Initialize
Everyone their own broadcaster. Neukölln garage door, August 2010.
British healthcare beats the US. But Germany’s is the best. Neukölln, June 011.
Archived entries for Germany
Greetings From Berlin
Or so I meant to title this post, originally, when I was back home, in Neukölln, last June. In town for a week, to renew our visas, I’d very much hoped to start working on this blog again. Alas, I did not have the time. The first time back in Germany, in two months, we had more than our fair share of things to take care of. Now in Torino, for the foreseeable future, I have every intention of getting back in the saddle, finally. I’ve missed blogging.
The main reason for my absence has been Souciant. Co-editor-in-chief, I’ve been serving as managing editor again, a role I am very familiar with. I’ve also been writing a thousand to fifteen hundred word piece a week, which I’ve been running every Monday, or on Tuesdays, when I am behind. I’ve written approximately twenty essays, 99% of which are keepers. The text will end up constitufting a big part of my next book. That’s been the idea.
Over the last week or so, I’ve been slowly updating different parts of this site. The Press and Clips sections have been brought up to date, with links to my recent publications, as well as to coverage. My good friend Doug Henwood was kind enough to host me a second time this year on his Behind the News show. Our conversation aired last Saturday, courtesy of KPFA in Berkeley. The subject: Anders Breivik, and the European right.
It would be really nice if I could talk about something else going on in Europe. Hence, the wishful thinking of this leftwing sticker, with the image of Lenin. I found it pasted to a mailbox around the corner from our apartment, in Berlin.
Stuttgart Calling
Sooner or later I was going to have to write about it. The apartment we rent, near Jen’s office, is located in as rich and complex a space as our home in Berlin. Take a right at this corner, off of Hegelstrasse, and you’re on Holderlin, a half a block from us. Reflections on living in Stuttgart, in Monday’s Souciant.
Fragments of Berlin
As much as I miss Berlin, spending the last six weeks in London has had its advantages. Perspective being the main thing. Hard at work on an essay about German identity politics, I’ve had to come to terms with how profoundly living in Germany these past eight months has effected me.
Visiting London’s Imperial War Museum last October, I encountered this fragment of the Berlin Wall. I wondered if it was an ironic embodiment of a distance I was looking for then. The kind that frees you up to start writing, that relieves you from feeling overwhelmed by your subject matter.
Tanks for the Memories
The AMX-13 was one of the Israeli army’s first tanks. Supplied by France during the 1950s, the light MBT bloodied itself in the Sinai campaign, in 1956. Eventually it was phased out in favor of better, more heavily armored combat vehicles, such as upgraded M4 Shermans, British-supplied Centurions, and American M48 Pattons following 1967′s Six Day War.
Driving across northeastern France in late November, across the epic battlefields of the First World War, I passed the tank memorial at Berry-Au-Bac. Sitting to my right, on a hill overlooking the highway, was this AMX-13. I immediately turned around, parked the car, and started snapping pictures. The last time I’d seen one was in Israel, a decade prior.
It was the second time I’d seen a tank that month. Several weeks earlier, en route to Berlin from Stuttgart, Jennifer and I pulled over to get gas. Right across from our VW stood two trailers, one bearing a more recent Leopard 2 tank, belonging to the German military. The second was a turretless Leopard recovery vehicle. Both were being towed somewhere north.
One of my earliest childhood memories is sitting outside a tank factory, near La Spezia. I’m eight years old. It’s November, and the air is freezing cold. As a uniformed Italian army officer speaks to us in broken English, an early model Leopard 1 goes through it’s paces in front of us. Smashing through walls, raising and lowering its gun, rotating its enormous turret.
Angela of the Autobahn
Traffic was backed up. For well over an hour, the only thing we could see was the back of this truck. Bayreuth, August.