On Autism and Personal Growth

“Hello Leo, * hello Leo,” a circle of children and adults sings to an eight-year-old boy whose cherubic face sits upon an otherwise gangly body. “Hello Leo, so glad you’re here today!” the group finishes, just as the increasingly frustrated and reddening boy yells, “Stop it!” in his best Hulk impression. The teaching assistant to his left, optimistically termed a ‘buddy,’ gently rubs his back, gradually bringing him back to a calmer state.

Like the rest of the students in the male-dominated classroom, Leo has autism: Asperger’s Syndrome, specifically. This places him on the ‘high-functioning’ end of Autism Spectrum Disorder, and at times, he is no different from a neurotypical developing child. He loves Candy Land, enjoys tag, is especially bossy in that purely childlike way, and interacts with other people.

As a teaching assistant with the Autistic Children’s Activities Program in Portland, I taught, played with and guided children with autism, many similar to Leo, for two consecutive summers, five days a week, eight hours a day. Beginning the job after my freshman year of college, my only real interaction with developmentally disabled individuals had been brief, and my knowledge was largely theoretical. I was eager to learn quickly and draw connections to ideas I had previously explored in only an abstract manner.

The program proved difficult yet immensely enjoyable, both for the children and for me. From such mentally, physically, and emotionally trying lessons, I became skilled in reacting correctly and effectively redirecting negative behavior. As a result, I grew closer to the children, and autism gained a face – or several. I had incidentally but gladly become some form of spokesperson in my community and resident expert within my peer groups for this cause, which in the process also became my cause.

I dug into articles, studies and personal stories regarding autism, restructuring my experiences with Leo and his peers into an academic framework. In those summers, I felt incredibly challenged and fulfilled, and I learned to apply that drive and sense of purpose to other areas of my life. I saw that learning is a continual process, with new input constantly feeding older neural pathways as well as acquired information in an ever-adapting feedback loop. It is up to us to keep that loop alive and functioning on a higher level, and to stimulate it by improving and being improved by the lives of others.


*Name changed for privacy of family.

Of Rats and Undergrads

Tomorrow we begin running mazes and other experiments with lab rats in Behavioral Neuroscience, and I am rather eager.

ATTN: Call for Portland Puppeteers!

After taking a puppetry course in Munich, Germany, with two established puppeteers, I became set on continuing my newfound passion in Portland. Sadly, however, my attempts at forming a meet-up group fell through when I realized there was a large fee involved. I have yet to lose hope, though, and wanted to to pose the question to anyone who happens to stumble across (or upon, rather) this blog:

Would you be interested in getting together to practice and puppetry techniques or potentially even perform in public?

In Munich, I created two intricate marionettes and directed, choreographed, guided other group members in and performed my own piece in a small theater. I feel rather attached to the figures now and would like to have the chance to practice manipulation and animation with others interested in the art once again.

What say you?

On [Re]settling

It has been extraordinarily surreal coming back to Portland and being at Lewis & Clark (College) once again. The taxi ride from the airport was the most extreme - and justly caused - bout of déja vu I had ever experienced. The driver was none other than the kind Russian man who drove my father and me the first time I came to Portland ever, and the third, when I returned alone. I would have been so agitated if I took the MAX first, what with the wait time, heavy luggage and more sitting in moving objects.

I had the most bizarre, sleep-deprivation induced dreams on the plane. One of them had me in an airbus, which my actual plane was as well, but it had a variety of transformative qualitites and at the end of the trip, we reached a tunnel in which the airplane mutated into a train/bus-like machine and we had to crawl up through the crevices like reverse spelunking. Another part of the dream was my imagined arrival in Portland. I flew over the city in the airbus - before I knew its true nature - and watched as every European city I had visited in the past year morphed to form a super city, with monuments and buildings from all, plus glorious bodies of water. There were some recognizable Portland elements and we flew through the streets, which were reminiscent of Seattle or San Francisco in hilliness.

I was and still am so overjoyed to be back in PDX. The day after my arrival, I went to a show at Mississippi Studios with my friend Sandra. Talkdemonic, a stunning Portland band, headlined the show. The opening band, Deelay Ceelay, had a visualizer with images related to the lyrics or electronic melody of the music. The second band, Church, was pretty fabulous, and the members moved like dinosaur puppets. The funny and interesting remark of how easily one could guess what a person is like while sexually intimate based on his/her moves onstage came up during the pause in performances. Honestly, try it sometime. You'll see.

You can sample some of the music and read a small blurb about the event here: http://www.melophobe.com/concert-reviews/talkdemonic-deelay-ceelay-church-mississippi-studios-portland-or/

While reacclimating, I came to the realization that I am now far less concerned about self-image than I was before Munich. Also, I have stopped feeling the need to edit or modify others, or be wary and nervous regarding how their appearance or behavior reflects on me through my association with them. It's much easier now to take people as they are without constantly [mentally] nit-picking or attempting to edify. Unlike my pre-college or even pre-Munich self, I don't give a damn anymore about others' hair length or preferred style of dress, and I stress less over whether two people I care about are completely harmonious in conversation. Instead I focus on whether they are kind to one another and there is platonic, romantic or familial love there to make the interaction and my reaction a calm, positive one. I have stopped obsessing over what my family thinks of whom I date, and in doing so, I have freed myself of a great deal of emotional unease and also happened to notice that the person I am now dating respects and is respected by my family.

This weekend was just as glorious as the last. I had a chance to enjoy the Belmont Street Fair, the sun, many cafés, some time to myself and much-needed biking from the college to SE. I no longer feel robbed of a Portland summer, as I was lucky enough to experience falling in love with this city all over again. I think it's happened four times now, whenever I return or feel newly free.

Departure from Munich

All of these disorganized contemplations were originally written down at the end of August, just before I returned to the US:

Soon everything in my microcosmic splice of the world will change.

Sadly I must say good-bye to Ivanna and Nicole in Munich and my relatives in Zürich, but in the U.S. I will be closer to my immediate family and friends, as well as everyone from the program who has now begun repatriation. I take great comfort in knowing that Emily and I will never be far apart, despite the evil geography may inflict the year after next.

When I am back in Portland, I will…
- Take out graphic novels from the public and Reed library and read them voraciously
- Get anatomy and botany books from the library, sketch the images
- Buy a pack of Cloves
- Organize what stuff I want to keep and what I can spare
- Get my bike repaired, take it in for a tune-up and ride all over SE
- See Cecily, Jenifer, Sandra
- Go in for a yoga session at Yoga Pearl
- Eat at Blossoming Lotus
- Rent LOTS of movies, start up Netflix again
- Have my first legal US drink in a bar
- Visit all the places to which I feel so connected

Am I ready to sum up Munich yet? Not thoroughly, but I can start to process it all. Often I need to do this once I have left a place and gotten both physical and emotional distance from it. It’s certainly true (though no less pretentious) to claim that a year abroad can mature a person tremendously, but like everyone else, I did a lot of this in the last year of high school and first two years of college. This time, however, it’s been entirely my own doing. No boy has helped me learn what I wanted while I’ve been in Munich. If anything, perhaps I’ve seen a bit more clearly with P. and C. what dating is like when you don’t constantly see the person. My pacing is all sorts of messed up.

