Destroying Cities And Killing Civilians - Post-War Berlin Photos By Roman Vishniac

We met long time friends in Berkeley Wednesday at the Magnes Collection.  While looking at the pictures in the current exhibit, I couldn't help but think about Gaza and Ukraine.  

The photographer was: 

"Roman Vishniac (1897–1990), a Russian-Jewish modernist photographer, [who] lived and worked in Berlin from 1920 to 1939. On the eve of the Second World War, he extensively documented Jewish life in Central and Eastern Europe. After fleeing Nazi Germany, he found safety in New York City and became a US citizen in 1946. The Roman Vishniac Archive, which The Magnes acquired in 2018, also includes thousands of photographs taken after World War II in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East." [From the Exhibit and also the Magnes Collection website]

Some of the pre-war pictures were up, but the main exhibit was of pictures Vishniac took in Berlin in 1947.  That's two years after the war in Germany ended.  Much of the debris has been swept up and carted away, though some still likes in piles.  People walk, seemingly calmly, in front of bombed out buildings.  

 Berlin and Dresden were both bombed heavily in WWII by the US and British air forces.

On the 1943-44 Berlin bombing raids from Wikipedia:

"On February 15–16, important war industries were hit, including the large Siemensstadt area, with the centre and south-western districts sustaining most of the damage. This was the largest raid by the RAF on Berlin. Raids continued until March 1944.[25][26][27]

These raids caused immense devastation and loss of life in Berlin. The November 22, 1943 raid killed 2,000 Berliners and rendered 175,000 homeless. The following night, 1,000 were killed and 100,000 made homeless. During December and January regular raids killed hundreds of people each night and rendered between 20,000 and 80,000 homeless each time.[28] Overall nearly 4,000 were killed, 10,000 injured and 450,000 made homeless.[29]"

From Wikipedia:

"The bombing of Dresden was a joint British and American aerial bombing attack on the city of Dresden, the capital of the German state of Saxony, during World War II. In four raids between 13 and 15 February 1945, 772 heavy bombers of the Royal Air Force (RAF) and 527 of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) dropped more than 3,900 tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices on the city.[3] The bombing and the resulting firestorm destroyed more than 1,600 acres (6.5 km2) of the city centre.[4] Up to 25,000 people were killed.[1][2][a] Three more USAAF air raids followed, two occurring on 2 March aimed at the city's railway marshalling yard and one smaller raid on 17 April aimed at industrial areas."

We could add to this the atomic bomb in Japan, and stories about Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq.  There were/are battles and massacres in the former Yugoslavia, in various parts of Africa, in South America.  

The United Nations was supposed to help end such wars, but it's structured so that the large powers have veto power over crucial decisions.  Certainly the arms dealers play a huge role in all these wars, though there were wars before capitalist corporations took over the technology of killing.  

We also have to figure out how and why psychopaths find their way to power and control of militaries and the budgets to arm them.  Is there a way to overcome this?  

Is all this simply embedded in our DNA?  

[This post fits into the series I'm doing on the Israeli-Gaza war, though it's not part of 'plan' I had for those posts.  You can link to those posts at the Israel-Gaza war tab just below the orange header above.  Here's the same link.]

The Rich Screw The Poor in Netflix's The Billion Dollar Code And Squid Game -

1.   Billion Dollar Code. 

It tells the story of two young, idealistic, naive German nerds in the early 90s who create a program that allows you to fly via your computer screen to any place on earth.  The story skips back and forth between the story of developing Terra View and the law suit against Google and Google Earth for appropriating their creation and violating their patent. 

I don't know how accurately the series portrays the real events, but even if it's not accurate

1. it's a good story with good characters
2. the general idea of super large corporations buying out, if not stealing, the work of others and thus taking out competition and creating huge Goliath corporations is what is happening in the world.  Just consider that over the years Google has acquired Blogger (the platform for this blog), and YouTube (where I post videos for this blog), 

Code is in German with subtitles, though I suspect you can listen to it all in English, but I didn't check. It's interesting and humbling hearing the attorneys for Terra View's creators switch back and forth between perfect German and perfect English.  

Another nice feature is that there are only four episodes.  And while they are listed in "Season 1" it essentially ended with S1E4.  

For those interested in how our economy favors the wealthy, definitely watch.  

2.  Squid Game

Netflix was pushing Squid Game and I reviewed the brief description and decided I could pass.  It sounded too violent.  But then I read a review about how it was Netflix's biggest hit ever.  So we watched Episode One. 

Way too violent.  

Then I read another review that talked about how it was a critique of capitalism, particularly in South Korea.  How people in debt are offered an opportunity to play a game and potentially win billions of won.  The players get picked up in vans, put to sleep, and driven to a secret island. 

We decided to give it another try.  What I've said above shouldn't spoil any of it for you. All that happened in the beginning of Episode One.  

But it is a very loose commentary on poverty and debt in South Korea which, along with Yuh-Jung Youn's Academy Award winning film Parasite, have revised my sense of how things are actually going for people in South Korea.  In this series - there are nine episodes in season one and enough loose ends that a second season is inevitable - there is lots of violence and a very clear contrast between the very rich and those who keep falling behind economically.  

I don't know that I would recommend Squid Game.  It's interesting, good film making with good visuals and good acting.  But there's also enough blood to fill a Blood Bank.  And some good twists and turns.  

