Log of a trip to Berlin and London, February 13 to March 1, 2009

In an effort to maintain our standing as one of the world's most avaricious and only occasionally discriminating consumers of "cultural signs," as Baudrillard might have termed it, I hereby offer this modest catalogue of such consumption during our European tour. We arrived in Berlin late in the evening on February 12, whereupon our major activities proceeded as follows:

February 13: Rest and recuperation. Visited Max Hetzler Galerie (Jesus Rafael Soto - magnificent abstraction/op art wall pieces from the 1940's and '50's) and Klosterfelde Galerie (stunning floor sculpture by Tobias Buche, one of our artists) in the afternoon.

February 14: Saturday evening and a 6 p.m. opening show at Gitti Nourbakhsch Galerie curated by Matthew Higgs, a friend formerly at CCA in SF, who runs the White Columns art space in Greenwich Village, of art made at the Creative Growth Center in Oakland by developmentally challenged individuals. The tour Matthew gave us verged on the emotional, as one could understand how significant art can be made by persons on a different place in the spectrum of human talents.

February 15: Holy Communion at St. George's Anglican Church near the Neu Westend U-Bahn station on the west side of Berlin. Superb service as usual. Followed by hot chocolate and a pastry at the nearby Wiener Cafe, decorated in deep reds, leather, blonde woods and chrome, a refuge for those with a sweet tooth and a bent for whipped cream Vienna style. Then, a subway ride to the Buelowstrasse U-Bahn station for an opening and brunch at the Nolan-Judin Galerie, built as a conversion of an old service station and an adjacent apartment. The owner is a master chef, and the gallery is equipped with an extraordinary modern kitchen. The brunch prepared by Her Judin was delicious and the art was bad but the people-watching was excellent - lots of hip, aging arty types in svelte black with babies and small children. We had not been invited to the brunch, but in Germany anyone is admitted to anything if one looks and is dressed right. Class has its privileges. The evening was capped off with a delicious dinner at Borchardt, our favorite restaurant. The day before the suave, Polish maitre 'd, Sebastian (no this is not an oxymoron), who knows us well, had refused us a last-minute Saturday evening reservation because that was the last day of the Berlinale, the annual Berlin film festival, and the whole restaurant was dedicated to the legions of elite film persona and glamor world that were expected to, and did, gather for farewell libations and people-watching. To make up for it, Sebastian graced us with a grappa for Dare and a Courvoisier for me on the house at the end of our dinner. We forgave him for his lapse of the day before.

February 16: A stunning performance by the Arcanta Quartet at the small salon of the Berlin Philharmonic concert hall. For an account of this extraordinary performance, go to this link: http://niledelta.blogspot.com/2009/02/bartoks-fifth-string-quartet.html

February 17: A performance of Rossini's "Barber of Seville" at the nearby Staats Oper. Predictable good fun with fantastic stage settings and props, and very smooth comic acting by the cast. The sight gags were amazing. Followed by cocktails (Dare had a syrupy Mojito, and I had a wonderful girl's drink, a blackberry dacquiri) at one of the smartest bars in Berlin and probably all of Europe at the Hotel de Rome.

February 18: A lazy day, punctuated by visits to two art galleries, neugerriemschneider for a showing of brilliant minimal and difficult color photos made by Sharon Lockhart, an acquaintance over the years originally from Los Angeles, documenting the sad and slow closing of a naval shipyard on the Maine coast, and Capitain-Petzel of new and innovative paintings by now New York based Charline von Heyl, a woman we have known slightly for twenty years who is a great-granddaughter of Bismarck and is married to Christopher Wool. All of this entailed scuffling through snow and ice on the streets left over from an earlier snow. The gallerists, Messrs. Neuger, Riemschneider and Petzel and Frau Capitain, have been friends for more than 15 years. Time flies when you're having fun.

