"Have you been with anyone lately?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"I'm taking a break."
"You're such a catch, though. I don't understand, why isn't anyone interested in you?"
"What do you mean? There are lots of people interested in me! Jesus. It's my choice."
"Oh I see, there aren't any hot potentials"
"Of course there are. But I'm the Decider. I decide if they have potential or not. Potential is based partly on opportunity, and right now, I am not giving them the opportunity!"
Monday, January 19, 2009
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Aside
My New Year's resolution is to write at least three blog entries a week. I'm trying to get my whole life down, so things may seem a bit shapeless and off-the-cuff. However, this is no apologia. There really is no template in blog-land. Some entries will be more diaristic in form, others will take the shape of a magazine article (some were, in fact, written for publication). I'm not going to get bogged down in a conversation about real writing vs. blog writing, or the exact science of pulling a surfer's eye across a blog page (I can leave this to my marketing director). Any revenues from Ad-sense are simply a welcome by-product.
I did find it a bit sad when an employer told me that the average person's attention span runs a maximum of 400-500 words. Pathetic!! It reminded me of a recent Gore Vidal quote. When asked where are all the good writers, he replied "the question is , where are all the good readers?" Maybe he's "misunderestimating" the American reading public. If not, I'm fucked in that respect.
In any case, it's a moot point because this blog is more of an exercise for me, me, me. Not like a narcissisic form of masturbation. It's a foregone conclusion that all writing is a form of masturbation, yes? For me, this blog thing is more like therapy, a way of working on myself and giving shape, such as it is, to my thoughts and reactions to the world. (OK, I concede: masturbation)
I was reading the journals of Susan Sontag the other day, and it's chock full of genius. I really think this woman had the camp (well, she practically invented the term) psyche of a tortured gay man in the body of an overly intellectual lesbian. Or something like that. It's enough to give one hope for the Sapphic race (and why don't they make gay men like this anymore? That's a whole other article). Anyway, I'll just give you a tantalizing sample, and I paraphrase:
I increasingly think of writing as being directly related to my queerness. I must use my writing as a weapon against the world, as my queerness is the one weapon the world has against me.
Sheer unadulterated genius. Unsentimental yet stingingly true. I don't want to try and put myself in the company of the Divine Miss S -- I am certainly not that arrogant, nor as well-read as she -- but this epigram really hit home for me. Because I feel as if she was getting at the crux of what I am trying to do with words...what I have always striven (strived? strove?) to do, whether it was written down or not. And this here little blog is my way of keeping in practice, and sharpening my own weapon!
I did find it a bit sad when an employer told me that the average person's attention span runs a maximum of 400-500 words. Pathetic!! It reminded me of a recent Gore Vidal quote. When asked where are all the good writers, he replied "the question is , where are all the good readers?" Maybe he's "misunderestimating" the American reading public. If not, I'm fucked in that respect.
In any case, it's a moot point because this blog is more of an exercise for me, me, me. Not like a narcissisic form of masturbation. It's a foregone conclusion that all writing is a form of masturbation, yes? For me, this blog thing is more like therapy, a way of working on myself and giving shape, such as it is, to my thoughts and reactions to the world. (OK, I concede: masturbation)
I was reading the journals of Susan Sontag the other day, and it's chock full of genius. I really think this woman had the camp (well, she practically invented the term) psyche of a tortured gay man in the body of an overly intellectual lesbian. Or something like that. It's enough to give one hope for the Sapphic race (and why don't they make gay men like this anymore? That's a whole other article). Anyway, I'll just give you a tantalizing sample, and I paraphrase:
I increasingly think of writing as being directly related to my queerness. I must use my writing as a weapon against the world, as my queerness is the one weapon the world has against me.
Sheer unadulterated genius. Unsentimental yet stingingly true. I don't want to try and put myself in the company of the Divine Miss S -- I am certainly not that arrogant, nor as well-read as she -- but this epigram really hit home for me. Because I feel as if she was getting at the crux of what I am trying to do with words...what I have always striven (strived? strove?) to do, whether it was written down or not. And this here little blog is my way of keeping in practice, and sharpening my own weapon!
