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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 12, 2022)
Wednesday, January 12, 2022 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon 11 Commentary... A tale for our times By Jim Cornelius Editor in Chief We9re finally catching up to the third season of the international hit German TV series <Babylon Berlin= on Netflix. It9s supposedly the most expensive production in German history, and it shows 4 the production values are extraordinary, and they transport the viewer into this strange noirish world of the late 1920s and early 1930s, where cultural drift and decadence intertwines with extremely violent political tribalism. It9s a tale for our times. Adding to the piquancy of the tale is that the viewer is aware of a looming shadow that the characters cannot yet see: In a few short years, cynicism and the desire for change and order will see the radical fringe National Socialist German Workers Party voted into power 4 and the world will never be the same. The Weimar Republic rose when Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated the throne as Germany sought the Armistice that ended the First World War. The fledg- ling democracy was never very robust, and it owed its very existence to right wing paramilitaries known as Freikorps that put down a Communist uprising in 1919. But by 1929, when <Babylon Berlin= opens, prospects were actually pretty decent: While there was still considerable unem- ployment and some areas of grotesque urban poverty and blight, Germany had recov- ered from a savage period of hyper-inflation in 1923324 and many Berliners were enjoying an era of pros- perity. The institutions of the Republic were bump- ing along reasonably well, upheld in Berlin by the <Rote Burg,= the Red Castle that housed the metropolitan police. They had their work cut out for them, because Berlin was one wild town 4 its flamboyant eroticism earn- ing the city the moniker <Babylon on the Spree.= In Season 1, Gereon Rath, a young police inspector from Cologne, is transferred to Berlin to crack a por- nography ring run by orga- nized criminals of the Berlin underworld. As the great crime writer Jim Thompson would have it, the overarch- ing plot of <Babylon Berlin= is the foundation of all noir fiction: Things aren9t what they seem. What at first glance appears to be simply a mat- ter of extortion soon reveals itself to be a scandal that will forever change the lives of both Gereon and his clos- est associates. Together with stenotypist Charlotte Ritter and his partner Bruno Wolter, Rath is confronted with a tangled web of cor- ruption, drug dealing, and weapons trafficking, forcing him into an existential con- flict as he is torn between loyalty and uncovering the truth. Mix Communists of both Stalinist and Trotskyite fla- vors and the specter of the Nazis, and things get very interesting indeed. <Babylon Berlin= should be watched first of all because it is a fine, immer- sive historical crime drama that will hit anyone with a taste for golden age noir right where they live. And it must be watched in German with English subtitles, because dubbed versions are always lame. It is also instructive to ponder upon the subtext: What happens when a soci- ety loses faith in its institu- tions and confidence in its culture? For Weimar, Germany was the living embodiment of the first stanza of William Butler Yeats9 poem <The Second Coming=: Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of inno- cence is drowned; The best lack all convic- tion, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. The Weimar Republic tried to hold the center, and in 1929, it seemed that it might just pull it off, despite the fervent radicalism that pitted streetfighters of the left and the right against each other and against the police 4 who, though cor- rupt, were nevertheless the bulwark against mere anar- chy loosed upon the world. But the Wall Street Crash of 1929 knocked the pins out of the world economy, and Germany could not stand. The hard-won and always- compromised stability of the Weimar Republic was lost in the crisis and the door was opened to Adolf Hitler. There was nothing inevi- table about any of it. The German left wing was the most robust and the most militant in Europe and it could easily have been the Communists who took over. In fact, it was the terror that the middle classes held of a Bolshevik Revolution in Germany that led them into the arms of Brownshirts. And the leftists hated each other as much or more than they hated the rightists, because they were, at the core, fanati- cal exponents of a secular religion who despised apos- tasy above all sins. A society plunging head- long into modernity, with all of its creativity and all of its dislocation, where meaning- ful work was always hard to come by, where radicals of varying stripes held out absolute answers to all the tough questions, where sex and drugs and frenetic jazz held out the allure of obliv- ion 4 all of this is both exotic and familiar to us. It9s quite a ride 4 and an interesting account of what happens when the going gets weird and the weird turn pro. OPEN FOR BREAKFAST 10 a.m. HAPPY HOUR Monday-Friday 3 to 6 p.m. Open 10 a.m. to midnight 175 N. Larch St. 541-549-6114 hardtailsoregon.com Facebook darcymacey Skillfully fabricating… …your ideas (and ours) in steel, aluminum, copper & other metals. “Your Local Welding Shop” CCB# 87640 541-549-9280 207 W. Sisters Park Dr. PonderosaForge.com Check Out THIS WEEK’S NUGGET INSERT! Entertainment & Events JAN 15 SAT Outdoor Stage at Sisters Depot Live Music: Shane Brown 6 to 8:30 p.m. $5 cover charge. Reservations recommended. For info call 541-904-4660 or go online to www.sistersdepot.com. JAN The Suttle Lodge Live Music with Joshua Thomas 6 to 8 p.m. Fireside Show series. Doors open at 5 p.m. 20 THUR Tickets at TheSuttleLodge.com/Happenings. JAN 22 SAT Outdoor Stage at Sisters Depot Live Music: John Shipe 6 to 8:30 p.m. $5 cover charge. Reservations recommended. For info call 541-904-4660 or go online to www.sistersdepot.com. JAN The Suttle Lodge Live Music with Jeffrey Martin 27 6 to 8 p.m. Fireside Show series. Doors open at 5 p.m. THUR Tickets at TheSuttleLodge.com/Happenings. Events calendar listings are free to advertisers. Submit items by 5 p.m. Fridays to beth@nuggetnews.com. Events are subject to change without notice RAY’S FOOD PLACE Boneless Beef Rump Roast $4.99 per lb. Choice Navel Oranges .99¢ per lb . Fuji Apples $1.79 per lb. Umpqua or Eberhard’s Sour Cream $2.99 24 0z. Snapple Tea $2.19 64 oz. Yoplait Yogurt 10 for $5 4-6 oz.