The Berlin Diaries

The Berlin Diaries: The Wave That Killed Nuclear Power?

2011-03-17T01:29:00.000-07:00

My wife's parents have a small weekend cottage located just outside of Rheinsberg, an hour and a half north of Berlin. We often go up there on our free weekends, as it gives us the chance to break free of the city and well as from everything that is associated with mobile technology and the Internet. My cell phone barely works there and I usually forgo my laptop too, preferring instead to write my thoughts down in a notebook. Whenever I am there I realize that that I would be quite content living with less if it meant that I could free myself of the aggressiveness of the modern world, alas, an unrealistic dream.

With the weather back once again warm, Dörthe and I decided to drive up last Friday to re-open the cottage after the hard winter give the place a spring cleaning (I ended up whacking down several dozen molehills with a spade). Little did I know of the disaster unfolding in Japan, or better said, apart from hearing that yet another earthquake had hit the country, it was only while making lunch the next day that I realized what was going on. “Did you hear about what has been going on?” Dörthe suddenly called out. “That quake we heard about triggered a huge tsunami that has killed a several thousand people and caused an explosion at a nuclear power plant.” “Oh Christ,” I replied, putting my knife down and going over to the radio to listen.

Now, had I been at home at the time, I probably would have dropped everything and logged on to the New York Times online, but stuck with only a radio I had to settle with the grim account in words only, rather than images. I'm glad we didn't have that possibility, to be honest. The analysis that followed the news update gave me more than enough material to imagine the extent of the catastrophe without being swept away by those endless video replays of the tsunami destroying everything in its path. Yes, we did end up watching the videos when we came back to Berlin Sunday, and yes, the images are more horrifying than any Hollywood blockbuster, so much so that I have been difficulties sleeping. But in being spared access to “the world wide window” this weekend I'm starting to wonder whether this hyper feed of information is really all that good for our psyche.

Not that I just want to sit here and lob criticism about the Internet, mind you. What I am hoping from this tragedy is that the images coming from Fukushima will make people finally take a critical look at the potential dangers of nuclear power, and decide that it’s simply not worth it. I hope that the images of the plant’s reactors exploding into the air will burn themselves into people’s heads, forcing people to say once again “Hell no, we won’t glow.”

On Monday I watched a documentary film about the 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Pennsylvania. It is a moment I remember quite well as a child, as my parents were active in several environmental and anti-nuclear movements at that time, and when the accident occurred, we were living just 300 miles north of the plant. The Coalition of West Valley Nuclear Wastes, to which my parents belonged, held several emergency meetings where people started to discuss frantically what might happen if the reactor were to blow. Would we be safe from the cloud of radioactive gas if it were to travel up north? Would we have to evacuate our homes? How far away from the plant was truly safe? Watching this video, it all came back to me quite vividly, sitting there as a child, watching how helpless these grownups felt and wondering if we would be forced to leave home for good. And seeing the video, it was frightening to see how the residents living near the plant were left in the dark while workers at Three Mile Island, as well as state government officials and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, all squabbled among themselves to determine whether the situation called for the declaration of a full-scale emergency. It just seemed absurd. Moreover, I was shocked when I went over to the New York Times and looked up the headlines from back then:

· “Nuclear Foes See Grave Risk in Pennsylvania Mishap, but Utility Aides Are Unalarmed,”

· “CONGRESS IS BRIEFED; Carter Aide at Scene Says Danger to the Public Is Believed Remote”

· “Atomic Plant Is Still Emitting Radioactivity; 'No Alternative,' Official Says Nuclear Power Plant Still Emitting Some Radioactivity 'No Cause for Alarm'”.

Ironically, one of the reasons why the public and the press did eventually grasp the imminent danger of Three Mile Island was because of the film The China Syndrome, which had come to American movie theatres just twelve days before the accident occurred. With the premise behind the movie’s plot uncannily similar to the events unfolding in Pennsylvania, it was a moment where life was truly imitating art, where the explanation of what happens when the core of a nuclear reactor melts down was not being offered by Three Mile Island’s officials but instead by a Hollywood thriller starring Jack Lemmon, Michael Douglas, and Jane Fonda. In short, it was a rude awakening for the public, and a terrifying moment as well, as the realy danger of Three Mile Island’s reactor core melting down, hitting the water table directly below the plant, and creating an explosion of radioactive steam, became vividly real through the film. The consequences would have been horrific.

