A Basler asks: Why is it so easy to work with Americans & where does American trust in strangers come from ?!?!! Auntie SAM answers.
Dear Auntie SAM:
Years ago I met a Girl in a Bar. She was new in Town and came with her husband from Seattle who started working for a big Pharma Company here. There was a German-speaking Poetry-Slam going on. Later in the Evening we started to talk and she told me about her plans to start her own Burlesque Company. She looked forward to her first Show in a nice location in Basel. One or two weeks later, she found out that I work as a photographer and asked me to work for her show. One or two Bourbons later I had the job and we’ve work together ever since.
Cut.
When I first visited the U.S. I travelled to NYC for a few days. One day in the big city I strolled through the streets of beautiful Brooklyn Downtown when a middle-aged Woman started talking to me: „S`cuss me Mr. but I saw your beautiful camera and I think you got a good eye the way you loo`kin at that building. Tomorrow I`m gettin married and I wanna ask you if you wanna take the pictures for me“. My first thought: she made a joke. Looking for some laugh…nope. Second thought: Maybe I`m gonna marry her, because she had the nicest southern accent I’d ever heard since Jim Jarmush`s Dead Man.
It was truly a pity I couldn`t do the job because my flight left before her wedding.
So, my question: Why is it so easy to work with you guys and where does this big trust in strangers come from? Best regards & lots of love.
Mmmm … what a charming note. Thank you.
Much like the Girl in a Bar in your story, soon after arriving in Basel, your dear Auntie also attended a Poetry Slam spoken in German 😉
I didn’t know how to order a drink. I can’t recall what I got. Probably something I didn’t truly want, because I didn’t want to make a scene. I was afraid that, at any moment, the room of locals would turn around & hiss at me. Perhaps even douse me in blood.
I had read all the books. I’d heard the stories.
About how foreigners are unwelcomed & Swiss people impossible to know.
How, Americans, like myself & that Southern Belle you met in NYC aren’t even liked. Because we’re peaches: our surfaces soft & open to all, but our core – our pits / our hearts – small & easily discarded; granting long-term access to few.
While, by contrast, the Swiss are coconuts: an impenetrable barrier housing rich inner lives full of long-term friends & relationships.
However could we get along ?
Whatever I drank that night, your nearly shaking Auntie appreciated. And likely downed 20.
Terrified my soft, peachy flesh might get bowled over by a hostile crowd of coconuts, I took a deep breath (again: a swig or twenty), & remembered I had a choice.
I could choose to be a victim of ideas that might not be real. Or I could choose otherwise. I decided to make a friend that night.
So, in that bar at that poetry slam, I performed the same trick I performed my first day at Fasnacht: I stripped my mind of all prejudices & understandings. I let the world appear anew.
My new world. Our world.
The world in which I saw us all … as kaki.
Poetry – Art – softened Swiss shells. Transformed unedible wood into a delicious treat. Poetry – Art – grew by magnitudes my core. Filled my American body with an undeniable yearn for long-lasting loves.
Poetry – Art – brought You & She (Girl in a Bar) together.
Because kindred souls have a way of finding each other. Of working well together.
Despite oceans between them. Despite all.
Yet. Lest you think all this kaki business is caca, & your experiences with Girl in a Bar & the Southern Belle all just boil down to American pluck. Please remember / recall: they each only posed a question. You, Dear Basler, are the one who – to strangers – said „Yes“.
XO
AS
___
TODAY: The World’s Biggest Eye Contact Experiment. Coordinated by the LIBERATORS INTERNATIONAL, swim in one minute of EYE CONTACT w a STRANGER. Wear SMART CASUAL clothing & bring SOMETHING SOFT to sit upon. Markthalle.
4 PM. FREE.
FRIDAY: Revel in GOOD TIMES with GOOD SONGS & GOOD PEOPLE with DA SIGN & THE OPPOSITE at their BIG BUSINESS KUR 2015. AreYouVeda DJ Afterparty. Hirscheneck.
10 PM.
