On This Day in 1961

The Berlin Wall was erected. Actually, in the very beginning, it wasn’t a wall at all — it was simply barbed wire. It lent itself to scenes like this, of East German border guards easily escaping to the West. It’s been 46 years since then, and we continue to blindly build walls, thinking it will solve our conflicts (see Cyprus, Northern Ireland, Israel or Iraq). Of course, a wall has never solved a conflict, only delayed and complicated its resolution.

Perhaps in November, on the anniversary of the Berlin Wall’s fall, I’ll write more about this, one of my “favorite” subjects. But until then, you’ll have to make do wondering, like me, how middle-aged Swede Eija-Riitta Eklöf-Berliner-Mauer celebrates today. Ms. Eklöf-Berliner-Mauer, a self-described “objectum-sexual,” claims to have been married to the Wall since 1979. That makes today her hubby’s birthday. Do you suppose she bakes a cake? (If you have access to a library, you can read more about objectum sexuality in the short, original article, “Relations with Concrete Others: (or, How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Berlin Wall)” by Dominic Pettman and Justin Clemens.)