At this very point I wrote yesterday: “Fortunately, it seems that the kind of meltdown that nearly occurred at Three Mile Island is impossible at Fukushima.” Perhaps, but within the past 24 hours we have witnessed the possible rupture of the No. 3 reactor, which is releasing radioactive steam into the air, and word of 50 workers who are desperately trying to keep things under control. And meanwhile, the wake of the tsunami has left thousands of Japanese dead, even more homeless, and a city with a metro population of 36 million facing a possible mass evacuation.

The crisis simply seems to have no end here.

I was going to write here about how our Internet-saturated age offers the public “transparency” in such moments. Perhaps, rather than the word “transparency,” “voyeurism” is a better word. With so many frightening news updates, expert opinions, and videos, it’s impossible to break one’s thoughts free from the situation in Japan.

Still, I do hope that the images of Fukushima force an about-face in regard to nuclear policy, because every time I hear an official attempt to justify nuclear power I become livid with rage. Claims such as “We can also experience meltdown in our thoughts when we start to compare things that are not comparable,” made by the pro-nuclear journalist Wolfgang Hernes in the German talk show Anne Will this past Sunday, are appalling. No, Mr. Hernes, many nuclear reactors will never have to face earthquakes or tsunamis, but consider this: Fukushima only underlines the fact that we have been playing devil’s advocate in our relentless thirst for energy for far too long. The disaster at Fukushima was caused in part by the fact that the Tokyo Electric Power Company had let numerous safety violations at their plants slide over the past several years, and because of that the citizens are paying dearly. Such words seem to be nothing more than a rude slap in the face to the tragedy that is currently unfolding.

If this past week’s disaster in Japan has any long-term benefit, it might be this: we are being forced to rethink our ways, not just in the future, but now. Normally I would be complaining about how much information is being spewed out online, but for once I think that the scare tactic is working and that the public’s growing concern could make a serious dent on the nuclear industry. Here in Germany, all nuclear power plants that were built before 1980 have been forced to shut down for the next three months as Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government reviews their safety in light of the events in Fukushima. And, on a personal level, I know that many of my colleagues are talking about switching over energy providers that only offer renewable energy sources. We are planning to do so too.

Notes on Plagiarism: the zu Guttenberg Affair

2011-03-05T11:41:00.001-08:00

For those of you who don't follow the news in Europe, Germany's Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg resigned this past Tuesday after bowing to allegations that he had plagiarized large sections of his doctoral dissertation in law while studying at the University of Bayreuth. This comes as a huge blow for Chancellor Angela Merkel, who made the mistake of quickly backing zu Guttenberg when the scandal first broke two weeks ago. “I am more concerned about his work as defense minister. He performs this excellently, and that's all that matters.” ¹ Zu Guttenberg, young, insanely charismatic, and born into nobility, was seen by many Germans as a likely future German Chancellor, and yet, through this scandal, those hopes have been dashed.

While listening zu Guttenberg's resignation speech on Tuesday, I had to think back to my student days at Oberlin, and how, whenever we had exams or assignments, we had to write and sign the following statement:

“I affirm that I have adhered to the Honor Code in this assignment.”²

Oberlin's honor code is unique as, rather than being controlled by the school's faculty and staff, it is upheld by a Student Honor Committee. “The SHC (Student Honor Committee) promotes an Honor System where students form part of the Oberlin College community of scholars,” the committee's charter explains. “As peers, the SHC allows for the student body to be accountable to each other based on the principles of academic integrity.” ³

That means, if you were caught cheating, then you had to face a committee made up of your peers, who had the right to determine your fate- a rather frightening thought, if you really think about it.

I wonder whether this basic idea of “personal responsibility,” entrusted to students as both a right and privilege, is something we need to reconsider in the digital age. It's disturbing to read how “54% of students admitted to plagiarizing from the Internet” (Education Week) and how, in a finding from Donald L. McCabe's report Faculty Responses to Academic Dishonesty 55% of America's teachers "would not be willing to devote any real effort to documenting suspected incidents of student cheating". ⁴

Perhaps, through the Web's wealth of 'free information', many who study these days simply forget what an “honor code” within the context of the Internet really means and therefore don't understand the consequences of such actions.

