Deep in the Heart of Bavarian Staten Island

Three weeks ago or so, when Irene was just a hot breeze swirling around the Bahamas, Laura and I had an overlapping free weekday. Usually, we would head straight for Jamaica Bay National Wildlife Refuge, to see lots of birds amidst not so many people as on a weekend. This year, however, the unseasonable torrents of August rain and an administrative / budgetary snafu have left the East Pond, where the water level is normally manipulated to maximize its attractiveness to migrating waders, far too full for any self-respecting shorebird to pause there. "What do you say we explore the oyster-baron mansions of Staten Island?" proposed Laura.

"The what?" The murky, industrial waterfront surrounding Staten Island includes graveyards of rusting tugboats, miles of petroleum storage tanks and semi-submerged, expired ferries. But one hundred and more years ago, these now dubious waters teemed with oysters, and great fortunes were made harvesting them and serving them in the oyster bars of Manhattan and beyond. What's more, Laura informed me, a few of the grand residences of the oyster oligarchs might still be standing along Staten Island's northwest shore, enjoying a harborfront view of Manhattan.

It now costs $13 to cross the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, which is close enough to the ticket price at MOMA that we were determined to savor every moment on the "borough of parks."

The nouveau-riche have always been fond of reviving the Greeks, and apparently the oyster magnates were no different. Now abandoned, the front yard wooly and overgrown, this titan is just waiting for a little bit of love and elbow-grease. One suspects it comes with a fascinating midden of oyster shells somewhere out back.

The wrought iron-fences, the closest one can approach, are more art nouveau than nouveau riche. They're very nice, and I'm frankly surprised no enterprising recycler-looters have never made off with them.

Right next door, there is no house left at all, only competing wrought iron gates complete with the presumed initials of an oyster magnate in the style of a champagne bottle label, demonstrating a certain consistency in the dominant Staten Island aesthetic over the years.

We followed the shore south and west, around the channel of the Arthur kill. There seemed to be no further evidence of the splendid oyster epoch. Suddenly we stumbled into a corner of Bavaria, not far from New Jersey, and providentially just in time for lunch. Almost across the street from a shady and overgrown graveyard filled with headstones of first generation immigrants from the old country, we found Killmeyer's.

Except for the ATM sign and the slot-mounted air-conditioner one would swear one was in any of countless villages in the surrounds of Munich.

We made for the tented biergarten in the back yard, empty of people on this weekday noon, but crowded with plastic Wal-mart patio furniture. A dirndled waitress, somewhat surprised to see us, soon brought us the list of spezialitäten. A blackboard on the wall listed an impressive array of deutsche brews. Traitors to the south, we ordered refreshing tankards of Gaffel Kolsch, a beer so delicious that it inspires in me the hope of one day visiting Cologne.

Latkes, and spaetzle mit wienerschnitzel. The latter seemed perhaps to have been breaded and frozen somewhere back in the old country, but we weren't really there for the food. Apparently on weekends Killmeyer's features their own local oompah band.

After this unexpected transatlantic adventure, we wended our slightly blurry way back to Brooklyn, where we regaled our good friend and favorite saloonkeeper St. John Frizell with our tales of intrepid outerborough exploration. "OMG!," he said, "You've discovered Killmeyer's. I love that place. Did you see the bar? It was built by itinerant Czech carpenters. Apparently they just traveled around stopping into places and offering to build authentic Praguian furnishings. Isn't it spectacular?" Absolutely, we agreed at once, and made on the spot a vague plan someday to return together, and polka.

.

Negerhosen

Michael Pollan having inspired us to make more of an effort to buy local produce, we've headed up to the Grand Army Plaza farmer's market on each of the last two Saturdays to purchase grass-fed lamb, post-organic turnips and delicious buttery butter direct from the friendly farming souls who slave away upstate making the stuff. Grand Army Plaza is only a couple of long blocks from the Brooklyn Museum, so on our last visit we wandered over to see what was on.

In its last days, but well worth a look, is their two floor exhibition of contemporary Caribbean work. Although a bit hit or miss, and suffering from the apparent, unforgivable omission of Port au Prince's Grand Rue artists, the show has a few killers that you really shouldn't let pass you by. It may be my own personal bias, but the most wicked stuff, in every sense of the word, is out of Hispaniola.

