Uninformed

There are many news stories that cross the Atlantic from east to west. Germans know all about congressman Weiner and the "nutiny" that occurred in a prominent Republican candidate's campaign staff. But by contrast, how many Americans are aware of the resignation of Germany's Verteidigungsminister? It was a huge story with serious implications for Germany's current government, but I saw very little about it in the US press. And how about Horst Köhler? The president of Germany resigned almost exactly a year ago, but it went almost unnoticed in the US.

Americans have the reputation of being uninformed about the world, but in some ways, it's not really our fault. Our media just doesn't cover the more subtle world events. Now, if a starlet should wear a particularly stupid dress to a Hollywood event, or stumble momentarily while approaching the podium, Yahoo will crow over her misfortune until every 2nd grader is buzzing about it on the playgrounds of Topeka or Des Moines. But the resignation of the president of the world's 4th largest economy? Whatevah!

I did read several stories about the current E. coli outbreak in Europe and I'm wondering why Americans were interested. In some way, I think this story about random and sudden death must awaken the same kind of Schadenfreude as a badly dressed ingenue. Any German will tell you, Schadenfreude ist das beste Freude, but it doesn't do anything for America's image abroad.

Horst Köhler is on the front page of this week's Zeit with an exclusive interview about his decision to resign in May of last year. I read the story with great interest, but the comments to the online version of the story were even more interesting. Köhler was an immensely popular figure, and like his predecessors, was elected almost by acclamation. His resignation shocked most Germans, and while he didn't give a reason for his decision at the time, most people assumed that he resigned in the face of strong criticism of a casual remark he made while meeting with German troops in Afghanistan. The story in Die Zeit doesn't really have any surprises: it merely confirms what everyone already thought. But the in a world where online comments are typically relegated to stuff like: "Sez who?" or "You and what army?" the comments on Köhler were remarkably on target. Readers registered their feelings of betrayal and asked why Köhler accepted the position if he wasn't up to the stress. I felt that the juxtaposition of Köhler's complaints ("The attacks were outrageous!") and the trumanesque heat and kitchen comments online did nothing to rehabilitate him. I still feel that Köhler is an intelligent man, probably a genuinely "good" man. In fact, he's a guy that reminds me of our own Jimmy Carter. But like Jimmy, he's clearly not build for the dirty game of politics. Arguably the most important quality that we need in our politicians.

Today's papers in Germany were once again featuring a story from across the pond, but this time with a local spin. Dirk Nowitzki, German citizen and member of the Dallas Mavericks was being hailed as a super star, even making the front page of the illustrious Süddeutsche Zeitung. I know because a young woman stopped me in the Bahnhof today to try to sell me a subscription to the Südeutsche. Her big selling point was that it's a "very serious newspaper". With a front page story on American basketball? She had a hard time explaining that. Dirk is a big story here, but if he wants to make it big in the States, he'll need to do something really significant, like get a bad haircut. And I guess I'll subscribe to the Süddeutsche Zeitung when they inaugurate a column devoted to news of Brangelina.

Feiertage

 

Back in May, German Chancellor Angela Merkel made some awkward remarks about her southern neighbors and their attitude toward work. Her comments are still reverberating three weeks later as the problems in the European Union continue to grow. In the speech she made to some party loyalists, she suggested that the EU should equalize the legal holidays in all its member states, broadly hinting that the southern European “domani” attitude toward work was perhaps responsible for the economic breakdown in Greece and Portugal. Speaking as a US Amerikaner, who was driven to the brink of starvation by the frequency and frivolousness of Germany's holidays back in the bad old days when grocery stores were only open until 1 pm on Saturdays, Merkel’s remarks struck me as hilarious. Critics across southern Europe quickly pointed out that in fact, on average, Spaniards and Portuguese work longer hours than Germans and have an older effective retirement age. Basta!

