Hope everyone has a fun and happy Halloween. :) Here's to Celtic roots!
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Friday, October 26, 2007
Mindless musings
- It's difficult to find turnips here. Any time I ask for "Weißrüben", I first get mildly puzzled looks, and then shown to the beets. Does anyone have any insight into why German culinary culture seems to exclude the turnip?
- On that note, the weekly vegetable market is fun. These jovial old guys with really strong Pfälzer accents describe their wares if they were lovers ("I see the lady is eyeing my spinach. I love this spinach -- it hasn't disappointed me the way the spinaches from the next village over have") while you rub your jaw thoughtfully and ask what they would recommend for a stew. It is only at this market that I have ever found the elusive turnip.
- Bert and his friends love the Rambo movies. Nothing is so cute as to hear two Germans imitating Sylvester Stallone: "Zey drew furst blood. Not me."
- The work just keeps rolling in -- who would have thought there'd be so much demand in one small area for a freelance English teacher? It's getting to the point that I have to sit down and prioritize, and decide what I'm going to keep, and what I simply don't have room for!
- I'm just terribly happy. When you start walking home and instead find yourself floating, supported by leaves blowing around in the wind, grinning mindlessly for no reason except that you just found turnips at the vegetable market, life is probably moving in just the right direction.
- On that note, the weekly vegetable market is fun. These jovial old guys with really strong Pfälzer accents describe their wares if they were lovers ("I see the lady is eyeing my spinach. I love this spinach -- it hasn't disappointed me the way the spinaches from the next village over have") while you rub your jaw thoughtfully and ask what they would recommend for a stew. It is only at this market that I have ever found the elusive turnip.
- Bert and his friends love the Rambo movies. Nothing is so cute as to hear two Germans imitating Sylvester Stallone: "Zey drew furst blood. Not me."
- The work just keeps rolling in -- who would have thought there'd be so much demand in one small area for a freelance English teacher? It's getting to the point that I have to sit down and prioritize, and decide what I'm going to keep, and what I simply don't have room for!
- I'm just terribly happy. When you start walking home and instead find yourself floating, supported by leaves blowing around in the wind, grinning mindlessly for no reason except that you just found turnips at the vegetable market, life is probably moving in just the right direction.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Girl meets Author
So, in the same newspaper article about the Stolpersteine last week was a small blurb about various other upcoming, Jewish-centered local activities. One of them is a memorial service for Kristallnacht -- on November 9th, as it were, the night before my birthday. Funnily enough, tons of Important Historical Events in German history happened to occur right around this date:
November 9th, for example, is not only the anniversary of Kristallnacht, it is also the day of the proclamation of the Weimar Republik in 1918 (Germany's first, unfortunately somewhat unsuccessful, democratic government), as well as the night of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. November 11th is both the holiday celebrating the official begin of the Karnival season, as well as the anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended World War One. And right between those two dates, on November 10th, I get to share a birthday with Martin Luther, Friedrich Schiller, and Arnold Zweig! Hey, maybe I was born to study German!
Speaking of studying German: one of my favorite authors is Barbara Honigmann, the daughter of two Jewish Germans who fled their homeland during World War Two, to return after the war
to the new communist state that was East Germany. Having personally witnessed the horrible demise of the "German-Jewish symbiosis" so hoped for during the Enlightenment, Honigmann's parents thus threw their past -- including the last remaining traces of their Jewishness -- out the window and declared themselves devout communists. Communism observed no religion, no skewed concepts of "race"; only class mattered, and those (theoretically) as equal as possible. The GDR seemed to offer the Honigmanns a new beginning, and they never looked back.
Unfortunately for their daughter, however, this meant growing up in a family whose history felt like some kind of conspiracy. Most of Honigmann's books are therefore witty, poignant, fearless autobiographical narratives chronicling her lifelong search for roots and an identity: her unanswered questions as a child; sneaking into her mother's closet to look at old, unknown photographs in a shoebox and wondering if those strangers were in some way connected to her; being referred to by neighbors and classmates as Jewish, without having any idea what being Jewish really meant; poking around a mysterious cemetery from the previous century, and seeing last names that actually looked like her own, rather than her classmates'... even in the new state which was supposed to be blind to ethnic differences and full of possibility for the future, Honigmann was ever compelled by her past, and the vague feeling that she was somehow not quite as "East German" as her neighbors.
Yet when she began her publishing career in West Germany, she was suddenly viewed as an Eastern writer; and when she forsook both places for a move to France, she's now considered the "token German" among her friends and colleagues. In other words, she's an outsider wherever she is. Talk about a conflicted identity! I took on one of her juicy books for my honors thesis during my B.A. studies, analyzing and translating the work from German to English.
