Halensee is the second smallest of the ninety-six Ortsteile
I lived just a few miles away without knowing it existed
I can pinpoint the moment this changed—shortly after noon on September 11
2018—not because of the event that had occurred seventeen years before
when I was in my first month of college in New York
but because of one that had occurred seven hours earlier
I first heard the name of the place from a handsome young physician in the obstetrics wing of Charité
the university hospital in the city center
we’d been sent downstairs to wait in the cafeteria for an hour and a half
Now the doctor was explaining with inappropriate cheerfulness that an intake error caused by a shift change meant that we had never been processed; all the beds were in use
Since the most recent measurements showed only mild contractions and a normal fetal heart rate
“We’ll have to see where the journey takes us,” he said—a masterpiece of bureaucratic German
its collective subject comprising an I who does the seeing and a you who does the going
One of his colleagues disappeared down the corridor with reassuring urgency
But she soon found that there were no beds available at a second
then a fourth clinic—mid-September being well-known as the time when one reaps what is sown during the week Germans call Zwischen den Jahren (“between the years”)
“We’ve found you a bed at the Martin Luther Krankenhaus.” Great news
He looked at his clipboard and read the address aloud
Three hands dove into two front pockets and a purse
drawing out the word as though it were a foreign dish he was tasting for the first time
My eyes darted back and forth between him and Lisa
She expanded the map on her phone and showed me a pink trapezoid in the southwest corner of the city
“It might take several hours before we’d be able to have an ambulance ready for you,” he said
“I recommend organizing your own transportation.”
As I leaned into the back of a taxi to spread out a towel
the driver met my eyes in the rearview mirror
With a vanilla façade that looked like an upside-down steamboat
the Martin Luther Krankenhaus occupied an entire block on the south side of Caspar-Theyß-Straße
ungraffitied buildings across from the hospital gave me the impression I always have when I leave the international crescent of neighborhoods in the east that constitute what I think of as my Berlin—namely
and her contractions and her cervical dilation were measured
We were told that we still had a long day ahead of us
she would be given medicine to induce labor
We crossed a bridge that spanned the six lanes of the autobahn and the train tracks of the Ring and drifted into one of those unlovely stretches whose Sixties architecture is a sure indicator that the area was bombed to rubble during the war
We walked until we came to a church with a rusting clock and a pyramid-shaped belfry that looked not unlike the one in our neighborhood
then slowly returned to the hospital via a parallel street
were two wooden benches outside Die kleine Weltlaterne
While she read the laminated newspaper clips about the pub’s history as a meeting place for artists
I stepped into a niche-like doorway to smoke a much-needed cigarette
There I noticed a plaque—not one of the city’s blue-and-white Gedenktafeln
but a plain steel sheet that in German and Russian read: the writer vladimir nabokov (1899–1977) lived in this house in the years 1932–1937
Nestorstraße 22 was the last of ten apartments Nabokov occupied in Berlin
Nabokov never disguised his antipathy for Berlin
the city where he spent the first part of his exile from Russia
a liberal politician assassinated by Russian protofascists in 1922
and which he fled in 1937 after the assassin was freed from prison and given a prominent role in émigré affairs by the Gestapo
He proudly downplayed his knowledge of German and stayed mostly within the dwindling “colony” of Russian expatriates
His interactions with locals were limited to shopkeepers
and a handful of students to whom he taught English
and tennis to supplement his income as a writer and to support his widowed mother
Yet it was here that he met his future wife and lifelong partner in literature
at an émigré charity ball on May 8 or 9 of 1923
at a private birth clinic near Bayerischer Platz in Schöneberg
that Nabokov became one of the outstanding Russian-language novelists of the twentieth century
The “ochered walls” of the “oblong room” on the third floor of Nestorstraße saw him put the finishing touches on Despair
draft a chapter of what would become his autobiography
and complete most of The Gift—the last and
(The apartment appears there as Agamemnonstraße 15
whose owners slightly oversell it as a “small” but “hoch-modern” flat in a “wonderful district.”)
