Vladimir Horowitz and the Frolicsome Muses

They wash their soft skin in the Horses' Spring
Or in Permessus or Olmeius, then
Dance, fair and graceful, on the mountain-top
And whirl their feet about. Then they rise up [...]

From: Hesiod: "Theogony," Dorothea Wender (transl., Penguin 1982)

The Liszt and this passage from Hesiod seem to go together quite beautifully . . . I'm not that fond of Liszt, perhaps unfairly; still, when I heard this piece on television while I was reading this quartet of verse, the two of them melded rather unexpectedly.

(The music itself begins at around 3 minutes and 16 seconds:)

Perspiration, Orange, and Theogony

Yesterday I was so hungry that I went grocery-shopping again. Afterward I baked chicken thighs in the oven, with butter and rosemary and pepper as well as salt and a little artificial seasoning (which both appeared to vanish in the course of the baking); and threw together a salad of chicory, fennel, apple and orange. As for the dressing, I shook in white wine vinegar at first out of panic that the chicory might turn brownish at the edges, then squeezed the juice of half an orange and swirled honey in it; but I have to admit that when I drank the dressing that was left in the dish after the salad was eaten, its taste was hardly tempting.

Lastly, I prepared chestnuts. I had the vague intuition that they might be done after one of them blew apart with a thump — specifically, with a thump that I heard even over the humming computers in the nearby room. I might not even have known what the thump was, if not for a similar mishap with roasting pumpkin seeds that transpired around Hallowe'en.

An Authorly Memo

For the Spain Story, which is mentioned in the last post, I have read in different avenues, not very intensively. Firstly there was a surface investigation of conservative religion in Spain, especially in the Franco era; then of events in 2007, setting up a timeline that I'll (hopefully) lead into 2008, when the story will happen on the eve of the financial crisis. Helpfully, the figure of the protagonist's father became a little sharper once I read about conservative religious circles, though I still don't know whether to make him more of a monarchist and a Catholic or a Catholic or a Catholic monarchist.

What hampers me a little in the imagining of the antihero's father's upbringing is that I had a fairly mild upbringing, and have no direct idea of the uptight, little-man institutions that might have been de rigueur (literally!) in Spain in the forties or earlier.

 I'll  figure out what the schools were like in Spain, anyway; while it might be irrelevant for the father, I'd thought of sending the main character to a military academy. But that feels wrong, and I can't plunk him into a gymnasium without finding out if Spain had any, first.

Still, in the past week I have been 'resting'; the digestion and application of the notes that I take seems as important as the taking.

The Green Ayuntamiento and Other Stories

This morning I awoke at nine-thirtyish, and was pleased that the time change made me look like an earlier riser than I was intentionally. It has been chilly lately and the trees are beginning to lose their leaves en masse after being in their original splendour quite far into the season. Of course the plane trees will likely bear their foliage into November as they always do.

Within the past week, smoke has hung in the air, and I saw a chimneystack where the vapour was rapidly drawn forth and dissipated into the breeze. We have not turned on the stoves yet ourselves. Still, last week and for the first time this autumn, I turned on an electric heater to banish the humidity from my room. Generally I've held to the belief — however — that adapting to wintry temperatures is helpful for the immune system, besides its environmental and pecuniary benefits.

During that same week, our uncle brought a pale orange, white-streaked pumpkin from a neighbour's patch in the eastern periphery of Berlin, which sat in state on our kitchen table until I began to use it the day before yesterday. It has yielded pumpkin pies — a Mürbeteig pastry aromatic with lemon juice and zest, and a filling of pumpkin purée and eggs with sugar and spices — and a potful of pumpkin soup which Ge. made. In the process of it, he cut up a massive bowlful of pumpkin sticks which was exhausting even to contemplate, besides dicing the onions, etc.

FROM an eating perspective the weekend has been rather good; during the week, which was busy, I was a little more austere than I'd have liked. Ever since I felt exhausted so often last year, I have been more careful to eat nutrients aplenty.

After the first bit of breakfast, at any rate, I turned to the computer and went to Flickr for story research. It will be a Lousy Story, so I have been arguing with myself if it's fair to invest a great deal of time and energy into it. In the end I guess that it is not in me to waste even lesser ideas. (Though I had thought of writing an Edgar Allan Poe parody recently, which would also be worthwhile depending on my ability to execute it.)

