He has been making me laugh and ponder and have double takes ever since I came across him for the first time. And that was way before I met him in person on a sunny weekday afternoon at a Starbuck’s in Lakewood in 2019. He was not alone. Ben Sclair, who had introduced us via […]
Across the Fence
Across the Fence: Foosball
Submitted by Susanne Bacon. As a kid and young teenager, I loved playing soccer. The boys in my class even let me play on their teams as the only girl during our sports classes until eighth grade (after that we were separated by gender and explored different fields of athletics). Soccer was the game shown […]
Across the Fence: Altbier and Kölsch
I grew up in a German city with a number of big breweries. Their names mean nothing over here, and one got torn down when I was in my early twenties. I don’t remember what happened. It seems they merged with a brewery downtown. A specific area always also had that peculiar smell that goes […]
Across the Fence: Umlaut
Hardly anything is as conspicuous in the written German language as what is even named the German way in the English language: the umlaut (pronounce ‘oomm-lout, meaning changed sound). Indeed, these are a, o, and u topped with two horizontal dots such as in ä, ö, and ü. Apparently, they are not easy to pronounce […]
Across the Fence: Volksmusik
Submitted by Susanne Bacon. Whenever I come across a German festival, store, or restaurant over here, I encounter one thing that – I have to admit this much – makes me slightly cringe. It’s a phenomenon with traditionally Southern German, respectively Alpine roots. But I am not sure how many Germans my age are really […]
Across the Fence: Doppelgänger
Have you ever been told, “I know you from somewhere. Your face is so familiar”? Maybe even followed by the name of a place? If so, you may have wondered whether there is a true, physical doppelgänger of yours, a person who is your look-alike. I keep joking that I have a face in a […]
Across the Fence: Biergarten
As it is getting warmer, a lot of German-speaking Europeans will flock to a type of restaurant typical for Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. They are open-air, rustic, and cozy. And, of course, you have heard about them, as the German term “Biergarten” has made it into the English language with pretty much the same pronunciation. […]
Across the Fence: Wanderlust
Submitted by Susanne Bacon. A while ago, at one of my book signings at the Steilacoom Historical Museum, a gentleman asked me whether I could write more about German topics sometimes. I racked my brain because – as many of you know – I used to write the column “Home from Home” for quite a […]
Across the Fence: Inspiration and Creation
What a daunting title for this article, isn’t it? Yet, we all have got them in ourselves, inspiration as well as creation. Sometimes, the two just don’t necessarily come together. Why is that? Take a Frenchman named Marcel Proust. He was inspired by the word Madeleine – the biscuits, mind, not a girl. He could […]