Stockholm

Most delayed post ever.

Classes have started up again and I am back in Portland. As I was in Zürich for two weeks, distracted by lovely people and without my laptop, the Stockholm post never made the leap from paper to blog form. Then there was the whole falling in love with Portland all over again, which demanded my full attention and a good week. Yet I typed up all of this earlier and want to follow through just to tie loose ends. Here is the tardy but just as worthwhile collection of observations and musings from Sweden:

Friday, July 31st
I'm quite satisfied and sleepy at the moment. Södermalm, the area where I am staying, is apparently the hipster hang out neighborhood. The streets are filled with numerous second-hand shops and cafés. I was feeling lackadaisical, so as I worked my way over to a highly recommended, cheap vegetarian restaurant for lunch, I dawdled in front of and within some of these shops, resisting temptation except for a long glass bead necklace and two handmade espresso cups. Walking out of the hostel after dropping off my heavier bag, I felt that loneliness creeping up again and started to miss friends and access to the internet. This is likely because the city reminds me so strongly of London - in terms of price, high fashion, diversity, enormity and a stunning metro system - and I remember what fun I had in London with Monica. Zur zweit zu reisen macht alles viel angenehmer.

Flying in today was remarkable for the view - I had never really processed the fact that Sweden is made up of a land mass and countless small islands. It looked as if a toddler had let globs of wet sand plop into a low tide pool; such was the disorder and frenzy with which they seemed to be arranged.

Vintage, vegetarian, a third V fails me here, but I shall have to do with these for the time being. Seems more than survivable. I saw a lot of this island and the surroundings of Central Station today before pausing at a cemetery with a beautiful church and riding the Katarina elevator up for a glorious panoramic view. It's hilly here like San Francisco or Seattle, and there is a great alternative newspaper that rivals The Mercury or The Stranger in quality and wit. Parts were in English, which was appreciated.

I also explored a small library today and was thrilled with how the rooms were organized by genre, each with its own theme. Sci-fi/fantasy had a dragon lurking in the corner, plush pillows and dark color tones. The teen section included photos by a local photographer of Stockholm youth and their stories to match, while the reading area looked incredibly Seussical, with bold red carpeted steps to sit on and a swirly felt plant to keep readers company. Seeing a flyer for the free film evenings that occur every Friday, I was overcome with the desire to watch many an Ingmar Bergman film back in Portland, making a night of it and taking advantage of Netflix or Movie Madness once more.

Ok. Today shall be full of relaxation and tomorrow of art. Fair deal. People-watching is a marvelous hobby. Oh how cute bikers as well as boys with large-framed glasses and messenger bags flock this city! Further observations of my species today include the outrageous number of blonde pregnant women I have seen today. How many within the span of a few hours, you ask? Thirteen. 13! Industrious people. Perhaps Swedes are taking over the future? Judging from Ikea and Smörgåsbord, it doesn't seem too bleak. This is enough to make me doubt that the birth rate in Western Europe is still falling dramatically... and apparently only 15% of Swedes are blonde and 30% have blue eyes. I need to work with combinations and permutations to figure out why the fraction of pregnant, blonde, blue-eyed Swedish women all pooled together within my line of sight. Yes, yes. Selective perception and confirmation bias, I knowww.

Plans
Saturday: Kulturhuset, National Museum, St. Jakobs Kyrka, Moderna Museet, cafés
Sunday: Street, Grandpa, Judits Second Hand, Stadsbibliotheket, cafés + restaurants
Monday: breakfast! Relax, drink coffee, browse shops and read in the park


Saturday, August 1st
Psst... Swiss National Day! For some reason I felt compelled to record my first thought of the day in terrible morning handwriting: "I often find myself in the initial stages of waking up, when you attempt separate dreams from reality." It's odd how that first thought feels like an epiphany when you awake and like nonsense later on. After this false brilliance (mediocrity is my specialty, really), I set off to overdose on art once again. Later I wrote:


I just gulped down a cappuccino after three hours at Moderna Museet, two at the National Art Museum before that and a significant amount of time ogling the many rooms of the Kulturhuset, Stockholm’s public center for visual and performing arts. They have a noteworthy and extensive graphic novel collection, a modern and inviting layout – it’s an enormous building, but doesn’t suffer any loss of warmth or comfort as a result – and a fantastic space for young people to create all forms of projects, from collaged greeting cards to iron-on patch designs. There are multiple little galleries within the mammoth building, and particularly enthralling is a film piece in the first exhibition room I entered.

The concept used has been applied many times before, but the artist managed to make it feel novel. He affixed a small video camera to his head and recorded his movement all over the city. Occasionally the perspective would switch to show his back, from the head to waist, or pull further out and show him from afar, but the viewer never glimpsed his face. Mostly it had the feeling of a non-violent first person shooter and it felt like seeing what the hit man or the guy from Splinter Cell does on his off day. The video game feel was strengthened when he would pick up an object and it glowed a little – like when you find a health pack in a game, or like when Mario finds a power-up mushroom. One object was a giant red flower, which gradually lost its yellow glowing aura until he gifted it to a passing woman. The transfer was lovely and both she and the flower glowed. At several points, he threw a one-cent coin into a fountain or lake, and with that, the entire area lit up with the same yellow glow. Also, towards the end of the film, he hiked up a remote hill further away from the city, and every time he glanced back at it over his shoulder, the entirety of Stockholm was illuminated.

The visit to the National Art Gallery was a nice and peaceful one, and I particularly enjoyed the exhibits of Swedish design and of the black and white photographs from Hans Hammarskiöld. If you find yourself in Stockholm but without too much money (a right tragedy in this costly city), note that the National Art Gallery has one free exhibit and the Kulturhuset has several free galleries. Now that I reconsider it, I am not disappointed that I didn’t go to Brandström & Steve, a design gallery and showroom, as the exhibit in Kulturhuset on transforming everyday objects and how we relate to design (hi, Objectified) was significant and enjoyable enough. I am still thinking of that glorious treeless tree house in Charlottenborg, in Copenhagen. I want to sew imaginary creatures and create dioramas using postcards and photos of the Swiss Alps as a background. I want to make stop motion films, take beautiful black and white photos, write comic books. I want to scream from having swallowed so much of others’ creative output in these past few days and not producing enough of my own. I could explode with unused ideas and anxiousness. I need to talk talk talk to someone and eject all this rushed, violently loud energy from myself. I continue to read until my brain has grown bloated with images and perfect, exquisite story-telling from “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.” I am devouring so much, a dangerous amount of cultural material and it’s making me anxious to move around rapidly. I will not see the Dance Museum here; I cannot stare at old ballet slippers behind glass and still shots of famously choreographed dances. I need my bike and love and to be surrounded by people until I can’t stand them anymore.

