A Stiletto, A Lamppost And The Soul Of Berlin

Berlin's lampposts bristle with fliers and notices, and Berliners read them avidly. For one resident, the lamps were a natural place to turn when she lost a beloved shoe.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:?And now let's go to Berlin, capital of Germany, one of the most technologically connected countries in the world. Germany has more mobile phones than people. Yet sometimes if you run into trouble in Berlin, more traditional forms of communication work better. NPR's Philip Reeves sent us a letter from Berlin.

PHILIP REEVES, BYLINE: Something horrible has happened in Berlin. You won't see it on TV or in the newspaper. But I know about it. So do my neighbors. I know about it because of a lamp post on my street. On that lamp post there's a note. A horrible accident has happened, it says. Anyone who sees a note like that has to find out more.

The author turned out to be a 29-year-old woman called Maira Becke. Maira posted the note because...

MAIRA BECKE: I was disappointed, frustrated, mad, angry, everything together.

REEVES: We'll come to her horrible accident in a minute. First, I want to talk about the lamp post. In this pulsating city, lamp posts matter.

The lamp posts of Berlin are unlike any I've seen before. They're totem poles of information. From top to toe, they bristle with stickers and notes about all sorts of stuff. These notes are so densely packed, that some lamp posts have their own geology. This one right here has grown a thick crust of paper, like a tree ring. Every night across Berlin, thousands of fresh notes appear.

This trendy neighborhood I'm in right now used to be in Soviet-controlled East Berlin. The buildings looming around me are austere and imposing. You can feel the distant echo of an authoritarian state. Yet, at eye-level, the people have taken over the public space and are filling it with their writing, with their notes.

Many of these notes are no different from those you see in cities everywhere. They're about apartments to rent, missing cats, underground gigs, art shows, crazy night clubs. Yet some fall into an entirely different category.

JOAB NIST: They, in some way, allow deep insights of the soul of the city. And these are real treasures and all that need to be documented, because it's part of our everyday life, culture.

REEVES: Joab Nist collects these notes. He's turned them into a book, and also posts them on a blog. Nist says these notes play a remarkable role in the emotional life of this big city. Berliners use notes to complain about noisy neighbors, to send romantic messages to strangers they've seen on a train, and to rant.

Would the (bleep) who stole my bicycle last night kindly bring it back immediately? Says one in his collection. Didn't you notice the bike's barely roadworthy? More love has been poured into that bike than you have brains in your head.

Nist says scrawling out notes like these is a good form of anger management.

NIST: That's the way how you can deal with problems that instantly arise and...

REEVES: Therapy.

NIST: It's therapy, in some way, if you think about a way to get rid of your anger, it's therapy. And if you think about many other topics, it's just more useful than the Internet.

REEVES: What of Maira Becke and her horrible accident? Remember how much you loved your first really good pair of shoes? Becke's are black, six-inch stilettos.

BECKE: This was the first very good shoe that I had, and was part of also my confidence.

REEVES: Becke's a model. Shoes are important. Her special pair is made by Christian Louboutin of Paris, and cost...

BECKE: Around 800 euros.

REEVES: Which is about $1,100.

BECKE: Yes.

REEVES: That's quite a lot of money to pay for a shoe.

BECKE: Yes, it is. So you can understand my sorrow about it.

REEVES: The other day, Becke lost one of them, on the street on her way to her work. The left shoe fell out of her bag. She hasn't got it back. But, as she went around town the other day pasting up notes, Becke felt sure the many readers of the lamp posts of Berlin will look out for it.

BECKE: Because I saw people taking pictures, you know. And when they would...

REEVES: Pictures of your notice?

BECKE: Yeah. And when they would see it, they would look at me, and they would smile at me with compassion like, you know, like, Putz, I understand. It happens, sucks.

REEVES: As you were putting the notices out...

BECKE: Yeah.

REEVES: ...they were smiling compassionately at you?

BECKE: Yeah, yeah, they were.

(LAUGHTER)

REEVES: Philip Reeves, NPR News, Berlin.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

INSKEEP: You hear Philip right here on MORNING EDITION, from NPR News.

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