Berlin or bust

Tough to feel sorry for yourself

When you see the footage of Georgians on your TV Saturday.

Tough to hold the channel steady for: refugee camps, Russian tanks, child corpses in charred autos.

When you could be watching: Sea of Love. Late-night talk show. A Jamaican in green and yellow run as if immortal.

But you do. Sit through. Until you are sick inside. And grateful.

Still. You wake into your own life. Pissy. Insomnia-addled. The chills roll in, first time in a week. The news from San Francisco weighs heavy. An (insane) urge (MUST see the Ex!) accompanies you all over. Mean as a migraine.

Georgia? Very far away.

Afternoon, window table, Sowohlalsauch, the waiter with the astounding brows. You haven't seen him for a while now.

You nurse your cappuccino. He brings you the check. He leans in, shy, respectful. I was wondering, he says, German spiced with an accent you can't unpuzzle, May I take a photo some day, you sitting at this table, black and white, that is what I do, my art, I want to capture images, of people here not German...

You smile. Try to hide your titillation. An honor, you say. And then: Can I ask you where you're from? (Spain, you've decided. The homeland so often attributed to you of late. Go figure.)

Georgia, he says, and No! you say, Your family!? Are they okay?

Yes, he says. His eyes are torn with fear and question. His eyebrows knotted, restive.

I wanted to go to them, he says, My father told me no, my friends told me stay. Oh, but I am ripped up inside. I couldn't come to work all week.

I am so sorry, you say. It must be awful.

I haven't watched the news since Friday, he says. I had to turn it off.

That is good, you say. That is better.

He lays down a Euro change. You slide it toward him. Oh, he says, thanks. 'Cause one's a lot on a four-Euro bill.

Still. You both know: a Euro means nothing. Not now, on this day when the sun laces in and out of Berlin cloud.

In Georgia a woman keens. That was her child in the auto.

Unsteady earth, indeed.

No quietly slumbering thing

Monday night the Germans beat the Austrians. The game was shite. But the relief was palpable. And there were many flags a-waving.

The thing is, there are a lot of people whose skin takes to prickling in a most unpleasant way at the sight of black-red-gold flapping from balconies, cresting car antennas, painted across kids' cheeks, dyed into the very strands of their mohawked hair.

Even I could feel the twitch of discomfort at this sudden swathe of Deutschie colors.

For years, nary a whisper of nationalism has been permissible here. Saluting the flag? Singing the anthem (and on one's feet, eyes teary, at that)? Treating the country's founding, and the principles upon which it is founded, as a Gift to All Humankind? Unthinkable.

Thus it is no small deal that Teutons of all ages now gather in masses and roar their support for Deutschland's players. It was at the 2006 World Cup in Berlin that it first happened -- the Germans allowing themselves a wary, held-breath pride about their high-scoring team. Not just about the team, but about the World Cup itself, with members of every nation gathered on Germany's soil, welcomed peacably, without incident. An awakening, of sorts, to the celebration of one's homeland. 

In Germany, however, the past does not lie sleeping. It informs every moment of the present. Rather, every interpretation of every moment of the present. Thus:

A recent news show took an undercover look at Neo-Nazi groups in the former East Germany, which is where, among the undereducated and dispossessed, they tend to flourish. The show then segged to left-wing students protesting the average German's newfound patriotism. Dressed as PacMans, the students gobbled up flag-waving Fussball fans. Also interviewed: an Israeli expert on German-Jewish history who pointed out that the Nazi flag was red-white-black, so what's all the fuss about?

But that's not really the point, is it?

The unspoken question is, is it safe? For Germans to feel nationalism. For Germans to express it. And how can one answer that without answering the far more unsettling, and to my mind unanswerable, question: What is responsible for the horrific events that unfurled on Germany's soil beginning in 1933? Was it simply a confluence of forces -- the Great Wars's aftermath, a people in poverty, centuries-old anti-semitism? Or does the German character itself have something to do with it?

Scholars have had a go at this. Too hot for me to touch, thank you very much.

I will say this: I am no fan of unbridled patriotism. If your German mother had been born halfway through Hitler's reign, and your father had had to flee California for Italy with his parents in 1950 lest they be blacklisted by McCarthy, well, you might be no fan of unbridled patriotism either. I do not like the gusto with which our country celebrates "what it means to be American" -- nor the jingoism I believe it leads to. Last year, Michael Moore's Sicko, viewed by me on July 3, left me so sickened by our country's national and international policies, that I could not even contemplate the fireworks. "I am boycotting the Fourth of July," I told my friend Rosemary.

Germany vs. America, Round One

Last night, over Crazy Orange Chicken, Bayreuth Boy wanted to know the point of the Primaries.

A popular means of nominating the party candidate, I explained. Not that I was exactly sure who voted in these Primaries. Had I ever done so? Was I even allowed?

What, the Boy wanted to know, did the Primaries have to do with the Electoral College?

Nothing, I said. With great certainty.

But how exactly did the Electoral College work? he persisted.

Um, I said.

According to a news report he'd seen the night before, U.S. presidential elections were "an indirect voting process incomprehensible to the country's own populace."

Well, I said, there is a popular vote. And an electoral vote, too. At the same time. Only the second one counts.

The Boy raised his eyebrows.

I'm not defending it, I insisted, and stole some Crazy Orange Chicken sauce off his plate.

Yo! Tag der Deutschen Einheit!

All you Amis be working mad today. We Deutschies be chillin'.

It's Germany's only national political holiday, marking the reunification of East & West.

Excuse No. 4 for me not finishing my pending posts. (No. 1: cold bug. No. 2: apartment hunt. No. 3: I suck.)

Even better: Germany's women's soccer team beat Brazil to win the World Cup, second year running.

1987: The words of my German boy cousin, "What? You, a fullback? Ha. Girls don't play soccer!"

2007: German fans freaked something hard about the women's win. Ha. Ha. Ha.

"Could Intellectual Liberation Really Be This Easy?"

That's what my friend Jesse wants to know. The question came to him after reading the following column:

New York Artists Escape to Germany

Please read it, too.

Then give me three very good reasons why I should NOT stay.

Because, YES, Jesse. The answer is YES.

Question of the Day

Why does Coca-Cola Zero taste so much better than Coca-Cola Light?
(please submit answers in comment field below)

There may be those in Germany for whom this question holds minimal importance today. Strangely, they may be distracted by matters of lesser national security. Their questions may include:

• Why did Daniel and Fritz, two native-born Germans, join Turkish citizen Amed to undergo Islamic Jihadist training at a camp in Pakistan?
• Where are the 10 additional members of the al-Qaida-linked group who assisted Daniel, Fritz, and Amed in their plotted attacks against Americans in Germany?
• What, aside from the Frankfurt International Airport and the U.S. Ramstein Air Base, were the specific targets?
• And: Are we safe are we safe are we safe are we safe?

All I know is this:

• Thank you German police for catching Daniel, Fritz, and Amed.
• Thank you God for sheperding me through the Frankfurt Airport three weeks ago without  incident (other than near-drug-trafficking-arrest, of course).
• And: We may not be safe. But we are loved we are loved we are loved.

Also, today I had a Coca-Cola Zero. It tasted grrrrr-eat.