Well, I'll be jiggered if Frau Honigmann herself didn't just give a reading here in Ludwigshafen yesterday! As soon as I read the announcement in the paper, I stuck a big notice to the shelf above the kitchen counter: "HONIGMANN LESUNG, MONTAG 22. OKT, 19.00!!!" I then went out and bought a new copy of the work I'd translated (since all of my books are still in storage in Tucson, a fact that needs to change soon!).
Barbara Honigmann is every bit as funny and charming as her writing. The event was not large -- maybe a few dozen attended -- and so it was like holding a reading in your livingroom. The excerpts she selected were ones I hadn't read before (all the better!): chapters from a work about her eccentric mother, some essays on the writing process, and thoughts about what it means to study the Torah and Talmud as an adult newcomer to Judaism. And she's just great. Her bright eyes sparkle merrily as she reads aloud, glancing up to make eye contact with each person in the room, as if every witticism in the writing is a private joke between her and some audience member; and when she answers questions, her entire small body is animated with flying hand gestures and feisty tosses of her silver bob. (Even Bert pronounced the almost-sixty-year-old author "cute!") During the question-and-answer session, I asked if she could address the change in her own sense of "Germanness" since moving to Strassbourg; and she said that it was indeed interesting to discover a surprisingly deep well of internal German identity that, while in Germany itself, had been too eclipsed by her developing Jewishness to really take note of. Afterward, she signed my book, and asked what an American was doing in Ludwigshafen. We ended up chatting for quite a while -- after a time, it was only the four of us (she, her husband Peter, Bert, and I) standing around, swapping integration stories and talking about my work on her work. Peter asked when I was going to start my PhD, and invited me to come visit his library at the Heidelberger Hochschule fuer Juedischer Studien. Absolutely!!
At some point, Barbara grinned and said, "No wonder you asked about my move to another country. Do you feel yourself becoming 'more American' the longer you stay in Germany?" And strangely enough, yes, I do! This is by no means to suggest the converse, that I also necessarily feel increasingly distanced from my home of choice -- on the contrary, I settle in more and more by the day. But yes, after a year of leading discussions (both inside and outside of the classroom) on American issues and intercultural communication, I do find my own sense of national identity developing clearer parameters. While still in the States, I started to get so jaded with our over-commercialized culture and machismo-soaked, bullheaded government that I wanted nothing more than to escape. Criticism of America while I was in America often met with emphatic agreement. But here, I've learned to accept my country for both its perceived faults as well as its virtues. You have to, when you are daily confronted with your nationality as a very visible part of your identity. It's like dropping an onion into, say, chocolate sauce: in a marinara, for example, that one onion is not so very remarkable. But remove it to an environment where it is clearly not the norm, and its "onionness" will stand out like, well, an onion in your chocolate sauce! I've therefore had not only to adjust to my new, partial identity as a sometimes-outsider, but in the process, also been forced to really learn what it means, to me, to be American. The experience has been both surprising and enriching. I no longer wince at the question, "hey, where's your accent from?" because I know that, whatever the other person's possible perception of Americans, I am my own version of Americanness -- just like the other 300 million of us.
Anyway, all in all it was a fantastic evening. And here are a couple of pictures to immortalize the event!
Eagerly waiting for Ms. Honigmann to sign my book
The conversation begins!
November 9th, for example, is not only the anniversary of Kristallnacht, it is also the day of the proclamation of the Weimar Republik in 1918 (Germany's first, unfortunately somewhat unsuccessful, democratic government), as well as the night of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. November 11th is both the holiday celebrating the official begin of the Karnival season, as well as the anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended World War One. And right between those two dates, on November 10th, I get to share a birthday with Martin Luther, Friedrich Schiller, and Arnold Zweig! Hey, maybe I was born to study German!
Speaking of studying German: one of my favorite authors is Barbara Honigmann, the daughter of two Jewish Germans who fled their homeland during World War Two, to return after the war
to the new communist state that was East Germany. Having personally witnessed the horrible demise of the "German-Jewish symbiosis" so hoped for during the Enlightenment, Honigmann's parents thus threw their past -- including the last remaining traces of their Jewishness -- out the window and declared themselves devout communists. Communism observed no religion, no skewed concepts of "race"; only class mattered, and those (theoretically) as equal as possible. The GDR seemed to offer the Honigmanns a new beginning, and they never looked back.
