Stadt
Munich Exposed – Part 10
- Retro-Pop aus Thailand: Chris Menist im Interview - 20. September 2011
- Thank you for rocking so hard! - 12. April 2011
- Brit Jazz Week – Soweto Kinch and the poetry of jazz - 21. März 2011
Der wöchentliche Blick auf München von außen – oder: a weekly rant of a non-Münchner Mädchen.
“Gustave von Aschenbach had set out alone from his house in Prince Regent Street for an extended walk. May had begun, and after weeks of cold and wet a mock summer had set in. The English Gardens, though in tenderest leaf, felt as sultry as in August and were full of vehicles and pedestrians near the city. But towards Aumeister the paths were solitary and still, and Aschenbach strolled thither, stopping awhile to watch the lively crowds in the restaurant garden with its fringe of carriages and cabs. By the time he reached the North Cemetery he felt tired and a storm was brewing above Föhring; so he waited at the stopping-place for a train to carry him back to the city. He found the neighbourhood quite empty. Not a wagon in sight, either on the paved Ungererstrasse, with its gleaming tram-lines stretching off towards Schwabing, nor on the Föhring highway. Nothing stirred behind the hedge in the stonemason’s yard, where crosses, monuments and commemorative tablets made a supernumerary and untenanted graveyard opposite the real one. “
I think it’s a pretty big coincidence that I happened to come across this passage from ‘Death in Venice’ during my first two days in Munich. Strangely enough, my first experiences and sightings were almost identical to Mann’s description. I was here for a week; I was spending my nights in a meager single-room apartment in Nordfriedhof, the balcony of which was facing the English Garden. I too noticed the damp weather, the luxuriant vegetation and the crowds on the alleys of the park. I too stared at the stonemason’s yard, which gave me the heebie-jeebies. Afterwards I walked into a second-hand bookshop, where I found this slim book. And I remember reading the beginning of the story in the Hofgarten, in front of the Egyptian Sammlung, and feeling the same things one would’ve felt almost a hundred years ago.
As time went by, I also started noticing depictions of habitual places in films. At some point I was watching Antionioni’s Professione: Reporter and I spotted a familiar looking church, which I’m sure is the chapel in the Südfriedhof. There was also a haunting white horse-carriage in the scene that somehow managed to impress me enormously. Then one evening, during one of the Bourne movies, I noticed that the main character was spending a night in an apartment which resembled the room in Nordfriedhof I was telling you about earlier. That felt nice too.
One of the films I’d definitely place in a personal top ten is John Sturges’ ‘The Great Escape’. It, too, has some familiar-looking places, since the exterior shots were taken in the vicinity of Munich (in those almost utopistic Alpine hills in Füssen or the evergreen forest in Geiselgasteig. If you didn’t see it, you definitely should, it’s based on a real and really great story.)
But the real surprise-encounter was with the factory in Mel Stuart’s ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’ – it turns out it’s the SWM Versorgungs on Emmy-Noether Str., also known as ‘the place I visit when we forget to pay the bills on time’. Aw.
The Wonka Factory — Then And Now – Watch more funny videos here
That’s about all the familiar locations I’ve recognized so far in films but I can’t wait for more, of course. I was highly disappointed with Spielberg’s ‘Munich’; I was expecting much more footage with the city or at least more Olympia-related shots. Too bad.
After thinking a bit about these film references, I started getting curious about the musical ones. Most famous cities have quite a few songs bearing their names. So I groovesharked ‘Munich’ and came up with a couple of surprising results.
The first song Grooveshark came up with was Falco’s ‘Munich Girls’. I must admit that this is one of the funniest songs I ever heard. Just check out these lyrics: ‘my name is Johnnie Walker and I don’t wanna make no advertising, you know?
It’s the Munich thing
I’m Mick the Chic
I do it quick
Weiße Nächte P 1
Kopf oder Zahl
I’m the one
Und meins ist deins
Du bist zu schön
Zu schön allein zu sein
There’s no way back
Komm nimm den nächsten Schein.’
Now that we got that out of the way, let’s move on to this song called ‘Pretty Boy from Munich’, by this band neither you nor I have heard of, called Under K for King.
The song is pretty smooth ( sounds like a recent/decent laid-back bossa) and it has some interesting lyrics about this sexy guy from Munich and this girl from Rio, who steals his lederhosen. And then they get addicted to heroin in Scotland. Not bad.
So far we’ve learned that young people from Munich love to enjoy themselves a lot.
The next song (warning, angry hippie rock’n’roll ahead) is ‘Munich City’ by Big Bertha, whose lead singer apparently has some pronunciation trouble. It, too, teaches us about the crazy life of the city and about the awesome coolness of being young in Munich. (Seriously now, did I get here too late?) This band is definitely paranoid because the chorus goes like ‘Do you think you’re gonna survive in Munich city?’ And the guy also sings about sucking some fluff, whatever that means.
The next songs in the playlist are basically lyric-less, except for one Editors’ song, which is titled ‘Munich’ but makes no sense at all. The Rolling Stones have two very jammy songs called ‘Munich Hilton’ and ‘Munich Reggae’ and then Two Lone Swordsmen bored the hell out of me with a song called ‘Munich Palais’, which might or might not refer to the old Glaspalast on Prinzregentenstrasse. My favourite of the batch is definitely Stereolab’s ‘Munich Madness’, which has French lyrics and contains the word ‘pimpante’ (as used in the sentence ‘toute frais et toute pimpante Allemande’, which I think refers to a lively and apparently carefree girl I like to presume is/was from Munich.)
I’m done with the songs too and since I can’t think about anything else Munich-related right now, I leave you with this Madeleine Albright quote and with a gallery of before&after photos depicting really familiar places from the city during the Third Reich. Please keep in mind that everything I see is new and seen through the eyes of innocence, so forgive me if I seem obsolete and imagine you might not know about these comparative photos. The quote choice was not random, I like and second the mind-set thing, mine is mostly Munich too, but with a hint of the jungle.
So: ‘My mind-set is Munich. Most of my generation’s is Vietnam.’ and this gallery.
Since I’m in the mood, I’m off to seeing ‘The Night Train to Munich’, so take care, think sunny and see you next time. Comment box is hospitable to thoughts of any kind, as usual.
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