Café Einstein, Kurfűrstenstraße, Monday, 2:15 PM

At the end of the day, you just have to decide what’s important to you. Do you want to take subsidized public transport to the opera, or do you want a big screen TV? Do you want to sing in “interesting productions of new works” or do you just want to be in La Bohème and wear a pretty costume?

…Big screen TV, right?

…Pretty costume?

HELLO!

Honey, wanting a comfortable couch and a car and personal space doesn’t make you a big sloppy American. Well actually it does, but there’s nothing wrong with that. I can completely understand: I would give my left arm for someone to be superficially friendly RIGHT NOW. Enough with direct and honest! What purpose has honesty ever served? The main reason I became an opera singer was to live in a world of illusion 24/7. God…that waiter looks like he wishes we were dead…ok…inside voice.

Oh, yes… two clubhouse sandwiches and two Diet Cokes.

I know we shouldn’t order Diet Coke, so unseemly in this lovely old place, but I swear the chemicals do wonders for your voice. You brought Diet Coke from home because it’s not the same here? Okay…definitely don’t move to Germany. You are beyond hope. You don’t want to end up like Cristina Onassis…no…not DEAD! She was addicted to Diet Coke – used to send her private jet to the states every WEEK to load up on the stuff. Apparently the cost worked out to $1000 a can.

Yeah, I agree. Berlin is sort of the Bronx of Europe, well at least this part is.

Of course it looks like the Czech Republic – we’re an hour away from Poland. I know, once you’ve lived in San Francisco you’re spoiled for life, but the only people who can afford to live in San Francisco anymore are oligarchs and all those smart hippies who bought property in the 70’s. Now, all of bohemia has decamped to Berlin and I fear it may be the last stand of the independent artistic spirit….

Oh, you know how I am…Glass not only half empty but chipped and dirty; nothing the same as it was; oceans rising, mountains falling. The world is teeming with angry people who want a shot at something, but I don’t blame them: I blame us for being complacent, for expecting this post-war party to last forever.

What would it have been like to have grown up in an optimistic time? I have friends who are optimists. I admire them greatly. They think we are one scientific breakthrough away from eternal life; tell me we should all work together to create a better world, erase borders, erase countries, live side by side…chacun a son gout…

But I know deep in my heart, when it comes down to it, you can’t trust anyone…

When I was a kid I always got the sense that when the knock on the door came, we would know what to do. These things are inherited, not learned. I knew that my mother would go to her room without a word, take the diamond rings and sew them into her dress. I would get a loaf of bread and a family photo and we would wait to be taken away. I used to look around the house and think “if they do come, it will only take me 5 minutes to hide the menorah, the Kiddush cup…” I had it all planned: I knew we could never relax because we had to be prepared for the knock on the door.

Of course, we were not in any danger, but it was the memory of being hunted, the deep knowledge that the worst could happen at anytime that made me feel on guard. So I find it hard to be an optimist, to be direct and honest. I fear this is the truth I will blurt out.

And then I will not be able to stop what I have started, which scares me a great deal, for what is the end of such a trajectory?

No, I would recommend you stay home. Come here from time to time and have a coffee with me…get nice seats at the opera, taste the goodness of the bread, but stay home, close to those you love, and wear a pretty costume.

As for myself, I must stay, for every time I go on the stage in this place, I take back a little of what was stolen from me.

Publish Post

This is the most powerful thing I can do.… The only way I can learn to become an optimist.

Or am I just full of shit? Sometimes I just want a big screen TV too.

Okay! Let’s go to KaDeWe and buy things! I’m so glad you decided to go with Erno Laszlo – the gold standard of skin products. If I were down to my last cent I would buy face cream, because once the skin goes….

Gartenstrasse, Mitte – Friday, 8:36 PM

HEROIN! Now there’s a nasty drug. God, I remember doing heroin at the Beat Hotel in Paris in the 50’s with Allen Ginsberg. No, I always preferred the psychadelics; LSD and the like. But my favourite was psylocybin. What a pure high! It was almost VIRGINAL… I felt like I was in “The Song of Bernadette”. The first time I took it was in Berkeley in the 60’s – I forgot all about shopping; my bourgeois existence. Oh, did I tell you I sold the beach house? Top of the market. They turned it into condos and are selling them for a RIDICULOUS price. Boggles the mind, really.

