On a Scale 1:20
I was trying to find information about the French sector of Berlin during the Cold War and I just found a website lovingly dedicated to the Berlin Wall. And when I say "lovingly" I dont mean hastily and self-consciously fascinated with an edifice of history or a symbol of an idea. The site is about love as true love as human love. A Swedish woman (pictured below), during West Germany's occupational-haze and East Germany's Communism-stint, decided that she loved the Berlin Wall as a wall. As a vertical and horizontal and concrete and iron structure. She claims it was her first love. Her true love. She visited the wall for the first time in 1977 and On June 17, 1979, they were married. Imagine her, in a white dress, barefoot, being married to a wall. Who's her witness? Who buys into that? Who's the preacher that willingly follows her down to some obscure corner and awkwardly addresses the "will you take this woman" to a WALL? Furthermore, which corner does she pick? Which part deserves the most allegiance? Can she marry a person after that? What are the laws about marriage between human and object, person and thing, noun and other noun?
She calls it Animism. "The fundamental condition of objectum-sexuality." The politics of the wall are completely, and unbelievably, irrelevant. "The Berlin Wall symbolizes communism and oppression to many people but not to me. I am not interested in politics. The Berlin Wall is my spouse, it is as simple as so." But, despite the profound love and loyalty she feels for the wall, this Animism translates to other objects as well: bridges, fences, gates, railways, even gallows. And to manifest this love for these objects, perhaps to express it, maybe the way we (being non-Animistic people) would doodle pictures of our crushes or lay awake and recreate conversations we've had or things they did, she makes miniature scaled models of these structures, painstakingly detailed and devotingly photographed. Besides models of the Berlin Wall, she has a model of the Bridge on the River Kwai, American gallows, and her neighbor's fence. But the Wall, die Berliner Mauer (in German) is her one true love. After their marriage, she took "his name," and she now calls herself Wall Winther Berliner-Mauer. She has a hard time discussing his destruction on November 9, 1989. And she believes Germany should have remained divided.
I think why this site fascinates me so much, is that it completely counters my own obsession with the Wall as an entirely political and historical structure built out of confusion and hate and fear and calamity and that people could honestly live in a city for 28 years with a wall all around. And Berliners talk about it with such dismissive acceptance and Americans prod with such aggressive curiosity. Its not that Germans arent taught to value history, because they certainly are and they certainly do, but sometimes I wonder if we're taught a different type of historical appreciation--an elaborate, sensationalized concept of the profundity of every action on every other action throughout time. I mean, Im always so curious as to how the Wall affected everyone's LIFE. "Tell me, was it WEIRD with the WALL?!" And thats probably completely idiotic of me. And, clearly, the Wall affects everyone in different ways.
"My dear Berlin Wall, you make me/crazy of love for You!" -from a poem written by Wall Winther Berliner-Mauer.
Oh, and go to http://www.berlinermauer.se/BerlinWall/ if youre interested in this site.
She calls it Animism. "The fundamental condition of objectum-sexuality." The politics of the wall are completely, and unbelievably, irrelevant. "The Berlin Wall symbolizes communism and oppression to many people but not to me. I am not interested in politics. The Berlin Wall is my spouse, it is as simple as so." But, despite the profound love and loyalty she feels for the wall, this Animism translates to other objects as well: bridges, fences, gates, railways, even gallows. And to manifest this love for these objects, perhaps to express it, maybe the way we (being non-Animistic people) would doodle pictures of our crushes or lay awake and recreate conversations we've had or things they did, she makes miniature scaled models of these structures, painstakingly detailed and devotingly photographed. Besides models of the Berlin Wall, she has a model of the Bridge on the River Kwai, American gallows, and her neighbor's fence. But the Wall, die Berliner Mauer (in German) is her one true love. After their marriage, she took "his name," and she now calls herself Wall Winther Berliner-Mauer. She has a hard time discussing his destruction on November 9, 1989. And she believes Germany should have remained divided.
I think why this site fascinates me so much, is that it completely counters my own obsession with the Wall as an entirely political and historical structure built out of confusion and hate and fear and calamity and that people could honestly live in a city for 28 years with a wall all around. And Berliners talk about it with such dismissive acceptance and Americans prod with such aggressive curiosity. Its not that Germans arent taught to value history, because they certainly are and they certainly do, but sometimes I wonder if we're taught a different type of historical appreciation--an elaborate, sensationalized concept of the profundity of every action on every other action throughout time. I mean, Im always so curious as to how the Wall affected everyone's LIFE. "Tell me, was it WEIRD with the WALL?!" And thats probably completely idiotic of me. And, clearly, the Wall affects everyone in different ways.
"My dear Berlin Wall, you make me/crazy of love for You!" -from a poem written by Wall Winther Berliner-Mauer.
Oh, and go to http://www.berlinermauer.se/BerlinWall/ if youre interested in this site.
posted by Chadé at 12:38 PM
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