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
The Surreal Life
After Englischunterricht today I am walking through Treptower Park into Neukoelln. It is one of those days in which one revels in the disorienting delights of being an Auslander. I can't locate reference points for anything, except perhaps Fellini or Lynch (I know it's a distinctly American trait to refer to life in terms of the movies, but I'm embracing it). I've been here a year, and although things hew towards the prosaic at times, this feeling bubbles to the surface occasionally, where everything is rendered enigmatic once more in a mirror world where nothing registers on my culture barometer.
Now I am sitting in a bookstore, Hugendubel, watching customers and booksellers interacting, but none of their mannerisms or gestures quite add up to anything recognizable in my "world lens". Well-dressed men in wool trenchcoats and tastefully appointed foulards are gliding through the store. They look like people, but they could be parrots telegraphing from some distant, elegant but inscrutable planet. You know how Americans tend to schlep and galumph through life, dragging their tired, fat asses around, stressed and upset? This only creates chaos for the more, shall we say, nimble members of society. Here, bodies are either tall and lithe or small and compact. Berlin is a city of endless, effortless motion. People seem to walk on air as they go about their business, and everything runs smoothly, like clockwork (even more so in Frankfurt). I feel like I am floating. I am serene, yet detached, invisible, like a good little flaneur. I am a camera, recording everything.
Oddly enough, the one thing that gives me a warm pang of recognition is the woman seated next to me emitting every minute or so a high-pitched cackle at nothing in particular (she has no reading material). Leave it to the mentally ill to bring you back down to earth. I put down the book I've been reading -- embarrassingly, Madonna's brother's new tell-all, in German (goofy I know, but pop culture is always good practice, and the Rilke I had been reading is a bit abstract for Deutschlernen) -- and lit out into the icy, unforgiving air. The thing about Berlin is, you have to make friends with the cold. Because it goes straight to the marrow of the bones. No need to sit indoors nurturing your SADD, get out there, do something and embrace the big chill.
I tread through the grey streets, now a soupy mixture of ice, black rock salt and cold gunk, roughly the texture of industrial Slushy. The flavored Arabic tobacco scents of the Shisha bars, packed out at all hours, waft through and begin to melt the icicles that had formed in my nostrils. It's a pleasant scent, all the flavors mingled into one Superflavor. Actually, it doesn't matter which kind you order, they all have the same synthetically generic and fruity taste.
On every corner and in points between are hundreds of Spielsalons, the mysterious game emporiums, also where hundreds of men sit smoking cigars, playing cards, billiards and God knows what else. I've never set foot in one of these palaces, as the facades look strangely forboding.
I walk through the cubist nightmare of Neukoelln as it approaches Kotbusser Damm, past countless hair salons, a local fixation. Half-lost in an Ipod wormhole, I began counting them. Here's one just for hair extensions (Verlaengerugen, also the name for a Visa Extension), there one for African hair. The Turkish ones are the best, because it's like an inverse macho version of the hair salon in Steel Magnolias. Men gossiping, pairing up, strutting around like geese in hoodies. Middle Eastern guys with big guts and back hair busily snipping, chopping and obsessing about, hair. There is something unaccountably sexy about this pack mentality and the overconfidence of these men (the uniform albeit somewhat ridiculous), and the dialectic of the girlish obsession with hair carries a certain poignance.
I set a mission for myself: I could use a haircut soon, so I diabolically plan to go to a Turkish Friseur and let them work their magic. Since I'm not so well versed in German or Turkish cosmetic vocabulary, I'll give them carte blanche. And I'll no doubt come out with some kind of Turkish Dairy Queen creation, perhaps a mullet with a tail fashioned from Verlaengerugen, a few shaved stripes on the sides with some really unsubtle blonde streaks thrown in for a streetwise look. Throw in some plucked eyebrows and double diamond studs and presto, it's Brian the Turkish rapper!
