Papa is not home yet after all, and though he might have shown up on our apartment building stoop in the taxi around the same time as I reached the hospital, I decided to venture forth in case he was still there.
In the bag: a draft contribution to a periodical plus a lot of extra paper which had ventured into the pile, a magnifying glass for the infinitesimal print, two issues of the computer magazine CT, the newest Manière de voir (a magazine which comprises selections from the Monde diplomatique archive on a particular theme) still in its wrappings.
What I had not brought were the lab books of two of his tutoring students, which he rather touchingly wanted to correct so that it would be ready in good time for them. At least he isn't out of touch with his colleagues; he telephoned with two of them, which must have been fun: 'So, I have a really good reason for not showing up to work today.' . . .
On the whole I am fairly oblivious to symptoms of illness in other people and decided to treat my visit as dropping by and not as a medical inquiry. It felt like the right course, though visiting someone in the hospital and not asking about symptoms or about the hospital itself sounds weird; and though we both pitched conversational tidbits equally Papa didn't raise these subjects. My impressions were that Papa seemed tired and though he could walk well was still a little unsteady (since his balance had been physiologically affected). To be really frank he had a rather forlorn air. His interest in the field of medicine (balanced or fed by a horror of consulting doctors) had seemingly drooped in the institutional environment; rather than making philosophical observations he clearly really does not want to be there and would greatly prefer to convalesce at home and get back to work.
As for the hospital itself, it has a splendid view of the Berlin skyline, is conveniently located off the U Bahn line that runs past our block, and I thought the atmosphere was good. I checked in at the front desk, a dimly lit room in which two more or less disgruntled people peacefully sat, then took the elevator to the relevant floor; then checked in as advised with the nurse at that station's desk to see whether his room was still the same. He is in an oblong room with two other beds, in which two miserable and inert-looking individuals also lay; there are blue lockers for cleaning or other equipment at the door and tucked in that corner a sink surrounded by a white shower curtain with a monotint winter tree and geese motif; the bed was no massive electrically manoeuverable thingamajig but simply a bed; and there was a nightstand beside it with a foldable tray upon which one could eat, but preferably not cut anything more resistant than a piece of cheese, because putting pressure on it makes it bend like Anna Pavlova. In the aisle at the feet of the beds, there was also a table where Papa could likewise eat.
So we chatted along in the room and then wandered out into the lounge, which is an oblonger windowed room with a plain white table and padded blue chairs where one can eat or talk or read. Papa did have a copy of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung to read, by the way, so he improved on my small elucidations of current events where he already has, to use the delightful German expression, his nose in the wind.
***
As for the Berlin city elections, do I feel guilty for not having voted? — Yes. — Did I feel I was well enough informed to make a responsible decision, rather than going with my gut? — No. I did the Wahl-o-Mat and it left me even more confused; for most of the issues I had to vote "neutral" because I had no idea what the projected consequences or the philosophical underpinnings were. As it is, I was politically scattered between the SPD, Grüne and Linke; fortunately, except for the CDU voting bloc and the people who voted for the Piratenpartei, it appears I had this befuddlement in common with the Berlin population in macrocosm.
Monday, September 19, 2011
A Sketch of the Wordthrift Bookshop-Tender
It's been an interesting time for the past day or two (counting yesterday afternoon) which, er, culminated in a hospital visit; it seems to be an "all's well that ends well" case that nonetheless scared us all. I'd rather not talk about it; it's not my story to tell and it's not at all entertaining.
I'm at the bookshop hoping that the phone call about Papa's arrival home will come, and in the meantime am doing various things on the internet as customary. I didn't sleep much but felt very alert most of the night, and quite as alert and prickly this morning.
Anyway, a customer came in and asked what would be read during the next weekly reading. I said I didn't know, and since she turned to look at the door where the information about the readings is posted and the information was likelier to be found, I dove back into the computer. Soon I looked up our website on the very slender chance that the information might be found there; it wasn't, so I didn't mention it.