February 19: Up at 4:45 a.m. for dress, taxi ride to Schoenefeld Airport and a 7 a.m. EasyJet flight to London Gatwick. Then the Gatwick Express to VIctoria Station and a taxi ride to the edge of the Bloomsbury area, in this case Tavistock Square. The Tavistock Hotel turned out to be quite reasonable for the low price of about $125 per night. We soon found, however, that this was a school holiday week, and we were soon inundated by seemingly 20,000 high school students, mostly from Spain, where teen-agers apparently aren't any quieter than teen-agers from any other country. After a couple of small pastries from an undistinguished Iranian run coffee house around the corner, we struck out for the British Museum about 500 yards away through Russell Square (I think Bertrand Russell was of the family after whom the Square and Hotel are named). There we toured the fourth in a series of shows revolving around significant political and cultural leaders throughout history, most of whom at a glance turned out to be rather grim, authoritarian figures, in this case the redoubtable Shah Abbas, more or less the founder or consolidator of the Iranian Shi'a and Iran as we know it today contemporaneously with the reign of Elizabeth I and Philip II. This no doubt explains the Iranian nuclear development program. There were few artifacts, some rugs and miniatures (budget constraints are becoming evident in all European art exhibitions as that wonderful font of plenty, state backing, inevitably shrivels) and lots of narrative supporting the Shah's importance. A good show, but much less ambitious and smaller than such a show would have been five years ago. Dinner was in a neighborhood Italian restaurant recommended by one of the illiterate concierges at the hotel.

February 20: The day was dedicated to the Royal Academy. In the morning we toured the highly touted Byzantium, 330 to 1453 A.D. A number of superb icons, reliquaries, gospel covers, in ivory and gold, culminating in a treat of icons from St. Catherine's Monastery at Mount Sinai. We had visited St. Catherine's last February, but our time in the icon gallery there had been limited. The show was troublesome, however, because the labels carried almost no information, and that that was given was often useless unless the viewer knew Greek or the art beforehand - although perhaps the acoustiguide which we disdained carried more data. For example, icons were labeled as being depictions of the "koimesis" or a "deisis" of the Virgin Mary, without any clue that the former meant the dormition of Mary (i.e., her falling asleep, since the Orthodox theologians could not let her die because of complications that would have caused given the resurrection and ascension of Christ and pressures from wealthy women in Constantinople for equal treatment of Mary as a female with Jesus - in case you thought feminism is a recent phenomenon) or Mary in prayer in the second case. In general, we thought the show was dumbed-down, whether in consideration of an ill-educated public or because we are now in an era of badly educated curators. Two different labels spelled "koimesis" differently. Disappointing for connoisseurs or pretender-connoisseurs. Partially to make up for that bland curatorial performance, the Academy had mounted a mouth-watering treat, a showing of the plans and model of works by the sixteenth century architect, Palladio. His contributions to buildings in Venice and the Veneto are legendary, and were privileged with a look into the mind of this undoubted genius. We then walked all the way to Hyde Park and along the Serpentine until we reached the Serpentine Gallery. There we saw a very good show of contemporary art from India called "Indian Highway." It's my observation that the Indians absorb Western contemporary art techniques better than the Chinese and to better effect. The art was much more comprehensible than a similar Chinese exhibition might have been. Still walking, we came to the wonderful and frumpy Victoria & Albert Museum. There I was treated to an exhibition in the fashion section that displayed the costumes worn by the courtiers in the courts of the Tsars from 1732 until the coronation of the last Tsar, Nicholas II, in 1894. The costumes were elegantly perfect for officers who probably never suffered shots fired at them in anger. I decided that I was born in the wrong era and into a much too low class. After surviving the sardine crush in the Underground from Kensington Square to Russell Square, we had our dinner in a small Italian restaurant around the corner from the nearby Bloomsbury Park Hotel that we had visited on a previous trip. The food was good, but the owner was a bit condescending, showing the inherent Italian superiority more than might have been expected. Too many years in a deteriorating London, I imagine.

