2023-06-08 16:33:39
NAfter a day with Bettina Rust, you suddenly notice empty Capri-Sonne packaging everywhere. Left at bus stops, squeezed between bench cracks and disposed of in bicycle baskets. The podcaster and moderator has made it her hobby to photograph the juice waste. She never runs out of motives in Berlin. However, she does not frame her works. Instead, many large portraits hang on the walls of her apartment.
It’s still early in the morning when Bettina Rust talks about her passion for Capri-Sonne. We are sitting in her kitchen, in an old building in Schöneberg. Rust makes breakfast. Always by her side is her still young dog Yuki, whom she describes as a mixture of goat and Bismarck.
Humorous paraphrases are a rhetorical hobby of the moderator. This is particularly noticeable when it comes to food, which Rust likes to talk about a lot. In her podcast, for example, she describes caraway as a “grumpy older gentleman”. Her podcast is called “Toast Hawaii” and is dedicated to her guests’ memories of the foods of their lives. Anke Engelke reported there on one of her vegan phases, which was followed by a very intensive sausage platter period. Carolin Emcke was upset that guests invited by her always assumed her friend to be the cook of both of them. And actor Henry Hübchen told of masses of canned pineapples that he had his grandmother send from West to East Berlin as a child.
For us, Rust starts by making coffee that tastes just enough vanilla to be comfortable. There is Icelandic Skyr with granola flakes, blueberries and oranges. The cup and plate stand out in color from the bright table. The dining room goes directly into the living room. Here the light can be adjusted to the atmosphere thanks to dimmable lamps. There are white tulips on a table and a collection of bulbous vases on the shelves. You could say that the apartment suits the presenter’s voice. Because it is so velvety deep that you would like to cover yourself with it. Which quite a few people probably do. One reveals that 61 percent of podcasts are listened to in the evening and 21 percent at night Study.
Dancing at two parties
Rust, who, in addition to “Toast Hawaii”, is now also recording the radio show “Hörbar Rust” as a podcast, which has been running since 2002, has been in the voice business since the 1990s. It all started with a traineeship at OK Radio and continued as a speaker for films. In addition to positions on television and as an author – sometimes for this newspaper – Rust has always remained true to the audio format. A loyalty that has paid off, because the podcast boom in Germany never ends. On the contrary: the market is growing and becoming more professional. 38 percent of Germans listen to podcasts at least once a month.
In this success story, the moderator was surprised that linear radio was still able to hold up: “I’m happy because everyone thought that the podcast would eat up the radio. But no, they relate to each other like siblings that exist wonderfully side by side. Sometimes they yell at each other and steal each other’s clothes, but sometimes they also spread each other’s bread. The ‘Hörbar’ benefits from having been one of the first podcasts in the country and dancing with it at both parties.”
The need for audio formats should also be based on their versatility. On the one hand, podcasts fit into a performance and efficiency society that wants to learn something about Napoleon or inflation on the way to work, while cooking and brushing your teeth. On the other hand, they also offer a quiet trickle when you just don’t want to do anything anymore, don’t want to see anything anymore, but don’t want to think either. Just be still and listen.
The younger generation in particular is no longer used to silence. Ever since smartphones have been around, nobody who doesn’t want to have to endure silence. One of Germany’s most successful podcasters, 34-year-old Tommi Schmitt, has to leave something running as soon as he gets home because otherwise he couldn’t stand the quiet of his apartment. He tells that in an episode of “Gemischtes Hack”, which he records together with the comedian Felix Lobrecht.
Rust pleads for endurance
Bettina Rust herself likes the silence and advocates making friends with it: “I advise everyone to learn to deal with silence. I think that’s a good indicator of being at peace with yourself.” Rust says that people who can’t handle silence, and even find it lonely, should learn to endure it.
“Don’t always get distracted. Thoughts and feelings change, we can put up with it, even if it feels uncomfortable at times. Anyone who becomes restless because they are alone should keep thinking about where it comes from until they have an idea.” She advises practicing this exercise: “Not in the sense of faster-higher-farther, but in the sense of self-acceptance. In addition, something creative emerges from silence at least as often as from the exchange with others.” However, Rust himself rarely listens to podcasts or the radio in his private life. “I’m really happy when it’s quiet up there in the box. It doesn’t last long anyway. I feel calm when I look at water.”
If the moderator does listen to podcasts, then like now when going for a walk – we are with Yuki in the zoo. Although she doesn’t really want to miss the noises around her, the birds, the voices. While telling the story, Rust keeps interrupting herself to call after her dog, to be happy about a butterfly, or to get upset. For example, about barriers in the park, which, according to Rust, deliberately ruin the footpaths of the walkers. It’s one of those first spring days of the year when you take your jacket with you but only carry it in your arms.
Bettina Rust in her podcast studio with the dog Yuki
Which: © Gordon Welters
Rust does not follow a fixed route on her walk. From time to time she greets other dog owners whom she seems to know. However, the moderator does not seem like a guy for appointments to go for a walk. Despite her communicative profession, she would not describe herself as sociable. “I’m often the first to leave a party or a meal. We talked a bit, watched a bit, maybe met someone, and then it’s good, I think. Yuki come here, no!”
Actually prefer to be alone
The presenter lives alone and became self-employed early on. She left home before she was 16. “When I was six, my father died. A year later, my mother’s new boyfriend moved in.” That caused her great difficulties. You always had to assess exactly what the new man was like. What she could and couldn’t say. She doesn’t go into any more detail.
Rust spent her childhood in Hanover. After moving out, she found a small apartment not far from her mother and her school. “I worked a lot and partied a lot.” She cannot remember whether she would have listened to the radio or watched a lot of television when she was alone at home. Only sometimes, when she came home late from her gastro jobs, did she watch reruns of American series like “Golden Girls”.
Rust has actually always preferred to live alone in her life. Temporarily in flat shares and then lived with her boyfriend at the time. But that’s not for her in the long run. “I’m not a relationship type. It’s also a mystery to me how the everyday stuff should be arranged with increasing familiarity and intact eroticism. “She also knows the Sunday blues that you don’t know what to do on your own. But now she would love Sundays. Mainly because of the flea markets, where she likes to buy pictures, preferably portraits.
These pictures, almost exclusively faces of men, women and dogs, hang and stand everywhere in her apartment. In her podcast studio, which she has integrated into her home, women are looking at you from every wall. But it’s cold in the muffled and darkened room, which, at the very end of the hallway and behind the laundry room, looks as if the rest of the apartment has cleared it a bit. When guests come, heat them up, says Rust. The room is small. Much more than the two chairs and the microphone in the middle doesn’t fit in. The dialogue between moderator and guest and between podcaster and listener is intimate. The largest picture in the room hangs right next to the recording area. It is not a portrait, but a landscape overlooking the sea.
Rust now goes back into the kitchen to prepare for her next guest. Actor and voice actor Daniel Zillmann is stopping by for an episode of Toast Hawaii. She does not read through notes about her guests beforehand. But the moderator is now starting to put cheese and olives on the table. She also has a pretzel in the freezer. Before she gets to work, she’ll have dinner with her new guest.
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