Yes, tomorrow is for markets. Last night I spoke for a half hour with a cool Dutch girl, and earlier with an Argentine guy who studied civil engineering and saw so much of Europe for the first time in the past seven months. In these conversations I liked the articulate, mature version of myself that I presented, but in actuality I am redundant, just recycling ideas discussed with just as much passion but another individual twenty-four hours previous. Oh. My heart just leapt as I glanced over the glass table with postcards, candy wrappers, business cards and flyers wedged underneath and recognized a MACBA ticket stub. The contemporary art museum in Barcelona, a two-minute bike ride or seven-minute walk from where I lived, was a place I frequented heavily in March. I will avoid saying something trite like ‘it’s a small world,’ but now you know I am thinking it and thus I cannot hide from the cliché tackiness of it all. That’s quite all right, really. Uff. It's nearly 5 o'clock. My legs and feet ache terribly from walking miles through museums. I cannot tackle one more today. Peace of mind is required.

Sunday, August 2nd
Last night I opted for socialization with pricks rather than more alone relaxation, drawing or reading time. I still cannot say whether this was the best decision, but I know I would have slightly regretted it if I hadn’t made the effort. I can be by myself whenever. I shouldn’t go out of my way to do so in Stockholm. After a day of museums and seemingly enormous and rapid thoughts screaming through my head, demanding to be expanded on or at least processed, I went out with the Irish rugby team from my hostel. Oh lord. I knew exactly what to expect, though, so I just had two beers (on the team’s tab, which I didn’t argue) and talked mostly with a German girl from the hostel who lives in Munich (!) and will begin studying psychology at LMU this fall (!!). I emphatically recommended professor Öllinger, whom I had Winter semester. The Dutch girls and the Italian guys were also fun, though one of the Italians seemed particularly edgy due to the volume of the team. Some members were actually rather nice – most of them meant well, anyway – and I learned a lot about women’s rugby from a female player. Violent sport but definitely more interesting than football.

It was so good to speak German with the other girl, and we were guilty of using it as a linguistic secret weapon against the Irishmen. The Dutch girls caught some of it and giggled along. When we headed back, we complained breathlessly and not without agitation about one particularly moronic guy. I mentioned how much more I enjoy and appreciate my own friends, now realizing that people with such idiotic behavior exist in the world. But ok, this is not the time or place to linger on such ideas. I am going to a market and then one more gallery (this is a crazy undertaking, I’ve already come to terms with that) and the library today. Sadly, nothing opens until noon, so I am sitting at a picnic table in the fairytale-like Högandsparken now. I’ve taken to breakfasting on trail mix, apples and bread in the miniscule grassy area behind the hostel in the mornings while watching the dog-walkers pass. Ah Street should be open by now… at the early hour of 11! Brief warning if you come here in August or late July: many restaurant owners are on vacation. Three apparently wonderful restaurants I wanted to dine in yesterday were ALL closed. It was somewhat lousy, as each was a backup for the previous disappointment. I was not too heartbroken, though, as I found sushi and cookies at the end of the journey. Also, my navigational skills have become superb, which is great fun and surely a result of frequently traveling alone. Success!


Later:
I am feeling a bit melancholy. Street, the large marketplace and ongoing art fest appears to be hibernating. My shins hurt terribly from too much walking (in practical shoes, however) and I’d like to move on now, but it’s somewhat mandatory to take a break. There is a pretty park here by the water where I tried to lie down before being bombarded with cigarette butts and prickly grass beneath me. Distraught, I followed the river to a place where willow trees skim the water’s surface and there are actual lily pads. It’s just as polluted here, but the sound of the water and tugboats going by is calming. It’s weird getting depressed for no apparent reason. The walls of one café/bar here are covered with giant flower mosaics with fractured mirrors as a background. It’s right next to the freeway, which adds an industrial, concrete feel, like that of North Portland – half gentrified, half mechanical and poor. The factories on the other side of the river make this comparison complete.

12:40pm
So I retract what I said before, though it was accurate in that small window of time. Going into a neighboring café was a lovely move and didn’t feel monotonous in the way I had feared, i.e. too much of a good thing/overdosing in café culture. It happened to be vegetarian, inexpensive and equipped with a marvelously quirky interior. Sitting with my coffee and perfectly sized sandwich while looking out at the water, I am content. Minutes before, I felt swarmed by cigarette buts, bumblebees and empty glass bottles. Now I look out and notice how terrifically the bikes are arranged along the railing, in an above/below, diagonal/straight pattern. What I especially love about these vegetarian artsy and cheap cafés in Stockholm (or about the two I’ve experienced so far is the table where you grab silverware and other items. In addition to napkins and such things, there is a bounty of free food and drink. An extravagantly prepared salad with fresh vegetables, whole wheat and often homemade bread or Wassa crackers, butter, four different pitchers of water, one with lemon slices, another with orange, a third either with cucumber or plain and a fourth dyed red by the raspberries swimming at the bottom. There are generally pots of strong coffee and black tea as well, which is fantastic. You are assumed to require a great deal of caffeine, having come in search of it and all. There is also an implied sense of trust in this, as you are expected not to take advantage of the system and sneak twelve pieces of bread.

Another element that aided in my mood change earlier was noticing a group of four young travelers who looked from their map to the place where Street should be with obvious frustration. Kindred spirits! I just saw them walk by the front window, seemingly less downtrodden. I believe I was also deeply affected by the book (Jonathan Safran Foer’s), as the issues of mortality and loss of family members are constantly addressed, and the characters are impossible not to relate to. This is no Brecht-like non-Aristotelian literature where you are made to observe and ponder the characters’ situations without empathizing, that much is certain.

It’s also becoming my favorite book, taking the place of “Eva Luna” and “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” which are in an ongoing battle of magical realism for first place on the list. As it is my potential favorite book – though I am aware of how pointless it is to set apart any book as more meaningful or good because of my personal liking of it, a person is allowed to have a specific taste – it feels as if I have developed a relationship with it, and I can’t bear the thought of it ending. Just described in the last chapter read was the main character’s grandfather’s experience of the Dresden bombing; how they shot the carnivores that got loose at the zoo, how everything was on fire and soon reduced to rubble, how the bodies were collected by the river - 220 altogether, four of which ended up ‘coming back to life’ after hours of unconsciousness.

I know this is a work of fiction, but this event is real, too real, and my Oma lived it. I have never discussed the bombing with my Oma, but I know she fled soon after, as the Russians came. I know of her childhood and teenage years in Dresden, of her uncle’s farm where she played with her cousin, and of how that farm is now part of Poland. I know the two of them once used the pigs’ feeding trough as a boat and took off at full speed down the creek. She later worked on a farm collective with other women as part of the wartime duty, and she once loved a soldier whose ring she lost on the day he died. I know she slipped into Switzerland despite it being highly dangerous, how she worked as an au pair and housekeeper for her older cousin’s family in the French part of the country, but couldn’t understand the butcher’s bastardized Swiss-influenced French. All of these things have made themselves known to me through her recollection of anecdotes, but I don’t believe I can ever bring myself to ask about the bombings.


The hipsters are all awake and flocking the street. Stockholm doesn’t wake up until noon on Sundays, it appears, so it makes sense that the galleries and libraries should act accordingly. A man just passed clutching eight baguettes in his arms and I mistook them for an infant. There was something so loving about how he handled them. How can I even think to leave this café? As usual, I am hiding behind a wall so that the terribly friendly and stylish barista will neither see me nor judge the length of my stay. I promise I will not abuse the free coffee, as I’ve just had a cup! Someone is adding to the bike pattern. Shame, though, he chose to be conventional and rest it on the ground. The elevated bikes on the railing always seem to be in motion, which I prefer.

