Berlin (notes for writers)

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Apollo Sports Club/Glengarry Glen Ross

This is a post which will be of no interest to most readers; it affects only those who may happen to be in Berlin, and may happen to be looking for a gym.  I'm sorry to bore everyone else, but I feel I must warn anyone who is contemplating a membership with the Apollo Sports Club in Haupstraße, who are proving very bad to deal with.

I've dealt with Apollo Sports club for several years, and in the past have found them exceptionally helpful, friendly, and accommodating. Back in 2009 I had to go to the States at short notice to take care of my mother; I asked Apollo if I could defer the remaining months of my membership until my return and they very kindly agreed.  If anyone had asked me I would have recommended them without hesitation.

Now, I would certainly not have assumed I could do this any time I chose.  My last membership had lapsed when I went to the States in 2012. When I went back to Berlin in February I expected to be there only a few months before spending some months in Vermont, I didn't know how many. I did NOT think I could take out a long-term membership and take sabbaticals any time I liked. The sensible plan seemed to be to take out a membership for a few months and then extend month by month if necessary.

I went in to sort this out, and everybody was just as friendly and welcoming and apparently anxious to help as they had been in the past.  But there was something I hadn't allowed for.

Apollo has made very extensive upgrades to its equipment. This has no doubt cost them a lot of money, and has made them anxious to recoup the investment. 

The stalker came again and rang the bell at the house door for a long time. I sat silently at my desk in case someone let him in and he came to the apartment door.  Someone asked him what he wanted from a window; I heard him explaining; they didn't buzz him in.  He went back to ringing the doorbell. After a while he stopped. I assume he has gone away. I do need to leave Berlin.

It seems to me that life would be impossible if one went around anxiously wondering whether it was safe to let people know where one lived, but this is pretty tiring.

Berlin stories

Anna Winger is launching a one-hour programme of Berlin Stories for NPR; the first episode aired yesterday.  I was one of the people she interviewed for this; the link is here.

I heard excerpts of the programme at a launch party last week; would not have recognized my own voice if I had heard this out of context.  I don't mean that I disliked it (people often do dislike the sound of their recorded voice); I wouldn't have known this was me.

God is good

The years go by.  One goes on a daily basis to the supermarket.  One comes home with a one cent coin, a two cent coin; one rarely remembers to put these coins back into play on trips to the supermarket.  The coins accumulate in the home.

One, well, I try from time to time to spend them.  I collect, as it might be, one euro in 2-cent pieces, go to the newsagent, and am told off.  He won't take them; his bank will charge for depositing them; I must take them to the bank myself.

I go to a bank and am told they will not accept these coins unless I am a customer of the bank.  Do I have an account with another bank?  Yes, the Postbank.  Well, I must go to the Postbank.

Weeks go by.  I have 6 euros in small change: 3.70 in 2-cent pieces, 2.15 in 1-cent pieces, 15 cents to make up an even 6 in 5-cent pieces.

I go to the nearest Deutsche Post and ask if they can give me the paper rolls.  The woman at the counter says gaily (in German, but I give you the gist):

Oh, you don't need to do that, we have a machine! You can just bring it all in and fill out this paying-in form!

Great!

I'm not sure whether I can put everything in one container, or whether the coins need to be separated by denomination; to be on the safe side I separate the ones and twos.  I label the bags. I fill out the form. I return to this helpful branch of the Deutsche Post.

Where a different woman explains that the machine is kaputt.  And HAS been kaputt for four weeks. I need to roll up the coins. 

OK, I say, can you give me the Rollen?  (Not sure if this is the technical term.) 

She brings out a sheaf of papers, or rather two sheaves (is this really English usage?), one for 1 cent coins, one for 2.  These are not rolls into which coins can be dropped, these are small romboidal sheets of paper into which the coins must be rolled. 

I try to roll a couple. I am not adept.

I have a brilliant idea!

I can take the coins to a different branch, one where the machine is not kaputt!

I go to the branch where I have my PO box and am told they don't have the machine, the coins need to be rolled.

I go to the big branch in Haupstraße and am told THEY don't have the machine, the coins need to be rolled.

I am tired.  I am very very very very tired.

It IS petty.  Ezra Klein is not bogged down in these petty details.  The US just narrowly raised the debt ceiling; S&P has downgraded its rating, generating much of interest on the difference between S&P and Moody's.  The troubled Eurozone (Greece! But it's not so much Greece, what if Portugal, Italy, Spain?????) has markets in turmoil. (Or possibly not turmoil, maybe they're just worryingly going down, but meanwhile we at paperpools have 6 euros in small change which nobody wants.)

I go to Restaurant Toronto, just up the street, in my old neighborhood, Crellekiez.

Not without qualms.  Last time I came to the Toronto the waitress said the Stalker kept coming by and asking for me.  But I like the Toronto, so sod it.

(Does Ezra Klein have a stalker? Punk rock musician from Moscow? I'm guessing not.)

SO.

I'm sitting at an outside table at the Toronto.  My laptop is out, I'm online, I have a glass of Riesling.

