Any lover of Freedom has fond memories of the fall of the Berlin Wall. I especially treasure the symbolism of the event on a very personal level: both of my children are adopted from Russia, and my parenting them could never have happened without Mr. Gorbachev tearing down the real wall, the Iron Curtain. Gorby did so of course at the urging of President Reagan, whose famous challenge was voiced on June 12, 1987 — my 28th birthday. And I have the fondest memory, after a joint speaking engagement in Berlin, of sitting with Joe outside the Starbucks overlooking Brandenburg Gate. Having our Starbucks while looking at the Gate struck us as the most wonderful way of reveling in the Western triumph in the cause of Freedom. We drank in the moment as well as our beverages.
So I read with great interest the story that appeared in a recent Wall Street Journal on the upcoming celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. See: “Berlin Builds a New Wall To See How the Dominoes Fall”. Plans call for a temporary wall, comprised of a series of 40-pound Styrofoam dominoes nesting in steel feet, to be erected during the first week of November, and at the appropriate hour on November 9th, for it to cascade down over an 8-minute interval.
The whole experience strikes me as tremendous example of rendering authenticity in the design of a staged event. Berlin students and other civic leaders are painting each domino tile with graffiti-like art (an influential authenticity principle outlined in Figure 4-6 of Authenticity). As a commemorative event, the toppling appropriately appeals to referential authenticity: evoking a time, picking a place, making it matter, and being realistic (four of the five principles outlined in Figure 4-5). No one would want to see a permanent replica of the wall built, so the anniversary will be honored with a temporary event (a principle of exceptional authenticity outlined in Figure 4-4). Note too the polarity inherent in such a pop-up fall-down event! And the constructed “wall” is being mixed-and-mashed with a domino fall (a principle of original authenticity outlined in Figure 4-3). And the use of Styrofoam? Note the natural authenticity principle outlined in Figure 4-2, stress materiality, and the corresponding question we pose: “What one material might serve as a unifying force in rendering authenticity?” Can you think of a more polar opposite material from Berlin Wall cement than Styrofoam? It’s the most fitting material to commemorate the newfound peace and prosperity that came to the people of Eastern Europe twenty years ago.
I’ll not be in Berlin on November 9th. So how do I plan to personally mark the day? I plan to sit down and reread Wm. F. Buckley Jr.’s succinctly written and comprehensively rich history of the Cold War, The Fall of the Berlin Wall. The book chronicles the wall as both a symbol and a tool of the Cold War. I highly recommend the tome. Perhaps you will join me in reading it on the 9th?
Or build your own miniature wall of Styrofoam to topple down. I plan to do that too!
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