Dahling, I haven’t seen you since before Facebook! Was there even such a time?How DID we keep in touch back then….carrier pigeon?Honestly, I have an entire DRAWER full of stationary I can’t be bothered to use. Not because I don’t love writing letters, but because I insist on writing them in fountain pen, and let’s face it, if you’re left handed, you smudge. I think that’s why I liked learning Hebrew.....right to left, dear….Hebrew is written right to left - didn’t I tell you?Actually, it’s the only kernel of information I care to remember from my religious education.The rest, trash.No bacon?No men?No way!
So…You’re entering a competition for emerging opera directors…sponsored by Krupp.How very exciting!What’s your idea?…The Magic Flute…great choice – you can do TONNES with the piece…SO loopy! Hmmmm?You want all the costumes to be black?Well, that’s simple…a bold statement.And slimming – the singers will love you.Sets, black too?Isn’t that a bit…monochromatic?I can see your point…black is neutral; allows the drama to speak….and you want the singers in black face?Whatever for?To erase artificial constructs of gender and ethnicity ...Got it…black light?Honey, you know I think you’re brilliant, but wouldn’t it be easier to get the audience to close their eyes?….but there are different kinds of black.You do have a point there, and I wish you all the best. I really do.Here’s what: when you win, call me and we’ll buy something fabulous.
Hey listen, I know it’s before noon, but do you want a drink?You don’t drink anymore….because... alcohol clouds the vital force of your creativity…okay…something to eat - they have really fantastic cheesecake here. Dairy...How could I forget.
…and you don’t like people touching you…an invasion of your personal space - you feel you need to clearly define the parameters of our friendship.Of course I understand.Next time you crave physical contact, just send a delegation to my country’s embassy.
Oh, it was just a joke.Honestly.Are you all for black moods, too?No, you shut up!
Now you’re asking if the coffee is ORGANIC?Honey, we’re at a Turkish café in the middle of Neukölln: the coffee was probably traded for weapons!Now I’m racist. Well, I’m not the one who wants the singers to wear black face!But it’s a postcolonial reclamation of otherness?Who are you, Edward Said? …
Of course theatre is political. Everything is political....Did I say it wasn’t?
***
Well, I think I should go.I’ve got an appointment with my therapist in an hour, then a session with a cranial-sacral healer at 2.This evening I’m rehearsing an experimental 1 act opera about Chernobyl.No, it’s manageable; I just have to remember not to push myself.
Well, I think we’re done. Oh I know we’ve only been working on the dialogue for an hour, but you know as well as I that the director is going to change it all in the first rehearsal. Besides, it doesn’t matter how we do it, as long as we can tell him that we got together to talk about it…that we have IDEAS…that we’re committed to the PROCESS…
…oh, theatre…
Prosecco? You read my mind! Tell me, why are you debasing perfectly good wine with Amaro? A “spritz” you say? Learned how to make it in Venice? I can tell we’re going to get along famously. What a perfectly sensible way to spend a Tuesday afternoon! No apologies! If you ARE a bohemian, you might as well LIVE like one….And pasta Puttanesca! I adore it. You know what Puttanesca means don’t you? Noodles in slut-like sauce! Apparently the ladies of the night needed something quick and spicy to sustain them…so they came up with this...but it sounds so much better in Italian.
Shocking…..
Oh Hello! You never told me you had a girlfriend (shit shit shit shit shit)….she plays the flute? How lucky for you - understands the angst of being a musician but will never be competition. Oh I don’t mind that she doesn’t really speak English. Just today I was wondering when I would get to practice the second person informal plural. Do you (you + girlfriend) like noodles in slut sauce?
And yes I will have another spritz, now that you’re asking.
Delicious….
If I close my eyes I can picture Rome. Every Sunday I would go to this ancient trattoria for lunch…“Der Pallaro”, if I recall correctly…located on the exact spot where they killed Julius Caesar! It is things like this which make it impossible to compete with Rome. I mean, what are they going to do in Berlin… build a Starbucks on the Hitler bunker? Decidedly NOT poetic. I have no idea what a Pallaro is, actually. Neither did the waiter…he just shrugged, but then again he shrugged at everything. He was 80, after all. There was no menu… you just ate what they gave you, and I think the menu hasn’t changed since Caesar…you know… Imagine the absolute bliss of sitting on a quiet piazza in the height of summer, shaded by a plane tree, sipping cold white wine, eating lentils from a chipped earthenware dish. A date with eternity - the closest I have come to communion. One day the cook – an ageless woman in a turban – saw me enjoying her food and kissed me on the cheek. She had tears in her eyes.
