Portrait of an Artist and a Man
A friend of mine from back in Freiburg days has been a full professor of English at the University of Leipzig for a decade or more now. When Elmar of the blue eyes, very curly hair and infectious smile recently emailed me an attachment of a painting he had just finished of a beautiful area called Soest, close to where I now live, I was absolutely astonished – I knew he dabbled in the arts in addition to his work at the university, but I had no idea just how talented he was, nor could I understand how he managed to find the time. So I asked him if he might answer a few questions for me, and thought a portrait of such a versatile personality deserved to find a space here.
Did you ever expect you would be a prof?
Yes, at the age of ten or eleven I wanted to become a professor of history, but then the idea faded away and was replaced by “chemist,” “psychologist,” “writer.”
Who has more to offer?
Today is quite a big day for the Germans, as today will decide the shape of government for the next four years. I like the fact that the Germans vote on a Sunday, which means that most people do not have to stress on their way to work.
Unlike the US two-party system, the Germans have a huge number of parties. There are the ecologically-minded Greens, special interest parties such as the Grey Panthers (senior citizens), the Bible-Abiding Christians, etc., although there are two parties that emerge as the strongest, the relatively conservative-minded Christian Democratic Union or CDU, epitomized at the moment by Angela Merkel, and the SPD, traditionally known as the party of the working man. Although the parties are supposed to hold more or less antithetical views, they governed jointly in a grand coalition over the past four years as neither was able to gain the majority, so that the televised ‘debates’ a few weeks ago led to yawns all around (one US-born political science teacher who shall remain nameless even dozing off between times). But realistically, what choice did the two parties have but to laud themselves for a job well done? The ‘duel’ became a ‘duet,’ fumed the press, and therefore less than compelling to watch.
Running Amok
During my first week at school in Dakar, I had heard an odd noise during a meeting with the school’s director and could not resist looking out the window. The sound turned out to be the bleating of a sheep, and I was amused, as this was not the sort of thing that would ever occur during board meetings in New York. This strange noise and the occasional bit of homework not done were memorable among the ‘challenges’ I faced during my time teaching school in Senegal. The students were bright, articulate, rose to greet their teachers and, more astonishing still, usually (though not always) remembered to clean the board without prompting at the beginning of class.
At my first school meeting in Dortmund, on the other hand, two big topics of discussion were a) the swine flu and b) what to do in case a student went amok. Fears re the latter had intensified because of a recent incident in a quaint city of half-timbered houses near Stuttgart. In the usually peaceful haven of Winnenden, Tim Kretschmer killed fifteen people and then himself on March 11, 2009. He was only seventeen and came from a fairly well-to-do background. Talk about culture shock! Such an occurrence would have been simply unthinkable in my Senegalese school, so I decided to conduct a bit of research on such incidents in Germany.
September 11 in History
It was a shock for me to realize in class today that my present ninth graders were in KINDERGARTEN when the Twin Towers fell. I remember the morning as if it were yesterday – walking from the subway to my workplace on 20th Street, running into my friend Leah on the way, standing still in astonishment and wondering how any pilot could be so daft as to fly into the World Trade Center. I remember Leah telling me in no uncertain terms that we were witnessing a historic event, when the thought had not yet begun to percolate.
I remember the uneasy atmosphere at work, everyone exchanging stories and trying to find a radio station, attempting to call loved ones to make sure they were all right, trying to find some way to grasp what was going on, some logical explanation for what appeared to be inexplicable.
On Making a Difference
When I first opened the door to my new apartment in Dortmund, Germany (I seem to be curiously drawn to places beginning with a ‘D’?!), I was enormously moved to see that my new next door neighbor, Bettina Broekelschen, an artist, had left me two prints of local scenes as a welcoming gift – the kindness of strangers! As I did not yet have a coffee machine, I suggested that as a thank you perhaps I could invite her to a local cafe where we might sit and get properly acquainted sometime.
