Zeit der Besinnung

She smiled at me from her spot just under the left edge of the S-bahn arch as I ducked in the other side to buy a paper at the newsstand there. I could feel her energy 30 feet away. With her eyes and her smile she willed me to come and see her paintings. Newspaper in hand, I approached her small stand. She was selling original and reproductions of small watercolors showing nature scenes and famous sites in Berlin, such as the Brandenburg Gate. She began to talk as if I had told her she had just two minutes to tell me everything. Her face was animated under a pale blue crocheted cap, the grey curls poking forth to frame her face. Her name was Rita, she told me right away. She had been a teacher before she retired, an art teacher. Now seventy years old, she receives a small pension, but because she wants to stay in her own apartment in Lichtenberg – rather than move to a tiny one – she supplements her income by selling prints of her work. “I used to do just nature scenes. But the tourists wanted something to remember the city by. Look at this – THIS view of the Hackescher Markt has never been painted before! See the house that is now behind scaffolding? That’s what it looks like.” I let her introduce the images one after another, telling me something about each. I knew right away I would buy something, it almost didn’t matter what. Just to remember this moment that I had let happen, because I wasn’t in a rush. Sometimes I am far too “zielorientiert,” too goal-oriented. On this day, I had left the Humboldt University cafeteria after lunch, with the idea of walking a different route and taking the time to observe my neighborhood. Rita began to tell me about her images that feature trees, one each for every “tree of the year.” I had never heard of such a thing. And then there was the series on the seasons. I observed that this fall had been an especially colorful one. “Oh yes!” she said. “I take the “Bummelzug” (the train that stops at every little village) just three stops out of town and pick mushrooms in the forest.” I said I had friends who went picking earlier this year. “Oh yes! There were lots of mushrooms! And there still are. And now the chestnuts are good as well.” It was time, I thought, to make a choice. An image in a rural setting caught my eye – just the antidote to the city. “That’s one of my favorites,” said Rita. “I’ve just been to the Oderbruch area,” I told her, “to bake stollen with friends. It looks very much like that. I’ll take that one.” She carefully wrapped it in a single sheet of newsprint for me. But before she did, she pointed out its caption, which read “Zeit der Besinnung,” – time of contemplation – the German “sinn” meaning “senses,” almost as if to mean coming to one’s senses. Perfect.

Ringbahn Fahren

I remember hearing from the student Fulbrighters in 2003 that some of them liked to get into the “Ringbahn” and just ride it all the way around Berlin. Now that the public transit now has some announcements in English, we hear the English language name for the “Ringbahn” – the “Circle Line.” To me, the “Circle Line” can only be in London. Oh well! On September 29 my friend who works for the Federal Armed Forces and I decided to take the plunge and ride all the way around the city on the circle line. Here an image from our Ringbahn ride: the Eastgate Mall in Marzahn, a brand new shopping center like many at “Knotenpunkten” (major public transit intersections). Marzahn is a high-rise apartment complex northeast of the city, known for its Socialist architecture: large, blocky buildings, often made of pre-fab concrete slabs (“Platten”). The overpass in the photo was featured in several scenes in “Du bist nicht allein,” a feature film directed by Bernd Böhlich, a graduate of the Academy for Film and Television “Konrad Wolf.” The film opened in cinemas this past summer, and I went to the premiere at the Kino International, the showcase cinema of the former East Germany, located in the Karl-Marx-Allee.

Working with LEO

On Sunday I translated a 3.5 page essay by Dresen into English. Aside from occasional document translations as a service to the community in Bowling Green, I haven’t translated longer texts since graduate school days. When I asked my housemate Arno if he had a dictionary, he suggested I also look online, which turned out to be a brilliant idea. I was able to test-drive LEO in the course of translating. With the Word document open on one side of my screen and LEO open on the other, I could input words and select the best equivalent. LEO is quicker than fumbling with paper, and generally offers lots of choices and some example phrases. But you do have to spend some time choosing the right equivalent – and not just select the first one. The same is true for using a traditional dictionary. As a graduate student, I conducted a study of inexpensive dictionaries and found that the biggest variables for the user’s ability to choose the right word equivalent are (1) familiarity with the dictionary’s symbols and abbreviations used in entries, and (2) taking the time to read through the entry and select the best equivalent. The online dictionary has a living element compared to its print version brothers: Some pages have a discussion board at the bottom, where translators from across the World Wide Web have helped each other tease out the best idiomatic equivalents, and this can be useful information to consider as well.