Ayuntamiento de Burgo de Osma, by Edithor after: photograph by Z. Sánchez.
Oct. 26th, 2014. Original size: 4.7 x 5 cm?


I HAVE been tracking down photos of city halls to imagine what the architecture of the story setting would be like. To engage with the details, I have been making miniature green ballpoint pen sketches. By now, the buildings are all beginning to look alike.

*

Fortunately the habit of researching essays for university has been very helpful, amongst other things in introducing me to the delights of G***le Books. But Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia Britannica have been very helpful in sketching the outlines of the world I want to explore, and in showing me where research in further depth is needed.

Abridging the French Revolution of Carlyle

After diving through old draft posts again, I have found this, which is slightly revised. I hope it isn't boring, but since no other blog posts seem to be forthcoming . . . perhaps a little laxity in the pursuit of thrills is permissible.

***

To leaf through to a fresher chapter in my historical research I've decided to read Thomas Carlyle's French Revolution in its entirety. The thing is that, whether it's rational or not, I rarely read more than a page or two of Carlyle at a time because his style of language and of historiography inspire irresistible antipathy.

So, to inspire me to keep on reading, and (ideally) to depict the pre-Revolutionary France and its actors in a fairer and kinder manner, I've tried rewriting the first chapter.

The result hopefully still emphasizes Carlyle's virtues, whilst keeping away the wildest fantasies, softening his prejudices, and simplifying his sentence structures.

Here is a paragraph from the Project Gutenberg text.

These, and what holds of these may pray,—to Beelzebub, or whoever will hear them. But from the rest of France there comes, as was said, no prayer; or one of an opposite character, 'expressed openly in the streets.' Chateau or Hotel, were an enlightened Philosophism scrutinises many things, is not given to prayer: neither are Rossbach victories, Terray Finances, nor, say only 'sixty thousand Lettres de Cachet' (which is Maupeou's share), persuasives towards that. O Henault! Prayers? From a France smitten (by black-art) with plague after plague, and lying now in shame and pain, with a Harlot's foot on its neck, what prayer can come? Those lank scarecrows, that prowl hunger-stricken through all highways and byways of French Existence, will they pray? The dull millions that, in the workshop or furrowfield, grind fore-done at the wheel of Labour, like haltered gin-horses, if blind so much the quieter? Or they that in the Bicetre Hospital, 'eight to a bed,' lie waiting their manumission? Dim are those heads of theirs, dull stagnant those hearts: to them the great Sovereign is known mainly as the great Regrater of Bread. If they hear of his sickness, they will answer with a dull Tant pis pour lui; or with the question, Will he die?

I don't like, for instance, insulting an 'underclass' — even from a sympathetic standpoint — by painting them as an indistinguishable horde of incurious lackwits.

This is the paragraph after I changed it:

"These and their supporters may well pray out of self-interest. But from the rest of France there comes, as has been said, little or no prayer — at least not favourable prayer. The Château or Hotel, given its practice of what one might term enlightened Philosophism, is not given to orisons; nor are the policies of the king’s circle, among them the 'sixty thousand Lettres de Cachet' which fall to Maupeou's share, likely to persuade one to make an exception. To return to Hénault’s words it is indeed questionable from where these pleas should emanate. France is smitten with plague after plague, its rulers suspected of sorcery and ignoble subjection to the will of a courtesan. Why should the starving men who roam through the highways and byways, the millions who labour in the workshop or furrowfield, or those who lie 'eight to a bed' in the Bicêtre Hospital pray? Their minds and feelings are occupied by other matters."

Whether this revision is fine or not, it still dilutes my ire whilst I am reading The French Revolution.

***

Addendum: I haven't read anything of Carlyle's in years — since 2010 when I wrote this, possibly; so it can't have improved my patience too much.

French Coq, Argentinian Sun, Swiss Red

I might fact-check this blog post again; until then, grain of salt etc.

At the risk of flooding the blog with tales of soccer, yesterday was a fine day of it, and insofar as I can after having taken long breaks during the games to do things quite unrelated to soccer, I wish to ramble a little.

SWITZERLAND vs. ECUADOR was the first game of the day, and was started at 2 p.m. local time* in Brasilia.

