a berlin blog
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a berlin blog |
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Sunday, January 30, 2005 These Amusing Pictures
... ripped from a New York Times slide show, make me think of a paragraph in "The Watcher," Italo Calvino's guardedly optimistic story about a poll-watcher overlooking a parade of rough, halt, and lame voters in post-Fascist Italy, circa 1953: There was a lull in the flow of voters, and a footstep was heard, a kind of hobbling, or rather a banging of planks, and all the election officials looked toward the door. In the doorway a little woman appeared, very tiny, seated on a stool; or rather, not exactly seated, because she didn't touch the floor with her feet, nor did her legs sway, nor were they folded under her. They weren't there, her legs. This stool, low, square, a footstool, was covered by her skirt, and below -- below her waist, and also below the woman -- it seemed there was nothing: only the legs of the stool could be seen, two vertical sticks, like the legs of a bird. "Come in!" the chairman said and the little woman began to advance, that is she thrust forward one shoulder and a hip, and the stool shifted obliquely on that side, and then she thrust out the other shoulder and the other hip, and the stool made another quarter-turn to catch up; and fixed to her stool in this way, she dragged herself across the long room to the table, holding out her voter's certificate. 
ON THE OTHER HAND: Yesterday I saw some old Robert Capa photos in a Berlin exhibition showing those same Italians dancing in the streets of Sicily to cheer the arrival of American troops. It never happened like that in Iraq. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 9:50 PM Somewhat Later Iraqi Election BloggingNow CNN is saying (on TV) that the 72% turnout statistic wasn't based on actual voting rolls but on "human flow" through the polling places. I'm not even sure what that means.ALSO: By 72%, no one means three-fourths of all 25 million Iraqis. The election commission guesses that about 8 million people turned out. That may amount to three-fourths of all registered voters, but it's no more than a quarter of everyone in Iraq. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 5:01 PM Shameless Early Iraqi Election BloggingCNN reports a 72% turnout in Iraq, which is stunning, but let's balance that number with a couple of considerations:a) No independent confirmation. News outfits get their facts right now from Iraq's election commission. In fact, the independent election-watchers seem to be monitoring things from Jordan. That's as silly as "liveblogging" the polls from L.A. b) The turnout in Indonesia last year was north of 80 percent. People in new democracies like to vote. There's no comparing electorates like these to the spoiled and blasé citizens of, say, the United States. So let's can the "Americans-never-turn-out-like-this" gloating. That won't cut any mustard around here. Still, a 70-odd percent turnout might lead to a true and legitimate Iraqi constitution, assuming enough disgruntled Sunnis voted. That would be -- well, amazing. Right? Comments are on; the Radio Free Mike tech team is standing by for your opinion. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 2:33 PM (1) comments Saturday, January 29, 2005 The Cat Comes BackYusuf Islam will give a charity concert in Jakarta on Monday to help tsunami victims.He said: "It's not a return to Cat Stevens, I see it more as a natural response to express my concern as a Muslim and as an artist; I believe both can exist side by side, particularly when the cause is right."Of course they can. But until now, Mr. Islam had avoided playing music with instruments because instruments were a kind of impurity (like that Salman Rushdie novel). Fascinating how people will re-interpret scripture to do just as they damn well please. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 10:50 AM Friday, January 28, 2005 Flogging the People of IraqVote! Don't vote! posted by Michael Scott Moore | 8:01 PMThursday, January 27, 2005 Auschwitz RememberedGerhard Schröder and Joschka Fischer both gave decent tributes this week to mark the liberation of Auschwitz; but a few neo-Nazi meatheads couldn't resist walking out of a minute's silence last week in Saxony. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 4:31 PMWednesday, January 26, 2005 Asparagus MoodsEast Berlin's TV tower is nicknamed "der Telespargel," the TV-Asparagus, because, well, just look at it. People here feel genuine affection for the thing. When I suggested to a friend named Sassa that the Telespargel was "häßlich" (ugly), she protested, "Der ist nicht häßlich!" -- as if I'd just called her stinking old dog "a little smelly."The thing about the Telespargel is that you can see it from anywhere in the center of Berlin. It's not only ugly but omnipresent. Here's the Telespargel in the morning, from Oranienburgerstraße, not far from my apartment:  Here it is from the Palast der Republik on a clear afternoon:  Here it is from Pariser Platz on a dismal afternoon:  And here's the view down Sophienstraße, just outside the apartment, at dusk. Note Telespargel behind a tree. 