My hair reverie is momentarily interrupted as a shocking sight whizzes past me in the sidewalk. Two men on a bike, nonchalantly careening over the icy pavement, one standing on the back rack, hands on the drivers' shoulders. (Maybe they have an appointment with a Friseur?) I hate to use the word surreal, it's so cliched...how about... Fellini-esque?
Now I am sitting in a bookstore, Hugendubel, watching customers and booksellers interacting, but none of their mannerisms or gestures quite add up to anything recognizable in my "world lens". Well-dressed men in wool trenchcoats and tastefully appointed foulards are gliding through the store. They look like people, but they could be parrots telegraphing from some distant, elegant but inscrutable planet. You know how Americans tend to schlep and galumph through life, dragging their tired, fat asses around, stressed and upset? This only creates chaos for the more, shall we say, nimble members of society. Here, bodies are either tall and lithe or small and compact. Berlin is a city of endless, effortless motion. People seem to walk on air as they go about their business, and everything runs smoothly, like clockwork (even more so in Frankfurt). I feel like I am floating. I am serene, yet detached, invisible, like a good little flaneur. I am a camera, recording everything.
Oddly enough, the one thing that gives me a warm pang of recognition is the woman seated next to me emitting every minute or so a high-pitched cackle at nothing in particular (she has no reading material). Leave it to the mentally ill to bring you back down to earth. I put down the book I've been reading -- embarrassingly, Madonna's brother's new tell-all, in German (goofy I know, but pop culture is always good practice, and the Rilke I had been reading is a bit abstract for Deutschlernen) -- and lit out into the icy, unforgiving air. The thing about Berlin is, you have to make friends with the cold. Because it goes straight to the marrow of the bones. No need to sit indoors nurturing your SADD, get out there, do something and embrace the big chill.
I tread through the grey streets, now a soupy mixture of ice, black rock salt and cold gunk, roughly the texture of industrial Slushy. The flavored Arabic tobacco scents of the Shisha bars, packed out at all hours, waft through and begin to melt the icicles that had formed in my nostrils. It's a pleasant scent, all the flavors mingled into one Superflavor. Actually, it doesn't matter which kind you order, they all have the same synthetically generic and fruity taste.
On every corner and in points between are hundreds of Spielsalons, the mysterious game emporiums, also where hundreds of men sit smoking cigars, playing cards, billiards and God knows what else. I've never set foot in one of these palaces, as the facades look strangely forboding.
I walk through the cubist nightmare of Neukoelln as it approaches Kotbusser Damm, past countless hair salons, a local fixation. Half-lost in an Ipod wormhole, I began counting them. Here's one just for hair extensions (Verlaengerugen, also the name for a Visa Extension), there one for African hair. The Turkish ones are the best, because it's like an inverse macho version of the hair salon in Steel Magnolias. Men gossiping, pairing up, strutting around like geese in hoodies. Middle Eastern guys with big guts and back hair busily snipping, chopping and obsessing about, hair. There is something unaccountably sexy about this pack mentality and the overconfidence of these men (the uniform albeit somewhat ridiculous), and the dialectic of the girlish obsession with hair carries a certain poignance.
I set a mission for myself: I could use a haircut soon, so I diabolically plan to go to a Turkish Friseur and let them work their magic. Since I'm not so well versed in German or Turkish cosmetic vocabulary, I'll give them carte blanche. And I'll no doubt come out with some kind of Turkish Dairy Queen creation, perhaps a mullet with a tail fashioned from Verlaengerugen, a few shaved stripes on the sides with some really unsubtle blonde streaks thrown in for a streetwise look. Throw in some plucked eyebrows and double diamond studs and presto, it's Brian the Turkish rapper!
