Berlin obviously brings out the best in you, Greg! BRILLIANT first paragraph that I read three times before moving on. Germany has done a good job of atoning for THAT S.O.B., but there is always more that can be done, and they seem to know it, even unto today when they hesitated to get involved in Ukraine. "Oh! War? No, thank you."
Berlin obviously brings out the best in you, Greg! BRILLIANT first paragraph that I read three times before moving on. Germany has done a good job of atoning for THAT S.O.B., but there is always more that can be done, and they seem to know it, even unto today when they hesitated to get involved in Ukraine. "Oh! War? No, thank you."
America's atonement will take much longer and have to be much deeper, and I fear, as another poster said, that I won't live to see even the beginning of it. Where, in the future, will a writer (or poet) go to bear witness to the "place where it started," and where lightning would never strike twice? New York City? Washington D.C.? Mar-a-Lago? Harrison, Arkansas? Who knows? There are many places where it could have been said to have started. Our BIGGEST problem is that we're still in it, and any moves now towards reconciliation with the world seem suspect. It will come -- it MUST -- but not soon. I think I'd rather be in Berlin too.
Thanks, Steve. I wonder what it is that makes certain places artistic and creative and others not so much. Switzerland, for example, made fun of by Orson Welles in The Third Man, and by Dalton Trumbo: "The only interesting thing than can happen in a Swiss hotel room is death by pillow suffocation," or somesuch. Berlin has it. NYC has it, although it's become so pricy that I wonder how long that will last. DC has it, too. Not Vegas. Not Mar a Lago. Would be interested to hear theories...
For the few international places I've been in my life, I'd say it's the people themselves that "make" the place artistic and/or creative. London has that, and I found that surprisingly, Paris did not. Parisiens were friendly enough, but I still felt like I was an invader in their city. Luckily, we only spent a day there on a Eurostar trip from London, and after the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, and the Louvre (yes, in ONE day -- I was much younger then), I really couldn't wait to get out. Rome has it. Florence has it in spades! Chicago USED to have it, and I fear will not get it back soon. I thought some of the things being said about Chicago were a little hyperbolic a few years ago, but Chicago has grown into it. Vegas struck me as a roiling cesspool of depression. LA has it, but they're up their own asses so often that the creativity gets stifled. It's the people and what they make of their location that matters. That's my theory, and I'm sticking to it!
Berlin obviously brings out the best in you, Greg! BRILLIANT first paragraph that I read three times before moving on. Germany has done a good job of atoning for THAT S.O.B., but there is always more that can be done, and they seem to know it, even unto today when they hesitated to get involved in Ukraine. "Oh! War? No, thank you."
America's atonement will take much longer and have to be much deeper, and I fear, as another poster said, that I won't live to see even the beginning of it. Where, in the future, will a writer (or poet) go to bear witness to the "place where it started," and where lightning would never strike twice? New York City? Washington D.C.? Mar-a-Lago? Harrison, Arkansas? Who knows? There are many places where it could have been said to have started. Our BIGGEST problem is that we're still in it, and any moves now towards reconciliation with the world seem suspect. It will come -- it MUST -- but not soon. I think I'd rather be in Berlin too.
Thanks, Steve. I wonder what it is that makes certain places artistic and creative and others not so much. Switzerland, for example, made fun of by Orson Welles in The Third Man, and by Dalton Trumbo: "The only interesting thing than can happen in a Swiss hotel room is death by pillow suffocation," or somesuch. Berlin has it. NYC has it, although it's become so pricy that I wonder how long that will last. DC has it, too. Not Vegas. Not Mar a Lago. Would be interested to hear theories...
For the few international places I've been in my life, I'd say it's the people themselves that "make" the place artistic and/or creative. London has that, and I found that surprisingly, Paris did not. Parisiens were friendly enough, but I still felt like I was an invader in their city. Luckily, we only spent a day there on a Eurostar trip from London, and after the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, and the Louvre (yes, in ONE day -- I was much younger then), I really couldn't wait to get out. Rome has it. Florence has it in spades! Chicago USED to have it, and I fear will not get it back soon. I thought some of the things being said about Chicago were a little hyperbolic a few years ago, but Chicago has grown into it. Vegas struck me as a roiling cesspool of depression. LA has it, but they're up their own asses so often that the creativity gets stifled. It's the people and what they make of their location that matters. That's my theory, and I'm sticking to it!
Thanks for the nod to DC, my birth place!