February 21: Saturday in London with brilliant sunshine, blue skies and temperatures in the mid-fifties. No intention of any museum shows this morning, so weighed anchor for something dimly described as "East London," which turned out to be the area of Bethnal Green and which is home to a number of less pretentious, "young" galleries. We wanted to see SF's own Mitzi Pedersen at the Approach, but that show was already down. We saw a very talented young Danish painter at Vilma Gold, a gallery owned by an young English woman, Rachel Williams, who wanted a more important sounding name, Thomas Hylander. Bears watching. Then a talented young German woman artist who started as something of a fashion designer - fashions that would never make a Paris or Milano show - and now does artworks out of fabric and readymade clothing, Alexandra Bircken. She once was photographed almost nude by Wolfgang Tillmans in an early Tillmans signature photo. Good stuff but out of our price range by a bit. At that point Dare and I split, and went shopping on Carnaby Street and later Saville Row. I had seen the first miniskirts there in 1967, on my first business trip for Teledyne to London to sell airborne navigation systems to British Aircraft. British Aircraft is gone,but Carnaby Street thrives. All the fashionable shops for the young are on that street, but it is afflicted with that "sameness" that plagues all present-day upper-end shopping centers from one city to another. Dinner that evening was back in Mayfair in a small enclave of shops of Curzon Street called Shepherd's Square in a tiny Indian Tandoori restaurant. Good but not great. We had no clue what to order and paid the price.

February 22: Sunday morning but no church. We had made a reservation and bought our tickets for the London version of what had been a much larger and better researched and displayed show in Berlin last fall called "Babylon: Myth and Reality." The tour was at 10:10 a.m., and sorry to say it was small and a bit on the slapdash side. We were beginning to think that, at least at the British Museum and the Royal Academy, some sort of dumbing-down process had set in. Painful. Not to worry, however. We took the Underground to Pimlico Station and walked the half mile to the Tate Britain on the Thames. There we were treated to a very good Tate Triennial of Contemporary Art that had a particularly cunning and brilliant piece by our guy, Simon Startling, and an astonishing show called "Van Dyke in England," which demonstrated how Van Dyke transformed British portrait painting from the first two decades of the Seventeenth Century through John Singer Sargent. Excellently curated. We then walked past the Parliament buildings and Westminster Abbey to Picadilly, pausing to admire the gardens and the Rodin "Burghers of Calais." The monuments of Empire were stunning, but brought with them a bit of sadness that the Britain we had been brought up to believe was indestructible had faded badly. DInner that evening in a good enough Cypriot taverna near the hotel. Great retsina.

February 23: Monday. Underground at St. Pauls' followed by coffee at that location of our favorite London coffee house chain, Caffe Nero. Then the nearly a mile walk down to the River and across the Millenium Bridge to the Tate Modern. We saw the excellent exhibition of the works of Rodchenko and Popova, from early painting through the renunciation of painting and all fine art to the final employment of art in the cause of design of goods for the people - construction of such goods, leading to the term "constructivism." First class exhibition in every respect. This was followed by a tube ride all the way to Knightsbridge, where we indulged in an hour and a half wandering through Herrod's (no sign of recession there) and lunch in the gourmet lunch section. Great people watching. Back to the hotel, taxi to Victoria Station, Gatwick Express and then a five hour wait for the flight back to Berlin. To bed finally at about one a.m., tired but pleased.

February 24: Loafed all day. Then in the evening betook ourselves to the Arsenal, a movie house in Potsdamer Platz, for a screening of what is technically known as a structural movie by Sharon Lockhart (see above) called "Pine Flat." "Structural" because there is no theme or plot, just six or seven single shots of five to eight minutes or so duration during which the camera stays on a single subject, such as a girl reading a book on a grassy knoll, a young boy sleeping on hot day in the grass or a boy waiting for a school bus that takes five minutes to come. The film literally forces your inner time clock to slow to the barely creeping pace of the film. Outside in the lobby of the theater, which resembles a below deck area of an aircraft carrier, there were posters advertising an impending lecture by the popular philosopher and critic, Slavoj Zizec and quoting Zizec to the effect that film is the most tyrannical of arts because it never gives you what you want, it gives you what it wants you to have. After viewing the very difficult, although obviously beautifully conceived and crafted Lockhart film, the answer is "yes." Unfortunately, the Arsenal was unable to show Sharon's film on the Maine shipyard closing that evening.

February 25: Nothing all day. Ash Wednesday service at St. George's at 7:30 that evening. The best service of the liturgical year after Good Friday.