Unfortunately for their daughter, however, this meant growing up in a family whose history felt like some kind of conspiracy. Most of Honigmann's books are therefore witty, poignant, fearless autobiographical narratives chronicling her lifelong search for roots and an identity: her unanswered questions as a child; sneaking into her mother's closet to look at old, unknown photographs in a shoebox and wondering if those strangers were in some way connected to her; being referred to by neighbors and classmates as Jewish, without having any idea what being Jewish really meant; poking around a mysterious cemetery from the previous century, and seeing last names that actually looked like her own, rather than her classmates'... even in the new state which was supposed to be blind to ethnic differences and full of possibility for the future, Honigmann was ever compelled by her past, and the vague feeling that she was somehow not quite as "East German" as her neighbors.
Yet when she began her publishing career in West Germany, she was suddenly viewed as an Eastern writer; and when she forsook both places for a move to France, she's now considered the "token German" among her friends and colleagues. In other words, she's an outsider wherever she is. Talk about a conflicted identity! I took on one of her juicy books for my honors thesis during my B.A. studies, analyzing and translating the work from German to English.
Well, I'll be jiggered if Frau Honigmann herself didn't just give a reading here in Ludwigshafen yesterday! As soon as I read the announcement in the paper, I stuck a big notice to the shelf above the kitchen counter: "HONIGMANN LESUNG, MONTAG 22. OKT, 19.00!!!" I then went out and bought a new copy of the work I'd translated (since all of my books are still in storage in Tucson, a fact that needs to change soon!).
Barbara Honigmann is every bit as funny and charming as her writing. The event was not large -- maybe a few dozen attended -- and so it was like holding a reading in your livingroom. The excerpts she selected were ones I hadn't read before (all the better!): chapters from a work about her eccentric mother, some essays on the writing process, and thoughts about what it means to study the Torah and Talmud as an adult newcomer to Judaism. And she's just great. Her bright eyes sparkle merrily as she reads aloud, glancing up to make eye contact with each person in the room, as if every witticism in the writing is a private joke between her and some audience member; and when she answers questions, her entire small body is animated with flying hand gestures and feisty tosses of her silver bob. (Even Bert pronounced the almost-sixty-year-old author "cute!") During the question-and-answer session, I asked if she could address the change in her own sense of "Germanness" since moving to Strassbourg; and she said that it was indeed interesting to discover a surprisingly deep well of internal German identity that, while in Germany itself, had been too eclipsed by her developing Jewishness to really take note of. Afterward, she signed my book, and asked what an American was doing in Ludwigshafen. We ended up chatting for quite a while -- after a time, it was only the four of us (she, her husband Peter, Bert, and I) standing around, swapping integration stories and talking about my work on her work. Peter asked when I was going to start my PhD, and invited me to come visit his library at the Heidelberger Hochschule fuer Juedischer Studien. Absolutely!!
At some point, Barbara grinned and said, "No wonder you asked about my move to another country. Do you feel yourself becoming 'more American' the longer you stay in Germany?" And strangely enough, yes, I do! This is by no means to suggest the converse, that I also necessarily feel increasingly distanced from my home of choice -- on the contrary, I settle in more and more by the day. But yes, after a year of leading discussions (both inside and outside of the classroom) on American issues and intercultural communication, I do find my own sense of national identity developing clearer parameters. While still in the States, I started to get so jaded with our over-commercialized culture and machismo-soaked, bullheaded government that I wanted nothing more than to escape. Criticism of America while I was in America often met with emphatic agreement. But here, I've learned to accept my country for both its perceived faults as well as its virtues. You have to, when you are daily confronted with your nationality as a very visible part of your identity. It's like dropping an onion into, say, chocolate sauce: in a marinara, for example, that one onion is not so very remarkable. But remove it to an environment where it is clearly not the norm, and its "onionness" will stand out like, well, an onion in your chocolate sauce! I've therefore had not only to adjust to my new, partial identity as a sometimes-outsider, but in the process, also been forced to really learn what it means, to me, to be American. The experience has been both surprising and enriching. I no longer wince at the question, "hey, where's your accent from?" because I know that, whatever the other person's possible perception of Americans, I am my own version of Americanness -- just like the other 300 million of us.
Anyway, all in all it was a fantastic evening. And here are a couple of pictures to immortalize the event!