THE sun literally cast an eye of heaven through the stadium roof, an ellipsis of light that submerged the Ecuadorean goal (later the Swiss goal) and transfigured that half of the field, and climbing up the mountainous ranks of the audience toward the northward roof. In the later stages of the game, a lighter lattice of shadowy rim formed around the eye of light, illumining the skeleton of the edifice a little. I had hoped that the shade would fling itself across the field by halftime, but instead the sunlight ran in a circular path and never wholly left.

It was difficult to tell if the temperature was great, and whether Switzerland and Ecuador had trained equally to get along with it. (There was a tedious stretch of passing back and forth amongst the Swiss defense, but it might have been intended to maximize the quantity of ball ownership, or to lull the Ecuadorians into apathy, rather than an attempt to prevent physical exertion.) There were anecdotes of other Northern Hemisphere teams taking e.g. to the practice terrain in Portugal with winter clothing to emulate the warmth and humidity of Brazil; evidently it depends on the city, since Rio de Janeiro was around 20° for the Argentina-Bosnia game if I remember correctly, while Manaus was 30° even in the evening and stuffier as the air gathered moisture with the declining sunlight.

I wasn't quite sure for whom to cheer. Both teams were quite proficient, and after looking at the statistics the length of time they held the ball, the number of attempts at a goal, etc. were fairly alike. It was an active and highly physical game that was influenced (apparently) by American football, since the teams were clearly fond of hurling the full lengths of their heights against their foes, when these were toeing the ball, in order to tip the player off his feet and free the ball for a teammate. Even this exercise, carried out without any notable attempt to injure, was a relief after the Thanksgiving-like harvest of yellow cards, relinquishment of ball ownership, etc., in many games for attempts at tripping the enemy.

The winner, of course, was Switzerland, in a lovely dramatic juncture at the 90+3 minute mark.

* Or so I gather from my calculations of each Summer Time, which appears to fall in winter in the Southern Hemisphere within the Distrito Federal at UTC-2, whereas Germany's is at UTC+2, and the game aired at 6 p.m. Berlin time.

Guardian's minute-by-minute report: link.

The Brazilians and the Croats

This evening, minutes into the game, I went to the corner room and sat down to watch the opening game of the World Cup on our television. Here is the analysis of an ignorant individual with a fading memory of the South Africa World Cup:

***

The balcony windows were flung wide and when I muted the game in the second half, the in situ throng in Brazil, chirping of the referee's whistle, and the announcer's baritone phrases wavered in from the sidewalks, where restaurants or cafés were hosting livestreams or television screen viewing.

It was quiet apart from that; immersed behind the apartment buildings, the moon lit the single, scrolling-edged clouds against the night and the flare of Venus, the traffic was light, and after the match ended it was mostly taxis that ran past the apartment.

Evidently few of our neighbours, nor we, had 'skin' in the game. Brazil, of course, was the host country; one felt that in light of the turmoil, it might be a relief if the home team won the game. The players weren't familiar and I had no impression of their playing style. There were little bursts of excitement after the third Brazilian goal and the near-second Croatian goal, and I wasn't sure if they came from our Berlin environment or from the television. The pedestrians who were walking home (it appeared) from viewings of the game weren't wearing flags when I saw them and appeared generally cheerful rather than particularly jubilant or embittered.

***

Given the presumptive pressure on Brazil's team to win, it was unexpected that the first half was fairly mellow. Then I realized that it was the early stage of the World Cup and that the teams might be rationing their energies for later and vital games; later I realized that Brazil was likely the anticipated winner in any case. So the Brazilians ran around the field at a leisurely pace, let passes from teammates slip by rather negligently, and — though by the stage I started watching they were one goal behind to Croatia — together with the Croatian team established a relaxed and sportsmanlike manner.

*

The Brazilian cast was separable as an aggregation of personalities after a while.

Neymar, the Brazilian striker, was a scruffy version of a Dickension waif, I thought; an anxiety, slenderness and roaming air about him. Marcelo and David Silva, with billowing hairstyles and a similar lightness when it came to not realizing the chances that came their way; Dani Alves, invested, substantial and serious. Hulk, impressively built for the European notion of football, and with an attractive face. (Though I don't know if athletes like being appreciated for qualities apart from athletic qualities, so I am willing to withdraw that remark.) The goalkeeper, rather stolid in his silver garb.