February 26: Nothing of moment until an 8 p.m. concert in the small Chamber Music salon of the Philharmonic building called "Alla Turca." Six percussionists from the Berlin Philharmonic and a group of Turks calling themselves the Istanbul Oriental Ensemble. The six Germans began with a phenomenal performance of a 1941 John Cage piece, "3d Construction,"written for drum quartet. Sounded as fresh as yesterday. Then the Turks played a number of pieces that sounded like Aaron Copeland meets Asia Minor gypsy music. The musical abilities of the Turks was phenomenal, particularly on the tavlas. The Germans ended with a Russell Peck piece, "Lift-Off!" from 1966 for two drum trios playing together - but what an amazing ranges of tones emerged from those drums. The finale was a rousing Turkish piece, with the six German percussionists joining in half way through to create a barn burner. A great evening.

February 27: The full Philharmonic this time, conducted by a Swiss born in 1939, Heinz Holliger. No Simon Rattle. An all romantic program, with the first two pieces by one of the best of the immediately post-war German composers, Bernd Alois Zimmerman, and the second two by Schumann. Flawlessly played as usual. The Schumann First Symphony, entitled the Spring Symphony, was at times so free and innocent you wanted to cry. How on earth did that come about, and why play it now? To escape.

February 28: The iPhone went kablooey, but a nice guy in the Cyberport (chain) store around the corner downloaded new software and fixed it. What a combination - Apple and a German phone company, neither of whom would share a secret with their mothers. In the afternoon a real Berlin experience. Out to the Olympic Stadium to see the Berlin professional soccer team, Hertha BSC, play Moenchen Gladbach. The locals, to much cheering, singing and chanting won 2-1 and catapulted into first place in the German professional league - which isn't very good because the Germans are too tight to pay the best players. The crowd went and stayed nuts, all the way back to Berlin Mitte on the subway. We learned to cheer "Spitzreiter," which I translate as related to a cavalry term, namely, ride the point. In any event, it means we're number one in our language. We then rode underground for 40 minutes up to the working class section of Wedding and to the gallery of a good guy, Guido Baudach, and the opening of an excellent show of one of our "guys," Bjorn Dahlem. Bjorn did the pine tree radio receiver in my loft that received radio signals from the planet Saturn, the home of the goddess Melancholia, without whom reputedly no art creation would be possible. We had a beer with the young people while inspecting the new sculptures and generally had a good time. We were home at nine for a dinner in the apartment with a chicken dish purchased from the nearby Galerie Lafayette, the Berlin branch of the famous Paris store.

March 1: Breakfast a noon at our favorite coffee place, the Cafe Einstein on Unter den Linden, followed by a long winding walk all the way to Alexander Platz. Church services at the Marienkirche near Alexander Platz, a church that miraculous survived the WW II bombing. About 25 people. Solid, no frills worship and very satisfying. We capped that off by devouring a big bowl of Berlin style potato soup followed by a humongous Wiener Schnitzel at Lutter & Wegner, one of the best of the local wine and dining establishments (since 1811).

Proposed bicycle trip on the upper Danube in July, 2009

December 18, 2008

The following is an exchange between my friend, John W., an older gentleman about my age, and me regarding a proposed bicycle tour this summer in Germany:

Dear T.:

I am not a biker but of course willing to undertake whatever regimen is necessary to get myself in condition. It sounds easy enough as you describe it- "flat, scenic and not very expensive" --"on buke trails." Is "buke" something between bike and puke? The latter might be my forte if it gets too tough. But knowing you, T., you are not going to do that to yourself. And as long as we are bicycling down river, with the flow, how difficult can it be? My only reservation is the German language. Yes I know they all speak English and therefore no problem communicating. It is simply that the German language is anathema to me. It is World War II and many Nazi movies as a child. I have never owned a German auto or for that matter a Jap auto either. I suppose your Frankfurt friends would not consider bicycling in France where I feel at home. But don't think that Germany puts me off such that I wouldn't go. I would not forfeit yours and Dare's company for that reason. Just a suggestion. How long is the trip and when in July? I expect to walk in France in the Spring. I would like to coordinate. One more thing would you consider moving the trip to earlier in the year to get the benefit of the cooler weather and less people? I look forward to this. John W.

