Tomatoes, Subtext

Recently I’ve given humility a bit more thought. In part this is due to the German dramatist Peter Hacks (German language link). I’m writing about Hacks on another website. It’s an interesting experience, to say the least. Before even really knowing who/what this writer was all about, I jumped into his work. To my surprise, I’ve found something of an antithesis regarding how I look at playwriting and a bit regarding how I think politically. But I won’t get into that here. If you’re interested here a link to the stuff I’m writing about Hacks’ – in English.

Warning: the above mentioned author, Peter Hacks, is/was a die-hard commie. For those of you reading this you might want to take the necessary precautions in hiding the URLs or the content you’re loading into your browser. Even though McCarthyism is a thing of the past, with the current politicalization of government in the US – a great example is the republican/neo-con scandal regarding the firing of DOJ judges – one never can really know what may reemerge from the dark and lively shadows of the past. With that said, I also want to add that I was raised loving The Pledge of Negligence and waving The Stars That Strangle & The Stripes That Bite. Beyond that I love my country of birth more than it will ever love anyone else.

Humility is something the West should finally come to terms with. But I suppose that won’t be possible until all the FAILURE dressed-up as “success” is addressed. Failure is more rampant in western society and so it’s much easier to hide and/or disguise. Just walk around any Western city and watch all the people with “careers” – and at the same time watch all the people who wish to have “careers”. You can also go to Suburban wastelands and do the same comparison. Or. Have a look at the comings & goings of so-called gated-communities in the US. With that in mind, how does one deal with the fact that even if all the failure of the West were somehow curbed and/or brought under control, how would we deal with its brother-twin: humility?

Well, I have no idea.

But I will (worst)write this: as I was walking down the street today, using my partner’s iPod (so as to block out life around me and not to listen to music or podcasts or anything like that), I came across the advertisement pictured here. This is an ad-board in front of a small vegetable & fruit stand that’s about a thirty minute walk from where I live. Initially I passed it (remember: the iPod thingy) but then, twenty or thirty yards later, I stopped dead in my tracks. It registered! I turned and walked back to the sign. I starred at it, I translated it, and then spent a few seconds shaking my head before taking this pic with my phone. Eventually I reached over and started to wipe the chalk board clean with one of my fingers (I started wiping at the bottom, right corner). Luckily the owner of the stand saw me and yelled that I leave his sign alone. Of course, I left it alone. Who am I not to answer the call of authority. Oh, yeah, the text translates to…

Tomatoes that still taste like tomatoes from our growers! De037 Bio Controlled.

So… What is this sign saying? Is it advertising something? Is it telling you that the tomatoes on offer are good, bad or ugly or if they are cheaper, more expensive or for free? There couldn’t be a better example of subtext gone awry. Is this the type of command advertising that we’ll face in the future?

No? You’re not convinced of the attack on humility here?

How ’bout some tomatoes or would you prefer Tom-ah-toes?

This sign represents a/the deep seeded contempt for all things (that should be) humble. Like trying to “sell” me.

I should have taken a pic of the store, the town it’s in and the people that graze this godforsaken place. Of course, I’m making a mosquito out of an elefant… reverse that! But the text in the advert is saying something quite profound and it really has nothing to do with the selling of fruit. Or am I the only one out there, due to years of failing as a playwright, able to read subtext?

Rant on,

-tgs-

Peter Hacks

The German word for the day is: Fremdgehen. It means cheating. It’s the kind of cheating that has nothing to do with tests or filling out forms or getting US citizenship.

As some of my (worst)writing and (worst)reading friends have probably realized, I have a little bit to do with that really small country in the middle of Europe. Not only do I live against my will in said country but I also enjoy the language. More on that in sec. Of course, some call the place I live Deutschland, others call it things that … If I wrote them here I might find myself censored. That’s right. With all the talk of China censoring the Internet, they are not alone. But I won’t get into that. Unlike Germany, China has yet to find itself annexed becausing of losing some silly war. China also seems to enjoy the sadistic abuse of existing for the unholy dollar.

Digress.

Since I live in Germany I also have to find ways of getting along with the Germans. One of those ways has been to simply stop producing theater. For them, at least, it seems to have worked. For me, I’ve only avoided that impending heart attack and put my playwriting career on hold; seriously, the heart-thing hasn’t shown it’s face since I produced The Good Criminal. Of course, the Germans are still stuck with their behemoth subsidy sucking theater landscape and have yet to produce any decent actors or, goodness forbid, a writer that transcends all things German. (Which I think would be the least the Germans could do with a yearly national theater budget of almost 2 billion Euros!)

Challenge: Please tell me the name of a German playwright that has been produced in NY or London in the last few years but hasn’t worked in either city? My bet is the question cannot be affirmatively answered. Most German playwrights can only (afford to) write for their subsidized stages.

I won’t even start on German theater directors. Except to say… What would German theater directors do without the comfort of their pseudo-communist houses that all think it’s part of the game to run-up budgets in order to save their budgets?

So my quest to get along not just with the Germans but the situation of having to live here and not be able to make theater can only be summed-up via a quote from a play the likes of which could never be written by a German.

“I have always been dependent on the kindness of strangers.” -Blanche DuBois, aka Tennessee Williams, Street Car Named Desire.

Recently I came across one of those strangers. He’s a German publisher. He seems to like my blog style and also the way I complain about having to live among his kind. In the wake of this meeting he proposed that I write about a particular author. The author is dead but according to Verlag André Thiele (VAT), he is up & coming. I’ve always wanted to spend time on one particular author – outside the perverted authority of academia and whacked-out professors. The author that I get to study?