posted by Michael Scott Moore |
5:38 PM
Tuesday, January 25, 2005 Vinter VonderlandAfter two weeks of denying to my friends that Berlin gets any lasting snow, in spite of what you might read on Yahoo weather reports, here's how the courtyard outside my kitchen looked yesterday. It's no different this morning:
posted by Michael Scott Moore |
10:07 AM
Monday, January 24, 2005 Dubbed, UnfortunatelyGerman film distributors like to dub most movies, whether they come from Hollywood or Hong Kong or Paris. Luckily Berlin has a few theaters that show Originalverfassungen, with original voices and subtitles. I like to watch those even if the voices are in Chinese; I prefer reading a movie to watching it in closed, pickled German. But film critics of course don't use Originalverfassungen on the radio, which leads to its own absurdity. This weekend I heard a radio critic go on and on about how Leonardo DiCaprio does such brilliant work in The Aviator, die Spitzenrolle seiner Karriere, blah-blah-blah, only to play a clip from the movie dubbed in German. Good God. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 3:49 PMSaturday, January 22, 2005 Gummi-AmpelmännchenEast Berlin has distinctive little dowdy men on its stoplights to signify "walk" or "don't walk," and saving these Ampelmännchen from replacement (after reunification) by their taller, better-proportioned, more athletic-looking Western cousins became a passionate local cause. Anyway, now there's a store devoted to Ampelmann-kitsch not far from my apartment, and the coolest thing they sell there is Gummi-Ampelmännchen. Like Gummi Bears! I think that's brilliant. For decades candy-makers have been trying to replicate the Gummi-Bear phenomenon with wild shots in the dark like, oh, say, Sponge Bob Krabby Patties, but none of the results, not even Sour Patch Kids (which I adore), have made as much plain natural sense as Gummi-Ampelmännchen. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 6:02 PM (4) commentsAbout That HeroinEarly last month, which for some reason feels like about 2 years ago, there was a flurry of reports about Bin Laden and his people financing their evil deeds with heroin. No doubt that's true. But anyone with power in Afghanistan has probably done the same thing. Just because a warlord is on our side doesn't mean he keeps out of the lucrative Afghan trade in poppies that leads to cheap and dangerous junk on the streets of San Francisco, LA, Chicago, Manhattan. President Reagan once held up a photo of some Sandinistas loading coke onto a plane during a televsied speech. But it was his own CIA-trained army, the contras, who were flooding American markets with cheap coke. This excellent column connects the dots between the ugly story uncovered by Gary Webb and the heroin trade flourishing in Afghanistan. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 5:16 PM (0) commentsFriday, January 21, 2005 California, Berlin, and the MoonThe German actress Franka Potente (Run Lola Run) has just returned to Berlin from a year in Hollywood and has a few grouses about L.A. For one thing -- she says in an interview with the local culture rag Zitty -- Germans are plainspoken and clear, as opposed to those insufferably vague Californians:A German would call up a friend Monday and say, "Let's meet up Thursday around 6," and then that's how it is. No one has to call again to discuss it.And here I think her answer in German is so hilarious I don't even have to translate it. Most of you in California will get the idea: Da läuft das so: Wenn man abends einen treffen will, ruft man morgens an. Der sagt dann so was wie: "You know what? Let me call you right back. I'm in the car right now." Dann rufen sie einen 15 Minuten später an. "I don't know. I'm gonna get into the shower. Let me call you right after the shower." Und dann wieder: "I'm on the other line now. I'll call you right back." Man muss 15 Mal telefonieren, bevor man irgendwas ausmacht. Und dann rufen sie nochmal an und sagen, sie sind "stuck in traffic."posted by Michael Scott Moore | 1:39 PM (1) comments Thursday, January 20, 2005 Boot-Scootin' in Style at the Inaugural BallFrom the Houston Chronicle:The celebration stretched across three floors with partyers filling seven ballrooms and overflowing into heated tents to accommodate the record turnout. But the unprecedented success of the event came with a price.posted by Michael Scott Moore | 8:03 AM Wednesday, January 19, 2005 Discovering the CityBerlin seems to love Hedwig. Her name turns up everywhere, starting down the block from me on Big Hamburger Street, where they've named a hospital after her:
There's also an enormous church near the old Checkpoint Charlie: 
