Heartfelt happy wishes

The dream lives on

Happy May 1 (upcoming). Will you be setting the cars in your neighborhood on fire?


Sort of like communism, I am almost finished up here in Europe. I have today at the library and Monday at the archive. Then I'm meeting CC in Norway for a 2-week tour of Scandinavia. Then I'm back in Berlin for 2 days--one of them is an archive day--and I fly home.

The Secret Archive

Because, although Prussia is no longer an autocratic monarchy, it still calls itself "The Secret Prussian Archive," and "Secret Prussian Archive" is even carved in rather large (yet assumedly still secret) letters above the rather large door, the Geheime Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz is thought by some to be cool. Indeed, it has battled Stakhanovite-esquely to best other archives so that all archives and me can have socialist-esque triumph, for example by owning many files labeled "immorality" containing hundreds of pages of documents about "immorality" when my dissertation is about "immorality".

But it is not all cake and ice cream there. "Just put in the file orders, and what comes back from the collection is always a surprise," the staffer tells me. Also, I am enemies with this model-like woman who once told me to blow my nose because my sniffling was distracting her. There used to be a large guy who wore clothes that didn't fit and sat by the door typing out of what looked like medieval manuscripts. I decided that he was my friend (I needed a friend to balance out nose-police woman).

The guy in the German-version-of-Hawaiian shirt who gives you your locker key I guess has a very heavy Bavarian accent and uses all kinds of Bavarian colloquiums (or maybe he's a Sorb? Who can tell?) because I never have a clue what he's telling me, though he's very nice and apparently likes me in particular. He often hands me a piece of candy along with my locker key as he wishes me in some flowerley and incomprehensible German much success, happy greetings and a lovely day etc.. Except for when there was a hurricane and the city declared a state of emergency and nevertheless I biked to the secret archive (not having watched TV and therefore not knowing that it was a hurricane; CC also biked to the library) and he seemed rather upset and went on and on about how it was dangerous to bike in the rain. But at that point I didn't know the German word for "hurricane." So I thought he was overreacting. Then after that he didn't hand me any candy for a while.

They have the best cappuccino machine. But now they are doing construction and they moved us all into a little room in the other building, and the old break room is off limits. No more cappuccino.

Today this woman who I guess is a big deal staffer (because I have never seen her before) came to the reading room. She was looking for one of the "immorality" files. But I did not have it. I gave it back last week. She went to look for it in the file room. I guess someone else ordered it and now it's no where to be found. Some hours passed. Then I looked up and the staffer woman was hovering by my desk looking intently at my half dictionary; actually, she had her head craned down so she had a close view of all the old paper sticking out of my half dictionary. I was like, 'uh--?' And she was like, 'oh, if I could just check this slip--' There was an old, crumpled file order slip hanging out of my dictionary. A pink slip, same as the slip of the missing file. But the file slip hanging out of my dictionary was from the Bundesarchiv (ha! I thought). This was pretty exciting because it's about the most interaction I've ever had with anyone at the secret archive.

Bunker!!!

I was biking around depressively and then I saw this guy come up out of a grate in the sidewalk, and next to the grate was a sign that said "theater in the bunker." They were putting on this one-woman play about Eva Braun. And it was in a bunker! So I went.

(You know, I liked the play, but I'd basically go to anything that was in a bunker. I'd go to like, girl scout craft fair if it was in a bunker. Or to a baby sitting contest or to watch Germany's Next Top Model.)

OMG it was way freaky! Way, way!

Was it the Führer bunker? No, no, that was demolished by East Germany to build apartment buildings as we know. This bunker is dramatically called "the deep bunker" though I didn't go in a deep part. It was built in 1937-1938 in preparation for the world war the Nazi regime was about to start, and it was only for workers in the Reich Agricultural Ministry and was kept secret from the general population. But then the Agricultural Ministry got bombed and they decided to let everybody in the bunker. (Well, everybody aryan and all that, it was Nazi Germany.) Then after the war etc. they forgot about the whole bunker till someone re-discovered it in the 1980s.

Woah, it was way scary in the bunker. The ceilings are not high. It's all concrete, some brick, everything painted white. The walls are about 3 feet thick, even between the rooms, and you're always very aware of the sharp right angles where the concrete walls meet the concrete floor, and there's no furniture or nothing. And man, I was like, not so thrilled to be surrounded by that much concrete, underground--at intermission everyone climbed the steps and stood on the sidewalk and it was a palpable relief to see the sky. Imagine if you couldn't leave the bunker 'cause the whole city was burning above your head. (There was this part in the play when Eva Braun was talking to Blondi the dog and she was was like, 'Blondi, above your dog head and my human head, the whole city is burning,' and I was like, 'holy shit!') This bunker is across the street from Anhalter Bahnhof, the current state of which gives some indication of what the bombing was like.