I can understand Merkel's frustration with Greece and Portugal because of my own frustration with the Germans. I often travel to Germany in the spring, and my plans are always being derailed by the string of holidays that loom over late May and early June: Christihimmelfahrt, Pfingsten, Buß- und Bettag, and my personal favorite, Fronleichnamsfest, which translates into something like, Happy Cadaver Celebration. Well, I’m exaggerating a little, and Buß- und Bettag is actually in autumn, but it’s my blog. I was curious enough about this issue to search for more information today on the subject and came across an account of Merkel’s speech on this fascinating blog/website: Holidays to Abu Dhabi. Here’s a quote attributed to Merkel from the article:

“(People) in countries similar to Greece, Spain and Portugal should not retire progressing than in Germany. We should all make the same efforts, this is important,” she told a celebration eventuality in Meschede, horse opera Germany.

In the words of the immortal Hank the Cowdog, “Huh?” I read further in the article and it’s all nonsense like that. With unemployment in Europe so high, you’ve got to ask yourself why the website doesn’t just hire themselves a writer moderately familiar with the English language. I’m particularly struck by the last phrase: in Meschede, horse opera Germany. Merschede is no garden spot, but to me it seems disrespectful to refer to it as a "horse opera".  I’ve always felt that was a decidedly pejorative term.

So maybe it’s not the love of holidays that’s doing in the Euro Zone, it might be badly written blogs, with little or no proofreading. Southern Europeans are justly outraged about Chancellor Merkel’s inaccurate portrayal of them as lazy layabouts, but Germans in North Rhine/Westphalia’s Sauerland have just as much right to indignation under the circumstances. And so it goes, charge and counter charge, in an escalating spiral of tension that pushes Europeans to the breaking point. Before this crisis is over, they’re all going to need a little time off.

Southern Europeans, hard at work

Memorial Day

I'm spending my first Memorial Day in seven years in the US and I have to say, so far, it's been a let down. When I was kid, Memorial Day was a real holiday. We began the day by getting a collection of flags out of the closet and preparing to drive into town for the parade. There would be the inevitable fight over who would get the flag with fifty stars, and who would have to make do with an older 48 star flag. Memorial Day signaled the official first day of swimming in the river behind my house, and usually ended with the first barbeque of the summer, although they were called "cook-outs" back then. Some fifty years later, I live in northern Utah and I woke this morning to heavily falling snow. No one will be swimming anytime soon in Cache Valley.

Thanks to the miracle of the Internet, I can listen to Inforadio Berlin as I shiver in my Logan kitchen eating breakfast. It's 31 °C in Berlin today, sunny and clear. In 1960 as we waved our flags for the veterans and scouts marching by in Wilton Center, Berlin was a grey city, the last outpost before Leningrad: all that stood between us and godless communism. Today, in Berlin, commies and capitalists alike are reclining in Strandkörben and ordering Margaritas, imagining they're in Cancun.

The sun is melting some of the snow here in northern Utah as it climbs toward noon, but the sky is pelting us alternately with hail or a cold rain. Cancun sounds good to me too, but I'd gladly settle for the Kanzlerstrand along the Spree in Berlin or just sitting on the hood of our 1957 Bel Air back in Connecticut. In fact, almost anything would be preferable to the bizarre spring we've experienced here in the Inter-mountain West. I'm planning my annual trip to Germany, but won't leave for two weeks still. I'll be in Berlin for the last week in June and I can only hope that the great weather Europe has been experiencing this spring will hold.

This blog has been pretty moribund for the past nine months but I expect that to change starting now. The truth is, I've been pretty busy since September with university business, but with graduation behind us and the summer ahead, a lot of the pressure is off. For the foreseeable future I expect to be sharing my time again between working in my studio and semi-regular posts to my blog. I missed a lot of interesting stories coming out of Germany this past year, but there will be new ones, and nothing can stop me from writing updates on stories that are no longer in the news. But for now, I'll get out the snow shovel and clear a path to the garage. The only Margaritas I'll be drinking today will be frozen ones.

No Regrets

Chez Louisette

I'm not a big fan of cultural stereotypes. It seems to me that I know plenty of sophisticated Americans, punctual Mexicans, sloppy Germans, and at least one or two people of Irish decent who don't drink. But at the same time, I can't help but make very simple observations about groups of people as I travel. Two weeks in Paris convinced me that the French like nothing better than to wallow in their French-ness. They revel in it in a thousand different ways. Across the Rhine in Germany, that's not the case. To the extent that one can indulge in cultural stereotypes at all, it's good to keep in mind that these things are in constant flux. But I remember attending several parties in Germany during the year 2001-02, and before we had passed the 9:30 mark, someone would always say with predictable regularity,  "I don't think of myself as a German, I'm really more of a citizen of Europe." I might have responded, "Yeah, but the rest of Europe sees you as a Kraut", but I was far to tactful.