Few of you, perhaps, have steamed, sailed, or rowed across the Mona Passage, the straight separating the Dominican Republic from Puerto Rico. I crossed it once on a passenger ferry and found myself to be the only tourist amongst several hundred emigrating Dominicans. The Passage is to the DR what the Straights of Florida are to Cubans: a dividing line between the comforts of home and desire, a mythical body of water, perilous and shark-infested. Should one dare to cross, the untold riches and wonders of the American dream await.

While the Coast Guard, which in the north Caribbean has essentially become little more than an immigration interdiction navy, seem focussed on Cubans and Haitians trying to reach Florida, the route for Dominicans trying desperately to make it to Nueva Yol's upper Manhattan heads east, to Puerto Rico. A clandestine ferry service of vessels known as Yolas makes the treacherous run. Once in PR the Dominicans blend in, scam a picture ID, and grab a jet north. While reading of a wall to keep out Mexicans, and the repatriation of Haitian boat people, we hear in the press almost nothing about the Dominicans or their route, inspiring those more conspiratorially minded to see yet another immigration policy hypocrisy, but no one in Santo Domingo is unaware of the yola flotilla or the greater meaning of the Mona Passage.

D'La Mona Plaza, image shamelessly stolen to promote hilarious and thoughtful art.

The Colectivo Shampoo proposes, via a prospectus typical of the sort found advertising an as-yet-unbuilt Caribbean resort of unparalleled luxury, the "D'La Mona Plaza," an opulent shopping mall and amenities center, to be constructed on a man-made island slap in the middle of the Mona Passage, in order that those undertaking the arduous yola voyage might have a place to pause and purchase, to amble through pavilions of Prada and take some refreshment. Complete with the sort of cheesy logo one associates with lesser golf courses, this imaginary architectural installation includes a three dimensional video proposal intercut with what appear to be real, bemused, Dominican news reports on the project, presumably in response to a press release publicizing this exciting but bogus investment opportunity.

The most genius moment is near the end, when the blond morning teevee babe comments on the cheesiness of the project's name, indicting her own Dominicans' taste with the question why does everything in this country have to have an apostrophe?

I thought you had to have balls to be a big fat white dude and wander about the streets in lederhosen, but having visited Munich I'm now aware that it is common for people routinely to rock the leather shorts without any irony, stigma, or self-consciousness whatsoever. Not so for Haitian-American-German artist Jean Ulrick Desert, who manages to raise more questions about national identity and race just by pulling on a pair of suede britches than most people consider over an entire lifetime. He called his project Negerhosen. Now of course my German isn't so good, but my understanding is that schwartz translates as "black," while neger is the precise German equivalent of just what you think it is.

Jean Ulrick Desert, traditional German man, in another image pirated from elsewhere on the web

Jean Ulrick, tired of being denigrated, as it were, sick of being treated as a second-class citizen, pulled on the lederhosen and went on his merry way, documenting the reactions and interest of his fellow man, who were as amused and intrigued to see a gentleman of color sporting the national costume as I was to discover shops full of the shorts lining the streets of Munich. The brilliance of this is that while lederhosen may not be as common today as the three-piece suit, there is nothing extraordinary about encountering someone wandering about a Bavarian beer garden in a pair of them--only tourists like myself would be likely to whip out a camera and snap away--unless the man wearing them is black, in which case the sight is remarkable. Desert documented his outings wearing lederhosen in simple snapshots, on which he then writes matter-of-fact journal entries describing his friendly encounters with the German public. The result is a powerful but non-confrontational exposure of the limits of equality and identity in today's Germany. One needs little imagination to apply his findings to the wider world.

UPDATE: Even more deliciously, the Colectivo Shampoo appears to double as an actual, viable Dominican advertising agency and design firm, Shampoo Communications.

Pimp my Castle

Postmodern situation courtesy of AK718

To my own astonishment and that of others I actually find myself back in Brooklyn, New York, for a stretch. My nominal home. Sweet. Seizing the moment around here means that I have spent the last four or five days laying down a spectacularly beautiful Brazilian rainforest tropical hardwood floor on the main level of my house, feeling more and more guilty for being an insensitive planet-destroying landowner with every driven screw. At least once a day I run into someone on the cosy streets of Red Hook who asks me what I'm up to:

"Haven't seen you in a while. What's going on? Flooring your place? Cool. It's about time. Did you go sustainable? Are you using recycled yellow heart pine?"