Then, on the way back out the door, the lady paused to say with quiet indignation that I wasn't particularly forthcoming, and that if someone comes in with interest I might as well respond. I replied that I didn't have the information, and that it's my mother who does the readings; and then somewhat awkwardly and longwindedly suggested that people tend not to like to give out their telephone numbers and email addresses, but that if she wanted to leave one, my mother could contact her with the reading details once she arrives after 3 p.m.
So the lady (somewhat to my surprise) left an email address. First she interjected that my mother probably wouldn't be too pleased with me — to which I smoothly agreed, "Probably not," while thinking that I'm a little too old to be parentally chastised.
At any rate, I took the relevant notes and put up the piece of paper with the address, etc., on the laptop screen where it can hardly be missed. Soon a Swiss (?) woman came in to inquire after a specific book, and I was a little more extroverted than customary. Thirdly, of course I admire the lady's willingness to keep trying to talk and reach some kind of understanding in the face of a clash of temperaments or moduses operandi.
But — aside from that — I keep fishing for a germ of guilty conscience, in vain. Even more perversely I find the contretemps rather funny. This might not be a particularly grand or admirable example of the quality; but I like feeling cheeky. On the other hand, I don't know what Mama will think of the matter; so if she thinks that my taciturnity was a serious infringement of manners or of the reputation of the bookstore instead of a mild case of still-professional grimness I may repent.
I'm at the bookshop hoping that the phone call about Papa's arrival home will come, and in the meantime am doing various things on the internet as customary. I didn't sleep much but felt very alert most of the night, and quite as alert and prickly this morning.
Anyway, a customer came in and asked what would be read during the next weekly reading. I said I didn't know, and since she turned to look at the door where the information about the readings is posted and the information was likelier to be found, I dove back into the computer. Soon I looked up our website on the very slender chance that the information might be found there; it wasn't, so I didn't mention it.
Then, on the way back out the door, the lady paused to say with quiet indignation that I wasn't particularly forthcoming, and that if someone comes in with interest I might as well respond. I replied that I didn't have the information, and that it's my mother who does the readings; and then somewhat awkwardly and longwindedly suggested that people tend not to like to give out their telephone numbers and email addresses, but that if she wanted to leave one, my mother could contact her with the reading details once she arrives after 3 p.m.
So the lady (somewhat to my surprise) left an email address. First she interjected that my mother probably wouldn't be too pleased with me — to which I smoothly agreed, "Probably not," while thinking that I'm a little too old to be parentally chastised.
At any rate, I took the relevant notes and put up the piece of paper with the address, etc., on the laptop screen where it can hardly be missed. Soon a Swiss (?) woman came in to inquire after a specific book, and I was a little more extroverted than customary. Thirdly, of course I admire the lady's willingness to keep trying to talk and reach some kind of understanding in the face of a clash of temperaments or moduses operandi.
But — aside from that — I keep fishing for a germ of guilty conscience, in vain. Even more perversely I find the contretemps rather funny. This might not be a particularly grand or admirable example of the quality; but I like feeling cheeky. On the other hand, I don't know what Mama will think of the matter; so if she thinks that my taciturnity was a serious infringement of manners or of the reputation of the bookstore instead of a mild case of still-professional grimness I may repent.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Börsenblatt, Berlin Elections and the Billboard
Today I woke up a little in advance of when I had to be ready to go to the bookshop, and since then have arrived agreeably early, received a package of promotional bookmarks from someone pedalling by on his bicycle, leafed through the Börsenblatt (the weekly — I think — publication of the German booksellers' guild), and seen one pair of people enter the shop to look around. The weather is variable and chilly, owing to the west wind. The news hasn't been too compelling, though since a slow day is generally good news for everyone it's not a complaint; and later I will undoubtedly look at more slideshows from New York Fashion Week.