Unrelated Aside:
This notebook [in which I originally recorded these musings] is my equivalent to a person to turn to for shared laughter and acknowledgement – “Did you SEE that?” – which, at face value seems rather pessimistic and morose, but I’ll take irritatingly redundant and inconcrete self-reflection over drunken Irishmen any day. Does this seem too selective? I don’t really give a damn if it does and this question is entirely rhetorical, yet it’s becoming increasingly more apparent that I’ve started to look to Susan Sontag as an ideal. Careful now, that will only bring trouble.

Really though, I was without the notebook for several hours in the city and became horribly agitated. It was like like being without my travel companion. Tonight was nice, however, and I explored, went back to Chutney (vegetarian restaurant of my previous raving), window-shopped and spent time in a park.

Monday, August 3rd, nearly 10am
It’s hard to see individuals who are highly self-aware nevertheless let others control their actions. R., the Dutch girl with whom I spoke for such a long time the first night, is frustrated with her friend and travel partner, who keeps going out and partying, then sleeping half the day away. Understandably, R. feels that they haven’t experienced as much of Stockholm as a result of this behavior. She lamented the fact that they have been to the zoo, but not a single museum. “If she wanted a party vacation,” R. said about her friend, “we could have just gone to Spain.” I invited her for coffee and breakfast, an offer which she considered and seemed to appreciate, but ultimately she chose to call her mother and ask her advice on the situation. Naturally I was sad not to be of more help, but there were many other factors, which we briefly discussed, causing her to be upset. I nearly wanted to shake her at one point – you know what you want! Don’t let others push you around!

In other news, I am flitting away my last few hours in Stockholm on a bench at the grassy patch by a plaza. Café? The more I write, the more of my book I save for the flight and layover. It’s so tempting, though! Also, the Kulturhuset is closed Mondays, so my original plan to hang out there until I board the shuttle has been shot. Oh, hell with it. I will read my book until the end, then browse bookshops in the airport and sleep on the plane. I’ve seen a magnificent amount of this city and don’t feel that I missed out on anything crucial I was dying to see. Favorite parts? Second-hand vintage shops, the reflective and sparkling water, Moderna Museet and the two vegetarian eateries. The creative space in the Kulturhuset is surely my absolute favorite aspect, though.

I just wrote four postcards to my aunt and uncle, grandmother, brother and sister-in-law and parents. I feel a dangerous hand cramp coming on due to all the writing. Oh! I can’t wait to bike through the English Garden again! I’ve missed Munich, to be quite honest. It’s not Berlin, but for one year, it was mine. It’s interesting that when I travel and when I am not visiting family, but planning it all out on my own or with friends, I choose only cities. The countryside is gorgeous, of course, but I want to absorb as much culture and history in the few days I have as possible, so cities seem optimal. Plan for the next few hours: pick up food at a grocery store, browse around in shops once more, take the metro to the library, play there, head back to Central Station, take the bus, get to the airport, check in and dawdle until the flight.

As a result of the BCN incident, I have vowed to be absurdly early for flights from henceforth. Rather one hour early than ten minutes late. I’d like to keep what little money I have.

In a stroke of genius, I opted to create my own sandwich instead of buying one of the overpriced, bland, non-vegetarian options and just removing the meat. A half-inch slice of brie and a streak of butter on a droopy, lackluster piece of bread masquerading as a baguette? Appetizing. I bought garlic bread and a wheat role, a red pepper and a small tin of black olives. Pepper and olive slices on garlic bread are inordinately delicious, it would seem. After I ate in the sun, next to the well-manicured flowers, I casually made my way over to the library, as I’d have been somewhat disappointed not to have seen the interior. It was stunning and awe-inspiring, and I so loved the feeling of being engulfed by the immense, rounded shelves. I grabbed a book of Pushkin poems, Douglas Coupland’s “JPod”, a tiny book of drawings and Jack Kerouac’s posthumously published play “The Beat Generation.” I became engrossed in “JPod” and gobbled through 60 pages of it in that marvelous library.

10:25pm
Planes, trains and automobiles. Today has been full of prolonged transportation or waiting to get on the next form of transport. The S-Bahn to Marienplatz takes SO LONG, and I’ve fished my book, read the Herald Tribune cover to cover, drawn, depleted my iPod battery and taken a multitude of naps. The fact that I haven’t eaten anything substantial since a small yogurt in Copenhagen at 6:30pm and the glorified sandwich at 1pm before then is starting to wear on me. Perhaps a friend at Stusta will be awake and willing to feed me? Don’t set your hopes too high, there. There is basmati rice at home, oil and some spices… That may be sufficient, though far from interesting.

Five more stops! The rain beats down the walls and windows of the train.

I miss carrots, avocados and blueberries. Frankly, I miss my mother quite a bit as well, and am anxious about having to share her with Oma and the Bauers soon. Ohjeohjeohje. Baldbaldbald. Bald is soon auf Deutsch. When you rewrite or repeat a word so much, it loses its particular meaning and becomes part of a pattern, visual or auditory. God I am tired, and eager to cease this chaos of constant motion. This doesn’t happen until PDX. Soonsoonsoon.

Zürich and last days in Munich update still to come.

For the Love of Libraries

On Tuesday evening, my friend M. told me of this library, one of the largest in the world dedicated to children's literature, that is in an old castle and within zone one on the metro/bus system, just an hour away. We make plans to go, and on Wednesday we set out, each with our small food supply for the trip and what we assumed would be a long stay at the library. We talktalktalk on the way there, but once we reach the spot, we see that it is completely magical and are momentarily struck by silence and awe. It is like a tucked away cove in Munich that everyone remains hushed about; there are bike paths that sprawl out over the whole area
and a gigantic field of sunflowers, straight from the cover of Everything is Illuminated.

The tiny old castle looks more like a church, and has a little moat, plus a lake and a stream nearby. People are out sunning, eating and laughing loudly at the restaurant as their skin freckles and browns. We later got ice cream, after hours of reading, and watched the bikers go by and the sunflowers continuously stretch toward the sun. First, though, we went to the study halls, where there were desk areas, like cubicles without the walls, with plenty of space to spread out books and research. There were so many marvelous books, and I spent forever with one written in 1862 called The Science of Fairy-Tales. It was incredible and had an entire chapter dedicated to story-telling. My mind is full of these stories and theories, on which I took extensive notes. There was a gallery dedicated to Eric Carle, one of my favorite children's book authors and illustrators - the one who did The Hungry, Hungry Caterpillar. He is German-American and spent half of his life in each country. For this reason, in addition to his talent, German educators love him. There are even Eric Carle pillows and mugs with the caterpillar's image.

A crazy event was going on outdoors in the same caterpillar theme. Gaggles of children and their parents were making masks, building things, screaming a bit, and playing in a fabric tunnel. One girl had a butterfly painted on her face, but on either side of her mouth rather than on her cheek.
She looked like she could swallow everything.