And of course the play ends with Braun's suicide in a bunker. Majorly creepy.

Oh, and the bunker is built literally on top of the subway tunnel, so whenever a train went by the whole place rumbled.

The bunker seemed to go on and on. I only walked through part of it. It held like 3,000 people. There is apparently a whole network of bunkers under central Berlin. There are also some doozies of above-ground bunkers so massive that they weren't worth destroying. Ones' now a rock climbing wall. Another one they just built an apartment building around and left it locked up.

Holy socks! Bunkers. So if you are feeling blue--bunkers! Woah. But they are creepy to the max, so be aware. (See, we were not supposed to take pictures inside but I totally snapped one, left.)

Archives compete in a friendly way for socialist glory!

Landesarchiv!

Cappuccino?
Cafeteria and 'auto cappuccino' machine that unlike wretched auto cappuccino at Bundesarchiv, does make delicious soda-sweet “cappuccino”.

Located in a former Nazi army base?
Located in a former Nazi munitions factory!

Yelling staff members?
No, everyone is lovely. Sometimes they even load the microfilm for you.

Fun stuff to read?
How can you ask that--this archive, after all, is home to court file A Rep. 358 Acc: 2666, "Anton Sander: Dancer and Transvestite."

Most fun stuff read so far?
The fun stuff is few and far between here--random court cases--but court cases are so interesting. I guess the Sander file is my favorite, but honorable mention has to go to the case I read yesterday of a guy who chanted a little rhyme while he flashed pornographic pictures at people on the street. He seemed nice.

Special powers?
When I was starting my diss research in the fall, I thought I'd do most of my work at the Landesarchiv. I ended up finding very little there and spending most of my time at other archives. Not that that's its fault.

Main special power is the incomprehensible catalogue. (pictured) Other powers include e-mails from helpful archivist recommending files, however e-mails have the wrong file signatures, and when I mail her back saying, 'I'd like to order these files,' she can't order them for me because I have the signatures wrong. (Signature confusion in this case is due to the switch to microfilm. By the way, I agree with CBAM that microfiche is far superior to microfilm. This may be the topic of a future lavish post.)

It's my only archive not within biking distance, and it takes a long time to get there on the subway. Uh, but that is not really a special power. Uhm, 26 cent printing from the microfilm machines?

"You've been here a long time."

I feel like I won some kind of personal victory yesterday when I showed up at the Secret Archive without an appointment or anything and got a desk--even without a desk reservation--and then was filling out the file order forms incorrectly as usual and the helpful but gruff archive worker was like, "Frau [my last name], you have been here a long time, you know by now how to fill out the file order!"

Indeed, what is wrong with the United States?

My sister heard some gun nut on the radio say that the Virginia Tech mass murder actually is an argument for having guns, since if more of the Tech students and staff had been packing heat, they would have been able to defend themselves. Luckily, Virginia has some of the most lax gun laws in the nation, so it shouldn't be too hard to arm all 30,000 Tech students.

In German, the word for those who go on shooting rampages is Amokläufer ("amok-runner") I learned reading a front-page article on it; it's all over the news here, and on the BBC too.

Like summer

I used to sit in the archive in December and watch the sky out the window behind me get full dark by 4 pm. But now the skys' blue till 8 pm. It's as warm as summer. Everyones' out sitting by the canal till late at night (canal pictured.) Berlins' such a lovely city in spring and summer.

Sad end to sad affair

I'm glad that there was something of a stand taken by the corporate media (after a lot of pressure from people like you guys and right on to you) against the racist and sexist comments. But it's hard to take a lot of joy in this victory. I think about what Coach Stringer said : "Do we understand what's going on in our society?"

For me, the whole affair speaks to the fact that white people often say racist things that range from slightly creepy to downright murderous, and a lot of the time don't seem to see what's the matter with that. Which speaks to the fact that we're living in a society that's structured by race, so structured by it that people who are privileged by race don't even perceive race at work--it's been made to seems so natural to them that it's invisible to them. I know this--when you're white, it can actually be very difficult to perceive how race structures the world you live in, even though it's affecting your world in a big way (largely to your benefit at someone else's expense). To be able to perceive this, you have to learn about racism, and history. I try to learn about this and I am lucky because people pointed it out to me again and again. But I feel like a lot of people who don't perceive race in action--don't perceive it because they're not being harassed or exploited or discriminated against or even attacked because of race--don't care to learn about it and don't care to say to themselves, 'gee, why are people so upset, what is the deal and what is wrong with our society?'

And this situation is generally depressing. I originally wrote this post to end with a comparison of U.S. and German history and a sentence about the 'genocide olympics' but this is all bumming me out way too much.

