Brainstorming:
The Bad Jew: the old man being beaten by villagers: a "bad man" (Jew)
Dad saving his dad from the American soldier
Mom's parents' death
Mom -- childhood pleasure moments: bomb shelters and stealing potatoes
her good shoes too good to wear; then she outgrew them without ever having worn them; then her stepmom cut holes in the front for the toes to hang out
Dad picking blueberries in the forest
Mom's village: The Snob: violin case with potato peels inside it; falling into the plumpsklo hole on a dare
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Almost Inbred
Almost Inbred
When the Nazis came to my mother's village to do their mandatory census, they were nearly overwhelmed by the task at hand. Not because there were so many people to account for: back then, Wolfshagen factually only had a population of around 2000 (and since then, it's only grown to around 2500). Rather, the Nazis were overwhelmed because the inhabitants of my mother's village, having been relatively self-contained since the 10th century or so in the Harz mountains of northern Germany, only had a grand total of 3 surnames in the entire village, which, not unlike a number of other limited resources (including, but not limited to, the family jewels), they all shared amongst themselves.
That made for approximately 666 individuals per last name. Which was only an unlucky number to begin with, but more importantly, a total administrative nightmare for the Nazis, whose task was to confirm every individual's status as an untainted Aryan by tracing their respective family trees at least 150 years back.
Technically, this should've been relatively simple, since everyone in the village seemed to have, by and large, the same family tree. However, the centuries of careful Aryan breeding had also taken their toll: a good percentage of the fish in that murky DNA cesspool that they'd called home for more than a millenium had developed receding brains, perhaps accounting for Darwin's law that the species will, over time, adapt to its environment.
From the stories I've been told and from my own observations when we'd visit, it seemed that few of the people in my mom's village could string a coherent sentence together, let alone spell or write. Sure, they were Aryan to the core, but proving it in writing would be another task altogether.
The village of Wolfshagen did manage to produce one world-famous name in its long history -- a name which, by the time the Nazi census was taken, had already disappeared from the town's public charters: Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg, later to be known as Henry Steinway, founder of Steinway & Sons, was a native son of my mother's birthplace. However, after he secretly managed to build his first Steinway piano in his own kitchen (due to the strong proscriptions against such behavior by the organ builder's guild, of which he was an apprentice), he went on to emigrate to NYC, Americanize his name and change the course of piano history.
He had also been previously orphaned at the age of 15, which helps to explain why there were no Steinwegs left in Wolfshagen after he split for New York.
So the Nazis, who have since become well-known for their pragmatic approaches to world domination, racial genocide and other pesky political bugaboos, figured out a brilliant solution to the conundrum: they decided to give everyone in Wolfshagen free license to change their own last names to whatever they wanted. That way, they'd pass the "redundancy test" of having to fill out endless scores of meaningless paperwork that would all look eerily similar at the end of the day while avoiding the inevitable reductio ad absurdum conclusion that the irreducible minimum of racial purity fostered a culture of blonde-haired, blue-eyed inbreds.
I've thought about this many times: what if you could change your last name to whatever you wanted it to be? You could give yourself a regal-sounding surname; or you could opt for something simple yet effective, in terms of opening doors, such as "Kennedy" or "Onassis"; or you could make it rhyme with your first name, or you could name yourself after your animal totem or your hero or anything else you aspired to.
The people of Wolfshagen, in their own way, also gave free reign to their creativity in this unprecedented venture. Their choices reflected not only their deeply personal dreams and aspirations, but perhaps even more importantly, their own cultural Weltanschauung. One guy renamed himself "Alte Hose". That means "Old Pants". My mother's mother ended up marrying a guy who had renamed himself "Bauerochse". That means "Farmer's Ox". That means that my own mother's last name was, for a while, Farmer's Ox.
There's something to be said for divorce, after all.
The stories I grew up with are the stories of what I've come to associate with what's at the core of being German, of the German experience, if you will: stories of incredible, unspeakable violence and gruesomeness, counterbalanced by a present-day reality, their intrinsic orderliness, predictability and simplicity and "just so"-ness being the best concept I've ever had to symbolize security, a sense of place, and a sense of home.
When the Nazis came to my mother's village to do their mandatory census, they were nearly overwhelmed by the task at hand. Not because there were so many people to account for: back then, Wolfshagen factually only had a population of around 2000 (and since then, it's only grown to around 2500). Rather, the Nazis were overwhelmed because the inhabitants of my mother's village, having been relatively self-contained since the 10th century or so in the Harz mountains of northern Germany, only had a grand total of 3 surnames in the entire village, which, not unlike a number of other limited resources (including, but not limited to, the family jewels), they all shared amongst themselves.
That made for approximately 666 individuals per last name. Which was only an unlucky number to begin with, but more importantly, a total administrative nightmare for the Nazis, whose task was to confirm every individual's status as an untainted Aryan by tracing their respective family trees at least 150 years back.