As for the Croatian players, Stipe Pletikosa was fairly often in the spotlight since since his goal was threatened often enough, with a sheaf of hair slicked back à la Beckham. The Guardian's minute-by-minute report faulted him for letting a penalty kick fly past, since he had gotten both hands on it, I thought that he was perfectly fine. Luka Modrić rather exemplified the mellow and fair demeanour I saw in the game and was often in the thick of the action; similarly, Mateo Kovačić. I didn't like all of the teammates, but since a teammate who didn't appear at the World Cup was found guilty of a neofascistesque team chant, they flourish in contrast.

While the fouling was mild for the most part, however, the ethics ran a little amiss toward the end of the game. There were fortunately no gruelling effusions of gore, gradual rakings of bristling shoes along the legs of the Enemy, or any attacks that felt particularly brutish, despite the sprinkling of yellow cards and the 'diving.'

As if to amend this propriety, the diving and other theatricality (enthusiastic though venial fouls followed by gestures and expressions indicating pristine consciences, and grave discontent with the arbitrary findings of the referee, which were inevitably proven not-so-arbitrary after all in the replay films) was prolific. The diving assumed manifold faces: agonizing grimaces — far worse than any Christian martyrdom depicted in artwork, likely since these martyrs must express the tranquillity of divine uplift in lieu of purgatorial anguish —, egg-like gyrations on the lawn, and tenacious grasping of ankle-vicinities, zygomatic flesh, and whichever other limbs or areas felt pertinent at the time.

As for the goals, the Brazilians' penalty kick felt a little undeserved. The referee gave the Brazilians a penalty kick for what, if I interpret it rightly, was a Croatian player's hand tug of a Brazilian player's shoulder. In past World Cup games, I think, the wholesale enmeshing of a fist in a player's jersey, which is strategically more effective though I think less violent than other varieties of fouls, met with that kind of penalty. Likely the key detail was that it transpired near the Croatian goal.

***

Needless to say, I was impressed by the technical innovations and drawn in by the details of the field periphery, as well. The temporary white line which the referee drew when the players had to form their walls in front of their goals, the whorl that was visible in the grass from above, the newly designed ball though I have yet to find an informed assessment of its merits ('it actually flies in a straight line' was the solitary comment I read), all fine.

Also, to be a literal spoilsport, I was wondering why the Brazilian spectators apparently skewed so much toward the azure-eyed and fairhaired. (Which is, I think, an example of the proper definition of 'begging the question.' I.e. the hypothesis I had made going into the game was that if you watch from the front seats you are likely wealthy, and if you are wealthy in Brazil or another country you are [un]likely to be . . . .)

Besides I was wondering whether the throng of non-American advertisements on the signs around the field was merely in my head, or a sign that American firms have a scanty estimation of the beautiful game, or a hint that the American multinational is not as dominant internationally as it was thirty years ago.

*

Despite these weighty reflections(TM), and the generally unspectacular nature of the goalscoring (not a single bicycle kick amongst them), the game left me in a happy frame of mind.


P.S.: I hope that 'Croat' is a fitting term. I was thinking of writing 'Croatians' instead.

May 25 - Exercising the European Franchise

After a great quantity of anxiety, I cast my first vote for the Linke Partei in the European elections around the early afternoon yesterday.

Since I had expected to vote Green until the last moment, it was a bit of a shock. In the end, what determined my vote was the enduring disgust with the treatment of Spain and Greece under the austerity regime, and the refusal of any major party to address it with conviction and to my satisfaction. Secondly, a fleeting mention in an article that in the Europe-wide debate for the next President of the European Commission, only the Linke-allied candidate stated that he was not in favour of the sanctions-happy state of diplomacy with Russia.

It felt like a wild decision, and at the hall I was so anxious if I had cast the right vote that it felt like my hand would begin to tremble as I marked the right circle.

*

Still, the mistake I did make was not to attend to the last days of the Tempelhof Airfield discussion. Being taken off guard by the two initiatives on the ballot, I thought that the two of them were intending to maintain a building-free Tempelhof, and that the 100% Tempelhof Field initiative was merely a more purist alternative. So I marked 'Yes' on both. In fact the second initiative was put forth by the Berlin Senate, enabling the building of residences along the perimeter of the airfield, and if it achieved a quorum then it would invalidate the other initiative. (I think.) The thing is that the 100% Tempelhof Field initiative fortunately won, and the senate's initiative failed to attract enough votes to pass the quorum. But as an individual voter with a duty to be informed, of course, I feel like a numpty.