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Discovering that Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg had plagiarzed his dissertation was a matter of pure coincidence. Professor Andreas Fischer-Lescano of the University of Bremen had wanted to use zu Guttenberg's text for a seminar about constitutional law. Dismayed by the argumentation zu Guttenberg had used, Professor Fischer-Lescano performed a Google search on one of the sections and was surprised to find that it was directly taken from a newspaper article. “I was speechless at first and didn't want to believe my eyes.”⁵ When he found even more examples, he decided to contact the Süddeutsche Zeitung in order to make his findings public.

The public announcement came on February 16^th, with the Süddeutsche Zeitung publishing excerpts from his thesis next to the original sources. Zu Guttenberg remained adamant that he had done nothing wrong. Looking directly into television cameras the next day, he made the following statement:

“My dissertation, which I wrote entirely by myself, is no plagiarism and I fully refute the accusation. It is approxiamtely seven years old, and was carefully written while serving my official duties and obligations as a father, and it most unquestionably contains mistakes, mistakes that I am extremely unhappy about. To the best of my knowledge, I never attempted to hide or fail to acknowledge authors, and if someone feels hurt by this, or by the incorrect use or citation of their words through footnotes, 1,300 on 475 pages, then I am truly sorry. The upcoming review of these mistakes and decision will be made by the University of Bayreuth, and of course will actively help them in order to determine just how broad the errors in the research, and I repeat research, could be. And I would gladly, until the results of this review are shown, temporarily, and I repeat temporarily renounce my (doctor) title, but only until then. Afterward, I will take up this title again.”⁶

“I was astonished, simply astonished,” explained Professor Barbara Zehnpfennig, whose article was one of many zu Guttenberg had used. “I was astonished that he abused all rules of research and it is astonishing that he presented himself that he presented himself so directly and decently, as well as astonished that he reacted politically so poorly as he shut himself off from his opponents.”⁷

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Could it be that the “Honor Code”, noble as it is, has simply died? We would like to see the case of individuals such as zu Guttenberg as “exceptions to the rule”, but I feel that this scandal only underlines how plagiarism is more common than we wish to admit it. Worse, it seems that the general public simply doesn't care. In a survey conducted by the German television station ARD, over 72% percent of Germans feel that zu Guttenberg should should stay on as defense minister, and many toned down the allegations with comments such as “everyone cheats now and then.”⁸

Perhaps, but here we are not talking about a mere cheat sheet hidden away for some exam. Zu Guttenberg's dissertation is a 393 page document where, on 324 of those pages, a total of 891 passages and text fragments have been found to contain material taken from over 120 sources.⁹ And those sources are not minor. When the scandal broke two weeks ago, the Süddeutsche Zeitung published excerpts from zu Guttenberg's dissertation, allowing the reader to make a direct side-by-side comparison of the sections in question against their possible sources. According to the newspaper, the former defense minister 'borrowed' large sections from articles appearing in leading German language newspapers including the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and the Neue Zuricher Zeitung, as well as from lectures that had been given at the Lichtenstein Institute of Research and Teaching and the Humboldt University in Berlin.¹⁰

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The scandal raises several questions in my mind. First, why did it take so long to discover such an egregious case of plagiarism? Second, what was Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg thinking of when he was writing his dissertation? Did he really believe that he could fool his university? And third, what was the University of Bayreuth thinking when they awarded his dissertation with the distinction “summa cum laude,” or the highest honor? Were their heads screwed on right?

Question one can probably answered by explaining that software programs used to detect plagiarism are still in their infant stages and are still not as effective as the trained human eye. According to a PowerPoint presentation by Professor Deborah Weber-Wulff of the Hochschule für Technik und Writschaft in Berlin titled Plagiarism Detection Software 2010- A Magic Bullet or a Waste of Time?, most of programs on the market today fail to detect material taken from books (including those listed in Google Books), from translations, as well as from material that has been re-worked. Moreover, many programs are quite cumbersome to use.

The answer to question two is anyone's call. I still can't figure out why this man, who was born with a not just a silver, but a golden spoon in his mouth, was so stupid in his ways. Some go so far as to argue that he didn't even really need the title in the first place.

Contemplating the answer to question three is bothering me the most. A “summa cum laude” for a grossly plagiarized dissertation simply doesn't wash, and only shows the failings of the University of Bayreuth. I know that zu Guttenberg's dissertation was probably only read by a handful of professors, but I would hope that the reviewers would have known the field well enough to have recognized at least one or two of the 891 lifted passages (especially when one is talking about entire sections rather than mere sentences). It is, in my opinion, simply embarrassing for the faculty and staff at the university.

