Day #12: Thursday, Sep. 28: The Shocking Truth About Socialism

Suddenly, this whole question of communism vs. socialism takes on a new, bone-chilling aspect.

You see that bottle "Strong" beer, second from left? That's my beer. Only, it's not really beer anymore. It's the sad, hollow, emptied husk of a beer; the remnants of a beer, the remainder, what's left for the worms to invade when the soul of the beer is gone. Yes, that beer is beer no more. But I – the owner of the beer – did not drink it.

I bought the beer, I transported it form the Supermarket to the house, I stored it in my room until I felt a need to enjoy the beer slowly rising, I placed the beer in the fridge to prepare it for drinking the next day, but when I came down to the kitchen this evening to actually take and enjoy the beer, it was gone. I took everything out of the refrigerator, every item, one by one: the packages of sliced cheese and sliced sausage, the plastic bag with the stalks of parsley in it, the cartons of orange juice and milk, everything, one by one, and when I was done: no beer.

Then I discovered the empty bottle in the corner. Oh, what mockery: the beer thief placed the empty bottle neatly in the corner to be disposed of. Perhaps I am meant to dispose of it myself.

Who could have done such a cruel mean thing? Surely this is the work of a communist. Might I even venture so far as to suggest that it might well have been the work of a Ukrainian-speaking communist?

The question of what is and what is not capitalism has, for me, taken on a new definition: A capitalist is the one who buys the beer with the intent of controlling it; a socialist is the one who wrests control of the beer from the hands of the capitalist.

Day #11: Wednesday, Sep. 27: I Am Committed

So, I have made the big decision: I am going to use part of this time to write a novel.

That is, part of a novel: The first fifty pages or so plus the outline. I should be able to get that finished in three months.

I have written novels before: as a kid, mainly, full of ideas about expressing my self and competing with Shakespeare and entering literary heaven. With that in mind, I feel just a tad silly about trying at my age and as an established journalist to write a novel. I have to assure myself that this is not about expressing myself or creating greeat art or any of that crap; it's about depicting my subject in a different way - in a potentially more popular way (more people buy successful novels than successful non-fiction books) - i.e., it's about taking my subject to a larger group of readers (and at the same time being able to takew liberties with my subject that I could not take as a journalist). Telling me that, writing this - this thing - as a novel makes sinse.

The non-fiction book is not lost. Parallel to writing my novel, I continue researching the non-fiction book. Since both the novel and the non-fiction book have the same theme, there is no conflict as far as time goes. And if my energy holds out (and a publisher is interested in the idea), I can publish both the novel and the non-fiction book as companion books: two ways of looking at the sme subject.

I still have a back door to slither out of, of course. If the pages I wrikte her ein Krakow (Krakow, hear my plea) are crap, I just bury it and forget I ever mentioned it. Of course, now that I have declared my intention to the world, if I fail, I will make a fool of myself. So even if I have a back door, the stakes are high.

Wish me luck. Here goes nothing.

Day #10: Tuesday, Sep. 26: Capitalism

Last night was vodka night: A bunch of European writers sitting around the kitchen table drinking, so of course the conversation turned to capitalism. This time, the conversation surprised me. When I claimed, just to get it out in the open, to be capitalist, they disagreed. Not because they think I am a good person, but because I don’t have the money. It turns out I had been misunderstanding the European/German definition of capitalists all this time:

"A capitalist isn't just someone who lives in and agrees with a capitalist system," claimed Erica the Post-Socialist-Feminist. "A capitalist is someone who controls the capital, like Bill Gates. Didn’t you ever read Marx?"

Per this definition, Bill Gates has only been a capitalist since becoming a success, which is when he was able to "control capital." When he was working in his garage, determined to someday control capital, he was not yet a capitalist. Neither was the guy working in the garage next store who failed, though he would have liked to control as much capital as Bill Gates does.

That means a capitalist is someone who is successful in business and a socialist is someone who fails in business. That goes a long way in explaining Germany, where capitalism (even though Germany is a capitalistic country where all socialists wish they had the capital that the capitalists control) is synonymous with evil. If capitalism is morally reprehensible, business success is morally reprehensible, which may be one reason why Germany lives comfortably with 5 million unemployed, an embarrassing economic slump and a long tradition of discouraging innovation.

All of which is, by the way, in my book Planet Germany! In fact, here's My Beautiful German Frolein's illustration for that chapter:

Day #9: Monday, Sep. 25: What's Wrong With This Picture?

On the Rynek I saw this group of kids walking around with German flags on their cheeks. Patriotism is a good thing, of course, but I wondered if this was a wise way to show it.

As I passed, however, I noticed they were speaking Polish. That was even more puzzling, so I asked, and it turned out that they were language students of German and English and this was World Language Day.

