All Picks posted by Brittani Sonnenberg
How I wish that I had something intelligent to say about Beyonce! For that matter, Dear Reader, how I wish I were pop-culture savvy, as pop-culture savvy as you probably are! How I wish I could compose a pop-culture-savvy response to Nasia’s excellent post! (Nasia and I, in [more]
Today is my last post for 60 Pages, and it feels like the end of basketball season in high school: you’re relieved you don’t have to go to practice anymore, but then you feel a little empty when you walk by the gym, hungry for a ball in [more]
This morning I noticed two essential differences between the US and Germany. 1) Pre-schoolers are taken on strolls through graveyards and 2) German squirrels have shockingly long ears. I discovered the first item as I was walking through the cemetery near my house. I’ve been looking for wooded places [more]
Yesterday, I showed up to my weekly sing-along, held in a friend’s apartment, to find that her kitchen looked more like a war room than a piano bar. Apparently, the downstairs neighbor had threatened to go to the landlord to complain about the music, and the group was [more]
This morning I hailed a cab from Tegel Airport in Berlin, treating myself to a quick ride home. I was in an unholy mood after 17 hours of travel. I hardly ever sleep on planes – watching TV and movies is too alluring – but I always pay [more]
My husband Erwin enjoys taking long train rides when he travels to his hometown in Romania. He says it makes more emotional sense for journeys to be long, enduring ordeals. That hopping on a four-hour-flight dodges the greater truth of how far Romania is from Germany. And how [more]
Today four fellow residents and I busted out of VCCA to attend the local Lynchburg Christmas Craft Fair. We meandered from stall to stall, lingering over pottery and bound leather journals, but for me the standout was a bow-tie stand. The vendor, who was also the designer, was [more]
This morning, I stepped out into Florida. The air was warm and moist. Ambling along the street, peeling off my layers, I stopped and sniffed: the rising temperatures had unlocked the smells of the woods and pasture to either side. I was still in Virginia, but it was [more]
Utopias are funny places. They emerge unexpectedly; any plans to create them crumble. They are like fine weather or a close, sudden friendship: inarguable and generous. Settings can be utopic one day and banal the next. In Berlin, I consider Tempelhofer Feld, an airport that has been converted [more]
The home closest to my heart is a retirement community in northeast Georgia, just south of Highlands, North Carolina. It has the slightly unbelievable name of Sky Valley. Most of the houses in Sky Valley were built in the 1970s, a combination of ranch and chalet styles, with [more]
I learned to drive when I was 27. That means 12 intervening years of embarrassment, in which silly, vaguely slapstick scenes ensued as a result of being vehicle-impaired. I nearly ran over a cop at the London airport, who insisted I move the car when my mother was [more]
I feel I’ve been remiss in not sounding more shocked about how beautiful everything is here in Virginia. Not because I was expecting it to be unbeautiful, but because the beauty, even if you have an intimation of it, shakes you anyways. So here, in no particular order, [more]
Last night, Cora Tabb of Tabb’s Cabs picked me up from the airport, along with a buoyant Sweet Briar freshman. As we were exiting the airport, the freshman announced that she wasn’t headed to Sweet Briar College, but to an address in Lynchburg, to spend the night in [more]
Last night a fire drill was conducted at my grandparents’ assisted living home. Ten minutes before the drill, a staff member had entered the recreation room where we were eating Pizza Hut supreme thin crust and announced, apologetically, that the room would be crammed with all of the [more]
My Midwestern side of the family lives in northwest Ohio, on neat acres of farmland that grow corn, wheat, and soybeans. The terrain is profoundly flat, divided into mile-long squares, demarcated by the county roads. If you set off down one of these roads, you can see the [more]
Thursday morning, 6am: Taxi picks me up from the residency. Taxi company is a husband and wife team, and they’ve both showed up today out of solidarity/sleeplessness. It’s still night outside. I snuggle into the back seat and they take off, murmuring gently between them, the radio on. It’s [more]
(William Blake, The Temptation and Fall of Eve) It’s a creative writing workshop mantra that even if a character doesn’t know something in a story/novel, the writer needs to know it. But is this really true? Is there any way that the character’s ignorance and the writer’s ignorance [more]
It has poured the entire day, a relentless, thudding rain that is rare in Berlin, where it spits and then stops and then spits again. This morning, the mountains were shrouded in cloud and fellow residents seem to have disappeared, too; I’ve only seen the odd painter poking [more]
Today I waived my firm anti-guided-tour policy and joined a band of visual artists from the residency to check out the Natural Bridge caverns, a forty-minute drive from VCCA. It took a while to get inside the caverns, as one artist required hundreds of thumbs from a wax [more]
I’ve been taking a walk every day in Virginia, on the backroads behind the residency. On these walks I pass various insolubles. After nearly two weeks here, I am getting no closer to the answers. It’s particularly frustrating because I’ve started rereading Sherlock Holmes and have a higher-than-usual [more]
