Ah, a blank screen. What to discuss, what to discuss...I watched a wonderful film last night, "Das Leben des Anderen" (2006) - "The Lives of Others." My daughter recommended it. It's about those lovable East German police, the Stasi, and their delightful eavesdropping operations - all in the service of the worker's paradise, of course. Your Stasi: The Shield and Sword of the Party.
Of all the countries in the Communist orbit, it was the East Germans who took such pains to create such a thoroughly infiltrated police state. According to the wikipedia article, "...about one of every 50 East Germans collaborated with the MfS – one of the most extensive police infiltrations of a society in history. In 2007 an article in BBC stated that 'Some calculations have concluded that in East Germany there was one informer to every seven citizens.'" Whew.
This film does a good job of portraying the bleakness behind East German socialism. When I worked in Berlin for a time in 1990 and 1991 (just after the wall fell) this is the thing that struck me about the eastern part of the city - the utter plainness, the workaday dreariness, the overall dirt and shades of gray. Even the cars - the Trabis (see image above) - were drab, ugly and hopeless.
Of all the countries in the Communist orbit, it was the East Germans who took such pains to create such a thoroughly infiltrated police state. According to the wikipedia article, "...about one of every 50 East Germans collaborated with the MfS – one of the most extensive police infiltrations of a society in history. In 2007 an article in BBC stated that 'Some calculations have concluded that in East Germany there was one informer to every seven citizens.'" Whew.
This film does a good job of portraying the bleakness behind East German socialism. When I worked in Berlin for a time in 1990 and 1991 (just after the wall fell) this is the thing that struck me about the eastern part of the city - the utter plainness, the workaday dreariness, the overall dirt and shades of gray. Even the cars - the Trabis (see image above) - were drab, ugly and hopeless.
I was in a museum in the eastern section, once, and wanted to buy a trinket at the shop. So I asked how much it was. The effort and time this required from the cashier was mind-boggling. I finally gave up. When I asked a British RAF friend about this, he nodded and explained, "Oh, he's a relic of the old socialist ways. They don't understand even the first things about retailing or a mercantile society. They only bought things when they had to, and there was apparently no pleasure in it at all. Sad, really."
I recall a chat with an outspoken young woman who served as the desk attendant in my hotel, in the Western shopping district. "Are you happy that the wall has fallen and Germany is becoming reunited?" I asked one morning. "No," was her reply, her eyes becoming indignant blue glares. "Put the wall back up and build it higher!" She was unhappy that so many Easterners, whom she regarded as hillbillies, where flooding into the Western part of the city, taking up apartment space.
But then, there weren't a lot of Berliners who were fond of Americans, either. (This was at the beginning of the Gulf War.) Students were out in the streets marching in anti-American protest marches, and angry posters were stuck everywhere.
All I needed to know about young Germans, however, was evident later in the year, during the 1991 Soviet August anti-coup. The pro-Communist forces rallied and, for a time, it looked like they might prevail. I saw a BBC news report that featured a man in the street interview with a young German, who was standing in front of the Berlin university where, just six months earlier, anti-American posters were stuck in abundance. "Are you worried about a strengthened Soviet presence in Germany?" he was asked. "No - not as long as the Americans are here," he replied.
It was one of the many times I have hurled unprintable invective at my television screen. (Something I find myself doing more and more often as I get older.)
An excerpt from the John Lennon book.
I am now at the part where Lennon is in his self-imposed exile from the music business, in the late Seventies, holed up in the Dakota.
John Lennon's father, Freddie, died in 1976 of stomach cancer. His relationship with his son was very rocky, based on many misunderstandings and poor communication. The author of this book, Philip Norman, gives several heartbreaking excerpts from Freddie's autobiography - it is apparent that despite the fact that he was a dishwasher all his life, that he possessed somewhat better than average writing skills.
If there is one thing I have taken from my reading of this long biography it is the completely necessary, utterly precious and fragile nature of the father-son bond. Thank God I raised my own son when I was at least partially aware of this. I have often observed that if you really, really want to do a number on a person and inflict a lifetime of psychological grief, just be an abusive or negligent father. That'll do it nearly every time.
