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:

.........

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.

*

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.

***

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.)

21 Curiosities of 2013

Keeping it light, here are some of the things I did this year:

1. Ate medjool dates for the first time in my life.
2. Went on an accidentally long bicycle tour of 30ish or more kilometres in the early morning in May. Let's finish retracing the former course of the Berlin Wall! my mother told me, inclined as she is to heroic feats of endurance upon the two-wheeled vehicle. (In past years she had followed the Berlin Wall almost all the way from Spandau to the east and back to Potsdam; we were doing the last stretch through Babelsberg, Sacrow, Kladow, etc.) As it turns out, the distance and time duration had been grossly underestimated.
3. Saw the Vienna New Year's Concert.
4. Began reading a Hungarian book via translating machine and picked up the vocabulary és, ház, and száz.
5. Did an admittedly lousy presentation for a Byzantinian literature class in January, where I felt so tired that I was practically 'floating' up the stairs in the Fehrbelliner Platz subway station on the way there.
6. Picked out the violin concert repertoire (Paganini, Wieniawski, Kreisler etc.) on the piano with one hand, whilst housesitting for uncle and aunt in the country in October.
7. Ordered tons of books from family shop over the year, e.g. Principles of Classical Ballet by Agrippina Vaganova, Erste russische Lesestücke, Long Walk to Freedom, Greek textbook, autobiography of Morrissey etc.
8. Listened to all of the National Public Radio's list of 'Heavy Rotation' and '100 Favorite Songs' music in 2013, on YouTube.
9. On January 19th, had holes and ladders in all of my tights but wanted to wear Scottish skirt to university anyway, and thus decided to wear a pair of tights which required clear tape in three places, and employ book bag and coat as shields. Most awkward and silliest day ever.
10. Watched Oxford vs. Cambridge boat race for the first time in my life, on television in March; and went to Potsdam for a solitary walk as snow still lay on the ground even though it was already Good Friday.
11. Kicked myself out of university in July.
12. In April, went nuts with a cleaning schedule and overhauled the entire household with daily dishwashing and garbage-emptying, weekly window-cleaning and vacuuming and toilet-scrubbing, heroic cleaning of the refrigerator, etc. Since it was in the spirit of journalistic inquiry I only kept it up diligently one week, but for that week I timed it and everything.
13. In May, concocted chicken broth for the first time in my life. If I recall it correctly, it was destined for a chicken pot pie after a Pioneer Woman recipe. Later in the year, I made fattoush and a raspberry cranachan and a vegetable stock with white cabbage.
14. These past weeks, began reading Japanese manga in a sweeping degree: all of Skip Beat! released so far, Fruits Basket, Natsume Yuujinchou, etc.
15. Eggnog. It was a little overpowering in its freight of Scotch whisky and rum; very well received by the family.
16. Was assembling Ikea shelf. Floppy backboard of shelf had slid out of place after first nail had been affixed. Gouged scissors into hand whilst prying nail out of the Ikea bookshelf. Went pale as a sheet. Slathered injury in iodine salve, imbibed sugary tea and lay down to mitigate shock. Have a lovely scar there now. Also, perforce, tickled the ivories with the right hand only for a time.
17. Began watching Africa's Next Top Model. Liked Australia's again, too, but feelings of shame and dismay interfere with watching America's any more.
18. Read The Portuguese Revolution: 31st of January (Oporto 1891) in Portuguese.
19. Bought a year's worth of Guardian Weekly issues in paper. Answered perhaps one King William's College Quiz question correctly in the latest issue, but have left a sudoku game entirely unfinished in an old issue . . .

[N.B. Dec. 28th: It turns out that I had numbered these things incorrectly, so there are only 19 curiosities after all!]

Lofoten Stockfish, M' Antoinette and Microfibres

Yesterday I devoted a few hours to documentaries on television, and greatly enjoyed it.

FIRST there was an itinerant culinary series that, having explored the cassoulet, the Breton mussel from its spiralling ropes, etc., in the past, had landed in the icy, northerly islands of Norway. When we strayed onto the channel, dark phalanxes of fish writhed in the wind as they were hung in bunches above snowladen earth looking over the seaboard. Everything looked lovely — brightly painted weatherboard homes, ink-dark ocean, floes and snowfall and rock at the water's edge — and so bright that it couldn't imaginably be filmed in winter months. As for the fish, I don't think that they were alive despite appearances, because the stockfish might be unflavourful if it is strung up with its innards remaining in situ.

