thought about it, but there’s a reason why diesel is called “diesel.” Something to do with Mr. Diesel, the German who changed the world. Impressive, I can’t deny. I live and learn.
This museum, by the way, is arranged very well.
Look here, a table where the first atomic fission took place. That’s something you won’t find in my backyard.
In a section called Electric Power, a lecture/class is given in the dark. This includes a test, during which loud explosions are heard and following each of them the audience erupts in applause.
You walk around, look up and down and sideways in this fantastic museum and you cannot not love the Germans. Not only because it suddenly dawns on you all the contributions that Germans have made in technology over the years, but also the very way everything is arranged here. It’s a marvel to watch. No science museum I have ever visited comes even close.
Here you also get a chance to see Germany’s future, the little kids. Whenever I open my iPad, which has been available in Germany only since the end of last month, the kids come. Totally fascinated by it. They obviously don’t have it yet, these kids, but they desire it tremendously. They want to know how it works! Where is the modem? The tech genes, so to speak, since we are in a science environment, don’t disappoint.
Standing outside and seeing the people just going in and out is an amazing thing to behold: Children as young as two or three years old are here, and they love the place! This, to me, is the best and most powerful exhibition of all! I feel much better. I love these kids!
This is a cause for celebration. A
Leberkäse
(a delicious German meatloaf made with minced liver, eggs, and spices) is in order.
Admira of Bosnia, of the chain store Vintzenzmurr, is the one who prepares the
Leberkäse
for me. She has worked here for ten years, and she teaches me what she’s learned about the German people:
“Men order Cola Zero; women, Cola Light; children, Mezzo Mix or Cola; older people, water without gas or Sprite.”
That’s a philosopher! I love it!
I’m in such a good mood that I go to see a play. It is is called
Rechnitz (Der Würgeengel)
(Rechnitz [The exterminating angel]), by the Nobel Prize winner Elfriede Jelinek. It’s playing at the Schauspielhaus at the Münchner Kammerspiele. Performance starts at 20:00, intro at 19:15. Yes. Intro. You get an introduction beforehand, so you can understand the play. Can’t a piece of art speak for itself?
Well, maybe not.
The introduction is given by Julia Lochte, chief dramaturge.
The play takes place in Rechnitz, Austria. It is about 180 Budapest Jews who were taken as forced labor and ordered to build the Südostwall. They were too weak to work and were executed in the last days of the war, in 1945, just before the Russians came.
Elfriede, whose father was Jewish, never uses the word
Jews
in the play. Instead she calls them “hollow men.”
Helmut Schmidt is not the only Jew in the German-speaking world. Elfriede Jelinek is another one.
Watching the play, one notices that the theme is sex and death. A man masturbates, or rubs his crotch, with a woman’s foot. Over and over. While characters talk of murder, mass graves, and other fun stuff, they also engage sexually. What’s the point of it? I’m not sure. On the good side, this play has interesting undercurrents of humor. “I am proud to be German!” says one of the characters, “even tough I am not German.” On the other side, it’s too banal. If it intends to portray the banality of evil, well, Hannah Arendt does a much better job of it in
Eichmann in Jerusalem
.
I meet Julia after the show, just to have a little chat. Over a glass of ice-cold Cola Light, I ask Julia why the characters are making out while they talk about death and murder.
“Obscenity of evil,” says Julia.
I say nothing.
An interesting note:
The text of the play reads: “Schon die Kreuzritter wollten nach Palestina und sind
This museum, by the way, is arranged very well.
Look here, a table where the first atomic fission took place. That’s something you won’t find in my backyard.
In a section called Electric Power, a lecture/class is given in the dark. This includes a test, during which loud explosions are heard and following each of them the audience erupts in applause.
You walk around, look up and down and sideways in this fantastic museum and you cannot not love the Germans. Not only because it suddenly dawns on you all the contributions that Germans have made in technology over the years, but also the very way everything is arranged here. It’s a marvel to watch. No science museum I have ever visited comes even close.
Here you also get a chance to see Germany’s future, the little kids. Whenever I open my iPad, which has been available in Germany only since the end of last month, the kids come. Totally fascinated by it. They obviously don’t have it yet, these kids, but they desire it tremendously. They want to know how it works! Where is the modem? The tech genes, so to speak, since we are in a science environment, don’t disappoint.
Standing outside and seeing the people just going in and out is an amazing thing to behold: Children as young as two or three years old are here, and they love the place! This, to me, is the best and most powerful exhibition of all! I feel much better. I love these kids!
This is a cause for celebration. A
Leberkäse
(a delicious German meatloaf made with minced liver, eggs, and spices) is in order.
Admira of Bosnia, of the chain store Vintzenzmurr, is the one who prepares the
Leberkäse
for me. She has worked here for ten years, and she teaches me what she’s learned about the German people:
“Men order Cola Zero; women, Cola Light; children, Mezzo Mix or Cola; older people, water without gas or Sprite.”
That’s a philosopher! I love it!
I’m in such a good mood that I go to see a play. It is is called
Rechnitz (Der Würgeengel)
(Rechnitz [The exterminating angel]), by the Nobel Prize winner Elfriede Jelinek. It’s playing at the Schauspielhaus at the Münchner Kammerspiele. Performance starts at 20:00, intro at 19:15. Yes. Intro. You get an introduction beforehand, so you can understand the play. Can’t a piece of art speak for itself?
Well, maybe not.
The introduction is given by Julia Lochte, chief dramaturge.
The play takes place in Rechnitz, Austria. It is about 180 Budapest Jews who were taken as forced labor and ordered to build the Südostwall. They were too weak to work and were executed in the last days of the war, in 1945, just before the Russians came.
Elfriede, whose father was Jewish, never uses the word
Jews
in the play. Instead she calls them “hollow men.”
Helmut Schmidt is not the only Jew in the German-speaking world. Elfriede Jelinek is another one.
Watching the play, one notices that the theme is sex and death. A man masturbates, or rubs his crotch, with a woman’s foot. Over and over. While characters talk of murder, mass graves, and other fun stuff, they also engage sexually. What’s the point of it? I’m not sure. On the good side, this play has interesting undercurrents of humor. “I am proud to be German!” says one of the characters, “even tough I am not German.” On the other side, it’s too banal. If it intends to portray the banality of evil, well, Hannah Arendt does a much better job of it in
Eichmann in Jerusalem
.
I meet Julia after the show, just to have a little chat. Over a glass of ice-cold Cola Light, I ask Julia why the characters are making out while they talk about death and murder.
“Obscenity of evil,” says Julia.
I say nothing.
An interesting note:
The text of the play reads: “Schon die Kreuzritter wollten nach Palestina und sind
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