Babylon Berlin NEIN

I follow NEIN ('No' in German)  (@NEINQaurterly) on Twitter.  I think I saw his book first in a Seattle bookstore and then his Twitter feed.  He tweets with extremely wry irony and wit.  He tweets in German but mostly in English.

We've also watched the Netflix series Babylon Berlin which takes place over a couple of years prior to Hitler's rise to power.  (Well, while he was rising, but not yet there.)  It's an incredible production.

For those who dismiss anyone who makes comparisons to Nazi Germany, I highly recommend this show.  Yes, the soup Nazi and other such inappropriate usages have often diminished more serious comparisons.  And to a certain extent, the omission of ways Hitler improved the lives of many Germans, has blinded Americans and others to how someone like Hitler could have risen to power.

So a show like Babylon Berlin is important in getting a better understanding of the conditions in which a person like Hitler could come to power in a country that had been the cultural, scientific, and intellectual power of Europe.

So when I saw this Tweet today, I'm intrigued - an online course on Babylon Berlin.

Zu Asche. Zu Staub.
Dem Licht geraubt.
Doch erst ab 20. September.*

Join me for a course on #BabylonBerlin and Weimar politics, philosophy, and culture at ⁦@DeutschesHausNY⁩. Details soon.

Pre-course reading via @NoahIsenberg and @nybooks: https://t.co/1sFyE5x5B2 pic.twitter.com/9k5k7sWIQG

— Nein. (@NeinQuarterly) July 21, 2018

I was hoping this was an online class, but it appears it will be limited to a few folks in New York who can get to DeutchesHauseNY.  But there's some extra reading here to follow up on.

If you have Netflix and haven't seen this series, at least watch the first episode.  Great characters, powerful story, and it will pique your interest in the times, which are definitely relevant (not the same as but relevant) to what's happening in the US.


*To Ashes. To dust.
Stolen from the light.
But not until the 20th of September.

Babylon Berlin (Netflix) Looks At 1929 Berlin As Democracy Struggles To Survive

Gereon Rath (Volker Bruch)

This tight German series focuses on a Köln (Cologne) police officer, Gereon Rath, transferred to Berlin.  There are lots of plots and subplots.   A secret army unit is rebuilding the German air force clandestinely in Lipetsk outside of Moscow and plotting with a rich industrialist.  Trotskyites have brought a train full of poison gas and gold to Berlin.  There's factions inside the police department, and everyone seems to cross paths in the Armenian's nightclub/whore house, which gives the Armenian useful knowledge and power.

The Weimar Republic is only a few years old as Germany tries to recover from WWI and the sanctions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles, which, forbade Germany from having an air force.

Charlotte Ritter (Liv Lisa Fries)

There are lots of other characters with rich parts, but the other key character is Charlotte Ritter, living in a wretched flat with difficult relatives, making ends meet working at the Armenians nightclub and aspiring to become a police detective in a force where women are only in supportive roles.

The New York Times writes:

This new epic crime drama, set during the Weimar Republic, the chaotic 15-year era that preceded the Third Reich, is widely predicted to become an international television sensation. Reportedly the most expensive German-language TV show ever produced,  . . .

"The makers of “Babylon Berlin,” however, were interested in exploring the prelude to the Third Reich. 'All these people didn’t fall from the sky as Nazis,' Mr. Handloegten said. 'They had to become Nazis. . .'

“In 1929, there were no Nazis in Berlin,” said the producer Stefan Arndt. “You cannot see or even smell that there’s danger coming.”

The acting is superb and the story gripping, with a dash of history just before the collapse into fascism.   A big hit since it began airing in Germany last October, it's on Netflix now.

[Screenshots turned out black, so I took photos of the screen to get the images.  These stills don't do these two charming actors justice.  And if you're having trouble seeing links to the NYTimes and other papers, try opening a "new private window" in your browser and pasting in the URL.]

How To Get More Variety From Netflix And Follow Up On Scam Film Festivals

"Netflix is always using algorithms to help you find the best movies based on your taste, but what if you want something completely different?"

So starts an article at Data Hand, which then goes on to list lots of codes that get you to very specific genres.

Hidden Netflix codes to help you find movies Netflix doesn't know you might like.

Here's are a few examples:

Anime Features: 3063
Anime Horror: 10695
Anime Sci-Fi: 2729
Anime Series: 6721
Art House Movies: 29764
Asian Action Movies: 77232
Australian Movies: 5230
B-Horror Movies: 8195
Baseball Movies: 12339
Basketball Movies: 12762
Belgian Movies: 262
Biographical Documentaries: 3652
Biographical Dramas: 3179
Boxing Movies: 12443
British Movies: 10757
British TV Shows: 52117
Campy Movies: 1252
Children & Family Movies: 783
Chinese Movies: 3960

Dramas based on Books: 4961
Dramas based on real life: 3653
Dutch Movies: 10606
Eastern European Movies: 5254
Education for Kids: 10659
Epics: 52858
Experimental Movies: 11079
Faith & Spirituality: 26835
Faith & Spirituality Movies: 52804
Family Features: 51056
Fantasy Movies: 9744
Film Noir: 7687
Food & Travel TV: 72436  

Martial Arts Movies: 8985
Martial Arts, Boxing & Wrestling: 6695
Middle Eastern Movies: 5875
Military Action & Adventure: 2125
Military Documentaries: 4006
Military Dramas: 11
Military TV Shows: 25804
Miniseries: 4814
Mockumentaries: 26
Monster Movies: 947
Movies based on children's books: 10056

Sports & Fitness: 9327
Sports Comedies: 5286
Sports Documentaries: 180
Sports Dramas: 7243
Sports Movies: 4370
Spy Action & Adventure: 10702
Spy Thrillers: 9147
Stage Musicals: 55774
Stand-up Comedy: 11559
Steamy Romantic Movies: 35800
Steamy Thrillers: 972

The numbers are the code you put in, not the number of films in that category.