This is why I want to move to Italy.
And the pasta! Spaghetti carbonara every day, and I never tired of it. They always brought it to me in a mixing bowl, told me they had run out of dishes. I think they were trying to insult me because I was ‘straniero’- a foreigner - but they told me it was a special honour. This is typical of Italy…they wrap an insult in gilded paper and you only realize too late…
But they made carbonara with real guancale…crunchy and salty and piggy – the apotheosis of pork. Oh but I do eat pork, and I don’t feel bad about it in the least. I have committed so many grievous sins I can’t possibly worry about what I put in my mouth.
Besides, I was eating ham at Stephens United Church in Fisher River Manitoba for years before I even know what a Jew was. My parents were both school teachers and we lived on a reserve.
How much do you pay for this gorgeous apartment? 500 Euro! You know, if you tell anyone they’ll want to kill you. God, you can live in Berlin like a king for almost nothing! An apartment like this in Winnipeg costs more.
What’s Winnipeg? My home town...not so bad really, just cold sometimes, that’s all. How cold? Well, on the weather channel they often warn you “exposed skin will freeze in a minute”… I never paid attention…couldn’t bear to dress for that. Besides, I had a vintage camel hair coat…fabulous. I froze my ass off, but looked great…which would explain the missing fingers.
KIDDING!
Oh lunch smells divine. You’re not putting raisins in the sauce? I think they do that in Sicily….must be the Arab influence. Never been there, mind you, but I would love to go. In Italy they call Sicily “Africa”. Isn’t that horrible? But why, I wonder. Africa’s not horrible, is it? Well, it is…but Africa as a concept really isn’t horrible. Anyway, my friend says that Italians from the north will tell you that Palermo is the only third world city without a European quarter. They even look down on Rome: in Milan they say the only thing Romans know how to do is have lunch. Is that so bad? If only Berlin were notorious for the way its citizens took their meals.
No, but I love Berlin! Well, actually I don’t…it makes me think of death. I love you guys though!
And so I raise my glass. To long life…and drinking on Tuesday afternoon.
God… the last time I had prosecco was after a performance of Ligeti’s “La Grande Macabre”, also in Rome – at the opera… friends of mine have a box there. I know, what a life. Anyway, it was all rather grotesque (macabre?). The set consisted of a giant naked woman in papier maché, and the characters would come out of various…orifices. I asked my friend “how much do you want to bet that in the second act, they’re going to turn that girl around have the singers come out her behind?”
How amazing is this!Here we are at the BerlinState Opera, watching the Marriage of Figaro for less than it costs to see a movie at SilverCity.Who cares if I don’t have a job?Who needs a nice apartment when you can go to the opera and forget about it all?That’s why they invented opera, you know, to forget… But perhaps also to remember… (oh so poetic am I, la la la). But seriously, haven’t you ever wondered if truth is on the stage and our daily lives are just… imagined?No, I didn’t think of it, John Lennon did.I don’t get John Lennon at all?I never claimed to! Imagine all the people!Shit…it’s a recipe for agoraphobia
Oh – the people watching at the Staatsoper is so much better here than at the Deutsche Oper.Why? The Deutsche Oper is in West Berlin.All the hipsters live here in the East and would never dream about going “over there”; it just isn’t done.This city has never been more divided, wall or no.Besides, the only people I know who live in West Berlin are opera singers, and we’re so boring!We want to be close to the gym… grocery store….dry cleaning! SNORE. Who else but an opera singer goes HOME in Berlin before 11?
Oooh…there’s a man in a leather tuxedo.There’s a woman in a leather tuxedo.
They have identical fur coats, and perhaps the same plastic surgeon?
I’m dying for a pretzel.Want one?I can’t get over the sight of these women in their finery, eating pretzels at the opera…just too much! Sort of reminds me of an opening night party in Vancouver: they forgot to order food, so at the last minute they delivered fifty pizzas, and there was this grand old dowager in a ball gown nibbling on a slice of meat lover’s. Talk about stoic!But pretzels are part of the culture here, whereas Domino’s is…
Speaking of Vancouver, the Olympics begin tomorrow.No doubt the opening ceremonies will feature some sort of performance which fuses yoga, Chinese acrobatics and Aboriginal dance into an insipid, PC mess…sponsored by Starbucks!And did you know the security bill for the games is expected to top 1 billion dollars?Not because they’re worried about Al Qaeda:they’re scared of the hippies and naked bike protesters.What can you say about a city which spends so much money to protect itself from its own citizens? Revolution!Now there’s an amateur sport I’d watch on TV.