We went over to the library soon after, where there were so many different sections, each divided by language. I especially loved a book of tales by Jim Henson, or later adapted by him, at least. M. got Where the Wild Things Are in Russian, since she just wanted to use the pictures for ideas in an art project. I had a book on anatomy and started drawing the heart, and another book that I remember reading once I upgraded to chapter books in school. It was called The Borrowers and had to do with tiny people who live under the floorboards and in the walls, like mice. They hang stamps on their walls like paintings, use thimbles as pots and carpet swatches as rugs. I remember being fascinated by it as a child.

Københvn (2)

The chronicle of my Copenhagen tales continues.

12:45pm, July 29th:
I made my own bike tour for free!

Just a moment. Before I expand on this, it must be said that four middle-aged German women just passed, all wearing identical white capris. What’s more, all but one wore matching black shirts. The fourth woman, who donned a hot pink shirt vest, didn’t get the second memo, I believe.

Regarding the DIY tour: geographical skills + + +
I made it all over the place, biking like a Dane on one of the city bikes, courtesy of Copenhagen’s bike share program. You put 20 crowns, which is approximately 2,70 Euro into the slot, unlock the bike and proceed to gallivant around on two wheels. The deposit is returned if you find one of the racks elsewhere and drop off the bike. On the handlebars is a map of the city (mine was ripped off, but I wasn’t dissuaded in the least) and the seats are rather cushy and comfortable. The bikes are designed for travelers, as Copenhageners statistically own two bikes each. The share program is encouraging and more widespread than in Barcelona, or in most cities, for that matter!


After dropping off the bike and walking around a bit, I stepped into Overgaden, a small gallery filled with contemporary Danish artists’ work. I liked the feel of it a great deal and actually got a lot more substance out of an essay one artist wrote about his work than his actual creation of stacked soda cans. Articulate man, weird execution. I then strolled over to Café Wilder, a place I’d highly and emphatically recommend. It has the best atmosphere and great, inexpensive organic food. Everything tasted so fresh and crisp, but as I am not a food critic, I’ll trail off here. My legs, especially my upper thighs, are unbelievably sore from the night of dancing and few hours on the bicycle. This is the good kind of pain, though; the kind that reminds you that you are living. Oh, another note about the café: they play music from Jack Johnson’s first album, which is always remarkably effective in putting me at ease. Two other minor observations were that of a father teaching his toddler the names of different draft beers and the conclusion that Danish sounds like Simlish mixed with French and Dutch.

I became so enthralled in an exhibit at Charlottenborg, the contemporary art museum, that they had to usher me out at closing. Lonely Planet lied and claimed the hours went until 7pm on Wednesdays, but I was promised that I could return tomorrow, free of charge. Now I am in Kongens Have, or the King’s Gardens, relaxing after the overwhelming nature of Christiania and a great deal of walking. I think I’ll nap and mellow out with a Radiolab podcast before heading back to Nørrebro to find a small restaurant that serves veggie burgers. I’ve an irrationally powerful craving for one right now, and the walnuts and raisins do not suffice. A short note on Christiania: no photos are allowed to be taken there, which perhaps lets it retain a bit of its magic, but I will say that it’s a combination of Saturday Market, a modernized hippie commune and the Sunnyside neighborhood in Portland. It didn’t feel like Santa Cruz, oddly enough. I bought a turquoise ring and abruptly stopped myself while admiring the pattern on a pair of those wretched bohemian balloon pants now in fashion.

Later that evening:
Two housemates just went dumpster diving, biking off into the night armed with multiple plastic bags and grungy clothing. This made me think of my friend N. as well as a girl I used to work with during the summers. We once salvaged decent cupcakes from a ritzy specialty bakery in SE Portland on 4th of July and ate them together with apples taken from a community garden while we watched the fireworks in a park. I’ve recalled this memory numerous times, yet it still feels accurate and good, despite the difficult emotional backdrop it stood against. The dumpster divers are back with a [purchased] bottle of wine and some organic cookies that taste of chocolate dust. In the background, the Juno soundtrack minus Kimya Dawson songs is playing. Piazza, New York Catcher, one of my favorite songs of all time, was just on. Ok, wine. Adieu.

July 30th
I stopped at the botanical gardens today on the way to the Staatens Museum for Kunst. It was, without a doubt, one of the most spiritual moments I have experienced since doubting and then rejecting the validity of what religion could offer me in terms of explanation and comfort. I idled around outside at first, comparing it to the Portland Rose Garden or the Desert Botanical Gardens in Arizona. I circled the greenhouses and was initially distraught by their shut doors. Then I found a lake with willow trees, lily pads and a small rowboat just down the hill. It was nearly identical to how I had imagined the backyard in Sophie’s World. I was entirely at peace there and just stood, taking in the serenity of it all in the lightly falling rain.

Shortly after, I made my way up to a gazebo-style greenhouse full of trees. If there was ever a trace of doubt in my conversion to lover of science and its beauty in nature, it evaporated in this instant. At first I walked the perimeter of each room, eyeing the tropical and familiar plants alike. As I came closer to the final room and the air turned thick and muggy, I dove straight into the heart of the area and relished in the divine greenery all around. It was quite fitting and certainly over-the-top that I wore a dress covered with a leafy pattern and golden brown leaf earrings today. I felt like an unintentional chameleon, blending in with the trees.


I smiled at the enormous dog ear leaves that licked my face as I passed and marveled at the elaborate dangling flowers, which posed motionless and with complete grace. The walls were glass windows and, though such bright light was let in, branches and trunks had entangled themselves to form impressive crevices and dark, mysterious corners. The rounded metal object at the top of each greenhouse room looked rather like a chandelier, and vines had taken the liberty of crawling up the sides of walls and railings to reach it, creating a circus tent effect. In the final room, I was beside myself with oversized water lilies, numerous rare trees and spiraling antique staircases that stood out like a Victorian house in the jungle. I climbed one staircase and took it all in while having vaguely megalomaniacal but mostly light-hearted thoughts like, “this is your kingdom!” Simba must have felt the same when looking over the Pridelands. Beautiful, beautiful place.

Now I’ve just reached the Staatens Museum for Kunst, which is enormous and kostenlos. I must tell Steve of the “Flying Steamroller” piece outside that looks like a NASA flight simulator device holding a medium-sized steamroller. Truction truck, as baby Steve would say. Really I have no idea as to the accuracy of this story, as I was negative five to three years old. Still though, I think he’d love this creation.

Oi. Just spent two hours in the museum and now I’m taking a break for soup in the café, This is painfully oversimplified, but the only way to describe the collection is ‘thought-provoking.’ So for the time being, I am stewing in my own thoughts and far too preoccupied to write them down. It’s raining today, which, truthfully, is fairly comforting. The rain is something to rely on, in a way.

Later:
On the now sunny steps outside Charlottenborg, I play with ladybug and am thrilled by the absurd truth that this is not just any aphid, but a Danish one. This detail alone doesn’t cause it to differ from its North American ladybug brethren, but something about it still seems novel. Charlottenborg is among my favorite museums on this earth. The ‘Culture Camping: spend the night in a museum’ event occurs every Friday, and beds with white linen have been pushed together in the center of the room for this activity. Visitors are encouraged to sleep there during opening hours as well, and I was pleased to oblige. From the ceiling hang hundreds of long white ropes, evenly spaced out to form a vast expanse of unconventional stars at 90-degree angles. They do not touch you upon sitting up, but lightly brush the top of your head. Lying on my back, looking up at them, I was reminded of that old Windows screensaver in which you were constantly zooming through a pixilated, planetless galaxy. Today is all about finding Zen, I suppose.


