Berlin, August 15, 1992

Berlin is covered by a thick cloud of construction cranes. The side walks and roads are crowded with holes for new water and sewer pipes, telephone and subway lines. The grey facades of Berlin are hiding behind scaffolding, and the traffic is unbearable. Subway stations under what was east Berlin stood empty for 40 years but are now full of standing people. People in east Berlin who never had or needed a car now have and need one. Cars plug streets where gun towers and land mines used to be, in the "no man's land" just behind the wall. It is often difficult to see where the wall was, and tiny chunks of it sell for $10 DM (authentic?) to whoever is silly enough to buy them.

I kept thinking about that song by Laurie Anderson about

Hansel & Gretel:

Hansel & Gretel are alive and well.

And they're living in Berlin.

They sit around at night now, drinking schnapps and gin.

She said, "Hansel, you're really bringing me down."

He said, "Gretel, you can really be a bitch." He said, "I've been wasting my life on our stupid fable, when my one and only love was the wicked witch."

She said, "What is his story?"

He said, "His-story is an angel being blown backwards into the future." He said, "History is a storm that blows. And the angel wants to go back and fix things, to repair things that have been broken, but the storm blows. The storm keeps blowing the angel backwards into the future. And this storm, this storm is called progress."

I guess you have to be there. Berlin could be full of history, but it's been bombed, burnt, neglected, bulldozed, and paved over. Berlin is being rebuilt but nobody is really in the mood for it. Nobody is proud of Berlin any more and everyone there would rather live somewhere else if they had a choice. Berlin is Montreal in reverse. Montreal is now bankrupt and Berlin is now a political and economic centre. Montrealers are absurdly proud of their city, or they leave. Berliners hate their city but can't afford to leave. Thousands move away from Montreal every year. The two autobahns from western Germany to Berlin run bumper to bumper, and new autobahns are being built. Montreal has a past with an empty future while Berlin has a future with an empty past. What Berliners remember I think they wish they could forget. Berlin isn't being repaired, it's being replaced. And the storm keeps blowing the angel backwards into the future.

All this, of course, means that Oliver can make a fantastic wage working for architects while he studies architecture at university. And when he graduates he'll have more work than he'll know what to do with. Unfortunately neither Boris nor Oliver like living in Berlin, and they wish they could leave. The buildings are high enough to be oppressive but too short to be impressive. The streets are like canyons that trap the exhaust and dog piss style graffiti. Berlin should really build vertically to leave more green space between the buildings, but tradition has it that buildings should be six to eight stories only, so the imposing monotonous city blocks sprawl on in every direction with no set back from the road. Berlin is doomed to be an enormous car city without any kind of heart (L.A of Europe?). The wall between east and west was only one wall, but there are four million other walls standing - one around each berliner. Poor Berlin, they can replace their buildings and streets and buy cellphones from AT&T but their love of happiness and sense of humour still lie in ruins. Boris is definitely homesick for Toronto, and I think Oliver is beginning to feel trapped. A junkie hangs out on Oranjestr. in a leather mini-skirt and lipstick, she's as skinny as anybody you've seen on television from Somalia and her skin looks to have suffered from atomic radiation. I had culture shock coming back to Amsterdam where most everyone is friendly, healthy and happy.

Because Oliver has studied the various city plans and constructions in Berlin, he knows about a project undertaken in the 1930s that was abandoned because of the war. This project was to build underground autobahn and rail tunnels below what is now the Tiergarten (Berlin's central park). He took us to the place where the highway tunnel was to be, I overturned a rusty manhole cover nestled in the brush beneath the trees, and we climbed down the ladder. Sure enough it's still there, huge, pitch black, lifeless, and dry. It is wide enough for a six lane highway and is about two and a half stories high. If you yell, "YA!" or "HOO!" the echo continues for 12 seconds. It would be a wonderful place to perform and record music. Gregorian Chanting is a cinch down there. As a school project Oliver and some other students are drawing plans that could convert the forgotten tunnel into a public swimming pool. "A swimming pool!" says Boris, "...but it simply has to be a night club!"

