As she explains it, a series of flashes and wavering pictures race from one to another in a set virtual square behind her head. It’s snow falling and snow playing. Graffiti arting and other things. Speckles of paint fragments hitting the wall like rain drops – in sequence but not in sync – moving from the top to the bottom, from right to left to right again. You can hear the hiss in your head but the sound waves do not transfer. The sound is off. She talks.
Tacheles is an artist collective in Berlin. “Artists can live there without paying rent. Squatting.” As she says it, her eyebrows raise and she sits into a smile and she seems to almost be bragging, but not it a bad way. It’s the way your sister does when you feel like somehow there’s love embedded into this boastful comment.
I love collectives.
“By artists for artists… we just do this because it’s art.” Art has a strange authoritative nothingness in this city, and in this way, it is everything. I’ve seen more art in this city than anything else and I know much more about Berlin’s art than I feel I could ever know about its government. “Communism doesn’t work quite well because there’s this human element involved.” It’s the human element.
The human element.
So here I sit in the office—unknowingly having intruded in a place that seems un-intrudable. My feet rest beneath me, covered with sand and dotted with last month’s garbage: the wrong day to be wearing flip-flops. It’s fine. I like feeling my surroundings between my toes. I hear rock-influenced trance music throbbing in some downstairs room, they probably sit and nod their heads to it as they tap their marijuana cigarettes on the dirtiest ashtray I’ve never seen. I entered this room by stumbling through an invisible door in the wall of an empty room plastered with years of graffiti—I wonder how thick those walls are with art and how they used to look. I see in my mind a sped-up movie of days of busy graffiti artists, with their paint and their rollers, busying these walls with dark color.
I just feels dark but the concept and reality of it is so light.
It’s remarkable to me that no one can ever see a picture as someone who’s been there. And the picture-taker can never see a photograph as those seeing the still frame for the first time out of context with no idea of the temperature, smell, wind, or what’s outside the frame. We say that a picture captures a moment but there’s so much more to a moment than an 8x6 set of pixels varying in color so that our brains register it as a likeness of reality…
Tacheles.de
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Imagine Turkey:
Turkish evil eyes hanging on every wall and possible space: blue and yellow and white circles, black in the middle, staring down, targeting your wrong inclinations and silly thoughts. Children playing with little regard to the world around them, recognizing the fun and playful elements but none of the bad. Houses aligned along the hillside, packed together so tightly they look like steps heading up the steep formation of earth. Fish smell. Mosques, with their pointy grey towers, remaining visible from every location in the city, seeming uncountable. Deep blue water, rich with color, lines the banks of both Europe and Asia. Smile exchanges. Pigeons, seagulls, stray cats and dogs (and wanting to take home the kittens). Calls and odd attention from salesmen, peddling the latest perfume, cowboy hats, corn. Restaurant workers inviting you in. Merhaba! Hello! The Grand Bazaar, flooded with people and colors, gifts, delights, teen boys recruiting you to be their next stunning American customer. Being ripped off because, oh yeah, I don’t know better. Turkish tea, served in those little Turkish tea glasses with womanly curves, two sugar cubes and a tiny spoon. Mint hookah and the way the thick smoke lifts out of my mouth. Smooth raki with the taste of earth-like licorice, one part water, letting it sit in my mouth as I convince myself to swallow it. Cobblestone pathways. Flags, translucent in the sun, blowing proud in the wind. 5 AM call to prayer. A delightful Turkish hum in crowded places. Finding restaurants, not eateries. Smiling. Loving.
August 15th and Identity
I feel fine today. Istanbul’s splendor woke me smiling. Its complex hillsides and bright blue skies greeted me as I took my first look out the window. I saw the slopes of this captivating city covered with aging buildings; they look like steps going up the earth’s slant, and there live the people of Istanbul. The colorful, playful Turks busy themselves as they move about the city, their motorcycles, which their boys helped them wash by hand, buzz by on their way between peddling jobs. My lips press through a cherry near the rich blue water today to find a pit, which falls between the stones I’m walking on.
I don’t know Turkish, but it’s okay: a smile spans all languages.