***
In three days the Berlin city elections will be held and though I have a vague idea of voting for the Linke party in at least one category, I am completely uninformed. On no solid grounds I'm assuming that the Green Party on this level is not particularly alluring, because of petty, snooping, egotistic self-righteousness and for instance the mentality that cyclists are a morally superior lot who deserve to have shelters for their vehicles in case of rain, etc. Most of the charm is being able to vote for a really lefty party that is better on some issues — like civil rights — than any other, in a context where I don't look nuts and communist for doing so. Besides, as long as I don't vote for the FDP everything is fine (which is pretty much the electoral motto in my family and its immediate connections). Speaking of which, also on no solid grounds, I think that the Newer, Younger, Shinier Wave in the FDP — on the federal level, so it must be admitted that it's irrelevant to the city elections — makes even Guido Westerwelle look like a noble character and well-rounded statesman.
***
Last night I tried to foray into the world of popular contemporary music again. Two of the main realizations were that (evidently having a heart of stone) I still don't understand the profound significance of Tupac Shakur or why he is treated as a martyr (though being shot full of five bullets as he was in 1994, if I recall the relevant Wikipedia elucidations correctly, must have been an unpleasant experience), and that to be honest I liked "Baby" as sung by Justin Bieber. Not because it is a great song and not because the singing by Ludacris wasn't far more interesting than the rest of it, but because one can hear clear and apparently unadulterated singing at length instead of the customary manipulated mix of nothing in particular (*cough* to use a self-conscious example, Black-Eyed Peas "Imma be" *cough*). Kelly Clarkson has a similar likeable simplicity, which is also why I was glad when she won American Idol years ago.
In spur of the moment judgments, Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" sounds far better than her "Born This Way," admirable though the message of the latter is; the song by Taylor Swift which I heard was pretty immature, twee stuff. Then I found out that one of the songs fellow students used to play during my studying in Vancouver was apparently "Yeah!" by Usher. Besides I listened to Dolly Parton; to be honest, I like her so much that she could sing terribly and I wouldn't criticize it, and in any case there was no danger of it. Unrelatedly, hearing Susan Boyle was also a possibility, but the same kind of horror with which my uncle Pu regards classical music competitions, I apply to competitions where the best of the crop are people like Paul Potts — whose "Nessun dorma" I did hear and found, though earnestly sung, not very profound and completely out of touch with the operatic tradition — and where the fuss surrounding them is more important than the music itself. (Though, to go on a further tangent, such distracting fuss is also offered up in the most prestigious continental opera houses, when the stage direction goes out on the town and produces what is pejoratively termed "Euro trash opera" in the States.)
Lastly I heard Adele, who is offered up as the grand contemporary exemplar of good singing and profundity; that is probably true, but I don't approve of adopting a singing tradition which has direct roots in slavery and segregation and a sense of homelessness when it expresses nothing more profound than middle-class pensiveness or romantic woes. Amy Winehouse sang in the same tradition, but she gave it an individual, sharp edge (to be honest, I find her singing hard to listen to at length because of this edge) which made it halfway her own. With Adele it is still the excellent imitation of something that older people who were born into the generation can, and do, do better. (I haven't heard Duffy, so couldn't compare her style.) At any rate "Rolling in the Deep" is a good song, and an improvement on "Chasing Pavements," though since I listened to a mixture of live performances and recordings it is hard to tell whether unreliable sound quality, etc., biased the impression.
One obstacle to this entire foraying procedure is that I am really bad at catching lyrics, so there could have been something Shakespearean in the way of songwriting and I would have missed it. What I wonder, too, is how much listening to opera singing once in a while qualifies me to understand which songs are full of thought, effort and inspiration, and ably sung, and which ones aren't. It was much easier figuring out which songs are generally well liked when I was still at school, though that was a totalitarian music appreciation environment and if people preferred edgier or older music than Ricky Martin or Britney Spears they had to keep it well hidden for fear of Being Strange.
