PlexNex

Dear Old...

...Helsinki

Helsinki Central railroad station

Exploring My German Roots

A business trip to Berlin in late September 2006 turned up new experiences & defied expectations.

Germans do not mince words. This is called "The Monument to the Murdered Jews of Europe". Facing up. There are 2,700 stone slabs on one large city block near the Brandenburg Gate. The place -- as my physical expression indicates -- is halting.

Here (above) I am struck dumb at what is only to be described as a vast upside-down graveyard: a negative purgatory. It is a pensive, immersive space that insists on contemplation.

Its creator -- also an American of German descent -- wanted people to use it not for contemplation but just as a short-cut, a regular place to integrate into daily experience. I think that may be the result in the long-run for Berliners: an elegant and transparent fixture, a protruding depiction of a memory.

I am part German -- H(e)iser (von Pomerania) -- and I own that point of view, for better and worse, and am proud of my German friends and my German family and their way of facing up to history...and helping others face their own.

At the monument I could not escape the thought: There, by the grace of God, go I. Culprit...victim...culprit...

A (New York) Christmas Story

From the Economist...

A recipe for Great-Grandma's suet pudding comes back to life in a small town in Upstate New York.

Like autumn, the upstate often seems to be looking back to some sunnier time. Pick any of the little towns scattered like pebbles along the frozen banks of the Erie canal, and chances are you will find yourself in Norman Rockwell's America. There is the town square with its white-columned city hall, its Civil War monument (now updated through at least Korea) and its bandstand. Nearby is the post office, the library (probably), and churches, lots by European standards.

(Many people think of New York as The City -- Gotham City -- and are surprised to learn that the State of New York extends all the way up north to Canada and contains two -- two -- unique & wonderful mountain ranges at the head of the grand Appalachian Range -- the Catskills and the Adirondacks -- as well as the Finger Lakes, the St. Lawrence Seaway and a few of the Seven Wonders of the World in their time, the Erie Canal and the Brooklyn Bridge.)

Down & Out at Berlin Station

The beer was not the better half of it. Berlin in September was beautiful (click the image for my plentiful Flickr Photostream)...

The playwrite, Edward Albee, said about Berlin:

"The city seems to be doing several things at once -- reconstructing its past, opening itself to new adventures and flexing its muscles.''

The quote comes from a richly informative article by R.W. Apple for The New York Times in 2004. Johnny Apple is your guide for good food and kultur if you're headed to Berlin.