Now that the scandal is out in the open, the University of Bayreuth has been quick to retract zu Guttenberg's degree and is currently investigating the case for purposes of “self-control”. I ask myself whether the university will just go so far as to reexamine how it reviews doctoral dissertations. Could it be that the law faculty, eager to award a baron the title of doctor so as to bolster its own reputation, was careless in reviewing his dissertation, perhaps going so far as to turn a blind eye to the passages in question? Perhaps. Soon after the Süddeutsche Zeitung questioned zu Guttenberg's dissertation, the Berlin Tagesspiegel reported how Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg donated 750,000 Euros to the Universität Bayreuth to sponsor a new position for the law and research faculty. ¹¹ Could it be that this was the real reason for his “summa cum laude”?

Ironically, zu Guttenberg's personal homepage was once nothing but rhetoric about his call to ”responsibility,” or “Verantwortung verpflichtet”. Now with those words erased from his website, all one is left with is a shell of a man with a perfect smile. “I have reached the limits of my powers,” zu Guttenberg explained when announcing his resignation during a press conference on Tuesday. ¹²

1Merkel unterstützt guttenberg nach doktor-verzicht. (2011). Welt Online, Retrieved from http://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article12614474/Merkel-unterstuetzt-Guttenberg-nach-Doktor-Verzicht.html

2Csci 150 honor code. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.cs.oberlin.edu/~asharp/cs150/honour.html

3Oberlin college- student's rights and responsibilities. (2008). Retrieved from http://new.oberlin.edu/students/policies/11-Policies-Honor.pdf

4Stricherz, M. (2001). Many teachers ignore cheating, survey finds. Education Week, 20(34), Retrieved from http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2001/05/09/34cheat.h20.html

5Der mann, der alles ins rollen brachte. (2011, March 2). Sächsische Zeitung, Retrieved from http://www.sz-online.de/nachrichten/artikel.asp?id=2701621

6In sachen titel-verteidigung: zu guttenberg erklärt sich. (2011, February 18). Spiegel Online Video, Retrieved from http://www.spiegel.de/video/video-1110187.html

7Guttenberg vorwurf: plagiat - prof. barbara zehnpfennig interview . (2011). [Web]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRMn00eqpbo

8Ard-umfrage: guttenberg beliebter als vor der plagiatsaffäre / 72 prozent der deutschen wünschen sich, dass er im amt bleibt. (2011). WDR.de, Retrieved from http://www.wdr.de/unternehmen/presselounge/pressemitteilungen/2011/02/20110223_hart_aber_fair.phtml

9Guttenplag wiki. (2011). Retrieved from http://de.guttenplag.wikia.com/wiki/Statistik#Statistik

10Denkler, T., & Kruse, B. (2011). Die grenzen der methode guttenberg. Süddeutsche Zeitung, Retrieved from http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/plagiatsvorwurf-die-grenzen-der-methode-guttenberg-1.1061020

11750.000 euro für die uni bayreuth. (2011). Der Tagesspeigel, Retrieved from http://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/750-000-euro-fuer-die-uni-bayreuth/3879402.html

12Rücktritt von karl-theodor zu guttenberg . (2011). [Web]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsLMLfbSPxs

The Unbearable Lightness of Antigone

2011-02-11T09:09:00.000-08:00

When last night’s final performance of Tomasso Traetta’s opera Antigone drew to a close, I found myself drawing a sigh of relief that I had made it through yet another Berlin Staatsoper production with René Jacobs and the Akademie. This particular production was especially hard for me to swallow, although not because of the music, which I felt was the best part of the opera. Last night I found myself still fully enjoying certain passages, glad that the Akademie had taken the opportunity to explore this wonderful music and wondering to myself why Traetta, whose style is a bit like that of Mozart gone drunk on the bittersweet of Neapolitan melodrama, isn’t better known.

No- it was the staging that was annoying the hell out of me. In fact, it was so bad that when the Bulgarian stage director Vera Nemirova was booed off stage by the crowd during the final curtain call after last Thursday's performance, I was relieved, as it dispelled my doubts that perhaps I was missing something 'significant' here. But not that there was any really significant to see. The only prop she used, apart from a hole on stage that allowed those who died during the opera to descend into hell, was an aluminum life guard’s chair. That was fine for the first half of the opera, but when the second half began and it became clear that nothing new would appear, you just began to wonder whether Vera Nemirova had been given the challenge to stage an opera for less than 100 Euros or if she had taken the rest of her money and bought a cozy villa in the South of France.

