tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61875734380862990162024-02-18T18:32:48.107-08:00And Then You Leave HomeIvy Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02415828535892800698noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6187573438086299016.post-6130922382868312852012-10-02T10:53:00.001-07:002012-10-02T10:53:52.112-07:00Dusch Das vs. Douche bag One of the best parts of the German language is the verb to shower, duschen. Shower the noun is Dusche. This can definitely provide some comic relief when we hapless English speakers wander into the shower gel drug store aisle only to be confronted by a lavender scented product called DUSCH DAS. (Shower this) Hee hee hee . . . it says douche . . . har de har har. I secretly chuckled under my breath the day my very attractive young lady German teacher got frustrated with the leaky shower in her apartment and said, "Ich muss Dusche!!!" Ah, good times.<br />
After awhile, though, you stop thinking of douche bags whenever anybody says they have to shower, and it's just another word. What never occurred to me was the the Germans might be curious as to why people in American movies were always calling one another douche bags. But apparently they are. German and English share many cognates, and the Germans would have no reason to think that to douche in English would be all that different from duschen in German. Over a fun lunch of Goulash, potatoes, and Bavarian beer, I had this conversation (in English) with one of my European women friends:<br />
<br />
European Friend: Can I call somebody a douche bag, or is it an insult?<br />
<br />
Ivy: You can certainly call somebody a douche bag, but it is definitely an insult.<br />
<br />
EF: Oh ok, good to know. So, in English, it's an insult to call somebody a wash bag?<br />
<br />
I: Well, it's not really a wash bag. A douche is a completely unnecessary, and often medically harmful, vaginal cleansing product. Vaginas don't need to be cleaned with harsh, fragrant chemicals. Douches are bad, that's why it's an insult in English.<br />
<br />
EF: A what? Cleaning of what?<br />
<br />
I: It's a sexist pre-sexual revolution thing. Women were taught that their bodies were dirty, so they had to scrub their vaginas with special cleansers to make them more appealing to their husbands. But, of course, douches caused all sorts of other medical problems.<br />
<br />
EF: (with her hand in front of her face and her head turned away) I'm going to need a minute.<br />
<br />
<br />
A few hours later, I emailed her the vagina douche page from the CVS website. I am happy to report that we are still friends.<br />
Ivy Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02415828535892800698noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6187573438086299016.post-5126321579978007592012-09-13T09:25:00.003-07:002012-09-13T09:25:50.341-07:00Who Knew that Marathons Actually Inspired People?!And Then You Leave Home is back by popular demand!!<br />
<br />
Actually, my sister told me that I hadn't blogged in awhile.<br />
<br />
<br />
Luckily, I actually have something to say. A few weeks ago, my husband ran an marathon. Now that wouldn't sound like a huge big deal - lots of people run marathons. There was even a woman last year who ran a marathon and then had a baby in the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/early-lead/post/woman-runs-chicago-marathon-gives-birth-calls-it-a-day/2011/10/10/gIQAYZGnaL_blog.html">same day</a>. But the thing is, my husband and I aren't exactly jocks. We ride around our European city on our bikes, and we walk, but we're both really short and clumsy. We're really short - like really really short. I can buy my shoes in the kids' shoe department. My husband was a non-jock even within the rarefied nature of the performing arts magnet high school he attended. I went to a college that won about 5 football games in the four years I was there, and I think I went to about half a game once. For me, exercise was a yoga class with middle aged women where we all just talk about Johnny Depp and then leave five minutes early. <br />
Nevertheless, my husband decided about half a year ago that he was going to run a marathon. I tried to talk him out if it, saying maybe he could start with a half marathon or do something more fun - like getting a weekly colonoscopy for a year. I told him that over 30 is a bit old to start long distance running. He told me that I wasn't being very nice or supportive. He was completely correct about me. Nevertheless, he started running. I told him to give up, but he kept going.<br />
First we got him the fancy running shoes, then a few weeks later we got him the belt of mini water bottles. Not long after that, I started biking alongside him for his 2+ hour long runs. After he started running more than 13 miles, we got him those carbohydrate gel packs to keep going. I started being supportive, the way I should have been all along.<br />
Then marathon time came. He had chosen a marathon that takes place in a small city in the former East Germany, and we packed our bags and headed out the day before. He registered and got his number, and got up at 5:50 the next morning to catch the subway to the bus to the starting line. I saw him off and then went back to sleep. I spent the rest of the morning getting lost and going to the art museum before I headed toward the finish line. <br />
It was amazing. There were tons of people cheering. There were actual cheerleaders. A DJ from a local radio station announced everybody by name as they came across the finish line, "Coming in at 238th place is Johann from Berlin! Looking good, Johann! Now in 239th place is Ilka from Dresden, good job, Ilka!" It was like everybody was a celeb. Some people had their small children join them for the last few feet across the finish line. Married couples ran across the finish line holding hands. Children waved homemade says that said things like "Mom, we are proud of you!" As soon as one man ran across the finish line, his wife doused him with a shower of fizzy champagne. <br />
What amazed me most were the people I saw running past the loud speakers and into the arms of their companions. They weren't all six feet tall and thin, as I had expected. There were people as short as I am. There were middle-aged moms and teenagers still going through that tricky awkward phase. There were also plenty of people who carry around a few extra pounds. But they were all fit - they ran over 26 miles. There were people who ran the marathon barefoot. There was a young man with no legs who wheeled himself in his wheelchair the whole way. One finisher was a 77 year old man. Not all the marathoners looked picture perfect - and that was ok. Running a
marathon is a more amazing thing to do with your body than just looking
like a swimsuit model. <br />
But the best moment of all was when my husband crossed the finish line. I screamed his name, and he came over for a victory hug, and I took a gazillion pictures. We got him a juice and a place to sit, and he said, "That is the hardest thing I have ever done." I had never seen him so sweaty or exhausted, but I was so proud.<br />
It was only after he had changed and showered and we were on the way home on the train that I realized how amazed I was. My husband isn't really the marathon type, at least I never thought he was. But he put his mind to it, trained from months, and then he did it. He really did it. And if he could do it, maybe there are things that I could do too. Maybe I could learn German one day after all. Ivy Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02415828535892800698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6187573438086299016.post-32483071305167081732012-07-29T03:17:00.001-07:002012-07-29T03:17:44.876-07:00I hit the language wall Everybody told me it would happen. All the other English speakers said, "One day, a few months in, you'll hit a wall with the language and you won't want to go on. You'll be frustrated with your progress, and you'll happily retreat into your English language bubble. You'll want to go home. Or, you'll want to take the train to Hamburg and swim in England. But," they all told me, "if you can get past that wall, if you can open your books one more time, then you'll be glad you did."<br />
Well, this past week I've been hitting the wall. My German as a foreign language class is out for the summer, and my tutoring duties at the high school are out for the summer too. Many of my friends are gone on their various vacations. I find myself spending a little too much time at home, a little too much time reading articles on the internet, a little too much time sitting around. And a little too little time working on German. It's just so HARD!! It's also hard to talk to my European friends who speak so many languages so well and for whom some things just come so easily.<br />
Last Friday I mentioned my frustrations to a Polish friend of mine who speaks a gazillion languages perfectly. As good friends do, she told me she understood and then lit a little bit of a fire under my ass. She said she understood, that she's felt that way herself sometimes. But that most people live their whole lives in their home countries, and that I need to look at living in Germany not as a chore but as an opportunity to do something really interesting. Rather than thinking about the job I loved that I had to leave at home, I should be thinking about the skills I could acquire here. And she's right.<br />
Next Wednesday, we go to Russia for a ten day vacation. Germany may be foreign, but Russia is really, really foreign. They have a backwards R. You guys - they have a backwards R. A BACKWARDS R!!! What is that?! I have no idea. I am excited for the trip. I am excited for so many reasons, like the museums, the food, the palaces, the art, the culture. But I'm also excited to get home. Perhaps after leaving and coming back, I'll realize how familiar Germany and the German language really are. I'll walk down the streets I know well, shop in the supermarkets where I know where they keep the brands I like, and it won't feel so foreign anymore.<br />
Fingers crossed.Ivy Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02415828535892800698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6187573438086299016.post-28123260252187617612012-07-08T10:49:00.001-07:002012-07-15T08:39:24.729-07:00Würstchen!!!! OMG!! Würstchen!!! I remember the first time I learned. I was 23 and a grad student who wanted to earn a little extra cash, so I started babysitting. There was the mother, cutting up a hot dog in the kitchen. She cut it up so small, each piece was about the size of half a tic tac. Tiny. "Hot dogs are a huge choking hazard," she said, so it's always important to cut them up. So, I started my babysitting career of cutting up hot dogs. I cut up tons of hot dogs. They are a CHOKING hazard for little kids, after all. You can read about the hazard <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-500165_162-6231307.html">here</a>. Hot Dogs are one of the 10 most dangerous foods. Read all about it from TIME <a href="http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1967235_1967238_1967229,00.html">here</a>. The American Academy of Pediatrics wants parents to cut up hot dogs before kids eat them, because kids chould choke. Maybe even hot dogs should be labeled as choking hazards! Some groups have pushed for <a href="http://businessethicsblog.com/2010/02/23/are-hotdogs-unreasonably-dangerous/">that</a> too. They cause 17% of all choking deaths for children under the age of 10. At least that's the statistic we read.<br />
But now, I'm older and live in Germany, and I have several wonderful German women friends who have small children. They are all awesome mothers. Their homes are full of picture books and toys, and their baby bags are full of organic apple slices and sunscreen. They breastfeed and read parenting manuals and research kindergartens and have the pediatrician's number in their cell phones. They have college degrees and involved husbands and grandma is sending along a few too many princess crowns. They are moms anybody would be lucky to have.<br />