Today was that day, and what an inspiring story she has to tell! She can read artwork the way other people read books, she explained, and she often uses the medium to understand troubled young people. She spent years working with a nonprofit organization helping local homeless children. She has great empathy for them, for she grew up in the north of Dortmund, which even today is considered quite rough, and managed to get herself kicked out of school not one, not two, not three, but FOUR times! She excelled in sports and in art. This is how she managed to rally all the kids in her class on her side, to the extent that they did a great deal of her schoolwork for her, which is how she muddled through. She always found school and its restrictions too boring to hold her interest and sought various ways to spice things up, generally to the deep and abiding displeasure of the school’s leadership.
Firenze, Romans…
Dying for Comfort: Backpacking Solo on the Thames River
It was 3 AM and I was wide-awake, huddling under questionably clean sheets in a hostel bunk. There are usually lots of reasonable causes for insomnia in these grimy, youth-oriented lodgings: anything from blaring communal televisions, phone calls made from hallways, to 19-year old backpackers loudly professing their degree of inebriation. However, none of these things were the culprit. I had chosen to toss and turn because I had convinced myself that the next evening I would be bludgeoned to death on the side of the Thames River.
Moscow Remembered – A Tourist at Home
When I walk through Union Square on an occasional sunny Saturday in San Francisco, I resent that the people around me might mistake me for a tourist. I make myself abundantly clear – I wear no fanny pack, carry no Macy’s bags and plaster a trademark sneer on my face at all times, punctuating it with an occasional roll of my eyes.
Maybe I go overboard, but seeing every other sneering local in my adopted city reminds me of the confusing, maddening and humbling time when I was, indeed, a tourist in the city of my birth.
Where Thieves and Pimps Run Free
I had been in Amsterdam for a couple of months, and the city’s seedier side just wouldn’t stop trying to mug me. While I must have appeared to be, and no doubt was, something of a soft touch, my aggressors had nevertheless experienced varying degrees of success in their endeavours.
The first enterprising gentleman had come away from our encounter with by far the most success, and in hindsight I can hardly begrudge him the 20 euros he made off with. Despite thinking of myself as a reasonably shrewd customer with plenty of big city experience, I had managed to plant myself in a ridiculously idiotic situation and was, it can be argued, very much asking to be robbed.
The next time it happened I managed to keep hold of my cash and some of my recently diminished self-respect, as both parties to the event left the encounter in much the same circumstances to which they had approached it.
On that occasion I even managed to convince myself that I was something of a hero for having stood my ground and thwarted the criminal mastermind who had confronted me. This small sense of self-worth was quickly deflated however, upon hearing of a friend who, in similar circumstances just a few days later, had not been content to merely stand his ground, but had actively infringed into his would-be-mugger’s, by wielding a nearby brick and chasing him down the street. I resolved that I would emulate this course of action should I find myself in a similar situation again.
I didn’t have to wait long to see my brick-brandishing bluster exposed as the delusion it had always been.
There are an estimated million bicycles in Amsterdam, which with 750,000 inhabitants rather points to the city’s canals’ unofficial status as mass bike graveyards. Regardless, the bike is indeed king and the most common way of getting around. I, however, was temporarily reliant on the city’s transport system, having recently comprehensively wrecked my own bike, and large parts of myself, in an ill-considered drunken attempt to hop a curb.
Agreeing to meet some friends in the centre of town one evening, I hopped on a tram and settled down to daydream about the new pimped out bike I envisioned getting. So wrapped up was I in thoughts of velvet seats and gilded handlebars that I failed to notice that the tram was not in fact heading in the direction I had assumed it was. Eventually coming to my senses half an hour into what should have been a ten minute journey, I realised that we were delving ever deeper into a part of town I had never encountered before.
I got off at the next stop and took stock of my surroundings. They bared very little resemblance to the twinkling canals, gabled town houses and cobbled alleyways of the Amsterdam I was familiar with. Here things were decidedly bleaker. Boarded up shop windows and deserted, shard strewn pavements were bathed in the harsh light of industrial-style street lights, while a lone junkie stumbled past an upturned bin.