But I’ve stopped doing drugs now; at my age you have to choose your urges and I save mine for sex! But do you remember the 80’s with Salomé? He would bring a big chunk of hash and we would play Scat. Oh no dear, Salomé wasn’t a woman, HE is a highly regarded artist…. Yes, I remember clearly – it was you, me, Salomé and ATTILLA…. at that dingy club in Schöneberg. What was it called - The Yellow Umbrella? Oh God, the SHOWS they used to put on! Real cabaret, back when there was still such a thing. The owner was this ancient transvestite from the Weimar years, and I always brought her little offerings of peyote so we could get a table by the dance floor. Say, do you remember that New Years Eve when the waiters walked around completely naked carrying silver trays of cocaine? Now THERE was a party. Nowadays it’s all benefits…raise money for this and that. Incredibly dismal; weltschmerz just kills my mood. I mean, how can you have an out of body experience at a benefit for Rwanda, or AIDS? At the end of it, I’d just rather cut a cheque.

Oh, don’t you just love Hildegard Knef? If cigarettes could sing! What a voice of experience. Hearing her interpret Cole Porter makes me want to just light up and get naked. I met her once, you know. Amsterdam. The 70’s. Now there was a time…these days they’re closing down all the whorehouses to make room for designer shops and other such nonesense. Oh how I mourn the demise of innocent pleasure, of cheeky hedonism…having sex in fits of laughter. It is all so serious, now.

And yes, I will have some more wine, now that you’re asking. Say, did you get that invitation for the opening at the Berlinische Gallerie? I would love to go, but I’ll be in Zurich that week. Wouldn’t you know Iskandar is turning 65? Can it be? It seems like only yesterday we were getting fucked out of our minds on Mykonos….

Café Fincan, Neukölln. Thursday, 11:40 AM

Dahling, I haven’t seen you since before Facebook! Was there even such a time? How DID we keep in touch back then….carrier pigeon? Honestly, I have an entire DRAWER full of stationary I can’t be bothered to use. Not because I don’t love writing letters, but because I insist on writing them in fountain pen, and let’s face it, if you’re left handed, you smudge. I think that’s why I liked learning Hebrew.....right to left, dear….Hebrew is written right to left - didn’t I tell you? Actually, it’s the only kernel of information I care to remember from my religious education. The rest, trash. No bacon? No men? No way!

So… You’re entering a competition for emerging opera directors…sponsored by Krupp. How very exciting! What’s your idea? …The Magic Flute…great choice – you can do TONNES with the piece…SO loopy! Hmmmm? You want all the costumes to be black? Well, that’s simple…a bold statement. And slimming – the singers will love you. Sets, black too? Isn’t that a bit…monochromatic? I can see your point…black is neutral; allows the drama to speak….and you want the singers in black face? Whatever for? To erase artificial constructs of gender and ethnicity ...Got it…black light? Honey, you know I think you’re brilliant, but wouldn’t it be easier to get the audience to close their eyes? ….but there are different kinds of black. You do have a point there, and I wish you all the best. I really do. Here’s what: when you win, call me and we’ll buy something fabulous.

Hey listen, I know it’s before noon, but do you want a drink? You don’t drink anymore….because... alcohol clouds the vital force of your creativity…okay…something to eat - they have really fantastic cheesecake here. Dairy...How could I forget.

A black coffee. Why am I not surprised?

No…no, I’m not mocking you, it’s just… gentle teasing that’s all...

oh, but it is so good to see you!

…and you don’t like people touching you…an invasion of your personal space - you feel you need to clearly define the parameters of our friendship. Of course I understand. Next time you crave physical contact, just send a delegation to my country’s embassy.

Oh, it was just a joke. Honestly. Are you all for black moods, too? No, you shut up!

Now you’re asking if the coffee is ORGANIC? Honey, we’re at a Turkish café in the middle of Neukölln: the coffee was probably traded for weapons! Now I’m racist. Well, I’m not the one who wants the singers to wear black face! But it’s a postcolonial reclamation of otherness? Who are you, Edward Said? …

Of course theatre is political. Everything is political....Did I say it wasn’t?

***

Well, I think I should go. I’ve got an appointment with my therapist in an hour, then a session with a cranial-sacral healer at 2. This evening I’m rehearsing an experimental 1 act opera about Chernobyl. No, it’s manageable; I just have to remember not to push myself.

So, next week? Same time? Great.

