Charles Clawson loses voice, then starts one of Berlin's biggest international parties
By Roy Kammerer
No, it doesn't have to one of those warm and magical Berlin evenings on the Eastern Comfort ship, but they rank among the best times at the International Party--evenings when the sun is reluctant to say goodbye too and sticks around until 10 at night.
But whether summer-kissed or wintry dark, up to 100 people from across the world gather on Wednesdays at the ship parked near Oberbaumbruecke in Kreuzberg-Friedrichshain for what may be Berlin's biggest privately run international party.
Beer and wine flow and conversation and laughter floats out across the Spree River. It truly is an easy place to meet and mingle. Foreigner with Germans, with each other, all ages, walks of life, English often the tongue of choice.
Moving easily from one cluster of people to the next is a tall 46-year-old, Charles Clawson, ex-pat American, former tech writer, English teacher and ongoing novelist.
"I really am shocked, even now, to be the host and have 70 or 80 people come," Clawson said. "What I hope to build is an international community, an international forum."
Clawson has branched out into comedy and music nights, another way of fulfilling his mission of bringing people together. He also hopes to provide an antidote to Berlin's downside--dark winters when the sun has fled by 3:30 in the afternoon, before anyone has a chance to protest.
"Particularly in Berlin, I think the international party has a stronger more positive effect, because of the darkness of Berlin," Clawson said. "The history is part of it, the weather too."
It all began when Clawson's voice disappeared. Words no longer came out of his mouth, not a good thing if you are teaching classes at the University of Southern Mississippi.
The doctors diagnosed his enforced silence as a neurological disorder, spasmodic dysphonia, and he found out that speaking a new language would restore his voice because it built new nerve endings in his throat.
By then he was working in Palo Alto, California, the epicenter of the 90s tech boom, as a medical writer. He decided to move abroad four years ago, plunge into the unknown, in this case the German capital. "I didn't have any idea about Berlin," Clawson said.
He also didn't learn much about the city at first. Like most working online at home, Clawson was self-sufficient _ until the now famous tech bust caught up with him and he was out of a job. Suddenly, he discovered acquaintances were scarce in his adopted city.
Writing a novel about contemporary Berlin didn't help the isolation, although Clawson wasn't the first foreigner to find inspiration in the city. Mark Twain, Nabakov, Jeffrey Eugenides of the "Virgin Suicides," Jonathan Frantzen of "The Corrections," Clawson was following some deep literary footsteps.
"It's kind of like going into a dark room, that somehow provides a good place to write," he said of the city.
He decided to broaden his social life, calling up the people he knew to gather at the now-defunct Boma, a bar at Hackesche Hoefe. The first week 27 showed up, the next week six.
But the international party was born and steadily expanded the past three years, turning into a place where tango is taught, musicians perform and Clawson serves his homemade hummus. Entrance is one euro, drinks are paid exta at the bar.
Watching Clawson move across the room on the Eastern Comfort, looking like the born host a natural, one would think he was the best at this since college or high school.
But Clawson said there is nothing in his background to predict he would would day put on a pretty good darn party every week. It's Berlin, he said--get ready to confront sides of yourself you never knew about if you move to this city.
"Berlin changes people's lives, in the work they do, in the way there are," he said. "I know I'm much different than the way I was."
He has broadened into special events, with comics like Kai Eikermann--a German TV comic specializing in body distortions--have proved popular. He has cooperated with big Berlin bookstore Dussmann's to promote a reading by British author William Boyd.
His goal is to join forces with the Goethe Institut and expand across Germany, promoting German culture. He recalls that when he left Palo Alto he wasn't alone in knowing nothing about Berlin and Germany.
"People back home have no idea," Clawson said. "It didn't start that way, but now I think of this as something political."
But about that troubled voice, the genesis of his current life far from home.
Spasmodic dysphonia is incurable and speaking in a foreign language helps--but that's not easy when you host one of Berlin's biggest international parties, English the language of choice.
"It's better, but If I spoke more German, it's even better," he said. "I haven't spoken much German lately though."
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