Last night on the way to see jazz we biked past 1.3km of the (outer) Berlin Wall that still stands.
It was chilling. It was long enough to feel that one might be trapped inside it; on the East side (assume we're always on the East side as it's where all the interesting stuff is), there is still a large "gap" between civilization and the wall itself (if one is not in the middle of the city)--this use to be the death strip and the "no-go" zone before it. So one feels one is on the outskirts of the city, in a totally different place, than when one is just 100 meters further into East Berlin.
On the West side of this strip, the original graffiti remains. On the east side, there is new graffiti that isn't as exciting, but as we rode past it all, it still felt both surreal and magical. For myself, I finally felt some of this history, as I had never felt it before. In such a mood I later looked up at the moon and marveled, deep in my heart, as I never had before, that a whole 45 years ago we put people on it.
It is difficult to imagine the Berlin wall, I think. It surrounded West Berlin, but it was the people on the outside that were trapped--has a wall like that ever been built before?
Can you imagine how despicable a society you've created that you have to kill people to keep them from escaping it--and people still tried by the thousands? (600 were killed trying to escape, some 5000 or so succeeded.)
Can you imagine the depths of self-delusion, of dissociation from reality, necessary for a leadership to continue to persist in policies that have turned their entire society into a prison? They called the Wall the "Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart," as if it was designed to keep outsiders from getting in. But from day one (in 1961), the guns were turned to the East. Can you imagine being at the party meeting in which this name was chosen? Did anyone in the room think a single human would believe it?
Was this the entire history of the Soviet Union--a giant farce that nobody at all believed but kept running around repeating in the hopes it may someday come true? Were the lines from the Party simply smoke for the populace: "as long as you say this and nothing else the Stazi won't drag you from your beds?"
Maybe the leadership really thought this was the path to prosperity? That someday Socialism would be achieved, that people would be happy, and they'd look back and be grateful force and terror was used to keep their capitalist temptations at bay?
The Soviet puppet government announced on Nov 9, 1989 that East Berliners would be permitted "to travel" to Western Germany. The original intent was that it would be an extremely limited group, only with the right papers. This would be a token concession to unrest (largely by brave kids in Stuttgart) in East Germany (after the East Germans saw the Hungarian and Polish people thrust off the Soviets after the army withdrew)... but the party head had missed the meeting and was under-equipped for the press conference, unsure of what his Soviet masters has decided. With much nervousness, he tried to shuffle through his notes when he was pressed on the details of travel (for those mit gut Deutsch, the video is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QB2E2T7KzAM). Under pressure and stumbling, he announced that travel was permitted throughout Germany, and immediately.
Stunned, were the Berliners. From both sides they flocked to the checkpoints. The Easterners were tens of thousands, pressing upon the checkpoints and demanding to be let through. The guards, unsure of what to do (and not being told otherwise), abdicated and threw the gates open. And lo, the end began. West Berliners met their kinsmen with (literally, apparently) all the champagne in the city, and bananas (which were hard to get in East Berlin). Strangers hugged, kissed, and cried together. The guards themselves, standing aside, wept as well.
The Soviets never managed to, at least with East Berlin, fool them into thinking they were marching towards paradise; it was only terror and death.
And, 24 years later, the city is tough, gritty, edgy, and incredibly forward-looking. It keeps none (or little) of the ghosts of Soviet rule in its heart that Budapest has, and it is not nostalgic of its longer past like Czech. Berlin, having been through so much in a century, is somehow incredibly free.
And so after biking along this wall, we turned to find "some great Jazz" that our tourguide earlier that day recommended. Let's just say that we got a bit lost getting there and ran into some very sketchy dudes doing drugs and trying to be "friendly."
But after that, we figured out where we were going. We were in the hipster frontier of Berlin, dotted with bars strung with lanterns and lights; drunk-munchies junk food joints run by Turks; bike rental shops and apartments with plants bursting out the windows.
The Jazz club was an island in the dark park, glowing a deep and fuzzy gold from its lights. The Jazz was upstairs, in a room hot and muggy and oppressive even in the cool night. It had a thick haze of smoke (of various kinds) perhaps reminiscent of bars before such smoking-inside became illegal nearly everywhere. Almost everyone there was young, which I deeply did not expect.
But the music was the gripping surprise of the night. We learned later that this simply mind-blowing jazz was all jamming by folks that don't regularly play together. Volunteers (I guess it was "amateur hour?") swapped occasionally on the drums or guitar or piano. I've never before been able to truly wrap my head around improv... but how can you sync up with a group you don't practice with? And how so well?
I do wish I had words for the performance. It would have been a faux pas to record it and, indeed, would have certainly done little justice. Heather (a jazz buff far beyond myself) and I both agreed it had to be the most gripping and exciting live performance we'd ever seen. These guys lit up when they got into a groove and were absolutely daring in their playing, making musically dangerous and hugely expressive, hard, fast decisions that seemed to require mind-melded syncing. The bassist had his eyes closed and ears twitching, biting his lip and making the bass sing; the guitarist mouthed the "ba-dee-boo-ba" of his playing as he kept his shoulders tight and eyes fixed intently on the other players; the drummer anchored the group and nodded at them with cues and provided his own bombastic, loud, broad-brushstroke (but fast! so fast!) solos. Bongo drummers (who always worry me... luckily nobody smelled of patchouli) joined him and, much to my surprise and delight, ripped the song apart with the drummer and brought the humming crowd to a standstill, brought the other players to stunned silence as they stood aside to let this magic happen.
These guys were sweat-soaked and all grins when each song ended.
We'd never seen anything like it before. We'll be back next Tuesday night; we'll make our ride along the Wall, hop the hip bars, and get there much, much earlier.