Find LEO at: http://dict.leo.org/

For those of you who were wondering why I don’t just use machine translation to translate the entire text, here’s an item I ran across while researching shoulder bags made by a designer here in Berlin. It’s got to be machine translation – no human being would do it this badly:

MILKBERLIN: The label and orange-colorends belt already for a long time the unmistakable registration number of the legendary Milkberlin bags became. Durably and water resistantly they are ideal for the large city jungle. The coolen companions touched from tarpaulins and DEK-eastopenly in the 70s Style, with flowers or simply - the fantasy of the Bag designers seems to know thereby no borders. Who does not find the correct bag in the net curtain, can its favorite also in the Onlineshop select itself.

From: http://www.fashionmission.nl/Fashion-Accessories-Handbags-Milkberlin--0039250007.dfs

Karl May

Karl May (1842-1912) was one of the best-selling German authors of all time. He wrote cowboy-and-indian stories. Except that Karl May never set foot on US soil, and the movies based on his books were filmed in the former Yugoslavia, which has landscapes with a striking resemblance to the American West. Nevertheless, his stories of the adventures of Old Shatterhand and his faithful Indian friend Winnetou were convincing to generations. Last night I saw Der Schatz im Silbersee (Treasure at Silver Lake) at the Zeughauskino in the German Historical Museum. As Old Shatterhand described his decision to chase down the bad guys (loosely): “I wouldn’t do it for money or for fame, but because it is the right thing to do, in the pursuit of justice.” The Karl May’s work is so popular even today that his stories are performed on outdoor stages all summer long in places like Bad Segeberg, Radebeul and Rathen. If I want to see Der Schatz im Silbersee live in just a couple of weeks, I can do so in Rathen September 12.

Last year I stopped in Radebeul with my May term group, where we visited a wild west town and talked with a real Cree Indian who had been invited to create rock art for the festival. http://www.karl-may-fest.de/Programm/Programm+2007.html
Especially well-known are the open air performances in Bad Segeberg:
http://www.karl-may-spiele.de/frontend/startseite.php

A Room with a View

Yesterday I moved into new quarters in Berlin, a room overlooking one of the most picturesque courtyards in Mitte. When I discovered this courtyard a few years ago on one of my Berlin walks, I was enchanted. You pass into the courtyard from a busy street frequented by tourists, and enjoy the quiet of a bricked space with little boutiques and a cafe in double-level buildings (a “Remise”). On one side, an occupied house with its anarchic graffiti on the walls, and towards the back a taller building with some windows having “French balconies.” A good friend who teaches at the Kunsthochschule Weissensee came from Potsdam in her car to help me make the move with my two suitcases and various totes. We had lunch in the courtyard café afterwards, and I realized that if you sit still and listen – whether in the courtyard or in my room, you can feel the subway rumbling through underneath. In the afternoon I picked up the bike that a good friend in Bielefeld had brought to Berlin for me and took it to a bike shop to have the brakes adjusted. My neighbor the video artist cooked dinner in the evening and lent me bedding and towels. I would love to see the view from my window with snowflakes drifting across it.

Der Kater Otto

I spent a wonderful first two months in Berlin staying with my best Berlin girlfiend, whom I have known for twelve years now. She has a small space – just two rooms, but quite elegant. In German you’d describe it as “klein aber fein,” or “schnuckelig” – cute and cosy. She was away visiting friends for a week, and so was I – for my German host father’s 80th birthday – and then she was on vacation for 16 days in France. I took care of her plants and of Otto, her big black-and-white tomcat. Otto is a “Schmusetier” – he loves to cuddle and collect “Streicheleinheiten” – literally: units of affection, or petting. When I arrive home and unlock the door, he’s right there to greet me, and flops over on his back to offer up his belly for petting.