Day #8: Sunday, Sep. 24: Intense

This is Tanja Malarczuk, a Ukrainian autobiographical novelist with three books (collections of short stories and novellas) under her belt at 23, and she is a Xenologist (?), which, she claims, means she can understand languages without learning them. Three months ago she didn't speak English. Then she went to Germany for a visit and everyone was speaking English and she felt frustrated, until a couple of weeks passed and she could suddenly speak English. Just like that. I believe her. (Maybe it helped to have watched a lot of English-language movies all her life).

In this photo she is speaking not English, but a more international language, one far more powerful and widespread than English, and in course you don’t understand what she is saying, this is the translation: Don’t take my picture!

Last night I came down into the kitchen to get a beer before retiring and there was Tanja. Cagey Tanja, who does not like to talk much about herself. Ah, but I knew I would catch her in a talkative mood someday, and today was the day. Finally she talked about her autobiographical novels. "Sometimes I think I am sick," she said. "I think everyone in the world around me is a character in my novel. I could write about you right now and in the novel you would die."

Am I the only one who finds aggressively, intimately personal writing sexy? There is something forbidden about it, like Noah's son Ham seeing him naked. There is something courageous and mad about it, it is the spiritual equivalent of bungy-jumping or of the things they do on "Jackass.".

She said her father will no longer tell her personal things because she wrote about her family in one of her books and they didn't like what she wrote. She's not the kind of writer, I think, who puts a lot of harmony, love, understanding and universal warmth into her books. I get the feeling they are interesting books, though. I understand the heartbreak that her parents felt, but I know also that intimate and true writing can touch countless souls and enrich many lives without her parents ever knowing, and I believe it is worth it and good for her to write those things. Tanja's parents, if you can hear me: forgive her and continue to tell her your secrets; even if it embarrassing for you, it is healing and wisdom-making for people like me.

It would be an honor for me to appear in one of her books. If I die in it, that would be a small price to pay.

Day #7: Saturday, Sep. 23: My Widersacher: the Young German Intellectual

I told Katja Thomas, the young writer from Leipzig, that I believe she is using this grant not so much to write, but to find herself as a writer. She avoided the subject by saying 1) we all use our entire lives to find ourselves, and 2) that I the kind of person who always has to stick people in drawers, as the Germans say - labeling them. She is right of course, I am that kind of person. (In fact, I think that's what it says on the label of my drawer: "Guy Who Is Always Labeling Other People"). The Germans are excessively afraid of someone putting them in "drawers." In fact, one of the drawers I put Germans into in general has the label: "People Who Think They Are Too Complicated, Individualistic and Unique To Be Put Into Any One Specific Category."

(Photo: I warned her that this bad photo of her, with the shadow falling as it does, makes her look like her head has been chopped off and digitally pasted back on, she said, "Yes, that's me.")

Ah, but now the plot has thickened and I have added a drawer to Katja's profile: More Dangerous Than She Appears.

It happened while we were chatting in the kitchen. Three women were chatting, I was more or less listening, so every once in a while a woman-thing crept into the conversation: "Curly hair grows slower than straight hair," said Katja.

That sounded to me patently absurd, but she explained: "The molecules have form into a certain pattern, and that take more time."

There are two explanations for this rather bizarre statement:

1) It's true.

2) She knows she is in my blog and is feeding me nonsensical items in the hope that I will publish them and make an even greater fool of myself than I do on my own.

However, since I know very little about hair molecules, I have no way of knowing which of the above is true. I only know that I have to be careful around Katja.

Day #6: Friday, Sep. 22: Long Live East European Intellectualism!

The good news is: It's still alive! Yes, young, thin, angry Slavs still read complex poetry to adoring fans in trendy run-down bars about (according to the woman sitting next to me, who claimed to understand a few phrases) young, thin, angry Slavs who refuse to join the rat-race and express their rebellion by sitting around drinking beer all day.

I felt like the guy who walks into a meeting of the Jehovah's Witnesses as an atheist and walks out a beleiver. Coming from the West, where young writers know about getting an agent and selling film rights before they have something to write about, I was ready to roll my eyes at this kind of writer. "Posing" is what I would call it. And in a bar in New York it would be true. In the US, the age of Beat is over, and now all that's left are writers who strike the angry-young-artist pose until the Hollywood scout shows up.

Serhij (Sergei) Zadan, a young (30-ish), hip Ukrainian writer and poet, had a reading in the Jewish Quarter tonight, in a club called the Lokator. The Krakau Jewish Quarter is not very Jewish nowadays. It would be more correctly named The Trendy Quarter. It is filled with young, slightly run-down but exceedingly hip bar and clubs. There were about 20 or 30 of us in the Lokator. Serhij read for several books and a manuscript, including his first book, called Depeche Mode after the popular pop group, and he was translated.