***
In three days the Berlin city elections will be held and though I have a vague idea of voting for the Linke party in at least one category, I am completely uninformed. On no solid grounds I'm assuming that the Green Party on this level is not particularly alluring, because of petty, snooping, egotistic self-righteousness and for instance the mentality that cyclists are a morally superior lot who deserve to have shelters for their vehicles in case of rain, etc. Most of the charm is being able to vote for a really lefty party that is better on some issues — like civil rights — than any other, in a context where I don't look nuts and communist for doing so. Besides, as long as I don't vote for the FDP everything is fine (which is pretty much the electoral motto in my family and its immediate connections). Speaking of which, also on no solid grounds, I think that the Newer, Younger, Shinier Wave in the FDP — on the federal level, so it must be admitted that it's irrelevant to the city elections — makes even Guido Westerwelle look like a noble character and well-rounded statesman.
***
Last night I tried to foray into the world of popular contemporary music again. Two of the main realizations were that (evidently having a heart of stone) I still don't understand the profound significance of Tupac Shakur or why he is treated as a martyr (though being shot full of five bullets as he was in 1994, if I recall the relevant Wikipedia elucidations correctly, must have been an unpleasant experience), and that to be honest I liked "Baby" as sung by Justin Bieber. Not because it is a great song and not because the singing by Ludacris wasn't far more interesting than the rest of it, but because one can hear clear and apparently unadulterated singing at length instead of the customary manipulated mix of nothing in particular (*cough* to use a self-conscious example, Black-Eyed Peas "Imma be" *cough*). Kelly Clarkson has a similar likeable simplicity, which is also why I was glad when she won American Idol years ago.
In spur of the moment judgments, Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" sounds far better than her "Born This Way," admirable though the message of the latter is; the song by Taylor Swift which I heard was pretty immature, twee stuff. Then I found out that one of the songs fellow students used to play during my studying in Vancouver was apparently "Yeah!" by Usher. Besides I listened to Dolly Parton; to be honest, I like her so much that she could sing terribly and I wouldn't criticize it, and in any case there was no danger of it. Unrelatedly, hearing Susan Boyle was also a possibility, but the same kind of horror with which my uncle Pu regards classical music competitions, I apply to competitions where the best of the crop are people like Paul Potts — whose "Nessun dorma" I did hear and found, though earnestly sung, not very profound and completely out of touch with the operatic tradition — and where the fuss surrounding them is more important than the music itself. (Though, to go on a further tangent, such distracting fuss is also offered up in the most prestigious continental opera houses, when the stage direction goes out on the town and produces what is pejoratively termed "Euro trash opera" in the States.)
Lastly I heard Adele, who is offered up as the grand contemporary exemplar of good singing and profundity; that is probably true, but I don't approve of adopting a singing tradition which has direct roots in slavery and segregation and a sense of homelessness when it expresses nothing more profound than middle-class pensiveness or romantic woes. Amy Winehouse sang in the same tradition, but she gave it an individual, sharp edge (to be honest, I find her singing hard to listen to at length because of this edge) which made it halfway her own. With Adele it is still the excellent imitation of something that older people who were born into the generation can, and do, do better. (I haven't heard Duffy, so couldn't compare her style.) At any rate "Rolling in the Deep" is a good song, and an improvement on "Chasing Pavements," though since I listened to a mixture of live performances and recordings it is hard to tell whether unreliable sound quality, etc., biased the impression.
One obstacle to this entire foraying procedure is that I am really bad at catching lyrics, so there could have been something Shakespearean in the way of songwriting and I would have missed it. What I wonder, too, is how much listening to opera singing once in a while qualifies me to understand which songs are full of thought, effort and inspiration, and ably sung, and which ones aren't. It was much easier figuring out which songs are generally well liked when I was still at school, though that was a totalitarian music appreciation environment and if people preferred edgier or older music than Ricky Martin or Britney Spears they had to keep it well hidden for fear of Being Strange.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Immatriculation, the Runway and Splendid Singledom
Since the last post I've been accepted to university, and have sent off the immatriculation paperwork and paid the fees, at least pro forma since I don't know how long the banks take to sort them out. I have laid excellent plans for preparing academically, because I am hoping to burrow into my studies and only crawl out of them for basic interhuman communication and for work (nature thereof to be determined).