Quite frankly, I expected more from a stage director whose unique productions have earned her praise by Opernwelt and The New York Times. I knew for example that her interpretations of Richard Wagner’s Ring at the Frankfurter Oper and Alban Berg’s Lulu at the Salzburger Festspiele in 2010 had been controversial, receiving both praise and criticism by the press and public, but they were both extravagant productions that made full use of modern staging techniques. Moreover, because the Ring and Lulu are both well known, it was probably harder for stage director to get away with the kind of treacle Vera presented in Antigone. Most of those who would have attended the productions in Frankfurt and Salzburg would have at least known the plot and music so well that they would have demanded only the best from that the staging.

And that’s what I expected too. Before we began rehearsals for Antigone, I watched some videos of Vera Nemirova's staging of the Ring and Lulu on YouTube, and to be honest, I was actually hopeful to find something interesting this past month, because her productions were both challenging but inspiring. But it wasn’t to be. Perhaps it’s because Traetta’a Antigone, which is based on Sophocles’s tragedy about King Oedipus’ four children caught in the grip of Creon, ruler of Thebes, is simply not her fare, not the standard meat and potatoes operas of the 19^th and 20^th centuries. As was popular during the Age of Enlightenment, the opera incorporates a ‘happy end’ conclusion, putting Creon on the spot and forcing him to turn back on his initial decision to sentence Antigone to death for her actions. Yes, happy endings might seem cheesy in our modern eyes (especially as the original version is pretty gruesome) but back in the 18^th Century this was representative of the ideal that man was ruler of his destiny and that good could indeed prevail over evil.

But Vera Nemirova couldn’t seem to accept that. It's too bad, because rather than just letting the plot to stand on its own two feet, she decided to take matters into her own hands and kill both Antigone and her lover Haemon off in the end. This changeobviously had serious consequences on the music, forcing René Jacobs to juggle things around and splice in a diminished seventh chord (suspiciously lifted from Mozart’s Magic Flute) into the final cadence of the last duet in order to musically send the two lovers off to their demise. If the opera could have just ended there, all would have been well and good and nobody would have known better. Unfortunately Traetta didn’t want things to end that way and concluded the opera with one final ‘happy we’ chorus that, well, Vera Nemirova just couldn’t ignore. So when the two lovers suddenly reappeared from their hell hole and everyone suddenly started singing about how glad they were for this joyous day, it was bit like being told that life isn't so bad after all after getting the wind knocked out of you. You just don’t believe it.

Add to all of this staging that seemed to more represent a clichéd version of life under a brutal Soviet dictator than the sad eloquence of a Greek tragedy, and I kept on feeling that the public was being intellectually insulted by the use of visuals that had been long sitting in Vera Nemirova’s remainders box. In fact, for almost every trick she used, be it the backdrop of menacing grey sky, Creon’s cruel Chauchesku-like personality (with his gold cardboard crown and his skinhead henchmen), or the choir, who looked like a cast of fill-ins for Lars von Trier’s Dogville while Antigone (and everyone else) suffered, the staging seemed to be deliberately willed and forced upon the music. It was as if she was simply annoyed by Traetta’s writing in certain moments, and decided to take the opportunity to mock it out through the use of kitsch elements, rather than attempt to understand the music's sublimity.

It’s a pity, because personally, I have the feeling that Vera Nemirova just entirely missed the point of Antigone. No it’s not the best drama, but it was good, and I suspect that in 1772 Traetta had composed the work knowing that the sublime music and elaborate staging would at least produce some damned good shows for the public, and that was enough. In fact, I kept on thinking to myself that this would have been one time where I would have been interested in seeing an ‘original’ performance of the opera, performed using 18^th century costumes and sets. It would have at least been an interesting challenge, as it would have given the modern opera audience the chance to experience opera put within the mindset of the Age of Enlightenment. Vera Nemirova instead displayed a version of Taetta’s Antigone that only proved that she had absolutely no comprehension of the unbearable lightness of the Age of Enlightenment.

Rameau: Platée

2011-02-10T03:59:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, we started rehearsals for Platée, Jean Philippe Rameau’s opera buffon about an ugly water nymph who believes that Jupiter is in love with her. Just how the hell Akamus is going to pull this production off in April, when we perform it in Amsterdam, is beyond me, as our attempts to shake off the stoicism of ‘Prussian baroque’ in favor of the creamy French style have often proved impossible. Fortunately, René Jacobs will be at the helm, and moreover, the Dutch aren’t French, so perhaps we have a chance to succeed.