(Photo above: On the left in the ironically retro green sweater and fetchingly strict bangs you see the Polish host and co-reader [I stand corrected - see Katja's comment]; on the right is the aloof Polish translator; in the middle is Serhij, prolific writer, Ukrainian intellectual and, apparently in his country, rock star.)

Serhij is a proto-East European intellectual the way they're supposed to be: thin, scruffy, serious, slightly greasy hair, white-skinned with a light black scruff about the chin and cheeks. He read standing, banging out his words like bullets, loudly, quickly, each sentence a little rant. The audience was with him all the way, silent when it got serious, chuckling at the jokes.

It's amazing how unimportant it is to understand the language at a reading. It was a real joy to watch him, no matter that the only works I picked up were Johnson & Johnson, Jesus, prostitute, marijuana and "fucking" (as an adjective).

While we would roll our eyes at him in the West and say "Is this cosmic Weltschmerz or should he just grow up?", here they appear to take this seriously. Being taken seriously is a terrific freedom for a young writer. Why are the creative writing classes of America producing so much artificial, soulless word-prettiness? Because young writers are seeing their work through the eyes of adults: their teachers, critics... and Hollywood scouts. It is cynicism that keeps youth from being young.

Serhij made a believer out of me.

Day #5: Thursday, Sep. 21: Erica

There is even a famous writer among us lesser stars on the firmament:

Erica Fischer, the Viennese/Berliner journalist who wrote, among many other books, Aimee & Jaguar. It is about two women, a German and a Jew, who fall in love with each other during the Third Reich. (It was turned into a popular movie that should have made her rich, but Germans tend not to pay much for movie rights.)

Now, if you're a journalist looking to write a book, the secret is finding the right subject, and I have to say, if you want to learn how to pick one, follow her example. Aimee & Jaguar has everything: Nazis and Jews, love and the Holocaust, not to mention lesbians. Most journalists would kill to find a subject like that. This woman has a pretty good eye.

What is she working on now? I will find out.

Day #4: Wednesday, Sep. 20: Meetings

The others have arrived.

There are nearly a dozen of us living in the guest house behind the Villa Decius for three months. I arrived late, as I was still in the US, and so I missed an excursion they made together over the weekend to the Ukraine. They returned Monday night, so I am beginning to meet them in the halls and in the kitchen.

Larysa is a tall Ukrainian translator (Ukrainian/Polish). I don’t know what she translates because she doesn't speak much English. She is shy and you know what that means: I suspect she is hiding some kind of mystery. Alas, I will never know what it is. Unless I start learning Ukrainian.

Here's a photo of the funky East European sculpture in garden.

Day #3: Tuesday, Sep. 19: Novel or non-fiction?

Settling down to work. Always a difficult project. I have about a week to make a decision: What am I going to write? Novel or non-fiction? Or both?

The reason I have a week is because once again I am behind: I did not finish my two non-fiction book proposals before coming to Poland. That means my Beautiful German Frolein and I are finishing them up this week per e-mail and she will send them to our agent then.

I will be in Krakow for three months. Three months of just writing, working, being a writer. In Krakow, no less, reputedly the most beautiful city in Poland. This is what I've dreamed of for years. And I still don’t know what I'm going to write.

The question still stands: Novel or not?

Day #2: Monday, Sep. 18: The Krakow Women Gallery

Day #1: Sunday, Sep. 17: The Arrival

The Truth About Krakow: It is filled with beautiful women. And when I say beautiful women, I mean really excruciatingly, painfully gorgeous women.

It was a sunny and sweatingly hot Summer's day, which is unusual for this time of year, as it is no longer summer, in this part of Europe. Arriving in the Villa Decius, I was tired from getting up early to get the plane from Berlin and shlepping hundreds of pounds of books through Berlin then through Krakow, so the plan was to flop down in bed and write off the day. Then my Beautiful German Frolein called and gave me a piece of her mind: You're in the most beautiful city in Poland on one of the most beautiful days of the year and you’re laying around in your room?

So I struggled with the map and the bus schedules and got into town, had a couple of beers (the only word in Polish I know – I can’t pronounce thank correctly, but "piwo" is easy) and sat around watching the girls go by. It was a day to remember. You should have been there and saw what I saw.

These women know they are beautiful. They like tight jeans and tight blouses and showing their navels and wearing high heels when there's absolutely no need to. They love showing off their charms. And when I say charms, I mean their bodies. But that alone does not beauty make. The most beautiful of these women – would you believe me if I said there is something, well, Japanese about them? If not Japanese, then at least manga-ish. It's their round faces, huge eyes and their sharp noses – they look like the beauties in manga comics. And they are proud, which makes them even more beautiful.