At a ridiculous hour in the morning on Monday, September 26th I will get on a plane to Berlin, Germany. There I will spend ten weeks reading a lot and studying things and having adventures, all of which will be recorded for your perusal in this here blog.
The blog title comes from a Nazi newspaper, which is probably a creepy and not politically correct source, but I thought it was a funny phrase and wanted to bend it to my uses. The Völkischer Beobachter said in 1928 (quoted in Ladd, The Ghosts of Berlin) that Berlin is "A melting pot of everything that is evil--prostitution, drinking houses, cinemas, Marxism, Jews, strippers, negroes dancing, and all the vile offshoots of so-called 'modern art.'" I am all for drinking houses, cinemas, Jews, nudity, dancing, and art, and I don't think any of those things are evil. So really I am corrupting the Nazis' words and celebrating the free pursuit of modern art and all its vile offshoots, which, to be honest, are my favourite parts of Berlin history. Possibly also of life.
So, now that we are off to a vile beginning...