My hair reverie is momentarily interrupted as a shocking sight whizzes past me in the sidewalk. Two men on a bike, nonchalantly careening over the icy pavement, one standing on the back rack, hands on the drivers' shoulders. (Maybe they have an appointment with a Friseur?) I hate to use the word surreal, it's so cliched...how about... Fellini-esque?
Monday, January 12, 2009
Clinging to Guns and Government
One thing I like about teaching English is learning so many aspects of another culture from the students. For example, last week one of my students gave an hour and a half dissertation on the history of the Berlin Wall. Time's up! At the end I was not only ein Paar Euros richer, but I had an insider's perspective on what it was like to grow up around the Berlin wall, to be rounded up as a teenager by the Stasi and driven home in a paddy wagon for "ice shoeing" (with the ever-popular "special metal ice shoes") in the dead of winter in a garden in a restricted area near the Berlin Wall. To be in this area you had to have a special pass, with very good reason to be there, but my student and his friends had neither. The image of the secret police's evil minions benignly rounding up wagons of 14-year old boys and driving them home, or calling their parents to come pick them up, is priceless.
Today we had a rather dynamic and twisty conversation about government, guns, religion, celebrity, and their respective points of intersection. Regarding the latter, his prime targets are Nicole Kidman ("'Hate' isn't a strong enough word"), Kylie Minogue ("She got better after she got cancer") and Arnold Schwarzenegger ("a joke").
I was explaining to him about the second amendment, as he had broached the topic of guns in our freewheeling dissection of our cultural differences. There's a TV show in Germany which follows German citizens emigrating to other countries, documenting their adjustment in a new land. It's a bit less prurient than, say, "Celebrity Wife Swap". Anyway, a family moves from Hamburg to Texas, and kooky hijinks ensue. The patriarch of this Deutsch clan is having some problems with the proliferation of guns in our great country. My student agrees. "I can't imagine being in a situation where my neighbor is having problems, he is crazy, he comes home one night, comes over to my flat, and he can decide if I get to live or die, because he is allowed to have this weapon."
I explain the proud American tradition of providing guns for crazy people, and the constitutional enshrinement of the right to protect life, limb and property with heavy metal. The corpses of Columbine and several mall shootings are exhumed. "And this is why, I cannot imagine someone with this mentality coming to live in Germany."
He folds his arms, smiling, fully aware of the ironies this entails. He refuses to judge our country, knowing full well the paradoxes and contradictions of our respective social systems and shared history. I look out his window at the empty, snowy lot which was once the no-go area between the two sections of the Wall. Legions of Americans romanticize the German system of socialized medicine, he says, but those same people would not countenance the vast amount of taxation which supports said system. "Every month I get my paycheck and I weep, because nearly 50 percent is taken away. Americans, they think it's so great in Germany, but they don't realize this simple fact." And now it is my place to say, that this blind spot is a reason why our country is financially in the doghouse, in part because of Bush's, and his constituents', refusal to tax. Where's the happy medium?
After class my student walks with me in the snow and ice, to see if we can find the bricks which mark the original presence of the wall. We follow them for at least two blocks in search of the metal plaques which commemorate the dead. It's a futile task, but our efforts are vindicated when we reach a certain corner. My pupil points to two large classical style apartment buildings facing each other on opposite sides of what was once the wall. He explains that people would attempt to walk tightropes between the two structures, from East to West, risking their lives. I guess the grass is always greener on the other side of the political fence.
Today we had a rather dynamic and twisty conversation about government, guns, religion, celebrity, and their respective points of intersection. Regarding the latter, his prime targets are Nicole Kidman ("'Hate' isn't a strong enough word"), Kylie Minogue ("She got better after she got cancer") and Arnold Schwarzenegger ("a joke").
I was explaining to him about the second amendment, as he had broached the topic of guns in our freewheeling dissection of our cultural differences. There's a TV show in Germany which follows German citizens emigrating to other countries, documenting their adjustment in a new land. It's a bit less prurient than, say, "Celebrity Wife Swap". Anyway, a family moves from Hamburg to Texas, and kooky hijinks ensue. The patriarch of this Deutsch clan is having some problems with the proliferation of guns in our great country. My student agrees. "I can't imagine being in a situation where my neighbor is having problems, he is crazy, he comes home one night, comes over to my flat, and he can decide if I get to live or die, because he is allowed to have this weapon."
