Frogs and falling chocolate
Life is going on. I stayed home on Friday night and did a week's worth of chores in one night and watched Dragonfly upon my parents' recommendation. I will not pass the same recommendation on to you. We usually have fairly similar taste in movies, but this one is just bad.
I woke up early on Saturday morning, stopped for a frozen coffee, and headed north to see my boyfriend. We ate pasta with walnut pesto for lunch and went to the grocery store to stock up on food for our canoe trip later that night. We spent part of the afternoon watching The Good German, which had cool lighting and a neat style but was mostly a bore. That said, Cate Blanchett remains unbelievably stunning and amazing to watch. This movie looked like a series of very beautiful black and white postcards, but the story never grabbed me.
We had a good time canoeing though this trip was somewhat less exciting than the last. I really enjoyed eating our sandwiches in our boat as the sun set. My favorite parts of this trip were the two frogs who hopped on board, Fritz and Ferdinand, the latter of whom spent much of the ride perched on my boyfriend's knee. And it was cool to only be guided by starlight since there was no moon.
I woke up early on Saturday morning, stopped for a frozen coffee, and headed north to see my boyfriend. We ate pasta with walnut pesto for lunch and went to the grocery store to stock up on food for our canoe trip later that night. We spent part of the afternoon watching The Good German, which had cool lighting and a neat style but was mostly a bore. That said, Cate Blanchett remains unbelievably stunning and amazing to watch. This movie looked like a series of very beautiful black and white postcards, but the story never grabbed me.
We had a good time canoeing though this trip was somewhat less exciting than the last. I really enjoyed eating our sandwiches in our boat as the sun set. My favorite parts of this trip were the two frogs who hopped on board, Fritz and Ferdinand, the latter of whom spent much of the ride perched on my boyfriend's knee. And it was cool to only be guided by starlight since there was no moon.
We had an excellent brunch Sunday morning ... a mimosa, great Nicaraguan coffee served in a French press, soup with pesto and orzo, grits with veal grillades, and warm bread pudding with sugared pecans and a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top. It was pretty much ecstasy on a table. And seeing a little about how they do things there make me like it even more in retrospect.
I would like to randomly point out that I predicted before Rosie even joined The View that things between Rosie and Elisabeth would end badly. I remain somewhat obsessed with how suddenly things spiraled into such ugliness at the end, and I stupidly keep watching the show because of guests hosts like Kathy Griffin, whom I love. Damn you, The View.
I stopped at Maryelizabeth's house on my way home yesterday and hung out for a while. Her baby is a ball of cute with black hair and blue eyes, just like her three-year-old was. I actually strapped the two-month-old in the baby carrier and toted her around the grocery store on my chest, which was amusing. I have to say, it's pretty astounding to see my friend with these two little girls, juggling them and wrangling them like a champion. I am sure it's not easy, and I give her props for remaining upright. Meanwhile, our mutual best friend Shelley is moving to Hawaii in six days to take up residence with her fiance, Bachelor Andy and Tessa, and the cast of Lost. Holy shit!
Between watching The Good German and reading the amazing The Book Thief, I've been consumed with all things German lately. I recorded American Experience: The Berlin Airlift, and it was pretty fascinating. I'd never even heard of it. The entire time I was reading The Book Thief, it occurred to me that I never really gave much thought to the ordinary German people during World War II. As for the characters in the book on Himmel Street, they were just poor people trying to survive and eat and who truly lived in fear of not joining and following "the party." They weren't evil, murderous people who wanted to annihilate Jews and take over the world even though they were "Heil, Hitler"-ing with the best of them. Disclaimer: I am going to sound very simpleminded and like an elementary school child when trying to explain this: it made me wonder if somewhere in my mind, not really consciously, but if somewhere in my mind, I grew up villainizing a whole country of people, imagining them all as wicked and evil, because of what their leader did. I honestly don't really think I ever thought about anyone in Germany at that time except for Hitler and the Nazi party officials and the SS. But what about the people who were just trying to live, keep their jobs, afford bread, and not freeze to death, and whom we bombed to rubble? And my boyfriend pointed out that much of the world probably thinks the same way about us. Not that George W. Bush is Hitler or that what he's done is like what Hitler did, but he's certainly no peach and we've just sat back and let him continue doing and saying one stupid-assed thing after another.
Anyway, my point is that the show about the Berlin Airlift just drove home a lot of the thoughts I had while reading that book. The people in Berlin were starving and their city was crushed and divided, and they needed help. And so for whatever reason -- out of the goodness of Truman's heart or because he wanted to be reelected -- whatever the reason, this huge operation was undertaken to feed them. And the kids on the show talked about how the sound of American and British planes overhead was once the terror of their lives -- just like in The Book Thief -- and now all of a sudden they had to wrap their minds around the fact that when they heard these planes, they did not have to fear for their lives and hide in the basement until the all clear because it was now a friendly sound and chocolate bars would fall from the sky. Can you even imagine? And the American and British pilots talk about how they didn't have warm feelings towards the Germans because they were the enemy, after all, right? But when they landed with the food, they saw that they were just normal people, some of whom even ended up being mechanics on their planes so the project could keep going and succeed. They were like, hello, we were just blowing each other up a few months ago, now let's work together and make this work.