*

Warning: Partisan commentary ahead, painted in very broad strokes.

In general, the European election results are dispiriting, but these were largely anticipated and if ~62% of eligible citizens did not use their franchise, then we have scanty reason to whimper at the embarrassment we are turning into in the eyes of the world. (Maybe the Nobel Peace Prize is a fateful burden, like the albatross.) As for France, I'm still so mad at Prime Minister Manuel Valls's remarks about the Roma that I have little pity for the Socialists regarding their defeat by the Front National and any fear that the French political elite in general might appear racist by extension.

Regarding Ukip and AfD, I think they're perfect 'I'm not a racist, I swear,' franchises for those with enough self-awareness to fear that their antediluvian views are not fitting for this age.

At least the relevance of the European Union might be kept minimal, as it has been believed to be for years, and we can assuage the fears of Ukipers and LePeners that the EU is some kind of hyperintelligent hypermachine for the efficient enslavement of the rural fringe.

Cinematic 'Twisters' in the Boston Harbour

This evening I left the computer, for a brief while, then was 'hooked' on a film that my parents were watching.

While we were in Canada, the American channel TBS would offer films in which rattlesnakes settled a town despite the efforts of Harry Hamlin, limestone crumbled into great sinkholes in New Orleans during Mardi Gras, and Tommy Lee Jones ended a lava eruption through the might of explosives.

Generally I turned away whenever anybody died.

On German TV, there are evidently thrillers, too: windstorms stretching west to east and flooding Las Vegas with desert sand, grasshoppers who ate flesh, supervolcanoes emerging from the entirety of Yellowstone National Park, and killer bees in a loftier film with Gabriel Byrne.

***

In any case, this time the film investigated the likelihood that a volcanic eruption might trigger a disruption in the upper atmosphere, firing ozone up where it freezes and forms aggregate rocks with carbon dioxide, maybe, and then sucking them down again in waterspouts that end up approaching the Boston Harbour.

The waterspouts fling off the boulders as they twirl. These thrust through the air as if fired from a rocket launcher, to flatten Bostonians like flies or tip them over like ninepins. — The idea of 'amusing' deaths wasn't all that amusing, but then the level of plausibility was kept firmly in the fictional realm in any case. — Rather than resting idle on the ground (wafting a vapour) after their feats, and to heighten interest, these earth-meteors are then liable to be tempted by the higher air pressure into blasting athwart.

A few things were striking.

A Gloomy View of an Unfree Press

Note: Since it took so long to write this, little copy-editing was done. Please forgive any errors and take any statements with a pinch of skepticism.

On Thursday I went to the Humboldt University building on Unter den Linden.

I came roughly fifteen minutes early for the event, which was a talk within the frame of the Mosse Lectures about the history of war reporting.

Having traipsed around the building a long time ago, when I was figuring out whether to apply at the Humboldt University, it was not unfamiliar; the Senatssaal, nevertheless, was a new experience.

The Senate Chamber has nearly floor-to-ceiling curtains — framed in dark, laminate-like wood that appeared fairly East-German-like in its aesthetic — at its four or five windows with a prime perspective on the Humboldt Uni forecourt, the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, the Bebelplatz and Unter den Linden itself, interspersed with busts of Hegel and companions. Twin full-length portrait paintings of gentlemen whom I presumed rashly to be the Humboldt brothers hang at the wall opposite. A ceiling partitioned, indented or coffered in four or five lengthy rectangles lies above an array of chandeliers, lamplights which are enshrouded in rows of dented, crystal-like squares, like glass tiles in a bath.

At the front there was a raised stage where the speaker could assume the podium at left, and multiple speakers could answer questions seated at microphones at the right.

The reason why I write this at length is, of course, because I had free time. The rest of the interval I watched the audiovisual staff, who were filming the talk, and the photographer, partly since I was fascinated that she was making flash photographs of the audience when the seats were half- or a third-filled and the point of taking pictures was in doubt, then transitioning to non-flash with little difficulty afterward.