And they feed their children würstchen. Dearest friends, a würstchen is just a German hot dog. My friends feed their children hot dogs, and they don't cut them up. I have a friend who gives her daughter a würstchen almost every day. Her daughter is not yet 2, couldn't be a happier child and just loves loves loves her sausages.<br />
How could this be? How could such awesome moms not know to cut up their children's hot dogs? Aren't those children going to choke? Something didn't add up. So I looked into it. It turns out that the 17% choking figure came from a paper published in 1984, based on a study done from 1979 to 1981. It was long before cutting up hot dogs came into common practice, and we honestly have no way of knowing if the widespread cutting up of hot dogs decreases the number of deaths by hot dog asphyxiation.<br />
So, I looked into it. How dangerous are hot dogs, really? It turns out that children do choke, they choke on lots of things. They choke on nuts, raisins, all kinds of food, non-food objects, and balloons. They also choke on hot dogs. But children don't often die of choking. In fact, very few do. In the oft cited study, around <a href="http://stats.org/stories/2010/choking_hot_dog_feb23_10.html">5 children</a> - in the entire United States - died of choking on hot dogs every year. That's horrible, and every death is a very sad. But really, 5 is not very much compared to many other illnesses and childhood accidents. To put it in perspective, around <a href="http://www.freakonomics.com/books/freakonomics/chapter-excerpts/chapter-5/">550 children drown </a>every year in swimming pools. <br />
Additionally, I have problems with the 17% figure. Ok, so 17% of childhood choking deaths are from hot dogs. Ok. But that doesn't take into effect how often children eat hot dogs. Which is quite a bit for many of them. Hot dogs are delicious, easy to cook, and inexpensive. Say a child eats hot dogs for 2 meals a week - and that would be EASY. That's just about 10% of all meals. The problem with the percentage, is it doesn't tell us if children choke more on hot dogs than they do on anything else they eat. Perhaps they choke on more hot dogs than duck a l'orange simply because they eat more hot dogs than duck a l'orange.<br />
It seems like, and please tell me dearest readers if you disagree, that it is easier for a child to choke on a hot dog than on most other foods. But, that the risk of a young child dying from choking on a hot dog is vanishingly small. It may be so vanishingly small that it's never really been mentioned in the German media, so it would never occur to my friends to cut up their children's hot dogs. I'm not the best at searching German media for moms, but a search on my part didn't come up with anything particular about children choking on würstchen. There are articles about children, choking, and Heimlich maneuvers, but nothing about würstchen being a special hazard. My guess is, it's not really a public health concern, so the German public isn't really concerned about it.<br />
Instead of worrying about not cutting up hot dogs, or not cutting them up small enough, or cutting them up too small, or should they have warning labels or be redesigned, perhaps we should be more concerned as to why we blow insignificant risks out of proportion. Why do we worry about hot dog choking when any one child has an infinitesimal chance of dying of hot dog asphyxiation? Is it because hot dogs are inexpensive and thus associated with lower economic status? Is it because hot dog slicing is something we can control in an uncontrollable world? Is it because it never hurts, so why not? Is it because 5 American children a year demands a redesign of an age old food and countless warning labels, media appearances, and 10,000 children in Africa dying of malaria is a tragedy that just can't be helped? <br />
I wonder all these things. But I do know that it wouldn't hurt us to look at the real statistics and do our best to measure the real world risks.<br />
Ivy Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02415828535892800698noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6187573438086299016.post-86410775542221998852012-06-21T13:11:00.002-07:002012-06-21T13:14:27.791-07:00School's Out for Summer!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Since February, I have been enrolled in a 4 day a week intensive German class. Since I had a few years of German in high school and a few years in college (although they were long ago) I was placed in level B 2/1, which isn't absolute beginner but isn't exactly advanced. Why they use this combination of letters, numbers, and fractions to denote the class level, I have no idea. <br />
I took the class at the Volkshochschule, which is the nearest thing the Germans have to a community college. The class tuition itself was a Christmas gift from my parents. The class met every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 4:15 pm to 7:30 pm and was fun but incredibly draining.<br />
Truth be told, I don't think I really got much out of it. Certainly not considering how much time it took. The class isn't really geared toward people like me who have had some college level German and who have been in the country a few months and could (if wanted) comfortably live in an English speaking bubble. The class really more geared toward people who have been in Germany for several years, function and work in the German speaking world daily, and who have been picking up German from a number of sources. Many of them are married to Germans or have children enrolled in German schools. While I would have preferred a standard text book with vocabulary lists and grammar exercises I could go over at home, the actual text book we used mostly featured pictures that were designed to stimulate conversion with classmates and the instructor. It's not really a book you could learn at home from.<br />
We had to beg the instructor for a few basic grammar charts and rules on a sheet of paper. We never had a vocabulary list, and we never really had any homework that took more than 10 minutes to complete. I don't feel like I got much out of it, truth be told - but maybe I got more out of it than I think.<br />
Yesterday night was our last class, and we all brought food from our home countries and had a party. I brought home baked chocolate chip cookies and homemade orange cream bars, which I thought was above and beyond of me. But I was WAY way way off. The woman from Colombia brought a beautiful punch bowl full of sangria she spent all day making. A young man from the Middle East brought bell peppers stuffed with meat and rice - I don't even know how he did that while keeping the peppers intact. The two women from China and the Philippines brought fried rice, tofu, Chinese vegetables, and homemade spring rolls. The Nigerian woman brought chicken and a bundt cake. An older man from the Mediterranean region brought an entire feast of felafel, hummus, salad, taziki, the list goes on and on. Somebody put on a CD, and everybody danced and ate and chatted and had a great time.<br />
Much to my surprise, I found myself very sad that the class was finished. It was such an interesting way to meet people from all over the world - people I never would have met any other way. Sure, there were some assholes in the class - there always are. But most of the people were just so sweet. There were two Africans in the class, although they were form different countries and don't share a mother tongue. One is a mid-30's mother of three and the other a teenage boy here in Germany by himself to play soccer for the local team, the rest of his family being refugees in Scandinavia. Well, it didn't take long before the mid-30's mother of three had adopted the young soccer player as well. She braided his hair, had him over for meals, fussed at him when he didn't wear a thick enough jacket - and he always insisted on helping her carry her bags to her car. The Chinese woman always came early so that she could help the teenage girl (also a refugee) with her math homework before class. There was the very sweet German teacher herself, who said that we all have her email address and if we ever need help preparing a job application to send it to her to double check first, she would be happy to look it over if we wanted her to.<br />
The class was, overall, an incredibly positive experience, and I think I'll take the same level again in the fall. I'll take a different instructor who uses a different text book, but it'll be good to review the material again. A few of the other young women in the class and I exchanged phone numbers. The Colombian woman and I plan to meet for tea sometime soon, and stumble through it in our lousy German. This makes me very happy, as she when she sees me, she comes up and kisses me on both cheeks. I always wanted a friend who kisses me on both cheeks.Ivy Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02415828535892800698noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6187573438086299016.post-89951897539391742102012-06-16T11:36:00.001-07:002012-06-21T12:14:45.960-07:00I Pretend to be Bill Cunningham<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3NgGgew11oXW7vk4FWyvrMry7HChAMC8IfnUjfBHrDhgSvGbTTnscp7-D5hUM9eZUV3EugdsQPc03Gl9GB8EfHqGf05v9OWD1ExFY631vHsxCeeixYkeknbBaRGe_voLsm6yTi7F1dI4/s1600/02232010783.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3NgGgew11oXW7vk4FWyvrMry7HChAMC8IfnUjfBHrDhgSvGbTTnscp7-D5hUM9eZUV3EugdsQPc03Gl9GB8EfHqGf05v9OWD1ExFY631vHsxCeeixYkeknbBaRGe_voLsm6yTi7F1dI4/s200/02232010783.jpg" width="200" /></a> With the exception of the style on view at various art gallery openings (which I have mentioned in other posts) the fashion in my German city tends to be about as outlandish as that of Topeka or St. Louis. There are many beautiful women, to be sure, but they tend to be dressed up for work at the office, or dressed up for work at the bakery, or dressed up in their casual mom clothes. There are plenty of nice department stores and boutiques, but this is hardly a fashion capital, and muted colors are all the muted rage.<br />
So, when I do see a real fashionista out and about, I try to take a photograph of her with my cell phone. I was waiting for the subway, when I saw this woman and her absolutely amazing orange shoes. Are they not the most fantastic shoes you have ever seen? Don't get me wrong, I know they probably are painful enough to be a way of making witches confess in the fifteenth-century - but seriously! They just look fantastic.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTfLBClJxyQh9LgGDrINgwJZeRqgP2Iy-RZcBXmbp-PddnfLa-oIlni7M16nGEilpiOxrSJ28IpctvVfrlmvFIHRfXfd4jqYOGACH5GAloOo5tRFItO15KyhbnHgST8tIfAD8USS9BDNI/s1600/awesome+old+lady+altered_edited-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTfLBClJxyQh9LgGDrINgwJZeRqgP2Iy-RZcBXmbp-PddnfLa-oIlni7M16nGEilpiOxrSJ28IpctvVfrlmvFIHRfXfd4jqYOGACH5GAloOo5tRFItO15KyhbnHgST8tIfAD8USS9BDNI/s320/awesome+old+lady+altered_edited-1.jpg" width="116" /></a> My mind was blown once again, when I saw this amazing older lady outside the ballet. (I whited out her eyes to be polite) I didn't get a great picture, my phone camera is kind of crappy - but isn't this woman outstanding? She has a black and white toile-de-joy jacket with hot pink pumps, a hot pink purse, and a giant hot pink flower pin. She was a work of art! The huge hair helps too. <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3Vre39KQGpL65CobT7XJQdIaQGmJ9yV9KhLqyy3XI2eeGCoN83FM60kRHHyB410kMQQj1lwtAsj48zXcBnsz1tAMt77wNxEXuqugUnJ8VFyhVdLZ3NqzG72sWfKic4pXtEh_MUbP4XLQ/s1600/worst+dress+ever.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3Vre39KQGpL65CobT7XJQdIaQGmJ9yV9KhLqyy3XI2eeGCoN83FM60kRHHyB410kMQQj1lwtAsj48zXcBnsz1tAMt77wNxEXuqugUnJ8VFyhVdLZ3NqzG72sWfKic4pXtEh_MUbP4XLQ/s320/worst+dress+ever.jpg" width="240" /></a> I also get sad when I see horrible, idiotically expensive dresses in store windows. Let me show you this one. Look at this ridiculous thing. It is some sort of horrible fabric with an awful pastoral scene, just in case you wanted to look like a really ugly landscape painting. The worst part is how the sleeves are actually longer than the dress. This looks like something that somebody who didn't quite make it to the final 3 on American Idol would wear to go to a beach party and be found in the next morning, having died in a lawn chair of a cocaine overdose. And it was $149 Euros - about $190 in USD. I kid you not. Almost $200 to be able to be dragged to rehab in a polyester mural of a meadow. You would would have some serious nose-wiping sleeves, though, if it came to that.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEins9K8oFdvyuINe9twdRRgz985M3dWEw8eT9BszUgrA_f2GgUvWmPDqj7cs_91b7313apoVddvpbWYbbrYdu8jIchxXtnANO-z-Ahay4sh0MQ6uA1232nRsgh09I5OhrVBU8H0NjEsTAA/s1600/02062010751.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEins9K8oFdvyuINe9twdRRgz985M3dWEw8eT9BszUgrA_f2GgUvWmPDqj7cs_91b7313apoVddvpbWYbbrYdu8jIchxXtnANO-z-Ahay4sh0MQ6uA1232nRsgh09I5OhrVBU8H0NjEsTAA/s320/02062010751.jpg" width="240" /></a> Nevertheless, I think that monstrosity might not be as absolutely awful as this horrible white dress I saw. It has a deep V neck that's so deep and that the V goes all the way to the navel. Who ever thought that was a good idea? Fine - Jennifer Lopez wore that style once a decade ago, and it was all exciting, and everybody took her picture, and that's grand and all - but this is a wedding dress. In a wedding dress shop window. Who would wear that? Is that something you wear to the church in front of your grandmother? What is the market of people who want to show their navels on their wedding day, live in smaller German cities, and are in the market for a dress that costs more than most people's rent? Is that more than .003% of a person? <br />