On another track, though still related to films, back in 2009 I wrote about a copycat film festival that mimicked the Anchorage International Film Festival's name, but showed no films and had no Alaska connection at all except for a post office box that forwarded submissions somewhere.  That post, and a threat from the festival's lawyer for using the word scam in my post, led me to several other posts about legitimate film festivals and more questionable ones festivals.

A recent piece in a German film site - Shortfilm.de - cited one of my posts and went on to talk about the proliferation of festivals that take advantage of film makers.  It looks in depth at the  the “International Filmmaker Festival of World Cinema” in Berlin.  Here's the English version.  Or, if you prefer, the original German version.

"It is my job, however, to ensure that your personal ambitions are not entirely delusional and do not carry with them an unacceptable cost for everybody else."

War Machine is a new Netflix film about General Stanley McChrystal (called Gen. Glen McMahon in the film, but see note at the bottom.)  He's the general Obama fired after an incendiary 2010 Rolling Stone article, by Michael Hastings.

Whatever you think of War Machine , there's one scene that Americans can only dream about - Tilda Swinton plays a German legislator who questions the general in Berlin.  I've written out this brief (under 4 minutes) interrogation.  (I haven't been able to figure out if something like this actually happened.  The character Michael Hastings is sitting in the audience as well when this takes place, so perhaps it was in the book the movie is based on and comes from an actual event.)

German politician:  General, the US invaded Afghanistan because of the al-Qaeda attacks on September 11th.  This is correct sir?
General:  Yeah
German politician:  You have been speaking to us now for 45 minutes and yet in all of that time you have only mentioned al-Qaeda once.  Your own vice president has advocated a much smaller and simpler counterterrorism approach to incapacitate what is estimated to be  a little more than 100 al-Qaeda fighters that still remain in Afghanistan to refocus on what it was that started this war in the first place.
General:  Ah.
German politician:  Your analysis of the insurgency there  suggests to me there is no monolithic Taliban.  You are spread over the entire country.  You are fighting 1,000 separate battles with locals whose principal ideological position would seem to be simply that they don’t want foreign soldiers in their village.    And that, General, you must know, is a war you will never win.
General:  Ah. Uh, with all due respect, ma’am.  Uh I must beg to differ.  I firmly believe, having traveled to all corners of the country, having spoken with many people from many walks of life . . . that what these people want is the very same thing that you and I want.  Hmmm?  Freedom, security, stability, jobs.  Progress is being made.  Real Progress.  But challenges do remain.
German politician:  Yes, I understand all of that, General.  And . . .and , please let me say quite sincerely that I do not question the goodness of your intent.  I have been listening to you here this morning, and, uh. . . I believe you are a good man.  I do.  What I question is. . . your belief in your power to deliver these things that you describe.  I question your belief in the power of your ideals.
General:  Ah, well. . .

German politician:  I think what I am trying to say, and I apologize, General, if this is sounding impolite, but I question your sense of self. 

General:  I appreciate your commentary.  I do.  But I have a job to do.
German politician:  Yes, I understand, And I also have a job to do.  And I’m trying to do mine.  As an elected representative of the people of Germany, it is my job to ensure that the personal ambitions of those who serve those people are kept in check.  You have devoted your entire life, General, to the fighting of war.  And this situation in Afghanistan, for you, it is the culmination of all your years of training, all your years of ambition.  This is the great moment of your life.
General:  Well. . . .
German politician:  It’s understandable to me that you should have, therefore, a fetish for completion to make your moment glorious.  It is my job, however, to ensure that your personal ambitions are not entirely delusional and do not carry with them an unacceptable cost for everybody else.  (emphasis added.)

The closest we have to someone like this is Elizabeth Warren, though she isn't quite as calm and polite.  And how long do we have to wait for the rest of our Congress to get some backbone and remember who they serve?


I'd note that the Guardian didn't think much about the movie, saying the portrayal of General McChrystal was all wrong.  It had this comment about Tilda Swinton's performance:

"Tilda Swinton has an interesting, if slightly supercilious, cameo as a German politician who questions the general about his personal motivation."

A more positive NY Times review says that another of the characters seems to be Gen. Michael T. Flynn.

I'd note that perhaps the movie makers originally considered actually naming the main character   Gen. Stanley McChrystal.    I say this because when I googled the cast, I got google's quick answer (top in screenshot below) which listed Brad Pitt as "General Stanley McChrystal."  But when you go to the cast listed by IMDb (bottom in screenshot below) Brad Pitt is listed as playing Gen. Glen McMahon.

I can't find anything on line that explains this - whether they were going to use the general's real name and then changed their minds or whether google just messed it up or something else.  

I'd also note that Michael Hastings, the author of the Rolling Stone article and the book this movie comes from, died in a strange car crash in Los Angeles.  A long New York Magazine article examines  Hasting's life and career in an attempt to unearth the cause of the accident, from conspiracy to suicide to accident.  It doesn't declare a cause, but seems to lean towards Hastings being out of control in his life rather than someone tried to kill him.  

"But, Son, the thing is, Thula wants you to stay here. "

Joe gets home one evening from school to find the rest of the family packed up in the car.