... as well as an alley running next to it ("Hedwig's Alley"). You'll say these places look a little antique to honor a neo-glam transvestite punk queen from a recent cult movie; but I think the disconnect only shows the depth of Berliners' devotion. They've bothered to make the buildings look old. They've even dubbed her Saint Hedwig, as you can sort of see in the hospital photo. I assume that's kind of like the St. John Coltrane African Orthodox Church in San Francisco? I could be wrong. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 3:04 PM (0) comments EwPeter Jackson has optioned The Lovely Bones for a 2007 release. Why does this hurt me a little? posted by Michael Scott Moore | 1:55 PM (8) commentsTuesday, January 18, 2005 Dimming the Tinsel
This poor man has just been strangled in Munich by an Iraqi rent-boy. He was a German fashion mogul named Rudolph Moshammer -- designer to opera stars, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Siegfried and Roy -- and was rarely seen in public without his hündchen, Daisy. Most of the time Daisy behaved herself, but I think the expression captured here speaks volumes about the pampered life of continental glamor and fame. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 7:21 AM (1) comments Monday, January 17, 2005 Act 3 in a Five-Act PlayIran? No, I don't think the mullahs should have a bomb, but, uh -- posted by Michael Scott Moore | 11:38 PM (0) commentsSauerkrauthammerThe only thing missing from James Wolcott's marvelous evisceration of a recent Krauthammer column -- and his gallant defense of Pauline Kael -- is a Joycean pun, which I've cobbled together (above) just to see how it looks. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 11:55 AM (0) commentsAlien WindsThe European Space Agency has not only pictures from Titan but also sound clips (!) from the probe landing. Thanks to my.bicycle.Also, be sure to see the debate shaping up under my last post about Norman Podhoretz. Right now it's a three-continent discussion (involving Osaka, San Francisco, and Berlin) and I'm proud to say it's more enlightening than all the asinine comments over here. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 8:51 AM Saturday, January 15, 2005 Scene 2 in a Five-Act PlayNorman Podhoretz has published another cud-chew -- and thorough peristalsis -- of the Bush Doctrine and its malcontents. He reminds everyone that our radical project to re-make the Muslim world has broken all kinds of ideological china from the hard left to the far right, and that the dream of a peaceful, democratic, swamp-drained Middle East is the most ambitious and hopeful revolution in U.S. foreign policy in decades. He repeats his own sentiment that Iraq is just scene 2 in a five-act play, meaning just a battle in the great sweep of World War IV -- a battle we need to win -- and encourages Americans to buck up their native courage for an adventure as long and difficult as World War III (the Cold War).No one can beat us, he says, but our own chickenshits. In that sense the real enemies are defeatists like David Hendrickson or Michael Moore (and probably James Wolcott), who threaten to undermine the struggle by turning public opinion, and forcing a pullout from Iraq as catastrophic as our retreat from Vietnam. Most Radio Free Mike readers may just chuckle, dismiss Norman as senile, and click away. Don't. I want you to click the link and read his piece, ignoring howlers like this -- When Bush charged Saddam Hussein with refusing to give up his weapons of mass destruction, he was relying in good faith on what the CIA ... assured him was the case.-- and come back with a report. Does Norman, overall, have a point? Are Bush's blunders (like Churchill's during World War II) just potholes in a great and necessary road? To me the big assumption that no one ever seems to question is that a democratic Middle East will have fewer Islamic terrorists. Norman doesn't even touch that here; and if he's ever grappled with the basic premise of World War IV, I've missed it. At Radio Free Mike we have our suspicions, but no answers. So we want you to hang up your knee-jerk attitudes, ignore even the tone of this blog, consider something offensive and heretical to your own mind -- the notion that Podhoretz may be right; or else that Islamic democracy won't "drain the swamps" -- and leave behind a note. Our tech team has turned on the comments section just to get your ideas. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 10:41 AM (11) comments Friday, January 14, 2005 One Reader WritesMy friend Sarah's a Londoner living in Augsburg, not far from Munich, and she reacts to the "Prozess" post below with a horror story. All German words are just names of documents or institutions --Put it this way: be glad that you've got German citizenship when dealing with the Einwohnermeldeamt, because in their opinion all other nationalities should be treated like dirt, even Europeans who, at least in theory, have the same rights as all Germans. Well, that's the way it is down here in Augsburg, anyway. You should have seen the performance I had to go through and the documents I had to produce in order to be given (as is my right) an