I explain the proud American tradition of providing guns for crazy people, and the constitutional enshrinement of the right to protect life, limb and property with heavy metal. The corpses of Columbine and several mall shootings are exhumed. "And this is why, I cannot imagine someone with this mentality coming to live in Germany."
He folds his arms, smiling, fully aware of the ironies this entails. He refuses to judge our country, knowing full well the paradoxes and contradictions of our respective social systems and shared history. I look out his window at the empty, snowy lot which was once the no-go area between the two sections of the Wall. Legions of Americans romanticize the German system of socialized medicine, he says, but those same people would not countenance the vast amount of taxation which supports said system. "Every month I get my paycheck and I weep, because nearly 50 percent is taken away. Americans, they think it's so great in Germany, but they don't realize this simple fact." And now it is my place to say, that this blind spot is a reason why our country is financially in the doghouse, in part because of Bush's, and his constituents', refusal to tax. Where's the happy medium?
After class my student walks with me in the snow and ice, to see if we can find the bricks which mark the original presence of the wall. We follow them for at least two blocks in search of the metal plaques which commemorate the dead. It's a futile task, but our efforts are vindicated when we reach a certain corner. My pupil points to two large classical style apartment buildings facing each other on opposite sides of what was once the wall. He explains that people would attempt to walk tightropes between the two structures, from East to West, risking their lives. I guess the grass is always greener on the other side of the political fence.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Regarding the Pain of Others
Recently I was chatting with a so-called friend about my so-called life. I was grousing about some personal indignity, along with the concomitant depression and self-laceration, when the friend flatly replied, "Take how you're feeling right now, multiply it by 1,000 and you know what I am going through!" After picking my jaw up off the floor, I got to thinking on this topic of friends, sympathy and the perception of pain.
My knee-jerk reaction to this irony-free declaration was naturally, "What an ass! Why be friends with this person?" (and if it need even be stated, for the record, this person's drama was no more or less self-created than my own, but frankly, his maturity level is not relevant to my argument). Even from a perspective of logic and fairness, didn't German philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein show us in his Investigations that subjective pain cannot be empirically measured? Perhaps this is the reason, paradoxically, why some people can be so insensitive to the suffering of others, including their companions. It could go a long way towards explaining why meinen Kumpel made his assertion of the pre-eminence of his own pain with such conviction and vigor, and seeming blindness to my own distinctive plight. Or maybe he's just an Arsch-loch.
I am not the most demanding friend, but I do have high standards and am constantly doubting motivations, loyalties and second-guessing in my mind. Just as I am always editing and revising my "friend list". I am also, paradoxically, the first to give the benefit of the doubt -- up to a point. I understand that in modern life we live in a broken world full of broken people, and there are limits to people's sensitivity and capacity for giving. It's possible -- just possible -- that in such cases the chiding friend is trying to use some tough love and show you that yes, there may be reason for upset, but, hey, cheer up! Things could be a lot worse. Sort of an oblique and calculating, albeit clumsy, way of making you feel better. But there are only so many mental contortions one can endure in the service of "benefit of the doubt". I mean, really. Come on.
I guess we're getting at the crux of the problem here. The mysterious "X" Factor behind it all. The aforementioned "brokenness" manifests itself in a host of rampant "disorders", here taking the form of Narcissism-with-a capital-N. Perhaps it isn't classical or even pathological narcissism, but an endemic low-grade narcissism which plagues even the lowliest of friendships, especially in our me-first, tits-hanging-out-of-the-car-window (or off the Facebook page) culture (see Knox, Amanda, for the apotheosis of this annoying trait). But I guess this is a typical problem -- little jousting matches of the ego -- when narcissists become friends with each other, or with anyone, for that matter. (Note to self: best dispense with the use of "narcissist" lest it become a personality-revealing verbal tic a la Caroline Kennedy and "you know".) In any relationship in which the "N" word factors, one is forever trumping the other in the selfishness stakes.
