Die Zeit has an interesting interview with Christa Wolf concerning her new book Stadt der Engel oder The Overcoat of Dr. Freud, an autobiographical novel about her brief time in the early 1990s in Los Angeles. Like many German writers (see my review of Pazifik Exil) Wolf disparages Los Angeles for its crude hyper-capitalist ethos and cultural vulgarity, even quoting Brecht's poem in which he equates Los Angeles with hell (Nachdenkend über die Hölle). And then there is this interesting snippet where she recounts an afternoon spent with Martha Feuchtwanger, who gave her a tour of her villa in Pacific Palisades:
Nebenbei hatte sie erzählt, dass beim Einzug in der Eingangshalle die spanischen Fliesen völlig verschmutzt waren. Da habe sie sich eines Nachts den »Neger von Adorno« ausgeliehen, der damals ein paar Häuser weiter wohnte. Gemeinsam haben sie den Boden geschrubbt, und am Ende, als sie sich in der Mitte trafen, habe der »Neger« gesagt: »O, Madam, what a night!«
(She mentioned in passing that when they moved in the Spanish tiles in the foyer were encrusted with filth. So one evening she borrowed "Adorno's Negro" – Adorno lived just a few houses down the road. Together they scrubbed the floor and, when they were finished and came together in the middle the Negro said "Madam, what a night".)
One wonders why Christa Wolf would find this story amusing or even bring it up in an interview. On the other hand, I can't say that I'm shocked that Adorno had a "Negro". For Adorno's theory of mass culture is flawed by view that can only be described as racist. Adorno dismissed black jazz as a debasement of music and as part of the all-leveling "culture industry" he saw in Hollywood. He found no authenticity in jazz, and sneered that "the skin of the Negro as well as the silver of the saxophone were only colorist effects. ("die Haut der Neger so gut wie das Silber der Saxophone ein koloristischer Effekt.). There is evidence that Adorno confused "White Swing" with black jazz – swing being a tame, commercialized variation of black jazz. Adorno- the champion of Arnold Schönberg – was deaf to the subversive essence of black jazz, just as he was blind to the realities of racism in America. No wonder he had a "Negro" whom he could "lend" to his neighbors.
