A few stills from @ninaeschoenefeld's majestic Ride or Die, her road film about rebel friends eluding apocalypse.
From Berlin to London and Back, Week Three Away, Kamala Rising.
Monday
Spent the day exploring the Dorotheenstadt and French Cemetery, where countless Berlin activists and artists, from East and West, rest, their stories overlapping. Continue, says the grave for philosopher Herbert Marcuse, story after story. There rests Hegel, the philosopher who helped us think about contractions, Bärbel Bohley, an activist who endured countless arrests before the fall of the Wall, Thomas Brash, who was “sentenced to two years and three months in prison for "anti-state agitation", because of the protest against the invasion of Czechoslovakia” ; life after life, Heiner Muller, Wolfgang Herrndorf, Wolf Biermann, the poet and critic of the GDR, who lived above the pub where we had a beer afterwards, before Heinrich Boll took care of him. Said Boll: “We must learn, and especially we Germans, that resistance is not only possible and allowed in dictatorships. There is resistance that man must perform every day.” He worried about blind obedience, “The Nazi period could have happened only in Germany because the German education of obedience to any law and order was the main problem.”
Yet, it can happen anywhere. We learned that with Trump. People can be persuaded. The war on education has its consequences. Involuntary entertainment is a substitute for thinking. People want the candidate who delivers the lines, as Trump did in the debate, not that the lies matterred; the delivery was everything. Joseph Goebbels taught us that.
“Entertainment's chief job is to make you so riveted by it that you can't tear your eyes away, so the advertisers can advertise,” said American novelist David Foster Wallace, who loved TV, before ending it all. His Infinite Jest is the book of my summer. Gone over a quarter century, it still has much to tell.
My friends here in Berlin are scared fascism is on the rise in the States. They tell me, make a plan to avoid ending up in a camp. We are looking at a political blueprint for derailing NATO, turning our back on Ukraine, escalating conflict in Gaza, eroding civil liberties, gutting climate policy, detaining immigrants, on and on. #stopproject2025 Project 2025 is Anti-American and a Threat to All It’s Time for Republicans to Resist It, Too. As Republicans gather this week in Milwaukee to nominate their party leader, Donald Trump, and to champion a GOP party platform, the nonpartisan Stop The Coup 2025 campaign calls for Republicans to join hands with other Americans to resist Project 2025 and its arch-conservative Christian nationalist assault on US democracy.
“Project 2025 will take away essential freedoms for all Americans, including Republicans,” declared journalist Anne-christine d’Adesky, founder of Stop The Coup 2025. “Read the blueprint and judge for yourself. It openly calls for destroying our federal government and our system of checks and balances, and stripping away the essential freedoms upon which our nation was founded, including freedom of the press and religious liberty. It also strips away essential rights for LGBTQIA+ people, women, people of color, immigrants, and veterans. By totally denying climate change, it threatens our planet for young people and future generations.”
We chat about it all, dancing to the blues at Sandman until late in the evening.
Tuesday
Stop wars, stay together says the graffiti, on the way down the street. Stay positive people, I think. We walk past the loophole, closed because of noise complaints. Stop for a bite and a conversation. Back to a jazz club, where Frankojazz says no guns inside a smokey jazz bar here. “The world is your oyster, on the TWO-SONG TUESDAY /////// CALLING ALL SONGWRITERS, COMPOSERS, INSTRUMENTALISTS, POETS, WRITERS, STORYTELLERS, SYNTH WIZARDS, BAGPIPE SAVANTS, BROKEN HEARTS, TAP DANCERS, POLE DANCERS, MIND MELDERS, RACE CAR DRIVERS, AND AGNOSTIC SAINTS! at http://donau115.de.”
Wednesday
My friend got us tickets for David Casper Friedrich at the AlterNationalGallerie. Baby C finally arrives. I take in the show on my own, walking past Monk by the Sea / Abby among Oaks...A winter day... Looking at the unknown... The sea... Our mortality... One day we'll all be out there... Back in that sea... Where we began... Max Beckman, small death scene... Seasons of our lives winter spring fall summer... Cycling through time.... Later that day, a mother and child reunion, a meal on the street on Kotbossor Tor, chatting at cafes, out to parties and openings; she’s happy to be back in town.
Thursday
Off to London. Matteo, my eternal friend from high school, met me at Warren Street and we went for a pint. Back home, where Fattima made us some Some masala soup. Out for dancing in West London at Yoyo and Mark Runson made a cameo DJing, in an out door dance area in a park, everyone out shaking it into the night, biking back to Soho at an old school rock and rock bar playing the Specials, dancing, going out for greasy meal, Meeting friends from earlier back at the house and time to sleep.
Friday
I had not been in London for almost a decade. On our first full day, we ran out for dimsum, chatting with two Hong Kongers about the ways the city had changed. Spent the afternoon at the National Portrait Gallery taking in the history of Britain through portraits from Tudor England to the Beatles, the genre ever evolving, along with the stories, one after another. Standout fur me included the Lucian Freud, Radcliffe Hall, and recent portraits, conjuring countless stories. We didn't come close to seeing all of our London friends. But we're lucky to see Uncle Wyatt... Strolling through Soho, chatting about Brexit and food, enjoying the city for all it was worth.