“You’re beautiful,” he says to me after teasing by placing the cowboy hat he’s trying to sell to tourists for a moment on my head. The cool breeze and his cool words refresh me. This lighthearted, loving community humbles, houses, and comforts me—its hands and my hands intertwine with meaning (I feel Turkey must give meaning to everyone. What it feels for me is not something miraculous or special, and I’m okay with that). The tight grasp between our fingers causes me to sweat and my heart to pound with honest provoked emotion. This doesn’t happen often.
Places like the bazaars of this city capture its essence perfectly: a diverse collection of Istanbul’s people, each one tumbling with excitement over a new person, who themselves are stumbling with elation of a new taste, smell, or sight. Patterns, patterns, patterns! The complex array of this scarf before me, resting in my hand, calms me: it looks to me like a mosque ceiling. Tangled swirls and flower shapes accented with brilliant colors, it registers as cashmere as I smear my fingerprint across it. “For you, thirty lira!”
Being in Turkey makes me think about money. How much we long for something that has such intense power to ruin our lives. Having it and not having it can prove to be the same; we feel the same emotions, sing the same songs, bitch about the same type of trivial things. The haves and the have nots are essentially divided by what they can attain, for they both feel a sense of I want what I want when I want it and it’s really just the ones who can get it who we may call “privileged.” I beg, however, to differ. The privileged ones are those who are surrounded by not a cushion of money but a cushion of love. Their nest egg is health and their net worth is measured by happiness. Ethics remarks that it is not a large wallet that we strive for, it is happiness that makes our life worth living. Money will come and go—and maybe I can sit here typing on my laptop as an American student in Germany saying these things because I have lived a life with money (mind you not a bottomless sum, but enough), and maybe my remarks and economic leftism would differ had I grown up in a different part of my fiscally diverse city, but I still maintain my viewpoint. Why should something so unimportant –seeming have the power to divide us when our common human experiences should be strong enough to bring us together? But it does. Money does divide us. And very few people share my borderless viewpoint.
Istanbul.
Here are the rich and here are the poorer. Three city blocks and one hill away from each other. There they sit, sipping their steaming Turkish tea in what I can only imagine are their stuffy lofts, overlooking a city they care not to venture through. Some can see the slums from their prided real estate, turning their backs on that word in their mailing address which pin-points them on a map for they live in a place made by Escher, a futuristic stark-white simulated home of a world they don’t actually live in. White sterile tiles, white walls and glass dividers. Open air but you’re not outside. Eerie music bounces off the untouched walls on this in-home mall and Cineplex. She gets her Dior at home, of course. Two million Euro. We make fun of this place, we mock the people in it. I ask Orhan if this is a desired way to live, in this multi-plex, cinemax shopping world. Apartmall, they should call it. “It is the posh way to live,” he tells me, “the rich people of the city could purchase an old house on the outskirts of the city and fix it up. They could have a whole house! They could make it very nice after buying it for just a couple hundred Euro. But no, they choose to live here.”
And away we walk. I stand at a point where in one direction, about a hundred feet away, I see this Euro-topia, standing ambiguously proud and all-knowing. I turn just half way around and there, another hundred feet away, are the poor. Orhan points this out as well. I have a short discussion with Cassie about how picturesque the poor homes are and how I would love to live in this section rather than the other. Grey and red faded cobblestone, pink houses, yellow houses, red houses, blue. Children playing, clothes hanging. The danger lies in poor infrastructure and the risk of earthquakes but I’m okay with that, I’ve lived in fear of earthquakes my entire life. This seems so carefree. It just seems barefoot, if anything can seem like such. There are animals here. There’s suffering, but there’s laughter over the little things. Here, there is blistered hands and scraped knees. There’s dirt. The kind of stuff life should consist of. The Homo sapien did not know “stark-white.” What is that?
“But they’re trying to change exactly what ‘Istanbul’ means,” she says to me.
She’s right, and it pains me. What exactly does that mean for someone’s identity, though? We are defined so strongly by what we innately are. Kettle, stop being black. That doesn’t work. Is it still even a kettle? We know well that a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet, but whether or not this holds water in the question of identity, I am not sure. I’m quite skeptical, actually. It’s just not how things work. Might Istanbul’s redefinition reversely ruin its name, its icon, its content? It will absolutely change it. New Istanbul might be in order, for what else is left of its identity after all these things are washed away?