A guy comes by selling a street magazine, and he also says, as they do, Kleine Spende?

Meaning, even if you don't want to buy the paper, maybe you could spare some small change.

I first dig out a coin, 50 cents.  Then I have an idea.

I say, Er, Moment.  Moment.  Ich weiß nicht (I don't know), ich bin nicht begabt (I don't have the knack), vielleicht sind Sie begabt (maybe you have the knack).

I root around in my three bags (handbag, laptop bag, gym bag) and haul out these bags of 1- and 2-cent coins, WITH the rolling papers provided by Deutsche Post.  I explain haltingly that I have tried many times to hand them in, without success; perhaps HE will know what to do, but if not I perfectly understand.

There is a moment of confusion; he is not sure what is on offer, whether he is being asked to roll up the coins for me.  A man at the adjacent table explains, no, he is not being asked to give them back, if he wants he can take them away.

We then exchange thanks many times.  He is happy to take away these bags of coins, I am happy that 215 1-cent coins and 185 2-cent coins are now HIS.  (Yes. He did not get the full Monty. The 3 5-cent coins are at the bottom of one of the bags.)

There is some sort of moral, if you want a moral.  Most of the things I need done for me as a writer are little 1-cent 2-cent jobs. If I have to do them all myself there is never a clear block of time for writing.
But I can't pay someone 6 euros to do 215 1-cent jobs, 185 2-cent jobs, and 3 5-cent jobs. Not only can I not pay 6 euros for this service, there is NO amount of money I can pay to get 403 microjobs taken care of.

Which is too bad, but somebody asked for small change and got 6.35 (5.85 in 1- and 2-cent coints, 50 cents before I had the brilliant idea of ridding myself of the copper).

There is much more of interest here. I would describe this as a major, still uninternalized lesson of the recent crisis, with its roller coaster-rapid dips. In a highly specialized modern economy, it is much easier to prevent jobs from being destroyed than to create them again, at least assuming those are "good" jobs in the first place. (Yes, people thought they knew this but it's an even stronger difference than had been believed.) The U.S. auto bailout, for instance, worked better than did most of the stimulus program.

Tyler Cowen on Nicholas Kulish at the NYT, on recent German economic success and expansion of a program to keep workers employed, rather than dealing with them once they'd lost their jobs

It's 2.29 am. My landlady is out in the street meowing loudly to call her cat home. MEOOOW. MRROOOWWW. MEEEEOOOOWWWW.

I got a text message last night from Jeff Treviño, a musician living in Berlin, suggesting I meet him and a friend at Nollendorfplatz. Tired, depressed, in no mood to go out and talk to people but what good is sitting alone in your room. Went over to Nplatz. Found JT and David Levinson standing outside the U-Bahn. We went down to Winterfeldplatz in search of a place with no zuzuvelas.

Talked at breakneck speed to DL while JT explained that this was the first time he had been out with me that people at a nearby table had not moved away. DL enlightening on terrifying biz and just generally very very funny. We went off to Bilderbücher for coffee. DL said I talked like David Mamet (or possibly a Mamet character) - either way, this had to be the nicest thing anyone has said to me ever.

JT told a story about playing Webern's Variations for Piano Op. 27 for an audience which turned out to include Charles Rosen. At the end there was a Q&A at which Rosen raised his hand and said, first, that he liked JT's performance better than any he had heard, including that of Peter Stadlen.
Rosen then said JT was playing a dotted 16th note (I think) too long.

Went home happy, excited, full of energy.

wha-?

The Schöneberger Kiez is not the prettiest part of Berlin. In fact, you could say it's downright ugly. The streets are full of betting shops, all-night Köfte joints and Döner Kebab restaurants. On Kurfürstenstraße, prostitutes ply their trade day and night. Sex shops stand next to pawnshops. Outside the Turkish supermarkets, hawkers sing the praises of their produce: "Strawberries, strawberries, €1. Tasty, tasty strawberries. Ladies and gentlemen, only €1." This is the Schöneberg 'ghetto'. And right in the thick of it, on Potsdamer Straße near Bülowstraße, is IsiGym Boxsport Berlin, one of the city's most famous boxing clubs - the hangout of such renowned pros as Oktay Urkal and Cengiz Koç, and the breeding ground for a new generation of Berlin boxers.

[Robert Rigney, Exberliner, English-language magazine, not online]

Um.

PP is currently camping out at Steinmetzstraße 3, in the heart (we now learn) of the Schöneberg ghetto. We are HERE:


Um. Who writes these things, anyway?

Look. Unusually for Berlin, there are stores open 24 hours, or close to. Just around the corner, on Potsdamer Straße, is a huge (shock horror) Turkish grocery store with fruit and veg piled high on the pavement which is open (shock horror) 24 hours except on Sunday. The produce is not, admittedly, as beautiful as the fruit and veg you would find on display in Paris - but that, sadly, is Berlin. Inside are (apart from the usual grocery store offerings) 20 varieties of olive, 10 of feta, stuffed vine leaves, stuffed artichoke hearts, humus, pureed avocado, all sorts of delicacies. Outside, yes, the horror, the horror, men offering sliced watermelon and such at a knockdown price.