"What's up, Pop? Where are we going?" Joe murmured.
Harry looked down at the boards planking the porch, then raised his eyes and gazed off into the dark, wet woods over Joe's shoulder.
"We can't make it here, Joe.  There's nothing else for it.  Thula won't stay, at any rate.  She's insisting."
"Where are we going to go?"
Harry turned to meet Joe's eyes.
"I'm not sure.  Seattle, for now, then California maybe.  But, Son, the thing is, Thula wants you to stay here.  I would stay with you, but I can't.  The little kids are going to need a father more than you are.  You're pretty much all grown up now anyway."

 Joe was ten at the time.  It was 1924 in timber country near Seattle.  Joe's life wasn't easy.

The Boys in the Boat slips back and forth between Joe's time on the University of
Washington crew team as they push themselves to the limit in hopes of making it to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and his challenging life growing up as a kid whose mother dies and whose step-mother really can't deal with him.  And then, from the passage above, how he scrambles to survive as best he can on his own.

Along the way we get a good deal of Northwest history - the 1920s and 30s.  We visit downtown Seattle's Hooverville.  Joe helps  build the Grand Coolie Dam, and we get intimate with the anatomy of spruce.  A second track, though much shorter,  carries us through the planning of the 1936 Olympics, particularly the role of film maker Leni Riefenstahl.  Along these two tracks are two stories headed for a collision at the end of the book.  We know, going in, what's going to happen.  It's the telling of the story that keeps the pages turning.

There's a good reason this book is selling well.  Even though author Daniel James Brown covers the seamier sides of things, this really is a fairy tale where Cinderella is going to marry the prince in the end.

Here's the clip of the final rowing event at the 1936 Olympics with Joe in the winning skull, from Riefenstahl's movie glorifying Nazi Germain and, the way Brown writes, the first really spectacular media event Olympics. It makes much more sense after you've read the book.

How's Uncle Adolf? Surveillance Then And Now

'It was Rudolf Diels who first conveyed to Martha the unfunny reality of Germany's emerging culture of surveillance.  One day he invited her to his office and with evident pride showed her an array of equipment used for recording telephone conversations.  He led her to believe that eavesdropping apparatus had indeed been installed in the chancery of the U.S. embassy and in her home."

Martha, an attractive 20 something, is the daughter of the US Ambassador to Germany, appointed by FDR in 1933.  She has a lot of suitors from all different political shadings, including Diels, head of the Gestapo.

"Prevailing wisdom held that Nazi agents hid their microphones in telephones to pick up conversations in the surrounding rooms.  Late one night, Diels seemed to confirm this.  Martha and he had gone dancing.  Afterward, upon arrival at her house, Diels accompanied her upstairs to the library for a drink.  He was uneasy and wanted to talk.  Martha grabbed a large pillow, then walked across the room toward her father's desk.  Diels, perplexed, asked what she was doing.  She told him she planned to put the pillow over the telephone.  Diels nodded slowly, she recalled, and 'a sinister smile crossed his lips.'"** 

Author Erik Larson, in his non-fiction In The Garden Of The Beasts,  goes on to talk about the insidious effects of a government listening in to its people's phones.  And we can extend that to emails and video cameras all over I'm sure.

"She told her father about it the next day.  The news surprised him.  Though he accepted the fact of intercepted mail, tapped telephones and telegraph lines, and the likelihood of eavesdropping at the chancery, he never would have imagined a government so brazen as to place microphones in a diplomat's private residence.  .  .

"As time passed the Dodds found themselves confronting an amorphous anxiety that infiltrated their days and gradually altered the way they led their lives.  The change came about slowly, arriving like a pale mist that slipped into every crevice.  It was something everyone who lived in Berlin seemed to experience.  You began to think differently about whom you met for lunch and for that matter what café or restaurant you chose, because rumors circulated about which establishments were favorite targets of Gestapo agents - the bar at the Adlon, for example.  You lingered at street corners a beat or two longer to see if the faces you saw at the last corner had now turned up at this one.  In the most casual of circumstances you spoke carefully and paid attention to those around you in a way you never had before.  Berliners came to practice what became known as "the German glance" - der deutsche Blick - a quick look in all directions when encountering a friend or acquaintance on the street.  .  .

"After vacations and weekends away, the family's return was always darkened by the likelihood that in their absence new devices had been installed, old ones refreshed. 'There is no way on earth one can describe in the coldness of words on paper what this espionage can do to the human being,' Martha wrote.  It suppressed routine discourse - 'the family's conferences and freedom of speech and action were so circumscribed we lost even the faintest resemblance to a normal American family.  Whenever we wanted to talk we had to look around corners and behind doors, watch for the telephone and speak in whispers."  The strain of all this took a toll on Martha's mother.  'As time went on, and the horror increased,' Martha wrote, 'her courtesy and graciousness towards the Nazi officials she was forced to meet, entertain, and sit beside, became so intense a burden she could scarcely bear it.'" [pp, 224-226]

 The book's kept my close attention.  There's lots that's applicable today.  While we're still a distance from experiencing the fear described here, it's a slow process as security agencies slowly access more personal information about people.  And then when an administration willing to exploit it comes into office, any one who disagrees with the leaders has to be concerned.

Larson cites a joke that was common:

"One man telephones another and in the course of their conversation happens to ask, 'How is Uncle Adolf?'  Soon afterward the secret police appear at his door and insist that he prove that he really does have an Uncle Adolf and that the question was not in fact a coded reference to Hitler."