AFTERWARDS a German-dubbed French film explored the premise that one could, through a three-course repast, answer the question, 'What did Marie Antoinette like to eat?'. In an unnaturally serene and rustically shadowy kitchen, a proper French chef de cuisine prepared oysters on the half shell bedded on spinach and pine nuts and gratinated with a hint of cheese, followed by the main course of pink-cooked duck that had been fried in a pan and then given into the oven and then rested so that the meat was as tender as possible.

(There was an orange sauce and segments of the fruit to provide the counterpoint of sweetness to the savoury duck that was apparently much prized before the triumph of home cooking in the 19th century, or something of the sort; but I think an argument was also that the duck itself has its sweet aspects in its flavour and, of course, that the orange itself is sour, too.)

In company with the duck there were served little metal dishes with napkins or kitchen towel of some sort, in which pale golden balloons of pomme soufflé were nested. Achieving this form of potato, 3 mm rounds which are deep fried twice and launched with care on swelling, bubbling oil so that the air pocket in them can form and then tucked beneath the surface, is (it seems) a tour de force of talent or of luck.

For dessert, the chef served glasses of mousse au chocolat, poached pears in their whole shape, crème de Chantilly (or so I think; the German dubbing announced as one heard the French soundtrack which seemed to include these words, that it was 'Schlagsahne' i.e. a common or garden variety whipping cream), pouring cocoa; the entire dessert was subtly spiced with cardamom.

APART from that I considered yesterday a good time to clean the apartment. Since in winter the orangey coal ash settles everywhere, and there have been hordes of dust bunnies lately, I went on the town with the microfibre cloth, dishwasher, brooms, vacuum, a towel, etc.

OUR Christmas tree is ready, too. Altogether Christmas has been more fulfilling this year than in past years, or so I think because I haven't been in university as much and therefore have had more time for non-secular thoughts and activities. Besides it feels nice to be able to buy what we like, though of course it's nicer to think that this is peripheral. So we had bowls of Spekulatius and gingerbread and so on to entertain us while we did our usual things, and even Omama's Advent calendar has been filled and emptied this time around. In Ge.'s and J.'s room, which has a tile stove that is highly agreeable at this time of year, we listened to Christmas CDs; on the piano and cembalo I've tried out versions of Nutcracker Suite extracts, Tchaikovsky's Seasons, Christmas carols, Händel's Messiah, and Bach's Christmas Oratorio; and Mama has been playing songs on the French horn.

Hobbitish Peregrinations

Last afternoon six of us went to see The Desolation of Smaug, without the high frame rate or anything, but still satisfying. The theatre was not too full, so the audience was sprinkled over the room and the first three rows were empty.

*Full of spoilers*

First came the trailers and commercials, of course, from a household electricity provider, through anecdotes of the powers of the internet that were intended to humanize a certain search engine company, to all sorts of cars. As for the films advertised, they were Pompeii, Noah's Ark, and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty amongst others.

(— Noah's Ark, where I hadn't quite realized that the point of the story was that people were killed as-well-they-should-be. But its graphics were so strikingly Lord of the Rings that they introduced the Hobbit decently well.)

*

Everything was delivered in superlative decibels, which were an assault on the ears, but I thought that maybe the fact that I rarely go to see films has oversensitized me to this.

*

Then, at last, the film itself unfurled. We were privy to a meeting between the wizard Gandalf and Thorin Oakenshield, king of Tolkien's dwarves, at the Prancing Pony on a drizzling night, under the mistrustful eyes of two emissaries sent to remove Oakenshield from the seat of power by assassination. Gandalf, less of a pacifist than one should think he would be from the book, urges Thorin to march on Erebor in order to seize his power and take over as king, which he had not previously known that he was, and to defeat a foe which I imagine is the Orcs. Or something of that ilk.

But by some transition which I fail to understand, the action then leapt to a forest where the dwarves and Bilbo Baggins are fleeing the pursuit of steroidal animated wolves bearing Orcs upon their backs, taking refuge in the hall of Beorn.