“They’re gathering to watch us,” Sally says as Turkish children, playful boys, address our group from the porch where they hang out. In Turkish, of course: “What are you doing?” “Very beautiful.” “We found an Asian!” Maybe the children of this neighborhood will preserve the name of Istanbul and thus maintain its essence.
I don’t know Turkish, but it’s okay: a smile spans all languages.
“You’re beautiful,” he says to me after teasing by placing the cowboy hat he’s trying to sell to tourists for a moment on my head. The cool breeze and his cool words refresh me. This lighthearted, loving community humbles, houses, and comforts me—its hands and my hands intertwine with meaning (I feel Turkey must give meaning to everyone. What it feels for me is not something miraculous or special, and I’m okay with that). The tight grasp between our fingers causes me to sweat and my heart to pound with honest provoked emotion. This doesn’t happen often.
Places like the bazaars of this city capture its essence perfectly: a diverse collection of Istanbul’s people, each one tumbling with excitement over a new person, who themselves are stumbling with elation of a new taste, smell, or sight. Patterns, patterns, patterns! The complex array of this scarf before me, resting in my hand, calms me: it looks to me like a mosque ceiling. Tangled swirls and flower shapes accented with brilliant colors, it registers as cashmere as I smear my fingerprint across it. “For you, thirty lira!”
Being in Turkey makes me think about money. How much we long for something that has such intense power to ruin our lives. Having it and not having it can prove to be the same; we feel the same emotions, sing the same songs, bitch about the same type of trivial things. The haves and the have nots are essentially divided by what they can attain, for they both feel a sense of I want what I want when I want it and it’s really just the ones who can get it who we may call “privileged.” I beg, however, to differ. The privileged ones are those who are surrounded by not a cushion of money but a cushion of love. Their nest egg is health and their net worth is measured by happiness. Ethics remarks that it is not a large wallet that we strive for, it is happiness that makes our life worth living. Money will come and go—and maybe I can sit here typing on my laptop as an American student in Germany saying these things because I have lived a life with money (mind you not a bottomless sum, but enough), and maybe my remarks and economic leftism would differ had I grown up in a different part of my fiscally diverse city, but I still maintain my viewpoint. Why should something so unimportant –seeming have the power to divide us when our common human experiences should be strong enough to bring us together? But it does. Money does divide us. And very few people share my borderless viewpoint.
Istanbul.
Here are the rich and here are the poorer. Three city blocks and one hill away from each other. There they sit, sipping their steaming Turkish tea in what I can only imagine are their stuffy lofts, overlooking a city they care not to venture through. Some can see the slums from their prided real estate, turning their backs on that word in their mailing address which pin-points them on a map for they live in a place made by Escher, a futuristic stark-white simulated home of a world they don’t actually live in. White sterile tiles, white walls and glass dividers. Open air but you’re not outside. Eerie music bounces off the untouched walls on this in-home mall and Cineplex. She gets her Dior at home, of course. Two million Euro. We make fun of this place, we mock the people in it. I ask Orhan if this is a desired way to live, in this multi-plex, cinemax shopping world. Apartmall, they should call it. “It is the posh way to live,” he tells me, “the rich people of the city could purchase an old house on the outskirts of the city and fix it up. They could have a whole house! They could make it very nice after buying it for just a couple hundred Euro. But no, they choose to live here.”
And away we walk. I stand at a point where in one direction, about a hundred feet away, I see this Euro-topia, standing ambiguously proud and all-knowing. I turn just half way around and there, another hundred feet away, are the poor. Orhan points this out as well. I have a short discussion with Cassie about how picturesque the poor homes are and how I would love to live in this section rather than the other. Grey and red faded cobblestone, pink houses, yellow houses, red houses, blue. Children playing, clothes hanging. The danger lies in poor infrastructure and the risk of earthquakes but I’m okay with that, I’ve lived in fear of earthquakes my entire life. This seems so carefree. It just seems barefoot, if anything can seem like such. There are animals here. There’s suffering, but there’s laughter over the little things. Here, there is blistered hands and scraped knees. There’s dirt. The kind of stuff life should consist of. The Homo sapien did not know “stark-white.” What is that?
“But they’re trying to change exactly what ‘Istanbul’ means,” she says to me.
