24
Popular Culture Review
[In 2004, the city sponsored an exhibit to honor Einstein’s 125th birthday,
including several pieces of public art.] It makes Einstein a clown, mocking the
human race while next to him, a phallic rocket ship blasts off from Earth, its
nose cone surrounded by an ominous, coiled mushroom cloud. The effect is
shocking, as surely it is meant to be: a rude insult, “epater,” blasphemous and
grotesque (or Groszesque, or Gortzesque), yet haunting. It’s reminiscent of
Weimar—and for me, of the late Kurt Vonnegut, whose masterpiece
(Slaughterhouse Five, 1969; film, dir. George Roy Hill, 1972) reflects his own
mixed feelings about his German-American heritage. In its impish, naughty,
scandalously self-righteous way, it’s a fitting “Denkmal” as German inscriptions
call it, in unique philosophical vocabulary. Not just a memorial, but something
that makes you think, and think twice, or three times. And I think about it all the
time—especially on a day like this. [Tomorrow is the Ides of March. Look me
up, I’ll be at Caesar’s Palace, lighting Roman candles and conspiring against
slots.] Also, not quite 30 years ago, I was at a conference (at Hofstra University)
celebrating (you guessed it) Einstein’s 100th birthday. Meanwhile, something
else was going on that day, in addition to the gnawing Iranian hostage (plus
OPEC) crisis, which the New York Times saw fit to print, alongside the
crossword puzzle, next to a story about a rapist in New Jersey, all buried deep in
the back of the front section of America’s newspaper of record (NYT, 11/10/79,
21, plus follow-up story by Richard Halloran, in 12/16/79, 25, next to an item
about a stolen Christmas tree in Antioch, CA).
Of course, November 9 isn’t the same as March 14. But it is a memorable
day, especially in German (and Jewish) history—it is the day the Berlin Wall
came down (1989), and Kristallnacht (1938), to name two major events
associated with it. It’s also the day Japan invaded Shanghai, back in 1935. And,
just to be complete, on November 9, 1918, two days before the 11th hour
Armistice, Kaiser Wilhelm, at whose Berlin Institute Dr. Einstein presided,
abdicated the throne. But none of that can compare with what (speaking of unlit
fuses) didn’t happen on November 9, 1979. While tweedy scholars belatedly
celebrated AE’s 100th birthday, the Pentagon made prophets out of Time
magazine by lighting all the wrong candles, thus nearly blowing up the world
(Time's Einstein centennial, February 19, 1979, whose cover art featured nuclear
balloons [= exploding stars] as beguiling tropes). Today we’d be cast on an
episode of The Big Bang Theory (new sit-com on CBS), promoted as follows:
“two nerdy physicists sharing an apartment have their lives disrupted by a
beautiful new neighbor” [How’s that for a high concept, A1 baby? Why, George
Gamow had nothing on that one—or did he know more than we thought when
he called the moment of primal creation by its most suggestive, covertly erotic
name? Let’s face it, Al, sex sells: and that’s been so for eons, long before time
began.] Yes, the world nearly did come to an end, in a scenario worthy of Dr.
Strangelove, yet stranger than fiction: weirder and more absurd than anything
that Stanley Kubrick or Prince Hamlet ever dreamt of. What’s more, the same
accident(s) happened again, not once but twice, in 1980—an absurd trio of