Random thoughts from Berlin

Random thoughts from street level observations on a dreary day in Berlin.

It’s the 29th anniversary of the murder of John Lennon. RAI Italian television has a retrospective. Even without translation, the story is universal. And the loss remains great.

Music still courses through the mind. Songs heard some time back, but not currently, seem to fill the void left by the quiet. Some Beatles, mostly melodic sounds from Roxy Music, Talking Heads, material from U2, Lou Reed, and even David Bowie have made it past the subconscious gates. The latter three primarily due to their Berlin based recordings from the 70’s, 80’s, and with U2, 1990. It’s a decent soundtrack, but needs an update with another screening of the Wenders classic ‘Wings of Desire.’

The muzak system in the hotel plays a rarely heard song back home, but a personal favorite with deep meaning. Springsteen’s ‘Secret Garden’ is a fave, but not for any anthemic like quality, but for it’s humanity, emotion, and depth. The Boss can bring it to the heart when he wants to. Great to butt this song up with ‘Red Headed Woman’ as part of a Springsteen ouvre. Each has it’s strengths.

Actually on the street, the sounds are more of silence and calm than what we expect from a major metro, one with almost 4 million people. It might be the languages. The harmony of alien tongues, allowing a non-speaker to move quickly past a conversation not understood. We seem to linger on conversations and dialogues we can follow. But when the language is foreign, it’s simpler to literally glide past, and avoid the awkwardness of not being able to communicate, or having to explain, and having to translate.

Italian, Vietnamese, plenty of German, some Russian, some Spanish, and I am sure some other languages as well that are too distant to even be understood. They all fall off the ears like rain on slate roof, while still providing a background, and a soundtrack, to the sounds of the city.

There are very few emergency vehicles racing about. Very few polizei, sirens blazing, hot to collar a suspect, or accost a disorderly person. In fact, very few visible police at all. Among the many contrasts with the United States, this has to be up there. Not a quarter hour goes by in a major US metro without hearing a siren’s wail, and seeing a cruiser race past. Over 48 hours in Berlin, there has been just one situation, and it seemed completely out of the ordinary to all the pedestrians compelled to stay out of the street for those moments when it passed by.

Behavior on the street similarly is distinct from that in the States. People just do not jaywalk here. Perhaps there’s good reason. It seems as though pedestrians are fair game in Berlin. While there are sidewalks, and crosswalks, and signs directly peds to walk or to not walk, there’s an inverted attitude towards peds from ours. This is a significant contradiction, as there is great German pride in being green, in being environmental, and in avoiding large cars, and significant driving. Yet if you take to the streets by foot, it’s you and your body weight against Hans’ Audi, Katerin’s Smart, or even Frederic’s Porsche. You can’t even categoriz the drivers by cars. You are just as likely to get run over by a grandmother in a Subaru Outback as a teen in a tuner, using American cars as the standard.

And bicycling is little different. I have a significant fondness for the two wheeled steel propulsion machine. Have logged thousands on a handful of rides. Even commute from time to time on one. But the way commuters used the dedicated lanes in Berlin you would think they were hustling to be on the autobahn. Forbid you err and cross into a bike lane, a folly easy enough done by shifting a few inches left or right while on any given street. The domino effect this could create is too great to fathom, let along document. The damage to your face, extremities and torso may well be significant. And you’ll be out of sync, and out of sorts, for days to come. So watch out for the mom coming up on your left, from behind, quietly pumping away, racing to get to her cubicle just off Friedrichstrasse, and to start her day.

Then there’s what’s hip, what’s cool, and what just passes. I can’t even begin to get started, but at least the old adage about sneakers being out in Europe is as outdated as that attitude. Which is a good thing for a recovering sneakerhead. And beer drinking, as to be expected, is a participatory sport in Berlin. It is widely practiced, starting with teenagers on trains, and including daytime workers in art galleries and studios, and tourists seeking a respite from a hard day’s viewing of art and other anomalies.

En route now to Leipzig, the ICE or inter-city train is super fast, and super quiet, both inside and out. Germans seem quiet, as though raising a voice will bring unwarranted attention. Don’t they know that’s the reason to talk aloud, to act out, to solicit perspective. Perhaps they do, and that’s why they don’t.

More tomorrow, I promise. Probably on hair dye, the German compulsion.