Whatever the Germans might be thinking about their own cultural allegiance, the French have no such reservations. And spending time in the company of a big group of people who are enjoying being themselves is really a lot of fun. I had the opportunity to do just that, a week ago today, when I attended what was billed as the "largest fleamarket in the world!" just north of Paris: Le Marche Aux Puces De Clignancourt. It was really big, but unfortunately, also very cold. My fingers grew numb pawing through bins of wonderful French junk and winding down narrow aisles and alleyways filled with antique glass, china, furniture, 78 rpm recordings, chapeaux, books... After a long morning, I was glad to find a restaurant (Chez Louisette) in a cul de sac across from a curio booth selling Zippo lighters. But it turned out to be more than a meal. It was a mind-blowing experience and lesson in the art of being French.

We entered to a din that almost drowned out an older woman with jet black hair who stood less than six inches to my right, channeling Edith Piaf at the top of her considerable lungs. There wasn't an open seat in the joint, but a group right in front of us got up and offered us their seats. We maneuvered ourselves into position at a four or five meter-long table, jammed with people. Waitresses squeezed by with platters of food that had an obviously strong Alsatian influence. One wore a whistle around her neck which she used to get the attention of any diner who had the temerity to relax and ease their chair back a few centimeters into the narrow pathways between tables.

The woman singing was Manuela, a local legend. But she was followed by other singers who did mostly French favorites with lots of sing-along parts. While performing, each singer was unavoidably jostled by patrons and servers alike as they tried to move through the mass, but none of them seemed fazed in the least by the distraction. After each chanteuse completed her set, she worked the room with a basket for tips. Manuela was particularly effective, encouraging patrons to dig a little deeper, in a goodhearted but strangely firm manner. We stayed for at least four sets and these gals pretty much cleaned us out.

None of the photos that I took come anywhere near close to capturing the energy and intensity of Chez Louisette, but a quick scan of the blogishpere gave me my choice of videos on YouTube. I'll include a couple here, but I think it's a place you really have to visit to understand. I've been in a number of similar situations in Germany over the years, but the German cultural soundtrack isn't songs from the war years; it's mostly stuff like Bad Moon Rising or songs by the Eagles. You might hear a Deutschrock hit from the Wirtschaftwunder years that would trigger the kind of enthusiasm in a Köln Kneipe that I witnessed at Chez Loiusette, but can I imagine a roomful of middle class Germans enjoying an afternoon of Sauerbraten and a rousing chorus of Lili Marlene? Ich don't think so.

_________________________________________________

___________

Is Paris Flooding?

 I leave for two weeks in Paris later today and the news of airport closings in Europe and in the States is just a little unnerving. I wonder what I was thinking when I made these plans back in September? Every year I hear horror stories from recently returned travelers and I laugh up my sleeve at them. Who, I ask myself, would be foolish enough to travel at the Christmas season?

Apparently, me.

Then, earlier this morning, I got an e-mail from a family member who is in the city of lights. She informed me that the Seine is flooding. They closed the airport last week for three inches of snow, so what will this mean? I wanted to learn more, and went on-line searching for current info. Here's what I found on a "chat" forum:

Due to all of the recent heavy snow east of Paris, the Seine is at its highest level in 4 years and rising fast. What does this mean?
-- Well, the Left Bank expressway is already closed because it will almost certainly go underwater in a day or two.
-- Half of the tourist boats, especially the big ones, are already cancelled because they can't get under the bridges anymore. The other boats have had to shorten their itinerary.
-- Next to be closed will be the Right Bank expressway (Voie Georges Pompidou) if the river keeps rising. This can wreak havoc with traffic flow near the Seine.
-- Finally, the RER C to Versailles could close if it starts flooding.
If you are going to Paris in the coming week or in January, this could affect some of your plans. (Italics mine, added for emphasis)

If there is any Internet service left on the continent, I'll post an update later this week.