"Uhhh. Not exactly."

"Bamboo?"

"Ummm. Well, actually not. Unfortunately no, its some stuff I got cheap from the Russian mobsters with the lumberyard down on lower Smith St. I'm pretty sure they stole it from some Amazonian Indian tribe...."

"Nice going, scum. Somehow I had the idea that you were an environmentalist. What the hell is happening to this neighborhood anyway?"

The environmentally insensitive German, King Ludwig II

Flooring is boring, so here is a bit more on the delights of Bavaria, where last week I visited the baroque gingerbread fantasy that is Neuschwanstein Castle. Commissioned by the way gay King Ludwig II, Schloss Neuschwanstein must be the last absurdly self-aggrandizing european castle ever to have been built; as it was Ludwig was declared insane before construction was finished, perhaps when his handlers saw the invoice for the canopy bed. After being carted off to one of his other minor lodges he promptly perished with his psychiatrist in a lake in what was either a swimming catastrophe that led to a tragic double drowing, a homosexual suicide pact or a political murder.

Ludwig's Crib

For the design of his earthly paradise Ludwig naturally hired a set decorator instead of an architect, and a brief stroll within makes it clear that the chosen refugee from the theater was given carte blanche to explore his personal vision. Today no photography is allowed inside the castle, either to promote postcard sales or because the over-the-top murals, gilt and carved swans might proving embarrassing to the macho, boar-hunting Bavarian nation, but having taken the tour I feel I can safely report that Elton John would find the decor rather too garish.

Apparently Walt Disney loved it.

Winter,

Spring,

Summer,

or Fall

The Three Pillars of American Collegiate Culture

Although it is not Oktober, no visit to München would be complete without an authentic beer garden experience, and so AK and I dutifully cycled over to the "Chinese Tower," one of Bavaria's most notorious, high-volume opportunities to trade your hard-earned euros for a full bladder. The hip people in Munich (both of them) consider the Chinese Tower to be a hideous touristic display of all the worst elements of south German culture, but we think, of course, that it is never the wrong time or place to drink crisp gallons of beer in the afternoon sunshine.



We all associate pretzels, beer and hotdogs with German culinary culture, but two beastly wars in the last century seem to have eroded America's full recognition of the cultural debt due our sometime enemies. Pouring down the liters and devouring delcious barbecued ribs as the oompah marches of the brass polka band wafted out from the second tier of the tower, I realized that, except for the lack of a couple dozen guys booting a pigskin up and down a field, I was at an American college football game. The combination of binge drinking, bad music, worse singing, and chicken and ribs drenched in molasses and mustard sauce reminded me of numerous Saturday afternoons back at the alma mater, so that the visit to the Chinisische Tor left me with a newfound appreciation for just how very much we owe to the German nation for providing the firm tripod of beer, grease and polka on which the collegiate experience sits.

Many litres meet their demise at the acres of green folding tables in the shadow of the Chinese Tower.

This dude is schlepping twenty pounds of beer, and that's not including the mugs.

Half chicken with kraut, slab of ribs, "German" potato salad, pretzel. Forget North Carolina, this was really good 'cue!


This worthy, and indeed his entire table, "livened up the joint" with a constant patter of drunken singing, asynchronous chanting that may or may not have been football (soccer) related, and various other embarrassments. Standing up and removing his shirt and then thrusting his pudgy arms in the air in triumph, as if the other thousand of us enjoying our pints had been waiting desperately for just such a display of sweaty corpulence, this brilliant specimen attempted to down a full liter of Munich's finest malted hops, funnelator-style. His table cheered him on at first, but when he interrupted his chugathon with a brief pause for air and sanity he was rewarded with a cascade of soggy french fries, crumpled napkins and cigarette butts, lofted towards his round, taut belly from every corner of the garden.


As Sarah Wheeler puts it in Travels in a Thin Country, "the deadly combination of hot sun and cold beer conspired to cause the afternoon to evaporate."