Month: October 2011

Wall Street Protests

On By Norbert HauptIn Commentaries, Crack-Ups, Political, Sustainability1 Comment

While visiting New York City last week, we went down to Wall Street and checked on the ongoing protests.

There were, at that time, hundreds of people gathered, braving rain squalls, camping out in the park and on side walks, holding up hand-written signs, chanting, conducting drum circles, giving speeches, all against Wall Street greed and the establishment allowing it.

There were also hundreds of police, with barricades blocking access to buildings on Wall Street itself. Police had been arresting people, only to let them go again, so they would participate the next day. This has been gathering momentum.

I enjoyed milling about for a while, taking pictures, and listening to speakers.

However, I wonder where this can go? It’s not the anti-war demonstrations against the Vietnam War in the sixties, where the target was one person, Richard Nixon, who had the power to make a difference. You cannot protest against an entire establishment, our banking system, our financial system, free market enterprise and the way Wall Street works. This isn’t going to change if a million people flood lower Manhattan.

I predict it will stop as soon as it gets cold enough so camping out will no longer be possible. It has to fizzle. I see no focus.

Meanwhile, I have respect for people who are dedicated enough to participate for a cause they believe in.

Book Review: Adolph Hitler Biography – by Jimmy Coca

On By Norbert HauptIn Atrocities, Books, Three StarsLeave a comment

After recently reading several fictional books set in Hitler’s Germany (Garden of Beasts and Every Man Dies Alone), as well as working my way through Der Gelbe Stern, I was interested in how Hitler had come to power in the first place. There are many biographies, of course, and I picked this one because of its brevity and simple, high-school-level writing style. I read the whole book in a few hours and I got out of it what I wanted – background into the environment that allowed Hitler, obviously a lunatic and murderous criminal, to hijack an entire nation and over a period of twelve years, drive it into the dark ages, kill a significant portion of it and its neighbors, and eventually go down in flames.

While reading this, I realized that I grew up in that country, born only 11 years after Hitler’s demise, and I never learned those details. I remember in high school we studied history, ancient Greek, ancient Rome, the middle ages, the Renaissance, but somehow we never made it to the Nazi period. Was it German national embarrassment that prevented this period from making it into the curriculum? Was it rewriting of history? Or did I just luck out and make it through school  without ever touching this subject – in other words: Am I alone?

I do not know. Coca’s little biography helped me out.

Rating - Three Stars

Play Review: Avenue Q

On By Norbert HauptIn ArtLeave a comment

I love plays yet I don’t go very often. However, I do not care much for musicals.

Avenue Q is a musical — with puppets, like those in Sesame Street. Huh? And how is that fun? I would never have picked this if it were left to me.

But Trisha bought the tickets and I must say — it’s been a long, long time that I have enjoyed a live play as much as this. I had a wonderful time. Thank you very much.

Avenue Q is a most unusual musical. There are seven “actors” in this play. Three of them are human actors, and the other four are puppeteers who control eleven puppets like those in Sesame Street. The human actors wear colorful costumes and they interact seamlessly with the puppets in the play. The puppeteers are humans dressed in gray, gray shoes, gray jeans, gray shirts or skirts and they wear no discernible makeup. The idea is that they are not really there and just blend into the background. The human actors completely ignore the puppeteers as if they were not even there.

As I watched, I found myself completely immersed in the story, following the colorful actors and puppets. I noticed that I was paying attention to the expressions of the puppets, and only occasionally I would  look at the humans controlling them, noticing their facial expressions  mimicking the puppets. To make matters more complicated, some puppets were controlled by two humans at the same time, like one controlling the right hand and the other the left, but always the same voice. This went further, when two puppets were on stage voiced by the same puppeteer but controlled by two different ones. If this all sounds confusing, you’re not alone.

Within the first song, however, I was so drawn into this story, into the custom written music, and into the puppets as believable characters, I just took it as such is the world. I would not have been surprised if I had walked out on the streets of Manhattan later and found people carrying puppets around. It would have made complete sense.

The story is one of coming of age, the culmination of the generations of children who grew up with Sesame Street, accepting of the neat and safe world of only good, and hope, and beauty, only to find out that there is betrayal, and porn, and unemployment, and flat-out bad luck. The first song is “It Sucks to be Me” and this is just a start.

I had a delightful time and I would recommend this show to anyone without any reservation. It’s glorious entertainment and it deserves all the awards it has received.

Rating: ****

World Trade Center Memorial

On By Norbert HauptIn Feelings, Travels1 Comment

Today we visited the newly opened (9/12/11) World Trade Center Memorial. We took a three-hour guided tour. We were only a group of ten people, and it was very memorable. We found out many facts and behind the scenes details that we would never have known just visiting the site and viewing the memorial.

The two reflection pools are powerful memorials by themselves. This view is from the south edge of the south pool. The pools trace the footprints of the towers. Massive waterfalls encircle the pools on all sides, visible, but unreachable. The water disappears into black square pits in the bottom. It is not possible to see the bottom from the edge of the pool. This gives it an infinity feeling. The pools are lined with a large border where the names of all victims are engraved on copper, backlit at night from below.

In the background, the building with the American flag, is the base of One World Trade Center, now 80 stories tall and not yet completed. It will be 1776 feet high when complete, the tallest building in North America. The white building on the right side in the background is the structure of the museum, which is still under construction, scheduled to be opened on 9/11/12.

The pools are massive. Standing at the edge, I felt very small and insignificant. I looked up and simply could not imagine that something this big, and 110 stories tall, could collapse into a pile of rubble, right here. Looking at the tiny people on the other side of the pool gives a sense of its scale.

Here is a picture of the current state of One World Trade Center:

People find the names of their loved ones lost and leave flowers or other tokens of their care and sorrow.

The photograph below shows our tour guide next to the Survivor Tree.

The Survivor Tree is a callery pear found in the wreckage of the World Trade Center plaza, nursed back to health, and planted at the memorial plaza. The tree was originally planted at the WTC complex more than 30 years ago. When it was found alive and sprouting while the wreckage was being removed in 2002, it was taken to the Parks Department’s Arthur Ross Nursery in Van Cortlandt Park.

You can see the twisted and charred trunk on the bottom up to about eye level. Above that,  all the new spouts came out and grew strong. There are only two trees known to have survived 9/11. This is one of  them. It has an honorspot encircled by a banister at the memorial.

May it grow strong and live long. I am looking forward to coming back decades from now and touching it again.

Off to New York City

On By Norbert HauptIn TravelsLeave a comment

We’re off to New York for five days in the City. We’re house-swapping with cousins of Trisha’s. They are going to stay in our house, and we’re going to stay in their brownstone on the Upper West Side. Sounds cool, huh?