I never knew a residency would be a riot of conversation. But sharing three meals a day with twenty other people, who are constantly cycling in and out, means that when you’re not writing, you’re talking. The meals determine the tenor of the talk. Breakfast is gentle, people [more]
What isn’t like shooting freethrows? The more I think about it, almost everything feels like standing at the painted line, the ball in your hand, the ref’s whistle in his mouth, your teammates tensed, ready to lunge. The safety dribble: your little signature, your lucky pebble, your last [more]
Last night, I sat down with two fiction writers and one painter to sing. There were two guitars, one banjo, and lots of sheet music. We started with some classic bluegrass numbers and moved into the blues and then some Gram Parsons country. Most of the songs I [more]
A shock of bamboo, twice my height, hiding the house behind it. A sign: State Maintenance Ends Here A man, wearing hunting gear from head to toe, except for a small portion where his midriff sticks out, like a teenage girl who’s planned her outfit accordingly. He holds [more]
Today, after an unforgiving sprint across the Charlotte Airport to catch my flight back to Virginia, I walked across the sunny tarmac to the tiny plane. An airline worker in a fluroescent vest led me there, a tall man with a broad smile and kind eyes. “Where you [more]
1.The drum circle: Chairs and bongos suddenly materialize in the middle of the subway car. For reasons of acoustics that are beyond me, the drums are barely audible over the rattle and shudder of the hurtling train. 2. The gospel quartet: Four black men in dapper, church-like attire [more]
On the train from Newark to New York after a flight from Virginia. Substituting misty dripping woods and lounging cows with tired, concrete-colored industry, the odd pastel box car. It looks like Shanghai outside: the unbending gray, the smog giving up the fight and dissolving into dusk. A [more]
This morning I went to brunch in town with two fellow VCCA residents at What a Blessing. That’s right; the name of the bakery is What a Blessing, and if you walk in wondering what kind of blessing they’re talking about, there are bible verses pasted all over [more]
Last night I was playing ping pong with a white-whiskered German, a murmuring Brit, and a long-legged Floridian. The German, a painter from Bayern, had perfected the art of talking smack, a skill set I never would have credited him with upon first glance. He stood inches from [more]
This afternoon, I was sitting in a van, as the driver went to the drive-thru bank. The interaction with the teller went something like this: Hey Josephine. Hey Bee. You want quarters. Yes ma’am. You need anything else? We’re starting up the Christmas pageant rehearsals this week, so [more]
I’m sweating lightly, taking a breather after a fierce game of ping pong. Having lost the last two matches, I’m reminded of how competitive I am; moans and curses always escape when a shot goes wild. Somehow, I care. That attitude is arguably good for ping pong and [more]
Yesterday, after clearing customs, I entered the Charlotte, North Carolina airport with the manic joy that always characterizes my first hours of return to the United States. Luckily, everyone was playing their part: the kid in front of me at customs squeaked, as the officer stamped his passport, [more]
Dressing for the plane: a supposedly simple task, but one I’ve never pulled off to my satisfaction. Right now, for example, despite having switched outfits three time this morning, to optimize for warmth, comfort, and pockets, I screwed up in a crucial area: socks. My sweatpants, I only [more]
I’ve got that pre-solo trip nervousness, that top-of-the-waterslide gulp. The very notion of a writing residency – self-imposed exile for a month, away from my adopted city, back to my passport country – suddenly seems preposterous, like taking a naked walk at midnight around the neighborhood. What’s the [more]
Ejnar Nielsen, Die Blinde. Gjern, 1896/1898 Why is art so hard to look at? Sometimes it feels like regarding a too-bright landscape at midday, the sun glinting off of every surface. Or being in the mall, Rihanna singing at a harmless volume, drifting from clothes racks, feeling sweaters. I know [more]
Before I arrived at the apartment in Hamburg where my husband Erwin and I are spending the weekend, the question “How do I build my yacht?” had never crossed my mind. Luckily, there’s a book here that goes into great detail on the subject: the helpfully titled How [more]
It looked like a cruel day from the window. Pedestrians were grimacing against the wind, and even dogs on walks looked aggrieved. But when I stepped outside, it was downright balmy. I had so many layers on it felt like Florida. Suspiciously warm weather prompts a kind of [more]
Yesterday was my final philosophy class, which I celebrated by taking the wrong subway and arriving half an hour late. The Korean girl had just delivered a presentation on choice, to which nobody was responding, despite Reinhard’s gentle prompting. I asked for a copy of the handout she’d [more]
A few days ago, the good folks at FLUX FM announced the National’s imminent concert, or, as they put it: “music for the elderly.” I shudder to think of what equally sensitive words they would have chosen to mourn Lou Reed’s passing. Last night, with the help of [more]