What’s that?Of course I’ll get up to watch the ceremonies.I absolutely love the Olympics: now that there are no absolute monarchies left, it really is the only venue for quality pageantry.Speaking of which, I just bought an audio version of the Queen’s Coronation on ITunes.Sensational….like sports commentary for homosexuals:
“The baron of the Cinque Ports, in his gown of crimson velvet processes through the nave!The Lords of the Black Rod, the Purple Rod and the Blue Rod in their mantles and coronets crane their necks in anticipation as THE QUEEN appears, resplendent in the glittering Imperial State Crown, having been anointed with the sacred spoon. All do homage.What colour!What ceremony!What a day!”
“She shoots!She scores! God save the Queen”
And here I am talking about myself.
What did you do this afternoon?Went to the Jewish Museum?Sort of felt like Jewish Disneyworld?Of course I’m not offended.I stopped being offended a long time ago. Now I just carry mace. You thought the interactive displays were kind of weird?Yeah, me too: “To hear about a gas chamber, press 1.To feel a yellow star, wait for the tone”. Didn’t it sort of remind you of “Touch the Universe” in Winnipeg?
…Touch the Jewniverce!
I love it.Sometimes I wish that instead of a Jewish Museum there were actual Jews. Well, there are Jews in Berlin, but they’re just mostly expats like me, although technically I’m neither an expat nor a foreigner.Discuss.
But I told you I take a German course at the Jewish Community Centre, right?Kind of bizarre…today we talked about the liberation of Auschwitz. Yeah – learning German through discussing the Holocaust? Can you say FUCKED UP?I almost lost it when our teacher, Axel, wrote “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” in German on the chalk board.But we all wrote it down, dutifully, in our notebooks.
What’s that about?
I just don’t know about Axel. He’s so German I call him Triple Axel….figure skating, darling…FIGURE SKATING. Are you sure you’re gay?Yesterday I was in the washroom and there were 2 other guys beside me at the urinals. Axel swept in and exclaimed “was fűr ein schönes Bild” – what a lovely picture. Very Ernst Röhm… I would be offended, but Axel is sort of cute, in that ruggedly handsome, inwardly psychotic, goyische drill sergeant kind of way.
Oh, what of it? We all love our oppressors: “Like a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.” Of course that’s biblical…it’s from Proverbs, which I love…so dishy.
Each verse is a tweet from God.
Well, I think that’s our cure to return to our seats.Anyone who said Wagner was long has never been to one of these Mozart operas… 4 hours!Nothing in this world should last 4 hours…except maybe a flight in first class, or opening ceremonies…or a coronation!
See you here after the show?You know, I would absolutely love to go out for a drink, but I have to be home by 11. I have a lesson tomorrow…and then I have to go grocery shopping and pick up my dry cleaning.Why don’t you come by for herbal tea?
Look.... over there....NO - not at THAT TABLE...why would I want you to look at an old Bavarian couple? Left....See her? Obviously French. Who else would pair fingerless cashmere gloves with 2000 Euro snakeskin boots? No, definitely not from around here. Oh, bless - she's reading a used copy of "The Second Sex". I'll bet she's not reading it at all - just bought it at the second hand store so she could come here and LOOK like she was into it... Reading Simone de Bouvoir in public is simultaneously alluring and forbidding. Men don't understand, but they want women to think they understand, but only so they can screw them, and she knows this. I should get a chair in Women's Studies for that one! Who upholsters the chairs in Women's Studies? Is it Laura Ashley! Oh, I am so horrrrrible. Say, have you ever read that short story "Hairball" by Margaret Atwood? It is about a woman who tries to play by the rules in a man's world and gets so pulped in the process she develops a huge tumor...which, once removed, she rolls in cocoa, places in a box of chocolates, and messengers to the man that left her for someone younger and cuter. It is the only work of fiction I have ever read which made me comprehend what it must be like to be a woman scorned.
Oh that girl! You'd think she was HOMELESS the way she was dressed, but I assure you her outfit is VERY expensive. It takes a lot of money to look like a bum.... but as they say, God is in the details and the sweater is angora. Did you know Angora is rabbit? They shear bunnies to make sweaters. The world is fucked.... And she KNOWS she is driving them crazy! Classic Madonna/Whore - chaste, ethereal makeup with slutty red lips and black nail polish, chipped just so, but lustrous enough so you know its Chanel or something. Please tell me you've read Camille Paglia!