Eventually:
I purchased lovely new pens and am now very pleased with the world. Other activities included forgoing the design museum due to a distraction caused by the charming but outrageously pricey Urban Outfitters. Oh capitalism, how you lure me with your make-believe harmless talons. My excuse, though none should be permitted, is that the chain does not exist in Munich, and I never saw a store on my previous travels. I am on a never-ending quest to find a second pair of these perfect jeans I bought there two years ago. If you had these pants, you’d understand. I actually needed a moment to process all the art I consumed recently as well, and was not so much in the mood to rush through the design museum.

Ha. The World Out Games are going on and several clips from related films or performances are being broadcast in the square below my coffee shop vantage point. Two female performers were just doing things onstage that would make Madonna blush crimson and Britney or Christina cover their eyes and giggle. To dwell further on my failure to make it to the third museum, however, I’ll also argue that I bought the pens out of inspiration to produce my own work, so there. This microscopic shopping spree of six felt-tip pens and a blouse has reduced me to a five-year-old, it seems. At least I’m a five-year-old drinking a cappuccino. Oh lord, could there be anything worse?

The Danes who work in the service industry are insanely fluent in English, and no matter how much I strain to say hej and tak, the moment I order an Italian-sounding coffee, they’re on to me and my English-speaking ways. I find it fairly relieving, honestly. “Ok, you can continue to say hi and thank you, but when we require real sentences, cut the charade,” they smirk. Clever multilingual Danes.

At a plaza there were musicians playing traditional Incan music with wooden flutes, wearing Navaho headdresses and moccasins. My geography bone hurt.


That night:
My last evening in Copenhagen left me drowsy during the early morning flight to Stockholm, but the marvel of it all was worth it. All the collective housemates, plus three friends and three couchsurfers (myself among them), dined and drank together late into the night. I really connected with the newest couchsurfer from Melbourne and we had simultaneous and spastic bouts of glee upon hearing of all the films, music, people and places the other had no knowledge of but would surely love. We switched notebooks and furiously wrote down everything we could think of for one another that seemed somehow relevant. R., the couchsurfer, studies photography and just finished a semester in New York. Now she’s come to Copenhagen for another semester abroad before returning to Australia. I was at once envious of and glad not to be in her position – at the beginning of the abroad experience.


We smoked Parliaments and I thought of all the hyper-stressed debaters I knew; we occasionally remembered to socialize with the others at the table, who enjoyed their own parallel worlds, and we exchanged contact information. A friend of O.’s, who told of how she got lucky through a start-up company with her former professor involved in promoting arts and culture in Scandinavia, began playing the violin and making skat noises. Soon after, O. found the King Louie Jungle Book song online and we all sang along, transported back to our childhoods in the process. I wanna be like you-oooh-oooh, do everything that you do-oooh-oooh. I wanna walk like you, talk like you, oh yeaah! Come now, don’t say the song is not magical.

Oh, I am so tired and content.

Whimsical Copenhagen (1)

Upon my return to Bavaria yesterday, a friend asked how my ‘fantastic voyage’ had been. I replied that my bones were weary but I felt so full mentally. My ‘dream gallery,’ which is something that will make little sense here, even when explained, but has to do with lucid dreaming and the REM cycle, was especially wonderful during those nights of travel or when I fell asleep on the metro. This was largely influenced by the plethora of images I was exposed to in the past few days. My head, I went on, is crammed to the point of extremity, but it’s a good kind of chaos and overload.


In addition this madness and delight, I read and finished the best book of my [relatively young] life, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. While I am already susceptible to empathizing with fictional characters too strongly, never before have I identified with or adored any figure more than Oskar Schell. Read this book immediately if you have not already done so.

I documented the Copenhagen trip in tall, skinny notebook with interwoven designs of deep purple and green. This book was, for all purposes, my travel companion during the journey, and quite a good one at that. Who else would receive my observations, witty and banal alike, in such a welcoming manner? For your benefit, I’ll only reproduce the mildly or more interesting segments here and leave the more mind-numbing or personal aspects on the pages bound together by string.

On July 28th, the date of my departure, my good friend S. and I discussed potential travel plans for next summer while drinking tea and eating plums in my room in Munich. Included among these fantastical what-ifs was a road trip into the Deep South with J. and then on to Chicago to see friends at Northwestern. I have been harboring this desire to see Savannah and Atlanta, Georgia, as well as St. Paul, plus New Orleans and some of the Midwest, namely Minneapolis, Minnesota and Topeka, Kansas. The urge and momentum behind all this is the necessity of seeing more of my home country than just my West Coast and Southwestern corner. I want to become educated about the US in the way that I have during this past year, in more than just a surface level fashion, about Europe. Visual and exploratory learning is what I mean by this. Perhaps this is why we travel – or why I do, at least – to collect these powerful images and memories out of which we can form a personal gallery. No, not perhaps. This is a definite reason for travel or merely living more fully and intensely. I am an avid collector of memories, it seems.

During the wait period before the flight, I sat in the airport, watching men in stiff business suits and a little boy playing with dinosaurs while his sister dressed her dolls and his mother yawned in a chair, flipping through a magazine.

Later that day, at 4:05pm (June 28th):
Shortly we’ll land in Berlin. Hello, lovely city. I adore you. Don’t believe for an instant that you’ll never see the likes of me again.

I then proceeded to draw for some time. Among said doodles was a computer as a dementor, as it is quite a life-sucking box of diversion and fun. The metaphor isn’t too accurate in terms of adjectives, but I’ll ignore this if you will. More drawings included a mandala, a beer bottle used as a flower vase and the oddly futuristic paper towel dispenser in the airport restroom.

The security and staff at Berlin’s Tegel Airport are amusing and adorable. The man at the check-in counter started speaking to me in Spanish. ¿A Dónde va? I think the bangs are what cause me to be taken for a Spaniard, but I like this mistake a rather lot and shall refrain from complaint. Another man at the security and bag check area allowed someone to first go through the metal detector and then down his Apfelschorle, which was far above the standard liquid allowance. “Auf X!” the employee bellowed encouragingly, as if the man were drinking a beer. He congratulated him at the end and promptly gave directions to the next bathroom. Ah! Such hilarity and perfect delivery. Rampant overgeneralization: modern Berliners are a light-hearted bunch.

Arrival
Copenhagen proves to be a stunningly beautiful city populated with absurdly fashionable young hipsters, none of which even border on overweight. So this is where the fashionista robots are made! I am by the river in Nørrebro, a marvelous location full of cafés, bars and vintage shops. There is more than a sufficient amount of high quality street art, and I am beside myself with pleasure.


I don’t know if I will really do anything this evening, as I got in later (though thankfully it’s still light out), aside from take a few photos of my surroundings and socialize with the co-op people. Just earlier, a friend of the group and I talked briefly of India and Nepal, where she had spent some months traveling and teaching. My knowledge of the countries is entirely textbook-based, but extensive enough to permit informed discussion. I bought a bottle of inexpensive red wine at a grocery store in hopes of bonding with the housemates through alcohol and as a token of appreciation for their hospitality. I love how these people live amidst the chaos of parallel creative projects but with some semblance of structure and tidiness.

