Category: culture

12 June is Loving Day and I can’t stop thinking about Jungle Fever

www.instagram.com/p/CBU5ZyWqiAD/

My friend Billy up in Berlin posted early in the day over on Instagram about a significant anniversary of the landmark case Loving v. Virginia, and I’ve posted the link above for two reasons. One is he sums it up succinctly and even provides a link if you want to read/learn more.

The other reason is that you should be following @DharmaAddict over there anyway. He’s an inspiration on a lot of levels. Truly.

I’m a bit of a nerd when it comes to the Supreme Court in the U.S., so even though I know about the case and the aftermath and the fact that it was cited in the case that eventually paved the way for gay marriage in all the states, I can imagine that’s not all common knowledge.

So many stories today are about our institutions failing us, so I love to remember sometimes things turn out right. Of course that’s my perspective, and I spend a lot of time online trying to stay above the fray. Try to engage with people I don’t necessarily agree with and be an open-minded and teachable person.

All those things coming from this son of a recently-deceased rather liberal Christian mother, so you’ll forgive me if I’m also writing in her honour as I try to get these thoughts out right.

Civil Rights are a sticky and uncomfortable subject, especially these days, and love is particularly hard to talk about. I’ve been watching the news stateside and for the most part I’ve tried to wait until tempers cooled before wading into any such topic. Enough people have said anglos should just listen for a while, and I heeded the warning. I’ve listened. I’m still listening.

However, it’s no accident that a white woman and black man marrying was somehow more palatable in those tense days in the late 60s. I’m not questioning that this ruling was landbreaking, but my resolution after listening as long as I could was and is to share honestly and from my heart about racial issues.

Although I was raised in a race conscious home, like many white kids my age I’ve learned a lot by being a Spike Lee fan. I’ll go into it another time how Do the Right Thing made an impact on me, but I’d rather talk about Jungle Fever here.

A black man and a white woman being together had been lynching material for generations, and that Lee was willing to confront the topic wasn’t lost on me. I went into the cinema knowing I’d be jostled. Knowing I’d be facing some of my own prejudices.

That’s how I look at my own racism, you know? Despite how woke or evolved I might think I am, my belief is that until I face my own racism – my own personal struggle with this insidious learned white supremacy – until I see that I’m unintentionally part of the problem, then I can’t truly understand where my well-meaning brothers and sisters might be coming from.

I don’t think I can fully explore such a topic in such a blogpost, but I can say I walked out of the cinema suitably upset that Wesley Snipes’ character had been unjustly treated. I’m purposely not giving a synopsis or even a nuanced review of the rest of the film. Not my point.

My point is that the film opened my eyes to something I’d only vaguely thought about. Love, especially romantic love, is such an essential human emotion, and the film made me think about how unfair it’d be if I loved someone of a different colour, but then I couldn’t express it. Express that truth in myself. Share it with even my family or the outside world.

It was a seed. It’d been planted. I’d already been pretty open on the topic, so it’s not like I had some Saul to Paul moment. Yet this piece of art had gotten me to really feel for this man. How he had to struggle with all the conflicting emotions of a man loving a woman, but with the added burden of racial discrimination. It hurt for me to imagine it and this was on top of all the other ways I’d already sympathised with my black brothers, and now? Now my understanding was deeper.

Perhaps more nuanced. Perhaps just more authentic. Not even sure anymore.

While I was listening this week to all the noise on all sides of the political spectrum, I vowed to myself that I’d share personally. Honestly. About my own struggle. About how I’m showing up to honour my friends, who happen to be black.

Yet that truly is my privilege. I get that. I knew it, but it’s even in more starker contrast now.

It’s hard to believe there was a time when Mildred couldn’t marry her bethrothed Richard just because of the colour of their skin. My mom would point out how far we’ve come. She’d quickly say we’ve still got a long way to go. She’d be right.

I’ll say a little prayer tonight for the couple in Virginia who were finally allowed to express their love for each other openly and legally. One of gratitude that that arc of history is, in fact, bending toward equality for all.

Thank you, dear Lovings. If you see Mother Martha up there, tell her we’re sure you’d all get along. That’s if she’s not already found you herself.

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digital detox (for social media) and grieving for those damned dogs

Here’s how it feels now…they’re always there in my thoughts but somehow deeply, truly gone

We decided last weekend that we’d do a Digital Detox starting this next Sunday, and neither of us really thought it through. Late last night (or two nights ago, at this point), Miriam turned to me and said, ‘You remember what we agreed to last weekend?’ In a split second, it all came rushing back to me.

I’m a personality that knows two speeds. Either really slow, if not stationary, or full speed ahead. Pedal to the proverbial metal. It’s not easy, but it’s much worse for whoever I’m partnered with. Even work colleagues have noticed how all or nothing I tend to be.

Either you’re on my team and can practically do no wrong, or I’ve judged you by some ridiculous standard and cannot bear the sight of you. It sounds like I’m bragging but I assure you I’m not.

