next movement concerns the lovers' attempts to experience such ecstasy again. Angelina loses her clitoris to the pincers of the wrong lobster, and Lobster, feasting on Titanic dead, befriends Jules, a Newfoundland tattoo artist/fisherman, whom he hopes will somehow take him to Angelina. Meeting Angelina on a ship to France, Jules (who's brought Lobster along in a basket) falls in love with her too. With its fortuitous encounters and near misses, its moments of sweet affection and suicidal despair, Lecasble's tale manages to be both tender and appalling.

-Review of Guillaume Lecasble's Lobster provided by Publishers Weekly

2008-02-22T00:47:00.000+01:00

In what way is "Raumkultur" not an amazing word? This is just one example of why I chose to study German.

-Word found on the website for the Museum Bellerive, in Zurich, for the exhibition "Der Schöne Schein"

2008-02-19T22:23:00.000+01:00

Fatelessness reads the memoir of a Hungarian teenager, describing just one year of his life. While living in Budapest with his family our narrator is proud, but silent. He speaks with a voice much like Camus's, in that he detachedly, though acutely observes others as if their actions hardly relate to his own. He finds contentment in being a naïve youth whose decisions are made for him. Over the next year, this slowly changes after he is put to work in a German Arbeitslager, or concentration camp. Although he doesn't know why he was taken to the camp, he accepts passively his fate and does what would be natural for us all: to acknowledge the situation and to simply survive each passing day.

It is in captivity that he expands his emotions and develops his sense of self, maturing in a place where the idea of an individual does not exist. In the camp, nearly all identifying characteristics are stripped away from the internees, leaving behind only their language and faith. Using these two attributes, he reflects on his own Jewish identity, as well as religion as a whole. After observing the Nazis' efficacy with some admiration, he ultimately rejects all religious faith for lacking rationality. He finds the man who tries to preserve his faith in spite of the hardships of the concentration camp to be foolish and, above all, stubborn.

Just when things look their lowest, the aroma of turnip soup triggers our narrator's desire to live. It is at this moment that he realizes his personhood and sheds his skepticism of individuality. But with this awareness comes bitterness and a revised existentialism. Even though he lives someone else's fate, he reconciles the poor luck of others by explaining that fate is independent of personal action.

By the end of our story, our narrator speaks with an adult air of authority earned from his experience. For him, only fate or freedom can exist, never both. He finds no difference between doing nothing and doing something, as both have equally unpredictable and unchangeable outcomes. However, the idea that history happens around people, tossing them every which way without reason, disgusts him. The agency people inherently lack ought to be made up for in their tolerance of the past and of what's to come. The moral he sermonizes is, for him, not a choice but a necessity; it is to take life one step at a time.

Fatelessness was written by the Nobel Prize recipient and Hungarian writer Imre Kertész.

2008-01-27T01:34:00.001+01:00

The marketing for businesses in Berlin is young and hip, evidence of its rapidly growing demographic of creative types. I first noticed the business cards (thank goodness I went with vellum for my own. Also, look in Walter Benjamin's "Archive" for some incredibly sharp-looking stationary). Then this evening I came across a number of attention-grabbing websites - many retail stores have a website just to publish basic information, such as the location and hours of the shop. Although the navigation of these sites is more often than not a foreign language of its own, it's interesting that so much emphasis is placed on modern design. Either way, living in a place where Wi-fi is easier to find than the Yellow Pages, this is something I can really appreciate.

Whisky & Cigars
Scotch & Sofa
Transmediale
Ausberlin
Arm aber sexy (translates as "Poor, but sexy", an anthem for Berlin)
Buchbox
Edelramsch

2008-01-22T23:15:00.000+01:00

Here's a very interesting and informative article on the use of composers Bruckner and Wagner by Hitler and the Third Reich found in Commentary Magazine.

2008-01-22T02:22:00.000+01:00

"Work on good prose has three steps: a musical phase when it is composed, an architectonic one when it is built, and a textile one when it is woven."

Walter Benjamin, "Caution: Steps"

2008-01-20T21:50:00.000+01:00

For those of you out of the loop, there's exciting news concerning Nabokov's last work. A full article can be found on Slate. In short, Nabokov requested that his final (and unfinished) manuscript be destroyed. His wife died before fulfilling his wish and now the decision is left to their son, Dmitri, who is now 73. The manuscript currently sits in a Swiss bank vault.

