This 10-min short video by Pepe Danquart won an Oscar in 1994 for its portrayal of a particular aspect of everyday Germany. I caught Yvonne, my colleague at the office and German professor, watching it last week and I joined her. I enjoyed it, laughing my head off at the end. You should too. The dialogue is in German, but it is subtitled.
The title Schwartzfahrer in German means “Black Rider”, which originally referred to those who board public transportation without tickets, particularly the foreigners.
Today, after a spell of indecision and procrastination, I finally got the spray paint and headed to the Wall to make it mine. It didn’t take too long, and it wasn’t too hard. And in the end, I didn’t get any more creative than I already got before. As none of the readers of the last post gave me sufficient ideas, and I never successfully resolved my language conflict, I ended up writing it in German, in the shortest possible way as allowed by the thinning white paint.
And so today marks the twentieth year of the demolition of the Berlin Wall in Germany. To commemorate it on campus, the German arm of the Foreign Languages Department in which I work have unveiled a public art exhibition featuring texts, artworks, pictures, history, (German) music, and most notably a miniature replica of the old Wall. Constructed with wood, and strategically placed at a publicly accessible spot on campus, the “wall” already randomly graffitied stands today both as a reminder of the historic day, as well as the ingenuity of the Department of Foreign Languages, especially of Belinda Carstens – the head of the department who is also a professor of German. Along with the chance to take pictures with the “wall”, students have been encouraged to spray-paint the wall and decorate it with their own graffitis as they see fit, just like was done with the real Wall in those days by angry Berliners and rebels who wanted it torn down. Needless to say, the over twenty feet long wall is already a notable piece of attraction on campus, and will be till the end of the week.
But amidst my excitement to be here at this moment in time, here’s a dilemma I face: I can’t yet figure what I want to write on this wall. Prof Doug Simms of the deparment had taken his time today to draw on it a sickle and a hammer (the old symbol of communism) turned upside down, like it was on the old wall, according to him. A few of the other graffitis on this “wall” reflect each painter’s own sensibilities, and not always related to the politics of the Wall itself. So here I am, thinking (or asking YOU, as the case may be) that when I go back there tomorrow with a brush and paint in hand, what other creative texts or symbols (in any language) should I be writing on this remade wall from twenty years ago beside the obvious personal statement in my mind at this moment which simply reads, in German: “ktravula war hier“?
Alton, IL