They enter Mirkwood on the next morning. Gandalf has been aware of the stirrings of a Necromancer, which are distantly also the stirrings of the Orcs — so at the forest's very entrance, he must part ways with the forlorn dwarves, setting off himself to meet the wizard Radagast.

Mirkwood is a consistent tangle of cyclopean tree trunks twined by clawed creepers, leafed in reddish splendour by crowns of oak, and pervaded by an atmosphere of confusion that leads the dwarves and the hobbit into a Dalian species of absurdity. It is when they are met by the inhabitants of the forest, just as Bilbo had managed to espy the Lonely Mountain and the Lake from the pinnacle of one of the oaks, and engage in a combat, that their muddled miasma in mind is cut finally.

Wood Elves reluctantly rescue the dwarves. Then, at their arrow tips, the elves escort their tinier visitors forcibly to the halls of the Wood-Elves. The king of these elves — himself an arrogant and selfish patrician — argy-bargies with Thorin Oakenshield, who having climbed onto his high horse repudiates compromise. In the meantime the lowlier dwarves hobnob with Legolas and Tauriel, the friendlier elves, through their prison bars.

The dwarves flee their prison, however, as Bilbo Baggins releases them. They are set upon by Orcs at once, and elves die in the slaughter, too, but at last they spiral and bob and rush along the river toward the Lake.

After interrogating one of the Orcs, the elves figure out that the dwarf Kili has been poisoned by an arrow and so Tauriel trots away after him and Legolas duly after her. As a prince and as a captain of the guard, it seems strange that they are eager to relinquish their posts and duties at the turning of a pin, but never mind.

These dwarves arrive at the Lake and persuade the Bard, a man who despite his Pirates-of-the-Caribbean-like goatee is reminiscent of Heath Ledger, to row them through the ice floes in his drab barge. The barge is not coloured brightly, that is, but crude and impractical-looking. Ensconced in fishes they ignominiously arrive at the gates of Laketown, where they are nearly impounded by the confidant of the Mayor. (Threatened with social upheaval if the half-starving denizens of Laketown are deprived of the food, the official agrees to let them pass.)

The roofs of the tall grey buildings in Laketown are covered in slates or tiles, the tower's prows are borrowed faithfully from the stave churches, walkways and floating wooden docks edge the stilt houses, fisherboats throng in the canals between the boardwalks, and en masse in their old-timey garb the people of Laketown had a Bruegelish air about them.

But in the overhanging upper storey of one of the Nordic slat houses, the Mayor (who has been metaphorically "wallowing in his crapulence") and noted British actor Stephen Fry hears about this incident, and from their conversation it becomes clear that they fear that the Bard is a conspiring leader of the townsmen. The mayor's confidant likely invents or heightens the threat of insurrection is for his own ends, and their jealousy of his nobility might engender the Mayor's paranoia and their common antipathy; but it is true that the inhabitants of Laketown are not being treated kindly and that there are grounds for insurrection. Here I wish that the film had not tried to be 'relevant.' ('"Elections?" What fresh hell is this!')

Divers Enterprises During a Grey November

This morning I woke up lastingly after ten o'clock, since at some point earlier I had made up my mind to stay at home to nurse my cold, as the cliché has it.

Since there is time for it, I've then had to figure out what I want to do towards studying for my Greek and Experimental Physics classes. T. and Papa have heaped books on me, regarding the latter subject, as I've asked for them over the past two months.

At present it's the first volume of Richard Feynman's lectures which is the main text. After an overview of gas, solid and liquid states, particularly of water, I had a few questions this morning and for instance looked for a definition of 'type metal' — an alloy of lead, antimony and tin which is heated and poured into carved letters in order to create type-cast.

Besides I asked Papa if it's true that helium is in relatively little supply on Earth — it is indeed — and for the first time realized that zeppelins did fly between continents in the 20th century. It clears up a longstanding confusion because I couldn't quite pinpoint based on past knowledge where they were constructed and flown.