I have come to the conclusion that when it comes to sharing pain, depression, black moods and misfortune, better to keep it to yourself. Your friends? They don't want to hear it -- and it might be catching. In the adult world, there are real problems to be solved and, sadly, no time for such adolescent torment. Better to soldier on with a painted smile, grimacing through clenched teeth. Time to attack your problems, pick-ax or bleach-dipped toothbrush in hand, with an industrious, can-do attitude, working through the rubble of our ruined world like the Frauen in decimated Berlin after WWII. Larger issues are at hand -- you can't afford the luxury of a negative thought. Change is here. If not, spare your friends. Save it for your therapist.
My knee-jerk reaction to this irony-free declaration was naturally, "What an ass! Why be friends with this person?" (and if it need even be stated, for the record, this person's drama was no more or less self-created than my own, but frankly, his maturity level is not relevant to my argument). Even from a perspective of logic and fairness, didn't German philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein show us in his Investigations that subjective pain cannot be empirically measured? Perhaps this is the reason, paradoxically, why some people can be so insensitive to the suffering of others, including their companions. It could go a long way towards explaining why meinen Kumpel made his assertion of the pre-eminence of his own pain with such conviction and vigor, and seeming blindness to my own distinctive plight. Or maybe he's just an Arsch-loch.
I am not the most demanding friend, but I do have high standards and am constantly doubting motivations, loyalties and second-guessing in my mind. Just as I am always editing and revising my "friend list". I am also, paradoxically, the first to give the benefit of the doubt -- up to a point. I understand that in modern life we live in a broken world full of broken people, and there are limits to people's sensitivity and capacity for giving. It's possible -- just possible -- that in such cases the chiding friend is trying to use some tough love and show you that yes, there may be reason for upset, but, hey, cheer up! Things could be a lot worse. Sort of an oblique and calculating, albeit clumsy, way of making you feel better. But there are only so many mental contortions one can endure in the service of "benefit of the doubt". I mean, really. Come on.
I guess we're getting at the crux of the problem here. The mysterious "X" Factor behind it all. The aforementioned "brokenness" manifests itself in a host of rampant "disorders", here taking the form of Narcissism-with-a capital-N. Perhaps it isn't classical or even pathological narcissism, but an endemic low-grade narcissism which plagues even the lowliest of friendships, especially in our me-first, tits-hanging-out-of-the-car-window (or off the Facebook page) culture (see Knox, Amanda, for the apotheosis of this annoying trait). But I guess this is a typical problem -- little jousting matches of the ego -- when narcissists become friends with each other, or with anyone, for that matter. (Note to self: best dispense with the use of "narcissist" lest it become a personality-revealing verbal tic a la Caroline Kennedy and "you know".) In any relationship in which the "N" word factors, one is forever trumping the other in the selfishness stakes.
I have come to the conclusion that when it comes to sharing pain, depression, black moods and misfortune, better to keep it to yourself. Your friends? They don't want to hear it -- and it might be catching. In the adult world, there are real problems to be solved and, sadly, no time for such adolescent torment. Better to soldier on with a painted smile, grimacing through clenched teeth. Time to attack your problems, pick-ax or bleach-dipped toothbrush in hand, with an industrious, can-do attitude, working through the rubble of our ruined world like the Frauen in decimated Berlin after WWII. Larger issues are at hand -- you can't afford the luxury of a negative thought. Change is here. If not, spare your friends. Save it for your therapist.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Norman Rockwell in Berlin
We finally got some Schnee (the good white stuff) in Berlin. which makes everything twice as gemuetlich. The city, like Chicago, is an agglomeration of several small towns. For example, I live at Bohmischesdorf, which is an old Czech settlement in center of Neukolln, replete with a town square, Richardplatz. (There is also an unbearable cute square kitty corner from my building, Boehmischeplatz, where we will be shooting on location the video for my new single -- in my mind!) A Weinachtsmarkt was held there this year. These are the elaborate Christmas markets in Germany which are overflowing with Gluhwein, the seasonal drink which is basically hot mulled red wine. Occasionally they give it a Scandinavian twist, add Mandeln (almonds) and Roisinen (raisins)and dub it Grog.