This sort of thing does happen in the US today if you are involved with Muslim organizations.  The ACLU's Blog of Rights has the story of a twenty year old American born Muslim working for a Muslim charity.  Here's a part of the story:

In March 2012, a man named Shamiur Rahman messaged me on Facebook. I didn't know at the time that he was working as a police informant. Rahman told me he was trying to become a better practicing Muslim, and that he wanted to get involved with FSNYC. He asked me whether there were "any events or anything" he could attend soon. We had several friends in common, and I was happy to help him in his quest for religious self-improvement, so I introduced him to my friends in FSNYC. He started to attend all our meetings and became a part of my circle of friends. On several occasions, I invited him to my family's house, where he met my parents and ate with our family. Once, he spent the night in my family's home.
Rahman would ask everyone he met for their phone number, often within minutes of meeting them. He also often tried to take photos with or of people he met through me.
The next month, two friends separately told me that they had heard that NYPD informants had infiltrated FSNYC. I was advised to step down to avoid being targeted, but I decided not to step down because I knew that I had not done anything wrong. Still, I stopped publicizing FSNYC's activities and following up on many matters regarding the organization.
When I told other FSNYC members about the NYPD informant, one board member decided to be less active in the organization, and several members told me that they would stop their activities with our group largely because of their fear of being spied on by police informants. In June 2012, FSNYC stopped functioning. [for the whole story click here.]

 Perhaps there's extra poignancy for me.  My father had three or four older aunts who ran a boarding house in Berlin.  They and my father's half brother, also in Berlin, were all eventually taken to concentration camps.  I have letters from them downstairs that my father had kept, from before they disappeared. 

But Janet Maslin, the NY Times reviewer of In the Garden of Beasts  also found it compelling.  It's non-fiction based on diaries kept by Ambassador Dodd (an unlikely appointment, he was a history professor in Chicago, but had done his undergraduate work in Leipzig, Germany years before), Martha's papers and books, and hundreds of other sources.

**Of course, there are other interpretations possible here.  Larson cites Martha's book here for this, and she's interpreting his smile as sinister.  Perhaps he was pleased to encourage her belief that he was tapping this phone.  We always have to be careful not to turn possibilities we encounter into facts.  

Don't Eat Contaminated Fish And Other Tales Of The Last Day In LA

 

I made a few phone calls and then biked an hour down along Venice Beach to Marina del Rey where I found this sign that belied the healthy look of the water of Santa Monica Bay.

 

The fog had been pushed way out, but you could see it off in the distance.  (Not in this picture, but further out on the left.  

We did odds and ends for my mom, made more phone calls to clear up bills that we'd thought had been cleared up.  There's no end to having to check and double each statement.  We also managed to drive my mom to the cemetery - Monday is the anniversary of my brother's death.  He died in a work accident at age 23.  It's 38 years now.  My mom used to take flowers there every week for years and years, but now that she can't drive and getting in and out of the car is hard, it's not so often.   And then back home and then the caregiver dropped us off at the bus stop.  We had lots of time, but it was getting into rush hour.  The first bus was packed and I figured the next one would be emptier.  They wouldn't let us onto that one, too full.  But we had a good time talking to various folks waiting for the bus.  A guy from the music industry who'd gone to Hollywood to pick up his new $8,000 bike, but the bank didn't release the money, so he had to take the bus back home instead of his new bike - as in bicycle, not motorcycle.  And there was a fellow in a wheel chair who was a little pissed at not being let on the bus.  But before too long a relatively empty Rapid bus picked us up and we got to the airport in plenty of time.   On the bus we fell into a conversation with a guy who'd live on 30th and Spenard in the early 90's and it was clear he remembered Anchorage fondly. 

 

The sun was over the horizon as we took off.  In this picture I'm looking over the south beaches (the opposite of the previous picture.)

I don't recall ever flying so close to the Channel Islands off of Santa Barbara and Ventura.  You can see the fog bank just beyond the islands.

My travel preference from long ago is to go somewhere for a long time - say three months or better yet a year.  But with kids and mom scattered along the west coast, and mom needing more and more attention, we've racked up enough miles to be MVP (20,000 miles or more on Alaska Airlines) the last few years. 

That means when you book in advance, you have your choice of all the seats to choose from.  It also means two free check-in bags - though we usually just do carry on.  But with Alaska's 20 minute guarantee, we have checked them in sometimes.  Especially if we have a long layover somewhere and want to get out of the airport.  But we also get bumped up into First Class every now and then.  

The times we've been in first class, we've gotten a meal that I would call a nice snack.  Hot, nicely put on the plate, but not much food.  This time it was different.  We had a Niçoise Salad, a pasta dish, and Salted Caramel Budino.  (The ones I saw online seemed solid.  This one was a hot liquid.  I knew it was full of things I wouldn't normally eat.  Looking at the recipes was a mistake.  Impressive.  And then a little bowl of warm nuts.  

The Niçoise Salad

Maybe we got all this food because this was the non-stop flight - almost 5 hours.   Which also gave me lots of time to read my book for Monday's book club meeting - Erik Larson's In The Garden Of Beasts.  It's a fascinating non-fiction account of a history professor who gets appointed ambassador to Germany in 1933 when Roosevelt got turned down first by several more likely candidates.  It takes place in mostly Berlin, a place I first visited as a student the year I spent in Germany.  It's fascinating to see the conflict from the people who get around and know what's going on and the newcomers to Germany who see the surface and don't believe things are that bad. 

