In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

206 ARRAYS
booths, allowing the crowd to see every gesture of its favorites, even
when they were at rest. The trainers came and went in white hospital
coats, with a clinking of plates, among the oil and grease stains, preparing
mixtures of egg and camphor on garden chairs" (AnmJes-memoire,
103). Concerns and actions that, outside the arena, belong to the space
of privacy become part of a public performance within the artificial daily
life of the six-day race. No other event fulfills more perfectly that desire
which makes actors and athletes into stars: the audience's desire to
follow their private life as closely as their performance. This becomes
possible for the spectators because they share with their heroes a space
in which the boundary between private and public is erased. Little wonder
that some fans stay in this world, close to the stars, for 144 hoursuntil,
on the seventh day, they return to their jobs and families.
Related Entries
Bars, Boxing, Dancing, Elevators, Endurance, Mountaineering, Mummies,
Polarities, Revues, Roof Gardens, Stars, Present vs. Past, Uncertainty
vs. Reality, Immanence = Transcendence (Death)
References
Les Annees-memoire: 1926. Paris, 1988.
Berliner Volks-Zeitung.
Chronik 1926: Tag fur Tag in Wort und Bild. Dortmund, 1985.
Egon Erwin Kisch, "Elliptische Tretmiihle" (1926). In Kisch, Der rasende Reporter;
Hetzjagd durch die Zeit; Kriminalistisches Reisebuch. Berlin, 1983.
Leo Lania, "Reportage als soziale Funktion" (1926). In Anton Kaes, ed., Weimarer
Republik: Manifeste und Dokumente zur deutschen Literatur, 1918-
1933. Stuttgart, 1983.
Sling, "Sechstagerennen." In Sling, Die Nase der Sphinx, oder Wie wir Berliner
so sind: Feuilletons aus den Jahren 1921-1925. Berlin, 1987.
John Willet, Art and Politics in the Weimar Period: The New Sobriety, 1917-
1933. New York, 1978.