The Book Shopper

The Perils of Reading Ahead

 

A short write-up of Antony Beevor’s The Fall of Berlin 1945 (2002) appears on my “companion” blog Down and Outbound which is another interest of mine -- an irreverent look at related transportation topics.  In the posting “European Transportation Observations: Part 2” there is a footnote entitled “Panzerfaust”, (a reference to cyclists who carried rocket-propelled grenades like bazookas) and I mentioned a couple aspects of the book that stuck with me in my recent trip to Europe. 

I read the book in preparation of my visit to Berlin and it was a part of World War II history, I knew next to nothing about since Beevor’s primary focus is on the Red Army’s capture of Berlin.  It’s was a brutal and horrific campaign and it can sicken one to read Beevor's grisly details.

The book also inspired me to visit Tempelhof Airport (shown above), which was has been a part of Berlin air travel history for over a century and is mentioned several times in the book. In the 1930s, Hitler pushed to make Tempelhof the crown jewel of European airports and a tribute to Nazi power. Well, the Soviets in their capture of the city on May 1, 1945, disabused that notion.  According to the book, the advancing Soviet artillery purposely did not destroy the entire airport and in order to make the airfield operational, the Soviets forced two thousand German women ( Trümmerfrauen*) to clear the airfield of rubble. Within days after the fighting ended, signers of Germany’s unconditional surrender documents were flown into Tempelhof for the official ceremony on May 8, 1945

I brought this to the attention of our English-speaking guide, who gave us the initial impression that he was a funky, free entertaining spirit who looked like he came from a Peter Max poster.  On the other hand, he did not know all the historical facts. “Please ask me questions, that I only know the answers for,” he replied half jokingly after I inquired if he would illuminate Tempelhof’s history in the final days of the war. But my interpretation of his answer was that he was really telling me in front of the other tourists to “shut my gob.”

So, as you can see reading ahead, I became one of “those people” that can potentially mess up a tour (at least for the guide). A lesson learned – it’s okay to read ahead, but just keep your smarts to yourself, book people.

Footnote Trümmerfrauen*

The airport operated until finally being shut down permanently in 2008. It was also the site of the Berlin Airlift in 1948-49 and even more recently has been used as a refugee center. Since it looks like something out of the movies and was used as a film location for The Bourne Supremacy and Bridge of Spies. For a more complete history and photographs check out this article which brought to my attention (unlike my tour guide) that the airport itself is intentionally shaped like an eagle.

Trümmerfrauen* is the German word for the women who removed rubble (Trümmer" means rubble.) after the Allied bombings of Germany. Out of necessity they cleaned up the debris from destroyed buildings in exchange for food ration cards. 

Blog Alumni

From Where I Stand, Jerushia Graham

If you blog long enough sometimes the people and things you write about reappear. Such has been the case recently where I have reacquainted myself with the works of writers and artists with whom I have crossed paths before.

Cut & Paste: Works of Paper

Since paper has a deep connection to books, it partially explains my sense of comfort whenever I have visited the Robert C. Williams Museum of Papermaking on the campus of Georgia Tech. The last time I was there I walked through their current exhibit, Cut & Paste: Works of Paper (ending November 14th). It is a traveling exhibit* and part of the Highlighting Contemporary Art in Georgia Series featuring the work of eleven Georgia artists who work with paper cutting, folding, and coloring to create unique works. I recognized one of the artists-- Jerushia Graham who exhibited a series of delicately cut paper pieces called "From Where I Stand." Shown at the left is one of those pieces, but the digital version on this blog does not reflect the rich details of the work properly.

I first met Ms. Graham back in 2012. She was one of the curators of an exhibit called WallBound, hosted by the Art Institute of Atlanta-Decatur, which has since morphed into an annual event at the Decatur Book Festival called Book As Art.

Book as Art - Flight Edition

While heading out on a flight at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport a couple of months ago, my eye caught the work of Brian Dettmer whose work has appeared earlier in the blog as well. Shown here is his work, "Webster Withdrawn", which was part of the Book As Art - Flight Edition and a subset of the previously mentioned Book Art which was on display at the Decatur Public Library during the Decatur Book Festival. 

I recognized Dettmer’s work from when he was at the Saltworks Gallery here in Atlanta in 2011 and later at Atlanta Museum of Contemporary Art in Georgia at the end 2012. As I recall, Dettmer went on to be featured on network television for his unusual work and I occasionally get an email announcing his exhibits in Chicago and more recently in San Francisco.

Thomas Chatterton Williams

Williams’s new book Self-Portrait in Black and White: Unlearning Race (2019) recently made the front page of the New York Times Book Review, but he is also the subject of one most popular Book Shopper blog postings dating back to June 6, 2010, “Thomas Chatterton Williams Meets Killer Mike.” If you ask Williams, I bet he remembers his stop at the Decatur Public Library while on tour of his first book Losing My Cool (2011): How A Father’s Love and 15,000 Books Beat Hip Hop Culture. The rapper Killer Mike (on the right), emerged from the audience, got into a discussion with Williams (at the left) as they defined Hip-Hop culture.  I was impressed that it was lively but, remained amicable. The man in the middle of the photo (referee?) is Joe Davich, who now is the Executive Director of the Georgia Center for the Book and was one of the brick and mortar administrators of the recent Book as Art 7.0. Small world. One other note of interest: Williams' 2011 book has since be retitled Losing My Cool: Love, Literature and a Black Man’s Escape from the Crowd.

* Future venues in 2019 and 2020: Museum of Arts and Sciences, Macon, Albany Museum of Art, Albany and Telfair Museum of Art's Jepson Center, Savannah, Georgia.