We'd been hearing that it's been raining while we were gone, but that it should be sunny Saturday.  The tarmac was wet when we landed.  And it's late August and by midnight it was actually dark.

Landing in Anchorage

But it wasn't raining and the air felt fresh and comfortable.  Nice to be home.  But these trips to visit Mom are going to be pretty regular.

Clutter Wars: Old Photos - Checkpoint Charlie 1964-2010, Loussac Opening

My new strategy in the Clutter War is to get rid of things in the garage to make room for boxes from the house.  But I'm being distracted by what I'm finding - like old photos.

Here are some pictures from the year I was a student in Göttingen, Germany.  I'm in the window the day I painted my room in the Forum student housing building on Brüder Grimm Allee, on my scooter (I think it's a Lambretta, but I don't remember for sure and can't find pictures on line that match this model.  But I did find a history of the Lambretta here, beginning before it made scooters, including a 1939 declaration that the factory was  a "model of fascist establishment.") There's a picture of me at the Fasching Party and one with Claudia in Berlin at Schloss Charlottenbe[u]rg.  These are all 1964 and 1965,

In 2010 we visited Berlin and I took and posted this picture of Checkpoint Charlie which is now just a tourist attraction with a guy in a soldier suit in the middle of bustling Berlin.  But I couldn't find my old pictures until today.  The back of the 1964 picture says, "Checkpoint Charlie from ramp on Western Side looking over the wall.  Barbed wire on bottom of picture is on top of the wall."  That's me looking at the sign.   In those days the space between East and West Berlin was no-man's land and today it's just a historical footnote in the middle of Berlin at a point where you otherwise would have no idea this had been the border.

In the last set, you can see Loussac library at what I think was the official opening in 1986.  Then there are two kids preparing for Halloween (this picture is here for their spouses to enjoy).  And finally a picture my son took of his father during the red beard period.  I don't have exact dates but these are mid 1980s.  

OK, back to the garage.  I don't think I've made much room today.

Man Survives Nazis and Stasi Dressed as a Woman

Brandon Demery Curtain Call

[The Nitty Gritty:  Yes the title was meant to get your attention, but it's also accurate.  "I Am My Own Wife" is one more truly amazing performance at Out North.  A Pulitzer and Tony winning play about a most unusual character, performed so extremely well, by Juneau actor  Brandon Demery.

Two more shows Saturday (today) at 3pm and 8pm.

This is one of those true gems that we in Anchorage get to see intimately in Out North's tiny theater.  The blurbs written about the play simply do not give a sense at all of what this is really about, and it's so good you shouldn't spoil it by reading the in depth reviews in advance.   You can stop reading now and just go and see this while you can.  But if you're not convinced, read on.]



This really should have played every night for the week before the Prop. 5 election.  It's one more story about a man's body holding a woman inside.  From Peter Hinton's study guide for the play:

“In an age where politicians still routinely decry homosexuality on the evening news and “fag” remains the most stinging of all playground epithets, Charlotte’s dogged insistence on her own sexuality could prove downright curative, an antidote for a community too often besieged by public condemnation and internalized self-loathing. She was a bona fide gay hero.”**

From New York Times theater reviewer, Bruce Weber,  almost ten years ago, about this play in New York,

. . . the producers of ''I Am My Own Wife'' have done theatergoers a service by giving the play a chance to be more widely seen. And it has, in fact, broader appeal than a mere description would have you believe. It is not an esoteric work, and it isn't especially kinky.

It does, however, tell a terrific story based on a real person, Charlotte von Mahlsdorf (née Lothar Berfelde), a soft-spoken but tenaciously gender-bending biological male who died in 2002 at 74. Her lifelong obsession -- Mahlsdorf preferred to be thought of as female -- was the preservation of furniture, especially pieces from the 1890's, and other household relics like Victrolas and gramophones.

The playwright is one of the main characters in the play, a resolution to the dilemma of having conflicting information about his main character - is she a hero or not? - and not knowing which version was true or how to resolve the conflicts in a person he saw as a hero.

 From the study guide about the drama:

"An exchange with a colleague at a writers’ retreat in 2000 gave Wright insight into an approach to Charlotte’s story that freed him to proceed with it: “For the first time, the play’s structure dawned on me. It wouldn’t be a straightforwsard biographical drama; it would chart my own relationship with my heroine. I would even appear as a character, a kind of detective searching for Charlotte’s true self” (Wright, p. xv.). By making his own process of discovery just as much a part of the drama as the events in the life of his enigmatic subject, Wright highlights the notion that the meaning of an individual life -- in truth as well as in fiction -- depends on who’s telling the story. No collection of stories, no matter how exhaustive it may appear, is ever enough to capture the elusive essence of individual identity; hence the provisional element in the play’s subtitle -- not “The Life of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf” but Studies for a Play About the Life of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf."

And while there were a number of characters - the Irish Film Magazine says 44 (some had very short parts) - there was only one actor playing them all.  There were a few words here and there that slipped out of his mouth that had to be retrieved quickly before proceeding, but that really didn't detract from the power of the performance.

Stage table with props

Need I say it again?  Go see this.  Take your neighbor who voted no last week.  




An additional note.  The student guide has a German vocabulary list for the play.  There is German spoken, but mostly it's translated in the play.  But there is one bit of German not on the list - probably because it was said in English.  Charlotte says something like, "I became the furniture"  "I became . . . "  In German, bekommen, means "to get."  I'm assuming the playwright was indulging in a bit of bi-lingual word play here, because the character both 'gets' these objects and in a way 'becomes' them as well. 