Nabokov was “a devoted and indulgent father,” as his biographer Brian Boyd puts it
Graded on the curve of writers in his generation—especially male writers—he probably should have won some kind of parenting award
He had himself enjoyed one of the more blissful childhoods in recorded history
and he and Véra wanted to ensure that Dmitri would have the same
despite the family’s straitened circumstances and precarious position as one politically suspect exile and two Jews in Hitler’s Berlin
Nabokov looked after Dmitri during the day while Véra—the primary breadwinner at the time—worked at a law office
frequently taking him to play in the “primeval paradise” of the Grunewald
“Never in my life have I sat on so many benches and park chairs
terrace parapets and brims of fountain basins as I did in those days,” he would write in Speak
Echoing a description of Véra’s and reflecting the experience of many parents before and since
Nabokov found raising Dmitri to be a combination of “hard labor and heaven.” He would go on to describe his concern for his newborn son as “couvade-like.” But Nabokov’s interest in Dmitri’s experience of infancy was not just that of a father; it was also that of a novelist-metaphysician for whom becoming a parent was a key step in formulating his idiosyncratic theory of time
which he began writing when Véra was pregnant
“an ostentatious device on the part of fate” beneficently contrives to make a happy match out of Fyodor Godunov-Cherdyntsev and Zina Mertz
Fyodor evolves from the author of an unsuccessful volume of poetry
to the author of a short story about his lepidopterist father’s disappearance in Central Asia
to the author of a controversial biography of the beloved nineteenth-century novelist and social reformer Nikolai Chernyshevski
Nabokov has Fyodor explain why he has taken childhood as the overarching theme for his collection of poems
“My probing thought often turns towards that original source,” Fyodor says
before which there exists what he calls a “reverse nothingness.” In imagining the “nebulous state of the infant,” he hopes to prepare himself for death
“the darkness to come.” He trains and strains his memory to recall the moments just after what he calls “primal non-existence,” turning his life “upside down” in his poetry so that “birth becomes death,” a kind of “dying-in-reverse.” What for
To find evidence for the contrary proposition: that dying is a kind of birth in reverse; in other words
Fyodor “lust[s] for immortality—even for its earthly shadow!” He is a proponent of what we would today call possible worlds theory
holds that all possible arrangements of the universe are equally
He elaborates on the theory during a daydreamed conversation with the poet Koncheyev
Fyodor objects to what he calls our “barbaric perception of time” as a kind of accumulation of present moments or momentary presents
constantly rising from the “watery abyss of the past and the aerial abyss of the future.” Fyodor is skeptical that time even exists
positing that the past and the future coexist with the present
but are generally hidden from view as a result of our “finiteness.” He encourages Koncheyev to experience the “retrospective thrill” of imagining that in the future someone will come to sit in the spot in the Grunewald where they have had their conversation
he tells Zina that “one day we shall recall” how Agamemnonstraße appeared to them as they prepare to enter their apartment together
Fyodor Godunov-Cherdyntsev,” Nabokov later wrote in a preface to the English translation of The Gift
that Fyodor’s views on time and mortality were very near to Nabokov’s own can be inferred from two facts
in her foreword to a collection of his Russian poems
that potustoronnost—which means “the hereafter” or “the beyond,” but which the scholar Vladimir Alexandrov shrewdly translates as “the otherworld”—is Nabokov’s “main theme,” and “saturates everything he wrote.” Second
much of Fyodor’s argument reappears throughout Speak
That book opens with the “first gleam of complete consciousness” (Nabokov’s own) and comes full circle with “an infant’s first journey into the next dimension” (Dmitri’s)
all the lines meet,” Nabokov finds their earthly shadow in the “converged” train tracks seen by the Berlin-born toddler who waits for hours with “optimism” and “patience” for a train to pass below the bridge where he and his parents are standing—the same one Lisa and I were now crossing on our way back to the hospital
even by the time-distorting standard of the pandemic years that were to follow
were the longest Lisa or I have ever experienced
Anton had a bacterial infection the doctors were unable to identify
which kept us in Halensee for the rest of the week
before we were able to secure a room together
I was sent away when the hospital closed for visitors
I was overwhelmed by a sense that reality had been suspended
I had just undergone a momentous experience
but it was one that I saw nowhere reflected in the world around me
Everyone in my car was enfolded in their private thoughts or distracting themselves from the same by peering into pages or screens
