“Disembark on the left,” the speakers say at the end of the clip. I think this short video, which I shot on a goregous spring day in Berlin this past May, can stand in as my triple congratulations: 1) to German Chancellor Angela Merkel for the CDU victories in the recent German elections, 2) to the estimatable Barack Obama for his having prevailed, unwittingly and … Continue reading Aufstieg Links
Postwar is post-nothing: it is the beginning of something. “Ach!”, trained instinct cries, “but what of ‘tragen’, to carry heavy burdens, of its simple past trug? Do not ponderous and blackened memories determine future projections?” No {we say, affected with blithe mannerisms}, because the burdens have been bombed away. Digs, belongings, spouses, families, pensions: the war wiped it all away, and one has to begin … Continue reading Postwar Meditation: Berlin/Tokyo
June 4, 1989 may lay buried under new epochs already, but the meaning of that date for China and its observers is clearly going to continue reverberate for decades. The Germans, perhaps most of all. China was, and remains, highly sensitive to commemorations of June 4, 1989, but for Germans, the inspiration of the Chinese student movement of the 1980s, and the violent end to … Continue reading Remembering Tiananmen and 1989 in Europe [1]
Last week I attended a reading of the Briefenwechsel, or correspondence, between two of the great European writers of the mid-20th century, Ingeborg Bachmann and Paul Célan. To my chagrin, I had heard of neither until last August, when newspaper reviews in Berlin turned my attention to their work. To my great fortune, a reading was being held at the very end of the S-1 … Continue reading Briefenwechsel
Du hast mich nur ausgeliehen. Andere Städte, andere Liebe, die Andere die Andere alles von mir fremden sind. Jetzt, bin ich in deinem Arme sehr schweigend, (schöne, mutterliche Stadt) wo mann Französisches bücher im alter Schrift am Straße finden kann, wo gunst von die Lippe taumeln müssen,wo (wissen Sie denn?) die petite mensonges auf die Ohren tritt nicht. Ach, du bist mein Göttin noch, die … Continue reading Berlin, mein Schatz
