Twenty years ago today the Berlin Wall fell. I can remember watching the footage on TV in my residence common room at the University of Toronto. At the time it seemed so unbelievable. In the weeks leading up to the anniversary a lot of media reports have been focusing on how this symbolic end to the Cold War was more accidental than inevitable. And yesterday, in The New York Times, an article about a generation of Germans who've grown up with no memory of the divide between east and west, and who aren't really all that keen to be reminded of it (or the Holocaust, for that matter). For them, presumably, the Brandenburg Gate will be remembered as the site where U2 performed that one November in 2009.
Speaking of anniversaries, this blog is now just over a year old. I'm told most blogs don't last beyond a few initial posts, so I consider this an achievement of sorts (even if the depth of analysis in certain of my most recent has fallen off somewhat). Not that anyone is going to offer me a book contract anytime soon...
P.
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1 comment:
Hi Peter,
I've been silent for MONTHS because of a very busy semester here in Rhode Island--where we just saw Helke Sander's 1978 film All Around Reduced Personality--Redupers, as part of my Movie Manifestos course. All about the Berlin Wall--I highly recommend it if you haven't seen it--Sander's films have all recently been reissued in a beautiful boxed set of DVDs. I have much to ask you about this and that--will catch up on your blog first, then check in again. --Jean
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