The Kaiser Friedrich Museum
designed by the architect Ernst von Ihne is completed in 1904, and renamed the Bode Museum after its first curator Wilhelm von Bode, in 1956.
Current reading.
The relationship between art and politics is complicated, isn't it. Especially in these challenging times, when life and history seem to be happening so fast. D. and I were watching "Recount," the HBO film about the 2000 election results the other night and we both kept murmuring, "I'd forgotten that," or "I didn't realize at the time..." or "Oh god, no, no no, please," or "Jesus wept." It was almost as if, D. said afterwards in something of a tribute to the filmmakers, you found yourself hoping for a different ending. Until you realized of course that even Kevin Spacey can't undo history. Laura Dern, by the way, was brilliant as the mad Queen Esther Kitty Harris.
So sometimes it's just easier to photograph the coffee table and offer up some links:
Daniel Boese writes about the ceremony this week for "Germany's national monument for homosexual victims of national socialism" in Berlin's Tiergarten, within view of the Brandenburg Gate and the new "terror-proof" American embassy.
Regrettably, Pierre Seel, the last known survivor of the Nazi torture of gays, died in 2005. Mr. Seel's memoir, published in 1994, describes his arrest in 1940 and his experiences which included being forced to witness the execution of his boyfriend. While Wagner played, the guards stripped the 18 year-old naked, put a bucket over his head and let loose German shepherds who tore him to pieces, beginning with his genitals. The bucket amplified his screams.
As some Californian gay couples contemplate marriage, it may be useful to recall that what happened to Mr. Seel did not take place thousands of years ago in some barbaric uncivilized past or even hundreds of years ago, and not even as long ago as 1904, but to a young man in Germany in the 40s. Although of course that would be long ago when compared to another young man, Matthew Shepherd, who was tortured and left to die crucified on a fence in Wyoming in 1998.
Which, even if history is happening fast, in a heart beat, is not really so long ago at all.
Current reading.
The relationship between art and politics is complicated, isn't it. Especially in these challenging times, when life and history seem to be happening so fast. D. and I were watching "Recount," the HBO film about the 2000 election results the other night and we both kept murmuring, "I'd forgotten that," or "I didn't realize at the time..." or "Oh god, no, no no, please," or "Jesus wept." It was almost as if, D. said afterwards in something of a tribute to the filmmakers, you found yourself hoping for a different ending. Until you realized of course that even Kevin Spacey can't undo history. Laura Dern, by the way, was brilliant as the mad Queen Esther Kitty Harris.
So sometimes it's just easier to photograph the coffee table and offer up some links:
Daniel Boese writes about the ceremony this week for "Germany's national monument for homosexual victims of national socialism" in Berlin's Tiergarten, within view of the Brandenburg Gate and the new "terror-proof" American embassy.
Regrettably, Pierre Seel, the last known survivor of the Nazi torture of gays, died in 2005. Mr. Seel's memoir, published in 1994, describes his arrest in 1940 and his experiences which included being forced to witness the execution of his boyfriend. While Wagner played, the guards stripped the 18 year-old naked, put a bucket over his head and let loose German shepherds who tore him to pieces, beginning with his genitals. The bucket amplified his screams.
As some Californian gay couples contemplate marriage, it may be useful to recall that what happened to Mr. Seel did not take place thousands of years ago in some barbaric uncivilized past or even hundreds of years ago, and not even as long ago as 1904, but to a young man in Germany in the 40s. Although of course that would be long ago when compared to another young man, Matthew Shepherd, who was tortured and left to die crucified on a fence in Wyoming in 1998.
Which, even if history is happening fast, in a heart beat, is not really so long ago at all.
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