colorless fall

Been really tired and listless lately. Second wave of the settling in blues perhap? Or the onset of fall? Summer was cloudy, rainy, and cold. So far there is nothing to distinguish fall from the summer apart from all the brown leaves.

The fall of the Berlin Wall was commemorated saturday and sunday. I actually remember hearing about it when it happened, so it's strange to think back and to be actually in Germany. There are some great stories about the fall, which basically happened because of a handful of low-ranking bureaucrats and higher level people not reading what they were handed. A young chemist in east Berlin decided to go into politics that night: Angela Merkel. A KGB agent in Dresden watched and lamented the opening as he destroyed files: Vladimir Putin.

While I'm on the Interesting Facts part of the blog: Martin Luther King, Jr. received a blackmail letter supposedly from a brother disgruntled with his sexual adventures. It was detailed with names and dates and ended with a suggestion MLK kill himself. Actual sender: the FBI. Why? because Hoover disliked his politics.

Two malls opened one after another recently. In typical German fashion, people say 'lets not do things the American way' and then open bad imitations of our worst urban tenancies. The malls here, at least, are smaller than their American counterparts since there are fewer vast expanses available for paving. But they are almost entirely filled with crap. Accessories, disposable fashion, dollar stores. And the clothing stores all try to emulate American. One of the new malls is basically anchored by Urban Outfitters, which turns out to be the best quality store in the mall.

Saori and I went last saturday to the Milaneo, which was open until midnight. In an unusual bout of shopping, we shopped for about four hours there and checked out the place. It was packed, packed, packed. Of course, being Stuttgart, we ran into friends there. Actually the most exciting thing about the mall for me is Pull&Bear, one of Zara's stores closer to the Urban Outfitters line.

I am looking forward to getting out of town tomorrow. We have an early morning train to Munich to catch a day long symposium on Lina Bo Bardi at the Pinakotek der Moderne. Our old professor from Wash. U, Zeuler Lima, will be speaking and we want to catch him. Also, I have heard that there is beer from Urban Chestnut brewery in St.Louis for sale at a few places in Munich so we are definately going to check it out.

It's been not so much fun at the office lately. A string of competitions submitted with nothing to show for it except lost time and sleep. Incredibly frustrating.

Also frustrating is German language. An example: in English you might say 'The apple is in the kitchen. I threw the apple there.' In those two sentences in German, each article 'the' is different. Not because of noun gender, which is its own deal, but because of the position of the noun and how it relates to the action of the sentence.

Actually, since there are four basic articles for 'the' depending on the action, position, and relation, and four different genders (masc, fem, neu, pl.) there are sixteen forms which has been consolidated to one (the) in English. But they are not all unique- only der, die, das, den, dem, and des fill the sixteen roles. And this is considered the most basic level of German grammar.