She’s right, and it pains me. What exactly does that mean for someone’s identity, though? We are defined so strongly by what we innately are. Kettle, stop being black. That doesn’t work. Is it still even a kettle? We know well that a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet, but whether or not this holds water in the question of identity, I am not sure. I’m quite skeptical, actually. It’s just not how things work. Might Istanbul’s redefinition reversely ruin its name, its icon, its content? It will absolutely change it. New Istanbul might be in order, for what else is left of its identity after all these things are washed away?
“They’re gathering to watch us,” Sally says as Turkish children, playful boys, address our group from the porch where they hang out. In Turkish, of course: “What are you doing?” “Very beautiful.” “We found an Asian!” Maybe the children of this neighborhood will preserve the name of Istanbul and thus maintain its essence.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
I Stumble in Istanbul
Istanbul. As it blows through my hair, the air continues to change its smell from bitter to sweet. It’s warm here: moving my feet up a hill, the tips of my blue jeans pass by each other with so much speed they make a flapping noise, and it promotes an honest sweat. Every person I pass returns my smile. Not seeming shocked, or uncomfortable, or even put on the spot, they just smile back. I actually love this city.
Caucasians used to be Turkish slaves. Oh, if only all of America knew about this. What a fascinating and different world high school would have been for me: the say-it-out-loud ebony Emerald may have seen me as a person and not as some dumb white girl obviously trying to ruin her day since she’s black and I must hate her. But that’s a different story.
I’m dying to see this city. Our tour guide looks like Robin Williams. I imagine that maybe some day this man, Orhan, will do something so noteworthy they’ll make a movie about his logical Istanbul adventures, climbing hills, trailing students throughout the miraculous parts of the city… and no one could play him better than Robin Williams. It’s a good thing the star of Flubber is so great with accents.
A Turkish fly crawls about everything I own: my hand, pants, purse, notebook…but has yet to touch anyone else. Minutes pass, many actually, and it still crawls about. I wonder why! If I close my eyes and focus on the tickling the dark grey and dull red insect is causing by stumbling its tiny little legs about the hairs on the back of my hand, I can imagine it’s drawing a picture on that flat light surface. It’s a classic puzzle piece. I consider the significance. How might I describe the buzzing of a fly? Zatta za nah za nah. It moves finally to another set of possessions, belonging to another student, listening to a different element of Istanbul than the sounds of the 6-legged flying critters.
The people in Turkey are absolutely dazzling. I think this is why I love it so much—they’re all so genuine and loving life. Everyone seems to be going somewhere, and whether it is for play or for work, it looks intriguing and exciting. I would follow one person an hour if I could, just to see where I might end up. I imagine I would be taken to the Bazaar and to the men lined up along one bridge, with their fishing rods in hand, hanging loosely, awaiting a tug. I might pet a kitten if I were following a child or wash my hands and feet in a Muslin footbath in the middle of the city if I found myself following on a Friday. I see twelve-year-old boys walking together, one with his hand on the other one’s shoulder, and wonder what they too are up to. What a loving community.
I want to come back here with my dad so badly. I want him to see the city as I see it: a blessed center of every person you’d ever want to watch. A hub of joy and laughter and suffering. Clean and dirty. Up-close, personal, and distant. Daddy, you’ll see it. We’ll make it here together someday soon.
There the sun goes: beating hard on me as if to make up for my intense feverous chills last night. My feet may throb in its heat but I’m enjoying the sensation for the sun and I have a lovely relationship. Here I am, eating tough, old rubber corn spiced with warm salt, I’m deciding how much I’m actually enjoying it or if I just enjoy out-standing experiences such as this one. Note-worthy ones, which are so intense in their horribleness, greatness, or rubberiness that just thinking about them you can’t help but laugh.
Caucasians used to be Turkish slaves. Oh, if only all of America knew about this. What a fascinating and different world high school would have been for me: the say-it-out-loud ebony Emerald may have seen me as a person and not as some dumb white girl obviously trying to ruin her day since she’s black and I must hate her. But that’s a different story.
I’m dying to see this city. Our tour guide looks like Robin Williams. I imagine that maybe some day this man, Orhan, will do something so noteworthy they’ll make a movie about his logical Istanbul adventures, climbing hills, trailing students throughout the miraculous parts of the city… and no one could play him better than Robin Williams. It’s a good thing the star of Flubber is so great with accents.