Give my love to Lutz and Dante!

Prenzlauer Berg, Tuesday - 1:45 PM

Well, I think we’re done. Oh I know we’ve only been working on the dialogue for an hour, but you know as well as I that the director is going to change it all in the first rehearsal. Besides, it doesn’t matter how we do it, as long as we can tell him that we got together to talk about it…that we have IDEAS…that we’re committed to the PROCESS…

…oh, theatre…

Prosecco? You read my mind! Tell me, why are you debasing perfectly good wine with Amaro? A “spritz” you say? Learned how to make it in Venice? I can tell we’re going to get along famously. What a perfectly sensible way to spend a Tuesday afternoon! No apologies! If you ARE a bohemian, you might as well LIVE like one….And pasta Puttanesca! I adore it. You know what Puttanesca means don’t you? Noodles in slut-like sauce! Apparently the ladies of the night needed something quick and spicy to sustain them…so they came up with this...but it sounds so much better in Italian.

Shocking…..

Oh Hello! You never told me you had a girlfriend (shit shit shit shit shit)….she plays the flute? How lucky for you - understands the angst of being a musician but will never be competition. Oh I don’t mind that she doesn’t really speak English. Just today I was wondering when I would get to practice the second person informal plural. Do you (you + girlfriend) like noodles in slut sauce?

And yes I will have another spritz, now that you’re asking.

Delicious….

If I close my eyes I can picture Rome. Every Sunday I would go to this ancient trattoria for lunch…“Der Pallaro”, if I recall correctly…located on the exact spot where they killed Julius Caesar! It is things like this which make it impossible to compete with Rome. I mean, what are they going to do in Berlin… build a Starbucks on the Hitler bunker? Decidedly NOT poetic. I have no idea what a Pallaro is, actually. Neither did the waiter…he just shrugged, but then again he shrugged at everything. He was 80, after all. There was no menu… you just ate what they gave you, and I think the menu hasn’t changed since Caesar…you know… Imagine the absolute bliss of sitting on a quiet piazza in the height of summer, shaded by a plane tree, sipping cold white wine, eating lentils from a chipped earthenware dish. A date with eternity - the closest I have come to communion. One day the cook – an ageless woman in a turban – saw me enjoying her food and kissed me on the cheek. She had tears in her eyes.

This is why I want to move to Italy.

And the pasta! Spaghetti carbonara every day, and I never tired of it. They always brought it to me in a mixing bowl, told me they had run out of dishes. I think they were trying to insult me because I was ‘straniero’- a foreigner - but they told me it was a special honour. This is typical of Italy…they wrap an insult in gilded paper and you only realize too late…

But they made carbonara with real guancale…crunchy and salty and piggy – the apotheosis of pork. Oh but I do eat pork, and I don’t feel bad about it in the least. I have committed so many grievous sins I can’t possibly worry about what I put in my mouth.

Besides, I was eating ham at Stephens United Church in Fisher River Manitoba for years before I even know what a Jew was. My parents were both school teachers and we lived on a reserve.


How much do you pay for this gorgeous apartment? 500 Euro! You know, if you tell anyone they’ll want to kill you. God, you can live in Berlin like a king for almost nothing! An apartment like this in Winnipeg costs more.

What’s Winnipeg? My home town...not so bad really, just cold sometimes, that’s all. How cold? Well, on the weather channel they often warn you “exposed skin will freeze in a minute”… I never paid attention…couldn’t bear to dress for that. Besides, I had a vintage camel hair coat…fabulous. I froze my ass off, but looked great…which would explain the missing fingers.

KIDDING!

Oh lunch smells divine. You’re not putting raisins in the sauce? I think they do that in Sicily….must be the Arab influence. Never been there, mind you, but I would love to go. In Italy they call Sicily “Africa”. Isn’t that horrible? But why, I wonder. Africa’s not horrible, is it? Well, it is…but Africa as a concept really isn’t horrible. Anyway, my friend says that Italians from the north will tell you that Palermo is the only third world city without a European quarter. They even look down on Rome: in Milan they say the only thing Romans know how to do is have lunch. Is that so bad? If only Berlin were notorious for the way its citizens took their meals.

No, but I love Berlin!
Well, actually I don’t…it makes me think of death.
I love you guys though!

And so I raise my glass.
To long life…and drinking on Tuesday afternoon.

