Filed under: amerika, das vaterland, why i oughta | Tags: anaheim, lederhosen, let's dance, those people, wisconsin
J. expressed concern today that he was one of “those people” (i.e., Americans, the only real people) who is really into Germany. You know: grouping their identities around lederhosen fandom due either to a tenuous genealogical bond or a young-adult interest in wizardry. Those people: throwing a Wanderung or a Gemütlichkeit into conversation and griping about how, silly them, they just can’t remember the English word. Those people: the foreVaters of the San Diego German American Society.
Not that people (i.e., Americans) should by any means forswear their ethnic backgrounds. It’s understandable to keep up cultural traditions in an isolated immigrant community, or by 1st/2nd/3rd generation immigrants. Like, if you’re a Waldmann from Wisconsin and irregularize the vowels of your past tense verbs and have had to perform in Schuhplatter competitions since you could walk — OK. But many of the Fulbrighters I’ve met — those people — just had some great-grandfather who would say Gesundheit instead of Bless You.
The weirdness is threefold:( 1.) Yes, many Americans can claim German ancestry, but that largely stems from an exodus 1.5 centuries earlier — their ancestors’ culture is fully assimilated into America’s, and has been through most of the 20th century; (2.) If you are a recent German immigrant, you’d probably celebrate your heritage by wearing angular glasses; and (3.) They are reveling in (and pining for) an ideal of Germany that doesn’t exist and maybe never did. By hoisting up their lederhosen and swallowing pickles whole and yodeling around Southern California, they’re celebrating an Anaheim-level of cartoon simulacrum, a fairy tale.
But, momentarily laying aside the snob: why do people (those people) throw themselves into this (or any) idealized ethnic culture? Is the draw simply a sounder, more stable identity? An interest or emphasized heritage that supposedly signifies individuality? The desire to be a part of something older and different, and therefore greater?
So, J., no: you are not one of those people. But this guy is:
Filed under: das vaterland, edible derangements, why i oughta | Tags: das vaterland, edible derangements, why i oughta
I generally support the theory that analysis doesn’t identify the Ultimate Reason/Truth behind a given phenomenon, person, or unnerving YouTube clip. Rather, we analyze out of fear — we want Reasons to ground us, to allow us to believe that there is, at base, a tidy, lovely logic to the mess of life. I guess that’s what you get from a Liberal Arts education: fine-tuned analytical skills, and the gut-punch realization that these skills dig up illusions. But, natch, this is just an analysis of analysis, an unhappy catch 22. By analyzing analytical people who dissect and categorize out of fear, I’m outing myself as just such an analytical type. I am fearful, and I horde reasons to pacify myself. There. I’m out.
But, onto the anal in analysis: there is a lot to be learned about a culture from mulling over its toilets. Germany is notorious as the home of the shelf-toilet (see “Early Music” by Jeffrey Eugenides). If you don’t know what I mean, Google image it. The invention was made in health’s name: your feces is presented on this porcelain plateau for your inspection and approval. So you know if something in the water ain’t right. My take: how totally anal retentive can a culture be?!? Germans have so much concern for their bodies’ loss of its shit that they have to look at it, smell it, analyze it before flushing it away. If there’s every been an external symptom of anal retentiveness, proof via a culture’s material objects, the shelf toilet just about does it. Of course, there’s also so much to be said about Germans’ love of scatalogical humor. But this topic, juxtaposed with the blog title — I just don’t want to get into it.
Oh, so this made me all concerned about the etymology of analysis, if by some hysterically fascinating oversight the root of anal came into play. Found out this: ORIGIN late 16th cent.: via medieval Latin from Greek analusis, from analuein ‘unloose,’ from ana- ‘up’ + luein ‘loosen.’
Loosen up? Take advice from the Wörterbuch, Krauts.
Filed under: das vaterland, my bad!, why i oughta | Tags: das vaterland, my bad!, why i oughta
Last week, I sat in on an English class that discussed this image:
Since I introduced myself in the class’s first minute (“Hey, dudes! I’m an AMERICAN!! You gotta love me”), my presence for the following 44 minutes was—uncomfortable. Their discussion: the American Dream. And: dehumanization and torture. I felt a range of emotions: guilty, defensive, amused, on-edge. Since this was my second pre-teaching week, I was supposed to just sit and observe. But, as an American representative, was I obligated to speak? Do you owe any sort of chiming-in duty just because you’re a citizen of a nation that has committed egregious crimes? As an American, do I represent those crimes?