(Aside from the physics lectures, I have two standard Physics textbooks and another on Vector Calculus, the Aquatic Chemistry where I've been briefly introduced to thermodynamics and which I think is a lovely book to learn from because it is so clear and precise from my novice perspective, and a blue paperback edition in German by Herbert Goldstein about classical mechanics.)

As for the Greek, I still have prescribed reading left over to do. Besides there is a great deal one could read up on independently surrounding the military dictatorship (censorship, domestic political developments, negotiations with the US regarding Cypriot and foreign policy, etc.) and the music, literature and so on during the 50s and 60s. Then there are newspaper articles on the internet, I could find an Agatha Christie book translated into Greek to improve my vocabulary and speed of reading, and for a while I had been reading a modern Greek version of Aeschylus's Agamemnon though it was a little disconcerting to find (through the mediation of G*** Translate) that our English translation and the online modern Greek translation often diverge in meaning.

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Initially I had planned to bake homemade Dominosteine for the first time in my life today, from a recipe in one of our baking books. They are a little like petits-fours. In this recipe, the cake-like base is gingerbread with honey, sugar beet syrup, candied lemon and spices; the filling is a red currant jelly; and the top is marzipan 'diluted' so to speak with powdered sugar. To cover the whole, one is advised to take baking chocolate (Kuvertüre) and cocoa fat; the thing is that there are lovely chocolates produced by a Berlin company, where I particularly love the range up to about 65% cocoa, and it seems it would be worthwhile to try them instead of the anonymous blocks of Kuvertüre.

But I had promised myself to do the shopping now particularly for my own cooking (along the ethical lines of resolving to eat everything I kill); since I didn't go to university I consider it only sporting not to go out for other things. So this enterprise may well be postponed.

Besides I already cooked this week: roast chicken with bread stuffing and twigs of oregano and thyme on top (this technique is one I first tried out with a roast goose, and it looks incredibly lovely and delicate and besides I'm guessing that the aroma of the herbs slightly infuses the chicken), rice which Ge. made, pistachios and raisins to revivify the rice, and cranberry sauce from a jar. Once again the brussels-sprouts-making had to be postponed to another day; saturating the apartment with cabbagey fragrance at 11 p.m. didn't seem civilized.

Plumbum

Today was quite lovely: yellow sunlight, yellow-edged oak leaves which it shone through and over, blue sky, a mass of cloud here and there, a proud colour on the roof-ridge against the sky, reds emerging at sunset, and a nippy chill for this time of year which streamed into Gi.'s room — Gi., whose tastes for the whistling wind of the northern wilds have evidently not vanished entirely.

***

I was inside for all of it, but seized of the useful impulse to do something, vacuumed and mopped in the kitchen. It has reached a pass where the Before and After are pleasingly distinct. But I swallowed a metal S-hook in the vacuum cleaner and fished reluctantly in the exhaust bag, only to find nothing and resort to rattling the pipe a second time in exasperation — thanks to aerodynamics which prevented it from travelling too far in, it was still lodged there. It was surprisingly anticlimactic when my stupidity was met without any perceptible penalty from vengeful fates.

A few days ago I removed the pipes under the bathroom sink in search of a clot. The clot itself looked gratifyingly primordial, i.e. a dissolving stalactite of soft whitish and brownish soap- I dislodged it but only after spraying water specked with soap sludge over half the bathroom floor and over my clothes. So this first foray into beginner's plumbing was not the grand event I might have expected.

Besides, I hemmed and hawed over removing the pipes at all. At first it took some force to dislodge them at the joint, which was a little mineral-encrusted. It was only after taking a firm hold of the pipes above and below, and being sure that I wouldn't rip the basin from the wall like an inept Superman, that I took the plunge (so to speak).

All of which isn't hugely exciting, but entertaining to experience.