God… the last time I had prosecco was after a performance of Ligeti’s “La Grande Macabre”, also in Rome – at the opera… friends of mine have a box there. I know, what a life. Anyway, it was all rather grotesque (macabre?). The set consisted of a giant naked woman in papier maché, and the characters would come out of various…orifices. I asked my friend “how much do you want to bet that in the second act, they’re going to turn that girl around have the singers come out her behind?”

Needless to say, my friend bought the proescco!

Oh, and another time….

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Staatsoper, Unter Den Linden, Friday 8:45 PM

How amazing is this! Here we are at the Berlin State Opera, watching the Marriage of Figaro for less than it costs to see a movie at Silver City. Who cares if I don’t have a job? Who needs a nice apartment when you can go to the opera and forget about it all? That’s why they invented opera, you know, to forget… But perhaps also to remember… (oh so poetic am I, la la la). But seriously, haven’t you ever wondered if truth is on the stage and our daily lives are just… imagined? No, I didn’t think of it, John Lennon did. I don’t get John Lennon at all? I never claimed to! Imagine all the people! Shit…it’s a recipe for agoraphobia

Oh – the people watching at the Staatsoper is so much better here than at the Deutsche Oper. Why? The Deutsche Oper is in West Berlin. All the hipsters live here in the East and would never dream about going “over there”; it just isn’t done. This city has never been more divided, wall or no. Besides, the only people I know who live in West Berlin are opera singers, and we’re so boring! We want to be close to the gym… grocery store….dry cleaning! SNORE. Who else but an opera singer goes HOME in Berlin before 11?

Oooh…there’s a man in a leather tuxedo. There’s a woman in a leather tuxedo.

They have identical fur coats, and perhaps the same plastic surgeon?

I’m dying for a pretzel. Want one? I can’t get over the sight of these women in their finery, eating pretzels at the opera…just too much! Sort of reminds me of an opening night party in Vancouver: they forgot to order food, so at the last minute they delivered fifty pizzas, and there was this grand old dowager in a ball gown nibbling on a slice of meat lover’s. Talk about stoic! But pretzels are part of the culture here, whereas Domino’s is…

Speaking of Vancouver, the Olympics begin tomorrow. No doubt the opening ceremonies will feature some sort of performance which fuses yoga, Chinese acrobatics and Aboriginal dance into an insipid, PC mess…sponsored by Starbucks! And did you know the security bill for the games is expected to top 1 billion dollars? Not because they’re worried about Al Qaeda: they’re scared of the hippies and naked bike protesters. What can you say about a city which spends so much money to protect itself from its own citizens? Revolution! Now there’s an amateur sport I’d watch on TV.

What’s that? Of course I’ll get up to watch the ceremonies. I absolutely love the Olympics: now that there are no absolute monarchies left, it really is the only venue for quality pageantry. Speaking of which, I just bought an audio version of the Queen’s Coronation on ITunes. Sensational….like sports commentary for homosexuals:

“The baron of the Cinque Ports, in his gown of crimson velvet processes through the nave! The Lords of the Black Rod, the Purple Rod and the Blue Rod in their mantles and coronets crane their necks in anticipation as THE QUEEN appears, resplendent in the glittering Imperial State Crown, having been anointed with the sacred spoon. All do homage. What colour! What ceremony! What a day!”

“She shoots! She scores! God save the Queen”

And here I am talking about myself.

What did you do this afternoon? Went to the Jewish Museum? Sort of felt like Jewish Disneyworld? Of course I’m not offended. I stopped being offended a long time ago. Now I just carry mace. You thought the interactive displays were kind of weird? Yeah, me too: “To hear about a gas chamber, press 1. To feel a yellow star, wait for the tone”. Didn’t it sort of remind you of “Touch the Universe” in Winnipeg?

…Touch the Jewniverce!

I love it. Sometimes I wish that instead of a Jewish Museum there were actual Jews. Well, there are Jews in Berlin, but they’re just mostly expats like me, although technically I’m neither an expat nor a foreigner. Discuss.

But I told you I take a German course at the Jewish Community Centre, right? Kind of bizarre…today we talked about the liberation of Auschwitz. Yeah – learning German through discussing the Holocaust? Can you say FUCKED UP? I almost lost it when our teacher, Axel, wrote “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” in German on the chalk board. But we all wrote it down, dutifully, in our notebooks.

What’s that about?

