So, I finally got around to listening to this speech by Ray Bradbury, something I'd had bookmarked for ages. He rambles through various topics and is opinionated here and there (all modern poetry is crap, etc.) but for the most part he's just really charming and engaging, with a ton of zest for writing and life, though he was 80 or 81 at the time.
The speech is addressed to writers and loosely centered around the habits that writers should develop. I know that's a subject with the potential to be more frustrating than helpful, but I think his advice is good...
To me, the most important points boil down as follows:
• Don't start by trying to write a novel, because you could spend ages on it and then in the end it turns out not to be very good. Instead, write a short story every week. At the end of the year, you'll have 52 stories, and it's really, really hard to write 52 stories and have them all be bad!
• Every evening, read one short story, one poem and one essay, about any topic at all. (In other words, fill yourself with all kinds of fodder and inspiration.)
• Write about things you love, instead of about things you think you should be writing about. "Make a list of 10 things you love, madly, and write about them."
Very favorite excerpt from the whole speech:
"I sold newspapers on a street corner from the time I was 19 till I was 21. I made ten dollars a week – this is back in 1939, 1940, 41. People came by my corner and said, 'What are you doing here?' I said, 'Becoming a writer.' They said, 'You don't look like one.' I said, 'Yeah, but I feel like one.'
"I was filling myself – I lived at the library. I never went to college, I couldn't afford to do that. But I went to the library three or four days a week for ten years. And I graduated from the library when I was 28, huh?
"You live in the library. Live in the library, for chrissake! Don't live on your goddamn computers and the internet and all that crap, you know? Go to the library!"
Other favorite lines:
"If there are any of you here tonight have gone into writing to make money, forget it, huh? It doesn't work that way."
"When I was 27, I got married. My wife took a vow of poverty to marry me, huh? We had eight dollars in the bank the day we got married, huh? I put five dollars in an envelope and handed it to the minister. And he said, 'What's this?' I said, 'That's your fee for the ceremony today.' He said, 'You're a writer, aren't you?' I said, 'Yes.' He says, 'Then you're going to need this.'"
"Have you ever taken the Greyhound bus across to New York, four days and four nights? No, don't do it."
(After describing how editors only wanted novels and he only had short stories, but then one inspired editor suggested he link together short stories he'd already written into a novel.) "So in one day, I sold The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man, without knowing what I was doing. You see? Surprise. You don't know what's in you until you test it."
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Fascinating Maps
No, I didn't know Eritrea was the same size as Ohio, actually! Now I do:
13 Fascinating Maps.
(Speaking of maps: Y'all haven't forgotten about this fantastic cartography blog, have you?)
13 Fascinating Maps.
(Speaking of maps: Y'all haven't forgotten about this fantastic cartography blog, have you?)
Sunday, May 26, 2013
Wales in Pictures
A Wales album at last! In which there is much snow, a steam train, mountains, standing stones, cream tea and many, many sheep. Click on the picture to go to the album:
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| Wales |
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Discover the Spießer in Yourself
The other day, at my favorite bakery, my bread came in a bag with a half-page advertisement attached to it. The ad was from a bank, and it invited me to "Entdecken auch Sie den Spießer in sich!" – basically, "You too can discover the Spießer in yourself!"
"Spießer" (that symbol "ß," by the way, is nothing more exotic than the equivalent of a double "s") is one of those words that's nearly impossible to translate. A "Spießer" is a square, a bourgeois type, someone who has their house and their lawn and their two-point-whatever kids.
It's generally used as an insult, but this bank is clearly trying to work against that (as part of a campaign for their building loans and retirement plans – as if Germans needed more encouragement to save, build houses and have retirement funds!).
Here's the ad from my bread bag:
It consists of 26 images of household items, with a little box to check if you own that thing. The items range from the simple (a comb, a doormat) to the rather ridiculous (a cuckoo clock). As a special bonus, try to spot the quintessentially German ones like the little egg cup cozy, for keeping your soft-boiled egg warm at breakfast!