As the great street fashion photographer Bill Cunningham says, "He who seeks beauty, will find it." I agree, Bill, but as I say, "She who seeks ridiculously overpriced hideous dresses in store windows will blog about them."<br />
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<br />Ivy Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02415828535892800698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6187573438086299016.post-81794701405653675412012-06-10T09:12:00.001-07:002012-06-10T09:12:48.280-07:00Right Hand Rings - AHHHHHHHHHHHH There are many things that Americans and Germans do differently, and most of them are really six of one / half a dozen of the other, type situations. One of them is what hand people wear their wedding rings on. Traditionally, Americans wear their wedding rings on their left hands, but Germans, traditionally, wear wedding rings on their right hands. It's soooooo not a big deal. <br />
I know an American woman who wears her wedding ring on her right hand because she doesn't have a left hand. I know a German woman who wears her wedding ring on her left hand because it was messing up her tennis serve on the right hand. I have another friend who wears no wedding ring at all because she's a hospital social worker, and she's in and out of patient rooms all day and night, washing her hands 45 thousand times, and she thought better to just wear no ring. It's all ok, everybody still loves everybody else.<br />
But this topic of conversation came up between some Americans and some Germans last week, and one young American woman explained that a diamond ring on a American woman's right hand is a power symbol, one that denotes that she is independent (financially and socially) and that she wants to treat herself. <br />
Forgive me, but Crap on Cheese - that right hand ring hogwash is nothing of the kind! <br />
There was no such thing as a Right Hand Ring until 2003, when DeBeers decided it wanted to find a new way to sell diamond rings to single women. It, and very successfully I might add, came up with the concept of the Right Hand Ring with the advertising slogan: <br />
<br />
Your left hand lives for love. Your right hand lives for the moment, your left hand declares your commitment. Your right hand is a
declaration of independence.<br />
<br />
Are you serious?!!! I remember thinking at the time, cynical college student that I was, that nobody would fall for that shit. Little did I know that within a few years, one of my friends would say to me, "You know, I think I might buy myself a right hand ring. I really like the message that it sends."<br />
Ok - the message that it sends is not, "I am an independent woman!" The message is, "I am such an idiot, I let a corporate advertising slogan convince me that buying its products would declare my independence!" <br />
Yes, there are many things that a financially independent woman can do to declare that independence. She can pay off any debut she might have, buy a house or condo, donate money to a cause she believes in, save for retirement, and, of course, also buy herself something pretty and luxurious - just because she wants it. But for goodness sake - let's not actually internalize a marketing slogan.Ivy Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02415828535892800698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6187573438086299016.post-5024580831304854422012-05-20T09:28:00.001-07:002012-05-20T09:39:49.135-07:00Art. Not Modern, Contemporary<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> Last Wednesday, I got to partake in one of my most
favorite activities, going to an art opening.
I love them, and I am always surprised.
This particular show was much anticipated and took place at three
different locations with a bus that took museum goers from location to
location. Very happily, my ever charming
friend Kaska joined me for the excursion since she and I are – as she put it –
the Beavis and Butthead of the local arts scene. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Unfortunately, neither
Kaska nor I have clothing that is appropriately artistic for an art
opening. One of our fellow patrons was
donning a hot pink dress with hot pink stripper shoe accessories. She was either a well dressed art viewer or a
personification of a flashlight. She
looked pretty good. A distinguished,
middle-aged German man was wearing a well tailored grey business suit punctuated
with man jewelry made out of red Legos. He
was similarly delightful.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> We
moved on to the next gallery and met a woman who had a hat made out of a ball
of yarn and another who wore a single earring made out of drapery tassle. We saw some fascinating
fountains and saw a little dollhouse with a tiny man sitting at a tiny desk. Then we went to another room, but it was the
same room from the dollhouse, but it was life-size, and the man was a life-size
statue sitting at a life-size desk. Then
we went out of a doorway that was HUGE and we were ourselves the man sitting at
the desk in the dollhouse. It was the
most Alice in Wonderland of all my previous life experiences. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> The
show was absolutely packed. We saw a
painting of a man vomiting out a second story window onto the lawn below. “You see,” Kaska said. “This is what happens when you don’t have a
balcony.” Good point, Kashkers, good
point.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> The
focal point of the museum was a very attractive young woman naked in a tube
filled with water. It was a clear
plastic tube, about two feet in diameter and seven feet tall, and it was
constantly replenished with warm water. Set against a set made to look like a turn of the century laboratory, two men in white lab coats moved lights and old fashioned surgical implements around the scene. The woman's
head was above the water level, and she chatted with the artist, and turned
around, and moved up and down. I think
the idea was that she was supposed to look like a frog in a laboratory jar or
like a butterfly pinned to a mat. I
think the artist was going for something deep, something about how human beings
are just animals after all. Something
about how scientific study is important for progress but also ultimately
dehumanizing. But, since he picked a ridiculously
attractive woman instead of your average Joe, I bet the artist also wanted an
excuse to hang out with a beautiful woman naked in a tube. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> I
kind of wanted to go up and talk to her.
I didn’t, of course. She was
working. But she was also an American,
speaking English. Even though she was a naked woman in a tube of water, hearing
the accent again was comforting. Nevertheless, it would have been so strange to
talk to her. How would you introduce
yourself to a naked woman in a tube? You
can’t shake her hand. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> On the way out of the show, we took a quick look in the gift shop. There was a mouse pad printed with the words, "Ist das Kunst oder kann das Weg?" Which translates to, "Is this art, or can I throw it out?" Good question, mouse pad. I'll think about that and get back to you.</span></div>Ivy Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02415828535892800698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6187573438086299016.post-26513720316233795812012-05-19T08:22:00.000-07:002012-05-19T08:22:09.411-07:00I don't understand this one<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoUJKLDpozi9CN_280rjn117584ljWZI3sylIRvQVsYr_BNqDF0Fg5Av7wGa6tO02-pNyvkzi1rCMUIEUWtnYr0zPot1SMeOJlSwIPaz8Rto6iQxXbAs9jd088t0RMck6erlH2U9B1UoY/s1600/01022010598.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoUJKLDpozi9CN_280rjn117584ljWZI3sylIRvQVsYr_BNqDF0Fg5Av7wGa6tO02-pNyvkzi1rCMUIEUWtnYr0zPot1SMeOJlSwIPaz8Rto6iQxXbAs9jd088t0RMck6erlH2U9B1UoY/s320/01022010598.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
So here's the thing. Apparently, when you are a man in Germany, you have to get married before you turn 30. This is mandatory for some reason. For your bachelor party, you then have to walk around the city selling some sort of bizarre service. One time, I saw a groom to be dressed as a giant human ipod who was selling songs. For a Euro, he would have to sing a song you selected for a handy song menu he carried. One of his buddies would accompany the singing on a small plastic ukelele.<br />
It was - and I think this goes without saying - just delightful. <br />
Now, if you are a German man, and you fail to get married by your thirtieth birthday, you have to dress up like a super hero and clean trash off the steps of the town hall. <br />
I can't say I understand it, but that is exactly what is happening in the pictures here. You may think, dear English speaking readers, that I have made this up, but I am not. Come to Germany and you will see these events taking place. :)<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-r8yTFM0V7mnwqlQ8Z6KZYu32oUQI5w6lPmzADrNPt8OQpCbQj70tv5GRWFR39aa4M1d8NW5fR7uhTXe-guXfYA8F1FOaaJXiracU3H8QTKSyXQ6QWEn-_zbUqen0uIKOFH8o6eFJ-Vg/s1600/01022010599.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-r8yTFM0V7mnwqlQ8Z6KZYu32oUQI5w6lPmzADrNPt8OQpCbQj70tv5GRWFR39aa4M1d8NW5fR7uhTXe-guXfYA8F1FOaaJXiracU3H8QTKSyXQ6QWEn-_zbUqen0uIKOFH8o6eFJ-Vg/s200/01022010599.jpg" width="150" /></a></div>
<br />Ivy Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02415828535892800698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6187573438086299016.post-33781369269497638792012-05-15T03:17:00.000-07:002012-05-15T03:18:12.881-07:00New Blog!Hello All,<br />
<br />
All the posts that complain about the New York Times are going to be in their own blog, <a href="http://hasthegreyladybeendrinking.blogspot.de/">Has the Grey Lady Been Drinking?</a><br />
<br />
This blog will now be just about living in Germany.<br />
<br />
IvyIvy Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02415828535892800698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6187573438086299016.post-25549720458844514442012-05-06T06:22:00.001-07:002012-05-06T06:22:43.463-07:00German Rubber Duckie, you're the one<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheZEl5EH9885CXQ0PYkFpjxpZgteyz0LVdlcOMSmlTjajKo1sNP4Qi4gS37qnyaP4ZC8r7IcPisIFL1i7QWyha2Mg00axNdVFTwuXpJXXUnQLYj3tBlEZ6mYhnvhQ00qfxvDniuXXrJ7g/s1600/02062010750.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheZEl5EH9885CXQ0PYkFpjxpZgteyz0LVdlcOMSmlTjajKo1sNP4Qi4gS37qnyaP4ZC8r7IcPisIFL1i7QWyha2Mg00axNdVFTwuXpJXXUnQLYj3tBlEZ6mYhnvhQ00qfxvDniuXXrJ7g/s320/02062010750.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