At the moment I am sitting in the bookshop, after a not unproductive morning wherein someone appreciated the lovely wrapping papers which we sell at their full aesthetic value and someone else bought a book out of the window display. The New York Review of Books arrived this morning, so I retrieved it guiltily from our postbox and brought it along to the shop, and have skimmed over Michael Tomasky's political article when customers have come in because staring at the computer then would seem a trifle out of keeping.
Yesterday my sister T. prepared fudge for us again, out of cream and sugar and chocolate and beet root syrup and butter, and it turned out well. Then we had Leberkäs, which are rectangles of meat that taste quite good with sharp mustard of French provenance scraped over them with a fork and toasted in the oven, with mashed potatoes and apple sauce.
Otherwise I've been thinking about carrying on my "live blogging" of War and Peace for my books blog, though since Tuesdays are supposed to be about modern literature or premodern literature I meditated about riffing on an Aesop fable or one of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales instead.
So what I did do in the end is look at more photos from New York Fashion Week. So far I have really liked Zac Posen's collection, which looked I thought like a very Parisian audition for the house of Dior, and Carolina Herrera's collection, which is inspired by the 1930s? and Bauhaus in a vivid way that reminds me of the costumes and buildings in Poirot, and Donna Karan's collection, which is inspired by Haiti and I thought dealt with the artisanal sources faithfully and self-effacingly, though of course she dropped in conventional monochrome pastel dresses for a better-rounded collection. As usual, liking collections is quite different from thinking that I could wear them well or would want to wear them, just as I think that admiring a painting is probably better than acquiring the original, firstly because it might not fit in with one's home or one's personal aesthetic and secondly because there are so many good ones that preferring one to the other is difficult to absurd and thirdly because familiarity breeds contempt.
Anyway, as far as work goes, I first of all want to connect my studies with very concrete skills, and secondly if I have more than 200 Euros in my bank accounts I will be greatly surprised. I have more money which is earmarked for clothes (from my aunt) and for piano lessons (from a friend of the family) respectively, which I tend to keep sacrosanct. But I have relaxed my rules for the latter enough to spend 10 Euros from it on a concert and consider using more to hear the singing masterclasses with Christine Schäfer at the Hanns Eisler music school at the end of the month, which is partly also intended to improve my background knowledge of the discipline in case the opportunity arises to write a Maria Callas-related essay for my Greek courses. The problem is having enough funds to pay for transit to and from such events.
But otherwise I am very happy with not having extra money. Firstly it is much easier to not spend money if it isn't there to spend; I never consider the money truly mine anyway because there are many rightful claims on it first of all by pitching into household expenses, secondly by paying health insurance and other necessary things, and thirdly by charities; and thirdly I spent my childhood and teenagerhood feeling uncertain about every single purchase I made (grocery shopping, present shopping, buying gummy bears and clothes and so on for myself during university) in case it was superfluous. Besides I don't much like going out, so if I do meet people I like I'd rather talk with them or play soccer or whatever than go to restaurants or lectures or whatever, and it gives me the perfect excuse to avoid even seeming like I am on the search for a boyfriend.
More friends would be nice and it is definitely dreary not being able to talk to people; but where a boyfriend is concerned I need to sort out my psychological messes, grow up and into myself — which includes beginning to work properly, and finally come across the proper person first. In school and university, the boys whom I admired the most were ones who were friendly (not to me but in general) and clever, and I called those crushes — really it was in a pretty sisterly way without the least bit of a spark. Besides I have an inkling that I am going to be the strong, reliable, and somewhat inscrutable person who knows how to do the necessary things (paperwork, plumbing, electrical repairs, etc.) and how to make people feel secure in an eventual relationship; that sounds rather nice to me now that I am no longer a needy teenager, and I have to be extra-well prepared. Partly I think about what is right for me in that respect because three of my Facebook friends from school are pregnant and six are married and one at least already has a child, but it was clear even back in Grade 7 that I have my own turtle's pace of leading my life, which is certainly odd but effective and, indeed, right.
