I

“Hollywood”

Jeden Morgen, mein Brot zu verdienen
Gehe ich auf den Markt, wo Lügen gekauft werden.
Hoffnungsvoll
Reihe ich mich ein zwischen den Verkäufer.

—By Bertolt Brecht

II

It took only a handful of chronologically organized hints to lead my students to today's birthday boy:

• Born March 14, 1879
• In Ulm
• Studied and worked in Switzerland
• Then in Berlin
• Then at Princeton

Ah, Albert ...

That's still several vague hints too many, though.

Now I know I'm getting old ...

... since we were continuing to talk about Brecht's “Wenn die Haifische Menschen wären” (If the sharks were people) and from the matter of sharks I found myself led to the story of the California lawyer attacked this last weekend, to lawyers in general, who are often described as sharks.

I used the term Anwalt—lawyer—, with which, however, one or two students were not familiar, so I gave hints and mentioned Perry Mason.

Blank stares ... from all. I could understand it from the Russian, who has only been here a few years, but how can you not know who Perry Mason is? Leaving other adaptations aside, you should at least know who Raymond Burr is, right?

But no ... and I was sad.

So I said “Ally McBeal” and they knew what Anwalt meant. So I told a lawyer joke or two and a few laughed. When it was noticed that I hadn't brought any pie along there was vocal dissent.

When I found myself down at the cafe a few hours later I ran into JS, who shares a name with a well-known actress who is about the same age. Of course they do not look at all alike. In any case I last saw JS upon my return to Madison, when I was still living out of the hostel and she had just taken a post-grad-school job for some lobbyists. She used to run the GSC (Grad Student Collective [or whatever C word it is this year: colloquium, council, etc.]) with DE, who visited me in Berlin and whom I saw a few times at the Union last semester. She ended up hating her five bosses (and being paid like an intern) and so quit, was unemployed for a few months with no money saved (hello credit cards!), and recently got a job working with/for DE at his “brainstorming” company.

Her boyfriend, Jo, eventually arrived, though not until after we discussed The Secret Garden, library layouts and children's books, and 300, which Jo likewise saw over the weekend. When he did show up I monologized for a while on the film, with useful commentary provided now and again by Jo. I'd rather talk with people about crappy pop culture products than do it here with written language. It's a social thing.

Yesterday I occupied my time to a great extent with early issues of She-Hulk stories. The first She-Hulk series, Savage She-Hulk, ran 25 issues, and despite a few early monster-of-the-week type issues it concerned itself almost exclusively with a single, large arc that dealt with Jennifer Walters coming to terms with her relationships with men and with her new “powers.” After cancellation of that comic the character made appearances here and there in anthology titles and as a guest-star until she replaced The Thing during John Byrne's run on the Fantastic Four. Then she got a new, Byrne-penned and penciled series, Sensational She-Hulk, which ran much longer, although he left the series after issue 8 (only to return for 31–50 under a new editor). This new She-Hulk series was full of humor and abandoned the plug-in-the-heroine formula of the first series, and featured even more fourth-wall-breaking than the much later and more childish yet still entertaining Cable & Deadpool. I am only a fraction of the way into this She-Hulk title, so it will be a while before I make it to the two most recent incarnations, the most recent of which is still ongoing.

Stupid word and stupid practice of the day: Inedia.

When JS and Jo departed I got JS's table along the wall, complete with power outlet for my laptop. And (t)here I sit still. Prince (want to party like it's 1999?) plays muted over the speakers. We had some rain, the snow has gone, and despite the gray skies undies walk around in shorts.

III

In class I showed off a volume—number 18—of the joint Frankfurt & Berlin edition of Brecht's works. Volume 18 contains short prose, including all the “Herr Keuner” stories (witty, didactic pieces). The complete set is 30 volumes, but includes a great deal of commentary; it's a sort of “Critical Edition.” I also demonstrated Suhrkamp's edition of Brecht's poems, all of them in one volume. It's a small but dense book, running to nearly 1400 pages, but looks more like 400.

It was there that I found this short piece; I decided to leave longer pieces for later. It's more rhetoric than poetics, and still very little of the former. It seems more like prose broken up with arbitrary line breaks than verse.

“Hollywood”

Every morning, to earn my bread
I go to the market, where lies are purchased.
Full of hope
I get in line between the sellers.