You don't normally think of a German electric company as being a gigantic group of adorable people - but it turns out they are. We are all, apparently, getting a 5% rebate this month. So, to advertise, the company plastered these rubber duckie magnets on these round billboards all over town. I got a picture of them setting up and then a picture later, after some duckies had been taken by enthusiastic energy customers.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQQ3NziDKvJDcw8axsaW2fHmgmoR_I93483bu7ti8W9qhx5penPqTJ4ggOrzRNJiJSx_GgJTQLVwHTfG0McgHkSEDI0spkN5JmdsuyL6j5htIEZGcc5TtQW8bBiorAXG3Kh9en6LP22yA/s1600/02062010753.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQQ3NziDKvJDcw8axsaW2fHmgmoR_I93483bu7ti8W9qhx5penPqTJ4ggOrzRNJiJSx_GgJTQLVwHTfG0McgHkSEDI0spkN5JmdsuyL6j5htIEZGcc5TtQW8bBiorAXG3Kh9en6LP22yA/s320/02062010753.jpg" width="240" /></a>I believe the idea was that you would take your duck home as a reminder of how awesome the electric company is. Don't worry, dear readers, I did grab a duck, and it is happily holding stuff up on our refrigerator.<br />
<br />
I took a single duck, since I am a very classy - only touch the brownie that you are going to eat - kind of lady. However, this woman with a baby in a stroller and a little boy took a whole pond of ducks! I took a picture of it, just so you would know. She stashed several of them with the baby in her stroller. You better have like 7 more kids at home, lady!<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs5d-_JXdWOdC-sloYesUqXiL2QQPq_iIh1qfdwniE4eoD78WP1ouA-Qg388ey5sXo3b2DNu-sVms9pInxvEf5yywERegYaBK0pwuk9lIEzupm3xxRgYgEQPhfmigYzkXDI3wkD7X7Z2c/s1600/02062010754.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs5d-_JXdWOdC-sloYesUqXiL2QQPq_iIh1qfdwniE4eoD78WP1ouA-Qg388ey5sXo3b2DNu-sVms9pInxvEf5yywERegYaBK0pwuk9lIEzupm3xxRgYgEQPhfmigYzkXDI3wkD7X7Z2c/s320/02062010754.jpg" width="320" /></a>As for my duck, my husband and I have come to a disagreement. He thinks that it should stay as a magnet on the fridge. I thought it should go into the bathroom so as to fulfill its rubber duckie duties as originally intended. Nevertheless, my husband insists that electricity (and thus energy company rebate advertisement ducks) and water don't mix, so the duck should remain in the kitchen. It's a tough dilemma, but he does have a point.<br />
<br />
<br />Ivy Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02415828535892800698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6187573438086299016.post-80516316035467065202012-04-29T01:47:00.000-07:002012-04-29T01:47:01.834-07:00Water, Water Everywhere, but not a drop without bubbles in it<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> You’d think that something as basic as drinking
water would be roughly the same across all cultures, but it’s completely
different.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For some reason that nobody
can explain, Americans bought into the idea that we all need to drink eight
glasses of water a day to be healthy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
even used to sell little personal water coolers that held exactly eight cups of
water, just so that you could make sure you had had enough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Numerous books and articles have been written
on the subject, and nobody can adequately explain where this myth seems to have
come from.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Doctor after doctor after
bio-chemist after nutritionist says that it’s crap – that healthy adults don’t
need to drink that much water.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nevertheless,
we Americans really took the super hydration theory to heart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bottled water is sold in every vending
machine, water fountains are omnipresent in buildings and public parks, and a
refillable bottle of water can be found in virtually every cubicle, on every
desk, and in every backpack and diaper bag.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As soon as you sit down at an American restaurant, you get a gigantic
cup of tap water, and they keep refilling it as long as you sit there and keep
drinking.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We Americans are used to drinking water all
day long, whether we subscribe to the discredited “8 cups a day” rule or
not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Germans, simply, are not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A glass of wine is all they need with
dinner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They (and I am speaking in generalities) don’t really drink tap
water, they only use it for cooking and making tea and coffee.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For those who don’t know, the Germans are all
about order, cleanliness, and good quality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Accordingly, the German tap water is 100% safe at all times (it is
tested many times a day) and tastes good – at least it tastes good to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, most Germans still prefer to drink
mineral water exclusively.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unless they
live in a fifth floor walk up and don’t want to lug bottles up that far.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Now,
dear readers, German mineral water isn’t like a bottle of Dasani, or Aquafina,
or Poland Spring, or FIJI, or any of the other bottled waters we are accustomed
to in the United States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Germany, the
mineral water is full of sodium and almost always carbonated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wasn’t really aware of the sodium content
of German mineral water until I went to a very soy sauce laden Chinese buffet
and ordered a bottle of still mineral water to drink.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was so oversalted and dehydrated that I
nearly passed out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My husband and I (and
most of our American friends living here) typically run kicking and screaming
from fizzy water.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet, many Germans are
confused as to why you would drink still water.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Pregnant women often crave the fizzy water, particularly FOR the salt
content.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many German children refuse to
drink anything but the carbonated water, and they are somewhat dismayed when
somebody asks for still water.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In many a
German mother’s purse is a bottle of Apfelschorle, which is a blend of apple
juice and carbonated water, and a sure cure all for any grumpy little
ones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you want a glass of tap water
in a restaurant, you have to ask for it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>About half the time, they won’t bring you any at all, unless you have to
take some medicine – in which case they will bring you a shot glass filled with
tap water.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The other times, they will
sympathize with the fact that you are an American and bring you a glass of tap
water in whatever random glass is lying around.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I literally had this conversation the other day:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><b>Setting the scene:</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I am filling up my water bottle at a fancy sink that dispenses filtered
water of different temperatures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since I
am not making tea, I am filling my bottle up with cold water.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><b>African woman who has lived in Germany for 15 years</b>:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ivy!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
thought you had coffee in that metal bottle you carry around.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do you really drink that water?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is that healthy?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are you sure you want to do that?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><b>Ivy:</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sure, I
drink the water from this sink all the time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In America, as soon as
you go to a restaurant and sit down, the server brings every person a big glass
of tap water.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><b>African woman who has lived in Germany for 15 years:</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is disgusting!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am never going to America.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><b>Ivy:</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well,
they don’t make you drink it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can
always order another drink too, you just get the tap water automatically and
for free without having to ask for it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><b>German Graduate Student:</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, even children drink still water?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t children in America demand carbonated
water?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><b>Ivy:</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All
children in America drink tap water every day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Very few children in America have ever had carbonated water – carbonated
water would be hard to find in an American grocery store.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><b>African woman who has lived in Germany for 15 years:</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wow – my children refuse to drink water that
doesn’t have bubbles in it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><b>German Graduate Student:</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oh come on, you must have Perrier in America.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><b>Ivy:</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><b> </b> </span>Yes, but
Perrier is only consumed by old people and pretentious douche bags and even
then not as a substitute for tap water.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course, there was one time that my parents
were a little late in preparing for the possible arrival of a hurricane, so by
the time they got to the grocery store, all the bottled water was sold, so they
just had to get a gigantic amount of Perrier – but that was an embarrassment to
us all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><b>The moral of the story is:</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><b> </b> </span>When your German friends come over for
dinner, pour a goodly amount of tap water into a nice glass pitcher and put it
in the fridge for a few hours to chill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That
way they can trick themselves into believing that it’s mineral water and won’t
be so grossed out by you and your weird American water drinking ways.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>Ivy Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02415828535892800698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6187573438086299016.post-31129344331147274782012-04-25T12:52:00.002-07:002012-04-25T12:57:16.465-07:00East / West and I become a dirty old woman<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I’ve been in my German
class four days a week since February, and it’s all kinds of interesting. I took German in high school and college, but
taking German to communicate in an actual German speaking country is completely
different. For instance, when you take
German in college, your professor expects you to know things. She expects you actually to remember what
nouns are masculine, feminine, and neuter, as well as what parts of the sentence
are nominative, accusative, and dative. She
tests you on these things. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Alternatively, in
German to communicate in actual Germany class, the teacher stood in front of
the class the first day and said, “Only people who learn German as small
children can truly master the genders of nouns and the nominative, accusative,
and dative. Over time you will make
fewer and fewer mistakes, and that is all you can hope for.” Whew!
