The Thaw & Die Grenze

Here Be Monsters

Here Be Monsters Podcast

Science, Society & Culture, Social Sciences, Personal Journals, Documentary

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 9 December 2024

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jeff walks to the edge of Berlin and explains why the Here Be Monsters feed has been quiet for so long.

On the way, Jeff talks about plans for upcoming episodes, looks at the ways that moving to Berlin has changed him, and discusses a pair of films featuring Tilda Swinton: Cycling the Frame (1988), and The Invisible Frame (2009). Both movies feature Swinton riding a bicycle around the entirety of the Berlin Wall—or, in the case of the latter, where the Berlin Wall used to be.

Please follow Here Be Monsters on Patreon: patreon.com/HBMpodcast

Field recordings heard in this episode (starting around the 17:20): a former site of the Berlin wall in Marienfelde ~ birds and insects near Portbou, Spain ~ canoe paddling near the in Germany’s Spreewald ~ geese and peacocks calling on Peacock Island (Pfaueninsel) ~ dusk crickets near Locarno, Switzerland ~ a massive pipe organ that was part of Italy’s submission to the 2024 Venice Biennale ~ public transport boats in Venice revving their engines ~ Jeff singing in a bathroom while a faucet drips ~ Water splashing against cement in Banyuls-sur-mer, France ~ Hiking the Walter Benjamin memorial trail on the France / Spain border ~ Baby goat at the peak of a mountain on the France / Spain border ~ A canal boat passing in Amsterdam, Netherlands ~ An announcement bidding visitors to be quiet while visiting France’s Cathedral of Our Lady of Strasbourg.

Producer: Jeff Emtman
Music: The Black Spot

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I'm
0:02.0	Myrass
0:05.0	The It's It's
0:24.6	It's November 26, 2024.
0:46.3	I'm down at the very southern tip of Berlin.
0:53.3	I'm walking towards the sun right now. It's 3.30 in the afternoon.
0:59.0	And if I hold my fist out to the horizon, there's about half a fist left before it gets dark out.
1:08.0	I'm walking through a park now. I just turned off the road. It's called
1:15.0	Freysite Park, Marianfelda, the free time park, Marianfelda, which is what this part of the city's called.
1:24.2	I'm down here because, well, one, because I wanted to talk to you. It's been quite a while
1:29.3	since I published anything on this feed, and I just wanted to update you about what's going on with me
1:33.8	and the show. I also wanted to come down here because I bought a new pair of microphones that I think would be really good at capturing this
1:47.0	strange part of the city where it just ends.
1:52.0	Like, that's the thing about Berlin is it just ends.
1:56.0	Like, you can be in a cluster of like 20-story apartment buildings, and then there's just a wheat field
2:03.3	on the other side. It's a really strange thing. I really liked the word for border in German.
2:15.2	It's grenza. It's Grenza.
2:23.3	It just feels more like what a border is to me than a border. Grenza. G-R-E-N-Z-E.
2:30.3	There's these really interesting pair of films that Tilda Swinton was in, and I personally love
2:37.0	Tilda Swinton. One was made in 1988, and the other one was made sometime in the late 2000s.
2:44.0	And the one in 88 is called Cycling the Frame. It's just Tilda Swinton on her bicycle, just riding her bike around the edge
2:55.3	of the Berlin Wall and showing where that border is. And something that I think I didn't realize until kind of embarrassing lately in my life is just what exactly the Berlin Wall was.
	...

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