Tangent – some observations:
Surrounding me are strollers and small animals. There are fledgling ducks, whose head feathers are all ruffled, as if they used a styling product to get the intended messy look. They are not such babies, I realize upon closer inspection, and are more like preteen ducks in actuality. Still uncontrollably cute, though. The woman to my left has a small dog that Em would throw fits of joy over. Scottish terrier? He bounds across the grass in that way little legless dogs do. The ducks seem to litter the water and there are hoards of them. Does their quantity subtract from their fluffy adorableness? Not in the slightest, but this saccharine topic is making me feel a little crazy. At least seven of the girls who just passed on the dirt pathway in front of me have been wearing those damn gladiator shoes, which are everywhere, really. Ok, I should plan tomorrow, but all I want to do is read more of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I already pummeled through 70 pages today. Must. Enjoy. Slowly. Do not devour! It is a dark chocolate. Genieß es langsam, bitte.

July 29th:
Last night was splendid, to use my grandmother’s favored adjective. The housemates, their friends and I sat in the kitchen/dining/living room and exchanged stories over wine and beer. It got late and all but two other souls and I headed to bed. We continued discussing film, linguistics ad the obscene cost of education. Earlier one had mentioned some screenings going on as part of a larger festival, and it was then suggested that we casually make our way over. I was lent a bike far too high for me but in wonderful condition, and we pedaled off across the bridge, first to the park, which seemed to be dead aside for some undesirable activity, and then to a bar and club area downtown.

We went to two different locals, chatted at the first and danced for hours at the second. Shortly after two, I was interested in heading home so that I could see museums, galleries and the alternative village community the next day. Meanwhile, the guys considered further bar options. The biked suddenly seemed to have grown tremendously in height and I swear it was like having to mount a horse, but with a small push, I was off and successfully navigated my way back along the elegant bike paths. Once back, I happily washed up and lay down on the couch made up with the softest comforter of my life. Ahh… sweet dreams.


I’m now sitting in a café with yellow tables, bottles filled with long-stemmed daisies, quickly burning candles, rust-colored chairs and rugs my parents would surely admire. Ok, hygge. I get it. It is Gemütlichkeit, but more sophisticated. Also, candles at 10am? That’s lovely. This cappuccino may be the best of my entire existence, which sounds hyperbolic and over-the-top, but it has the strong flavor of Barcelona espresso and the perfect amount of foam. Nebenbemerkung: I’d like to reiterate that people here are unbelievably stylish. I can hardly deal cope with it and want to photograph them so badly.

Hmm… it’s fairly unwise to skip breakfast, but I feasted on some bread slices in the apartment. To further exaggerate food and drink quality, it must be stated that Denmark has better bread than any other place in the world where I have dined. Better bread that Switzerland, even! As far as my own rations go, I’ve some raisins and walnuts with me and will probably buy some fruit before having a large lunch. This illustrates how similar I am to my father when he travels, forgoing physical hunger for the mental kind, craving more sights, more stimuli, more moments in which I laugh subtly to myself.


Yes, I love being a solitary traveler when it is framed within something as marvelous as a young people’s collective, replete with quirky types and a silver mannequin. Quite obviously, the reason I save money when traveling is that I don’t eat out as much – case in point being breakfast today – on my own as when I’m with others. Naturally it’s more fun to share a meal with a friend, but I won’t ever be ashamed to be the woman reading while eating. For god’s sake, I am that woman right now, writing in a journal while glancing over at an emptied, ground-stained cappuccino and its saucer.

Part Two still to come.

Puppetry Performance!!

Here's the final product of my puppetry course! I am the one controlling the main character, on the right.

The Grey Man from Sarah O'Brien on Vimeo.

So, I have been told by a big shot in the Munich puppetry scene (how weird is this concept?) that I am not allowed to return to America, as they need me here, to be in more shows. I am glowing a little.

Required Items (Part II)

Of course I could not leave the last post regarding desired items so incomplete, so here are some objects or locales that I forgot to mention previously.

Cheap postage!

Real avocados that do not taste like paste! I also miss our oversized bananas, surely genetically modified or full of radioactive properties, but oh so delicious.

Tillamook cheese!! I consume so much cheese in life, and the modest deli slices (7 per pack or so) do not suffice.

My Netflix account and the habit of watching good movies once or twice a week. I keep receiving emails from the company begging and trying to entice me into coming back to them. "We were good to you," they moan, like a needy ex-lover.


The inexpensive and delicous House Wine brand, which cannot be found here, though lack of wine is not something I can earnestly complain about.

In terms of reading material, I bemoan the absence of the Portland Mercury, at least in a tangible form (a great deal is also published online) and the surge of joy that comes every Thursday, when a new (free) copy can be found downtown or in most close-in areas of the city.

Now for places in which I will sit myself and refuse to budge until I have absorbed their spirit and satisfied my malnourished diet consisting of Munich locales.

Naturally, the first appearance on this list is made by Stumptown. Hello, brick walls, aromatic and flavorful wonder and hipster baristas!

Mmm Laughing Planet! Oh burritos and dinosaur toy decorations.

Buffalo Exchange and thrift stores in general. I don't understand the need to always buy new when others have used something just a few times. I cheated with this image, as this store is in East Village and not PDX, but it is too pretty for me to care.

My library!! All of its little branches, too. Munich libraries are unecessarily complicated and some charge fees! I maintain that to be against the spirit of libraries. (Image credit: misterbisson, Flickr).


The list is complete for the moment, but there is always more. Later, I shall definitely write out things I will miss in Germany, which is just as long and in-depth in nature.

August 28th shall be spent flitting all over my city in pursuit of these articles or places. I can hardly wait. First, however, I must conquer my finals and then the Nordic lands.

In Excess

On a related note to the previous post, another perturbing line of thought I've been indulging in lately is the place of excess in our lives. When something interests me, I tend to feel compelled to dive deeply into it and stay there for a while, living and breathing the new art form, book, song, theory or person. I seem to believe that the best way to gain a comprehensive understanding of how it works and how I can apply it to other areas. In that way - seeing connections - it is not so much a developed obsession, but something that can overlap with the curiosites and interests of years past.

With puppetry, for example, I allowed this to happen. I had nothing more than a vague notion of the creative and performance process before this semester and yet somehow it has developed into a full-fledged aspect of importance in my life. The idea behind the performance was recycled from unused animation brainstorming that I produced one summer after taking a related course in high school. The sketches of puppets made in one of Munich's museums, an assisgnment for the puppetry course, made their way into my zine. See? Overlap.

Ah speaking of the zine, it was finished a week ago and at somepoint I will photograph all the pages and post them. Over twenty in all, though. Hmm... perhaps in segments so that it is not extremely image-heavy. For now, however, here is just the cover page:

Fitting that I ended up titling it idee fixe, non?

My friend S. and I were once eating at Saf here in Munich, and she said something that feels applicable to this current rambling. She had a smoothie and managed to drink the entirety in a matter of minutes. Afterwards she remarked, as she poured water into the glass to somehow get at the essence of whatever smoothie-like liquid remained, that her guzzling of the drink served as a perfect metaphor for how she enjoys her men as well: never taking the time to enjoy the initial stages, absorbing all the pleasure almost instantly and then being somewhat surprised by the abrupt end.