My answer:

Re the proposed bike trip on the upper Danube:

1. Don't worry; you won't puke or buke.
2. We are booked up earlier. The weather will be fine, and there won't be many people in July. The departure date won't be fixed for a couple of months. Stay loose.
3. You have many more Germain traits than pansy French traits. You will feel right at home in Germany with the Germans. They are far and away the best people in Europe, no matter how badly Hollywood slandered them.
4. Everyone speaks English. Furthermore, my German is at least as good as your French - which may not be saying much.
5. You will love our friends. Bodo the lawyer is on your wavelength politically. He is past president of the Harvard Law School Association of Europe.
6. Some exercises in advance will be required. Your legs are in good shape, but I'll bet your butt isn't. I can suggest simple exercises that will prevent your trip from being ruined by sore-butt-itis.
7. The trip will be one week. It starts in a town called Donauschwengen and ends in Ulm. You fill fly to Frankfurt. We will already be in Berlin. We can meet you in Frankfurt. Also, you can combine this with a few days in Berlin and stay with us if you wish.
8. You like beer, don't you?
9. One gauges the difficulty of a bike trip by the color of the hair of the riders coming the other way. If it's grey, the ride will not be a problem. You will see a majority of old folks coming the other way. You will rent a bike as part of the tour. You could even room with Bodo to keep the cost down.
10. Good news: Our German friends insist on wine for lunch. Bad news: They won't pay more than five or six Euros per bottle. We don't do wine, so cheap stuff from the supermarket tastes good to Dare and me. Germans of their immediate post-war generation can't bear to part with cash - another trait you have in common with them.
11. The highlight of the day is the lunch on a grassy knoll along the river or, if we're lucky, a public picnic table. Dare and Hannelore, the other lady, will take turns shopping every morning before we pull out. You will have to pay for one lunch, but the total cost usually comes in under 20 Euros, including wine, for six. You can't believe how good German cold cuts, pate', cheese, gerkins and rolls taste after a morning of biking.
12. Dare gets out of control occasionally and wants to bike at the point with the men. I try to restrain her because I think it's bad manners. She is the best athlete in the bunch, however.
13. The other guy, Ulrich (PhD in physics and ex executive) used to be a bike racer, and he can fix anything that goes wrong. He once changed my tire on the platform of the Venice train station.
14. This will change your life. You voted for "change," didn't you?

Sincerely, T.

Next comment/query from John later on December 18:

T.: Buttitis is a definite malady I hope to avoid. When do I do? But those leather pants? and Italian shirts? How about a padded seat? Something more than those dreadfully hard leather, self-flagellating, ball busting, excruciating, you know what I mean. Are these road bikes or mountain bikes? How many hours a day? I think I like the idea of wine at lunch, something to anthesitize my nerve endings. I know I am probably ahead of myself but is one's bag shipped ahead or must one carry it. I am definitely one who belieives in carrying the minimum and let some one else do the heavy lifting. Is this a large group effort or just us and your Frankfurt friends. Who makes the bookings and when, along the way or before we start? Etc., etc. John

My answer:

15. Padded seat won't do it. Pain is not caused by the seat but by flabby butt muscles.

16. No leather pants or Italian biking jerseys. Khaki shorts or touring shorts with real or faux chamois in the crotch and old tee shirts will do. You should get a helmet at home and bring it with you. Also, biking gloves are desirable, particularly since your hands are no doubt soft from all that walking. An old, comfy pair of running shoes will do also.

17. Light, easy to ride and steer touring bikes. Wide, but not too wide, tires.

18. We ride about five hours a day at moderate speeds, but with stops and lunch it stretches to about eight hours. Our friends find it hard to pass up a coffee or beer place, and they drink Radlers. You will be expected to drink at least one. It is about half beer and half Seven-Up and when drunk cold can hit the spot. The Germans have to have a pastry at about 4pm. I generally have ice cream. Dare and you will have mineral water.

19. A van picks up your bags in the morning and delivers them to the destination hotel/pension. You will have a saddlebag for your extra jacket or sweatshirt, your poncho (a must), water bottle. Breakfast is usually a big treat and is included in the price. Some tours include dinner and some do not.

20. There will be only six of us. Other people might be on the same tour and staying at the same hotels, and sometimes we ride with them.

21. Ulrich will make all the arrangements. The tour company makes the hotel reservations and rents the bikes. You should have some kind of brochure, maps and other info before you leave home. This will be a simple ride because we will largely follow the river. The bike paths should have a smooth surface and on a route like this are well marked.

22. If anything starts to hurt, crying is not allowed. Dare will give you a dirty look if she hears any whimpering.

Sincerely, T.