I don't envy Dmitri's position. Vladimir's ghost is not one with which to be trifled. But as a bookseller by trade and a Nabokov lover by necessity, I think we should save the manuscript.

Consider the case of Franz Kafka, who also wanted his work destroyed. It was his intellectual confidante, Max Brod, who decided to go against Kafka's wishes and publish his work.

Furthermore, if someone has the option to contribute art to the world (let alone something original, brilliant, or simply beautiful), what reasons does he have to restrain from doing so? In a time like ours, it is ridiculous to reject any intelligent cultural product. I feel Nabokov would understand this. Ultimately, it's a matter of weighing an individual against a society; no one (who really matters, anyway) would think any less of Nabokov (V. or D.) for allowing an unfinished manuscript be released into the public realm. Sure, the manuscript and Nabokov will, without a doubt, both be subjected to the scrutiny of unremarkable Ph. D. candidates and failed writers. But think of everything we have learned (and could still learn) from that man, that literary master.

One should not forget: The manner dies with the matter.

So, here's my last plea: Please, Dmitri, share with us your treasure chest.

2008-01-19T22:19:00.000+01:00

This week has me anxiously awaiting the spring. It's bitter, nearly blistering cold here in Ann Arbor. My skin's flaring up and my current carrot day cream has the nutrients to heal the worn, sunburned flesh of summer, but not whatever is needed to soothe my under-exfoliated, dry and blotchy face. The extra quilt has made it onto the bed, keeping me warm as early as 9:30 every night. That said, here are the movies I made it through this past week: "Death of a President" (a fictional documentary where George W. Bush gets shot and killed during a visit to Chicago) was definitely interesting, though often a little slow. Jean-Pierre Jeunet's "Delicatessen" was bizarre and would have done better as a true musical. "Babel" was excellent -- and so is Cate Blanchett.

Ermanno Olmi's "I Fidanzati" worked slowly to its climax, which I would say is the last 7 or so minutes of the film. Having gone through several (unsuccessful) long-distance relationships, it is my expert opinion that this movie is very true in depicting the events that occur when one lover decides to pack up and leave (crests of nostalgia and passion, troughs of bitter resentment and denial). It seems that as soon as both parties commit to each other their love and their loyalty (which usually takes an absurd amount of time and distance), things fall apart very quickly.

I loved the flashbacks with the two perspectives (and what I imagine to be the same take) of the motorcycle ride. A film I recommend to only the patient and aesthetically sensitive. Then again, the brief scenes of men walking casually around the hostel in pajama pants, undershirts, and sunglasses are just too cool to miss.

A brief note on the power of dancing. When I think back on the best-preserved memories of these relationships long past, they nearly all involve dancing. Whether in bedrooms to 33s played on my grandmother's old stereo, at Ypsilanti house parties, in Parisian nightclubs, here in Ann Arbor at the bar... it was during these times that my heart surrendered and my fondest memories formed.

2008-01-15T21:47:00.001+01:00

When I'm sitting in the waiting room for over an hour with my mom, who could have been in the midst of a stroke, waiting for the doctor, or wheeling a frightened, bloody friend through the emergency room and later visiting him in his hospital bed, IVs, catheter and all, or in any way having to interact with the greater medical system, all I can think of is how barbaric the instruments are and outdated the whole process seems.

But when I'm healthy and far from the clinic, it's an issue that slips easily out of the orbit of my primary concerns and follows the majority of my intellectual inquiries and good-samaritan efforts into the black hole of my consciousness, dissipating alongside such things as witty Halloween costume ideas and drunken small talk.

As I've been reading and watching a lot of war-time narratives, health has been on my mind quite a bit lately. Insuring that every citizen has access to basic, yet proper, healthcare should be the government's primary concern. For so many reasons, the American medical system has to change. I admit, I'm going to take the role of the critic here and not offer a solution. There are plenty out there already, and it will only be a matter of time until we are forced to choose one.

Anyway, the other day I came across this article. The original article was about the failure of doctor's offices to do what they were intended to do: consider the welfare of its patients and keep them feeling as good as possible. It considers such things as out-of-date magazines, dead plants, hospital gowns that cover very little, and anxiety-inducing floor plans. Check it out, but most of all, don't skip reading the comments. A few healthcare providers contribute their perspectives, which basically all point out the fact that clinics don't have sufficient funding.