It was chilling. It was long enough to feel that one might be trapped inside it; on the East side (assume we're always on the East side as it's where all the interesting stuff is), there is still a large "gap" between civilization and the wall itself (if one is not in the middle of the city)--this use to be the death strip and the "no-go" zone before it. So one feels one is on the outskirts of the city, in a totally different place, than when one is just 100 meters further into East Berlin.
On the West side of this strip, the original graffiti remains. On the east side, there is new graffiti that isn't as exciting, but as we rode past it all, it still felt both surreal and magical. For myself, I finally felt some of this history, as I had never felt it before. In such a mood I later looked up at the moon and marveled, deep in my heart, as I never had before, that a whole 45 years ago we put people on it.
It is difficult to imagine the Berlin wall, I think. It surrounded West Berlin, but it was the people on the outside that were trapped--has a wall like that ever been built before?
Can you imagine how despicable a society you've created that you have to kill people to keep them from escaping it--and people still tried by the thousands? (600 were killed trying to escape, some 5000 or so succeeded.)
Can you imagine the depths of self-delusion, of dissociation from reality, necessary for a leadership to continue to persist in policies that have turned their entire society into a prison? They called the Wall the "Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart," as if it was designed to keep outsiders from getting in. But from day one (in 1961), the guns were turned to the East. Can you imagine being at the party meeting in which this name was chosen? Did anyone in the room think a single human would believe it?
Was this the entire history of the Soviet Union--a giant farce that nobody at all believed but kept running around repeating in the hopes it may someday come true? Were the lines from the Party simply smoke for the populace: "as long as you say this and nothing else the Stazi won't drag you from your beds?"
Maybe the leadership really thought this was the path to prosperity? That someday Socialism would be achieved, that people would be happy, and they'd look back and be grateful force and terror was used to keep their capitalist temptations at bay?
The Soviet puppet government announced on Nov 9, 1989 that East Berliners would be permitted "to travel" to Western Germany. The original intent was that it would be an extremely limited group, only with the right papers. This would be a token concession to unrest (largely by brave kids in Stuttgart) in East Germany (after the East Germans saw the Hungarian and Polish people thrust off the Soviets after the army withdrew)... but the party head had missed the meeting and was under-equipped for the press conference, unsure of what his Soviet masters has decided. With much nervousness, he tried to shuffle through his notes when he was pressed on the details of travel (for those mit gut Deutsch, the video is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QB2E2T7KzAM). Under pressure and stumbling, he announced that travel was permitted throughout Germany, and immediately.
Stunned, were the Berliners. From both sides they flocked to the checkpoints. The Easterners were tens of thousands, pressing upon the checkpoints and demanding to be let through. The guards, unsure of what to do (and not being told otherwise), abdicated and threw the gates open. And lo, the end began. West Berliners met their kinsmen with (literally, apparently) all the champagne in the city, and bananas (which were hard to get in East Berlin). Strangers hugged, kissed, and cried together. The guards themselves, standing aside, wept as well.
The Soviets never managed to, at least with East Berlin, fool them into thinking they were marching towards paradise; it was only terror and death.
And, 24 years later, the city is tough, gritty, edgy, and incredibly forward-looking. It keeps none (or little) of the ghosts of Soviet rule in its heart that Budapest has, and it is not nostalgic of its longer past like Czech. Berlin, having been through so much in a century, is somehow incredibly free.
And so after biking along this wall, we turned to find "some great Jazz" that our tourguide earlier that day recommended. Let's just say that we got a bit lost getting there and ran into some very sketchy dudes doing drugs and trying to be "friendly."
But after that, we figured out where we were going. We were in the hipster frontier of Berlin, dotted with bars strung with lanterns and lights; drunk-munchies junk food joints run by Turks; bike rental shops and apartments with plants bursting out the windows.
The Jazz club was an island in the dark park, glowing a deep and fuzzy gold from its lights. The Jazz was upstairs, in a room hot and muggy and oppressive even in the cool night. It had a thick haze of smoke (of various kinds) perhaps reminiscent of bars before such smoking-inside became illegal nearly everywhere. Almost everyone there was young, which I deeply did not expect.
But the music was the gripping surprise of the night. We learned later that this simply mind-blowing jazz was all jamming by folks that don't regularly play together. Volunteers (I guess it was "amateur hour?") swapped occasionally on the drums or guitar or piano. I've never before been able to truly wrap my head around improv... but how can you sync up with a group you don't practice with? And how so well?
I do wish I had words for the performance. It would have been a faux pas to record it and, indeed, would have certainly done little justice. Heather (a jazz buff far beyond myself) and I both agreed it had to be the most gripping and exciting live performance we'd ever seen. These guys lit up when they got into a groove and were absolutely daring in their playing, making musically dangerous and hugely expressive, hard, fast decisions that seemed to require mind-melded syncing. The bassist had his eyes closed and ears twitching, biting his lip and making the bass sing; the guitarist mouthed the "ba-dee-boo-ba" of his playing as he kept his shoulders tight and eyes fixed intently on the other players; the drummer anchored the group and nodded at them with cues and provided his own bombastic, loud, broad-brushstroke (but fast! so fast!) solos. Bongo drummers (who always worry me... luckily nobody smelled of patchouli) joined him and, much to my surprise and delight, ripped the song apart with the drummer and brought the humming crowd to a standstill, brought the other players to stunned silence as they stood aside to let this magic happen.
These guys were sweat-soaked and all grins when each song ended.
We'd never seen anything like it before. We'll be back next Tuesday night; we'll make our ride along the Wall, hop the hip bars, and get there much, much earlier.
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