A Turkish fly crawls about everything I own: my hand, pants, purse, notebook…but has yet to touch anyone else. Minutes pass, many actually, and it still crawls about. I wonder why! If I close my eyes and focus on the tickling the dark grey and dull red insect is causing by stumbling its tiny little legs about the hairs on the back of my hand, I can imagine it’s drawing a picture on that flat light surface. It’s a classic puzzle piece. I consider the significance. How might I describe the buzzing of a fly? Zatta za nah za nah. It moves finally to another set of possessions, belonging to another student, listening to a different element of Istanbul than the sounds of the 6-legged flying critters.
The people in Turkey are absolutely dazzling. I think this is why I love it so much—they’re all so genuine and loving life. Everyone seems to be going somewhere, and whether it is for play or for work, it looks intriguing and exciting. I would follow one person an hour if I could, just to see where I might end up. I imagine I would be taken to the Bazaar and to the men lined up along one bridge, with their fishing rods in hand, hanging loosely, awaiting a tug. I might pet a kitten if I were following a child or wash my hands and feet in a Muslin footbath in the middle of the city if I found myself following on a Friday. I see twelve-year-old boys walking together, one with his hand on the other one’s shoulder, and wonder what they too are up to. What a loving community.
I want to come back here with my dad so badly. I want him to see the city as I see it: a blessed center of every person you’d ever want to watch. A hub of joy and laughter and suffering. Clean and dirty. Up-close, personal, and distant. Daddy, you’ll see it. We’ll make it here together someday soon.
There the sun goes: beating hard on me as if to make up for my intense feverous chills last night. My feet may throb in its heat but I’m enjoying the sensation for the sun and I have a lovely relationship. Here I am, eating tough, old rubber corn spiced with warm salt, I’m deciding how much I’m actually enjoying it or if I just enjoy out-standing experiences such as this one. Note-worthy ones, which are so intense in their horribleness, greatness, or rubberiness that just thinking about them you can’t help but laugh.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Bubbling Intentions
Champagne bubbles cling to my rigged plastic cup, lifting one by one to the orange surface. Everyone seems to have finished theirs for as I look around, I see nothing but empty white plastic and some ubiquitous paper cylinders whose content remains a mystery, but I want to savor mine. It’s not often you get to drink a mimosa during a lecture.
Ah, a lecture. We sit seriously—some more than others—papers before our torsos, pen in hand, wide-eyed, half-open, and all the way shut. Our clothing ranges from tank tops to belly shirts to Joe’s hot pink New Kids On The Block jacket; an audience wouldn’t be able to deem what the temperature is. Neither can I. As Markus speaks with us about borders, I fidget with frustration to establish a better temperature than the one before. Sweater on. No, off. No, just off my shoulder… but there seems to be no refuge until his words link my interest.
“Here are the negative components of borders,” he says, pointing to a list beginning with Xenophobia and ending with Segregation. Nationalism, War and Militant Conflict, and Totalitarianism were found in between. “Here are the few positive:” Welfare State, Identity or Definition, and Protection. He mentions hybridity and mixing, but I can’t seem to figure out which list he sees them falling into.
Listening to this, I consider that a border is the promotion of ignorance and racism and other discriminatory outlooks on the Other. It promotes barbarity. It feeds misconceptions. However once these misconceptions are built, can they really be taken down? What happens when we stay separate and what happens when we share? “Crossing borders/transgressing: Good or Bad?” I’m not sure if there is an answer.
While this lecture is absolutely not making me happy, it is fueling me to do my research as it is also reassuring me of my interests. I am so sure this is what I want to study. This is people. Identities. Culture. This is intriguing stuff. How do we come to see one person as a best friend and another person as the most terrifying person on the planet? How to we come to re-appropriating derogatory words such as queer, Chicano, and nigger nevertheless having them in the first place?
Fears. Prompted by stone, brick, wire, or air. Promoted by walls. Predicted by borders.
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the walls that we put up and how those walls define us—or, better yet, how we let our definitions change in relation to how removed we remain from the world and other people. I’m excited that social borderd is what I’m studying and speaking with Markus tomorrow over dinner should prove effective.
Ah, a lecture. We sit seriously—some more than others—papers before our torsos, pen in hand, wide-eyed, half-open, and all the way shut. Our clothing ranges from tank tops to belly shirts to Joe’s hot pink New Kids On The Block jacket; an audience wouldn’t be able to deem what the temperature is. Neither can I. As Markus speaks with us about borders, I fidget with frustration to establish a better temperature than the one before. Sweater on. No, off. No, just off my shoulder… but there seems to be no refuge until his words link my interest.