How can we afford to go to war and impose our government on others when we can't even take care of ourselves?

2008-01-12T00:45:00.000+01:00

The past couple of weeks have yielded significant amounts of spare time, most of which I spent reading and watching movies. However, it seems my progress will be a slowed due to a slight (though massively painful) problem with my vision. More specifically, a 2 mm "corneal abrasion" on my right eye. The diagnosis fails to thrill, as does the $15 dropper of acid (antibiotic, whatever) I have to apply every couple of hours. So if you pass my way and think I'm giving you stink eye, guess again.

In other news, German's going well. Work is great, as usual. There's a project in the works that really excites me and ought to absorb every minute of my spare time over the next four-plus months (think Hegel and Michel Gondry, Nietzsche and Miranda July). The fruits of my labor will most likely make their way up here, but I'm also going to aim a little higher. We'll see how it goes, because German is also going to be very demanding.

As previously mentioned, I'm celebrating the repair of my laptop's optical drive by checking out the entire video collection at the AADL. For the entire last third of Almodovar's "Volver" I was a weepy mess, plagued with the guilt of long taking my mother's sacrifices for granted. "Est/Ouest" had a similar effect, though tears were cried out of frustration equally as much as over the film's beauty. "The Wonder Boys" revived my long-forgotten love for Tobey Maguire and had me laughing out loud to myself in bed. I found "Downfall" less enjoyable than "Russian Ark", but I don't think people make movies about Hitler to spice up one's holidays. Truffaut's "Domicile Conjugal" reminded me why I hate men with long hair and roused my inner francophile, who has otherwise been lying obedient, submitting to all the repression I've inflicted over the past few months. What else... "All The Pretty Horses" made me queasy. "Juno" is not to be missed. "The Big Lebowski" will have me drinking white russians all year long. I'm also looking forward to buying "Paris, je t'aime" when it's released in February.

Today a customer came into the store for the sole purpose of giving me a book from her personal collection. I am still touched, hours later. Not more than five people in my life have ever given me a book (six if you count an impromptu demand for a present). One was my grandmother, three were friends, and now M.J. makes five. This makes me pleased as punch.

2007-12-30T23:11:00.000+01:00

In The Nimrod Flipout, Keret creates intelligent and imaginative stories around themes that hit a little too close to home… sort of. Many young men can identify with tales of dogs lost to patriarchal tyranny and friends to the dreariness of life in the military. But in this collection, reality is matched equally with the bizarre. A boy finds the meaning of life in a newspaper advertisement, a talking fish keeps its mouth shut, a civilization of moon inhabitants destroys a rocket ship built only with carefully-shaped thoughts. Half of each story is silly, the other half serious. That said, half of this book is silly, the other half serious. But the collection itself is nothing less than 100% genuine. Keret doesn't miss a beat, writing with the satiric aloofness that most young people use to deal with the disorder of the modern world. Like life, these stories are as happy and hopeful as they are horrific. It’s a good thing life isn’t as short, however, as the stories average out at only a couple of pages each. But the cunning, of whom Keret is absolutely included, need no more than three paragraphs of theatrical, often wicked narrative to reveal a vignette of true wisdom. Just read the first page.

Review of Etgar Keret's The Nimrod Flipout

2007-12-30T23:07:00.000+01:00

In this collection, Hempel puts her cards on the table and writes the love stories of a grown woman whose beloved is never present. With a simple, yet handsome style, she grieves the loss of companionship (platonic, romantic, animal), and discovers that what is left is more valuable than what there was to start. Despite their seemingly tenebrous tone, Hempel possesses a sincere, laugh-out-loud sense of humor. I finished each story inspired by her clarity and liberated by her hope.

Review of The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel

2007-12-30T23:04:00.000+01:00

An unconsummated childhood love leaves our narrator, an attractive French littérateur pseudonymed Humbert Humbert, victim to the temptation of seductively playful nymphets. Lolita documents Humbert’s relationship with himself, rather than that with the 12-year-old Dolores Haze. Although H. is too overwhelmed by his eroticism to actually care for the object of his affection, his charm is so great that the reader finds himself sympathizing with H.’s deviant romantic needs. What starts as mildly masochistic fetishism (for postponed desire) culminates in a desperate act of violence. Though tragic in plot, humor abounds in Nabokov’s style, which is pregnant with the wit of literary punnery and double entendre.

