Montag, 26 Oktober 2015

KÖRNUNG (ODER "GRANULARITY")

Last night we popped into Rischart for (what I hoped would be a mocha) a quick snack. Es gibt kein Mocha in Deutschland - Schade. What we got instead was a quite interesting conversation with our waitress (something of a world traveler) who had interesting comments about Bavaria and München. "It's not the same", she said to us. "Everything is changing - it's all the people from the northern part of Germany and what they want." It sounded familiar, and I quickly recalled our lunch partner (from Hamburg) on Wednesday who had some disparaging things to say about Bayern - "Sehr katolisch!" Today I began thinking about these women's comments, and after a visit to the Astronomy section of the Deutsches Museum suddenly had a thought about "granularity". To explain: the exhibit helped to break down matter into its granular and constituent parts, helping the visitor to see what it is that we're all about.

A visit to the planetarium (above - notice the Zodiac) helped as it drew us out and away from our galaxy to see greater structures, and then pulled back in. I once saw this video on FaceBook that helped. Click here to see it and be certain to skip the ad. Later on in an exhibit called "Nanowelt" the same granularity was sought. What struck me is that we often think of nation states, and indeed cultures as being monolithic, or homogeneous. I think that they're not - that they're more granular. Hearing Germans make distinctions and judgments about themselves, and knowing how people in the United States divide and polarize, makes me realize that to know a people, or indeed our selves we need to seek a certain level of granularity - knowing our constituent parts.

Door handle at Sanktlukaskirche

The other day I wanted to write a piece on public art, and might do that later. With my thoughts on granularity, however, I wanted to share with you small things that make it delightful to live in a city, or anywhere for that matter. I hope that you enjoy them.