Look at her now...nibbling her croissant like a cat drinking cream. Liberty leading the people, not with a raised tricolour, but a pain au chocolate…hot as an affair.
…God, how I love the French. Who else can make a 3 act play out of a piece of pastry....build an entire civilization on something ephemeral as taste - on the complex alchemy that turns butter and flour into a thousand layers? But really, that is how the French are - they do some fancy tricks with base elements, puff themselves up , put themselves on display for all to see.... then poof -gone in one bite. But what a moment! The first time I went to Paris, I arrived at 6 in the morning - pulled my suitcase down the Avenue Montaigne, and it was so beautiful I forgot to breathe. Seriously... I had to be revived by an immortel from the Academie Francaise in full regalia. He just happened to have some smelling salts.
Yes, I know I have an overactive imagination. How else are you going to get through Berlin in February? Maybe I should just go to France? But you don't GO to France, you REMEMBER France. You remember every detail and it throws the quotidien into high relief. The contrast between your daily existence and the gloire of memory is intoxicating. God - if I eat another Madeleine they'll think I'm Proust. And then I can write a big fat book and we can REALLY do Paris - and not the aide-memoire kind either. I'm talking about a suite at the Crillon....high tea at Fauchon. Fashion shows and sable throws.....
I'm talking about the moment you spend your life waiting for. You take base elements. With a little luck and ingenuity you puff yourself into a thousand layers, and even if it only lasts 10 seconds you can say you really lived. Yes I am comparing life to a dessert. Oh don't look like that.... they both come out of the oven.
But you should KNOW by now that I am completely ridiculous. Ridiculous and lovable and contradictory and avaricious, yet saintly when required. I am all of these things, and I am more. It isn't any special insight, just what happens when I drink in the afternoon.
Oh, shit - the girl is gone. She left with the Bavarian couple. How odd. Kinky, even. Maybe they liked the boots. Have you ever wondered what it is with Germans and boots?
For God's sake, don't STARE. Do what women everywhere have done for centuries - look at the mirror in your compact. And if you're not going to finish your french fries, I would be happy to oblige. They fry their potatoes in beef tallow here- the only way.
Oh, STOP IT...life is cruel. Rabbit sweaters, snakeskin boots....objects cooked in rendered cow. All about conquest. Sex and death, Sex and death - a thousand different times, a thousand different ways. And the sooner you realize that, the more exciting your life will be. God, there is this fabulous Helmut Newton photo of a perfectly manicured woman wearing huge diamond rings, tearing apart a roasted chicken...only the most erotic thing I have ever seen.
Now, what was I talking about? Oh, I can't remember.
But wouldn't it have been fabulous to have met Diana Vreeland? She said that in Paris, before the war...In Paris, people used to have 3 fittings for a NIGHTGOWN. She said that when war was declared, she was at a fitting with Chanel…she said how sad she was, moping her way to the last boat out of town before the Germans came.
All she could think about were her clothes.
Shocking, isn't it.
Ooooh.... I love your new sweater. Purple is such an august colour.
Did you know they used to make royal purple out of mollusc shells?
Did you know that molluscs don't have bones, but still have weird exoskeletons?
Fascinating…
Did you know I can't eat molluscs, even though they are my favourite thing?
Last time I ate them I ended up in the hospital with a Benedryl drip.
Oh I fear I shall PERISH before I run out of things to say.
I got a text message from my German teacher this morning. He was in the hospital last night, so I don’t have class today or tomorrow.This means I have a few more unstructured hours in my day, not that I need them. But perhaps it’s true what Gertrude Stein said: to be a genius you need a lot of time to do nothing - to wait for the great ideas to come.I admire the sentiment greatly, looking as I do for excuses to be idle and possessing delusions of grandeur. I should mention that Gertrude Stein came from money and had servants.Perhaps this is genius?
Still, I wonder what would it be like if I were idle the whole day long; if I didn’t tidy the kitchen or fold the laundry.I was brought up to believe that you must clean and clear as you go, but having since found that sparkling surfaces and ordered shelves often indicate a hidden chaos, I have my doubts.
I remember watching my mother scrub the floors in the middle of the night.I decided to be naughty and ate a muffin, purposefully dropping crumbs on the floor.My mother did not see me - only the crumbs - and she followed, scrubbing as she went, wiping the floor in circles, without beginning and without end.
You could have had a picnic on our floor.You could have, but there was nothing to eat.There were only ordered cupboards; a family trying to fight the chaos within.There were sparkling surfaces and people going in circles, not seeing each other.