Review of Nabokov's Lolita

2007-11-25T13:07:00.000+01:00

My poor, neglected blog. I can never do enough to satisfy your desires, your needs, your demands.

I am currently logging in from a university computer lab in Central London. I am visiting my roommate and best friend from Paris. It seems like no time at all has passed between us and I still love talking with her. My first full day here (Friday) I went to the open day at the Courtauld Institute to discuss the masters in curatorial studies program with their faculty. Next Wednesday is the open day at the Royal College of the Arts, which I also look forward to attending. Yesterday's dismal weather didn't pull me away from the university compound until nearly 3:00, when Cat, her friend Daisy, and I went out for Thai and carrot cake.

I don't like London nearly as much as I did the first time. Especially compared to Berlin, it seems very... superficial. It is incredibly expensive, crowded, and stylish. It doesn't feel European (I can't find a decent cafe or bakery). It is a city of lights and waste, a city of excess, yet the pubs close at 11 pm and the clubs often charge 10£ for cover. It really isn't the environment for me unless I want to shop all day and spend, spend, spend. Which I don't.

So, back to Berlin. I really do love the city and hope to stay. I'm presently looking for a job and a flat... even just for December. I have met quite a few incredible people already. The galleries are friendly and very helpful. Each one took my CV and recommended other places to try. However, everyone agrees it will be very tough to live and work in the city without knowing German for practical reasons.

I spent three or four days working at the re:place conference for art, media, and science histories. I spent another full day walking around the Mitte gallery district and another day seeking out the newer galleries, which are scattered around the city. I haven't spent any more time in Kreuzberg. I did go out one night to windowshop at Kastanianalle, where I found a pair of boots. I fear the cow-girls aren't going to make it much longer, even though I just had the soles replaced.

One night I went to a CS-er's flat. We all helped with dinner (beer-battered zuccini, potatoes, and more). Another night and another CS-er introduced me to Scotch and Sofa, my all-time favorite bar for reasons that should be quite obvious.

I'm really pumped about the whole situation. Most of my anxiety has fallen away since I've developed alternative plans. I actually have quite a few goals, all perfectly reasonable, some short-term and others looking years ahead. I am ready to fend for myself, but with the nurturing Berliner environment, I don't think I will be alone.

2007-11-13T23:52:00.000+01:00

Although it won’t read any differently to you, this entry will take an especially long time to type. That is because my hands (and eyes) are busy devouring a plateful of Thai sweet and sour chicken. Apparently the city’s best Thai restaurant is only one block away, but that will have to be saved for another night. For now, I’m settling for mediocre takeout. To the deprived palate, it couldn’t be any tastier. The only other thing I’ve eaten today was a carefully rationed king-size Hershey chocolate bar, a last-minute purchase from DTW.

The flight from Detroit to Frankfurt went just fine. There weren’t any personal movie screens built into the seats like on Northwest, but the plane was nearly empty and each of us had a row on which to stretch out. After snoozing another hour in the Frankfurt airport and then another on the connecting flight, I arrived in Berlin. Let me tell you, what this city does not lack is housing. No wonder it’s so cheap. Like most European cities, Berlin is low and sprawls for miles. However, from a view above, the apartment buildings stack like a Monopoly hotel orgy.

When the machine that distributes bus tickets was only in German (and wouldn’t accept my credit card), I began to regret the whole trip here. What was I thinking? Whatever it was, it was in English, French and even a little bit of Spanish – everything but German. Then two women came to my rescue. One actually looked like an old GSI and the other a girl I once met in New York. They spoke English and argued with the bus driver when he demanded exact change. The “GSI” ended up paying for my ticket.

I feel that I look like every other twenty-something girl in this city. They all have distinctive vintage boots, wool peacoats, and short haircuts. Of course, most of them are blonde and have a couple inches on my 172 cm frame. It also seems to me that nobody has perfected the bedhead hairstyle better than the male Berliner.

After maneuvering the bus route and U-Bahn, I met Sergio, who owns the apartment I’m staying in. He is Peruvian and multilingual (German, English, Spanish, and French). He is an artist and writer, and participates in an art collective that runs their own gallery. My room has a strong Internet connection, a stack of art magazines, Sergio’s photographs and a little balcony strewn with weathered Tibetan prayer flags. The other room will be let out to a friend of his who will act as an artist-in-residence. In two weeks the apartment will be opened to the public to exhibit the installation she creates.