Eagerly waiting for Ms. Honigmann to sign my book
The conversation begins!Thursday, October 18, 2007
Another Desert Rat in Toyland
My friend Casey, also from Arizona, just started a year-long study in Leipzig as part of his PhD program in German Studies. Yay! Check out his enjoyable blog to the right. :)
Stolpersteine
In the paper yesterday was an article about "Stolpersteine": Stumbling Blocks. I'd never heard of this project before, but apparently, it was begun in the mid-nineties by an artist named Gunter Demnig. Along with supporters who "adopt" a stone, Demnig researches the last living places of the victims of the National Socialists (those who disappeared, died in camps, were killed for resisting, etc.); then they place a simple, cobblestone-sized block flush into the pavement in front of the person's former home, topped by a brass plate engraved with the words "Here lived..." Included is the victim's name, date of birth, date of death, and why/how they were killed. Demnig says, "A person is forgotten when his name is forgotten.
"Ein Stein. Ein Name. Ein Mensch." (A stone, a name, a person.)
The article in the paper is about some new stones laid in Ludwigshafen. I think I will go see them.
"Ein Stein. Ein Name. Ein Mensch." (A stone, a name, a person.)
The article in the paper is about some new stones laid in Ludwigshafen. I think I will go see them.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Fluffy things in the snow
Dad sent me this, and at first I could hardly believe it. Polar bears are ferocious! But the pictures are just captivating, probably because my doggilogical clock is going off right now and I'm coveting every canine I see. The fur! The fatness! I can just hear them barking. So... cuuuuute!!!
---------------------------------
Stuart Brown describes Norbert Rosings striking images of a polar bear playing with sleddogs in the wilds of Hudson Bay.
The photographer was sure he was going to see the end of his huskies when the polar bear materialized out of the blue, as it were...
(Dedicated photographer. Well, if you think you're about to meet your demise, might as well leave something behind to be found!)
Obviously it was a well-fed bear...
(Dog butt!)
(Eek, that thing could have a husky snack anytime he wanted!)
The bear returned every night that week to play with the dogs.
-----------------
Pfft, it's just a guy in a bear suit who's also going through doggie withdrawal. Here, huskies! I'll play with you!
---------------------------------
Stuart Brown describes Norbert Rosings striking images of a polar bear playing with sleddogs in the wilds of Hudson Bay.
The photographer was sure he was going to see the end of his huskies when the polar bear materialized out of the blue, as it were...
(Dedicated photographer. Well, if you think you're about to meet your demise, might as well leave something behind to be found!)Obviously it was a well-fed bear...
(Dog butt!)
(Eek, that thing could have a husky snack anytime he wanted!)
The bear returned every night that week to play with the dogs.
-----------------
Pfft, it's just a guy in a bear suit who's also going through doggie withdrawal. Here, huskies! I'll play with you!
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Thirteen years ago today...
...after overcoming many an outside obstacle, including distances over oceans, a disapproving military, and countless individual difficult circumstances, my Dad and Sarah were finally married. Auf euren damaligen sowie weiteren Erfolg -- und auf den Triumph der Liebe! :)
Saturday, October 13, 2007
A surprise weekend
What is it about the sheer fact of something's being a surprise that makes it unbearably interesting? Reminds me of Chief Wiggum's exasperation with the Springfield children: "What is your kids' fascination with my Forbidden Closet of Mystery?!"
See, last week, Bert told me not to plan anything for that weekend, "weil wir weg sind." Away? We are? Where to? The response was just a grin. So of course I spent three days antsily stamping my feet until we finally began to pack a few overnight things on Saturday morning. He still wouldn't reveal our destination as we walked out the door -- until I turned to walk toward the train station, and he instead directed me toward an unfamiliar car.
"We're driving? Whose car is this?"
"Ours, for the weekend."
And, tossing our things in the back and a map and sandwiches in the front, we took off down the Autobahn, heading north.
We found ourselves, three hours and many a gorgeous winding road through tiny village later, checking into a lovely hostel with a view over the town of Mayen, north of the Mosel River. After a little walk around, we then drove up to Andernach for a bite to eat, and finally arrived at some kind of building out in the middle of nowhere between the two towns. "Aussteigen!" chirped Bert as he pulled a fluffy rolled-up blanket out of the back seat. Okay... we walked toward the building, and I realized it was some kind of cultural center. Bert produced two tickets at the door, and in we went.
Inside was a stage, with a floor in front of it containing no seats. Instead, a veritable army of music fans was sprawled on blankets and cushions, holding drinks and facing a stage set with chairs and dim lighting. We spread our own blanket against one of the walls so Bert could lean on it, and I on him; and before long, none other than Eric Fish -- the lead singer for one of my favorite German bands -- moseyed onto the stage and took a seat with his guitar! I had heard that he occasionally does an unplugged concert of his own music, without the rest of the band, but had never really made the effort to find out any further information. And here we were!