What a load off. Also, there are
no tests in German to communicate in actual Germany. If you show up 70% of the time, you can go on
to the next level class. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> On Monday and Tuesday, we have a teacher who
is around 55 years old and grew up in the former East Germany. She has an outstandingly beautiful quaff of
salt and pepper hair and a figure that would be the envy of any 16 year old
cheerleader, and she bounces around the classroom, joking, and laughing, and
drawing pictures on the chalk board so that we know what she’s talking about. She then switches into bonkers East German
woman mode and says she’s an atheist and that Nietzsche was right, that God is
dead, and then she talks about some book by Karl Marx’s son in law or her
boyfriend’s spine surgery or how she thinks being cheerful is idiotic or
something. Then, she switches right back
into her normal delightful self.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The Wednesday and
Thursday teacher is a young woman around my age who grew up in the town where
we all now live, securely in the former West Germany. She is also fun and cheerful, and then she
tells us that the former East Germany is a wasteland, and that anybody with any
sense at all leaves, and that they have a growing xenophobia problem, and that
they have some assholes who harassed some Turkish restaurant owners. Then she goes home to her boyfriend, whom she
promises never to marry because marriage is not her thing, and eats a
vegetarian meal before picking out her dress for the Lutheran church service on
Sunday. She is tremendously likable,
except for the fact that she doesn’t really seem to shower enough – or at least
not enough considering that she commutes to class on a bike.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I also have a
delightful classmate from a very sadly wore torn country who is a professional
body builder. This is particularly
fantastic, since he’s about 5 feet 4 inches tall and has four daughters under
the age of seven who demand princess parties at all times and gave him flowers
and homemade cupcakes for his birthday last week. He has shown us all competition photographs
of himself fully waxed and in a speedo. I
fear he may have a muscle growth enabled brain tumor pushing on the 'be
extraordinarily cheerful all the time' part of his brain.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I also thoroughly enjoy the company of the Chinese woman who sits to the right of me, and the Filipino
woman who sits to the left of me. They
are both excellent cooks and insist of feeding the class at every class
break. Good people to know. Then they talk about how they both love to
eat chicken feet, and everybody is totally lost.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Unfortunately, I
learned that the ridiculously good looking gay hairdresser from Spain is only
21 years old. He was born in 1991. You guys, I am such a pervert.</span></div>Ivy Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02415828535892800698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6187573438086299016.post-48280597161047559092012-04-14T00:49:00.002-07:002012-04-14T00:54:28.897-07:00Tomáš Sedláček The best part about kicking off the local philosophy festival by going to a talk by a Czech economist at the history museum is that you get to be the sort of person who kicks off the local philosophy festival by going to a talk by a Czech economist at the history museum. Since the talk was a groovy sort of event, in English, and free, I definitely said, “I’m in” when my Polish friend Kaska suggested we attend. As Polish is very similar, linguistically, to Czech and since she has spent almost her entire adult life living in Germany, Kaska understood all the Czech and the German. I struggled to understand every third German word and just ended up clapping when the German people clapped and waiting patiently for Tomas Sedlacek to start giving his lecture in English.<br />
The best thing about Sedlacek is that while he is an absolutely brilliant international economist, a professor in Prague, and a bestselling author, he also has a ginger madman vibe somewhere between Carrot Top and that weird guy your friend met on the internet. The best part was when he told us that his book was published by some random poet he met at a bar. Nevertheless, he gave a fascinating lecture explaining his, not exactly new, but vitally important and impeccably argued thesis: We should not ask, “Does the market work?” We should instead ask, “Does the market work the way we want it to?” He went on to say that there are things, clean air, peace, love, etc., that cannot possibly be assigned monetary values, and that economics should be put in its very important, but ultimately constrained, place in political decision making. Brilliant, brilliant man. He should be on the Daily Show talking to Jon Stewart and hawking his poet-published book.<br />
Now, the trouble with going to a fascinating lecture is that lots of other smart people in the room want to talk about how smart they are as well. I admit; I am one of those people. I wanted to shoot my hand up in the air and ask Dr. Sedlacek how he felt about the somewhat obscure but still influential early 20th century American economist Thorsten Veblen, who just coincidentally, attended the same college I did. But, I didn’t, because I make it a rule not to act like a complete douche bag and waste 150 people’s time. Nevertheless, many of my fellow lecture goers decided to embrace their innate douchbaggedness wholeheartedly. <br />
First came the woman who asked how economics was impacted by the gender imbalance among scientists. Now, I’m as happy as the next gal to call out the patriarchy, but this question had nothing to do with anything in the man’s talk. Sedlacek completely dodged the question and went on to talk about the economics of buying a friend a glass of wine. Next came along the elderly German woman who told him that she was part Czech too. Great! Lady, thanks! Now we just need an obnoxious American to tell everybody that he’s somehow related to the English royal family and we will be well on our way to complete asshattery! At this point I think somebody actually asked a valid reasonable question, but it wasn’t nearly as memorable. The last question was asked by a middle aged German man who actually sported leather patches on his corduroy jacket and horn rimmed glasses worn non-ironically. He rambled on for about five minutes discussing capitalism and communism until somebody shouted from the back, “What is the Question?!” It was amazing.<br />
After the talk ended, Sedlacek was swamped with more eager question askers. As Kaska wittily observed, he answered their questions while he checked his pockets for a pack and longingly looked out the front door, where other economics enthusiasts were already enjoying their post lecture cigarettes.Ivy Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02415828535892800698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6187573438086299016.post-31924401420413041542012-04-13T00:46:00.000-07:002012-04-13T09:52:23.927-07:00Handy Guide to German Supermarkets<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Rewe and Edeka:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">These are nice, normal, typical grocery store chains
that you see all over the place. They
are good places to go shopping for day to day things. Things
I have noticed recently are cherry sized bell peppers (not just cherry
tomatoes) and an increasingly large number of rabbits. I don’t know if it’s for Easter, but rabbits
are all over the place. Fresh rabbits,
frozen rabbits, whole rabbits, rabbit pieces – and not just the chocolate
ones. I’ve never seen anybody try to
sell chocolate rabbit pieces, but I would like to be there when it
happens. I haven’t actually ever seen
lamb at a grocery store, but the Turkish restaurants must get it from
somewhere. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Denn’s Biomarkt:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This place is Germany’s Whole Foods but smaller. Practically everything is organic, or – as the
Germans call it – Bio. This is the store
where they are likely to have twelve species of mushrooms, four different kinds
of crab, and no chicken breasts.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Penny and Netto:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">These are more discount sorts of grocery stores. The selection can be hit or miss, but the
prices are great. The best part is that
the employees don’t really take the food out of boxes. There are just stacks of boxes of yogurt
cartons, for example, and you may have to dig through the boxes a bit to get
what you need. Same goes for flour,
eggs, toothpaste – whatever. It’s usually
somewhat soul sucking and busy, possibly with some sort of spilled liquid on
the floor. Penny’s slogan is “Erstmal zu
Penny” which I like to translate as “You know you should go check and see if
they have that stuff at Penny first. I
mean, there is a 40% chance that they won’t have everything you need – but you
know you’ll be kicking yourself if you go to some nicer grocery store and spend
way more money on the same can of tomato paste just because you wanted to shop
somewhere without the occasional pond of melted strawberry ice cream between
the tampons and the vodka.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Real:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Real is like a Super Target – but it’s a huge pain
for me to get to. It has groceries as
well as clothing, bicycles, lawn equipment, books and videos, etc. It has an entire grocery store aisle only for
Haribo candy. It has a delightful Polish
butcher who is happy to help me with weird gram amounts of recipes that I might
need after translating from some recipe that used pounds. I like talking to him because, as a fellow
Auslander, I assume he is sympathetic to my inability to speak good
German. Of course, he could just be
being nice to me because I’m a customer and really be thinking – to hell with
this bonkers American woman and her weird requests for 920 grams of stewing
beef. I also like Real because nobody
fussed at me when I dove head first into a freezer for the last packet of
frozen stir fry vegetables that was stuck at the very bottom. You’d think they would have had problems with
me when my feet actually left the floor – but they seemed to be cool with it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I Shop:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I think the idea is like iPod or like iPhone, but I’m
not really sure. This is the Asian grocery
store, and there you can buy any number of delightful things, such as peanut
butter, tofu, and a large gas can full of soy sauce. I am an English tutor for a few German high
school kids. One young lady was born in
Tunisia, has lived in Germany since she was about eleven, and is
uncompromisingly dedicated to Chinese food.
She was worried, a few weeks ago, that we didn’t have Chinese food in
the United States – America being so far away from China on the globe. She was much relieved when I assured her that
not only did we have Chinese food in America, we had even had many Chinese-American
people, and that she could take a very inexpensive bus from a Chinatown in one
American city to a Chinatown in another American city should she ever plan to
backpack around the country at the age of 21 or so, which I feel should be mandatory
for everyone who is 21 or so if at all possible. (Thanks so much to the wonderful college friend
of mine who suffered the youth hostels of the Europe with me in 2002)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Galleria Kaufhof:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Galleria Kaufhof is actually a lovely, multistoried
department store full of middle aged women buying nice pink silk pantsuits to
wear to spring weddings, but the basement is the most beautiful and awe
inspiring grocery store this side of Harrod’s food halls. As you step off the escalator, a choir of cherubs
descends from the ceiling and flies from the hand dipped chocolates counter, to
the pyramid of perfectly ripe exotic fruits and emerald green broccoli, over
the exquisitely aged prosciutto, to the dry goods section containing all of my
favorite foods from the United States and from that one semester I spent in
London. The chips, the BBQ sauce, the taco
seasoning!! The first time I went in, I
saw food I hadn’t seen months and then wandered aimlessly in a daze as my eyes
drifted from Campbell’s Soup to the tortillas to the 35 different brands of Earl
Grey tea. Of course, it is cruelly and insanely
overpriced. Seriously. That can of Campbell’s soup is like $5.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Kaufland:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This place is like a grocery store combined with a
Bed, Bath, and Beyond. You can get all
kinds of Swiffers and then buy a bottle of wine and thirty chicken wings. They also have a tremendous produce section,
although all the sweet potatoes in Germany are imported from the US and cost
more, per weight, than most meat. This
was a bit frustrating for me when I dropped a large chunk of sweet potato on
the floor where it was snatched up by my friend’s dog, and I said, “Jeez loueeeze
dog, I could have just given you pork, and it would have cost less.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Indische Gewuerze und Spezialitaeten:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This little corner Indian grocery store is my favorite. I have always loved eating and cooking Indian
food, but the very best part of this grocery store is the fact that everything,
aside from a few German language Indian food cookbooks, is in English! Yay!!!
The prices on spices, lentils, and rice are just amazing! They know who I am and are happy to chat with
me in English. Good times.</span></div>Ivy Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02415828535892800698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6187573438086299016.post-53783694283020211942012-04-10T08:28:00.001-07:002012-04-10T08:29:39.424-07:00College Seniors – what you are doing wrong<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I have been fortunate to have gotten to work with a
number of really wonderful, very smart, and eager college students. Because I care about these kids so much, it
makes me sad that so many wonderful students from my alma mater and other elite
colleges tend to make the same mistakes over and over again when looking for
their first jobs out of school. I know
that leaving school is incredibly hard, and advice graduates receive is often
outdated, inconsistent, unhelpful, or just plain wrong. I am just one person with one opinion, but I
do want all these kids to do as well as they can. This is my advice.</span><br />
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">1.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Nobody cares
what you did in high school</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Take absolutely everything from
high school off your resume. I can’t
tell you the number of resumes I’ve seen that have SAT and ACT scores on them,
parts people had in high school plays, etc.