unbefristetes Aufenthaltserlaubnis after living here for 10 years. Proof of wages, language skills, documents relating to where I live. The one thing they didn't want to see, in fact, was my marriage certificate. Apparently being married to a German doesn't count for anything in the wild, wacky world of the EU department of the Augsburger Einwohnermeldeamt. It would probably make life too easy or something.Good point of comparison: Germans complain that to open a bank account in the U.S., you need something called a "social security number." posted by Michael Scott Moore | 3:58 AM (0) comments Thursday, January 13, 2005 Call Off Your Dogs!When I went to Indonesia last spring, the government was still keeping journalists out of Aceh; I never got close to the beaches where all those people are starving. So I'm no expert. But in general I think Jakarta's restriction on aid workers there is a sham. The early reaction of foreign doctors to dire government warnings about the rebels was, "Huh?" (I'm paraphrasing a BBC report.) They don't feel threatened by any rebels. Yes, one group of thugs briefly kidnapped a doctor because they thought medical aid was going to the military before it went to the local people; but as a rule the rebels in Aceh have been less opportunistic and sticky about tsunami relief than Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's new administration.The Acehnese are Muslims who identify with world Islam before any concept of "Indonesia." They want independence because they've been mistreated by Jakarta, and the Dutch, for decades. Rebellion is just a way of life at that end of Sumatra. (The writer Pramoedya Ananta Toer told me that "Indonesians have no individual courage -- except the Acehnese.") Supposedly the rebels want nothing to do with Al Qaeda or Jema'ah Islamiyah, but full independence in Aceh might give those radical groups hope for a wider "House of Islam" in southeast Asia, so Jakarta wants to keep the province to prevent Indonesia as a whole from breaking apart. (And for its oil reserves.) There is, of course, a middle ground -- special autonomy, in which Aceh governs itself but swears allegiance to Jakarta. (Aceh won some of this autonomy in 2001, but Yudhoyono himself later imposed martial law.) Special autonomy might have been a better solution for East Timor, which is now an independent mini-state attached to a huge nation it loathes. But bloody abuse by official and unofficial dogs of war made independence the only serious choice for East Timor, and if Indonesia hasn't learned its lesson then it deserves to fall apart. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 10:00 AM (0) comments Wednesday, January 12, 2005 Der ProzessThe German government has to know where its citizens live. Wherever you move, into the country or within it, you register with local authorities. Absent a paper from them you can't even open a bank account. The experience really is Kafkaesque. People throw that word around, but here's what it means. You must, by law, register within a week of settling down. Not by mail, in person. But where? On Monday I wandered three mazy, anonymous bureaucratic buildings in East Berlin, like Josef K. in search of his persecutors, until I found the right person, at the right desk, to reward my patience and effort by taking a ruler to my passport and crossing out "San Francisco":
The woman was nice and all, but it felt like a wound. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 8:31 AM (2) comments Tuesday, January 11, 2005 The Pleasures of East BerlinLast night I ate at the Sophieneck. I started with a Zwiebelkuchen, a soft baked square of dough larded in two kinds of onion and fresh bacon bits. There was so much onion it tasted flowery. Then I had a bowl of soljanka, which is a salty red Hungarian paprika stew with chunks of sausage, garnished with lemon. Then a shapely glass of Erdinger weissbier. For dessert, a Cuban cigar. I shouldn't smoke, since I have asthma, but the twin madnesses of (liberal) smoking laws and (conservative) Cuban embargoes keep this particular pleasure off the Californian menu. My waitress served it on a plate, with cigar-clipper and matches. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 8:27 PM (0) commentsImperiumA Very Important Reader points out that America has been generous with tsunami relief. She writes, "Not many in the media mention the US aircraft carrier with helicopters, personnel, seawater conversion capabilities (which are so vital right now), at the cost of tens of thousands of dollars a day."True, true. In the post below I didn't mean to say we haven't been generous. I don't even think the U.S. should rule out something as radical as ending an Islamic tyranny just because we might be (would certainly be) misunderstood. But the cause has to be right. In this case it was stupidly, publicly wrong. We look like a paranoid superpower, and Muslims everywhere are free to assume we had some other agenda in Iraq (which we did), or that we're against Islam (which we're not). The truth hardly matters anymore. The point is that Bush has trashed America's good name for not really very much in return. