World of probability

My two-week visit to this brawling metropolis began here. Blog-wise, it ends on this page.

My last full day in Berlin was a satisfying one. For one thing, I competently used the S-Bahn to see the southern neighborhood of Treptow. Wow, sure is different down here.


I asked three people where the Soviet War Memorial was. Two couldn't tell me and one kept walking. The thing is monumentally large. Was it my imagining, or did their jaws tighten when I said the word “Soviet”? A lot of people’s grannies suffered badly, to say the least, at the hands of the Russian army. Anyway, I struck out ...

I did have success finding “Molecule Man.” When I saw a picture of this online several months ago, I thought that any city willing to plant this American artwork -- as tall as a football field is long -- in its principal waterway is a city I’d like to visit. It’s been here 10 years now. The artist, Jonathan Borosfsky, reminds us “that both people and molecules exist in a world of probability and that the aim of all creative and intellectual traditions is to find wholeness and unity within the world.” Right on, bong dude! It’s still pretty cool.



A Greek girl takes my picture, keen about keeping her distance.


Check out these ramshackle pubs, closed for the winter, along a sluice off the Spree. Industrial parks are all around. Scenes like this, the Tiergarten, and all the city's parks and outdoor cafes make me want to visit during the warmer months.


Two-to-one this poster is by Charles Burns. Nobody does creepy-cool better.


A prominent public artwork in south Berlin. Enlarge to get the whole effect.

Running into the Oberbaumbrucke, Berlin's most distinctive bridge, was a pleasant surprise. It was one of eight inner-city checkpoints after the Wall went up. Forty-six years ago, almost to the day, tens of thousands of West Berliners were allowed to cross here to visit their relatives in the East -- for a few cruelly brief hours. Naturally, no Easterners were allowed the same courtesy.


This guy is selling bratwurst from a propane-powered grill strapped to his front. Because it doesn't touch the ground, he's exempt from some licensing and fee requirements.


Before the evening's performance, I stop for a bratwurst of my own at the grand Gendarmenmarkt. I've had a dozen of these on this trip and never been disappointed. The mustard's always been good. The fries have been great everywhere, too. This is important.


The Gendarmenmarkt square is hijacked this time of year by a Christmas market. There are some 60 of these schlockfests across Berlin, yet this is the only one I'm aware of that charges an admission fee. I opt out on principle, aiming over the merriment to snap a shot of tonight's concert venue, the Konzerthaus. She's a beaut', perched high to make herself seem more removed from everyday life. It's a theme in the Mitte.


That's a caldron of bubbling kale in the foreground, with wurst floating around in it. Kale never looked so good.


I've got food on my mind, treating myself to a coneful of hot sugared hazelnuts before entering the concert hall. As you can see, I'm to the side of the orchestra, only about 20 feet away. When I saw tonight's program, including the complete songs from Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn, I knew I had to go. Its such a quintessentially Bohemian offering, I expect you have to travel to this part of Europe to to see it performed whole.



The hall is barn-shaped with lots of marble exposure, giving it not quite the acoustic qualities of the Staatsoper, Philharmonie, Kammermusiksaal or Komische. It doesn't help that our vocalists, Petra Lang and Hanno Muller-Brachmann, have their backs slightly toward me (my bad), their projections swallowed up in the distance. At the end of the first song in the cycle, Petra looks over at her colleague and smiles as if to say, "Loosen up, let's have some fun." Hanno will have none of it; he needs to concentrate.

I catch snippets that were later adapted into Mahler's symphonies. Hey, that's No. 2. Whoa, I'm listening to No. 4 now, and so forth. What a solid German orchestra this is, channeling all of Mahler's intense floweriness, his bubbling clarinet passages and fiery crescendos. Is it racist to say he's in their DNA? Having this poem/song cycle in your home would give it that 19th-century German folksiness that's so in style. :)


Never Boring Bruckner and his No. 1 follows. The symphony has a Saturday-morning-matinee appeal -- I can imagine it as a "Lassie" soundtrack in some stretches -- realization followed by consternation followed by determination followed by exultation. It's a timeless tableau, and Timmy always gets rescued from the mine. On the way out, I take a picture of yours truly, my cheap-ass Christmas card to you.


Maybe its just my molecules talking, but Berlin looks like a champ to me now. After 336 hours, its architectural incoherence, its mishmash of disconnected neighborhoods seem to tap me on the shoulder, asking me to take a closer look. Back in Prenzlauer Berg I sleep, feeling chased by the clock.

I wake up before the alarm, toss out my recyclables and head to Alexanderplatz to wait for the TXL bus to the airport. I think back to my first time in Ili's. The barman smiled and pointed to my tie. "You go to a funeral?"

"Opera."

He shrugged with unconcern. For some in Berlin, the Unter den Linden might as well be a canal on Mars.

The city's strangeness has not loosened for me. Like any big place it dwarfs the individual, provoking a range of cultural responses, here mostly youthful and pointed. More than once I wondered: Where are all the grown-ups?

Smack in front of me, the TV tower rises from Alexanderplatz, its sphere sparkling like a Christmas ornament. A snowflake stings one eye. I get on the bus.

The end