Those things are unprofessional; take them off your resume.</span><br />
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">2.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> If there is a discrepancy between your
education / experience and what you want to do with your life, you need to address
it</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">If you are a chemistry major and
you want to go into fashion merchandising – fine, good for you. But you need to explain, and figure out for yourself,
what work experience you are going to get (or have already gotten) and/or what
additional classes you are going to take (or have already taken) to make up for
your lack of a degree in fashion merchandising.</span><br />
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">3.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">If
you ask someone for job advice, you need to return their emails in under 24
hours</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I once had a good friend who was
looking to staff a wonderful entry level job at the well-regarded institution
where she works. I knew two young people
who would be qualified. One was a young
woman who went to my alma mater, the other was a young man who went to the (easier
to get into) local public city university.
She took twelve days to get back to me, while he responded to my emails
within two hours. It was an easy
decision to pass his resume along instead of her resume. He got the job and is now enjoying a
wonderful opportunity and making good money.
Even if you are not interested in what an older person has to tell you,
you need to take five minutes to say, “No thank you.” It’s awkward, but it’s better not to burn
bridges. </span><br />
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">4.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Do not
act like you want a job so you can “goof off” before starting your real career</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">If you are an employer, would you
rather hire somebody who says, “I want to give trail tours for a year before
applying to medical school” or somebody who says, “I want to give trail tours
because I have always been interested in working with people, science, and
nature.” It would be a no-brainer. Which one of those applicants sounds like he
would take the job more seriously? Banish
the term “gap year” from any conversation with a possible future employer.</span><br />
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">5.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Do
not ask for an internship if you are no longer a student</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Most institutions will only allow
students to be interns anyway. If you
are no longer a student, you need to be looking for a job, not an internship. You can always volunteer at a school, museum,
etc., but you are going to rub a lot of people the wrong way by asking for an
internship, and it happens all the time.</span><br />
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">6.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">You
can be picky about the job you have or the place you live but probably not both</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We live in an increasingly global
world, and it may just not be possible to find a job you want in the one place
you want to live. Lots of people at all
levels of their career face this dilemma, and the decision is always difficult. If you insist on being in New York City, you might
have to wait tables at a diner at 5 in the morning for quite some time. If you find your dream job, you may have to
move to small town Alabama. It’s just
life. One young woman at my alma mater
sent out an email blast to alumni saying she wanted to bake bread in the
mountains. She mentioned no professional
bakery training or experience.
What? How is somebody supposed to
help her? Does she want to ski or does
she want to be a baker? It sounds like
she has a romantic idea of what she wants to do – like she enjoys making bread
in her own kitchen and going on vacation in Colorado. On the off chance that some alum owns a
bakery in a mountainous area that is hiring new people, is he or she supposed
to email this girl and tell her to move across the country on the off chance
that she is going to be a wonderful bakery employee with no experience or
training? </span></div>Ivy Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02415828535892800698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6187573438086299016.post-46396158367610661202012-04-04T11:43:00.003-07:002012-04-04T11:43:31.634-07:00Buddha is Selling Tennis Rackets Now?<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipxtYTI0UR5uNYuPvdTdYAjGg5m7mJxxs1sLLkkUYdvnnV6ytgAsDzIfCQ3Qn3ralTVcaOxvS4yfpLdlhdw6-FMkgiaOo8UA_uP5A50cCWre0JSEanDX3xbpUNePHa3c2yQSzuipaVo94/s1600/01032010601.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipxtYTI0UR5uNYuPvdTdYAjGg5m7mJxxs1sLLkkUYdvnnV6ytgAsDzIfCQ3Qn3ralTVcaOxvS4yfpLdlhdw6-FMkgiaOo8UA_uP5A50cCWre0JSEanDX3xbpUNePHa3c2yQSzuipaVo94/s320/01032010601.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Could someone please explain this to me?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I never quite understood it when Buddha
statues because the latest interior design fad when they started selling them by the
dozens at places like Crate and Barrel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Why, people, why?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why is it OK to
knock off another religion’s sacred art and turn it into scenery?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Now,
if you are a Christian, or an Athiest, or a Jew or whatever else that is not a
Buddhist, and you are a collector of East Asian art, or you spent two years in
Japan studying Japanese history, or your beloved
daughter-in-law/stepfather/friend is from Vietnam and gave you a Buddha statue,
then I understand owning one. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you
backpacked around China with your college buddies one summer and brought back a
souvenir that was a Buddha statue, by all means display that beauty in your
apartment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But why why why, dear
friends, would anybody ever buy a fake Buddha statue made in some factory to be
sold in America or Europe as a decorative object?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It makes no sense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Luckily,
a sporting goods store in Germany has decided to make the people who bought
their Buddha statues at Target look like the sane ones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wandered in last week to pick up my husband’s
birthday present, and low and behold, there was Buddha, sitting by the gym
bags.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe the sporting goods store is owned by a religious Buddhist family - nope it's owned by a giant publicly held German company. Maybe it's a valuable work or art in a corporate collection - nope, I'm an art historian and that thing is no fine work of art, believe me on this. It bothers me that this is
disrespectful to actual Buddhism, but it’s also inconsistent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sorry guys, until you have a giant Jesus
standing next to the sports bras, I think you need to send that Buddha back to
the tacky and vaguely offensive concrete statue factory from which it came.</span></div>Ivy Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02415828535892800698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6187573438086299016.post-88853724426460738792012-03-23T12:59:00.000-07:002012-03-25T13:19:20.326-07:00The Graffiti<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj68KXgmLIQUqe9VnMadrMiPTxT1nb1T1MK1PlqE1FjeS5C7SyMrXSF7oCle5aN0sBE3WuM_1onbE_lkoXcLpwsbE5hVlNX4IArLaWOyGd_wAFIt1VX2-SXdRvt9VDBMuB6Ev5Em21D13k/s1600/DSCN1793.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj68KXgmLIQUqe9VnMadrMiPTxT1nb1T1MK1PlqE1FjeS5C7SyMrXSF7oCle5aN0sBE3WuM_1onbE_lkoXcLpwsbE5hVlNX4IArLaWOyGd_wAFIt1VX2-SXdRvt9VDBMuB6Ev5Em21D13k/s320/DSCN1793.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">How did they even get up there?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> I try to look past the graffiti to the beauty of the
nineteenth-century building underneath, but it’s really difficult when that graffiti is a drawing of an ejaculating penis. Graffiti
is just something I don’t understand about Germany. In the US, you only see graffiti in places where
fifteen year olds try to buy alcohol because they accidentally made themselves
twenty on their fake IDs. Here in
Germany, there’s graffiti all over the place.
It’s on grocery stores in nice neighborhoods. It’s on gracious apartment buildings. It’s on hospitals. Nobody cleans it up, and nobody seems to
notice it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I live in a quiet,
family-oriented neighborhood, but the aforementioned ejaculating penis graffito greets me on my
way to the subway. There are many
graffiti penises around town, many just as large, and many ejaculating with
great gusto. What makes my local penis so
special is that it is spray painted on the lovely, and surely expensive, marble
porte-cochère of a building that houses the offices of a hundred year old
charitable trust. I have lived down the
street from this penis for several months, and nobody has made an attempt to power scrub it into a faint penis memory.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdhQQlke6DjwH9RnBmB1Ge3gKpqlrCzXbWMsHsLyOzTrK9L4KPI-_9FHqonOWjmz6sMwwMCE3A34m1IXq5rl4l35_mD2nUF2-LbOg5CE2_iNpWXNYeiQc5FC3ocvobwF-QV89DOkEk228/s1600/DSCN1797.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdhQQlke6DjwH9RnBmB1Ge3gKpqlrCzXbWMsHsLyOzTrK9L4KPI-_9FHqonOWjmz6sMwwMCE3A34m1IXq5rl4l35_mD2nUF2-LbOg5CE2_iNpWXNYeiQc5FC3ocvobwF-QV89DOkEk228/s320/DSCN1797.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My favorite :)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This is not to say that
the Germans are slovenly, they certainly are not. Public parks are beautifully maintained, the
streets are free of litter, and pot holes are fixed in under thirty
seconds. All this cleanliness makes the presence of the graffiti all the more perplexing. Some of it is very funny,
though. Today I saw some graffiti that
read, “Bambi ♥’s Goethe.” Now that was
pretty funny. Near where I used to live,
a yellow building sports a wedge of Swiss cheese with the words “Money to eat,
and cheese for all!” (Translated from
the original German) That was more
cracked out than funny, but it struck me as something vaguely worthwhile.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Looking out my living
room window, I can see the letters POS! on the adjacent building. I really want to sneak out in the middle of
the night and clean it off, but I worry I might end up having to explain myself
to a confused German policeman or landlord.
I don’t know if I will really be able to express the sentiment, “AHHHHHHH - - -
I don’t care if this is a nice street – this POS! crap is making me feel
like I live in a 1980s New York City subway car such as the one depicted in the
opening scene of My Dinner with Andre!