The concert was awesome. Two other guys (and their guitars) joined Fish, who occasionally swapped out his own instrument for a mandolin, and the three of them proceeded to sing some harmonies that vibrated right down into your very bones. Fish's genre is generally kind of a strange mix of "folk metal," and so unplugged, his eclectic style was even cooler. I never thought three guys on acoustic guitars could rock so hard! The crowd stomped their feet, sang along, and exchanged jokes and banter with the musicians. The atmosphere was cozy and intimate -- there were even candles on the stage! Bert and I even met some other cool people during the break.
The next day, we got up early and checked out in time to drive off into the morning mist, toward a national park with the uebercool name of Westerwald: "the Westwood." We spent pretty much all day walking through an autumny wonderland.
The midpoint of our hike was a high hill that emerged from the forest onto wide fields, with views of the surrounding golden woods and villages down below -- not long after our arrival, the bong of churchbells even started drifting up toward us! So we spread out the same picnic blanket and took an afternoon nap in the sunshine, before sharing a beer on the way back down through the rustling, late-afternoon woods. It was magical.
Even the drive back was gorgeous, as we chose to head south along the western bank of the Rhein between Koblenz and Bingen: a route popular for Rhein-river cruises, due to its thick concentration of riverside castles and the famous Loreley cliff across from St. Goar.
Where else are the freeways lined with random castles?
Did I mention I friggin love Germany??
See, last week, Bert told me not to plan anything for that weekend, "weil wir weg sind." Away? We are? Where to? The response was just a grin. So of course I spent three days antsily stamping my feet until we finally began to pack a few overnight things on Saturday morning. He still wouldn't reveal our destination as we walked out the door -- until I turned to walk toward the train station, and he instead directed me toward an unfamiliar car.
"We're driving? Whose car is this?"
"Ours, for the weekend."
And, tossing our things in the back and a map and sandwiches in the front, we took off down the Autobahn, heading north.
We found ourselves, three hours and many a gorgeous winding road through tiny village later, checking into a lovely hostel with a view over the town of Mayen, north of the Mosel River. After a little walk around, we then drove up to Andernach for a bite to eat, and finally arrived at some kind of building out in the middle of nowhere between the two towns. "Aussteigen!" chirped Bert as he pulled a fluffy rolled-up blanket out of the back seat. Okay... we walked toward the building, and I realized it was some kind of cultural center. Bert produced two tickets at the door, and in we went.
Inside was a stage, with a floor in front of it containing no seats. Instead, a veritable army of music fans was sprawled on blankets and cushions, holding drinks and facing a stage set with chairs and dim lighting. We spread our own blanket against one of the walls so Bert could lean on it, and I on him; and before long, none other than Eric Fish -- the lead singer for one of my favorite German bands -- moseyed onto the stage and took a seat with his guitar! I had heard that he occasionally does an unplugged concert of his own music, without the rest of the band, but had never really made the effort to find out any further information. And here we were!
The concert was awesome. Two other guys (and their guitars) joined Fish, who occasionally swapped out his own instrument for a mandolin, and the three of them proceeded to sing some harmonies that vibrated right down into your very bones. Fish's genre is generally kind of a strange mix of "folk metal," and so unplugged, his eclectic style was even cooler. I never thought three guys on acoustic guitars could rock so hard! The crowd stomped their feet, sang along, and exchanged jokes and banter with the musicians. The atmosphere was cozy and intimate -- there were even candles on the stage! Bert and I even met some other cool people during the break.
The next day, we got up early and checked out in time to drive off into the morning mist, toward a national park with the uebercool name of Westerwald: "the Westwood." We spent pretty much all day walking through an autumny wonderland.
The midpoint of our hike was a high hill that emerged from the forest onto wide fields, with views of the surrounding golden woods and villages down below -- not long after our arrival, the bong of churchbells even started drifting up toward us! So we spread out the same picnic blanket and took an afternoon nap in the sunshine, before sharing a beer on the way back down through the rustling, late-afternoon woods. It was magical.
Where else are the freeways lined with random castles?Did I mention I friggin love Germany??
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
***Herzlichen Glückwunsch, Berti!!!***
I knew I liked October. It's autumn; it's cool and mysterious and smells of fireplaces; and what's more, my Bert was born on the 10th of it! That means that tonight at midnight, we'll head to our favorite pub for a complimentary birthday bottle of champagne. Then the party begins...!
Happy birthday, mein Lieber. Ich freue mich so sehr auf unser nächstes Jahr zusammen. Danke für alles, das du bist.
SCHMATZ!!!
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