Saturday
Went to sleep at two am, up at 445 am for the bus to the train to the flight, through glorious london. To love London is to love life. Its always a pleasure.
Back in Berlin, met friends at an outdoor dance party in the woods. On the way, we passed the tomb of the unknown soldier memorial in Treptower Park, known as "The Soviet War Memorial is a war memorial and military cemetery in Berlin's Treptower Park. It was built to the design of the Soviet architect Yakov Belopolsky to commemorate 7,000 of the 80,000 Red Army soldiers who fell in the Battle of Berlin in April–May 1945."
But it doesn’t mention the women who were raped, says Caroline.
And off to the Shockoladden Summer Fest with IG Pop, a troubadour of the summer, and then my fave band Baumarkt, bipolar menschen punk, synthesizer duet with a singer like none other. The college kid even joined us.
Sunday
Riding the high from the Shockoladden summer fest, we woke early, tried to figure an outfit sufficiently black but original to make it through nerve wracking vetting at the door at Berghain, the most popular nightclub in Berlin. The door guys turned away a full round of people in front of us, then let in a few others doing their own thing , random. And we got in no problem. Spent the next eleven hours inside, dancing in the temple, outside to disco. The Panorama Bar was closed till eight when everyone went up there, lights from outside still pouring in. But the garden was open. So after an hour or so in the Berghain, the Dante’s inferno like second floor, with techno music, lazer and strobe lights, we joined the others outside for the tea dance, with old disco and soul anthems all afternoon, all of us singing “Don’t Leave Me This Way.” Back inside for more techno. Into the bathroom, where the lines around the stalls, for business, renderred them unusable. Women and men were using the stalls. One man, who was there when we arrived at noon, was on his knees asking for pee, sometimes in a cup, sometimes directly in his mouth. He was there every time I dropped by. I understand it as a kink, and thats fine. But is it healthy? I’m not sure, one observer from Girls Ask Guys notes, “It's probably bad for -the kidneys: it contains waste products kidneys filtered and they could get overworked. -the stomach, because of the acid…” Another of WebMD, suggests: “Anything your kidneys filter out of your body winds up in your urine to be removed. By drinking urine, you are consuming these toxins that your body explicitly intended to remove. This can lead to kidney damage or disease as these organs need to work harder to handle the increased concentration of toxic substances.” No kink shaming; no one said a word. One women helped another, holding her hands as she squatted in the urinal. Back downstairs, we found ourselves again. The line at the bar took forever. I found myself chatting with a women from Germany, here with her boyfriend, his friend, and a couple younger women from Barcelona. She lives there now, but loves to come to Berlin to find men she told me, and women. I adore Berlin, I told her. We chatted about history and the history the Germans have learned through the years. She asked about my teaching, noting she wished she had had me as a prof. And bought a round of drinks. We’d dance away the evening.
Back upstairs we whirled, sitting for some ice cream. The bartender in a skimpy bathing suit. Made funny new friends, learned new things, talked a little history and queer theory with Federico’s friend. And wandered out past the famous original bouncer with tattoos on his face. He bid me adieu. And I wandered to the u train. On the way back this accordion player from Romania serenaded me to " it's now or never" and sleep set in. Now I love Berghain. But it's not like the other clubs of Berlin are not just as fun with the funky party people half-dressed, shaking it into the night (see pic below of the DIY summer rave on Saturday at Tempelhofer Feld organized by my friends from the FU).
On the way home, I found myself texting with friends from the states about Biden, who had just dropped out.
Anne-christine d'Adesky wrote:
“Biden is out, Kamala is IN.
I was off my prediction by a day as I thought Biden would want a news day break from the media focus on the GOP. But hey, I’m happy as hell about this chance to revitalize the Dem ticket and win. Biden wins too. He remains with his legacy intact.
Now go Blue! Let’s fight like hell to defend our democracy.
VP pick? Pritzker or Josh Shapiro. Gonna be a swing state most likely.”
My oh my, what a summer. Back from Yoga in the am. Time to breathe.
Back home, I am appreciative of this glorious city, which has been through so much, coming out the other side as the most friendly and welcoming of cities.
I am also appreciative of President Biden, beating back Trump, supporting NATO and Ukraine and forwarding the most ambitious legislative agenda of my lifetime. Still the divisions remain. Peter Baker writes:
Now everyone is excited, like its 2008. The personal is political. When dozens of us were getting arrested to try to stop one of Trump's judges, the Senator opened her doors to us to chill out between meetings and bird-dogging senators. She's a real person, with a lot of compassion. Super excited for this generation shifting moment. It's what we all thought would happen four years ago when we elected her. And make no mistakes Trump's legal troubles are not going away if she wins.
We spent the day feeling relieved and made it over to ninaeschoenefeld's to watch majestic Ride or Die, her road film about rebel friends eluding apocalypse. Thanks for the screening. A full day out exploring, going out for a snack, riding the trams through the city, revelling in it all, talking about Berlin and its immigrants, Futuring Human Empowerment, old novels, The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum, Berlin Alexanderplatz, old movies, Fassbinder Word on the Wire, Love Exposure, making our way back to Alexanderplatz on the way back home.
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