It's just a lot to think about. I saw photos of these kids and I thought about Leisel and Rudy in the book and it was like fiction and reality were colliding in my mind and heart. And the show talked a lot about the splitting of the city into the four quadrants and now all of a sudden Russia became the enemy and look, half a century of fear or more death and horror started and a wall was built and what the fuck? It makes my head hurt and spin a little and wish I had taken a lot more history classes. I mean, my God, I think I took something like 8 or 9 of them in college, but not really from this period. And I kick myself for that. And now I have put truly an inordinate number of World War II documentaries into my Netflix queue. And I really, really, really want to go to Berlin.
I would like to randomly point out that I predicted before Rosie even joined The View that things between Rosie and Elisabeth would end badly. I remain somewhat obsessed with how suddenly things spiraled into such ugliness at the end, and I stupidly keep watching the show because of guests hosts like Kathy Griffin, whom I love. Damn you, The View.
I stopped at Maryelizabeth's house on my way home yesterday and hung out for a while. Her baby is a ball of cute with black hair and blue eyes, just like her three-year-old was. I actually strapped the two-month-old in the baby carrier and toted her around the grocery store on my chest, which was amusing. I have to say, it's pretty astounding to see my friend with these two little girls, juggling them and wrangling them like a champion. I am sure it's not easy, and I give her props for remaining upright. Meanwhile, our mutual best friend Shelley is moving to Hawaii in six days to take up residence with her fiance, Bachelor Andy and Tessa, and the cast of Lost. Holy shit!
Between watching The Good German and reading the amazing The Book Thief, I've been consumed with all things German lately. I recorded American Experience: The Berlin Airlift, and it was pretty fascinating. I'd never even heard of it. The entire time I was reading The Book Thief, it occurred to me that I never really gave much thought to the ordinary German people during World War II. As for the characters in the book on Himmel Street, they were just poor people trying to survive and eat and who truly lived in fear of not joining and following "the party." They weren't evil, murderous people who wanted to annihilate Jews and take over the world even though they were "Heil, Hitler"-ing with the best of them. Disclaimer: I am going to sound very simpleminded and like an elementary school child when trying to explain this: it made me wonder if somewhere in my mind, not really consciously, but if somewhere in my mind, I grew up villainizing a whole country of people, imagining them all as wicked and evil, because of what their leader did. I honestly don't really think I ever thought about anyone in Germany at that time except for Hitler and the Nazi party officials and the SS. But what about the people who were just trying to live, keep their jobs, afford bread, and not freeze to death, and whom we bombed to rubble? And my boyfriend pointed out that much of the world probably thinks the same way about us. Not that George W. Bush is Hitler or that what he's done is like what Hitler did, but he's certainly no peach and we've just sat back and let him continue doing and saying one stupid-assed thing after another.
Anyway, my point is that the show about the Berlin Airlift just drove home a lot of the thoughts I had while reading that book. The people in Berlin were starving and their city was crushed and divided, and they needed help. And so for whatever reason -- out of the goodness of Truman's heart or because he wanted to be reelected -- whatever the reason, this huge operation was undertaken to feed them. And the kids on the show talked about how the sound of American and British planes overhead was once the terror of their lives -- just like in The Book Thief -- and now all of a sudden they had to wrap their minds around the fact that when they heard these planes, they did not have to fear for their lives and hide in the basement until the all clear because it was now a friendly sound and chocolate bars would fall from the sky. Can you even imagine? And the American and British pilots talk about how they didn't have warm feelings towards the Germans because they were the enemy, after all, right? But when they landed with the food, they saw that they were just normal people, some of whom even ended up being mechanics on their planes so the project could keep going and succeed. They were like, hello, we were just blowing each other up a few months ago, now let's work together and make this work.
It's just a lot to think about. I saw photos of these kids and I thought about Leisel and Rudy in the book and it was like fiction and reality were colliding in my mind and heart. And the show talked a lot about the splitting of the city into the four quadrants and now all of a sudden Russia became the enemy and look, half a century of fear or more death and horror started and a wall was built and what the fuck? It makes my head hurt and spin a little and wish I had taken a lot more history classes. I mean, my God, I think I took something like 8 or 9 of them in college, but not really from this period. And I kick myself for that. And now I have put truly an inordinate number of World War II documentaries into my Netflix queue. And I really, really, really want to go to Berlin.
posted by eliza @ 8:26 PM
2 Comments:
My mother grew up in occupied Belgium, and German soldiers took overtheir house, but her mother refused to leave, so they just lived in the house with the soldiers. I remember asking her what it was like to have those Nazis around, and she firmly told me that they were not Nazis, they were just these kids who were drafted, and there is a huge difference between Nazis and ordinary German soldiers.
Kymm, that story of your mother gave me goosebumps. Thank you for sharing that. Damn.
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