Joel Schalit

Parklife

I normally don’t take to demonstration photos. As a magazine editor, I’ve often found them overused,  less evocative than they’re intended to be. Still, given the pictures of the violence at Friday’s S-21 demo here in Stuttgart, today I walked down to Schlossgarten park and proceeded to snap away.

The park was full of protestors. Some were manning info tables, talking to reporters, distributing pamphlets. Others sat on tree branches high above, watching a police detachment protect a busy bulldozer. Even though the focus was Stuttgart, it was clear everyone was thinking about Germany.

Though nuclear power remains a subject of intense debate for Germans, it has long since been dropped by most Americans. It only appears in public discourse in relation to government concerns about weapons of mass destruction, for example, in Iraq, North Korea, or, most recently, Iran.

As refreshing as it is to see the topic taken up as an environmental issue, there is still something unfamiliar about it. I find it difficult to separate the discussion from security considerations, particularly as they relate to Israeli anxieties. Clearly, a number of Germans see it as a security issue, too.

“Transatlantic Deodorant Commercial”

It was the first thing that came to mind, as I saw this image flash across the TV screen. Standing on the platform at Stuttgart’s central station, I was waiting for a train take me to the airport, where I was to begin the first leg of a trip to the US.

Where’s My Mercedes?

If Germany has a city of equal significance to Detroit, it’s Stuttgart. The birthplace of the country’s auto industry, it also hosts one of Germany’s biggest migrant communities, with one estimate rising as high as 39 percent of the overall population. The local Turkish community is particularly visible.

Also home to Jennifer’s firm, we’ve set up shop in a tiny studio apartment near her office until our new place is finished being refurbished.  In the western part of Stuttgart, we’ve been surprised by incredible Sri Lankan and southern European food, as it surpasses most of what we’ve eaten in Berlin.

Brown Sugar

Germany was not a frequent subject of discussion in my family while I was growing up. Though my father had served in the Second World War, he was a Palestinian Jew whose family had been in the Middle East since 1882. Despite the fact that he had serious issues with the country, at the same time, it did not occupy the same kind of negative mental space, as say, the UK.

To wit, I remember the day Elie came home to London, following a business trip to Hamburg. Opening up his briefcase, he pulled out a Boney M record. If I remember correctly, it was the album with their hit Rasputin. “The most popular group in Germany,” he told us. Looking at the packaging, I noticed that the band members were black. That was that. I never thought about it again.

Photos taken on Koenigstrasse, in Stuttgart, Saturday. Click for detail.

No Child Left Behind

America’s presidents wind up in the most unlikely of places. An anti-Bush sticker, affixed to a child-conscious pedestrian crossing sign in downtown Stuttgart, Germany.