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Published: October 30th 2015
Famous me
I get interviewed on German TVThe day after arriving in Germany I congratulated myself on averting jetlag. Then I missed two nights of sleep. As soon as my head touched pillow some part of my brain grabbed onto the idea that the sun had just come up. I suppose it had in California. I lay in the dark counting church bells: one at quarter past, two at half past, three at quarter till, four-o-clock, five-o-clock and then maybe I achieved some rough form of unconsciousness until an orgy of bells at eight. For the rest of the day I felt like pieces of sandpaper were wedged under my eyelids.
Backstory
Several years ago I received an email from a man with a peculiar first name. Wolf-Dieter was a German computer science professor looking for a visiting professorship at San Jose State. He wanted to bring his wife and son to California for a year and to explore possible future partnerships between our universities. Embarrassingly, San Jose State has no such position. I'm not sure if it's because we are chronically underfunded or if the accountants who actually run the university simply don't see how such a thing could make money. I managed to cobble together
With friends
Wolf-Dieter, Susanna, and me in Nuremberg. an office and a couple of classes I could pay him to teach. I called it a visiting professorship, but really it was smoke and mirrors. Wolf-Dieter and his family would be on their own in the howling wilderness of Silicon Valley.
During his year in California Wolf-Dieter traveled up and down the state forging partnerships with several universities and his University of Applied Sciences in Ingolstadt, a little town in Bavaria where Audis are built, birthplace of the Illuminati, and setting of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein.
When Wolf-Dieter invited me to give a few lectures in Ingolstadt and to flush out details of our putative partnership, I planned my classes at home for a month into the future—this was a brand new experience for me—asked friends to cover them, and bought my ticket.
Flight
In preparation for my flight I read Mark Vanhoenacker's wonderful book Skyfaring. He's an unusual combination of poet and 747 pilot. Like him, I have always been struck by two things:
1. Yes, flying to the other side of the world in economy class is torture, but for me this is trumped by my awe of jetliners, one
Drunken me
The waiter at Munich's Hofbrau asked if I wanted a large beer. I could barely lift this thing. of mankind's most amazing inventions in my opinion. Weren't daredevils flying winged bicycles only 100 years ago? And now we have these sky ships that fly at 600 mph through the stratosphere while inside 500 passengers watch crappy movies and eat crappy food. Someday people will rhapsodize over these machines the way we effuse over the great sailing ships. As uncomfortable as I get when the cretin in front of me pushes his seat back and jams my cold omelet into my gut (I think it was an omelet,) I still can't get over the fact that I'm seven miles high; I'm flying near the speed of sound. Look out the window. It's -40 degrees and that's Greenland down there! (For the record, I crossed the Atlantic this time on a new 787. It was quiet and pretty comfortable. I explained to the flight attendant that this was my first time on a 787. "I know," she said excitedly, "it's the crew's first time, too!")
2. Flying to the other side of the world in less than a day is weird. Future generations will see my lifetime as the time when the concept of far-away vanished. Far-away was that
Danube Gorge
Did I mention that the Danube runs through Ingolstadt? An hour downriver it carves a gorge, which can be seen behind me. place where only the rich, intrepid, or desperate traveled. In the past such a journey required steamer trunks, porters, maybe caravans, then weeks on camel, train, or clipper ship. They endured fever, hostile natives, and all other imaginable deprivations. I am like a mouse scrambling for crumbs after that banquet, trying to savor the last few nibbles of travel as an adventure. But the reality is that jetliners have shrunk the world, just like people said they would. It's dinner in Singapore, breakfast in Dubai. At a party in London one might notice dust on his shoes from a walk in the Sahara earlier in the day. Weird.
Competition
At first I was a little jealous when I learned that Wolf-Dieter also invited a professor from National University in San Diego, another one of his incipient partnerships. Worse, James was to be housed in the room next to mine at the hotel and we were to share an office at the university. Was it a beauty contest? Were we competing for the prize? And if so, what exactly was the prize?
I met him when he arrived at the hotel. He was about as threatening as a bear,
James
A rare photo of James floating down the Danube. a teddy bear, which he sort of looked like, but a teddy bear with a huge personality. We quickly became buddies. No waiter, shop clerk, or passerby can evade him. Without a word of German he engages everyone he sees. At first people seem put off by the big grinning American who has them locked into an incomprehensible conversation, but it works every time. After about 10 seconds people give up and fall in love with him. When we leave our office he disappears into the snack shop on the ground floor to say goodbye to the clerk, ask if he has plans for the weekend, and tell him that he's doing a good job. The ritual takes about five minutes. I'm pretty sure the clerk doesn't speak English. I didn't even know there was a snack shop on the ground floor.
Bavarians first, Germans second
German history is a jigsaw puzzle made up of tiny kingdoms fought over by the Austrians, Prussians, and French. Prussia eventually won most of the pieces. Then, after WWI the Prussian emperor abdicated and Germany became a republic. Most people know the rest—Nazis, WWII, division, re-unification, and Techno.