Technically, this should've been relatively simple, since everyone in the village seemed to have, by and large, the same family tree. However, the centuries of careful Aryan breeding had also taken their toll: a good percentage of the fish in that murky DNA cesspool that they'd called home for more than a millenium had developed receding brains, perhaps accounting for Darwin's law that the species will, over time, adapt to its environment.
From the stories I've been told and from my own observations when we'd visit, it seemed that few of the people in my mom's village could string a coherent sentence together, let alone spell or write. Sure, they were Aryan to the core, but proving it in writing would be another task altogether.
The village of Wolfshagen did manage to produce one world-famous name in its long history -- a name which, by the time the Nazi census was taken, had already disappeared from the town's public charters: Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg, later to be known as Henry Steinway, founder of Steinway & Sons, was a native son of my mother's birthplace. However, after he secretly managed to build his first Steinway piano in his own kitchen (due to the strong proscriptions against such behavior by the organ builder's guild, of which he was an apprentice), he went on to emigrate to NYC, Americanize his name and change the course of piano history.
He had also been previously orphaned at the age of 15, which helps to explain why there were no Steinwegs left in Wolfshagen after he split for New York.
So the Nazis, who have since become well-known for their pragmatic approaches to world domination, racial genocide and other pesky political bugaboos, figured out a brilliant solution to the conundrum: they decided to give everyone in Wolfshagen free license to change their own last names to whatever they wanted. That way, they'd pass the "redundancy test" of having to fill out endless scores of meaningless paperwork that would all look eerily similar at the end of the day while avoiding the inevitable reductio ad absurdum conclusion that the irreducible minimum of racial purity fostered a culture of blonde-haired, blue-eyed inbreds.
I've thought about this many times: what if you could change your last name to whatever you wanted it to be? You could give yourself a regal-sounding surname; or you could opt for something simple yet effective, in terms of opening doors, such as "Kennedy" or "Onassis"; or you could make it rhyme with your first name, or you could name yourself after your animal totem or your hero or anything else you aspired to.
The people of Wolfshagen, in their own way, also gave free reign to their creativity in this unprecedented venture. Their choices reflected not only their deeply personal dreams and aspirations, but perhaps even more importantly, their own cultural Weltanschauung. One guy renamed himself "Alte Hose". That means "Old Pants". My mother's mother ended up marrying a guy who had renamed himself "Bauerochse". That means "Farmer's Ox". That means that my own mother's last name was, for a while, Farmer's Ox.
There's something to be said for divorce, after all.
The stories I grew up with are the stories of what I've come to associate with what's at the core of being German, of the German experience, if you will: stories of incredible, unspeakable violence and gruesomeness, counterbalanced by a present-day reality, their intrinsic orderliness, predictability and simplicity and "just so"-ness being the best concept I've ever had to symbolize security, a sense of place, and a sense of home.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Birth
I was born in the US to German-speaking parents. My first language was German. I was born in Bellevue Hospital in Niskayuna, Schenectady, NY. The irony of the hospital's name is not lost on me: I am well aware that Bellevue Hospital was also the name of one of the better-known insane asylums of our time.
"Bellevue" of course means "nice view" or similar. Nice view, my ass. My mother has told me more than once that my birth was the most painful thing that ever happened to her. I like to think I can remember it, and believe me, it was the closest thing I can imagine to original sin. I fucked up her birth canal like nobody's business. As soon as those contractions started squeezing me out, I made like a tunnel rat in Saigon, struggling for air and space and a chance at another day before a Viet Cong grenade took me out for good. I fought and squirmed and flailed mercilessly in a battle to the death, trying to get my head above ground, just going for that gasp of air that would separate me from the other corpses littering the ground behind me like a sordid Hansel & Gretel trail. By God, I wasn't going to let those gooks get me, at least not without a good fight for my life.
That was birth. Yay. Mom screamed; I cried; and the first snowfall of the year gently blanketed the ground outside.
The next funny part was that I was a girl. Don't get me wrong: I'd had lots of experiences with girls before. I just hadn't been one in a while.
My dad thought a good German girl should always have her hair combed nicely for a picture. Part of a good hair comb was a perfect side part, with more than a passing resemblance of Hitler's own famous side part. When I say "perfect", I mean that literally not one hair was to be out of place for the photo op. In order to ensure this, I believe he regularly went to the trouble of personally slicking my hair in its proper place with his own spit.
I enjoyed eating. I thought it was fun (and still do.) My mother, being inexperienced (I was her first child) and also a product of the Second World War, indulged me and never restricted my food intake, believing a healthy appetite to be a sign of a healthy child. Back when she was a young girl in post-World War II Germany, my mother had been cursed with a lithe form. Her parents received a lot of flak for this, as it was generally believed that my mother's waif-like shape (which would one day be the envy of other young women and, in combination with a Sophia-Loren facial structure, would launch her career as a successful model in Barcelona) was attributable to the fact that her parents couldn't afford to keep her properly fed. So, in order to keep up with the Joneses of their time and place, her parents force-fed her oatmeal porridge every morning till she was just about to puke, in a desperate attempt to fatten her up in order to avoid further rumors of a failing financial portfolio.