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 7:58 PM (0) comments Monday, January 10, 2005 MittendrinThe building here is a stony former Communist housing triangle on a corner of what used to be (seriously) a chic part of East Berlin. A concrete courtyard has magpies, sparse patches of grass, and a macadam ping-pong table. The indoor light-switches make a loud buzz in the fusebox when you turn anything off or on. The taps gurgle with a sound like Donald Duck. "Das war vorher luxus," says the friendly doctor I rent from: "This used to be considered luxury." Well, that's not my fault. But you walk outside, especially after dark, and the narrow Sophienstrasse offers (on close inspection) a billiard room, a whiskey-and-cigar store, a woodwind shop, a puppet stage, a green-glowing nightclub, a church that rings on Sundays, and brick factory courtyards converted to loft apartments and theaters. These courtyards date from the industrial Kaiser days. They used to be tenement slums where workers ran sewing machines or drill-presses and raised gangs of noisy kids. Now they're gentrification showpieces, and if your neighborhood has them it may mean your neighborhood is hip. A man who interviewed me today for teaching work called Sophienstrasse "the best street in Berlin." Could that be true? It's only a few blocks long. And I think the neighborhood as a whole is too potato-colored for superlatives.But just as I was writing this, a parade of protesters marched past my window. They were performing a "Montags-Demo" or weekly demonstration against Hartz IV, a plan to roll back German welfare. Unemployment is up to around 10 percent in Berlin and other eastern parts, so people are pissed. The protest was short, loud, peaceful, to the point; and it made my dowdy neighborhood feel like part of a real city. 
posted by Michael Scott Moore |
5:50 PM
(0) comments
Sunday, January 09, 2005 ÄrgerBig Hamburger Street, bafflingly, has no burger joints. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 10:43 PM (0) commentsThe Weather in BerlinI'm a block up from this restaurant, the Sophieneck, on what translates as "Big Hamburger Street." But I haven't sampled the menu. An American director named Mark Jackson has distracted me with other restaurants. I still feel on vacation, jetlagged and disoriented. It's hard to accept that I live here now. The apartment's small and drab, but quiet enough, and sunny in the kitchen. Today we had six hours of gorgeously direct sunlight, which gave way to dusk at 4:30 and then a stiff wind blowing clouds across the moon, and (finally) rain. Berlin, like New York, is a strange mix of forbidding old buildings with bright modern shopfronts. In spite of the cold it gets very little snow. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 5:33 AM (0) commentsYeah, MaybeFrom a few days ago:Noting that most of the victims are Muslims, [Colin Powell] pointedly elaborated on the American aid effort.Hah. I just transcribed an interview from last spring with Indonesian Muslims in Jombang, Java, where Gus Dur's family runs a network of (not-radical) Islamic schools. Haji Mohammed Sholeh Abdurrahman Hamid was a slight, elderly man with glasses and a beard and a delicate flashing smile. He chaired the “advisory council” of teachers in the Jombang complex of schools. Here's my translator's version of what he and his daughter had to say: "The general feeling [in Indonesia] is really that the United States is against Islam. Because -- of course they knew that Saddam was a tyrant. But there’s something beyond Saddam. It didn't stop at overthrowing this dictator. There must be a hidden agenda of America -- the oil, the strategic position of Iraq in the Middle East. So, something beyond Saddam Hussein. That’s what they think about the invasion.”Of course the strategic position of Iraq is the main reason we invaded. We can honestly say it was nothing personal. But the simple fact of white soldiers in an Arab land convinces ordinary Muslims that we hate Islam. Remember Islamists in Iraq now call American soldiers "Jews." It's a bigger problem than many millions of dollars of tsunami relief can solve. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 2:14 AM (0) comments Friday, January 07, 2005 Here We Are"Well!" the young man said— Dorothy Parker, "Here We Are" posted by Michael Scott Moore | 1:59 PM (0) comments Monday, January 03, 2005 Things I'll Miss About Ocean BeachFourth in a series:
You know how it is there early in the morning in San Francisco when the fog lifts off the water and the air feels cold as a lake in spring? (Hat tip: Hemingway.) posted by Michael Scott Moore | 8:15 AM (0) comments | |
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