My son Ethan and I communicate easily and frequently. In fact, I think I'll phone him later today...
I recall a chat with an outspoken young woman who served as the desk attendant in my hotel, in the Western shopping district. "Are you happy that the wall has fallen and Germany is becoming reunited?" I asked one morning. "No," was her reply, her eyes becoming indignant blue glares. "Put the wall back up and build it higher!" She was unhappy that so many Easterners, whom she regarded as hillbillies, where flooding into the Western part of the city, taking up apartment space.
But then, there weren't a lot of Berliners who were fond of Americans, either. (This was at the beginning of the Gulf War.) Students were out in the streets marching in anti-American protest marches, and angry posters were stuck everywhere.
All I needed to know about young Germans, however, was evident later in the year, during the 1991 Soviet August anti-coup. The pro-Communist forces rallied and, for a time, it looked like they might prevail. I saw a BBC news report that featured a man in the street interview with a young German, who was standing in front of the Berlin university where, just six months earlier, anti-American posters were stuck in abundance. "Are you worried about a strengthened Soviet presence in Germany?" he was asked. "No - not as long as the Americans are here," he replied.
It was one of the many times I have hurled unprintable invective at my television screen. (Something I find myself doing more and more often as I get older.)
An excerpt from the John Lennon book.
I am now at the part where Lennon is in his self-imposed exile from the music business, in the late Seventies, holed up in the Dakota.
John Lennon's father, Freddie, died in 1976 of stomach cancer. His relationship with his son was very rocky, based on many misunderstandings and poor communication. The author of this book, Philip Norman, gives several heartbreaking excerpts from Freddie's autobiography - it is apparent that despite the fact that he was a dishwasher all his life, that he possessed somewhat better than average writing skills.
If there is one thing I have taken from my reading of this long biography it is the completely necessary, utterly precious and fragile nature of the father-son bond. Thank God I raised my own son when I was at least partially aware of this. I have often observed that if you really, really want to do a number on a person and inflict a lifetime of psychological grief, just be an abusive or negligent father. That'll do it nearly every time.
My son Ethan and I communicate easily and frequently. In fact, I think I'll phone him later today...
6 comments:
I experienced a similar observation about East Germans. A friend of mine had married a West German when he was in the service. It was about 1997, and I asked if she still kept in contact with her family on a regular basis. She said that she did. I asked how reunification was going. "Horrible! East Germans are lazy! All they want is hand-outs! They won't work for anything!" She went on to explain that West Germans regarded their Eastern bretheren as outcast, and highly undesirable cousins. That was in 1997. I was thinking that it was probably a bit too soon to ask such a question. I wonder if time has made integration more agreeable. I also know that it's not the East German's fault - it was all communism. When I was in Seattle in the late 90's, there was a significant influx of Russian immigrants. A friend of mine who was a very idealistic, very liberal ESL teacher bitterly echoed the very complaints about her Russian students that the West German HausFrau did about former communist East Germans. My Cold War era conclusions were confirmed. Despite the cries of American Useful Idiots, communism was a bust. A well-intentioned one, perhaps, but a bust nonetheless. As political commentator/comedian A. Whitney Brown observed when the Soviet Union collapsed: "Who would have ever thought that the problem with communism is that there's just no money in it?" - Liquid
"I also know that it's not the East German's fault - it was all communism."
With all the history books I have read in my life, I have come to the conclusion hat the worst thing that has ever happened to humanity is man-made, and that was communism. I believe that it has caused more suffering and set more societies backwards than any other single thing man has done to himself.
...and you did phone me!
The questions begs to be asked: Should we have had an awful relationship, so that I could be a millionaire song writer?
Answer: No. I'm awful at writing songs.
"Should we have had an awful relationship, so that I could be a millionaire song writer?"
That depends upon the worth you put on a good relationship!
Actually, in my last little blurb I forgot to point out that it seemed that vast expanses of John Lennon's life were filled with pain and mental anguish for various reasons - nearly all of which stemmed from childhood. He admitted as much himself on a number of occasions.
You, however, had something no amount of money could buy: a wonderful childhood.
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