Take Me With You
In a slight (or rather, actually, drastic) change of pace (genre), last night I went to a squat in Berlin to see a punk show. Specifically, punk of a sub-genre - DIY hardcore - that was of interest to me during the second half of my undergraduate carreer and from which I still listen to a couple of albums. A band from the States (Philly-New Jersey-New Yorkish) that I had last seen back in Pittsburgh in 2004, Off Minor, was the headlining band, so I figured it would be excellent to go see them (Off Minor produced what I rank as one of the best albums to come out of their whole sub-genre, "The Heat Death of the Universe" - one of the few that I still listen to even though I'm pretty well on the other side of what might have been called (were it not so incomplete) my punk phase (Ten Grand's "This is the Way to Rule" being the other best album).) The squat itself was acutally a very impressive space - apparently, as of the last couple of years, an agreement has been reached between the government and the many squats that have been around for a long time, wherein they can register as shared houses and social communities that do social service and still not have to pay rent or leave the premises.
There apparently used to be squats all over the place in Berlin after the reunification, since there were many abandonded buildings in the former East. Many of them have gone away, to become condos or simply to be removed from now-gentrified neighborhoods. I couldn't tell how much of the surrounding buildings at Subersiv were not-squat, but it seemd like several other of the buildings that shared the Hof - the interior courtyard - were of a condition that seemed more yuppie-ish than DIY punk-ish. As for the scenesters - they actually looked pretty much the same as American scenesters, and in fact the turnout was about the same in size as I recall from similar shows in Pittsburgh (which was surprising, in that Berlin is a much bigger city (but at the same time, it's not a particularly popular strain of music (in that it's very aggresive, but socially earnest and generally not-so-mosh-ish (that is, no violent dancing)))).
The music itself is probably below the interest-level of the blog (though it seems to be in hot debate these days - just how interested/interesting and mild we really are), but also of note was that the concert costed 6 euros, which is more than I paid for a ticket to see the Staatsoper play Don Giovanni this weekend (news on that concert (and possibly a couple others as well this weekend) once it (they) has (have) actually happened). I don't mind paying the money, in that its a band on a world tour and I'm all for supporting that sort of thing - but it really brings out the fact of how cheap it really is to see classical music over here.
**Also, please note that the spellcheck function on blogger.com doesn't work from over here, so please forgive me if there are an inordinant number of errors (I try to catch what I can, but you know how it goes).**
There apparently used to be squats all over the place in Berlin after the reunification, since there were many abandonded buildings in the former East. Many of them have gone away, to become condos or simply to be removed from now-gentrified neighborhoods. I couldn't tell how much of the surrounding buildings at Subersiv were not-squat, but it seemd like several other of the buildings that shared the Hof - the interior courtyard - were of a condition that seemed more yuppie-ish than DIY punk-ish. As for the scenesters - they actually looked pretty much the same as American scenesters, and in fact the turnout was about the same in size as I recall from similar shows in Pittsburgh (which was surprising, in that Berlin is a much bigger city (but at the same time, it's not a particularly popular strain of music (in that it's very aggresive, but socially earnest and generally not-so-mosh-ish (that is, no violent dancing)))).
The music itself is probably below the interest-level of the blog (though it seems to be in hot debate these days - just how interested/interesting and mild we really are), but also of note was that the concert costed 6 euros, which is more than I paid for a ticket to see the Staatsoper play Don Giovanni this weekend (news on that concert (and possibly a couple others as well this weekend) once it (they) has (have) actually happened). I don't mind paying the money, in that its a band on a world tour and I'm all for supporting that sort of thing - but it really brings out the fact of how cheap it really is to see classical music over here.
**Also, please note that the spellcheck function on blogger.com doesn't work from over here, so please forgive me if there are an inordinant number of errors (I try to catch what I can, but you know how it goes).**
5 Comments:
700th blog post!
Have I ever mentioned that your use of parentheses is very precise and even, reminiscent of the Lisp programming language? (I've never programmed in Lisp, but I know that it requires lots of parentheses.) Wikipedia reminds me, however, that maybe I should be comparing your use of parenthetical phrases to Faulkner's, and not a programming syntax.
I used to have to install Lisp interfaces on many professor's computers back when I worked for psychology computing, and learned about it a bit in a couple of books (I think both Hofstadter and Dennett, at various points, talk about the (surface-level) aspects of Lisp, but I, of course, have no actual experience using it).
Actually, though, I think either comparison there is flattering to me - in that my writing, therefore, is both a) literary and b) clear and easily followable (which can't always be said for Faulkner (it took me a goddamned long time to figure out there were two Quentins in The Sound and the Fury) and therefore succesful as a writing style.
Your parentheses continue to remind me more than anything of Joseph Heller's "Something Happened", where I think the parentheses are similarly deployed for semi-clownish effect but also to set apart nested, variably large digressions.
I don't have a ton of Lisp experience but, although the surface look of all those parentheses can be daunting, they do indicate the structure and logic of each statement more than I'm afraid yours do. There's also a much richer relationship between what's outside the parentheses and what's in -- functions acting on other functions or their outputs, etc. -- next to which the structure of your writing is (and I mean no offense) (literally) shallow.
Well damn! I'm gonna have to learn me some Lisp, in order to deepen my writing.
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