Oh. This is also kind of “Fremdgehen” – at least as far as this blog is concerned.

The author that I will be spending time with for the next eight months to a year is Peter Hacks. I’m sure I’ll post some stuff about him here later. But the key thing to keep in mind about this dude is that, in the 1950s he was one of them “intellectuals” that went from “The West” to “The East”. (Talk about Fremdgehen!) He collaborated with Bertolt Brecht and eventually achieved a certain level of fame – even internationally. I plan on reading all of his published works and will post regular articles about that work at a forum within the Peter Hacks website. The site, of course, is in German but I will posting/writing in English – the publisher wants to open Hacks up to a broader audience.

You can read my posts in a Peter Hacks forum titled The Naked Classic. I’ll also post a link in my blogroll.

Here’s to ranting about real authors – even if they were commies! Also, even though my heart is far from the place I have to live, I really love reading German.

-tgs-

“Fortune”

On a recent trip to my home (country), with a stop-over in New York City, I had the following experience. I met a man wearing an orange suit jacket, purple pants, a gray tie and white shoes. This is NYC, I thought; there’s nothing unusual in NYC. Right? The thing is, there is nothing unusual in NYC as long as what-ever-may-be happens to others. You see, I saw that man in the strange suit numerous times while traversing the streets of NYC. The first time I saw him was probably the beginning of it all. I was having lunch in a Chinese restaurant – he was outside across the street begging for cigarettes. He was obviously good at what he does and the suit obviously helped him. He chain smoked. When I came out of Macy’s to find some relief in the sticky July air, I could see the suited man on the corner of Broadway nipping popcorn from a clear plastic bag and smoking. In the evening after a show or a visit to an “escort”, I saw the man again but this time he was drinking from a bottle wrapped in grocery-store quality brown paper and – you guessed it – smoking. This happened for three days straight. I kid you not. On the morning of the fourth day, needless to say, I was a bit worried about what would/could happen regarding this odd and unknown acquaintance. Not only was I in NYC but the atmosphere of America, my home country, obviously still hung-over from the party that is/was the beginning of a new century, was starting to look different. Had I been abroad too long? Was my expatriation starting to play havoc on my desire to go home? Had I simply missed out on a new fashion? On top of that, for whatever shopping spree reason, could my fate somehow rest in the bright colored persona of a man who was obviously stalking me? Yes, paranoia does come with age, I’ve been told. Yet whenever I look at or listen to my parents – even after all these years – I continuously say: I won’t turn out like them. It’s nothing. Really. (At least) the world is not NYC.

Anwho.

It was my last morning in NYC. After the obligatory four dollar coffee and a few more smokes outside on the sidewalk near Washington Square, I trolleyed down the road to the subway. Before descending into the bowels of the great and lost city, lo & behold, the colorful man appeared. This time, though, he appeared right in front of me. Was I startled, you might ask. No. Like life, I suppose, everything happened so fast that there was no time to think. Hence, Descartes might not quite have gotten it right; he might have gotten it backwards, though. As quick as the colorful man appeared (with a somewhat awkward smell that was a mix between Old Spice and DOT4 transmission oil) he also quickly handed me what I thought at first was a ticket for the subway. Strange, I thought. That’s what I do. Not all the time but more than not, I will buy a subway ticket and after my daily travels give the ticket to someone who may or may not need it. There’s always some money left over on the ticket. It’s usually not much but at least it puts a smile on someone’s face… in NYC. Aghast. I wanted to turn and leave as quickly as I could. My luggage was already prepared to be carried down the steps, it’s tug-bar tucked away, the skateboard-like wheels burning with anticipation. The waste basket on the street corner was near enough that I could Michael Jordon the overly expensive coffee cup right into it. Swoosh. But to no avail. Before I could run away in anticipation and fear the oddly dressed man grabbed the upper part of my left arm and the chill of confrontation finally struck lightening in my chest cavity. Would this be the moment I had been fearing ever since I first visited the city that all my redneck friends from back home warned me about? You’ll get mugged, they said. But I couldn’t get away. The street seemed empty. Yes. And I was delusional – because there is no such thing as an empty street in NYC – not even at six o’clock in the morning. Or? And then I heard his voice:

“Hey brother,” the oddly dressed man said. “Don’t you remember me? You gave me your subway ticket the other day. I wanted to thank you but you ran off so quickly. Here ya go. Returning the favor. Have a nice trip where ever you’re going. Bye now.”

I don’t remember smiling back at him. But I do remember seeing him being picked up by a van with the name “Private Party” and “Circus Clown Hire” painted on it. When I got down the long stairwell of the subway, I looked at what the clown put in my hand. I finally smiled. There was no reciprocating ticket, only three tapped together fortunes of the fortune cookies I had from my first day’s lunch. And then I recalled the moment in that Chinese restaurant. I had just finished eating. The waiter returned my change and put three fortune cookies in front of me on a little stainless steel tray. I methodically opened each cookie and lined the fortunes up on the tray. I thought: It’s not right to get three fortunes – life only needs one. And we should all cut back on the sweets. So I left my fortunes on the tray along with a comfortable tip for the waiter. Now I’m thinking, in hindsight, with these three scraps of paper, delivered by a strange clown in NYC, they don’t write fortune cookies like they used to.

Front/Back

Rant on,

-tgs-