And yes, other places are open 24 hours or close to. Places selling, shock horror, döner kebab. Pastries. Chinese takeaway.

At 2am, if you go out for Chinese noodles, a girl in shorts and thigh-high boots may be in the queue. At other times of day, if you go under the elevated rail of the U2, a girl in shorts and boots may be standing by the road. Ye-es.

It's also maybe 5 minutes by bus up to Potsdamerplatz, with the Staatsbibliothek, the Philharmonie, the Neuenationalgalerie, the Sony Center, the Arsenal (Institute for Film and Video Art).

Now, it's not much like my mother's old neighbourhood in Chevy Chase; no. It's also not much like her new place in Leisure World. But, um, a ghetto? Or even 'ghetto'? Äaaaahmmmm...

café life

I've been in Berlin for four years, and I still don't really get the tipping system. My friend Ingrid explained a while back that it is not based on a percentage; one rounds up. A teacher in a language school explained, though, that the size of an appropriate tip had changed with the introduction of the Euro; you can't leave a .30 tip. He always left 1 Euro for anything up to 10 Euros - i.e., even if he had only had a cappuccino for 2.10 he would still leave a Euro.

I thought I was on solid ground, so after this class I always followed the 1-Euro-minimum-tip rule, under the impression that I was doing the right thing.

Since moving out of my old apartment into an apartment with no internet access, I've been spending more time in cafes with, ahem, internet access. (This is not as illogical as it sounds; I have spent many, many hours in the new apartment cut off, working, which would probably have been frittered away online in my old apartment. Unfortunately when I don't check e-mails at all things go horribly wrong, so it is not possible to be a hermit. Yet.) The result being that my tipping skills have been sorely tested.

A couple of places I've been going to often are the Cafe Toronto and the Cafe Kleisther. Both are terrific, and the staff are unbelievably nice. At times I would find myself in long-drawn-out e-mail correspondences, tackling problems with noise and an unreported chimney explosion in the old apartment. I would then tear myself away and go home, paying, of course, first. And after a while, scarily, I would find staff declining to take the tip. (New Yorkers. Yes. It's a different world.)

The system here is that you ask to pay, are told what you owe, and announce the amount you want to pay (including the tip); they give you change on whatever you hand over. So I would declare something or other that incorporated the (as I thought) approved 1-Euro tip, and it was felt to be inappropriate; the waiter would simply give change which incorporated a tip considered to be more in line with the drink. Once (this was at the Toronto) the waitress flatly refused to take any tip at all. (I think, maybe, because I had been spending so much time there? The third tip of the day was a tip too far?)

Time goes by. I turn up at a cafe about half an hour before closing and order a glass of wine. I drink my glass of wine and make time-to-pay gestures. The waiter says: Ich lade Sie ein. (Roughly, our treat.) Feeling bad, I think, because making me feel rushed? (New Yorkers. Yes. It's a different world.)

It's both disarming and stressful. Thing is, I spend a lot of time wandering absentmindedly through the world while one book or another goes through my head; it's like having an audiobook running in my head. So I'm not good at negotiating socially nuanced situations; it's easier if there's some hard-and-fast rule to follow, such that I can be sure of not inadvertently giving offence. The nicer people are, of course, the more anxious I am not to put a foot wrong. The worry is, I think I may sometimes overreact in the other direction and meanly undertip people who have gone out of their way to be helpful. (Naturally, nobody is going to demand a larger tip. Naturally, I can't go back and apologise... It's Goffman territory.)

I am now in the Neues Ufer. A woman came in with a beagle. I say hello to the beagle, who comes over. The woman tells me his name is Floyd, after her favourite band (Pink Floyd). She thought of normal dog names - Max, Fritz - and she didn't want that. I say I'm a writer. She says she loved Harry Potter but couldn't finish the fifth book; she got lost among all these Zauberer, what's the word? Magicians. She tells her boyfriend I'm American, but I don't have an American accent because I lived in London. Floyd falls asleep at my feet.

I am a doughnut, oder?

There's a post on the NY Times book blog, Paper Cuts, about Kennedy's famous speech and alleged howler, including a YouTube clip of Kennedy giving the speech. Steve Coates talks to Michael Jennings, Professor of German at Princeton, asking whether 'Ich bin ein Berliner' really does mean 'I am a doughnut.' (Jennings argues that it could in fact be a more nuanced way of stating one's affiliation with Berlin - 'Ich bin Berliner' meaning 'I'm a native of Berlin,' 'Ich bin ein Berliner' indicating more recent arrival.) Somewhat oddly, Coates keeps asking whether it's ungrammatical. I think even those who think it means 'I am a doughnut' have never claimed it was ungrammatical; 'I'd love to be an Oscar Meyer Wiener' is perfectly grammatical, but it would be an odd thing to say to underline, as it might be, solidarity with the US against al-Qaedah.
Whatever the sentence may be able to mean, anyway, it is as an assertion of doughnuthood that it is remembered, loved and recycled by local advertising agencies, a source of comfort to the linguistically-challenged Berlinerin.