I'm pleased to say I only have 11 of the 26, which doesn't seem too bad, especially when even a clothes pin or a tea ball qualifies! (And shut up, yes I have a tea ball; I live in Germany where I make a lot of loose-leaf tea.)
The whole Spießer thing reminded me of a TV ad from several years back (unsurprising, since it turns out to be for the same bank). In it, you see a father and daughter living in one of these counterculture caravan parks you can still find occasionally around Germany (holdovers, I'd say, from a generation ago, when Germany was more alternative than it is now...)
The daughter is talking a bit wistfully about kids in her class who have their own bedroom, or an apartment with a view over the whole city. The dad says dismissively, "They're all Spießer." Digesting this, his daughter looks up at him with big eyes and declares, "Papa, when I grow up, I want to be a Spießer too!" ...And the father spits out his coffee in shock.
It's pretty cute, here you go:
"Spießer" (that symbol "ß," by the way, is nothing more exotic than the equivalent of a double "s") is one of those words that's nearly impossible to translate. A "Spießer" is a square, a bourgeois type, someone who has their house and their lawn and their two-point-whatever kids.
It's generally used as an insult, but this bank is clearly trying to work against that (as part of a campaign for their building loans and retirement plans – as if Germans needed more encouragement to save, build houses and have retirement funds!).
Here's the ad from my bread bag:
It consists of 26 images of household items, with a little box to check if you own that thing. The items range from the simple (a comb, a doormat) to the rather ridiculous (a cuckoo clock). As a special bonus, try to spot the quintessentially German ones like the little egg cup cozy, for keeping your soft-boiled egg warm at breakfast!
I'm pleased to say I only have 11 of the 26, which doesn't seem too bad, especially when even a clothes pin or a tea ball qualifies! (And shut up, yes I have a tea ball; I live in Germany where I make a lot of loose-leaf tea.)
The whole Spießer thing reminded me of a TV ad from several years back (unsurprising, since it turns out to be for the same bank). In it, you see a father and daughter living in one of these counterculture caravan parks you can still find occasionally around Germany (holdovers, I'd say, from a generation ago, when Germany was more alternative than it is now...)
The daughter is talking a bit wistfully about kids in her class who have their own bedroom, or an apartment with a view over the whole city. The dad says dismissively, "They're all Spießer." Digesting this, his daughter looks up at him with big eyes and declares, "Papa, when I grow up, I want to be a Spießer too!" ...And the father spits out his coffee in shock.
It's pretty cute, here you go:
Joseph and His Brothers (and Bayern vs. Dortmund)
Well, that's a world I hadn't been part of in quite a while: Today I went to an elementary school musical!
I was there because the director is a friend of mine; she's directed several of these plays before, and I wanted to finally see the project she talks about with such enthusiasm.
The musical was "Joseph and His Brothers" (it's a Protestant school), complete with a camel (two adults under a cloth and a camel head), kids dressed as sheep with floppy, wooly ears (so cute!) and a couple of deliberate anachronisms ("Okay, let me just call my dad on my cell phone" – "This is the 21st century, cell phones haven't been invented yet!") that the little siblings sitting behind me in the audience loved. It had its rocky bits and rough transitions, as school productions do, but the kids sang well and I was impressed at how much dialogue they'd memorized.
Here's the part that cracked me up (and made me think, Yup, must be Germany) – The man who introduced the production (the music director, I think), after thanking the various people involved, addressed the audience and asked, "So, who supports Dortmund? Who supports Bayern?" This was obviously an ongoing Thing, because as soon as he said it, all the kids in the choir started whooping and shouting, cheering or booing accordingly.
Dortmund vs. Bayern, if you don't know, is the Champions League final game tonight. I hadn't been following it in the least, not because I have anything against soccer, but because there are so many leagues I can't actually keep them all straight. Someone tried to explain to me again last night the difference between the Champions League and the Europa League, and I think my eyes glazed over.