Now most of these
Nuremberg Sausages
Every town seems to have special sausages. These are the sausages of Nuremberg. Also, this is lunch, a plate of 12 sausages. I haven't eaten anything green since I got here. pieces are German states: State of Saxony, State of Brandenburg, etc. But Bavaria is different. Bavaria is still called the Free State of Bavaria. During the jigsaw phase the Kingdom of Bavaria successfully played the superpowers against each other, maintaining some form of political and cultural autonomy until the end of WWI. There are still plenty of signs of that autonomy today. As I walk down the streets of Ingolstadt it's not uncommon to see men wearing lederhosen or women wearing dirndls. There is a Catholic cathedral a block from my hotel. There are still maypoles that haven't been dismantled. I can buy beloved Bavarian white sausages from vending machines, and of course everyone takes beer very seriously. (I haven't yet seen their national sport: competitive whip cracking.)
Fame
A few days ago James and I were wandering through Marienplatz (Mary's Square) in Munich. The square is dominated by the fabulously ornate town hall which features a two-level animatronic merry-go-round high in the town hall's tower. While we were waiting for it to start moving I spotted a camera crew walking through the crowd. Instinctively I tried to steer James away from them. They spotted me instead and suddenly
BratwurstHausle
The restaurant where the aforementioned sausages are served is stuffed with people. Tables are shared. Waiters and waitresses thread between people waiting for tables. cameras and microphones were in my face. I heard myself explain to the reporter and half of Germany in broken German that
I speaked German not so good. She was un-deterred. She said something in German and shoved the microphone back in my face. Out of nowhere a voice dormant since my freshman-year German class translated. She was asking where I was from. Again German words came out of my mouth saying something like
I am and me friend is out of America. I needed Mr. Personality to jump in, but he was busy photographing the debacle. Now the reporter was apparently asking me if I could say a few words in Bavarian to the TV audience. Bavarian is a language? I knew some Bavarians didn't think they were German, but they all speak German, don't they? Yes, but peculiarly. I remembered that they greet each other by saying
Gruss Gott, which means something like "God greets", which sounds like the speaker is saying that he is God. Anyway, that seemed to have been the right thing to say. The reporter and her crew laughed and thanked me.
The "Dark Period"
Bavarian autonomy has a dark side. Munich and
Courtroom 60
This is the room where the Nuremberg trials were held. Nuremberg, Bavaria's two major cities, were incubators for the Nazi movement and consequently were popular targets for allied bombs. In Nuremberg I stood on the podium where we see Hitler exhorting the masses in old newsreels, and I sat in courtroom 60 in the Nuremberg Hall of Justice, where the war criminals were tried.
Shortly after I arrived Wolf-Dieter and his wife, Susanna, took me to a surprisingly awesome play. It told the history of Germany from 1920 to 1990 in dance. No dialog! It was set in a ballroom, which was also the name of the play. Each scene was a different era but had the same actors playing the same character types-- thief, drunk, mama's boy, ingénue, playboy, celebrity, disapproving old man, etc. During the Nazi era there were men in Nazi uniforms in the ballroom bullying people around. The mostly elderly audience became very quiet. It felt eerie. During intermission Susanna and Wolf-Dieter told me harrowing stories about what their parents endured during the "Dark Period." Modern Germans seem to bear their recent history as a kind of national birth defect. Disturbingly, Nazis are on the rise again, re-energized by the immigration issue.
After intermission
Castle Tower
Photo of my friends and me descending from the tower of Nuremberg Castle. I just realized that in this photo I look like their small child. the musical background of Germany becomes the same as in America. A week later James met one of the performers in a laundromat. He got us on the guest list, so I got to see the play twice!
Various Oddities
Part of the deal here is that I had to give a few lectures at the university. At the end of each lecture students show their approval by loudly wrapping their knuckles on their tables. At least I think they're showing approval.
Modern German cars stall on purpose when they stop at a light. A touch of the gas pedal causes them to start up again, but there's a split second of atavistic dread that maybe this time the car won't start.
German equivalent of "Don't tempt the devil": "Don't paint the devil on the wall."
Bavarian beer drinking toast: Prost!
Halloween has been going on in Germany for years. Who knew? When kids come to the door they say "Sweets or sour!"
Top three Bavarian monarchs: Pepin the Hunchback, Henry the Quarrelsome, Ludwig the Mad.
In Germany wedding rings are worn on the right hand.
Each room in our hotel features
Claudia's Mom
Claudia's mom discovers her giant Audi has a flat tire. She can't reach the spare so she becomes distraught and unbuttons her blouse. a life-size photograph of a naked woman hanging over the bed. I named mine Claudia.
The hotel hallways are lined with photos of an older blond woman draped over various local landmarks. She's pouting and her blouse is unbuttoned. It's hard to imagine what story the photos are trying to tell. She was probably once a great beauty, but when her modeling career tanked out she eventually married the owner of my hotel. Maybe she's Claudia's mom.
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Brian Judson
non-member comment
Lachend
Sie haben ernsthafte Talent als Schriftsteller. Bitte sagen "Hallo" zu Claudia und ihre Mutter .