Schlink

For reasons that are not really very clear, not even to me, I subscribe to a weekly e-mail newsletter that lets me know what films are playing in the Programmkinos of the Ruhr region in Germany. I live in Utah now, and the likelihood that I would attend a showing of say, Броненосец Потёмкин (The Battleship Potemkin) by spontaneously hopping a flight to Düsseldorf, hovers right around zero. I should cancel my e-mail subscription, but I don't. I think I keep it for the same reason that people buy exercise machines that gather dust in the basement. A combination of wishful thinking and just plain foolishness.

A Programmkino is what we in the US would call an "art cinema" or something like that. My first art cinema was the Avon in Providence, RI, where I saw Seven Beauties and my first Woody Allen films. I think we might have called it a "revival cinema" or even a "revival house." I visited the Avon Cinema website to check, but they don't call themselves anything but "The Avon Cinema." They are still there though, and still showing Grand Illusion and The Seventh Seal to each new class of first-year students at Brown, RISD, and to the odd townie.

I don't really know why I read this newsletter every week, but I do and I was surprised this week to see that Berhard Schlink is appearing on stage at the Lichtburg to read from his latest book, Sommerlügen. If I were in Essen now, instead of northern Utah, I would certainly be attending this event! Schlink is a great author and all-around clever guy. But in spite of my excitement, I find two things about this announcement disconcerting: first, I'm irritated to be missing an event I'm sure I would have enjoyed, and second the picture of Schlink makes him look uncommonly goofy.

I admire Schlink, but don't think I had ever seen a picture of him before. I'm not so shallow as to judge people only by their personal appearance, but I was sort of hoping the author of The Reader would radiate a little more gravitas. I've read almost everything he's written and in some cases the "reading" was actually listening to the novel read aloud on CD or tape, by the author himself. His voice sure didn't sound like the guy pictured above.

Schlink was trained as an attorney, but began writing in the late eighties with a detective novel called Selbs Justiz.  I didn't learn of his work myself until about 2001, when I read Der Vorleser for the first time. As most Americans probably know, the novel is about a teenager who has an affair with a woman in her thirties. She vanishes from his life when he graduates Gymnasium, but he meets her again, when as a part of his law training, he winds up attending her trial for war crimes. It's a fascinating book, with many of the attributes of detective fiction, but none of its drawbacks. The book became a bestseller both in Germany and the United States and was translated into 39 languages. It was the first German book to reach the number one position in the New York Times bestseller list.

So was I over reacting? Maybe the image in the Essenerfilmtheater newsletter wasn't so bad. I checked it again, and there was still something distinctly avian about Schlink's appearance. He looked like a seagull. No, an albatross. In fact he looked to me like that Disney character in the Rescuers Down Under. Wilbur.

I've heard it said that we dislike most in others, that part of them that reminds us of ourselves. As I looked for more images of Herr Schlink, my initial perception was confirmed. Most certainly bird-like, but he did begin to remind me more and more of myself. Mouth a little thin, nose somewhat beak-like. And like me, Schlink is probably a sterling fellow, in spite of not looking like a movie star. In fact, the best of us have flaws. One has only to think of Barak Obama's ears.

 

And the good news here is that the book Schlink will read from is a new one. He's retired from his position at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin now and maybe he'll have more time for writing. I'll look forward to reading the new book this summer, maybe while I'm back in Rhode Island. I really ought to check out the Avon cinema in Providence again too. With any luck, they'll be showing The Reader while I'm there and I'll be able to get my favorite balcony seat to relive old memories. I really ought to subscribe to their newsletter so I can keep up on the schedule.

El Greco

Bouzouki

When I'm in Germany I eat a lot of Turkish food. One of my favorite spots is Saka, just north of the Florastrasse stop on Rüttenscheiderstrasse. It's a combination dönerkebap and pizza place but the guys there also make up a traditional Turkish stew of one kind or another most nights, as an option to the standard offerings. It was my Stammdöner the last time I was in Essen for an extended visit and the guys behind the counter always had a friendly word for me and brought out a tea if the meal took a little longer to prepare than they thought was appropriate.


You don't see many Turkish places here in the states, but frankly the menu in most Greek places is pretty similar. And to an outsider, one who knows little or nothing about things Turkish, Greek or otherwise eastern Mediterranean, the cultures seem to have a great deal in common. I realize the Greeks and the Turks have sort of a thing going on for the past 4-500 years or so: genocide, atrocities, blah, blah...  but I just like the food. They both do great stuff with eggplant: where's the difficulty?

Last night I had the pleasure of dining in a nice Greek place in Sarasota FL. I'm attending a professional conference here and although I'm a firm supporter of the Arts, sometimes the party line gets a little extreme. Listening to some of our speakers, you'd think a decent painting would be proof against leprosy and a really good performance of Rigoletto would cure cancer. I needed a break from hyperbole, and this Greek place was perfect. The food was delicious, but what I loved even more was the spontaneous floor show. Not entirely spontaneous. There were musicians there: a keyboard guy with a drum track and his eighty four year old father on a balailika-like instrument called a bouzouki. They were good but were quickly joined by a vocalist and a monster bouzouki guy who remained very impassive while he poured out this music that had the place laughing, weeping, but mostly dancing. The vocalist didn't need much of a range of pitch to sing songs that went on for ten, fifteen, twenty minutes, but he was a master at manipulating the microphone for great dynamic range.

Greek "homies" encourage a fellow dancer.