So this weekly day off allows us to reconnect to source, as it were. I’m hoping it makes me more tolerable to work with. She went to her meditation Runde & the baby and I putzed around the new flat.

I’m doing the Plassman’s Polka Lounge this Tuesday, so I needed to sort out my playlist. At this point, I’ll be playing:

  • Merry Christmas from the Family by Robert Earl Keen
  • You Can’t Always get What you Want (in honour of getting crap xmas gifts)
  • Be nicer to DJT (an original I just wrote)
  • and either All of Me or My Romance

I’ve also just signed up for Freilich Open Arts, which looks promising. If you want to hear us play, just go to the site and book us. Old Braunfels has been quiet lately. It’s time for us to awaken from our slumber.

Digital Detox was good, even if it didn’t include everything we’d thought. As freelancers, neither of us can just take every Sunday off. Oh well.

We’re not complaining, though. This is an amazing existence and every single day, we try to remind each other of how lucky we have it.

We get to live here?

I believe I can fly

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What is going on here?

Is she an urban pixie? Can she fly? If she can, I want to see.

Did she already know how (to fly) or do the shoes help? If you get a pair of the wingèd shoes, can you automatically fly? Or does it simply make it easier to fly?

I’ve got questions.

Who’s got the answers?

Come on people! Give us some answers.

pay attention and then do things and then have some milk

Pay more attention

Let’s start with some guilt, eh? Guilt-orama, actually. This clock has some script under it, and you think, ‘Well, there’s as good a place as any to go for wisdom.‘ So? Here’s what it says (in case you can’t find your spectacles):

No minute gone comes ever back again Take heed and see ye nothing do in vain

What a perfect shop for an idler…lemme take a look

Enough of that. Let’s go where we call a spade a spade. Down at the Lazy Oaf, we can get our idling on.

Who knows what that is?

I’ll give you a hint where this is…no I won’t. You bleedin’ cheater.

#architecture

Come here for all your Architectural Blogging needs. They won’t be met, but at least you was entertained, like.

up the stairs at tenderproduct (London WC2N 4HE)

This is where I got an overpriced but very funny tea towel. Want to know what it says? Another time, my little onion rolls.

As much as I like Waxy, I *really* like her little sister

If you think Waxy’s a bit like a crayon, don’t even think about her sister.

Friends Meeting House in Covent Garden

Quakers are pacifists. Go fight for what you believe in you lilly-livered bastards.

‘Be open to new light, wherever it might come from’

More wisdom, eh? We should make whoever hung this go look at the script under the clock.

Near the Goodge Street Tube

Here’s something that made me smile. Ok, enough smiling. Gotta go…

At the end of a long day of stumbling round, who’d like some whole milk? Let’s meet at The Cow…see you all there.

Endstation Floh-zirkus

Entrance to the Oktoberfest…or one of them

Here’s where we last were, but that was early morning. This is a Volksfest, or was originally intended as one, so the families and people more interested in the folk part of the fest come in the daytime. The mayhem mostly happens after dark, so I thought I’d show you a bit of that.

Once again, I’d like to show the bits and bobs of the Wies’n that might otherwise get overlooked. For example, I’m planning to interview some of the workers. They’ve got stories to tell, I assure you.

But first a bit about the food at this little event. Most people associate the Oktoberfest with drink, but the food is as integral a part of the whole ordeal as anything else. For many locals, an outing to the Wies’n isn’t complete until you’ve had a Händl and a Maß Bier (a whole chicken and a litre of beer). Last year, there were some loonies who had a pet chicken that they paraded around the grounds of the festival, and they said that this one chicken’s life had been spared. Animal rights and all, yeah? Sort of wrong place at the wrong time if you ask me, but who’s asking me?

One of the things I like is the Steckerlfisch (fish on a stick) at Fischer Vroni, but even better than that is an Ochsensemmel (ox meat cooked to where it’s falling off the bone and served on a roll with a garlic sauce). It’s something I always have at least once each year. Here’s the way to the Ochsensemmel dealer:

waiting in line at the Ochsenbraterei

Then there’s one of the oldest amusements at the Oktoberfest. It’s a carousel that’s been around forever, but I’ll find out more specifics when I’ve asked more questions. Until then, here’s a few of my favourite shots of the old curiosity:

light shining round the horse on the carousel 

And you know I like the pigs, so here’s one you can ride:

 

pig on the carousel

And right next to the carousel is one of the things many people walk by again and again but never bother exploring. Let me show you first and see if you know what it is:

Floh-zirkus! That’s a right. a flea circus!

Here’s a shot from straight on:

You know you wanna go in there, don’t you?

Here’s what it says on the plaque there on the right:

Wonder what all this means…

I’ll provide the translation after I see what you think it means. Leave a comment if you think you know what this says…actually, leave a comment regardless.

Otherwise, what would you like to see more of in my Oktoberfest posts? People? Drunkenness?

My suspicion is that you like oddities. I’ll try to find more of those.