Even easier now to complain about racist, sexist remarks

Look, NOW has set up this e-mail form to send angry e-mail to the people responsible for Imus's show encouraging them to fire him. Yay!

I must say I'm really horrified by what he said and by the fact that they only suspended him for 2 weeks! Let's hope they'll give in and fire him if we all keep the pressure on. I can't make it to the rally tomorrow but I support you guys who are going.

Rally to support basketball team tomorrow, Wed., April 11, 1:30 pm

"CALLING THE RUTGERS COMMUNITY TO

Rally in support of our Rutgers Women's Basketball Team and
Take a Stand Against Racism and Sexism on Talk Radio

...Radio talk show host Don Imus attacked the Rutgers' women's basketball team using racist and sexist slurs.

RUTGERS NEEDS TO TALK BACK!

Come to the RALLY

Wednesday, April 11
1:30 p.m.

Cooper Green
Corner of George Street and Nichol Avenue
Douglass College Campus

RALLY ORGANIZERS: Institute for Women's Leadership and participating members
Douglass College
Department of Women's and Gender Studies
Center for American Women and Politics
Institute for Research on Women
Center for Women's Global Leadership
Center for Women and Work
Institute for Women and Art"

Send e-mail about depressing remarks about RU womens basketball

You can e-mail Westwoodone, the radio conglomerate that syndicates Imus's show, and ask them to get him off the air:

Peter Kosann
President and Chief Executive Officer
peterj_kosann@westwoodone.com
Bart Tessler
Sr. VP, Network News / Talk
bart_tessler@westwoodone.com

You can also e-mail the producers of his show on MSNBC.
Imus@msnbc.com

Do not mess with Rutgers women's basketball

OMG, I can't believe that racist, sexist shit was said on national radio about the Rutgers women's basketball team. (See fitting tribute to team by V Girl.) That is so fucked up. This radio guy should be fired, for sure.

It is weird because last night I had a dream that I was watching TV about the ceremony Rutgers had to honor the basketball team, and on TV (in dream) they were like, Pres. McCormick looked at his watch right in the middle of the ceremony, hurting the feelings of all the basketball players, who then marched sadly in a parade down College Ave.

(This was a dream, right? This did not really happen (?))

Anyway, the team did a great job getting to the championship and I say right on to them. And I will beat up people who disparage them or look at their watches during the celebration.

(Then I had a dream that I was supposed to fly from the U.S. to Berlin but I kept missing the flight because I couldn't pack my suitcase. CC was trying to help me. I tried to call the airline but I couldn't because Lisa (roommate here in Berlin) had the phone. After waking up I told this to one of my other roommates, and she was like, 'I guess there is something going on with the phone?'

Well, it's just 4 of us sharing it now. That's all. We spawned and are now 7 roommates, did I mention that? (Not literally spawned, but one time in this house that did happen and there was a baby roommate.))

One month

Today it's one month till my flight back to the U.S. That means just one more month to research. That means just one more month to sadly pine away! Pine away into a slumped lump in a corner, with a fading flower in my hair.

You know how you were worried when you decided to go to grad school because professors are so socially bizarre? I was worried about this. I wrote a note and hid it somewhere that said that when I start to get weird, people should tell me. Now I think it is for sure happening. For example, I have started this Radius Prohibited Area which is a 5-foot-radius area around my body that people are not supposed to enter. You, reader, are one of 3 people who know about the RPA so as you can imagine people enter it all the time, like on the subway or in the grocery store line. Sigh.

Also, and I'm so sorry that Dissertation Year isn't more political, but please note that finally (this year, I think) the U.S. media is forced to write about global climate change (CRISIS) as a scientific fact, and now even U.S. government representatives to a U.N. commission had to agree. We are talking about a major major world-wide problem and big changes to our way of life if we don't do something. Please tell a friend.

Hey there, congrats!

"July 26, 1933
Chancellor Adolf Hitler,
Berlin, Germany

My dear Sir:

Because of my honest belief in birth control and sterilization when called for to protect the future generations, I was greatly impressed with the news that you have been instrumental in a Sterilization Law being passed in your country. May I offer my congratulations, and a wish for the honest enforcement of the law.

Respectfully yours,

Betty Carpenter Webb
Providence, R.I."

BArch R 1501/126248

Golf is actually a lot more dangerous than you maybe thought.

What's the fire ants rule?

Mom: My shot landed right on top of a fire ant nest the size of half of a basketball - that gray sand with holes but no visible ants. I carefully lifted my ball off the nest and dropped it nearby, but not before one of the ants got in a good bit on the back of my leg. It itches like mad, but is getting better. Golfing in Florida.