It must go away now!” adequately in German. </span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4Wjk4Xqagq6OPbSZa0130_2lnj77OqMs_FfK4zaPotQ6WoUgtUQVd4yLJMMHXgewwkQjSWt1wZ62iWVVUqcftstaPejm5GwS3s1ausWda0KxQT4i2IXzMDz2yzaRTAeOwlWuX9cvX6Cg/s1600/DSCN1799.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4Wjk4Xqagq6OPbSZa0130_2lnj77OqMs_FfK4zaPotQ6WoUgtUQVd4yLJMMHXgewwkQjSWt1wZ62iWVVUqcftstaPejm5GwS3s1ausWda0KxQT4i2IXzMDz2yzaRTAeOwlWuX9cvX6Cg/s320/DSCN1799.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is actually a lovely apartment building in a nice neighborhood</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So I continue on my
daily walk past the jubilant male member, every day visually reminded that I am in
Germany and not in America. Not only is
there a graffiti penis, but it’s uncircumcised.</span>Ivy Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02415828535892800698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6187573438086299016.post-84298986392217800622012-03-16T01:45:00.001-07:002012-03-16T01:48:27.191-07:00I am now a "take the train past" person? Like many Americans, I’ve always kind of resented the<br />
stranglehold California and New York have on American culture. Being<br />
the centers of film and TV production, fashion, and finance, they have<br />
grown a little cocky. This attitude is often expressed in the<br />
shockingly common phrase “Fly Over People” to describe those of us<br />
living outside New York and California. Having grown up and gone to<br />
college in solidly “fly over” states, I was not one to be easily<br />
impressed by the glamor of Hollywood or Manhattan.<br />
My skepticism was unfortunately reinforced by the men I met from<br />
these places. In my home state, male jewelry was confined to a watch,<br />
cufflinks, and a wedding ring, and the only underwear that was ever<br />
allowable was a pair of cotton boxers. Briefs were only acceptable<br />
when actively playing football. I went to college in a state<br />
populated by the grandchildren of Vikings, where one was considered a<br />
little eccentric if he or she did not want to sit on a frozen lake for<br />
six hours and fish through a small hole in the ice. Everybody, men<br />
and women, were supposed to be, well, a little tough and not too<br />
fussy. In college, I asked my friend from Colorado why our mutual<br />
friend Sam was obsessed with hair care products, wore sparkly<br />
toe-separating socks, and aspired to be a stay at home dad - all the<br />
while being completely heterosexual. She merely told me, “All you<br />
need to know about Sam is- he’s from Southern California.”<br />
After graduating college, I moved to New York City. The young men I<br />
met and went out with didn’t seem to me to have normal, adult<br />
abilities. They spent twelve hours a day at work making the rich even<br />
richer, and then they had their laundry sent out because they were too<br />
lazy to do it themselves. I dated one guy who had his breakfast<br />
delivered every morning. It wasn’t like he was eating waffles or eggs<br />
and bacon either; he literally had a small carton of milk and a mini<br />
cereal box delivered to his apartment every morning. My own cousin,<br />
bless him, lived in New York for a few years and picked up some bad<br />
habits. He actually walked around for an entire winter with his coat<br />
half open because one of the buttons popped off and he somehow forgot<br />
how to sew a button back on. One man I went out with a few times was a big<br />
fancy/pancy lawyer of something, but he told me he could never go<br />
camping because he really had to have a nice, soft bed. What the<br />
hell!? I can understand thinking that, I just can’t understand<br />
actually saying that.<br />
After New York, I moved back to the Midwest and met the man who is<br />
now my husband. For our third date he cooked me dinner. The next<br />
week, he fixed the problem with my television that had been driving me<br />
nuts. He can drive a stick shift in the snow. He can fold laundry<br />
better than any person I’ve ever seen. His frying pan scrubbing skills<br />
are legendary at my parents' house. He can do normal, competent,<br />
adult human being stuff. He is also, however, from Southern<br />
California. I learned that I misjudged the non-flyover people for too<br />
long. I didn’t know they made men in Southern California. I thought<br />
it was just breast implants.<br />
Then we got to Germany. The German government doesn’t really care<br />
about all the nuances of where I’ve lived over the years, they only<br />
know where I was born – in a state securely in the Appalachian<br />
Mountains where the non-flyover people assume the locals marry their<br />
cousins when they are sixteen, two years after starting full time work<br />
in the coal mine. When a German government bureaucrat looks at my<br />
husband’s information, she won’t see a Hollywood stereotype of a<br />
pampered man who is too incompetent to put his Ikea furniture together<br />
so instead goes to get a microdermabrasion and a chest wax. Because<br />
of a small typing mistake, she’ll only see a man born in Calidornia.Ivy Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02415828535892800698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6187573438086299016.post-57746833917840718112012-03-13T07:27:00.002-07:002012-03-13T07:27:42.449-07:00My Roommate and the Shooter<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> It is a posthumous photograph, taken after the police killed him, but his eyes were still open.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you didn’t know he was dead, you would
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>College
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from college are still my friends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
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college.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It wasn’t that long ago that he
was a young man with a promising future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Today a photograph of his dead face is on the internet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lives were ruined.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The tragedy cannot be undone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those of us who knew him long ago are not the
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</span>We are left with the memories of a bright young man, the sort of person
you would never think anybody would have to worry about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If only he could have been that person
forever.</span></div>Ivy Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02415828535892800698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6187573438086299016.post-32554857743684718402012-03-10T01:11:00.002-08:002012-03-10T01:11:46.672-08:00The Art that Offends<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> I’m not easily offended.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I once saw a play in London where an actor
defecated on stage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have seen art that
depicted scenes of torture or sexual violence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And they were awful, but they weren’t exactly offensive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were heart breaking and disturbing at
times, but they were always making the point that something wrong was happening
and that we need to acknowledge that it happened and change it in the future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes art shines light on something we
would rather not see.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that is
hard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it’s not offensive.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
only time I have ever been offended by art, was when I was working for an
auction house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were called to appraise
the works owned by two private collectors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A wealthy, retired, married couple with many grandchildren, they had
spent the last few decades picking up some amazing sculptures and some really horrible
paintings of nude women with abnormally large breasts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>They
also owned a bright blue plaster sculpture of an oversized pistol.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They had it displayed so that the gun pointed
at a portrait of Robert Kennedy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“It’s hilarious,”
the collector said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“But most people who
come here just don’t get it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t
know why, they just don’t get it.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oh
they get it, madam, they’re just too weirded out to say anything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So was I, and I didn’t say a word.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It wasn’t my place after all, I was just
there to appraise the ugly breast paintings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I was but a glint in my father’s eye in 1968, while these two collectors
probably actually watched the coverage live on the news, and there was nothing
I was going to say to make them snap out of it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I’m
guessing they weren’t huge fans of RFK, but it doesn’t really matter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Think he was a great man or think he was a
jerk – he was still a real person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
wasn’t a character in a novel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When he
was a little boy somebody held his hand when he crossed the street.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Somebody made sure he ate his
vegetables.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Somebody made sure he
learned that three times four is twelve.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And when he was gunned down, a pregnant woman lost her husband, and ten
children lost their father.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The gun pointed at his portrait wasn’t
funny.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It wasn’t something “to get.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The collectors thought they were being witty,
but they weren’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were degrading
the value of a human life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have seen
art that was disturbing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have seen art
that portrayed murderous dictators as benevolent leaders and art that portrays
good people as maniacs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have seen art
that upset me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have seen art that
displayed the artist’s racism, sexism, and hatred.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I was never really offended until I saw
these two collectors trying to depict a real person’s death as something funny.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As
frequently as I’ve told this story over the years, I don’t really care what
those two old yahoos are up to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s no
skin off my nose how they choose to embarrass themselves in front of their
dinner guests.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it does get a girl
thinking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I disagree with someone,
when another person’s opinion is actively hurtful to myself or others, when I
actually hate someone else, what do I think?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I cannot claim that I already do, but definitely should firs think,
OK.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This individual is a real person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And when he was five, somebody made him eat
his broccoli.</span></div>Ivy Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02415828535892800698noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6187573438086299016.post-58589108116515063352012-03-05T11:58:00.001-08:002012-03-05T11:58:15.785-08:00Urban Chicken Farmers, the Europeans are laughing at you - you know that right?<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> In countless times in movies and TV shows, an
American finds himself or herself in a developing nation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every director has the same device for
showing that this red-blooded American is definitely somewhere foreign,
somewhere still developing, somewhere you don’t drink the tap water.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The American gets on a bus or a train, and one
of the locals is carrying a live chicken.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Mark my words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Single. Time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
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teacher isn’t going to give her an A because it’s just too obvious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am currently in a German immersion class
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East.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only two or three of them have
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in school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Needless to say, they think
America is the kind of place where you don’t have a chicken on a bus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Little did they know that American hipsters
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Last
week in class, the instructor asked us what kind of pets we had as
children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People mentioned the typical
beloved cats and dogs, the ridiculously good looking gay Spanish hairdresser
mentioned his pet iguana, and two of my classmates revealed they had grown up on
poultry farms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since I hadn’t spoke up
in awhile, I mentioned that urban chicken farming was becoming very popular in
the United States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I told them that
there were even lots of chickens in New York City.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was the only time in my life I thought I’d
ever see a large, international group of people crap their pants from
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A
European friend explained to me that many of my classmates come from towns
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chickens at home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now they hear that New
York of all places has city chickens – no wonder they thought it was hilarious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Time to get real, America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s time we let the Europeans know, it’s no
longer Sex in the City, it’s chickens in the city.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>Ivy Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02415828535892800698noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6187573438086299016.post-87145684626125682732012-02-29T12:31:00.000-08:002012-02-29T12:31:05.074-08:00The Art That Smelled Good<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<span style="font-family: ""serif"","serif";">
It was perfectly warm, but the woman was wearing blue velvet
gloves. Another lady was wearing high heeled boots made out of a snake,
and a young man sported a necktie made out of dozens of miniature
neckties. Oh how I love contemporary art openings!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: ""serif"","serif";">
For those who have never been, there are few things in life more enjoyable than
spending an evening wandering around a contemporary art show. It can be
at a museum, it can be at a school, it can be gallery, it can be at a
contemporary art fair – it can be in Germany or America. It’s all the
same. And it’s fantastic. The contemporary art viewing crowd is out
in all their glory, each trying to outdo one another with a new level of
tasteful weird. You gaze too long at a middle-aged woman, and she shoots
you a look that says, “What do you mean? I am wearing a simple black
dress.” Sure, lady, but that simple black dress is made of compostable
garbage bags sewn together with Red Vines. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: ""serif"","serif";">
The key to looking like you fit in at a contemporary art exhibition is not to
overdo it. If you have neon purple hair, wear neon purple stockings to
match. If you must wear your bracelet made out of pieces of the Berlin
wall, you might want to leave your hat made out of an ashtray and your handbag
made out of a small garbage can at home. Once, at a contemporary jewelry
show, my husband came across a necklace made out of broken pieces of glass coke
bottles held together with wire. He pointed it out to me and said, “You
know, this should be titled Stabby Necklace.” Where would a lady wear
Stabby Necklace? Would she need to wear it over something thick, or would
she just get a tetanus shot and hope for the best? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: ""serif"","serif";">
If you can pry your eyes away from your fellow art viewers and their broaches
made out of ear wax, you can actually see some art. Last Thursday, I
talked a friend into joining me for a show and sale at a contemporary art
space. She and I have both taken several art history courses and feel right
at home in any modern art museum, but we were stumped. Half way through
the show, we came across a row of four large rectangular tubes. Made of
wood, they were painted black on the inside. After speaking into them to
hear the echo, we decided they were probably there because the freshly cut wood
smelled so nice. Art for smell.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: ""serif"","serif";">
We moved onto the “For Sale” section of the show and came across a rock covered
in a crumpled up newspaper. It was priced at 1,500 Euros. It sounds
a little pricy, but to be fair, it came in its own glass display case. My
friend told me she was worried that she had thrown away similar newspaper
crumbles, and she should probably head home now to fetch them out of the
trash. She was hilarious, but I was distracted by the photograph of a jar
of jam being crucified. Another item was a photo collage of women’s body
parts surrounded by red streaks. A bargain at 900 Euros, I nevertheless
think you would call the police if you found it in your roommate’s closet.