Ich lebe hier

Now it is time to settle in: to make the transition from spending the summer here to living here, and from vacationing here to working here. After the exhausting week with three premieres and a birthday, I have begun writing. The first chapter is about film director Andreas Dresen’s youth as a child of two parents involved in theater work, his amateur films, and the application process at the Academy for Film and Television. There is excellent source material in the form of interviews in the daily press, videotaped interviews, and essays written by Dresen himself. I am able to write the “skeleton” of the text, as well as everything about the creation of the amateur films and their reception. I will save an interview with Dresen himself until later in the year when I know exactly what I want to ask. I sent my “Konzept” to Dresen a month ago, and just this week he called me on my cell phone to say it looks wonderful and he’s 100% behind it. When I asked if he knew where I could see the amateur films, he said “They only in my possession. We’ll just have to have a showing at my place.” I have the text mostly completed, and will share my first draft with my advisor, the Film Academy President, next week.

Filmstadt Berlin

In days before and right after my birthday I went to three film premieres. The Hochschule for Film und Fernsehen, with which I am affiliated here, educates for all aspects of film production. It the former East Germany, it was the only route to work in the film industry. Graduates of the Academy often have their premieres at the Kulturbrauerei in Prenzlauer Berg, an old brick brewery complex converted to a location with galleries, bars, restaurants, clubs, cinemas and performance spaces. I saw premieres of “Am Ende kommen Touristen” by Robert Thalheim, and “Fata Morgana” by Simon Groß. At the Freiluftkino (Open Air Cinema) Friedrichshain I saw “Ostpunk – Too Much Future” by Carsten Fiebeler. Thalheim’s film, based loosely on his own experiences, tells of a young German who completes his civil service at the former concentration camp at Auschwitz, Poland. There he is charged with taking care of a former resident of the camp who still lives on its premises and makes appearances as an eyewitness in discussions with groups of youth who visit the camp. Its various threads treat German-Polish relations, a young man’s growing into maturity, his confrontation with his nation’s past and with the aging process, as well as a love story. “Fata Morgana” is a dark thriller, set in motion when a young couple vacationing at a beach resort in Africa take a jeep into the desert and decide to leave the paved road – for the sake of adventure. “Ostpunk,” a documentary about punks in the former East Germany, was, as I should have anticipated, well-attended by former members of the same movement and/or friends of those featured in the film. It was the liveliest audience I have ever experienced!

Mein Geburtstag

August 17, 2007. Is how you spend your birthday indicative of the coming year? I spent mine with a new acquaintance, a video artist I met through an art history professor at Smith College on the Berlin Scholars list. She and I started the evening at the beach bar at Monbijou Park, across from the Museum Island, and then had dinner in the garden at Clärchens Ballhaus in the Auguststr. When they closed the garden to dinner guests at 11 pm, we went inside, where there was dancing. The video artist said many of the people here come all the way from the “Plattenbausiedlungen,” the high-rise neighborhoods of the former East such as Marzahn and Hohenschönhausen. We hadn’t been standing at the edge of the dance floor for more than 10 minutes when a man asked me to dance. Sure enough, he came from Marzahn. A former officer of the National People’s Army (East Germany) I met at a dinner party the next night said “you were where?!” That place is notorious! It used to have telephones on the tables!” Presumably it kept its pre-war character even in East Germany, and its décor has changed little even today. But the table telephones are gone. The librarian at the Film Academy explained further: “the people who go to Clärchen’s Ballhaus are the ones who used to live in the immediate area – before it became really artsy and too expensive for them in the years after the Wall fell. They’ve been driven out into the high-rises, but they come back to dance.”