“Here are the negative components of borders,” he says, pointing to a list beginning with Xenophobia and ending with Segregation. Nationalism, War and Militant Conflict, and Totalitarianism were found in between. “Here are the few positive:” Welfare State, Identity or Definition, and Protection. He mentions hybridity and mixing, but I can’t seem to figure out which list he sees them falling into.
Listening to this, I consider that a border is the promotion of ignorance and racism and other discriminatory outlooks on the Other. It promotes barbarity. It feeds misconceptions. However once these misconceptions are built, can they really be taken down? What happens when we stay separate and what happens when we share? “Crossing borders/transgressing: Good or Bad?” I’m not sure if there is an answer.
While this lecture is absolutely not making me happy, it is fueling me to do my research as it is also reassuring me of my interests. I am so sure this is what I want to study. This is people. Identities. Culture. This is intriguing stuff. How do we come to see one person as a best friend and another person as the most terrifying person on the planet? How to we come to re-appropriating derogatory words such as queer, Chicano, and nigger nevertheless having them in the first place?
Fears. Prompted by stone, brick, wire, or air. Promoted by walls. Predicted by borders.
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the walls that we put up and how those walls define us—or, better yet, how we let our definitions change in relation to how removed we remain from the world and other people. I’m excited that social borderd is what I’m studying and speaking with Markus tomorrow over dinner should prove effective.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Assignment One: Wally's Day
Wally, this is the account of how you came to be mine. Please forgive me for not writing this within your pages, however I promise to seat you beside my computer screen so that you may read the story of my finding you on your own. Fan out those empty pages of yours and put your binding to rest. Breathe, relax, and read away, oh notebook of mine.
There we went into a crowded yellow U-bahn train, zipping two stops into the city, waiting anxiously to do our shopping. Four students: two girls, two guys, one me, exited when the train stopped at those ice-blue shiny bricks, exclaiming “here we are!” excitedly to all of Alexanderplatz. I need a towel, postcards, and a notebook, I thought as the rushed Monday traffic of bodies bristled around me. I found myself in a whirling upward twist of what I only know as a metropolitan area: women and their shopping bags, men coming home from work, wives on their errands, what I choose to imagine as husbands standing in line at the flower stand, and tourists like myself caught up in it all.
We found our postcards. One was of a location we knew was very close by, so we donated our Euro to academics and went off, following the gold and blue-green tip of the gothic church to the location where we might capture what the photograph didn’t.
“I’ve finally realized why people walk so slow in San Francisco!” I said to Michael, silently walking slower than I, which I still can’t fathom: I felt as if the soles of my shoes were rolling off the ground at Grandpa speed. “In a new city, I just want to take everything in, I can’t possibly walk my regular pace and do that!” He agreed, but I don’t believe he knew what I was talking about.
The corner was rounded to the live image of the photograph resting in my hand: an intimidating monster with three towers all topped with these blue-green domes that made me want to swim within their sea-like stain. Accented with gold charms and crosses, this church and the fountain before it called strongly for the classic cartoon “ahhhh!” operatic exclamation. There it was in two images: 2D and 3D. One had noise and people and livelihood and movement. The other did not. One gave me interesting people and a young women posing like a model for her boyfriend to capture, earning a European kiss. Children rushed to the fountain. The breeze mocked my decision of attire. And I wrote.
We left soon after to find the department store: towels were our next mission. It was getting late. My phone read eight. I couldn’t accept their request to wait, but on the way, a bookstore was spotted by one of our clever eyes. This is something I didn’t even think to realize in another country: books in different languages! It sounds silly, but when I think of a different language, the impression of pages filled with foreign words, an array of familiar and unknown letters filling a page, making perfect sense to the woman before it but not to the girl glancing over her shoulder interests me fantastically. We jaunted into the shop, our feet moving quickly as to take us there with more speed and intention.