I took a couple of minutes to settle and then Sergio and I left to attend a discussion at an independent art institution, NGBK (Oranienstr. 2). The lecture and discussion series is following a workshop that was hosted this past week in Berlin. Sergio's friend, the one who will be moving into the room next to mine, was one of the participating artists. Representatives from art academies all over Europe and Latin America came together to discuss Derrida’s theory of a condition-less university. Each day, they would simultaneously participate in a discussion and create their work collaboratively as a response. The curator and director of the project, Bettina Steinbrügge, led the discussions. She curates with this idea of a subjective academy and values the individual mind most when it’s matched up against another. In short, by posing the right questions, she too became an artist, because the line separating curatorial direction and artistic production blurred to the extent that it became impossible to determine what exactly was the product (the art object? The knowledge exchanged or, even better, created from the discussion?). So tonight Bettina presented on this, specifically “subjective academy-forms of knowledge production in artistic and curatorial practice.” Afterward, our discussion went from critiquing the institution of critiquing institutions (what it means to do this, what generation of critique we are presently in, how to define an institution, and what Derrida means by destruction versus creation) to the Adornoian difference between creation and production as it applies to secondary education. Because the crowd was made up of dozens of nationalities, the discussion was held in English.

Someone brought up the excellent point that, these days, almost all knowledge is being created in non-academic scientific institutions (think private technical programs). Somewhat unrelated, Bettina said she read a study that determined Germany would peak economically if only 10% of its population were among the very educated (that is, acquired a masters or doctoral degree). It was so inspirational to see a group of intellectuals and artists together to discuss theory in a way that directly applies to the real and practical side of artistic production and presentation and that a good portion of the crowd was actively participating and debating. Nobody acted stubborn or ran out in a huff. People took the time to reflect on what was said and to respond thoughtfully. I have never been so excited to go to grad school. I honestly can’t remember the last time I was this intellectually tickled.

2007-11-03T18:25:00.001+01:00

In a moment the platform was full of arguing, gesticulating shadows. To Ralph, seated, this seemed the breaking up of sanity. Fear, beasts, no general agreement that the fire was all-important: and when one tried to get the thing straight the argument sheered off, bringing up fresh, unpleasant matter.

He could see a whiteness in the gloom near him so he grabbed it from Maurice and blew as loudly as he could.

William Golding, "Lord of the Flies"

2007-11-01T01:04:00.000+01:00

A young man is on his way to a rendezvous with a young woman, to whom he intends to say that he finds it useless, harmful, wasteful and monotonous that they continue to see each other. In reality, he has never loved this young woman, but felt for her a sequence of feelings of gallantry, devotion, admiration, hope, perplexity, detachment, disappointment, irritation. Irritation is now quietly slipping over into a form of bland and demeaning pique, since he supposes that the woman is in some way unwilling to forget him, and he fears that within her life he as assumed a dignity which he finds alarming. Reviewing the series of feelings he has felt for the young woman, he recognizes that at times he behaved with excessive fragility, and had hoped... had hoped what? He had hoped that both of them were different, and that they had possessed a space in which to invent a relationship; he admits that a part of his dilemma doesn't depend on her, but on his own behavior, laughably fantastic and irresponsible.

At the very same moment, the young woman is making her way to the rendezvous, firmly intending to make everything clear. She is a woman with a love for simplicity and clarity, and she feels that the imprecisions and ambiguities of a non-existent relationship have gone on too long. She never loved that man, but must admit to having been weak; to a lack of caution in the way she had asked for his aid; to having tolerated the growth of a tacit misunderstanding in which now she feels herself unfairly trapped. The woman is irritated, but prudence advises that she only be decided and calm. She knows that this man is a creature of emotion, a fantasizer, capable of seeing things that are not there, and of trusting in such things with a faith no less constant than empty and unfounded; she also knows this man to have a high opinion of himself, and to be inclined to lie simply to prevent it from suffering humiliation. So, she will be prudent, benevolent, clear-headed.

Punctually, the young man and woman approach their appointed meeting place. Now they have seen each other, have greeted one another, with a gesture in which habit has replaced cordiality. Having reached a distance of only a couple of yards from one another, each halts to survey the other, attentively, in silence; and both are suddenly overwhelmed by a fury of joy, as both understand, and know, that neither of them has ever loved the other.

Giorgio Manganelli, "Centuria"

Who else but an Italian?