I’ve also decided this time to not just sit in the middle of the orchestra and suffer, but instead use the opportunity to rediscover the glory of French baroque music. The Prussians be damned- I just downloaded a copy of the score with the entire libretto, and will use that to base my own judgments on performance matters. I’m also considering buying a copy of the Opéra de Paris production with Les Musiciens du Louvre under the direction of Marc Minkowski. It definitely seems worth it:

Is it Live, Memorex, or Just Bavarian Radio?

2011-01-05T00:00:00.000-08:00

Last month, the Akademie was in Munich to give two performances of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio together with the Bavarian Radio Choir at the Herkulessaal in the Münchener Residenz. Being Christmastime, Bavarian Radio used the opportunity to spread holiday cheer by airing our first concert on Christmas Day and the second on the 2^nd of January. If you have a chance this week, you can find that second broadcast on Bavarian Radio’s website. Go to http://www.br-online.de/, find “BR Mediathek” on the homepage menu and click on “video”. A new window should open automatically, allowing you to find our concert from Sunday, January 2^nd at 11:40 (or, in German: So. 02.01.11 at 11:40 under the title “Weihnachtsoratorium”).

You can well imagine that I was interested in seeing how the production turned out. For the entire week we were in Munich, the crews at Bavarian Radio made a colossal effort to record and film practically every moment we were on stage, going so far as to have us dress up in concert attire for a mock “live performance” dress rehearsal. It all seemed to be completely overblown for a broadcast of two ‘live’ concerts, and yet the crews told us not to worry- everything would be “wonderful”. “Just play, and we’ll take care of the rest.”

“Yeah, right,” I thought to myself. Sitting there, I found myself witnessing yet another example of how the needs and wants of film crews don’t necessarily match those of sound technicians. This isn’t the first time I have had to work in front of cameras, and I know how sound technicians, who require absolute silence for a successful take, often end up yelling at film crews for their inability to shut up. Film crews, primarily interested in capturing dramatic images from stunning angles, have no reservations about setting up cameras on booms that go “Whrr!” over the stage, or positioning crew members who crouch down from below to stick their lenses into our faces in order to get close-up shots of musicians in action (“Just act naturally”). Because for them the visual effect is of first priority, even if it means having to get in the way of everything else going on during the production. And when you add to that some artsy-fartsy lighting crew who wants to dramatically ‘redesign’ the hall’s atmosphere, and needs to play around with colored spotlights, then you’ve got a real recipe for disaster in the making. Two years ago, during the rehearsal for a televised performance of Handel’s Brockespassion in Warsaw, Poland, I witnessed a fight nearly erupt between the camera crew, the lighting technicians, and sound technicians when the blowing noise of the dry ice machines, set up in the hall to create a dramatic fog-like effect, was found to be too loud. We musicians, who were barely able to see the music in front of us, quickly sided with the sound engineers, who threatened to walk out if the machines were not removed “immediately”. That in turn enraged the camera crew and the lighting technicians, who also began threatening to quit. Only a firm decision to replace the fog with extra pink lighting diverted all out war.

And it seemed to be not much different here in Munich. There were no fights, but regularly the good takes were simply ruined by extraneous noise by the crews working in the hall during the rehearsals, doubling the amount of time we needed to collect useable material. Television crew members always seemed to be caught talking with each other and more than once the lighting would be set into test mode, turning the stage into a disco of flashing lights of every which color possible. But despite this Bavarian Rundfunk’s confidence that their Herculean effort would result in two ‘flawless’ concerts seemed to remain unshaken. I had my doubts.

Which leads me to ask something: just what is ‘flawless’ anyways, and why does perfection always have to be based on the lowest common denominator of the studio engineered CD recording, or a televsion show? Why couldn’t Bavarian Radio just risk accepting the concert ‘as is’, keep the use of cameras to a minimum, and have us stay on stage after each of the two concerts for minor corrections, which is normal? We could have easily accepted that, and considering that both of our concerts were basically excellent, filled with moments where the orchestra, together with the soloists and choir, really ‘rocked’ the stage, it would have been easier in the end for all participants. However, this ideal of achieving a ‘flawless’ performance seemed to override the risk of using anything that was spontaneous, energetic, and yet sometimes a bit gritty. It’s a pity, because in my own opinion I find that the imperfections are just part of what truly makes a thrilling live performance ‘perfect’.