I just don’t know about Axel. He’s so German I call him Triple Axel….figure skating, darling…FIGURE SKATING. Are you sure you’re gay? Yesterday I was in the washroom and there were 2 other guys beside me at the urinals. Axel swept in and exclaimed “was fűr ein schönes Bild” – what a lovely picture. Very Ernst Röhm… I would be offended, but Axel is sort of cute, in that ruggedly handsome, inwardly psychotic, goyische drill sergeant kind of way.

Oh, what of it? We all love our oppressors: “Like a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.” Of course that’s biblical…it’s from Proverbs, which I love…so dishy.

Each verse is a tweet from God.

Well, I think that’s our cure to return to our seats. Anyone who said Wagner was long has never been to one of these Mozart operas… 4 hours! Nothing in this world should last 4 hours…except maybe a flight in first class, or opening ceremonies…or a coronation!

See you here after the show? You know, I would absolutely love to go out for a drink, but I have to be home by 11. I have a lesson tomorrow…and then I have to go grocery shopping and pick up my dry cleaning. Why don’t you come by for herbal tea?

What’s my address?

West Berlin….

Galleries Lafeyette, 2:14 PM

Look.... over there....NO - not at THAT TABLE...why would I want you to look at an old Bavarian couple? Left....See her? Obviously French. Who else would pair fingerless cashmere gloves with 2000 Euro snakeskin boots? No, definitely not from around here. Oh, bless - she's reading a used copy of "The Second Sex". I'll bet she's not reading it at all - just bought it at the second hand store so she could come here and LOOK like she was into it... Reading Simone de Bouvoir in public is simultaneously alluring and forbidding. Men don't understand, but they want women to think they understand, but only so they can screw them, and she knows this. I should get a chair in Women's Studies for that one! Who upholsters the chairs in Women's Studies? Is it Laura Ashley! Oh, I am so horrrrrible. Say, have you ever read that short story "Hairball" by Margaret Atwood? It is about a woman who tries to play by the rules in a man's world and gets so pulped in the process she develops a huge tumor...which, once removed, she rolls in cocoa, places in a box of chocolates, and messengers to the man that left her for someone younger and cuter. It is the only work of fiction I have ever read which made me comprehend what it must be like to be a woman scorned.

Oh that girl! You'd think she was HOMELESS the way she was dressed, but I assure you her outfit is VERY expensive. It takes a lot of money to look like a bum.... but as they say, God is in the details and the sweater is angora. Did you know Angora is rabbit? They shear bunnies to make sweaters. The world is fucked.... And she KNOWS she is driving them crazy! Classic Madonna/Whore - chaste, ethereal makeup with slutty red lips and black nail polish, chipped just so, but lustrous enough so you know its Chanel or something. Please tell me you've read Camille Paglia!

Look at her now...nibbling her croissant like a cat drinking cream. Liberty leading the people, not with a raised tricolour, but a pain au chocolate…hot as an affair.

…God, how I love the French. Who else can make a 3 act play out of a piece of pastry....build an entire civilization on something ephemeral as taste - on the complex alchemy that turns butter and flour into a thousand layers? But really, that is how the French are - they do some fancy tricks with base elements, puff themselves up , put themselves on display for all to see.... then poof -gone in one bite. But what a moment! The first time I went to Paris, I arrived at 6 in the morning - pulled my suitcase down the Avenue Montaigne, and it was so beautiful I forgot to breathe. Seriously... I had to be revived by an immortel from the Academie Francaise in full regalia. He just happened to have some smelling salts.

Yes, I know I have an overactive imagination. How else are you going to get through Berlin in February? Maybe I should just go to France? But you don't GO to France, you REMEMBER France. You remember every detail and it throws the quotidien into high relief. The contrast between your daily existence and the gloire of memory is intoxicating. God - if I eat another Madeleine they'll think I'm Proust. And then I can write a big fat book and we can REALLY do Paris - and not the aide-memoire kind either. I'm talking about a suite at the Crillon....high tea at Fauchon. Fashion shows and sable throws.....

I'm talking about the moment you spend your life waiting for. You take base elements. With a little luck and ingenuity you puff yourself into a thousand layers, and even if it only lasts 10 seconds you can say you really lived. Yes I am comparing life to a dessert. Oh don't look like that.... they both come out of the oven.

