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New York getting wrapped for the Christmas Holidays!!!

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Beaujolais Nouveau!


The iconic Beaujolais Nouveau, has arrived in the USA!

As is tradition the  "new wine" arrives from France for tasting the third Thursday in November.
The wine is best known for its fruity character and is often paired with Thanksgiving turkey.

Here in New York at the Sherry-Lehmann wine store on Park Avenue,
Franck Duboeuf was on hand to sign and personalize wine bottles of the new vintage from his
family firm.

A Votre Sante!

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Berlin--Kennedy Remembered


Just days after this blog covered the 25th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, I again found myself in the presence of a Berlin angle story.

Visiting Boston's John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, I chanced upon a slab of the Wall.  Small but well preserved.  This was part of as larger exhibit on JFK's foreign and domestic policies.

The Museum equally had a film of JFK's  June 1963 visit to West Berlin and his immortal speech to over a million Berliners   "Ich bin ein Berliner!"

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Slab of the Berlin Wall at the United Nations, NY

Berlin Wall Tumbles After Joshua Trumpet Sounds

A quarter century ago, the Joshua trumpet of freedom sounded and the Berlin Wall came tumbling down.  Naturally, this allegory was slightly more complicated as the epic political events which led to the fall of the Wall on 9 November 1989 were long in coming but nonetheless still not at all anticipated.   

The year 1989 represented an extraordinary epoch for human freedom both in aspiration and in fruition.  Starting in the Spring with Tiananmen Square in China, mass protests against regime corruption soon morphed into a swell of protest against the ruling communist  party.  But the brutal crackdown in Beijing soon sent the political reverberations across the vast land mass of Russia and into Eastern Europe.  

By Autumn these political shock waves had reached Hungary where the ruling communists allowed for the opening of a breech in the Iron Curtain dividing the two systems.  East German tourists were allowed to exit through Hungary en route to Austria and West Germany.

Before long, massive demonstrations in East Germany during the Fall, largely organized through the Lutheran churches in Leipzig, combined with a hesitation by Mikhail Gorbachev’s reformist Soviet Union to militarily intervene and to defend the ruling communists, led to a political Tsunami throughout the East Bloc by November.  The Soviets blinked.

Seeing Berlin the first time in the 1970’s through the window of a Pan Am aircraft descending through the steel grey clouds one viewed the Wall as a gash across the heart of the city. 

Visiting the city offered the glaring contradictions of a brash and prosperous West Berlin literally alongside the grey, sullen but still historically significant East.        

On the one hand, Berlin  was a Cold War theme park, a tableau vivant of contrast and coercion.   On the other, the pathos of division;  divided families, separated neighborhoods, and blocked streets brought the reality up close and personal. 

The Wall was erected by the ruling communists in August 1961.  Indeed, Berlin stood as a somber if glaring reminder of  the German capital’s post-war division as well as the political fault line between the democratic West and the communist East. 

                                           

But for a long time Berlin slipped into a kind of political Purgatory inside the larger struggle of the Cold War, “The most dangerous place on earth,” as Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev called it.

The divided city was vulnerable to coercion but also a symbol of enduring freedom and prosperity.  For the East Germans, the Wall barred exit to liberty but more aptly represented a suffocating cordon of their socialist society.   For many who tried to escape the East, often using the most ingenious methods, there was freedom in the West.  For others, over 138 people, they were shot and killed trying to flee the workers paradise.

Repression by East Germany’s regime was legendary; see the truly amazing film The Lives of Others for a serious and jarring look into both the spying and psychological repression of what was called the “socialist State on German soil.”  Today the former DDR is remembered for the polluting Trabant autos, the Stasi secret police, and a still-lingering psychological separation between former West and East Germany.

There are of course the poignant memories at the Brandenburg Gate;  John F. Kennedy’s iconic 1963 speech. “Ich bin ein Berliner!” or President Ronald’s Reagan’s memorable clarion call, “Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down This Wall!”

Yet until its reunification in 1990, Germany remained a divided nation.

Names like Ronald Reagan, Helmut Kohl, Mikhail Gorbachev and significantly Pope John Paul II played an extraordinary role in these epoch events which would sweep through Eastern Europe, see the collapse of the Berlin Wall, and lead to the singular achievement of German re-unification a year later in peace and freedom.

Fast forward to 2014; Berlin united, prosperous, and free. What happened to the Wall, its 87 miles of concrete slabs?  Most of the barrier has been torn down and simply disappeared, slabs are in Parks around the world, but the haunting memories linger.