The dancing was equally impressive and alternated between line dancing and a kind of proto-break dance format. Men seem to dominate in the dancing, and they often squat and clap while each dancer takes a turn doing a solo thing. Apparently there is even a tradition of throwing a handful of dollars at the dancer, presumably if they are particularly good. After a lot of dancers had done their thing, they brought an infant out, barely able to stand, but damned if the kid didn't do a turn or two. He collected big time. I would have taken a turn myself, but it seemed that actually picking up the thrown money was somehow déclassé.

I was impressed with the dancing and with the music and the inclusiveness it demonstrated. These activities were clearly not reserved for the vituosi, but were instead open to the elderly, those not yet old enough to talk, as well as the accomplished. But when the guy in the wheelchair got into it, I thought, that rhetoric I'm hearing at my professional conference really is true: the Arts are in truth a powerful force for good. At the next conference I'll suggest we include the culinary in those other arts and see if I can get any support for a change in the by-laws.

Loki und Smokie

Loki Schmidt, the wife of former West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, died at her home in Hamburg today at the age of 91. I don't think I've ever written anything about Frau Schmidt in this blog, although her husband Herr Schmidt has come up more than once. They were an interesting couple: they met in grade school, they both smoked like chimneys, and both lived extremely long and productive lives. They were (and Herr Schmidt still is) what many would refer to as "a hot ticket".

The first video is part of an excellent documentary about the Schmidts. The second is a parody of the two of them discussing the question of vaccination against the swine flu. Einfach genial.

Prophets

As I sat in my balcony seat at last night's performance of the Blind Boys of Alabama and Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys, I couldn't help but contrast the attitude to the concert of my community in northern Utah, with the reception I imagine this act might have received in Germany. The audience here in Utah was enthusiastic and appreciative, but no one could deny, it was also small. Verily, a prophet is not without honor, save in his own country, and in his own house. I think a similar concert, with two such giants of American Roots music, would have drawn a much larger audience in Germany, where people have a proper understanding of what's best about America, even if they are sometimes confused by our bizarre hand gun legislation.

On another note: the date of my last Forschungsjahr post before this one is August 9, 2010. That's over seven weeks ago: a shameful lapse on my part. I don't think a blog can endure that kind of neglect in the long term. My current position at the university requires a good deal from me and in the tension between available time and the demands of an unruly faculty, my blog is the loser.

I'm still writing the posts, but only in my head. It's the time for editing, proofreading and layout that's lacking. I'm committed to continuing my work with the blog, but for the time being, it could be that posts will have to remain short. I guess I'm lucky, in that, like the Blind Boys and Ralph Stanley, my audience is a dedicated one, however small. I hope you'll all bear with me as I get through this academic year, with the promise of lots of time for aimless rambling in the next.

Blue Bikes

I picked up my Aggie Blue Bike this morning and it's a gem.



An Aggie Blue Bike is a bike that a community member can rent from the Student Bike Center at Utah State University for a three month term, renewable pretty much as often as desired. The bikes are all used, some of them ill-used, but all have been lovingly rehabilitated by a dedicated student staff. Bike rental is free, but most people have to endure a tiresome online safety quiz before they can take possession of their bike. I was lucky enough to pick up my bike at a time when the apparently finicky system was "down". I'm a big believer in bike safety, but was grateful to have been spared that part of the bike rental process.

This kind of bike sharing is not entirely without controversy in the cycling community. Depending on whom you talk to, bike sharing isn't very effective in increasing the total number of bike trips in any given area. Many people feel that money being spent to develop new bike sharing programs like the metroradruhr program in the Ruhrgebiet, could be better used to improve bike infrastructure for riders. I re-visited this blog post at Ecovelo today and found a lot of the arguments against bike sharing to be fairly compelling. But I'm not convinced that any of those arguments are really relevant to the situation here on campus at Utah State. And in any case, I'm a bike sharer now, for better or for worse.

And these kinds of programs are growing in the US and in Europe too. Germany has had a nation-wide program in place for many years, sponsored by the Deutsche Bahn and very high tech. I don't know how successful it's been, but I can give anecdotal evidence that DB rental bikes sightings are becoming more common all the time. In many European cities, Barcelona and Paris, just for a few examples, large bike sharing programs are in place and the distinctive bikes are a familiar feature of the city center. Bike sharing is particularly big in the Ruhgebiet, as the map below demonstrates: the cluster of cyclist icons at the map center is the heart of the Ruhr, from Duisburg to Dortmund and each icon represents a bike sharing program. I've never used bikes in any of these programs, so I can't speak from personal experience, but I suspect that these bikes can only be really useful to a relatively small sector of the population.



Which brings me back to my Aggie Blue Bike. It's a clumsy monster of a bike and would hardly be useful for most of my riding purposes. But I plan to use it only on campus for those visits to places like the library, Student Union or our administration building. It's more than a fifteen minute walk across campus from my office and most of the way is level, paved and ideal for rolling along on big balloon tires. If bike sharing can ever make sense, then certainly this is the proper application. I'd like to see the program grow and serve more campus community members.

And I've got an even stronger, more personal reason for wanting the program to succeed: my Aggie Blue Bike is remarkably similar to the bike I learned to ride on nearly fifty years ago. I was only five at the time and needed to mount the bike near a fence or some other object I could climb on. My feet reached the pedals, but not the ground, so stopping could be a tricky maneuver. I needed to start up on a downhill run, and if my neighbor, Mr. Corr, was handy to give me a push, so much the better. But in many ways, it was the perfect bike for a kid. It was built like a Panzer and could be ridden at high speed right into a tree, house or car without any significant negative effect. It was a real looker too with a two tone red and white paint job and my dad used a stencil to paint my name on the chain guard. When I brought up this option with the USU Aggie Blue Bike staff members, they looked a little indignant, so I backed off. If I personalize the bike, I'll have to do it without their help.