Fingering over binding after binding, dipping my fingertip into the tops of books as to pull them out, I found notebooks. Horrah! I called the other students over: notebooks have been found! Red binding, black binding. Large or small. Lines? No lines? And there you were, little thing, your skinny TUSHITA label and your curiously attractive color: a sepia veneer. I know it when I see it. Ich liebe dich so wie ich bin. You smiled at me. I smiled at you. Your English translation as I flipped you over to your front side, showing the exact silly Einstein photograph as the back, showed me that we’re meant for each other.
I love you just like I am.
And so it began, my good friend, a conversation of one who speaks and one who listens—something I have come to despise in people however adore in bound blank pages. I have named you, I have put you to use. I vow to care for you. Little Wally, I do love you just like I am. This is the beginning of something spectacular.
There we went into a crowded yellow U-bahn train, zipping two stops into the city, waiting anxiously to do our shopping. Four students: two girls, two guys, one me, exited when the train stopped at those ice-blue shiny bricks, exclaiming “here we are!” excitedly to all of Alexanderplatz. I need a towel, postcards, and a notebook, I thought as the rushed Monday traffic of bodies bristled around me. I found myself in a whirling upward twist of what I only know as a metropolitan area: women and their shopping bags, men coming home from work, wives on their errands, what I choose to imagine as husbands standing in line at the flower stand, and tourists like myself caught up in it all.
We found our postcards. One was of a location we knew was very close by, so we donated our Euro to academics and went off, following the gold and blue-green tip of the gothic church to the location where we might capture what the photograph didn’t.
“I’ve finally realized why people walk so slow in San Francisco!” I said to Michael, silently walking slower than I, which I still can’t fathom: I felt as if the soles of my shoes were rolling off the ground at Grandpa speed. “In a new city, I just want to take everything in, I can’t possibly walk my regular pace and do that!” He agreed, but I don’t believe he knew what I was talking about.
The corner was rounded to the live image of the photograph resting in my hand: an intimidating monster with three towers all topped with these blue-green domes that made me want to swim within their sea-like stain. Accented with gold charms and crosses, this church and the fountain before it called strongly for the classic cartoon “ahhhh!” operatic exclamation. There it was in two images: 2D and 3D. One had noise and people and livelihood and movement. The other did not. One gave me interesting people and a young women posing like a model for her boyfriend to capture, earning a European kiss. Children rushed to the fountain. The breeze mocked my decision of attire. And I wrote.
We left soon after to find the department store: towels were our next mission. It was getting late. My phone read eight. I couldn’t accept their request to wait, but on the way, a bookstore was spotted by one of our clever eyes. This is something I didn’t even think to realize in another country: books in different languages! It sounds silly, but when I think of a different language, the impression of pages filled with foreign words, an array of familiar and unknown letters filling a page, making perfect sense to the woman before it but not to the girl glancing over her shoulder interests me fantastically. We jaunted into the shop, our feet moving quickly as to take us there with more speed and intention.
Fingering over binding after binding, dipping my fingertip into the tops of books as to pull them out, I found notebooks. Horrah! I called the other students over: notebooks have been found! Red binding, black binding. Large or small. Lines? No lines? And there you were, little thing, your skinny TUSHITA label and your curiously attractive color: a sepia veneer. I know it when I see it. Ich liebe dich so wie ich bin. You smiled at me. I smiled at you. Your English translation as I flipped you over to your front side, showing the exact silly Einstein photograph as the back, showed me that we’re meant for each other.
I love you just like I am.
And so it began, my good friend, a conversation of one who speaks and one who listens—something I have come to despise in people however adore in bound blank pages. I have named you, I have put you to use. I vow to care for you. Little Wally, I do love you just like I am. This is the beginning of something spectacular.
8/10 is Observation Day.
Black-rimmed square glasses and short dirty blonde hair. Out of his plump lips comes an English accent. His nose is simple but his brow seems to be constantly furrowed. He wears a blue button-up collared shirt with white squares outlines like a checkerboard. It’s tucked into his dark blue jeans, which end at tie-up brown shoes. These are rounded, but he is most definitely square.
Today is absolutely glasses day. It is also sitting down day, which makes my misshapen feet and their scattered blisters entirely content. It is brown tables constructed in a rectangle with a table-shaped hole in the center day. It is swirly and tilty chairs that kids would have fun in day. It is free water day, with gas. Blue shirts day. Listening and learning day. Kelsi facing the window day. Doodle day.
Welcome to Monday.