A good Caribbean dance band was playing at the Tempodrom so we went all geared up to dance. I arrived with Ruben, Anita, Anita's berliner boyfriend and his roommate after we saw Der Hibbel Uber Berlin by Wim Venders (me for the 5th time so I didn't need the subtitles any more). The band was really very good and Boris and I were at the front dancing up a storm "Put your hands in the air!", "Put your leg up!" "Wind that hip!" "Take your shirt off and swing it in the air!" A few other people were energetic too, but mostly it was a typical german audience... dead. I think germans must swallow a bottle of barbiturates before they go to an outdoor Caribbean dance party. I hope somebody had warned the band, they were doing their part. I said, "Remember Caribana?" and I think Boris would have cried if she hadn't laughed. We had a great time dancing anyway, damn it.

Ruben and I rented bicycles, a good deal too, 20DM for two days. Boris and Oli gave us a tour of east Berlin, the latest euphemism for which is "New Berlin" in keeping with the "New Germany". "East", "West" and "DDR" are controversial terms at best, taboo terms at worst. In the west bicycle paths and lanes have been put in everywhere recently (in '87 there were none), but in the east there are none at all. The east Berlin drivers have never had to deal with bicycles before because the DDR never got around to building a bicycle factory; many cyclists were run down shortly after the wall fell.

There is an interesting outdoor sculpture exhibition at Alexanderplatz which I later went back to photograph. It is thrilling to cycle around the contemporary sculptures, and around the big neoclassical Neptune fountain. I later went back to photograph the sculptures and some of the architecture in the east. There was a craft show with some real crap: glass figurines, hippie earrings, palm tree shaped mirrors, crude postcards etc. but there was also a craftsman who made interesting puzzles and toys for children out of wood and a potter who could turn and glaze gracefully to produce some very powerful pottery. I wish now that I had thought to photograph their work. We missed the marionette show but saw the clown and the um-pa band quack out a funny albeit crude song about a cactus "zinga zinga".

I'm not done with Berlin yet, but it's 1:00 and I'm tired. Yes, yes, I know it's only 19:00 in Toronto, but I'd like to see the sun in the morning here. And don't forget, when you look up tonight and see the moon over Toronto it's the same little moon I see here. Say "hi" to the man in the moon for me. The man in the moon will reply, he'll say "hi" from Leif to you.

August 22, 1992

I'm really confused about all the neoclassical architecture and facades in east Berlin. The pillar with the golden angel I've always liked, the Brandenburg gate I like too and now I can bicycle through it and past all the vendors and tourists there at the Pariserplatz. Then the neoclassical theme on Unter Den Lindenstr. gets, perhaps, a bit out of hand. Neoclassical monstrosities line the avenue, pillars and pediments galore. Many are only a standard brick construction with a convincing concrete neoclassical facade. They scream of military pride and might. These are obviously not temples celebrating the forces of nature and the gods, these were built as military/industrial propaganda - celebrating Berlin and Germany's stately, solid, pure and incorruptible power. Unlike the Pentagon and the White House, however, these buildings also show the result of their makers philosophy and agenda: they're covered with black pollution and remain scarred by gun fire and bombing. The propagandistic ornamentation, sometimes verging on the baroque, now carry a very different message to the critical observer given the time/war/industry defeated condition of the buildings. They are all destined to be cleaned and renovated, good in one respect, but it also will erase their very important message. Would it be too sentimental and romantic to preserve their black and shot up facades as they are? Is a romantic fascination of their present condition really useful? Should memories of failed military oppression and war be romanticized? Is it easier for berliners to imagine and embrace the idea of the "new Berlin" if this visual history is erased? Is the dilapidated state of these stately buildings disturbing to the right wing repressive expansionist/industrial agenda of Germany today?

At the top of one of the pediments is a shot up angel with half his head missing - if only this angel could be left the way he is. But the storm keeps blowing the angel backwards into the future. "Progress" is so important to Berlin that the message of a black crippled angel, a first hand witness to so much propaganda, destruction and death, is being systematically silenced. If the angel is "repaired" he will be unable to tell his whole story. His story can only be written. In fact, the painful past of Berlin and the angel can never be repaired, it can only be replaced by the storm of progress. Can Berlin ever be a sincerely happy city? I have no answers, I don't even know if answers are possible. Even the angel is dumbfounded. All I can do is watch and wonder, confused, then turn away and get on with business.

And now I must go out and buy a present for Tristin, my cousin Chris' son, who will be one tomorrow. It boggles my mind to think he'll be only eight years old come the year 2000. What can I buy for a one year old who has everything?