 

Shadow of a Doubt

An offer on twitter of a free ticket to see a Hitchcock film that I was sure I’d already seen. Little did I know – it was one of the middle period Hitchcock movies, and I was in for a treat. I had not only not seen it, but it has one of my all-time favourite actors in it.

Cotten. This guy’s a dream.

Apparently, he was in three world class directors best-known masterpieces. This one was dear Alfred‘s, The Third Man was Carol Reed‘s, and Citizen Kane was Orson Welles’. Not too shabby, eh?

Actually, lemme let Wikipedia explain what this film is:

‘ is a 1943 American / directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and starring Teresa Wright and Joseph Cotten. Written by Thornton Wilder, Sally Benson, and Alma Reville, the film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Story for Gordon McDonell. In 1991, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.’

What an evening.

The day had started with a visit to The Idler Academy of Philosophy, Husbandry and Merriment and then a trip with one of my closest friends and his 9 year-old to The British Museum, which we sailed through in record time. Not that I’m proud of that. The whole point was to spend time with them. What we did was irrelevant. The British Museum was as nice a place as any for us to go, and she’d never been.

To imagine seeing all of those things through her eyes, I walked through the exhibits covering the ancient world. Saw the Rosetta Stone and the dude from Easter Island. What must it be like to be nine and wander through those rooms.

My goal?

To try seeing all this – this life I’m knee-deep in – from a nine year-old’s perspective. Certainly can’t hurt.

forgiving the unforgivable

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soldiers responsible for the flags at the memorial for the murdered athletes and coaches of the Israeli Olympic Team

One never knows what people will like. My last blogpost was one I’d saved, because although I thought it was morbid and dark, I thought it’d spur some conversation. Not in the least.

Amy over at Lucy’s Football commented on it, but she’d comment on me cutting and pasting swaths of the phone book. She’s on my team. Getting her into the conversation is sort of a given.

Why did I even go as negative as I did in Five things to harass the Dying? Well, believe it or not, there was method to my madness. I knew I’d be going to the ceremony commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the attacks at the 1972 Munich Olympics that day.

When I was having my first cup of tea that morning, I really pondered what it must’ve been like to be a family member of one of the slain Israeli athletes. Could I really forgive what was done in the name of making a political statement? If the people who perpetrated the crime never apologised or even saw that what they’d done was wrong, then how could forgiveness even be a topic under discussion?

I suppose the forgiveness is part of what’s slowly happening between the Jewish people and the German State. Think about it for a second, will you?

Your people were murdered in the millions in a methodical manner during a war that somehow engulfed most of the planet. Then nearly thirty years later the international community watches as your citizens are brutally murdered in the same country in which those wartime atrocities had taken place. How would you feel?

I know it’s very popular to criticise Israel, especially on the left, and I won’t begin to defend the way the present day Palestinians are being treated. It’s a travesty. Full stop. However, when I look at the way the Israeli citizens are treated in very symbolic ways, I can’t help but feel that there is some sort of prevailing anti-semitism on the world stage.

When the two athletes were killed at 31 Connolly Straße in the Olympic Village in Munich in the early morning hours of 5 September 1972, the world watched as those in control of the Olympics decided that the show must go on. Really? Two athletes had died at the hands of terrorists.

Because of enough of an outcry the Games were halted on that day while the police tried to figure out the best way to handle the situation. It was only much later that night that the remaining members of the team (both athletes and coaches), as well as one West German police officer, were killed by the terrorists.

‘Well,‘ you ask,’Certainly, they stopped the Games then, didn’t they?‘

You know where this is going, right? After what was deemed a suitable period of honorable waiting, the Olympics went on. The prevailing wisdom was that stopping the event would be letting the terrorists win. Twelve people had been murdered at the Olympics, and the Israeli government should somehow be grateful that there was a memorial service for those who were killed. I don’t think that’s how they saw it. Am pretty certain they saw it very differently.

I’m prepared for preposterous comments here as a result of this topic. Please be warned that I’ll delete any ridiculousness. If you can’t be civil, go somewhere else. I’ve got little, if any,time for nonsense. Really, I don’t.

Here’s what I wrote about in The Munich Eye after attending the memorial: Flags at half staff for the victims of the 1972 attacks. Notice how respectfully I tried to deal with it without getting overly political. Of course, I’m aware I could be emotional on the topic. I decided my blog was where I’d make my editorial comments.

free beer

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Georg-Brauchle-Ring U-Bahn Station

When I was still relatively new in Bavaria, well Munich to be precise, my U-Bahn line was extended and they were offering free beer. Well, there was also a party in celebration of the new underground station, but the only part I heard when someone told me about it was ‘free beer’. That was all I needed to know. I was already there.

So today, roughly a decade later, I was back at the same U-Bahn stop, and I thought back fondly of that day when I was new and my German was shaky and the people at the Fest were exceedingly friendly.

The station at Georg-Brauchle-Ring is attractive complete with photos and maps interspersed with colorful tiles…this place always makes me smile. It’s not bad, is it?

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this photo even smells like free beer, doesn’t it?