But it's the Champions League and it's a big deal around these parts, even more so because the two teams in the final are both German. Germany dominates at soccer! Etc.!
At the end of the musical today, after another round of thank-yous among the adults, one of the kids stepped up to the mic to thank the director; then another kid thanked the band. Then one more boy pushed his way up to the mic and declared, "And I want Bayern to win!"
He had the last word.
Kick-off is in just a few minutes, and I'm expecting fireworks in the street any time now.
I was there because the director is a friend of mine; she's directed several of these plays before, and I wanted to finally see the project she talks about with such enthusiasm.
The musical was "Joseph and His Brothers" (it's a Protestant school), complete with a camel (two adults under a cloth and a camel head), kids dressed as sheep with floppy, wooly ears (so cute!) and a couple of deliberate anachronisms ("Okay, let me just call my dad on my cell phone" – "This is the 21st century, cell phones haven't been invented yet!") that the little siblings sitting behind me in the audience loved. It had its rocky bits and rough transitions, as school productions do, but the kids sang well and I was impressed at how much dialogue they'd memorized.
Here's the part that cracked me up (and made me think, Yup, must be Germany) – The man who introduced the production (the music director, I think), after thanking the various people involved, addressed the audience and asked, "So, who supports Dortmund? Who supports Bayern?" This was obviously an ongoing Thing, because as soon as he said it, all the kids in the choir started whooping and shouting, cheering or booing accordingly.
Dortmund vs. Bayern, if you don't know, is the Champions League final game tonight. I hadn't been following it in the least, not because I have anything against soccer, but because there are so many leagues I can't actually keep them all straight. Someone tried to explain to me again last night the difference between the Champions League and the Europa League, and I think my eyes glazed over.
But it's the Champions League and it's a big deal around these parts, even more so because the two teams in the final are both German. Germany dominates at soccer! Etc.!
At the end of the musical today, after another round of thank-yous among the adults, one of the kids stepped up to the mic to thank the director; then another kid thanked the band. Then one more boy pushed his way up to the mic and declared, "And I want Bayern to win!"
He had the last word.
Kick-off is in just a few minutes, and I'm expecting fireworks in the street any time now.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Music: The Magnetic North
Saw these folks over the weekend, fantastic. It was keyboard, guitar, bass, drums, string quartet, brass section and an entire chorus. Oh, and mood-setting video projections. Atmospheric yet catchy music inspired by the Orkney Islands, off the northern tip of Scotland.
Apparently Betty Corrigall, a figure from a (real, sad) local legend, appeared to one of the musicians in a dream and told him he should make an album about Orkney. She also told him the names of all the songs on the album; he woke up and wrote them down. Then he called a couple of musician friends, who luckily didn't tell him he was crazy, and they developed the project together, recording it on Orkney with backing from a local choir.
The album is called "Orkney: Symphony of the Magnetic North" (with "Magnetic North" being equal parts band name, project name and album name, as far as I can tell) and I recommend it!
Apparently Betty Corrigall, a figure from a (real, sad) local legend, appeared to one of the musicians in a dream and told him he should make an album about Orkney. She also told him the names of all the songs on the album; he woke up and wrote them down. Then he called a couple of musician friends, who luckily didn't tell him he was crazy, and they developed the project together, recording it on Orkney with backing from a local choir.
The album is called "Orkney: Symphony of the Magnetic North" (with "Magnetic North" being equal parts band name, project name and album name, as far as I can tell) and I recommend it!
Monday, May 13, 2013
Thai in the Park
Berlin doesn't get much better than... a lazy Saturday afternoon in the park with friends and Thai food (and mojitos and some good old-fashioned Scrabble).