I got so fat as a baby that strangers would comment to my mother on my "full figure" (at the ripe old age of 9 months). My mother would explain to them that "German babies are made that way". In my prime, I boasted 8 rings of fat on each arm and each leg. I was the original Michelin baby.
I love my baby photos. They depict a fantastically obese infant with a Hitler haircut in a white, frilly dress. My smile is huge. I appear to be laughing at the camera, but really I'm laughing at myself. The hilarity of the situation does not escape me. My ear to ear grin is not a cute, girley smile. Nope. More like an absolutely amused, belly-deep guffaw, like I am laughing my ass off at the incongruous combination of fat rings, slicked-back Hitler hair and white lace that my parents lovingly referred to as their baby daughter. I knew even back then that I was completely off.
No one seemed to know I was an Undercover Brother, not even my mother. Holy shit, the possibilities. I loved it. I think I knew even then that I had a lot to look forward to.
"Bellevue" of course means "nice view" or similar. Nice view, my ass. My mother has told me more than once that my birth was the most painful thing that ever happened to her. I like to think I can remember it, and believe me, it was the closest thing I can imagine to original sin. I fucked up her birth canal like nobody's business. As soon as those contractions started squeezing me out, I made like a tunnel rat in Saigon, struggling for air and space and a chance at another day before a Viet Cong grenade took me out for good. I fought and squirmed and flailed mercilessly in a battle to the death, trying to get my head above ground, just going for that gasp of air that would separate me from the other corpses littering the ground behind me like a sordid Hansel & Gretel trail. By God, I wasn't going to let those gooks get me, at least not without a good fight for my life.
That was birth. Yay. Mom screamed; I cried; and the first snowfall of the year gently blanketed the ground outside.
The next funny part was that I was a girl. Don't get me wrong: I'd had lots of experiences with girls before. I just hadn't been one in a while.
My dad thought a good German girl should always have her hair combed nicely for a picture. Part of a good hair comb was a perfect side part, with more than a passing resemblance of Hitler's own famous side part. When I say "perfect", I mean that literally not one hair was to be out of place for the photo op. In order to ensure this, I believe he regularly went to the trouble of personally slicking my hair in its proper place with his own spit.
I enjoyed eating. I thought it was fun (and still do.) My mother, being inexperienced (I was her first child) and also a product of the Second World War, indulged me and never restricted my food intake, believing a healthy appetite to be a sign of a healthy child. Back when she was a young girl in post-World War II Germany, my mother had been cursed with a lithe form. Her parents received a lot of flak for this, as it was generally believed that my mother's waif-like shape (which would one day be the envy of other young women and, in combination with a Sophia-Loren facial structure, would launch her career as a successful model in Barcelona) was attributable to the fact that her parents couldn't afford to keep her properly fed. So, in order to keep up with the Joneses of their time and place, her parents force-fed her oatmeal porridge every morning till she was just about to puke, in a desperate attempt to fatten her up in order to avoid further rumors of a failing financial portfolio.
I got so fat as a baby that strangers would comment to my mother on my "full figure" (at the ripe old age of 9 months). My mother would explain to them that "German babies are made that way". In my prime, I boasted 8 rings of fat on each arm and each leg. I was the original Michelin baby.
I love my baby photos. They depict a fantastically obese infant with a Hitler haircut in a white, frilly dress. My smile is huge. I appear to be laughing at the camera, but really I'm laughing at myself. The hilarity of the situation does not escape me. My ear to ear grin is not a cute, girley smile. Nope. More like an absolutely amused, belly-deep guffaw, like I am laughing my ass off at the incongruous combination of fat rings, slicked-back Hitler hair and white lace that my parents lovingly referred to as their baby daughter. I knew even back then that I was completely off.
No one seemed to know I was an Undercover Brother, not even my mother. Holy shit, the possibilities. I loved it. I think I knew even then that I had a lot to look forward to.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Lesson 2: what to write about
Lesson 2: here it is.
Take what you wrote in Lesson 1 and distill it. Make a list of the key recurring subjects areas or themes you wrote down in Lesson 1. Distill the list into its essential elements.
What is the common theme of these elements?
That's the subject matter of your book.
That was easy, right?
If it's the right subject, it will pass the test of being an endless fount of information that you can write freely and authoritatively about. There's your story.
Congratulations.
Take what you wrote in Lesson 1 and distill it. Make a list of the key recurring subjects areas or themes you wrote down in Lesson 1. Distill the list into its essential elements.
What is the common theme of these elements?
That's the subject matter of your book.
That was easy, right?
If it's the right subject, it will pass the test of being an endless fount of information that you can write freely and authoritatively about. There's your story.
Congratulations.
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