I feel slightly horrible going to all these government buildings. I feel that anyone from Berlin would love to be here and see all of this but this experience is completely lost on my uneducated brain. But I’m learning. And I am learning much more about the building I am in as I’m in it, which makes the entire event more profound.
“History makes things complicated.” I’m sitting listening to Oliver talk about political extremism and I’m thinking about how his accent to me has an accent. “EX-trem-ism.” He’s German. “ReguLAIRly.” And he speaks English. “Pro-cess.” But his English is British. “Umm…right.” His German accent while speaking English has a British accent. This is excellent.
Political extremism, as Oliver tells us, aims to end the German constitution’s reign. His powerpoint lists what it stands for, showing words we’re familiar as Americans, such as human rights. “S eparation of powers,” it lists. I think this is exponentially dandy. The goal of political extremism is to overthrow the current system, which sounds to be fantastic and a lot like our political system at home, for a much freedom of opinion as possible within some lines. Outside of those lines, freedom of opinion is not tolerated. This sounds weird: why would this extremely outdated way of governing be so attractive now in this day in age? Well, it makes sense in Germany because it promotes prevention of groups such as Nazis and other established homogenous through. It’s smart however questionable.
The word Budapest just entered my mind and is repeating itself over and over. It is cut by my realization of my immense enjoyment of graphs which is then cut by my amusement at the visual irony of the phrase “western right-winged parties.”
I’m thinking now about the concept of countries. Who has the authority on the outer limits? If a country chooses to have the right to do something, then that’s what they suddenly do, right? There’s no bigger section to say no. There aren’t continent governments, are there? This may be a silly and ignorant question section, but it’s a legitimate wondering I have. When these borders meet, what happens? That’s when things get jumbled.
“I don’t think America doesn’t much care about you leaving the country.”
Sally is Danish blonde on the tips of her hair. Hey Sally, you’ve got some Danish in your hair.
The art in the immigration office has a Budapest postcard on it. I’m laughing to myself. This day has come full circle.
Today is absolutely glasses day. It is also sitting down day, which makes my misshapen feet and their scattered blisters entirely content. It is brown tables constructed in a rectangle with a table-shaped hole in the center day. It is swirly and tilty chairs that kids would have fun in day. It is free water day, with gas. Blue shirts day. Listening and learning day. Kelsi facing the window day. Doodle day.
Welcome to Monday.
I feel slightly horrible going to all these government buildings. I feel that anyone from Berlin would love to be here and see all of this but this experience is completely lost on my uneducated brain. But I’m learning. And I am learning much more about the building I am in as I’m in it, which makes the entire event more profound.
“History makes things complicated.” I’m sitting listening to Oliver talk about political extremism and I’m thinking about how his accent to me has an accent. “EX-trem-ism.” He’s German. “ReguLAIRly.” And he speaks English. “Pro-cess.” But his English is British. “Umm…right.” His German accent while speaking English has a British accent. This is excellent.
Political extremism, as Oliver tells us, aims to end the German constitution’s reign. His powerpoint lists what it stands for, showing words we’re familiar as Americans, such as human rights. “S eparation of powers,” it lists. I think this is exponentially dandy. The goal of political extremism is to overthrow the current system, which sounds to be fantastic and a lot like our political system at home, for a much freedom of opinion as possible within some lines. Outside of those lines, freedom of opinion is not tolerated. This sounds weird: why would this extremely outdated way of governing be so attractive now in this day in age? Well, it makes sense in Germany because it promotes prevention of groups such as Nazis and other established homogenous through. It’s smart however questionable.
The word Budapest just entered my mind and is repeating itself over and over. It is cut by my realization of my immense enjoyment of graphs which is then cut by my amusement at the visual irony of the phrase “western right-winged parties.”
I’m thinking now about the concept of countries. Who has the authority on the outer limits? If a country chooses to have the right to do something, then that’s what they suddenly do, right? There’s no bigger section to say no. There aren’t continent governments, are there? This may be a silly and ignorant question section, but it’s a legitimate wondering I have. When these borders meet, what happens? That’s when things get jumbled.
“I don’t think America doesn’t much care about you leaving the country.”
Sally is Danish blonde on the tips of her hair. Hey Sally, you’ve got some Danish in your hair.
The art in the immigration office has a Budapest postcard on it. I’m laughing to myself. This day has come full circle.
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