I had the intense urge to break the local taboo against speaking loudly on the train by announcing my news
The sequence of events vividly passed through my imagination
even if the words themselves did not pass through my lips
and when nothing gave my fellow passengers cause to change what they were doing
a terrifying thought insinuated itself into my sleep-deprived mind: Am I dead
I found myself desperate to compare my experience with that of someone else
but the thought of telling him that I felt as though I’d become a ghost struck me as absurd
Nabokov describes his return home from the clinic where Véra gave birth to Dmitri
appears to him as though it has been reflected in “the mirror of a barbershop” and has become “an abstract world that all at once stops being droll and loosens a torrent of terror.” The proximate cause for his disorientation is that he is seeing the street for the first time at five in the morning—that is
was the fact that he was now seeing it with the eyes of a newborn parent
What Nabokov and I experienced on our way home from the births of our children was a response to a particular kind of death that is less than literal
of experiencing “the full freedom of timelessness,” but death is also the moment in which we experience a release from the “prison” of time
the philosopher Martin Hägglund observes that these two positions are incompatible
Just as Nabokov’s “chronophobia,” as Hägglund terms it
cannot be separated from his “chronophilia,” we cannot reap the benefits of “immortality” without sacrificing what we gain from being time-bound creatures
is possible to verify empirically: that death and rebirth are immanent in life itself
“Children and books are marks to be left on the world without us
the world of our death,” the critic Michael Wood remarks in his reading of Speak
The similarity between children and books—and their shared function as surrogate immortalities—has been noted at least since Plato’s Symposium
all of which Nabokov would undergo—producing a work of literature and becoming a parent are markers of a kind of death-in-life
the passage from one social identity or existential status to another
They are grave markers of one’s previous self and are usually distinguished by an appropriate transitional ritual
Each of these deaths is followed by a kind of rebirth
a passage to the “next dimension” of being—a series of otherworlds populated by a series of causally related but nonetheless distinct beings
The “common sense” view that “our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness,” with which Nabokov opens Speak
The otherworlds that Véra claimed were central to his metaphysics don’t necessarily exist in a temporal hereafter
I have come to believe that my sense of having turned into a ghost on the train can best be explained as what occurs when one becomes aware of the overlap between two otherworlds: in this case
the world in which I was not yet a parent and the world in which I had just become one
Literature helps us transcend time and death not as a kind of one-time magic trick—by creating a physical object that exists after the permanent extinction of consciousness—but rather by training us to view our apparent finitude from non-linear perspectives: Fyodor’s “retrospective thrill,” for example
The evidence for life after death that Fyodor seeks is not only to be found in one’s birth; if attended to properly
one can see the earthly shadow of immortality falling on us all the time
Aside from that brief walk with Lisa through Halensee
my own Berlin overlaps with Nabokov’s in only a few places
the Brandenburg Gate and Potsdamer Platz: tourist spots I typically see only when visitors are in town
the one place in which we both spent significant time is the reading room of the Berlin State Library
where he did research for The Gift and I corrected the proofs of a novel that included a love triangle
the distance between our Berlins is not merely the six miles between his address and mine
but the seventy-seven years between his departure and my arrival
These years saw the three Nabokovs flee Germany for France and France for the United States and become American citizens
go from being one of the greatest Russian-language writers to one of the greatest English-language writers of the century
These years also saw Berlin undergo several metamorphoses under the influence of multiple forces: the malignant visions of Hitler and Speer; the bombs of allied air forces and the bullets of Red Army soldiers; the appearance and disappearance of the German Democratic Republic and its wall; the return of the government from Bonn and the reprivatization of the city’s eastern half by West German property developers; and
the arrival of a new generation of exiles and expatriates
including one American who moved to Germany because he happened to fall in love with a Berlinerin he met in the Russia that Nabokov never returned to—except in memory and in writing
Nabokov and I would encounter each other in one other place
thanks precisely to the “passion . .