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On the piano I've tried the last(?) movement of Schubert's first trio again. For much of it I was thinking of other things and didn't struggle in the least against repeating what I remember from a recording in terms of interpretation, which I did in what I think of as my 'concert pianist' mode. The mode comes up rarely and generally makes me feel as if I were a ten-year-old who has put on her mother's dress and high heels and feels very sophisticated. But it's rather amusing while the effortlessness lasts. In the end I played it more like I think Schubert wanted, and it didn't go badly. At this point it's a wild guessing game, but I ended up adopting more or less the phrasing and some of the mezzofortes, etc., of the score without feeling hindered by it, so it must have gone reasonably well. Still, I think it's extremely helpful to introduce some foreign element to a score and then to revive one's view of it, whether it's playing the entire song on the cembalo, switching detached for staccato notes, dropping the damper pedal, or best of all to go against the grain of the music so that there is nothing facile about it. Which might sound a bit like I'll be banging my head against the noterack next for thrilling percussion effects in some vague derivation of Derrida, but I think I'm no less traditional for it.

The other thing is how 'Austrian' to make Schubert's music sound, because pleasing as it is to pick out bits of folklore and elements so typical of the region that they practically yodel at one from the page, I don't think he would entirely appreciate it if a pianist turned his works into a parochial fest along the lines of Disney films or a certain film with Julie Andrews rendering a nun. Fortunately, though, I leave the interpretation to the others when we play a trio. I do like trying things out in the piano part — different things each time, as they come to mind when we play, and they are mostly quite small.

The latest master experiment, which is to say one that I've tried in much of our three Haydn trios, is to relax and keep time according to Intuition. Which means that I wait until I have a vague feeling that I am supposed to hit the next note, instead of striking it when I become nervous about not striking it yet, or keeping mathematical time as a piano teacher (or any person with a speck of pride and musicianship) would doubtless prefer. Whether the Intuition is an unholy disaster or not, it seems to make me breathe more in time with the music. Also, what is certain is that I'm much less frazzled when I fork forth the Intuition.

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A Wintry Drifter-Seeker

Since I didn't want to post something diary-like yet, here is a poem written between university classes this spring.

Likely the first two lines quote a different poem, in fact they are 99% likely to have been plagiarized from better verse, but I can't remember which particular poem has suffered larceny. Anyway, these twin lines of course refer to etymology — that 'planet' comes from the Greek planáw — to wander.

***

O snowflake, wanderer of the skies
and planet of minute domain,
o wayfarer of tiring tries
at thwarting past the windowpane.
   Seek outside your place to stay,
   From our hearth stray far away.

O winter's chill, from airloft borne,
and casketed within the soil —
snowflake, this shall be your bourne,
the aim and tombment of your toil.
  Seek in earth your place to stay,
  For heaven hath compelled away.

O shivering branch and snivelling bud,
withhold far up the pillowed streaks;
beneath the snowflake mires in mud,
but you shall keep it from the creeks.
   Some seek in branch their place to stay
   Until they melt and drip away.

O glass-eyed sky and clouded lord —
Urane, who art wintering —
from within the heavens' ward
with hail and snowdrift lingering,
    Seek for each flake some place to stay
    And speed it briskly on its way.

***

Regardless that this isn't a poem I particularly admire, and in the end I didn't try anything really new with it, I did think it was a stimulating though airy-fairy challenge, in theory, to bring together ancient ideas of the cosmos, and poetic conventions, with modern scientific models and the tendency to atheism. In modern verse I think there isn't so much suspension of disbelief (except, perhaps, the precedented disbelief that even the inceptor knows what meaning, or lack thereof, lies in his rime), which is fairly impoverishing.

Shelley — and Syria

After a few days of hurly-burly — torrential traffic and torrential sunlight — the drooping cloud cover, meditative sunsets and fleeing winds have lent a rather autumnal air to the past few days, steeped in green though grass and tree leaf may continue to be.

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There, to press the lines of Shelley into service, will follow

O, wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O, thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the spring shall blow

Her clarion

and

Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,

Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread
On the blue surface of thine airy surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head

Of some fierce Mænad, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon

(and the rest of the poem is here.)

*

In the meantime, and not far from the sense of Shelley's Ode, the principal tumult seems to be supplied by the course of world events.

Since the camps of the Muslim Brotherhood were cleared from Raba'a and elsewhere in or around the capital of Egypt, and since the fuss surrounding the British detention of a journalist's husband on the ground of possessing journalistic material (which is safeguarded under British statute) and the supine arguments all over newspaper comment sections to the effect that this authoritarian wielding of muscle must be according to the rights of things, we have of course arrived at the seeming precipice of an Intervention in Syria.

