Category: General

just say no

In the U.S. we can’t get very excited about protesting our outrageous invasion and destruction of virtually powerless nations and peoples who present no threat to us whatsoever, but in Germany a good many citizens have always questioned whether it’s moral even to posess an army in the first place.
Today is the 50th anniversary of Germany’s very controversial decision to re-arm after the Second World War. Barry and I happened upon this spirited demonstration marching down Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse tonight. The sign reads something like:

BLOW TAPS AND SAY ITS OVER!
50 years of Bundeswehr
are 50 years too many

UPDATE: [from EXPATICA]

BERLIN – Soldiers held a torch-lit parade late Wednesday outside the Reichstag parliament building to mark the modern German military’s 50th birthday, accompanied by protests with anti-war activists shouting “Soldiers are murderers”.
. . . .
Police said that 1,200 protesters turned out for the event. Some scuffled with police and threw stones, but no major violence was reported.

It’s a very complicated site for me. It’s how we can find our way back to our apartment from anywhere in the city, it’s where we joined our friend Dan for his sorta-rehearsal lunch soon after we arrived, it’s the highest thing in the city, it was a point of pride for a people who had so little in material things to get excited about, it’s kind of outrageous, especially down around the base of the tower, it’s a wonderful retro entertainment machine, and, all in all, it’s kinda neat. It’s the Fernsehturm above Alexanderplatz, as seen at dusk tonight.

I found a number of these small gilt paper bombers wheat-pasted on the lower walls of the former Berlin Postfuhramt. The 1881 building on Oranienburger Strasse is used today for occasional art installations.

ducks in the moat

Yesterday I wrote that I hoped to put up some pictures of townscapes we’ve seen outside Berlin. I’m sorry but they will have to wait until I return to New York. We’re both too busy just being here to do much posting.
I can easily show these two ducks however. They were lording it over the quiet moat surrounding the beautiful early rococo Schloss Rheinsberg, Frederick the Great’s home before he succeeded his father as king.
I never approach a moat without thinking of T.H. White and the visit of Merlyn and the Wart to the moat of the Castle of the Forest Sauvage. Unfortunately I didn’t see a perch yesterday.

CORRECTION: Our friend Kate, writing from Antwerp, tells me that they are probably Coots, or Waterhoentjes, which means they actually aren’t ducks at all.

We drove into the country this morning through the unexceptional, but totally charming landscape of the Mark Brandenburg, the historic core of the country, Prussia, which became the modern German state. It rained most of the day, but in these circumstances that somehow made it even more delicious to be alive.
I guess this is our fall foliage tour, but there’s no mistaking it for New England.
The view of the ancient village seen in the distance in the top photo is balanced by the sight of the very modern windmill generator on the other side of the road. We had originally stopped the car to look at the yellow flowering plants [unidentified, and not so yellow in the image] and the colorful brush between the field and the road.
Tomorrow I hope to get to show some town images.

Barry, sitting uneasily

The beautiful red marble which covers the pillars, every wall and even the benches inside the Mohrenstrasse stop on the number 2 U-Bahn has an interesting heritage. It once decorated the walls of Adolf Hitler’s lordly Reichskanzlei [Imperial Chancellery], which had stood just a block away. The DDR officials apparently saw no reason to waste resources while rebuilding the transit system after the war.

and I love the idea of a circus, not least for the posters

the waves of the Spree below the station at Schiffbauerdamm, just as it started to rain

We visited the twice-weekly organic market in Prenzlauer Berg this afternoon. It rained lightly for much of the day today, so the light in these pictures is just a little exotic. The vegetables at the top on the left look especially weird, but I swear the color is very accurate. I have no idea what the beautiful roots might be. I can’t read the sign. This particular stall seemed to specialize in produce from Israel.
The second photo should give some idea of how gorgeous the produce was. This cabbage and broccoli looked unbelievably perfect, and almost fresher than they would have while still in the ground.
The third image is that of the busy exchange at another stall, and the last offers a peek at the crowd and the ambience of the immediate neighborhood of Käthe-Kollwitz-Platz. The easiest way to describe it to someone familiar with New York would be to say it’s not unlike Brooklyn’s Park Slope – only different.

When was the last time you saw a Goggomobil? For me it must have been 1961, or maybe a couple of years later. This one was spotted this afternoon on Knaackstrasse, in Prenslauerberg. The sunroof isn’t stock, and it’s the only glass on the car that isn’t a flat plane.