particularly railway trains,” which Anton would come to share with Dmitri
Authors should “ignore all readers but one,” Koncheyev tells Fyodor in the Grunewald: “that of the future
who in his turn is merely the author reflected in time.” I thought of these words again during my research for this essay
when I read “A Guide to Berlin,” a little-known short story Nabokov wrote in 1925
an unnamed émigré tries to persuade his drinking partner that their adopted city is not without its charms by envisioning an “eccentric Berlin writer of the twenty-first century” who “will go to a museum of technological history and locate a hundred year old streetcar” before going home to “compile a description of Berlin streets in bygone days.” In looking at the “ordinary objects” of the present “reflected in the kindly mirrors of future times,” the narrator says
The Deutsches Technikmuseum opened in 1983
five years after Nabokov experienced the event we mistakenly call death
it has become Anton’s favorite place in the city; we have visited so often that for his third birthday his grandmother bought us all memberships
and even a working windmill on the grounds outdoors
But as soon as we’ve stored his jacket and his stroller
Anton heads straight to the old roundhouse where
among steam engines dating back to the early nineteenth century
there is a life-size model of the new JK railcar that is scheduled to enter service later this year
positioned next to a predecessor from 1908
which once ran beneath the pub where “A Guide to Berlin” is set
Anton and I sat in the seats of the railway carriage where we will each spend an uncountable number of future hours
I peered through the JK’s window at the neighboring window of the “yellow
uncouth” railcar with its “old-fashioned curved seat,” and
I saw the years separating Nabokov’s Berlin from my own vanish into the doubled reflection of my face
Timeless stories from our 175-year archive handpicked to speak to the news of the day
is the author of the novel The Zero and the One
“An unexpectedly excellent magazine that stands out amid a homogenized media landscape.” —the New York Times
"League of Legends" is expected to be more newbie-friendly in 2023
This is a massive improvement since the game was criticized in the past years because of how toxic other gamers are
the toxic scenario in the Summoner's Rift could change once 2023 kicks in
If you are planning to play "LoL," here are the top reasons why you should
Game Rant provided the best enhancements made by Riot Games to make "League of Legends" more newbie-friendly:
New "LoL" players would definitely have difficulties setting up their rune pages for different champions
they can easily identify which set is the best for their champion
Picking the correct skills for an unfamiliar hero could be hard
This is why Riot Games integrated a new feature highlighting the best ability to pick depending on your hero level
gamers were forced to chat in order to tell their plans to other teammates
Now that "LoL" has more non-verbal communication options
newbie gamers no longer have to enter the chat zone
especially if other gamers are saying toxic words/statements
Although Riot Games enhanced the Summoner's Rift to welcome new gamers
you still need to start with characters that are easier to play
PC Games provided some of these heroes
then you try exploring other more complicated champs:
Other "League of Legends" stories we wrote:
Some players criticized the new "League of Legends" Jungle Pets enhancement
Riot Games released the new "LoL" hero, K'Sante
For more news updates about "League of Legends" and other strategy games
Sign up for our free newsletter for the Latest coverage
Another "League of Legends" bug gives gamers unfair advantages over their opponents
the in-game exploit is found in the Biscuit Delivery effect
was the first one to spot this new "LoL" issue
Riot Games hasn't confirmed if it is already aware of the new Biscuit Delivery exploit
While the game developer hasn't fixed this in-game exploit
here's how you and your teammates can take advantage of it
According to Dexerto's latest report
only active items will work with the new Biscuit Delivery bug
You and your teammates can use this new in-game exploit by clicking the refund option in the "LoL" Shop
Based on Vandiril's official YouTube video
the new bug allow gamers to refund the active items they purchase and retain their effects
you need to purchase an active item before the Biscuit arrives in your inventory
Don't leave your base while waiting for the Biscuit
To activate the effect of the refunded item
Among the items that can be used with the bug are Stopwatch
some active items will only be stuck in the Biscuit
One of the active items that didn't work with the bug is the Galeforce
which is commonly used for Caitlyn and other marksmen
If you want to see the new "League of Legends" Biscuit Delivery bug in action
"League of Legends" Fandom reported that the Biscuit Delivery can be acquired using the Inspiration rune
all you need to do is set up your Inspiration Rune
Make sure that the third path is the Biscuit Delivery
the Biscuit item will appear every after two minutes; your Biscuits will continue to arrive until the 6-minute mark of the game
You can click here to learn more about Biscuit Delivery
In other news, Riot Games confirmed that the "LoL" Project L is still under development. We also reported about how "League of Legends" filler skins disappoint many gamers
For more news updates about "League of Legends" and other popular online titles
always keep your tabs open here at TechTimes