Germany 1930s - US Today: Anchorage Cabaret Production Comparisons

An abstract black and white train rattled across the large screen over the stage where the young American Cliff Bradshaw is being charmed by German smuggler Ernst as the ride they train toward Berlin. (See a brief clip of this in the video below)

The screen above the stage gave Director Christian Heppinstall a whole nother stage to work with and he filled it - setting the context of the scene, adding to the crowd, setting the mood, and quoting Adolf Hitler between scenes.  His interpretation - reminding us that the Nazi party came into power during similar economic times as today.  Just as the US suffered a humiliating attack on the World Trade Center, Germany had been humiliated after WWI.  The banks were in trouble, and Jews, like Muslims today, were being used as the scapegoats.  And enough of the population were willing to be enticed by nationalism to hate the outsiders and elect a tyrant. [I do know the director, but if I didn't really like it, I'd either not put up anything or I'd tell you what I had problems with.  I liked this a lot.]



But all that is mostly in the background of this great musical.  On stage a young cast is clearly enjoying playing their young sexy characters and they do a great job with the singing.  But not all the cast is young and we have some fine performances from an older generation of actors as well.

And the live musicians greatly added to whole performance.

I love that Anchorage  has really talented folks who are able to put on great plays like this and pull it off on a shoestring.  (Well, I'm sure it doesn't feel like a shoestring for those raising the money, but compared to Broadway productions what our local theater does with minuscule budgets is amazing.)

I'd really like to do a much more thoughtful discussion here, but I realized that it's already Friday again and Cabaret is on again this weekend  through April 9 at the Wild Berry Theater.  This is one not to miss - a big vibrant musical with a strong cast and great production values.  And while the stadium seating gives every seat an unobstructed view and makes it feel bigger, the theater only holds about 100, so you are up close and almost part of the production.

But don't take my word for it.  Check out the video. [It's worth it just to see the great kiss scene].  But remember this was taken with my pocket Canon-Powershot and the stage lighting severely challenged my automatic light meter.  So I've used  iMovie FX in some clips.  And the sound doesn't come near to capturing it.  But it does give a bit of a sense of what you'll miss if you don't go this weekend (or next.)

Taking bows.

Audience gets to talk with the actors after the performance.

What Do Americans Call Rapeseed?

I noticed the rapeseed fields as we first came over land - probably Holland then Germany - after flying over the Atlantic and we saw bright yellow rapeseed fields three weeks later when we flew from Berlin to Paris. And we kept seeing rapeseed fields from the train and from the car when we were outside of the big cities - but not even that far outside of Berlin or London.  While I kind of like the bright yellow, our British friend found the bright yellow fields much too garish.

So I wanted to find out what was going on with all the rapeseed.  It turns out rapeseed is also known as Canola and it is also used as a  biofuel which explains why there is so much of it planted in northern Europe.  From an interesting story in sciencecareers about a Polish researcher:

Rapeseed has increased in importance in Europe and China as demand for biofuel has risen. In 2000, Polish farmers harvested about 450,000 hectares of rapeseed; in 2009 they brought in more than 810,000 hectares. Planted in the fall as a winter cover crop, rapeseed flowers in the early spring. But the molds that cause oilseed stem canker -- Leptosphaeria maculans and L. biglobosa -- attack in the fall, so there's a long gap between the time fungicides need to be sprayed and when the crop matures.

Below are some more excerpts from some different websites plus a few more pictures I took on the trip.


From  Soyatech:

Brassica napus Linnaeus—known as rapeseed, rape, oilseed rape, and in some cultivars, Canola—is a bright yellow flowering member of the Brassicacea family (mustard or cabbage family). It is a mustard crop grown primarily for its seed which yields about forty percent oil and a high-protein animal feed.

Seed Type and Common Varieties
Since 1991, virtually all rapeseed production in the European Union has shifted to rapeseed 00 (double zero), with low content of erucic acid and low content of glucosinolates. The production of rapeseed in the European Union is still “conventional”, that is does not contain GMO. [genetically modified organism]

History

Worldwide Rapeseed Production (million metric tons)

1950s	3.5
1965	5.2
1975	8.8
1985	19.2
1995	34.2
2006	47.0

From Fediol The European Union Oil and Proteinmeal Industry:

Rapeseed oil and meal

As the oil content of rapeseed is around 40%, the processing is made in two steps: pre-pressing plus solvent extraction, or only by pressing. The rapeseed meal is an important protein source in compound feed for cattle, pigs and poultry.

Rapeseed oil contains 98% of tri-esters of fatty acids and 2% of sterols and tocopherols. It has a uniquely low content of saturated fatty acids and a high content of monounsaturated fatty acids, offering a good balance of fatty acids: 60% oleic, 20% linoleic, 10% alphalinoleic. It is also a rich source of Omega 3 and Omega 6 linolenic acids.

The low erucic variety is widely used for applications such as salad dressing, margarines and sauces. The high erucic variety is used in a range of technical purposes, for example bio-degradable lubricating oil as an alternative to mineral oil based lubricants. The use of rapeseed oil methyl esters as a substitute for diesel fuel takes large volumes of rapeseed oil.

Rapeseed meal, with only 37% protein content can hardly substitute soymeal in animal feeding. They represent 7% of the vegetable meals consumed in Europe and can enter feed ratios in the proportion of maximum 15% for chickens and 20% for porks and milk cows.