</span><br />
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: ""serif"","serif";">When
all is said and done, you’ll forget about 85% of the art you see. About
10% of the art you’ll find so incredibly boring that you’ll remember it forever
so that it can bore you long into the future. And about 5% will
absolutely amaze you. Once I saw an incredible glass table. It was
oval and the size of a small kitchen table, but it was made of completely clear
glass and was outstandingly beautiful. It was covered in dirty dishes,
oysters, a wine bottle, oranges half way though being peeled, turkey legs, and
tipped over glasses, all made out of the same clear glass. All melded
together, all one object. For sale at $28,000, it was just the sort of
thing I would purchase if my art budget was $28,000 at a large art fair and not
$10 at Goodwill. It was amazing. I hope some rich donor purchased
it for a museum. I hope that a century from now art history students will
look at a photograph of it and think, wow – those people in 2012 lived in a
magical time. </span></div>
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: ""serif"","serif";">Last
Thursday night, after my friend and I watched a ten minute video of a flower
opening, we decided we’d had enough high culture and left the contemporary art
show to go to McDonald's for cheeseburgers. I asked her, “Why didn’t your
husband want to come? Didn’t you tell him that it would be art, and so
there would definitely be lots of naked breasts?”</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: ""serif"","serif";">She
replied, “Yes, but he said it would probably just be two breasts stuck to a
coffee machine.” Now that is a man who should have been an artist. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>Ivy Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02415828535892800698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6187573438086299016.post-63459630166823166942012-02-22T12:29:00.000-08:002012-02-22T12:29:55.731-08:00My Classmates<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> It turns out that when I moved to Germany, the three
semesters of college German I had ten years ago might not be as helpful as I
might have hoped.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, I decided it would
behoove me to sign up for a German class at the local community college.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After a brief interview with one of the
school administrators, I was assigned to a class of people who aren’t quite
beginners but who aren’t really speaking well yet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The classroom is in a large, cheerful,
light-filled building.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Neighboring
classrooms are filled with children sculpting dinosaurs and post-menopausal women
doing yoga.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Overall a very cheerful,
non-scary place.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This
experience was going to be new to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Back in my college German class, we were all Americans, aged 18 to 22
and, looking back, had a tremendous amount in common – including a common
native language.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think there was the
one girl who was born in British Columbia, but that was about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In my current class, we have everybody from
teens to retired folks, and the only language we have in common is the little
German we attempt to speak.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>On
the first day, we went around the room and told everybody where we were from
and what languages we spoke.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am the
only American.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were some
interesting stories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are those who
are in Germany for love, such as the women from Belarus, Colombia, and Hong
Kong who married German men.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There are those who are
there for economic opportunity, like the ridiculously good looking gay
hairdresser from Spain who came as an au pair and stayed because it was just
easier for him to thrive as a ridiculously good looking gay hairdresser in
Germany.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are two Russians and a
man from Moldova who came to Germany because they can make more money here than
at home.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And
then there are those from war zones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These
are places you see on the news, places you wouldn’t visit for a million
dollars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Literally, you would not visit
these places even if someone offered to pay you a million dollars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And these classmates of mine can never go
back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are a diverse bunch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The teenage boy who only wants to play
soccer, the man who somehow owns every leather jacket from the 1978 movie
Grease, the middle-aged man who complains that his four children always want to
drag him out to ice skate, and my favorite, the teenage girl who works on her
algebra homework when the class has its 15 minute break.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We
are all struggling to learn German and find our places in this new
country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I can go back home
again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For them, there is no plan B,
this is it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It would take me about
twenty seconds to find a doctor or police officer who speaks English, but you
could actually learn German faster than you could find a German doctor or
police officer who spoke Kurdish.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Growing
up in America as the child of two married, stable, healthy, college graduates,
I had a privileged childhood, but I wasn’t naïve.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I knew there were Americans who struggled and
didn’t always have food on the table.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I knew
there were immigrants who were searching for a living and home in America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I never realized who truly lucky I am,
how many doors are open wide for me, how many privileges I have because of the
pure accident of my birth, until I became an immigrant myself.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>That
being said, those classmates of mine are going to learn German much faster.</span></div>Ivy Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02415828535892800698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6187573438086299016.post-76422553860809500152012-02-19T12:35:00.000-08:002012-06-16T10:41:44.780-07:00The Wallet<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
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<![endi--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> It was the last few years of Bill
Clinton's presidency, and everybody at my high school had to have a Kate Spade
satin wallet. I don't think they even make satin ones anymore, but they
sure did then.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And they were beautiful
little jewel toned works of art that rested perfectly in your hand. Green
was popular, and so was grey, but mine was a beautiful cranberry red. You
managed to show your wallet off by use of an elaborate ruse, saying you were just
rushing out of the house, and you just grabbed your wallet on the way because,
my goodness, you were in such a hurry - and of course it didn't have a strap
like a purse, so you just HAD to put it top on the table at the Mexican
restaurant right next to your iced tea. You were absolutely out of
control if you didn't own one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">My beautiful wallet and I went to
college, and one day I met the girl who lived down the hall. Her name was
Linda. This struck me as absolutely amazing. There were teachers named
Linda.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were moms named Linda.
But there certainly weren't members of our generation named Linda. Yet there she was. Born in 1982.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don't remember how this trip was arranged,
as we didn't know one another very well, but one weekend Linda and I agreed to
take a bus together to a nearby mall. As we stood waiting, she pulled her
wallet out of her backpack to extract her bus pass. Her wallet was
definitely not a beautiful mini sculpture plucked from a glass case at Neiman
Marcus. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was some sort of hideous
polyester thing with nauseating green stripes. My 19 year old mind raced
- what was going on with Linda's insanely embarrassing wallet? What
happened at her high school that they didn't shun people who owned such
things?! She went to a fine public school in Greenwich, Connecticut –
surely it wasn't abject poverty that caused her to resort to such hideous ways
to carry her bus pass. What her wallet did have, though, was writing in
some foreign language. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I asked - what in the world was up
with that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"It's a Spanish
poem," Linda said cheerfully. "I want to be a Spanish major.
It also has a picture of my brother and sisters."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Linda opened up her wallet and showed me a
picture of three little children. It was a typical photo studio family picture
from the mid 1970s. The three of them grinned against an orange
backdrop. Linda's siblings were 14, 13, and 10 when she was born – yet there
they were in her wallet being cute little kids. Her loving family beside
her hopes and ambitions for the future. And in an instant, her wallet
became more beautiful than mine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A few years after college, a law
student asked Linda to marry him. She said yes, but insisted that there
would be no engagement ring. Money was too tight, and it was
unnecessary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead she had him sign a
pledge that he would love her forever and love any cats or dogs that she
brought home. When he pointed out to her that the document was not going
to hold up in court, she merely replied, "We'll see." They got married
on a beautiful day, and her only attendants were all her nieces and nephews wearing
whatever they wanted to wear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Not long ago, I went to visit her,
her husband, the two cats, and the dog. All the pets were rescue animals,
and the three of them only count five ears and two and a half tails.
Linda's home is a collage of interesting objects and memories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The poster from the State Fair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The wall hanging from the friend's trip to
Guatemala. The dog and fire hydrant salt and pepper shaker with the dog
that looks like her real dog. And on her fridge was a magnet advertising
a small business in St. Louis. It was my business. A business that I
shuttered after a year and half, when my husband's work got scarce awhile and real
life came roaring back. I threw all the remaining magnets away, I couldn't
stand to look at them, but it was good to see that somebody was still proud of
me for giving it a shot. The business may no longer exist, but the magnet
was a present from me, and so it remains.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Holding up photographs on her refrigerator.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Linda's husband has a good job
now, but she still doesn't have an engagement ring.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They decided it would be more fun to spend
the money on a trip to Croatia, where Linda's grandparents were born. And
so it is with Linda. She keeps the good stuff, the symbols of love, the
reminders of generosity, the photographs of people she loves. And her
life has nothing to do with superficial beauty or someone else's idea of what expensive nonsense it is absolutely necessary to own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">As for me, I am still using that cranberry
red Kate Spade satin wallet. It's over ten years old and really starting
to fall apart, but I can't bring myself to buy another one. The wallet is
nothing but a lingering example of catty teen girl silliness, but I carry it
around with me every day. And there are other things I carry around too.
They may not take up space in my purse, but I lug them around, and they
weigh me down. The class I could have aced but didn't, the friend I hurt,
the missed opportunity, and that business that didn't work out. They are
all with me, and I am not yet sure how to trade them in for polyester stripes
and a picture of my siblings. But last Christmas, my husband and I agreed that we
aren't going to exchange gifts, but instead put the money in vacation
fund.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are going to Russia, where some
of my great-grandparents were born.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
think that’s a good start.</span></div>Ivy Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02415828535892800698noreply@blogger.com0