                                                               ***************

East Germany's last Communist leader; Erich Honecker

From an art exhibit at the German Consulate, NY 

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South Korean President Recalls Germany's Reunification 

“This year marks the 25^th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.   But the Korean Peninsula remains stifled by a wall of division,” stated South Korean President Park Geun-hye.   In a landmark address to the UN General Assembly, President Park made the bold assertion, “I call on the international community to stand with us in tearing down the world’s last remaining wall of division.” 

Stirring words.  Stirring themes.  Especially, punctuating the diplomatic drone of many of the General debate speeches. 

Though Park recalled, “The two Koreas were separately admitted as member states to the UN in 1991. Having two separate seats despite a single language, culture and history is clearly not normal. ”  Since the end of WWII, the historic Korean nation has been divided by the demilitarized zone (DMZ) which has tragically become part of the national geography. 

The DMZ dividing South and North Korea is 4 km wide and 250 km long and while serving as the demarcation line, also has blocked the free flow of people for 60 years.

Visiting Germany earlier this year, Park Geun-hye  admired many of the places connected with that nation’s peaceful unification nearly a quarter century ago. 

Speaking hopefully, Park extolled, “Just as the unification of Germany laid the grounds for a new Europe by integrating Europe, a unified Korea will set in motion a new Northeast Asia.” 

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Viennese Soft Power in New York

Vienna's Tourist Board and the city's famed Cafe Central recently sponsored a cultural expo in 

New York's Grand Central Terminal.  The exhibit  showcased the upcoming  150th anniversary of the Austrian capital's Ring Strasse boulevard; 1865-2015.  

The Expo in Grand Central featured a small but authentic version of Cafe Central, complete with special Viennese coffee, the Manner wafers, and current Austrian newspapers.   Equally there was a Skype computer hook up with Cafe Central which allowed Americans to chat live with Austrians.

The Ring Strasse is literally bejeweled with the State Opera, numerous world class Museums, the Imperial Palace/Neue Burg,  City Hall and the Austrian Parliament.  And there's more!

The Boulevard was opened by none other than Emperor Franz Josef in May 1865. 

But besides stately buildings and repositories of the fine arts, the Ring also boasts coffeehouses such as Cafe Schwartzenberg and Cafe Pruckel, both of which are along the green Park Ring section.  

According to Norbert Kettner, the Director of the Vienna Tourist Board, "The Ringstrasse is the world's largest open-air museum, typical Viennese style, lively and unique." 

Not surprisingly, the famed Vienna Ring trollies, rumble or actually now glide along this magnificent boulevard.  There's a special Vienna Ring Tram, with the old polished wood seats,

that makes the trip on a regular basis too.  Since the Tram started in 2009, over 300,000 passengers have enjoyed the sights and lights of Vienna.

                                            Chatting live with Cafe Central in Vienna!

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French Bookstore Opens in New York

Literary Jewel on Upper Fifth Avenue Dazzles



A few years ago, the iconic French bookstore in Rockefeller Center closed.  To be sure the Librairie de France store which started in the 1930's and was part of the magnificent art deco complex near the skating rink could not compete either with the internet nor a fall off in reading habits.

Happily New York, and its large and growing French-speaking community, not to mention beaucoup de Francophiles have a new bookstore set in a jewel-like setting on Upper Fifth Avenue near the Metropolitan Museum of Art and across from Central Park.  Albertine prides itself as "a reading room and bookshop that brings to life French-American intellectual exchange."

The concept of this bookstore comes from Antonin Baudry, the cultural counsellor for the French Embassy, who is himself a celebrated author although under a nom de plume. Baudry wrote the
book Quai d'Orsay  (a serious comic) which was equally made into a  satirical film in France under the same name.  It offers a curious look at the French Foreign Ministry and the political personalities and foibles in the Quai D'Orsay. 

Voulez-vous entrer??

But I digress.  Albertine is situated in a townhouse which is home to the Cultural Services of the French Embassy.  Albertine is both a cultural offering to America and a business offering 14,000 contemporary French and English books, French children's books and art volumes.  Prices are comparable with the cost in France and don't have huge markups.

The vibe is a grand private library.  The setting evokes the superlative Parisian Franco/English bookstore, Gagliani.   The overall feel is a quiet and inviting class which is enhanced by the reading room.

Albertine's mission includes volumes "which were selected with passion and curated with care."

The  store was officially opened recently by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius.

But besides books, there is a forum for intellectual discussion and the Festival Albertine shall offer a series of lectures from "Women at Work/Mad Men" (yes the TV series) through topics, "Why to we still read Tocqueville?

Do check the extraordinary offering at  www.albertine.com

Bravo for this beautiful bookstore!