Dreams

I have been having truly disturbing dreams lately. Full of violence and brutal sexuality and disconcerting images of my past and present interwoven in bizarre and unsettling ways. Most of the time I cannot remember much of the "narrative" of my dreams. I am only aware of the aftertaste of the distress when I wake up. For about three months now, I really haven't had very many good dreams.

George gave me a book for my birthday. Man Walks into a Room by Nicole Krauss. I asked for this book because I vaguely remembered some of her stories in The New Yorker and because she is married to Jonathan Safran Foer, one of my favorite novelists of all time. I hadn't been able to put the book down all day, until I was inspired by a passage to revisit my recent distress with dreams and dreaming.

The book is truly beautiful, not only in its story (a man who loses all memory except for memory of his childhood), but also in its prose. Krauss was trained as a poet and it is easy to see the poetry in her narrative, where a simple sentence evokes complex feelings and memories in the reader. A few passages have made my eyes misty, not only out of empathy for the characters, but also because of the evocative writing that brings to mind some of my own most treasured memories.

However, the most affecting passage so far has been a passage about dreams and memory, or more properly, forgetfulness:
"You told us about an angel in the Talmud or something, the Angel of Forgetfulness, whose job it is to make sure that when souls change bodies they first pass through the sea of forgetfulness. How sometimes the Angel of Forgetfulness himself forgets, and then fragments of another life stay with us, and sometimes those are our dreams."

Upon reading this passage, I immediately thought of the painting "Angelus Novus" by Paul Klee. Benjamin (my thoughts seem to keep returning to him), did an interpretive essay on Klee's painting, claiming that the angel was the angel of the progress of history. He claimed that the angel's eyes were looking back onto a past history, onto all of the sad and devastating events of history.

The synthesis of Benjamin's interpretation of the Angelus Novus and Krauss's narrative depiction of the Angel of Forgetfulness has created in my mind an entirely new way to evaluate my distressing dreams. Perhaps my distressing dreams are not indicative of any present unhappiness. Perhaps they are not even, as Freudians would likely assess, indicative of my own unconscious and subconscious childhood unhappiness. Perhaps these dreams are instead my way of interpreting and filtering the elements of a collective history, a history full of violent change and revolution. This history, of my past life, or of the past life of humanity, is rightfully distressing. Human history is so wracked with violence and volatility, that perhaps the only way to get through it properly is to work it over in your dreams. Perhaps the best way to progress as a human being is to experience the worst of life in your dreams and pursue the best of life in your wakefulness.

Girls always make passes at spies who wear glasses...

I have never been in love with a city before. But I am falling in love with Berlin. I had girlish fascinations with Paris…in my dreams the city of love and lights was a recurring fantasy. And my college lovers played into that fantasy—they brought me gifts from Paris, using my infatuation with the city to spark sexual attraction. But just as those human love affairs eventually fizzled, so too did my crush on Paris. (I still admire the city, enjoy visiting it, and find it absolutely beautiful. Not to mention my great admiration for Parisian history and philosophy.)
Berlin, on the other hand, has worked slowly to captivate me. It is a mysterious place; a capital that is “poor but sexy” (I have to agree with the mayor on that one). It has the culture of Paris, the cosmopolitan feel of London, and the art scene of New York—and a surprise around every corner. With so much going on, it would be easy to feel swallowed up in the city, but Berlin has retained a unique ability to preserve its neighborhood-feel. Charlottenburg—where I live—is quiet, domestic, and has a beautiful palace with an enormous garden. With a 15 minute train ride I can reach Prenzlauerberg, a community filled with youth, creativity, and the best brunch cafes in the world! Kreuzberg has a large Turkish population, with street markets and tasty food. Friedrichshain is full of pubs, clubs, and concerts…and there are so many other unique neighborhoods.
There is an air of mystery enshrouding the city; the rebuilding of Berlin has led to it's artistic and cosmopolitan growth, but it will forever retain the secrets of the political intrigue situated in Berlin for the greater part of the last 70 years. The current inhabitants--students, artists, tourists, survivors, entrepreneurs, and now me--also seem to simultaneously carry airs of mystery and creativity with them.
It’s really a tragedy that Walter Benjamin never saw the 21st century arrive to Berlin. His philosophical homage to Paris in the Arcades Project recounts the beauty, mystery and intellectualism of Paris at the beginning of the 20th century. Paris’ artistic and commercial promise held an important place in Benjamin’s unique theories of fetishism and critical theory. However today Benjamin’s Heimatstadt, Berlin, has become the center of contemporary growth, architecture, and art. It is populated by both the fetishists of capitalism and it’s critics. More than 50 years after Benjamin’s Flucht and subsequent murder, the Germans have rewritten their history in the city of Reflections. Now Berlin is the city of steel and glass.

Feurwerk

Berlin touts itself as having the biggest New Year's Eve party in the world. London and New York also make claims to the title of Grand Fete, so I am not sure if Berlin's is truly the biggest, but it is definitely quite the party. George and I went to the Brandenburg Gate, the central location for the party, and we found ourselves trapped in a mass of people stuck between Tiergarten and the Gate. At first we thought that it was going to be a long and uncomfortable night stuck in the middle of a million people, but it ended up being quite pleasant and festive. Aside from the occasional pushy drunk person, or anxious tourist, all the other partygoers were in such good moods and enjoying themselves so much that the close quarters were pretty communal. And the fireworks at midnight were spectacular! They lasted at least a quarter of an hour and went right above the statues atop the gate--it was truly beautiful and exciting.

Since we knew that the public transportation would be completely packed as the night wore on, we decided to head home as quickly as possible after the fireworks display. We walked as fast as our little legs could carry us to the S-Bahn station...and during this walk we made a strange realization. In Berlin, it is legal to shoot off personal fireworks for a few hours on New Years, so just about everyone in the city sets off their own fireworks displays. Every side street and alleyway was full of people with bottle rockets and sparklers, and the roads were already littered with paper from the spent fireworks by 12:15. (One of our friends warned us that this paper litter would cover Berlin for three weeks after the holiday--the street sweepers just can't get it all fast enough.) All of these mini-explosions filled the air with a smoky haze and the popping and cracking sounds from thousands of fireworks. As we were rushing through the throngs and rockets, George and I began to feel as though there was a bizarre irony in the Berliners' celebrations. All these fireworks had the effect of making Berlin seem like a movie-set war zone, the cracking and popping sounded a bit like live ammunition and the smoky haze made everything appear as though the city were burning.

From the little I've read on the subject, I know that the firebombing of Berlin is still a relatively new topic for discussion in the philosophical, political, and journalistic circles of Germany. Only recently has there been any real address of the atrocities that affected the German citizens themselves during the Second World War (Sebald's work is especially interesting here). The irony to me was that this barrage of fireworks (more than I have ever seen anywhere!) appeared as though it were a subversion of collective history--as though the Germans, through their unbelievable display, were turning the atrocities of war into a communal celebration. I am not so bold as to claim that this sort of Freudian act was done consciously, or that the Germans are reliving their history with every fireworks display. I merely found it remarkable how like a war-zone the celebration became, and how, given my own limited understanding of the experience of war, the fireworks made me feel simultaneously nervous and celebratory.