But you should KNOW by now that I am completely ridiculous. Ridiculous and lovable and contradictory and avaricious, yet saintly when required. I am all of these things, and I am more. It isn't any special insight, just what happens when I drink in the afternoon.

Oh, shit - the girl is gone. She left with the Bavarian couple. How odd. Kinky, even. Maybe they liked the boots. Have you ever wondered what it is with Germans and boots?

For God's sake, don't STARE. Do what women everywhere have done for centuries - look at the mirror in your compact. And if you're not going to finish your french fries, I would be happy to oblige. They fry their potatoes in beef tallow here- the only way.

Oh, STOP IT...life is cruel. Rabbit sweaters, snakeskin boots....objects cooked in rendered cow. All about conquest. Sex and death, Sex and death - a thousand different times, a thousand different ways. And the sooner you realize that, the more exciting your life will be. God, there is this fabulous Helmut Newton photo of a perfectly manicured woman wearing huge diamond rings, tearing apart a roasted chicken...only the most erotic thing I have ever seen.

Now, what was I talking about? Oh, I can't remember.

But wouldn't it have been fabulous to have met Diana Vreeland? She said that in Paris, before the war...In Paris, people used to have 3 fittings for a NIGHTGOWN. She said that when war was declared, she was at a fitting with Chanel…she said how sad she was, moping her way to the last boat out of town before the Germans came.

All she could think about were her clothes.

Shocking, isn't it.

Ooooh.... I love your new sweater. Purple is such an august colour.

Did you know they used to make royal purple out of mollusc shells?

Did you know that molluscs don't have bones, but still have weird exoskeletons?

Fascinating…

Did you know I can't eat molluscs, even though they are my favourite thing?

Last time I ate them I ended up in the hospital with a Benedryl drip.

Oh I fear I shall PERISH before I run out of things to say.

I have a solution!

Live forever. What do you think?

Maybe I should just shut up and die?

Oh, fuck off and give me your fries....

Crumbs

I got a text message from my German teacher this morning. He was in the hospital last night, so I don’t have class today or tomorrow. This means I have a few more unstructured hours in my day, not that I need them. But perhaps it’s true what Gertrude Stein said: to be a genius you need a lot of time to do nothing - to wait for the great ideas to come. I admire the sentiment greatly, looking as I do for excuses to be idle and possessing delusions of grandeur. I should mention that Gertrude Stein came from money and had servants. Perhaps this is genius?

Still, I wonder what would it be like if I were idle the whole day long; if I didn’t tidy the kitchen or fold the laundry. I was brought up to believe that you must clean and clear as you go, but having since found that sparkling surfaces and ordered shelves often indicate a hidden chaos, I have my doubts.

I remember watching my mother scrub the floors in the middle of the night. I decided to be naughty and ate a muffin, purposefully dropping crumbs on the floor. My mother did not see me - only the crumbs - and she followed, scrubbing as she went, wiping the floor in circles, without beginning and without end.

You could have had a picnic on our floor. You could have, but there was nothing to eat. There were only ordered cupboards; a family trying to fight the chaos within. There were sparkling surfaces and people going in circles, not seeing each other.

Looking for crumbs…..

Vision

Words on a page,

artfully placed...

What separates a poem from a shopping list?

Bread, milk,

A Grecian urn

What is this alchemy?

It is terrifying to seize a vision!

To say: “this is mine…

how I see things.”

Words on a page

can’t be taken back.

And to paint a picture in verse!

…snippets of music, etched into silence…

Madness!

Yet madness too begins as a shopping list,

quickly turns to something else.

Is this magic?

Words on a page

Silent snippets of music…

All have value

because I have placed them there.

In this comes the courage

to say that which cannot be taken back

Which is in and of itself

A vision

artfully placed:

How I see things.

Curiouser and Curiouser

Living in Berlin, I often feel I have fallen down the rabbit hole. Last night, after a perfectly sensible evening of homemade shepherd’s pie and German homework with a friend, I attended a composer’s birthday party in the emerging area of Neukölln. I was also invited to a fashion show at the Martin Gropius Bau, and a burlesque/ laser tag evening at the Planetarium, but I had RSVP’d, and I am punctilious in keeping my word…. most of the time. In truth, I often don’t go to parties, preferring as I do to cocoon and drink tea in silence, but I felt that in this case I felt I should make an effort, not only because I think I should expand my horizons, but because I need a new place to stay. You never know who you might encounter…

There seem to be two constants in Berlin: parties and moving, and if you think about it, perhaps this is what life is about anyway. Oh, I should apologize for being so deep so soon. In writing, as in relationships, they always say you should wait to reveal. But I have been writing poetry of late, and poetry has a way of infusing meaning into everything, which is useful, and in fact why poetry exists, but quite annoying when trying to do anything which requires split-second decision making…like buying stamps or crossing the street. Should I go? Should I stay? If I go now, will I get run over? Is crossing the street a metaphor for life?