A Chief of the Institute of German Literature at the Humboldt University took up the microphone first to introduce this fresh season of Mosse Lectures, named to honour the naturalized American grandson of the man who founded the Mosse publishing house (Berliner Tageblatt etc.). He was evidently deeply moved by the death of Anja Niedringhaus, the photojournalist who recently died in Afghanistan. — Her lecture will be replaced by a memorial, to which we were all invited. — Apart from his tributes to her, to Marie Colvin and to Jörg Armbruster, he mentioned as a topic the ethical considerations of journalists reporting on war.

As for female journalists in wartime, they have their own challenges and their own benefits, he said, reminding me at once that I'd read that women reporters tend to be far more easily able to speak with other women in Afghanistan (for instance) where religion-based barriers exist. Also, that they're less likely to be mistaken for fighters or for threatening figures in general. I'd have to look for the article again, because I did a lot of reading on the subject after Marie Colvin was killed.

GIVEN this introduction, the matter of the lecture itself came as a shock. The lecture was held by a professor from a university in Braunschweig, and the material of her speech was the comparison of peacetime and wartime reporting.

After quoting a newspaper report from 1866 about the Battle at Königgrätz, where Austrians and Prussians were slaughtering each other at will, she turned to the peacetime situation in the Weimar Republic and represented the press not so much as strivers for truth and enlightenment as malleable guests at the table of power. Invited to events and mingling with politicians, they were given information that they were permitted to publish and information that they were permitted to keep in mind as background information.

THIS symbiosis between the journalistic and political spheres reminded me at once of an exchange under a Guardian article (April 23rd), with the journalist who wrote the article:

[Commenter]:

Andrew, why are most [Note: politicians'] speeches released word for word in advance, leading to articles reading "...will say later today"? It makes the article weird and awkward to read and personally I find it irritating. Since when have politicians done it? Was it to get in that day's printed press, and if so, is it still necessary with news websites?

Andrew Sparrow:

It's probably been going on since the 18th century. I vaguely recall a story about a printer getting into trouble with the Commons authorities then for publishing a speech based on a text he had been given in advance. It certainly became normal once the lobby started to function at the end of the 19thc and start of the 20thc. Politicians release advance excerpts for two main reasons. 1. It means you get two bits of the news cherry: a story in advance, and then another on the day. And, 2, it means they can shape the agenda. If you release an excerpt with just four paragraphs, journalists will report those bits (if they think they make a story). But if you just give them the whole speech, you have less control over what "line" they will choose to take.

But I agree that the "will say" formula is irritating. I sometimes report it as "said, in an excerpt released in advance" as an alternative.

Leaving, Entering, Skipping Around the Ivory Tower

This afternoon I had slept in and didn't attend any lectures.

It was not entirely unanticipated because I spent a large chunk of time and effort on foraging through the Free University's, Humboldt University's, and on Papa's recommendation several Max-Planck-Institutes' and the Fraunhofer foundation's websites in pursuit of classes or events I'd want to attend, yesterday. There were many, surprisingly; I was rather bowled over by the proliferation of things, and by the logistical difficulties of shuttling back and forth.

PARTLY, the point of exmatriculating myself from university in July was to allow myself to learn to read up on subjects in a level of depth and detail that isn't usually practical in the frame of the institution.

It might not be everyone's cup of tea, and if one's career is riding on academic transcripts, a truly high level of rigour can be prejudicial in the long run. Besides it must take energy to chase after the lethargic minds of all the students.

SO I decided to read up on political theory to compensate for missing the lecture on that subject. Because of the 1960s Greece course I audited last semester, and my questions to Papa regarding the 1960s in general, I've had Herbert Marcuse's Ideen zu einer kritischen Theorie der Gesellschaft lying around my room for a few months.

AS AN ignoramus freshly hatched from the egg, I decided to read the Wikipedia article first. This led me to YouTube. So I spent a very agreeable time listening to interviews with Marcuse: an American interview in the late eighties and a much frostier German one in the mid-seventies.

I have wanted to tear out my hair whenever philosophical rhetoric has garlanded the least-liked readings from university, so it was lovely to hear a straightforward language; and given the kind of debate I read about American politics and the articles I waded through in Political Science, it was lovely, too, to hear a modest and humane discussion that interweaves political reality as well as ideological or philosophical aspirations. In a way it was stuff of ordinary, common sense, and perhaps underlined the assertion of Marcuse himself that he happened to chime with the Zeitgeist when he became hugely popular during the 60s uprisings, and not that he was the inventor of the ideas.