Friday, May 10, 2013
Herrentag Addendum
After first explaining the odd German holiday of "Herrentag" yesterday to some slightly baffled French colleagues, then writing about it here, I dropped a line to my American friend Anton, just to say I'd been writing about Herrentag and thus also remembering the amusing bike ride he and I took outside of Berlin one Herrentag five years ago.
Anton called back and told me he'd had the same experience, trying to explain Herrentag to an Italian woman. They were on a walk in the park, Anton attempting to get across what Herrentag is about, when they came across a group of eight or so boisterously drunk German men, all pulling little carts full of beer, who immediately started hitting on his Italian friend ("Don't you have somewhere you have to be? We'll take care of her!") in a way that was mostly jovial but also exceedingly macho, and just a little over the line from friendly to aggressive...
And that, Anton said, demonstrated perfectly what he'd been trying to explain about Herrentag.
Anton called back and told me he'd had the same experience, trying to explain Herrentag to an Italian woman. They were on a walk in the park, Anton attempting to get across what Herrentag is about, when they came across a group of eight or so boisterously drunk German men, all pulling little carts full of beer, who immediately started hitting on his Italian friend ("Don't you have somewhere you have to be? We'll take care of her!") in a way that was mostly jovial but also exceedingly macho, and just a little over the line from friendly to aggressive...
And that, Anton said, demonstrated perfectly what he'd been trying to explain about Herrentag.
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Coaching for Expats: How to Be Rude
Ah, the subject of rudeness in Germany. Where to begin?
Let's begin this way: My British friend John noted, after my recent return from a week in Wales, that I always seem to come back from a trip to the UK sighing about how nice people are to each other there – and feeling even more frustrated than usual by how rude people are to each other here in Berlin.
To be fair, this is not exactly a German phenomenon, or at least not only that. There are even parts of Germany known for being more friendly (like the Rhineland – a German friend once complained that she doesn't like Rhinelanders because they're "superficial," which is the same complaint Germans often level at Americans for our baffling habit of always being friendly to each other in public).
My personal theory is that Berlin's rudeness stems from some combination of these three factors:
1) Germans' natural bluntness – saying exactly what you mean is just what you do here.
2) Big-city brusqueness – people in big cities everywhere get used to brushing past and ignoring each other, it's an inevitable part of living where you rub shoulders with so many people all the time.
2a) This is possibly exacerbated by the weather – people pushing past each other in the subway during the long, dark, drab winters here always seem so angry.
3) Berliner Schnauze.
"Berliner Schnauze" (literally "Berlin snout") is the nickname for Berliners' well-known regional dialect, which comes together with a certain sharp, tough sense of humor. The typical Berliner can seem almost shockingly rude on first contact, but over time, even over the course of a single conversation, often turns out to be quite helpful and kind – but all delivered up in this very brusque, direct manner.
The problem with the Berliner Schnauze, to me, is that requires a very specific kind of quick-wittedness. The idea seems to be that when someone – the person behind the counter at the bakery, say – snaps something impatient and brusque at you, you fire back just as fast with a witty rebuttal – transforming the exchange from being rude at each other to being smart and funny at each other. (Not that it always happens that way – sometimes people really are just rude and impatient, always trying to save a few seconds by cutting in front of someone else – but if it's two Berliners interacting, there's at least the potential that they'll find a way to get an odd sort of fun out of it.)
But some of us, who are not native Berliners, aren't naturally fast and funny, at least not in that way. I don't have that knack for a snappy comeback. So when people are rude to me, I do experience it as rudeness, not as an opportunity to see how witty I can be. And if you're from a culture where people approach each with at least a modicum of politeness, people being rude at you all the time gets really old fast!
Thus did I find myself a conversation around a friend's breakfast table a few weeks back, with two Americans, a Canadian, two Brits and a lone German discussing the matter of German (Berlin) rudeness.