See, there I go again.

Now I have committed the second cardinal sin in writing: going off topic. I wonder why these things are so important; being topical - skimming the surface until you are sure the reader/object of your affection (and are they not one and the same?) has been lured into your trap. I think it is all about control, which is what most things are about anyway. Parties, moving, control. What else is there?

Oh yes - there is having coffee in the Literaturhaus on the Fasanenstrasse with someone perfectly lovely -- one of those afternoons when you plan to meet for an hour and then notice it is getting dark. You wonder where all the time went, forget about crossing the street….even about control. You begin to think life can be about poetry after all.

Now that’s on topic….

“Wie, bitte?”

I think it was Mark Twain who said that life is just too short to learn German. My internet connection is down so I just can’t be sure, but he seemed to have a lot to say about the German language – none of it positive. As for myself, I have nothing in particular against German, except for the fact that upon hearing it I can’t help but be reminded of the annihilation of my family. But let’s not dwell on trivial matters. After all, German is a perfectly serviceable language….good for commands and such, and I have been happy absorb it in my own way for months now, using the time-honored tradition of immigrants everywhere: television. I have also been learning a lot of German by arguing with government officials, cab drivers and sales people. Everyone comments on how “good” my German is, not because I can speak the language particularly well, but because I am a very good mimic. But you’ve heard all this before…

Unfortunately, there is only so far you can go with a charming demeanor and the native cadence. Sooner or later, the movers and shakers will find out that I learned German on the streets (and not very nice ones at that), and I am loath to see the doors of opportunity closing in my face. No, it was definitely time to enroll in another German course.

But where?

Well, there’s the Goethe Institute, but they’re ruinously expensive, as are individual tutors of any quality. Private schools which cater to diplomatic wives and aimless Americans are also quite dear. I have been a diplomatic wife, and have already met quite enough aimless Americans to last a lifetime. (Where are you from? Portland. What do you do? I’m a gallery assistant…and a performance artist…I have a band…). There’s the public language school, but they require all sorts of documentation which I don’t have, and which I don’t want to go through the bother of getting…although maybe I would learn a lot of German in the process…

There remained only one option: The Jewish Community Centre. I know it seems ridiculous, learning German under the auspices of the Jewish Community, but there was no entrance exam, no documentation required, and two months of daily instruction for only 80 Euro. Talk about wholesale! Who knows, maybe I would even meet a nice doctor out of the whole thing…. (A charming story, really…Shimon and I connected in Berlin…at German school of all places! I knew we were beshert as soon as I heard him conjugate reflexive verbs in his intoxicating Israeli accent. We live in Switzerland now.)

So my friend and I enrolled. As usual, I charmed the pants off of the intake officer. As usual, I was placed in a level which far exceeded my skills, so now I am faced with homework which I have no idea how to begin:

“Exercise 1a: Case. Choose the appropriate case for the following examples and explain your choices in detail. Please use the following: Nominative Case, Accusative Case, Dative Case, Genitive Case….”

(Basket Case

Mental Case

A Case of You…)

Okay….make herbal tea, do calming breath exercise… here goes:

1) The thick white girl gives the jocund blue ball to the squat purple antelope. The squat purple antelope belongs to the tolerant flailing zebra, which enjoys playing handball with the amicable green giraffe.

What is this, German on acid? I am beginning to think Mark Twain was right.

…I wonder what’s on TV…

Little Match Girl

January is a difficult month at the best of times. Most of us are fatter and poorer then we were in December and have little to show for the excesses of the season except a few trinkets and the memory of family feuds. I think my friend Rebecca had the right idea by hibernating with her husband over Christmas and making pasta from scratch. Rebecca is often sensible and I miss hear dreadfully. We have been friends forever and were neighbors for a time, creating a warm community by the ocean in the midst of a city of strangers. I would go over to her cozy apartment every Saturday and she would educate me about Afrobeat. We would make homemade mozzarella or drink tea and consume an entire loaf of Cobb’s fruit and nut bread, toasted just so. For her birthday I prepared scallops in a cream sauce, enriched with egg yolks and crème fraiche…I have always believed that butterfat equals love, and Rebecca agrees.