CDC Investissement Immobilier and Covivio announce the signing of a strategic partnership in Germany on a predominantly residential portfolio in the centre of Berlin
The partnership provides for the acquisition by CDC Investissement Immobilier
of a 49% stake in a portfolio (39% from Covivio Immobilien
which is representative of Covivio's Berlin residential portfolio
comprises 8 assets located in several of Berlin's most attractive districts (Charlottenburg
15,800 sqm of commercial space and a 274-space public car park
CDC Investissement Immobilier and Covivio form a strategic partnership in Germany
Mieux connaître le groupe Caisse des Dépôts
Mieux connaître le service Mon Compte Formation
Accéder à la plateforme Mon Parcours Handicap
En savoir plus sur les comptes et assurances-vie inactifs (CICLADE)
En savoir plus sur les consignations et les dépôts spécialisés
Le délégué à la protection des données de la Caisse des Dépôts
Le service Mécénat de la Caisse des Dépôts
La direction des politiques sociales de la Caisse des Dépôts
Exercer mes droits sur mes données à caractère personnel
"League of Legends" AI bots are expected to have major enhancements
as confirmed by Riot Games Technical Product Lead Darcy Ludington
AI mode will greatly help many players who are practicing
AI mode is one of the oldest game content in Summoner's Rift
This is the only mode that new players can access before they can play normal and ranked matches
they are not really helpful when it comes to practicing since the experience in Co-Op vs
This is what Riot Games is trying to change
According to PC Gamer's latest report
Riot Games is planning to release a big overhaul for the improvement of Co-Op vs
The enhancements will give AI bots the ability to gank
one of the most important improvements for these AI bots is allowing them to learn and react to changes in the metagame
AI mode can't do the basic strategies that real human gamers can do
these AI-powered bots are expected to be on par with human players; making the Co-Op vs
Via his official blog post
AI mode doesn't really help newbie players enhance their skills
This is why they want to invest in improving AI bots so that new gamers can have an area to enjoy the strategy and team aspects of Summoner's Rift
"With the growing desire of both devs and players
our team was formed to help create a new scalable system for bots that would enable players to learn and grow in League," said Ludington
You can click here to learn more about the improvements Riot Games will make for AI bots
In other news, "League of Legends" filler skins disappointed many gamers. We also reported about the recent "LoL" Tahm Kench bug
which allows the character to teleport across the map
For more news updates about "League of Legends" and other online games
The Electromote was the world’s first vehicle run like a trolleybus
which was first presented to the public on April 29
It was a time when seeing anything big move without help from a horse was amazing and unprecedented
The world’s first trolleybus operated from April 29 to June 13
on a 540 m (591 yard) trail-track starting at Halensee railway station
crossing the upper Kurfürstendamm at former Kurfürstenplatz
The idea of using electricity to power transit was attempted earlier with the Gross-Lichterfelde Tramway
This proved to be shocking for anyone who stepped on the track
The early electric tramlines were electrified by direct current using a third rail
this system proved unworkable – using of third rail led to the electric short circuits during rains
direct voltage killed many animals (dogs and cats) and was dangerous for pedestrians
The supply with direct current via the two parallel rails has the same drawbacks
it needs to isolate wheel pairs with using of this system to avoid short circuit through the axis
experimental/demonstration 350-meters line was put into operation in the Prater park
This was powered by 150 V but was also removed later
the first permanent tram service with overhead lines was started on Mödling and Hinterbrühl Tram in Austria
in which the pantographs hung and ran like shuttles
the first tram with overhead lines was presented by Werner von Siemens on the International Electric Exposition in Paris
This experimental/demonstration line for an exposition was built between Place de la Concorde and Palais del’Industrie
but the installation was removed after that event
Siemens had tested a similar system on his Electromote in Berlin
The Electromote was a converted four-wheel landau carriage
equipped with two 2.2 kW electric motors transmitting the power using a chain drive to the rear wheels
The electric power transmission to the coach was by a flexible cable pulling a small eight-wheeled “contact car” (Kontaktwagen) that ran along the overhead power lines
the Kontaktwagen was later named the “trolley”
giving the trolley car and trolley bus their names
This experimental vehicle already fulfilled all the technical criteria of a typical trolleybus
After the demonstration runs closed on June 13
Siemens wanted to build a network of electric elevated lines in Berlin
But the skeptical town council did not allow him to do this until 1902
Today’s ancestor of the Elektromote is the trolleybus
a contraption you’ll see all over Europe and in some North American cities like San Francisco
They roll like a normal bus but get their power like an electric rail car
Rubber-tired buses that run on power from overhead wires have some distinct advantages when it comes to climbing hills
David Goran is one of the authors writing for The Vintage News
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