I couldn’t immediately see a tram stop that would take me back in the direction I had come. However, reasoning that trams, by their very nature, were dependant on tram tracks for mobility, I concluded that if I hoped to find a stop there were only two likely directions I should choose from. I headed left.
Before I had gone more than 200 yards, I heard a voice behind me bellow something. I decided against bellowing back and hunched my shoulders, quickening my pace.
I hadn’t quickened it enough obviously, as in the next instant, a young man had a firm grip on my forearm and was blocking my path. He spat out something aggressive sounding in Dutch.
“I’m sorry, I don’t speak Dutch.”
“Your money, now,” he replied, effortlessly changing languages. If there’s one thing to be said for the Dutch mugger, he, like the vast majority of his countrymen, speaks impeccable English.
“I haven’t got anything,” I lied, acutely aware of the hundred euros that had suddenly started burning a hole in my trousers.
“Now brother.”
“I’m telling you, I don’t have anything. I’m a student!”
“Now!”
“But I’m a student, I’m poor!”
All of a sudden, the grip on my arm relaxed. “Hey, I was kidding brother! Relax, it was just a joke!”
These words, coupled with the huge grin now spread across his face, took me aback. Not too much however, as, despite his apparent change of heart, I remained convinced that this gentleman had unquestionably not been kidding, nor had it been just a joke. To be on the safe side, I repeated my mantra again: “I’m a student…. I’m poor….”
Mr Hyde came surging back. “Hey shut the hell up! I said I was joking brother, relax! ”
“Oh. OK. Right. Ha ha! Good one. Anyway…. I’d better get going….”
“Stick around brother, what’s the hurry? I’m waiting for my girlfriend. Keep me company. Here - have some fries.”
He unzipped his jacket and from inside withdrew a plastic container. Opening it, he thrust its steaming, glistening contents towards me.
I hesitated, but, having not yet eaten and eager not to spurn my new friend’s generosity, it was only for a moment. “Have you got any mayo?”
“Sure.” He reached back into his jacket and pulled out some sachets which he proceeded to smother the food with.
“There we go. Now they are real Dutch fries. So you’re student then brother? What are you studying?”
As we shared his dinner, we chatted away. I told him I was studying history at the university in Amsterdam, and took the opportunity to subtly re-emphasise the fact that, as a student, I was naturally terribly poor. He asked about my courses and when I said they were mostly on American history this year he remarked upon just how much he disliked “that crazy Bush guy”. I told him I was from London and he said his cousin had moved there a few years ago, that the family had not heard from him since, and that I should keep my eyes open for him.
Despite the excellent dinner and company, part of me couldn’t quite shake off the suspicion that we were merely killing time until not his girlfriend, but his back-up, arrived. This fear proved unfounded however, as about ten minutes into our conversation the girlfriend did indeed turn up. We were introduced and she was encouraged to partake of the meal, which she politely declined. “More for us!” grinned my new chum.
The fries eventually came to an end and I took this as my cue to say my goodbyes, thanking him for the fries and asking where I might find the nearest tram back into town.
“That way,” came the reply, with a gesture back the way I had come. “Why were you going this way? Were you lost?”
I let out a nervous half-laugh and sheepishly admitted that I had been.
“Careful brother. This is not the place to get lost in. Bad people around here.” I studied him closely but could detect neither the hint of a smile on his face nor a trace of sarcasm in his voice.
I hurried along and soon found the right tram. Meeting up with my friends an hour later than planned, I was quizzed as to just what had taken me so long.
“I stopped for something to eat on the way.” Read more
Europe from my window
Photo: Flickr/Pichote
It came up slowly and smoking the pipe; was waiting ’til the passengers enter, take their places and it would continue the trip without steps which seems to be very irritating for this old but comfortable train.