***

A long time ago I wrote that the uprising in Syria is not something which should be encouraged and that its spreading would only create a terrible situation for the region, which has as far as I can tell been borne out by events since then. But firstly that prediction, which I once thought rather sagacious, does nothing to solve the quotidian problems of Syrians, and secondly on further consideration it wasn't really a prediction, but a mere summing up of the information which I gathered on Twitter when I was still intensively reading on the issue and which I think laid bare pretty thoroughly the risks and ambivalencies which pervade the situation.

But as far as I am aware — and this information is not borne out by my Twitter-reading but rather through past, rather cursory reading about Syria's role in the war on terror etc. —the real problem of Syria in terms of foreign aid or outside diplomacy is that it has been a harbour for the rougher aspects of Russian, American etc. intelligence operations in the Middle East for a while. The Canadian engineer who, on mistaken premises, was taken from an airport and flown by the American government to Syria in the early 2000s, to be treated as poorly as possible there while the US could pull a Pontius Pilate and wash its hands of the matter, seems one of many innocent parties who have fallen victim to this kind of Wild West. The allure of Basher Assad, which I think continues, is that he is still a secular figure with allegiances to western countries, and promises to keep Syria as a 'neutral' field given his perceived stability. It's the underpinnings of this 'stability' which, I think, need to be investigated, because whether the government cares to involve itself or be aware of it remains an issue, but I think that its authority is constructed and held by a chaos of amorality, cruelty and impunity. Unfortunately I don't think that the rebel forces are free of these horrible qualities themselves; and I think that a defining trait of Syria's Arab Spring, and one which sets it far apart from the Arab Spring in other countries (even though my general feeling is that said Spring is already radically different country by country), is the depth of the culture of brutality and the depth to which the opposition has been infected by and shares it. The actions of the US and Russia in Syria since the early 2000s — exploiting or becoming infected by this climate — likely don't bear scrutiny, either.

As for the do-gooding impulse — firstly, since the mountain of dead is already so high, the artificial distinction between chemical and other weapons has become ignobly irrelevant. Secondly, the dropping of bombs on a foreign country by a foreign government is hardly to be regarded in the light of purest altruism. There is a defense industry presumably salivating behind the home front; there are civilian deaths and unforeseen consequences — not to mention deaths of military operators or foreign citizens like journalists and UN personnel — which must be trivialized before the Greater Good in advance; and above all I think the point is to Feel Good about Doing Something with reference only to one's own ego and a few opinion columnists who agree with your rationale, completely ignoring the basic, substantial needs of the civilians on the ground.One must also rationalize — particularly in the case of the US and Britain, possibly also of France — using taxpayer funds to jettison armaments over the eastern Mediterranean while people are inching along the poverty line in a recession-struck, budgetarily bereft country which is purportedly one of the world's most prosperous. If one wanted to do actual good, one would concentrate finances and attention on the lot of Syrian refugees — not via the UNHCR but directly, ensuring sound quality of life and some hope of returning to their country undeterred by political interference or financial inability — and above all negotiate the future of Syria not based on crabbed, selfish ideology of military or intelligence objectives, but of a pragmatic desire to see the situation of Syrian civilians returned to something commensurate with their human dignity and individual rights.

Edit: A sampler of proper international conduct: "On Tuesday [Sept. 3, 2013] Sweden became the first European country to offer asylum status to any Syrian that requested it." (Syria crisis blog, TheGuardian.com)

Where Sportsyness Goes To Die, and Other Tales

At last the hottest days in the year are past — or so it would seem — and since the temperature dropped to 16° or so this afternoon I have felt quite optimistic about existence generally.

Somewhat paradoxically I decided to go for a run, according to a schedule where one runs and walks in set intervals week after week until one is, at last, capable of running 20 minutes at a time. Which is perhaps not the most challenging feat ever invented, but given my unathletic nature still considerable. The park is nearby, so I squeezed into running shoes I haven't worn in three years at least and which were already too tight twelve years ago, exchanged a skirt for trousers and put on my jacket, and went out into the world in which the rainfall was rapidly evaporating from the sidewalks and the sun had just emerged. Fortunately there were few people about, so I was slightly less self-conscious.

