Thursday, May 15, 2008

More Berlin


Ok we'll start with a cool ceiling and a red carpet.
The Sony Centre at Potsdammer Platz
What possible red carpet thing did I have anything to to with.?
That's me peering through the "E".
The premiere of the Sex in the City movie is going on TONIGHT in Berlin.
For the past two days I've watched all the "stuff" surrounding a film opening.
It's a film I wouldn't consider watching whilst flicking through options on Emirates Airlines "on-demand" video.
Oh fame and how we want to feel close to it when we have nothing to do with it......
I walked for three hours yesterday and as usual took pics.
Go to Wiki if you want to figure it out....Go here

No idea that 60,000 Russians and 80,000 Germans died on or about this spot. What traumatised the generation before us clearly is lost on the generation ahead. Kicks my ass though. Its real.
It happened, but none of us think about it. Obamma versus Clinton? That's a wrinkle in time compared to this slaughter. But we don't think about it.

Be honest.

I don't.

You don't.

They don't.
A ton of tears and no one cares anymore.
For the biggest city in Germany, Berlin is GREEN, and I don't mean in the political sense (though it's a bit zipper-head in that regard).

There are reminders of the wall everywhere .
To be honest , I often have "Nazi moments" in Germany. What I mean by that is I think to myself:
"Holy Shit, Nazis walked here."
In East Berlin I have Commie moments.
Are you still awake?
I'm fading.
Golden woman on the top of a pillar.
Look it up. You take a long cool tunnel covered in crappy graffiti to cross the round-about
That's what I remember.
In the tradition of this blog, I'd be remiss not to show some grub.
My lunch today.
I can just hear Madu's recoil ...... artery closing horror.
It is what it is.
I'm done.
It's far too late and given my state of mind I should really be asleep.G'nite
T

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes Please to the sign :) wink wink !! brill photo's penny x

Anonymous said...

I do think about it all the time, honestly. (I mean war not sex--although sex might be a close second or third) And I am embarrassed and appalled that our collective memory is so pathetic that the parallels between Nam and this present war are completely ignored.

Rhonda

Anonymous said...

lovely berlin pics.. i wish i was there while it was warm :(

Anonymous said...

How many "Nazi moments" do the Germanz have still?

Terry said...

Not many.
The collective guilt that German's feel is immense. As many in Israel were born after the war and so too is true in Germany.
There are more "Nazis" (though the term is rather inprecise in this day and age), liviing in the US in 2008 than did in Germany in 1939.
Given that the term "Nazi" is a catch all phrase for racially/religious motivated discrimination and goverance, one could ask the same of Isreal,Saudi, Zimbabwe, Sudan,...the list goes on.
As I said our memory is short and It's also coloured by our own sense of personal outrage and experience ( which in the case of Israel is understandable).
We all have a selective vision.
"One issue politics" be they that of the Palestinian preaching the annihilation of Israel whilst those around him starve, or the Zionist so sure of a god given right to a land he was born thousands of miles from, we all are blinded by our own limited horizons.
Past suffering make for a pwoerful sense of rightiousness.
All this is not to say that I understand the horror of past sufferings. It's simply beyond comprehension to me and I respect the resonance it has be it from jews and the holocaust, Africans for slavery...as I said the list goes on......

Anonymous said...

"Sex & the City" reminds me of the drama called; "Sex & Sales Tips" Well, that was crap too!