For a person to then serve as an idee fixe is problematic and mildly dangerous. But I shall continue assume that when leisurely pursuits are balanced and there is room for overlap, they can then be [almost] equally enjoyed.

Plums in the Icebox

I first came across this poem by William Carlos Williams while listening to an episode of This American Life. The short, simple form and the way it immediately creates a plausible situation struck me, as well as the fact (pointed out in the episode) that the plum thief doesn't actually apologize and instead only says "forgive me."

This is Just to Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast.

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold.

The reason I post it here is because of a witty little cartoon response I stumbled upon online:

Praha!

If cities could be lovers, my romantic life would be as follows:

I would have my first puppy love crush on San Francisco, the boy next door, an ever-lasting infatuation and mutual attraction with Zürich, brief fling with Phoenix due to his impeccable knowledge of indie music, believe my soulmate to be Portland though I'd be tempted to stray with Seattle, have an intense romance with Munich but eventually leave for someone with more similar interests, consider moving in with Berlin and eternally wish that I could have Amsterdam. I would admire Barcelona and and fool myself into thinking that we could be something serious, go weak in the knees for London but be turned off by his hoity-toity sense of class status and wealth, have a fleeting thing for Venice and a two-month adventure with Vienna, and be highly intrigued by the mysterious Prague and realize that our taste in food and art (the most crucial elements) matched perfectly. I would also have an unhealthy obsession with both Copenhagen and Stockholm...

Gendering the cities was a bit odd and proved heteronormative, I must say. But it was a fun exercise nonetheless.

Oh yes, so Prague. Kundera and Kafka's city, Prague Spring, Velvet Revolution, Cubist interior design... It was glorious, of course, and I am so very glad to have been there. Prepare yourself for an overly-detailed commentary.

My favorite aspect was the Kampa Museum, a gorgeous art museum that proudly displays this quote from its creator Jan Mládek on the entrance wall: "If a culture survives, then so too does the nation." I will attempt to describe the atmosphere created within this building so as to give you a slight hint to the sensation it aroused. Imagine a large white cubic structure next to the river, appearing to levitate above the water. To the right, on a pier on the water, is a diagonal row of life-size plastic yellow penguins. Behind them is an enormous stone chair with one apparently broken leg. On land, giant iron babies with stamped barcode faces remain in a frozen crawl position and are occasionally photographed or climbed on by visitors. In the courtyard just before the museum there are three long, waist-height tetrahedrons with mirror surfaces.


When you finally make it past the ecclectic collection of public art and into the museum, you are immediately confronted by the first works. There is no foyer or unecessary extra space dividing you from the art. As you take it all in, you realize that you still must purchase a ticket (student price = 140 Czech crowns, 5,20 Euro, ~ $7.20) and buy one from the remarkably friendly - and rather adorable - young museum employee. The first room takes a fair amount of time to get through, small though it is, because of the amount of artwork in the space. In no way does it feel cramped, though, and the various styles are not in conflict with one another. A helpful factor may be the tall rectangular windows looking out to the river and the clean white walls. There is so much light in the room but it still feels intimate enough for you to have a quiet dialogue with the art.

In the adjacent room, two highly minimalist pieces lay on the floor. One was a large flat basin of nearly black water which reflected the innovative, interesting ceiling. Every once in a while, when someone upstairs walked a tad more vigorously than usualy, a small ripple would form in the basin. The second piece consisted of two opaque slates of glass sandwiching tubes of light. As I circled it, the light appeared to follow my warmth and movement, although this was surely just an illusion. After two minutes, the light disappeared, leaving me somewhat empty and unfulfilled. On an interesting side note, the curator's chair seemed to have equal significance in this room.


The stairwell was impressive in its own right, the walls covered, but not in an overwhelming way, with assorted two- and three-dimensional paintings. Hanging from the ceiling, in the middle of the spiraling stairs, was a sculpture that looked like a white DNA chandelier or those toy sticks that you connect together to make weird contraptions. I really liked the cubist works upstairs, namely one made up of miniscule wooden blocks, varying in height and resembling a blank crossword puzzle or scrabble board. Also interesting were four panels exploring shape development which to me looked unmistakably like a man devouring a sword and turning into a goat. I suppose with that comment I discredited the artist's original intent. It's what the viewer sees/reader reads that matters, right? Uff postmodernism. I apologize.


I fell head-over-heels for František Kupka's small abstract watercolors. Study for Animated Lines, Studies for Around a Point, Four Studies for a Tale of Pistils and Stamens, and Study for Lines, Planes, Depth were my favorites and reminded me of Frank Stella, but with a pointilist/impressionist twist. Otto Gutfreund's Cellist sculpture embodied all that is powerful, sensual and bold in a single sculpture... not to hype it up, but seriously.

Though I could go on longer about the artwork, I think this is sufficient and perhaps over-the-top already. One quick note though, is that I got to see the Cobra exhibit that I had wanted to check out in Amsterdam. It was a bit unimpressive, honestly, and the most I got out of it was this quote from one of the founding members on the wall: "We must turn everyone into artists! Because that is what they are. They just don't know it."

I suppose that a description of Prague is also in order, though, seeing as I also explored the city and not just a single museum there. While there, the friend I was traveling with, Andee, and I frequented Globe Café not once, but thrice. This English-language bookstore and café was, no joke, right across from our hostel (P.S. I recommend Chili Hostel, though I have heard good things about Sir Toby's as well). Aside from the Kampa Museum, we also visited the Franz Kafka Museum, which is remarkably cheap for students and can be very interesting if you speak German as well as English (or Czech) and are a fan of Kafka's works. For me, it wasn't terribly thrilling and naturally a bit of a downer after Kampa, but it was still worth the visit. The infamous and controversial Piss sculpture in front is required viewing, too.

Globe Café

We went to Havelská Market, where I bought wooden earrings and a delicate handmade wooden magnet for my aunt, saw the Hanging Out sculpture, napped, sunbathed and read in Vojan Park, saw the Spanish Synagogue, the Old Jewish Cemetary, trekked up to Prague Castle and saw numerous buildings, churches and boutiques. Astronomical Clock, the Dancing House, etc. You get the gist of it. Hey did you know Tycho Brahe, the astronomer who lost the tip of his nose in a duel (one of the few facts I remember from astronomy) had a pet moose? Apparently the poor creature died from drinking too much beer and falling down the stairs. Whaaaat?


Recommended eateries are definitely Bar Bar, Lemon Leaf, any of the vegetarian restaurants around and of course, Globe Café. Just as satisfying, however, is grabbing a sandwhich or bread, fruit and cheese and picnicking in a park or along the river. Prague has a great selection of cafés and bars and a satisfactory amount of street art. The focus seemed to be more on graffiti, however, which I was interested in but not as thrilled by. OH! So another most beloved Prague sight of mine was the Lennon Wall. I experienced surges of glee at seeing such a grand-scale and ever in flux wall open to public art. I left a contribution, naturally.

This post is absurdly long yet was still hugely satisfying to write. Hope you get something out of it (e.g. an extreme desire to see Prague).