I love contemplating narration, the way soccer fans love dissecting a breathtaking goal and the crisp passes that led to it. In what voice does the story unravel? Or does the story unravel the voice? Does the narrator emerge more whole at the end of the telling? Or [more]
Courage is easy on a summer night. Your skin needs no protection: the sun is down, the wind is warm. There’s a loud party across the street, the song that’s been playing nonstop on the radio since June drifts in through the open windows. Long into the night, [more]
(Naaadjaa! Ich liebe dich. Spray paint on cement. Anonymous.) Bergmannkiez, my neighborhood, is not fun at night. The few bars are either trying too hard or not trying at all; your best bet is lingering over wine or grappa at La Bionda, the Italian restaurant at the corner of [more]
Last night, the rare female taxi driver picked me up, cackling as soon as I opened the door. Her dyed blond hair was gelled tight to her skull, the rest tumbled down in a peroxide ponytail. “Where’d you come from?” she yelled as I climbed in, like I [more]
They rode the subway to the final station. Aside from an old alcoholic drinking beer and talking to his large, mournful German shepherd mix, trying to cheer him up, they had been the only ones on the train for the last three stops. They climbed the exit stairs, [more]
Yesterday, the sky outside the Wedding Volkshochschule was distractingly beautiful. The overhead lights were off, and as Reinhard, our philosophy teacher, attempted to explain the difference between Trieb (instinct) and Instinkt (instinct), the saturated late-afternoon sunlight melted on the wall of a nearby brick building. The room’s dimness, [more]
The best beverage on earth is 100 Plus. Tragically, it is only available in Singapore and Malaysia. I could say 100 Plus tastes like carbonated grapefruit Gatorade, but to do so would be like trying to describe Shakespeare’s genius by listing the alphabet. 100 Plus and The Tempest [more]
Paul Gauguin, The Vision after the Sermon (Jacob Wrestling with the Angel) Stay low on defense. Move your feet. Don’t be lazy. Box out. Grab the rebound with two hands. You can’t debate feasibility. Go after efficacy instead. Speak clearly and don’t be afraid to make eye contact [more]
Today the hotel we are staying in closes for the season. There is an air of giddiness among the staff, coffee refill requests are cheerfully ignored, the unimaginative flirtatious comments of 50-year-old German men are met with no indulgent smiles from the young Polish waitresses, just an impatient [more]
Or: Local Pigs Complain of Prejudice, Unfair Treatment This morning I was chased by pigs the size of pimped-up Harleys down a small forest path. The pigs made as much noise as motorcycles, grunting in a menacing pissed-off-pig-fashion, not unlike growling motors. I had spotted them early on, [more]
Co-written with Erwin M. Schmidt. The German hiker is a special breed. Below are some key indicators for spotting the species in their natural habitat. If 3 out of the 5 descriptions below apply, chances are that you’ve spotted a German hiker! They wear lots of gear. Not [more]
It is our third day in Gasthof Kohlern, a small, isolated hotel in Süd Tirol, tucked into a mountain’s gentle slope. All 17 rooms are full, and breakfast and dinner are served in the large front dining room with blond pine floors and picture windows overlooking the valley. [more]
“If you want to do things by yourself, why get married?” –Nancy Featherstone In response to my post about the partner look in East Germany, astute 60 Pages reader Jane Fränzel, a globetrotting Mandarin whiz and a blur on the dance floor, pointed me to an intriguing Guardian [more]
1. Orchestra Concerts. You love classical music. You love performances. You love getting dressing up. So why, two minutes into a symphony from Beethoven, do you inevitably begin wishing they would just hurry up and be done with it? Why train your eyes on the conductor’s sheets of [more]
These days, the partner look is all the rage on the streets of Beijing, as the newly fashion conscious Wall Street Journal reported a couple weeks ago. Just to set the record straight, I felt it important to point out that the forward thinking folks at the Leipzig [more]
Alice Munro is badass because her characters are passionate but never sentimental. Children leap to their deaths and drown the dog while they’re at it. Nieces coolly despise their maiden aunts and then get bitch-slapped by a revelation from the aunt’s bastard child at the aunt’s funeral. Everyone [more]
On the balcony opposite, straggling flowers, left for dead after months of near-claustrophobic care – watering twice a day, gentle whispering (they hated that; never wanted to know what the woman was thinking), plucking (humiliating human preoccupation with tidiness) are thrown into diagonal lines by the wind. The [more]
Yesterday, I was sleepily putting coffee on the stove, listening to my favorite radio station. I like loud music in the morning, a tradition that began at a coffee stand at Fudan University, in Shanghai, that served Nescafe mixed with hot milk and tapioca pearls. The two girls [more]
Every Tuesday afternoon at 3:30 I go to high school. The school is in Wedding, in a grand old pre-war building, with echoing halls, fluorescent overhead lights, and Koreans who can’t find their classrooms. I ignore their beseeching looks – I’m late to class myself – and take [more]
Last week I was waiting for the light to turn at a crosswalk, listening to the new CHVRCHES album, when I felt that prickly sensation of being watched. I looked around and saw a boy, eight or so years old, dark hair, round eyes, staring up at me. [more]