But obviously a recording engineer, who has the chance to use different takes to create the illusion of perfection, would dispute that.

That’s probably the reason why I’m disappointed with the results, because in truth we really played better than what the video shows. Yes, the broadcast technically ‘good’, but a lot of what was ‘great’ during the concert got castrated. The soloists are clean and the trumpets don’t break their high notes, and all of the rough edges are perfectly ironed out, but there’s not much left to our performance that made it really moving. And that’s a shame. Moreover, if you look really carefully, you will also start to notice how the synchronization of the sound and the picture is terribly off, which, in my opinion, is an even greater sin. At first I thought it was just because my computer connection was too slow, but when I kept on finding moments where the synchronization was suddenly right before trailing off again, I realized that the recording engineer was probably forced to cut a compromise between the two mediums. Again and again I had to think to the words of a colleague of mine who helped edit the Akademie’s video of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. “There were moments where it was nearly impossible to line things up exactly,” he explained. “If we moved things over even just one hundredth of a second forwards or backwards, and it was wrong, then everything would quickly unravel, so much so that after a few seconds it was unbearable to watch. I almost gave up in the end.”

Which is exactly what I did with the Christmas Oratorio. Shutting off the monitor, I just listened to the rest of the concert without the video, wishing that I could just hear what we really played that evening.

Denglisch

2010-12-14T02:46:00.001-08:00

Twenty years ago, back when I was living in Basel, I once observed how an American tourist in a McDonald’s nearly flipped out at a cashier when she didn’t understand what “a decaf coffee with two Sweet and Lows” meant. As the poor woman stared back at him, desperately trying to understand his request, he shouted out the brand name of the low calorie sweetener over and over again, increasing his already loud voice so that it now boomed through the restaurant: “Sweet and Low! Don’tcha know what Sweet and Low is? SWEET AND LOW!” It was so embarrassing that I stood up and intervened, explaining to him that no, the Swiss hadn’t yet grasped the concept of putting saccharine into their coffee. He was bewildered.

Fortunately the world is now fully trained to speak the lingo of coffee, thanks to the expansion of American chains like Starbucks. This morning, before boarding the train headed for Berlin, I ordered "Ein blueberry muffin to go bitte und ein tall double shot cappuccino" at the Starbucks in Munich’s main station. Now really, how convoluted can that be? Twelve words, only four of them in German, and when I dumped four packets of brown sugar into my coffee, there was the Sweet and Low. My fellow American in Basel would have smiled, content that Europe has finally become civilized.

It’s interesting to see what Starbucks has achieved in this short space of time, and how through its globalization specific English words and phrases have embedded themselves here to clearly articulate not only the wishes of their customers, but also the idea of portability. Take “Double shot” for example: I would never in my life imagine saying “mit einen extra schuss espresso” anymore. It’s just far too complicated, a description that just doesn’t fit if you are standing in a long line waiting to order your personalized coffee (besides, it says so on my recipt: “Add shot- 0.60”- so why bother?). The same thing goes with the cardboard “sleeve” that slips around the paper cup so that I don’t burn my hand. I don’t even know what it the word is in German- it’s just “Ein Sleeve”, and for some reason everyone who works here knows that. And yet before Starbucks arrived whenever you ordered a coffee “to go” you needed to gingerly hold the cup in your fingers. Now, almost every imitation coffee store offers them.

The phrase “to go” is also a direct result of this shift, and in my opinion it is the one single phrase that

spearheaded a mini revolution in European thinking ten years ago. When it first appeared, the concept was so popular that, here in Germany at least, those who wanted be ‘cool’ used it whenever possible, letting it’s German equivalent “zum mitnehmen” fall to the wayside. And yet, because the simplicity of “to go” wasn’t yet embedded into the German psyche, I frequently came across botched attempts to express this phrase. Signs offering coffee "for the go" and "to going" and even "to take the go" sprung up everywhere. I was once even told that “to go” was far too short to be right.