The situation for rapeseed oil in the EU is in equilibrium with a production and consumption of 5.5 million tonnes. The EU production of rapeseed meal rises 7.6 million tonnes.

[Charts from Fediol.]

You can see from the charts that the EU is the largest single producer of rapeseed, which explains why we saw so much of it.  And the winter crop blooms in early spring when we were there - April and May. 

Indexmundi lists only one top company: Archer Daniels Midland (ADM.)  The price in US dollars per metric ton was down in May 2010 to 864 from a January high of 929. 

ADM was the company featured in the movie The Informant for international price fixing.  The film, according to Ira Glass, in the 2009 rebroadcast of the show originally broadcast in 2000,  was inspired by the original 2000 broadcast.  This is a really good, but also chilling show.  You can listen to it here.  Definitely worth it to get a glimpse of international price fixing and how the FBI works.  There's also a book by Kurt Eichenwald who speaks to Ira Glass on this show. 

The show documents the FBI investigation of international price fixing of lysine.  I don't know for sure whether rapeseed is used to make lysine, but the

Proceedings of the World Conference on Oilseed Technology says . 

Comparisons of amino acids as percentages of the protein (NX6.25) in oil meal show that soybean is the richest in lysine (6.2%), closely followed by rapeseed (canola) (6.0%) and sunflower (3.0%).

So I'd think there was a good chance that rapeseed might have been part of all this.

I should also mention that ConAgra whose campus we walked through in Omaha is mentioned on the tape as one of the customers of ADM that was getting ripped off by ADM by the price fixing.

Berlin's Wild Boars

 When we got back to Berlin, we learned from our daughter that her roommate/landlord had encountered a wild boar walking to the subway station a couple days before.  I've recreated the scene here using a picture of the street where it happened and a porcelain boar we saw at Jagdschloss (hunting castle)  in Grunewald, where we walked Sunday to see a festival. 

 The Jagdschloss had a small festival Sunday which included a wild boar on a spit and you could have a sandwich for €6 (which my computer currency converter says is $7.40 today).

 We got there so late they let us in free, so I imagine the boar was a lot bigger when they started. 

The National Wildlife Federation adds some history:

Long-snouted and shaggy-haired, wild boars, native to the woodlands of central Europe, have long been a strolling--albeit occasional--presence in the German capital. But when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, residents discovered that the 96-mile barricade had confined more than the East Germans. It had also prevented boars in the surrounding forest from inhabiting their historic range, which now happens to include the city's suburbs. On the outskirts of town, changes in agricultural practices, such as greater production of corn--a boar delicacy--have also drawn the creatures closer, while fruit-bearing city trees help to sustain them.
Combined with hunting bans and an absence of natural predators, these changes have unintentionally made Berlin, often described as the world's greenest capital, a boar's playground, says German photographer Florian Möllers, who for five years has used his lens to get up close and personal with Berlin's wildschwein.

And Businessweek.com adds some statistics:

The German capital’s wild boar population has been cut by more than half to about 3,000 because of hunting and cold winters, city officials said.

“The boar population has been radically reduced,” Marc Franusch, a spokesman for Berlin’s forestry agency, said by telephone today.

An estimated 8,000 to 10,000 wild boars roamed Berlin’s parks in 2008, Franusch said. Since then, hunters have killed about 4,500 of the stiff-furred, tusked hogs that can be as long as five feet and weigh up to 300 pounds (136 kilos), he said.

Anchorage folks sometimes think we're the only people dealing with wild animals in town, but clearly others have to work out similar problems.

Berlin-Paris-Washington DC

Getting around Berlin is familiar now and the metro to the bus to the airport was relaxed. 

Despite the rosy picture on the Tegel Airport website, they were canceling flights to Amsterdam and north and there was a line of people rebooking their flights.   Fortunately, we were flying through Paris.  But some of the people got rebooked to our flight which was pretty crowded. 

Leaving Berlin.

I don't remember an airport so huge.  And it seemed we taxied all the way around it including past this Concorde.  (Wikipedia doesn't tell us the size of the airport.  A Google search says that the largest airport is King Fahd International in Damman, Saudi Arabia at 780 square kilometers.  Most sites then list the busiest airports.)

And there was a lot of walking to catch the plane on to Washington DC.

There are flights going all over the world from Paris.  And planes were flying to some of those Northern locations that had been canceled earlier in Berlin. 

We had to go past all the duty free shops.

But eventually we found our terminal and flew out over Paris.  We did see the Eiffel Tower from the plane and I think it is in this picture (upper right), but it's just not clear at all. 

And Dulles Airport outside of DC was pretty socked in.  We had instructions to take a taxi or the public bus.  The bus turned out to be the right choice.  It was after traffic time and it only made a couple of stops before dropping us off at L'Enfant Plaza Metro station.

It was a good day.  We had breakfast with our daughter, who also went to the airport with us, and we got to see our son in the evening.  We also bumped into someone we know from Anchorage changing trains in the Metro!

Berlin Football Fans - Bayern Munich v. Werder Bremen

When we got to Berlin today, there were also a lot of football fans out as well.  It seems today was the German Cup.  Bayern Munchen fans in red and Werder Bremen fans in green. 




The video shows a few fans doing some team spirit.


And after feasting  on Spargel (fresh white asparagus) with M and her roommate and some of her friends, A went to watch the end of the on television. He told us Bayern Munich won 4-0.