BERLIN DIARY

Dear Simon, 

tonight I went to Frederichshain to look for a studio. I stopped off
at the Kunst Kino cafe and talked for hours to 3 groups of people: some Japanese girls, some Chilean guys: a girl from Hamburg. It was great to just sit down and relax. It looks as if an American called Mitch is helping me find a studio: this could work. The gallery seemed interested. Its a really classy gallery on Frederichstraße, more or less the tourist hub. (the Ku´Damm used to be the centre before the fall of Mauer) I made sketches of the Japanese girls. Their facial structure is so different from Western Europeans, obviously, but also different from
other East Asian folks. It was fascinating and they seemed really pleased with my work. The Chileans talked endlessly about Chomsky and Marx. Usual futile debate. The video shop is incredible, full of stuff I´m dying to see or re-view. Films from everywhere in the world, the best stuff. The girl from Hamburg taught me more German, there was a useful exchange. Says she studied to be an actress in Wien, then went to LAm. You´d love that shop. Home-made lemonade, ice-cream from this clanking old ice-cream machine and great lattes.

Menus written on old plays by Hugo von Hoffmansthal. (those plays become more interesting because of the frisson between the menu and this high Jugendstil period. The plays are deeply artificial and laughably conventional. Its a very subtle, interesting point and funny too.)

Simon Jenner wrote:
 
Hi Paul,

I first came across him in Kenneth Clark and then in 1980 in Hamburg's museum. He really is breathtaking, especially the Wreck of the Hesperus and the mountain scenes. He seesm happiest in frozen wastes.

Wrote a poem on this experience, Frankfurt and Delingsdorf's lesbian commune where I was staying wuth my sister, rather than CDF. Nor was he CDM... not chocolate box at all. I was suitably amazed by his work.
Just catching up with myself, glanced over your emails and read them them trying to eat. No good. christiane and heroin. I wrote of another Christiane.

I'll write when I've digested.

Cheers,

Simon

On 5 Jul 2006, at 17:59, Paul Murphy wrote:

Hi Simon,
saw the CDF´s for the first time today live. Bigger than I expected and many are undoubted masterpieces of that period. They stand out above most of the rest. The German Turner, possibly better.
bfn,

Paul

Simon Jenner wrote:
Hui Paul,

I'm late for work as having written a letter to tacitus, brooding day off and on, then a dream image and words wae me and I start, so there it is.
one thing, it has made me horribly late for work and I've not read you very thoroughly, but love the anecdotes re body-building Murphy vs landlady's thugs, Holinghurst persona non granta, beckett in Berlin but perhaps Walter Bejamin could have cheered him? And this. I'm away till Friday when normal service will be resumed, unless a poem gets in the way of my opening my emails.

Cheers,

Simon
On 4 Jul 2006, at 11:30, Paul Murphy wrote:

Hi, I couldnt believe that the drivers were just coming on straight at me. The cars seemed to fly at the speed of rockets. I was very shaken afterwards, just couldnt believe that it was worth almost killing someone in order to get to your destination a few seconds earlier. Of course, if she had actually run me over she would have
been held up there for hours, but the drivers here might think themselves to be rather streetwise and consider a hit and run too.
Who´s going to care about a tourist run over at the Ku´Damm?
Other people here have sustained injuries. I think its the WM, everything is a bit more manic than usual.
Discovered that the Siegesäule was moved from Königsplatz nr the Reichstag by the Nazis to this area. There are 3 statues beside it, Bismarck, Roon and Moltke all sporting ridiculour Victorian beards and moustaches apart from Moltke, who looks very modern. The statue of Bismarck is fantastic. I think the rationale for moving them is that they reminded the Nazi heirarchy of a too great connection with the golden era of Prussian militarism. (at that time, circa 1870, the Prussians had defeated the Southern Germans - who formed a confederation with the Austrians, the Danish and then the French.
They really proved that they were the pre-eminent continental land army and Prussia became a bi-word for militarism, aggression and success. But the British still ruled the waves and the world.)
But they didnt destroy the statues and monument either. That´s interesting and proves something. The Siegesäule is covered with gilded French cannon from the German victory over the French at Sedan. (Have you read a history of the Paris Commune, by the way?
Karl Marx agreed with the Communards but thought that a revolutionary movement wouldnt succeed at that time and felt that the Commune should wait and build itself up politically. In the end he was right and the Commune was defeated, the Communards massacred in their 1000s by the French military. A countries military defeat often means change in a leftwards direction, as with the Russian Revolution, which was also sponsored by the Germans, who put Lenin and other leading Bolsheviks on a sealed train in Zürich to the Finland Station in St Petersburg, as it was then known. So left can also mean German, a very subtle thing to understand, if you know what I mean?!?)
The area of Berlin I´m in is Alte Moabit. Its part of West Berlin, not one of the best areas. There are lots of cafes and restaurants, Arabic, Turkish, Vietnamese and Indian.

best wishes
Paul