At the moment I am sitting in the bookshop, after a not unproductive morning wherein someone appreciated the lovely wrapping papers which we sell at their full aesthetic value and someone else bought a book out of the window display. The New York Review of Books arrived this morning, so I retrieved it guiltily from our postbox and brought it along to the shop, and have skimmed over Michael Tomasky's political article when customers have come in because staring at the computer then would seem a trifle out of keeping.
Yesterday my sister T. prepared fudge for us again, out of cream and sugar and chocolate and beet root syrup and butter, and it turned out well. Then we had Leberkäs, which are rectangles of meat that taste quite good with sharp mustard of French provenance scraped over them with a fork and toasted in the oven, with mashed potatoes and apple sauce.
Otherwise I've been thinking about carrying on my "live blogging" of War and Peace for my books blog, though since Tuesdays are supposed to be about modern literature or premodern literature I meditated about riffing on an Aesop fable or one of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales instead.
So what I did do in the end is look at more photos from New York Fashion Week. So far I have really liked Zac Posen's collection, which looked I thought like a very Parisian audition for the house of Dior, and Carolina Herrera's collection, which is inspired by the 1930s? and Bauhaus in a vivid way that reminds me of the costumes and buildings in Poirot, and Donna Karan's collection, which is inspired by Haiti and I thought dealt with the artisanal sources faithfully and self-effacingly, though of course she dropped in conventional monochrome pastel dresses for a better-rounded collection. As usual, liking collections is quite different from thinking that I could wear them well or would want to wear them, just as I think that admiring a painting is probably better than acquiring the original, firstly because it might not fit in with one's home or one's personal aesthetic and secondly because there are so many good ones that preferring one to the other is difficult to absurd and thirdly because familiarity breeds contempt.
Anyway, as far as work goes, I first of all want to connect my studies with very concrete skills, and secondly if I have more than 200 Euros in my bank accounts I will be greatly surprised. I have more money which is earmarked for clothes (from my aunt) and for piano lessons (from a friend of the family) respectively, which I tend to keep sacrosanct. But I have relaxed my rules for the latter enough to spend 10 Euros from it on a concert and consider using more to hear the singing masterclasses with Christine Schäfer at the Hanns Eisler music school at the end of the month, which is partly also intended to improve my background knowledge of the discipline in case the opportunity arises to write a Maria Callas-related essay for my Greek courses. The problem is having enough funds to pay for transit to and from such events.
But otherwise I am very happy with not having extra money. Firstly it is much easier to not spend money if it isn't there to spend; I never consider the money truly mine anyway because there are many rightful claims on it first of all by pitching into household expenses, secondly by paying health insurance and other necessary things, and thirdly by charities; and thirdly I spent my childhood and teenagerhood feeling uncertain about every single purchase I made (grocery shopping, present shopping, buying gummy bears and clothes and so on for myself during university) in case it was superfluous. Besides I don't much like going out, so if I do meet people I like I'd rather talk with them or play soccer or whatever than go to restaurants or lectures or whatever, and it gives me the perfect excuse to avoid even seeming like I am on the search for a boyfriend.
More friends would be nice and it is definitely dreary not being able to talk to people; but where a boyfriend is concerned I need to sort out my psychological messes, grow up and into myself — which includes beginning to work properly, and finally come across the proper person first. In school and university, the boys whom I admired the most were ones who were friendly (not to me but in general) and clever, and I called those crushes — really it was in a pretty sisterly way without the least bit of a spark. Besides I have an inkling that I am going to be the strong, reliable, and somewhat inscrutable person who knows how to do the necessary things (paperwork, plumbing, electrical repairs, etc.) and how to make people feel secure in an eventual relationship; that sounds rather nice to me now that I am no longer a needy teenager, and I have to be extra-well prepared. Partly I think about what is right for me in that respect because three of my Facebook friends from school are pregnant and six are married and one at least already has a child, but it was clear even back in Grade 7 that I have my own turtle's pace of leading my life, which is certainly odd but effective and, indeed, right.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
