There's one thing that German-speaking and English-speaking countries have in common, and that is their love for music and literature. So if you go to Berlin or New York, you will easily be going to a concert or to a reading.
This Friday night in Berlin is reading time. The café is one of the dozens of cafés on the streets of Prenzlauerberg, the city section that has undergone a massive gentrification process leaving it half as charming as it was, but certainly still very attractive. Old houses and old places. Wooden floors and wooden chairs. Big counters where the only concession to year 2010 is the coffee machine. Everything else is a perfect mix of tradition and alternative style.
A few chairs are scattered in the room, where a small wooden desk with a Bauhaus lamp will help a few candles lighten the place so that the author can read her papers. More papers are lying on the piano, there is always a piano in these places.
A few people are sitting on the chairs. Many of them know each other, but they are not hostile to new faces. The publisher shortly introduces the author and her works. Anecdotes are told about how a story was born or how people found themselves in different situations. Then the reading starts and it is intense and poetic and funny and makes you think.
After the first short story there is a short intermission. Time for a cappuccino or a drink. It's only October but it's already very cold in Berlin.
The second short story is even more interesting and funny and you start to feel at home even if you come from abroad, even if you have never been to this place before and even if you hardly know anybody here. You can go and talk to the author, to people, they will be interested in what you have to say and will have interesting things to say. It's about sharing a passion for literature, about opening up to new encounters and possibilities. No need to be part of anything, no need to be known for your work, as long as you share that same passion. Wouldn't that be enough everywhere?
scritto per franzmagazine.com
Berlin can be sad, on a Saturday evening, when the same guitar duo is still playing, but the sun is not shining anymore and they look cold and tired, still trying to give the people the energy they need to leave a few coins. Berlin can be sad when you look around and now that the sun is not there you can only see the lights of Western chains and malls, which remind you of the saddest Western global streets of the city. You go down the subway and the accordion player is still there, still sounding like an organ, yet you know he has been sitting there for almost ten hours, and there's nothing romantic, there's nothing bohemian, there's nothing fascinating about that sound anymore. It's just the sound of misfortune.
After the first short story there is a short intermission. Time for a cappuccino or a drink. It's only October but it's already very cold in Berlin.