I knew Rebecca and I would become fast friends the day I met her in the music library at the University of Manitoba. She was wearing velvet pants and a peasant blouse and was doing her theory homework on vellum with a vibrant purple calligraphy pen. Her long blonde hair cascaded in defiant, unruly tendrils. I felt as if a light had been turned on.

Rebecca and I were the misfits of music school: we were queer and had voices that just didn’t blend. People often told us to sing more quietly, to tow the line, but we couldn’t and we would often cry together in an empty practice room after our voice lessons, overwhelmed by the frustration of wanting to express the infinite through song and not really knowing how…..some day we will be able to sing as loudly as we want and nobody will tell us to blend. This I promise you…

We often cry together still, out of love, out of longing…because we miss each other. Yesterday, Rebecca and I talked on the phone for the first time in almost 2 months and I told her all about my Berlin adventures - how I ran out of coal over New Years and thought it might be a good idea to burn the discarded Christmas trees I found on the side of the road to keep warm. She said I was like the little match girl, that I needed a knight in shining armor to rescue me. I told her there are no knights in shining armor and that maybe I should have just remembered to order the coal already….

For there are no knights to rescue us, no silver bullets, no miracle cures. There are, however, laughter and tears, and the desire to express the infinite through song with a voice that is your own. There is friendship. There are scallops in a rich creamy sauce…

and there is the light, turning on.

This I promise you.

Progress

I would like to take this opportunity to apologize for not writing. You see, over the last few weeks I have been trying to radically change my life. I am trying to eat better, think better, be better, do better….but not in the context of a comparative framework which would destroy the fragile self esteem I have acquired by nurturing my inner child – that sensitive creature neglected by a perceived lack of parental support during times of trauma during adolescence whose dysfunction is compounded by feelings of shame and inadequacy due to an overly competitive nature and destructive perfectionist tendencies which engender feelings of worthlessness.

Can you tell I bought a self-help book? I have also eliminated (since yesterday) refined sugar, dairy, chocolate, alcohol and worrying. I now eat my organic porridge in blissful silence and ponder the complex flavors and textures of a banana - chewing each mouthful precisely 20 times so as not to cause the malnourishment resulting from an inadequate absorption of minerals, and thus having to endure the anxiety and irritability which would accompany such rapid fluctuations in blood sugar. But have you ever tried to chew a mouthful of porridge 20 times? It is like waiting for death!

Despite my new regime of health, fitness and intense self care, I still manage to make time for recreation. Why only yesterday I decided to submit myself to the ministrations of a Turkish barber and I can safely tell you that heaven on earth is having your eyebrows threaded by a 250 pound Middle Eastern hunk. It is just the right mixture of pleasure and pain, with the exciting frisson of the forbidden. I also had him trim my beard, but I don’t think he understood what I was saying because he fashioned my facial hair into narrow sideburns and a Lothario's moustache. I now look like some sort of pimp - which is appropriate as my street is known for its “nocturnal activities”. I should mention at this point that I grew a beard because my teacher told me I am no longer a character tenor but rather a Spinto which is an Italian tenor that gets to sing all the lovely emotional music that critics love to hate, but which makes ladies of a certain age (myself included) swoon. Having a butch voice means you have to embrace your masculine side, but if you have no masculine side then facial hair will have to do… so maybe it is not such a bad thing that I look like some sort of shady swindler rather than the anxious cherub I really am.

However, the transition is not quite complete… I may have facial hair, but my wardrobe needs a little work. Last night I wore a bright red sweater and a fetching ascot to a concert at the Philharmonie. I thought red was appropriate, since the work performed was a setting of the Communist Manifesto by the German-Jewish composer Erwin Shulhoff. Apparently, this piece has never before been performed in Germany. After hearing it, I can tell you that there are several good reasons why. My friend, who is actually a bona fide Communist and quite knowledgeable about music but too kind to say anything mean, exclaimed “oh, but what a wonderful text!”

I think the school’s out on that one.

Ok – now I’m off to visualize my life goals which today seem to be grounded in images of chocolate.