But, let’s brainstorm for a bit: what other nation has famously committed dehumanizing acts and torture in the name of the state? And so, I wondered how Germans today discussed the Third Reich. I know that they teach it in school. But I get two senses: one: that after sixty years, they feel appropriately distanced from the sentiments that inflicted those crimes; and, two: they lament by casting their gaze out, by being the first to criticize other nations guilty of human rights abuses. They show that, though they can do wrong, anyone can do wrong, too. Which, weirdly, is how I felt staring at the projected image of the Statue of…. I wanted to be like, Hey, and how does this relate to your past, huh, huh? And I also wanted to point out that, though the prison guards effaced the prisoner’s humanity by obscuring his face, the profligation of this image has dehumanized this man as well, turning him into a symbol of abuse. That image is a human being, and we don’t know his name, and this whole discussion of what he symbolizes continues to dehumanize him. And, while I thought of all of this, I wondered why I felt so guilty for acts I didn’t commit—surely a sentiment many Germans felt in the post-war years.
And so, I just stayed quiet. In my chair, in the corner. I pretended that my silence excluded me from the discussion, from the blame. I’m been having nightmares about Abu Ghraib ever since.
Filed under: das vaterland, why i oughta | Tags: embroidery, music festival, nazis, sweat, we're all annoying
this past weekend, i marinated in the sweat and beer-spills of some muddy, earnest types at the scene-y, but mostly sunny, pitchfork music festival (american apparel + sunburn = de rigueur). there were several throwaway acts, but also refreshingly good – just very, very good! – bands, performing rousingly and/or movingly despite the mega-crowd environment. fleet foxes, les savy fav, the dirty projectors, bon iver, the smell acts – they made the hair matted to my neck (often neighbors’ hair) and the sweat droplets inching down my back quite bearable.
what was worse than the humidity: ponderous commentary from the audience (and from little talking groups i became involved in via friends of friends of friends). i get all cross-armed and churlish when between-act convos chug recklessly into analysis of the acts’ performances – that is, generalized statements said unblinkingly, with syllabic steadiness and extreme import (and a joint in one’s mouth). “you gotta respect HEALTH, ’cause they’re like, fuck it man. we’re loud, and we’re not going to turn down our music, we’re not going to compromise our aesthetic. because that’s their aesthetic, you see? they’re loud.” before this turns into a clenched-jaw rant about self-conscious hipsters and the knee-jerk, desperate need to cast meaning onto that scene, that life, the $60 spent on the weekend, let me just say: i really did enjoy the festival, the v.i.p.-christened beer that dear clo ushered to me, and the awkward, silly run-ins with claremonters and high-school acquaintances. also: HEALTH is indeed really fucking loud, and good. and i’ve got my own ideas about their aesthetic. now, where’s that joint?
but i didn’t come here to write about irritating audience dynamics. i came here to write about nazis.
after braving the elements among 20,000 folks of varying hygienic standards, i came home, showered, and tried this sephora facial mask. i use it sparingly, and will probably finish the can in about four decades.
when reaching for a washcloth to wipe off the ick, i noticed one at the bottom of the pile: a non-assuming grey mitten-style cloth, gifted to me by my german exchange student’s overbearing mother. (all overbearing german mothers remind me of the fat mother squirrel in the sword in the stone; thanks to amy for the enlightening comparison.) it has one feature, though, which has troubled me over the years:
oh, that’s just an interpretive four-leaf clover. those clovers are rare – count yourself lucky!
or . . . is that . . . a swirly swastika? what does this gift say about my german exchange student’s family (whose last name – get this – is heeb)? did mutti make this herself? did she just not think of the significance, or . . . and what’s it say about me for using the washcloth on a semi-regular basis? and my interest in embroidery, one of the few domestic activities in which i’m halfway capable?
i’ll probably keep ethnic cleansing cloth for a few more years ’cause, hey, we’re in a recession here. swastikas don’t grow on trees, you know.