All of us Anglophones agreed we just can't understand why on Earth anyone would want to go through life interacting angrily with people. It's a matter of only a few seconds to smile and say something pleasant instead of glaring or snapping, and it makes all the difference between, say, leaving the bakery with a smile on my face and leaving the bakery feeling angry at the world.
Why, we Anglophones lamented, would anyone deliberately choose the latter?
And the one German at the table kept saying, Oh, but it's not a big deal! And it's funny when they snap at you!
Thus was born the tongue-in-cheek suggestion that, in this world where there are "coaches" and "trainers" and "consultants" for everything, Germany ought to offer coaching sessions for expats – coaching on how to be rude.
Let's begin this way: My British friend John noted, after my recent return from a week in Wales, that I always seem to come back from a trip to the UK sighing about how nice people are to each other there – and feeling even more frustrated than usual by how rude people are to each other here in Berlin.
To be fair, this is not exactly a German phenomenon, or at least not only that. There are even parts of Germany known for being more friendly (like the Rhineland – a German friend once complained that she doesn't like Rhinelanders because they're "superficial," which is the same complaint Germans often level at Americans for our baffling habit of always being friendly to each other in public).
My personal theory is that Berlin's rudeness stems from some combination of these three factors:
1) Germans' natural bluntness – saying exactly what you mean is just what you do here.
2) Big-city brusqueness – people in big cities everywhere get used to brushing past and ignoring each other, it's an inevitable part of living where you rub shoulders with so many people all the time.
2a) This is possibly exacerbated by the weather – people pushing past each other in the subway during the long, dark, drab winters here always seem so angry.
3) Berliner Schnauze.
"Berliner Schnauze" (literally "Berlin snout") is the nickname for Berliners' well-known regional dialect, which comes together with a certain sharp, tough sense of humor. The typical Berliner can seem almost shockingly rude on first contact, but over time, even over the course of a single conversation, often turns out to be quite helpful and kind – but all delivered up in this very brusque, direct manner.
The problem with the Berliner Schnauze, to me, is that requires a very specific kind of quick-wittedness. The idea seems to be that when someone – the person behind the counter at the bakery, say – snaps something impatient and brusque at you, you fire back just as fast with a witty rebuttal – transforming the exchange from being rude at each other to being smart and funny at each other. (Not that it always happens that way – sometimes people really are just rude and impatient, always trying to save a few seconds by cutting in front of someone else – but if it's two Berliners interacting, there's at least the potential that they'll find a way to get an odd sort of fun out of it.)
But some of us, who are not native Berliners, aren't naturally fast and funny, at least not in that way. I don't have that knack for a snappy comeback. So when people are rude to me, I do experience it as rudeness, not as an opportunity to see how witty I can be. And if you're from a culture where people approach each with at least a modicum of politeness, people being rude at you all the time gets really old fast!
Thus did I find myself a conversation around a friend's breakfast table a few weeks back, with two Americans, a Canadian, two Brits and a lone German discussing the matter of German (Berlin) rudeness.
All of us Anglophones agreed we just can't understand why on Earth anyone would want to go through life interacting angrily with people. It's a matter of only a few seconds to smile and say something pleasant instead of glaring or snapping, and it makes all the difference between, say, leaving the bakery with a smile on my face and leaving the bakery feeling angry at the world.
Why, we Anglophones lamented, would anyone deliberately choose the latter?
And the one German at the table kept saying, Oh, but it's not a big deal! And it's funny when they snap at you!
Thus was born the tongue-in-cheek suggestion that, in this world where there are "coaches" and "trainers" and "consultants" for everything, Germany ought to offer coaching sessions for expats – coaching on how to be rude.
Thinking British Thoughts
Ah, sorry for silence, folks. In addition to just generally being busy and overwhelmed, I had my old laptop - that electronic beast that rules my life - suddenly die on me and spent weeks trying to run all of my life from my tiny travel netbook.
But! Here are a couple scattered thoughts left from my trip to Wales.
