Kurt Vonnegut wrote Slaughterhouse Five as his own science fiction take on his experiences as a prisoner of war in World War II. Letters of Note prints his letters home after being released from his German camp, Schlachthof Fünf – Slaughterhouse Five.

In December of 1944, whilst behind enemy lines during the Rhineland Campaign, Private Kurt Vonnegut was captured by Wehrmacht troops and subsequently became a prisoner of war. A month later, Vonnegut and his fellow POWs reached a Dresden work camp where they were imprisoned in an underground slaughterhouse known by German soldiers as Schlachthof Fünf (Slaughterhouse Five). The next month – February – the subterranean nature of the prison saved their lives during the highly controversial and devastating bombing of Dresden, the aftermath of which Vonnegut and the remaining survivors helped to clear up.

Now interviews Kurt Vonnegut about his experience in World War II. “People always fail to recognize when they are happy.”

HowardFair goes to Germany and visits the site of Slaughterhouse Five.

I had no idea what Vonnegut had gone through. The letters are amazing and touching.

Read scans of Kurt Vonnegut’s original letters at Letters of Note.

Get the books of Kurt Vonnegut.

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This great animation, by the artist Blu, is drawn and erased frame by frame on real walls and buildings in Baden and Buenos Aires.

Visit the artist Blu’s web site.

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Very beautiful, from Dark Roasted Blend.

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There are only certain places that blossom in that certain way that creates Bohemia. Crumbling and eroding but more glistening and alive than filmed dreams. Some generations there isn’t one, they grow slowly until them bloom, only one exists in the world every 30-50 years. New York in 1974 was the last one. Though I am far away, I know today it is Berlin. I have written about my own Berlin desires before.

But fame and notoriety are knocking which is the Nero of Bohemia. When I read things like

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2185464,00.html
and
http://imomus.livejournal.com/320945.html
and
even back in 2002 http://nymag.com/nymetro/travel/features/winter2002/n_7902/

you know it will only be so much longer before transmuting into Aspen.

Culture is quicker now. Perhaps the blogosphere is like Miracle Grow to those special creative epicenters, growing new ones quick and large, but add too much and the roots are burned. Maybe as soon as Brad Pitt starts a new global film festival there and the pedals begin to soften and sag, the next Bohemia will have started to bud.

I hope it is in my lifetime. Or maybe the Warhol moment has passed.

There seems to be more related at http://cultures.gadling.com/2007/08/14/bohemian-berlin-nearly-dead/ and http://www.gadling.com/2007/08/14/across-northern-europe-why-bother-going-to-berlin/

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1. Constanza Macras, Dorky Park – Back to the Present

Over the past few weeks, Elevator Repair Service has been in Portland and Seattle performing Gatz, their performance which involves the complete six hour reading of The Great Gatsby. I intended to go. But I just can’t bring myself to do it.

I’m up for any strange art thing, I mean I’m one of the odd kinds of people who would even hear “six hour performance” and seriously think about it. But you know, I have things to do. Laundry, walking in the park, making art, writing this blog, seeing other art, eating, etc. If I can’t bring myself to go to this thing, who does go to it? If I had gone, maybe I could have interviewed people in the audience and asked them.

There are other ridiculously long performances out there, like Philadelphia’s Brat Productions, which tours with a 24 hour marathon performance of Eugene Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano. The play isn’t 24 hours long, they just finish and start over again and again for 24 hours straight. I almost saw that one too (a long time ago), but I just couldn’t do it.

There are also abnormally long films. I love Peter Greenaway but have never brought myself to sit and watch The Falls because of it’s mere 3 hours 5 minutes running time, which really isn’t that long. (There’s a legend that the original cut and showing of the film was 6 hours long, but I can find no record of that online.) There are other truly long films, like The Longest Most Meaningless Movie in the World, running at 48 hours long. This seems more like ambiance and you could come and go if you wanted, drink heavily, take a nap, go clubbing with friends, then return where you left off.

And of course, opera is notoriously long. Get there at 6, leave at 11:30.

Certainly it is an amazing feat for performers, and acts to strengthen and train their focus and abilities. You could say the same for audiences, that it allows them to test their endurance, after which a three hour movie doesn’t seem so bad. For the ambient work, where you can come and go, eat, drink, talk with friends, the endurance isn’t really there. It’s incidental art that doesn’t require your full focus, and if a performer messes up or needs a break, nothing is broken.

In a time where most people find it hard enough to go see a two hour performance, busy with other things in their life, and someone like me won’t go who isn’t that busy and has devoted their life to art of various strange sorts — who and how many show up for a six hour performance? Why do they go?

Read more: Peter Greenaway’s The Falls, interview with Brat Productions about the 24 hour Bald Soprano, and a review of Elevator Repair Service’s Gatz.

Get: the work of Peter Greenaway, The Great Gatsby, long operas by Richard Wagner, great strange plays by Eugene Ionesco

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1. Constanza Macras, Dorky Park – Back to the Present

Throwing stuffed animals at each other while jumping on second hand furniture in between stripteases doesn’t count as art most of the time, even though it’s a helluva lot of fun. But Berlin choreographer Constanza Macras and company Dorky Park weave together an enticing performance that’s both fun and sexy while technically challenging. The company flips easily from dance to string quartet to stripping to punk band to honest monologue.

As an artist, this hint of run down apartment with used furniture, other artists hanging around all day doing strange things, getting sexy and then too introspective feels all very familiar. The monologues each performer gives hit right at the heart of being artists.

Several friends of mine have moved to Berlin in the past year. It’s felt like Berlin is the current Bohemia, in the tradition of Bloomsbury, Montmartre and The East Village. Cheap rent in former East Berlin housing, a bustling metropolis, ways for artists to make a living at their work, and a big artist population make it a great place to be.

Far more than fun, sexy, and talented, what hit me watching this was how much fun it must be to live in Berlin right now. The members of Dorky Park are from all over the world, but are based out of Berlin. I’ve lived in some great places with solid artist communities, but I’ve never been at the center of Bohemia. Having such a powerful, collective creativity all around you pushes you to do more and better, and makes you feel anything is possible.

I’m jealous of artists in Berlin.

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