It also fit a thing that I like about North America: a professor generally wields the same level of grammatical and lexical complexity, in his daily life, as any individual.

Stars and Squeaking

This afternoon the plan was to make scones and lemon curd for a kind of late lunch, and fruit tortes for supper. It didn't turn out that way. I found a recipe from scones, not the one I've used before, and decided to leave out the hazelnuts in it before printing it out. I decided not to melt the butter as demanded in the recipe but to knead it in as customary.

Then I found out that the recipe called for self-raising flour, which we didn't have. Mixing the flour with baking soda might have resolved that, or looking it up on the internet for alternatives, and yet instead of doing either of these sensible things I took half flour and half corn starch. Later, anxious that the scones would be gluey, I left out half the sugar; and on a similar hunch left out the fourth egg. At some point here I found out that the scones were, in fact, not the thick floury baked scones that you roll out and cut into circles, but 'drop scones' (if that's the right term), like a batter before they are fried up like pancakes.

Needless to say, what I ended up serving was nothing like the recipe, yet didn't iridesce or irradiate a fishy perfume or turn into an intelligent lifeform, which is everything you can hope for.

But the fruit tortes turned out well. Biscuit dough bases from the shop; gelatine over the top, or vanilla pudding from the package; kiwis and bananas and grapes and bilberries and mandarin oranges (from the can) arranged in rings; and it looked pretty and tasted refreshing especially for the winter season. (It is autumn in the fruit-exporting nation of Chile, at least.)

*

Apart from that I took up housework again, and practiced my fisherman's knots with shoelaces and a pencil as customary, and politely declined an invitation to walk to the Tempelhofer Feld.

My two youngest brothers and I went to the Feld yesterday, at nightfall, to arrive at a dark field. Figures of strangers appeared out of the gloom, hitherto swallowed up by the ground, whereas vehicles were visible through their headlights.

Orion gleamed from apertures in the clouds, and the Moon and what must be Venus above them, and it looked as if the stars were satellites or airplanes. The circular motion of the clouds under the dome of sky appeared to transfer itself in reverse to the stars instead. It is a little like the eerie experience on a laggardly freeway or in the bowel of a ferry, when a neighbouring truck slides forwards on its wheels and one is left with the impression that the car is sliding backwards.

The trip was a trifle chill and long, while the gates closed before we left the grounds again, walking down the runway with Ge. informing us of the meanings of the markings. (The 'X's must have been affixed after the Tempelhof Airport shuttered, and signal that the runways are not for landing, while the numbers — 09, for instance — point to the cardinal direction and 'R' that it is the right side runway instead of the left side runway.) We arrived at home, even my brothers who are accustomed to walking there, feeling a little battered.

*

Aside from that I took out the violin and tuned the G string very roughly; fortunately the pin stuck where it was supposed to but I felt a little uneasy about tuning it too high at first, though the string didn't seem tense enough to be damaged. Then I tried playing simple pieces, not very well, because the piano keyboard was at my elbow and inhibiting the range of movement, and my ear wasn't very attuned. I am not in practice, at all . . .

Yo Ho Ho

I've finally decided to learn ocean navigation, seamanship, etc., from the Almanac (1981) and a work about sea kayaking that we have in our shelves. A while ago I took to Wikipedia to read up on square-rigging, fore-and-aft rigging, genoa rigs and Bermuda rigs, gaff sails and so on, but having forgotten quite a bit of it and wishing to learn more, I want to figure out how to sail theoretically, not only using present-day technology but especially Viking or Renaissance or other methods.

After learning six kinds of knots — aside from the ninth knot (the bowline), it's the 'double sheet' as well as the 'carrick' bends* that will need improving — I went on to the mathematical side of things. As it turns out, determining geographical position from the location of the moon, stars or sun is more difficult than I had thought. There are observation correction tables that factor in height of the eye, refraction, etc., and yet no Latitude Calculations for Dummies explanations as far as I have seen.

* bend = knot that ties two ropes together

While I happen to know the north and south directions already, I wanted to know where the sun, the moon and the visible constellations were in the sky. Not a great deal of these latter are visible, except as motes that one can discern after staring at the spot for a while; but I think I found Orion, and the Big Dipper was evident enough. The last time I did that much stargazing, it was during an astronomy unit in Grade 7(?) in rural-ish Canada, with plenty that was visible. Despite the haziness, though, I think it was fortunate that the skies have been clear at times in the past week and that the moon was visible, as well as the sun.