Something small, pointless, but ticklish to my language brain, realized while in the UK this time:
The British send each other "post" (not "mail") that's delivered to them by the Royal Mail. In the US we send each other "mail" via the US Postal Service. Why? Could we maybe just switch?
Also, one day, on a narrow path during our week of hiking in Wales, I accidentally bumped into Peter (the only Brit among our group, from Scotland) and he apologized to me.
Folks, that stuff they tell you about the British is actually true!
(This book is apparently quite a fun read on the subject of all those typically British/English things the British/English do, though I haven't read it myself; one of the experiments that the author – a social anthropologist – conducts is that she goes around intentionally bumping into people, just to see how many of the bump-ees she can get to apologize to her, instead of the other way around. My favorite Brit-living travel blogger reviews the book here, which is how I know about it.)
And that (an anecdote of British politeness) segues well into some thoughts about German, er, rudeness, but I'll make that a separate post.
But! Here are a couple scattered thoughts left from my trip to Wales.
Something small, pointless, but ticklish to my language brain, realized while in the UK this time:
The British send each other "post" (not "mail") that's delivered to them by the Royal Mail. In the US we send each other "mail" via the US Postal Service. Why? Could we maybe just switch?
Also, one day, on a narrow path during our week of hiking in Wales, I accidentally bumped into Peter (the only Brit among our group, from Scotland) and he apologized to me.
Folks, that stuff they tell you about the British is actually true!
(This book is apparently quite a fun read on the subject of all those typically British/English things the British/English do, though I haven't read it myself; one of the experiments that the author – a social anthropologist – conducts is that she goes around intentionally bumping into people, just to see how many of the bump-ees she can get to apologize to her, instead of the other way around. My favorite Brit-living travel blogger reviews the book here, which is how I know about it.)
And that (an anecdote of British politeness) segues well into some thoughts about German, er, rudeness, but I'll make that a separate post.
Herrentag
Happy Herrentag!
For reasons I still haven't puzzled out – after six years here and counting – the Christian holiday of Christi Himmelfahrt (Ascension Day, which is apparently the celebration of Jesus' physical ascension to heaven, but I'm pretty sure it's not as major a holiday in the US as in Europe, since I'd never heard of it before Germany...?) somehow transmogrified here in Germany and is now also Vatertag (Father's Day) or Herrentag (Men's Day) ...a day men use as an excuse for getting crashingly drunk all day, often by dragging a child-sized wagon packed full of beer with them on a ramble through the countryside.
Can't for the life of me see what ascension to heaven has to do with drinking a lot of beer, but there's probably a commentary on German culture in there somewhere...
Here's a picture, from five years ago, when my friend Anton and I went on a bike ride in the countryside outside Berlin on what happened to also be Herrentag. These chaps we met near the train station in the town of Brandenburg an der Havel were very much in the spirit of things!
And because this is Germany, we then saw the top-hatted gents ride off on their bikes:
For reasons I still haven't puzzled out – after six years here and counting – the Christian holiday of Christi Himmelfahrt (Ascension Day, which is apparently the celebration of Jesus' physical ascension to heaven, but I'm pretty sure it's not as major a holiday in the US as in Europe, since I'd never heard of it before Germany...?) somehow transmogrified here in Germany and is now also Vatertag (Father's Day) or Herrentag (Men's Day) ...a day men use as an excuse for getting crashingly drunk all day, often by dragging a child-sized wagon packed full of beer with them on a ramble through the countryside.
Can't for the life of me see what ascension to heaven has to do with drinking a lot of beer, but there's probably a commentary on German culture in there somewhere...
Here's a picture, from five years ago, when my friend Anton and I went on a bike ride in the countryside outside Berlin on what happened to also be Herrentag. These chaps we met near the train station in the town of Brandenburg an der Havel were very much in the spirit of things!
And because this is Germany, we then saw the top-hatted gents ride off on their bikes:
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