Yesterday I took a stroll from my little dorf all the way down Karl Marx Strasse to the Hasenheide. The foreground of the park has just enough slope that parents had come out in droves with kids and toboggans in tow. What a sight, it was like something out of the 18th century.
Yesterday I took a stroll from my little dorf all the way down Karl Marx Strasse to the Hasenheide. The foreground of the park has just enough slope that parents had come out in droves with kids and toboggans in tow. What a sight, it was like something out of the 18th century.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Bottle Rockets and Molotov Cocktails
Sat in the wohnzimmer of Mary and Carlos' flat, peering out the formidable windows of their old Mietkaserne in Neukolln, we felt like creatures in a terrarium watching Armageddon unfolding in front of us. We had just toasted in the New Year with some bubbly, and when the conflagration began, everyone pulled out their respective cameras and began shooting each other with the warm, oddly comforting red glow in the Hintergrund. "Don't forget to tag me on Facebook." Where were you during the Blitzkrieg?
Now couch-bound and sipping Campari and Soda, Carlos voiced the thing everyone feared -- getting beaned with one of the goddamn things, resulting in loss of limb or worse. "We should get a taxi. You said they were exploding those things on the UBahn, right?" Indeed I had. Earlier I'd met a friend for dinner in Kreuzberg, and returning home, I'd seen several examples of this collective pyromania gripping the city. You never saw who exactly was doing it, but I had a few suspects in mind. All the rational minded people would start when the sonic boom ripped through the underground. Some people would laugh it off. Mary theorized in her explanation for this collective madness that all rational volk, frustrated by this nerve wracking habit perpetrated by "civilized hooligans", would eventually give in and start exploding things themselves. It just came across as a misguided patriotism.
Walking home in the wee hours from an evening of Bacchanalia, a hushed silence had taken over the city. The only sounds were distant churchbells, a Berlin trademark, muffled by frost and fog. The Teutonic architecture surrounding me seemed stately and grand, only slightly menacing. The little green pill I'd taken earlier had imparted a sense of peace and acceptance. Suddenly I stepped on a live cap, which exploded underfoot, and did a little goosestep. I felt a puerile sense of glee, and for a second joined the ranks of the collectively mad.
Now couch-bound and sipping Campari and Soda, Carlos voiced the thing everyone feared -- getting beaned with one of the goddamn things, resulting in loss of limb or worse. "We should get a taxi. You said they were exploding those things on the UBahn, right?" Indeed I had. Earlier I'd met a friend for dinner in Kreuzberg, and returning home, I'd seen several examples of this collective pyromania gripping the city. You never saw who exactly was doing it, but I had a few suspects in mind. All the rational minded people would start when the sonic boom ripped through the underground. Some people would laugh it off. Mary theorized in her explanation for this collective madness that all rational volk, frustrated by this nerve wracking habit perpetrated by "civilized hooligans", would eventually give in and start exploding things themselves. It just came across as a misguided patriotism.
Walking home in the wee hours from an evening of Bacchanalia, a hushed silence had taken over the city. The only sounds were distant churchbells, a Berlin trademark, muffled by frost and fog. The Teutonic architecture surrounding me seemed stately and grand, only slightly menacing. The little green pill I'd taken earlier had imparted a sense of peace and acceptance. Suddenly I stepped on a live cap, which exploded underfoot, and did a little goosestep. I felt a puerile sense of glee, and for a second joined the ranks of the collectively mad.
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