To figure out how to do the latitude calculation, I remembered that there was a description in Jules Verne's Mysterious Island. From reading that, it seems that there are things — like altitude above sea level, and a true horizon — which I'd have to approximate.

Snapshots of Pastoral Joys, Round Three

More gleanings from the great disorder in my room:

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Firewood underneath Big House windows, 2005

It was ordered around June, probably for reasons of economy since fuel is not so much in demand then. It is probably fir, and after it was delivered and dumped in our driveway in a huge antheap, we would stack it in a concrete bay of sorts beside the house. Opapa and Omama made an alcove of it, by putting a grid of white wood (two by two inches or something of the sort) around it, covering it with clear plastic to shield it from the rain, but leaving it open on one side in a species of doorway.

We inherited tree stumps, on top of which one would balance the piece of wood upright, as well as the axes with which we clove the wood into kindling. Though we had a concrete surface suitable to split the wood upon, it was a jarring sort of exercise and worthless when the wood was especially knotty, whilst the softer stumps absorbed the shocks nicely and — I think — helped the grain split far better.

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Fall, 2001?

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One of our Columbia chickens, 1999 or later.

Snapshot of a Past Room-of-Mine

My bedroom, March to May 1999?

Since the teddy bear hanging on the wall basket was given to me by a classmate in Grade 8, i.e. December 1998, and the other photos of my room show that the trees visible through the windows are green but that the daylight was dark, it must be spring, in 1999 at the earliest.

As for the books, one of them is Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales (which I read more often at a younger age, though, and which I have found difficult to digest when attempting to read now and then lately), and the memoirs of Agatha Christie, and the Wizard of Oz series, and the complete adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and a short novel, The Well, by Mildred D. Taylor.

Little Women and Good Wives, Linnets and Valerians by Elizabeth Goudge are in there, too, as well as lots of Lucy Maud Montgomery's oeuvre and The Watsons, begun by Jane Austen and completed by somebody else.

As for the edition of Charlotte Brontë's Shirley, I'm not sure if I had actually read, or completely read, the book by then. (Jane Eyre was gripping enough that I read it practically in one sitting, but Shirley was slightly less approachable.) I might have kept it in my shelves because Mama gave it to me as a present.

SPEAKING of which, the silvery-gold penguin on top of the bookshelf was a Christmas present from my father; one year he gave us piggy banks: olde England-style plaster trains and the penguin. I think that was also the year where he bought a rather elegant miniature train set whose tracks we stored beside the stove for several years thereafter. And there is also a flower press designed for National Geographic in one of the bookshelves, which was Opapa's Christmas present. One tightens velcro straps around two boards, and in between those boards there are pieces of blotting paper with the flowers between them, and cardboard squares to keep the pairs apart.

Snapshots of a Past April

Since I came across a drawerful of photos from our old dominion in Canada whilst very skimpily cleaning in my room, I thought I would dive into them and post excerpts. My bad photography and my bad Photoshoppery are colliding, but practice  will hopefully make things better.

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EASTER egg basket amidst bluebells and brown horsetails (late 90s?/2000?)

Taken at the foot of our lands. One can admire the impeccably tended lawn in foreground, hoary fencepost to neighbours' property to the right, delicate waxberry hedgery, and clusters of Shasta daisy (?) leaves, as well as red clover foliage to the left corner.

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PIKO the Rooster, taken at the same time as the above. (Perhaps ironically, the septic field above and behind the big house was a well shaded, pretty spot encircled with elms and horse chestnuts and a strange dark leafy evergreen, violets and mosses on the ground, a forsythia ringed by leopard's bane or winter aconite depending on the season, rhododendron shrubs, and, in autumn, the fallen chestnuts. It is to the leftward rear in this scene; nearby, we kept a chicken enclosure for a while — we rotated it so that the earth could recover from the depredations of the fowl —, and the thin posts are hinting at its perimeter. The orange cord is likely connected to a heat lamp that kept the fledgling chickens warm even after they had been rehoused outdoors. It must have been a late Easter, since the lawn is — it seems — already cut. On the other hand, we were probably not so good at waiting until the grass was sufficiently dry.)