And strangely enough, it seems that the Germans, following up on this trend of expressing the ideals of freedom and portability, have adopted and reinvented American-like phrases that sometimes work and sometimes don’t. The cell phone world is the most obvious example of this: the original word “Funktelefon” is all but obsolete, first changing to “Mobiltelefon” before the dubious term “Handy” (as in, “I’ll call you from my Handy”) became common And along with the Handy arrived slew of tariff options, including, “Call Ya” and “Free n’ Easy” and “My Base”. My own tariff plan includes an “airbag,” which guarantees that my monthly costs don’t go over a certain limit (hopefully it doesn’t mean that a large pillow will explode out of my cell phone if I exceed the limit). And moving beyond the realm of coffee and telephone, a huge push to modernize German through the use of English words has taken the country by storm. There is regularly the discussions about of the need of “Knowhow,” of an individuals fear of being pushed out of an organization through “Mobbing”, and how “coole” things are “echt super” because it makes them “ganz happy, probably because they can put it in their “Bodybag” (anything ranging from a purse to a backpack).

It’s all rather bewildering, and sometimes just plain wrong:

(“Big Beauty- Ware and Handling for Cosmetic.” In German, I think the sign would be “Grosse Schönheit- Ware und Handlung für Kosmetik,” or, “Great Beauty- Products and Cosmetic Treatment.” But obviously, in the shopkeeper’s eagerness to be modern, the person decided on this.)

The Bottom Line:

As an American, I have mixed feelings about this linguistic tango between English and German. Although I like that it makes my life easier, I cannot help but wonder if it is an attempt for the Germans to make up for the fact that they never really considered speaking English as necessary. Maybe it’s time for them to change that attitude and learn English properly so that they don’t forget how to speak their own language.

Mon Repos

2010-12-10T13:37:00.000-08:00

I wish I could get a refund for this week, but I’ve wasted too much time here to allow for that. Here in Munich since Monday, working on a television production for two concerts of Bach's Christmas Oratorio the Akademie is performing this weekend with the Choir of the Bavarian Radio (the first part of the oratorio, or cantatas 1-3, will be aired on Christmas Day on BRTV at 11 a.m.). The work itself has been amusing, as each day we get to watch how the television crew and lighting team, who are struggling to get the hall ready for this weekend, squabble with the sound technicians , who are trying to record every sound we make so that they can present a perfect live broadcast. We are performing in the Heculessaal of the Munich Residenz, which is sort of like a Bavarian Versailles in its grandeur, except that most of it was destroyed during the Second World War and had to be rebuilt in the 1950s. The hall itself is a grey marble monstrosity in which twelve huge tapestries present the labors of Hercules. It’s all vaguely fascist in style, but fortunately the mood lighting helps greatly, even if the hall in the third cantata seems a bit like the red light district of Amsterdam.
Come 4 p.m., when we finish for the day, I'm at a bit of a loss with what to do with myself. If I were still studying, I'd be quite content to find a quiet corner in a Starbucks and work on assignments on my laptop. In fact, I wish that I had had such vasts amounts of free time while I was studying and on the road. But now that I'm done with this program I wander aimlessly through this city, watching rich Bavarian women in long fur coats and men in green Loden jackets practice the yearly Christian ritual of "Shop until you drop for Jesus“ in fine boutique stores while the snow falls in perfect stillness all around Then, when I've tired of seeing that, I grab a hamburger before returning back to my cramped hotel room and surf the Internet, hoping to find something that might inspire me to write.

Of course there are a lot of things to write about, but breaking into writing just seems hard right now, well neigh impossible. I know I’m trying too hard. I want so desperately to begin with a bang, to announce the 'new me' with a tense dissonant chord that evokes the genius and erotic glamour that I saw in the trailer to Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky. But the words that I produce now just seem too vanilla, too deliberately prefabricated, as if I spent these two years studying the elements of writing without taking care to let my inner creative self speak out. In my head, I hear the words of my teachers to write short sentences that "Get to the point! Your reader doesn't have time for your purple prose." And yet, I reprimand myself constantly for not having written anything these past three months, for just being so afraid to screw up and disappoint everyone. After all, now that I have this degree- an expensive seal of approval- I should be qualified for just about any task, be it large or small. And you are expecting to see the results now.

Actually, I was going to write to you about Finnish tango.
Actually, I was going to write about the choreography to The Rite of Spring.
Actually, I was going to write to you about my great designs for a book loosely based on Bach's 24 Preludes and Fugues.

My mind is swimming with ideas, but as each day passes, the pressure to begin on something increases. Perhaps I'm just trying too hard to force the words out, rather than accepting the greatest maxim of modern times, written by Samuel Beckett: "Fail. Fail again. Fail better," and using that as a starting point.

So until further notice. I'll finish this with an excerpt from Aki Kaurusmäki's film The Man Without a Past. It definitely seems fitting for the mood I’m in right now.