It soon became clear that I am quite out of form,

Part II: Die Musik — Mein Leben

Months ago I tried to live-blog my reading of Daniel Barenboim's autobiographical book which was published initially in 1991 as A Life in Music. Today I tried it again, though it can't really be called a 'live blog' if I wrote everything in one flow. Here's hoping, too, that the inaccuracies of my synopses especially of zeitgeist and other things which I don't know are forgivable!

1:41 a.m. I am hopping ahead to p. 33, which delves into Israel in the 1960s and 50s. It was, as a Jewish state, rather a confluence of different waters — American, South American, continental European and Middle Eastern Jews (which two groups, at the risk of looking like an ignoramus, I think are generally synonymous with 'Ashkenazi' and 'Sephardic'); educated as seemed typical for the emigrants to the New World or uneducated — at least fairly unworldly; and diverse in many other traits of Weltanschauung and character and tradition, I suppose, too.

In Barenboim's age group, earnest political convictions carried over into their daily life and habits, mirroring the convictions of the fully-fledged grown-ups; "It was the first time that I experienced a society that was built on idealism." There was apparently a great deal of soul-searching — what was a man's (or woman's) role in the state; what should be striven for as a citizen and as a citizenry, as a labourer on the construction site of one's own new home and of the state at large?

Lists to Conquer Labour?

Operation Be An Adult has slowed down a trifle; the employer for the cleaning position didn't telephone on the weekend. I hopped from one foot to the other on Saturday, but this excitement was tempered by the knowledge that 'there's many a slip twixt the cup and the lip'; and by now I have resolved to Be Patient. The cleaning position starts in August.

In the meantime I have begun again to skim through job postings without committing myself, to remain apprised of what is 'out there.' The process is familiar and straightforward, and most often hinges on two criteria: being sure that I could do the work, above all; and determining that the posting does not convey a jerkwad tendency. If a bakery, cleaning, etc. position demands excellent German, I see no reason not to assume that the employer is a raging xenophobe; and rhapsodies about a 'young team' or other age discrimination are thought-provoking for slightly similar reasons of general unpleasantness. Spelling is not so important for me;

Twinkletoes

In fulfillment of a girly childhood dream, besides everything else I've done lately I've also started a daily regimen of barré exercises for ballet, under the tutelage of divers people on YouTube. It is much easier at certain times of the day; I am far too embarrassed to want to grace my siblings with a sampling of my artistic endeavours (or catastrophes, if you will).

The first exercise is the plié. Ideally you turn your feet outward into the first position for this. I have managed to corral the feet in a straightish line after the first week of exercises; but mysteriously enough this only succeeds when I am in front of the computer and align my feet according to the seam in the floor in front of it. Therefore it seems to be my Lucky Spot.

Then you bend your knees outward and sink until you form a diamond with your legs. Then you stand up again.

According to the French etymology I should be thinking of delicately folding. As it is, I think of squatting; it is very hard to evoke poetry in motion if you are imagining Self as a supersized hen assuming the position to disgorge itself of an egg. A problem greatly exacerbated in the . . .

Grand plié. The feet are farther apart. In the video, the exercise practitioners sink so far down that their hips and upper legs form a kind of tabletop, propped up by their lower legs; I have not tried assuming this position exactly, having sworn a modified Hippocratean Oath: First, do not dislocate your limbs.

After that comes the relevé in the first position, which means standing with your feet outturned as in the plié and then rising to one's tippy-toes. This is quite easy, and still by the perversity of the exercise video I am only told to repeat it 16 times, rather than 32 times as with each previous ordeal.

Worse follows:

Arabic and Rainbow Flags

As the main project while I'm not cleaning yet, I've begun learning more Arabic and Farsi. The tools at hand: a Farsi-German dictionary, an Arabic reader for beginners and the entirety of the internet (outside of paywalls). So far I have copied out words and deciphered letters and meanings, with terribly slow progress wherein — after learning to recognize a, n and r with greatest confidence — I have finally remembered more.

e.g.
ابن
ibn; son

I would have assumed that the long stroke is an a, but it serves I guess as an all-purpose vowel; the b is recognizable enough even if I wouldn't remember which letter it is if I didn't look it up; the n is pleasingly easy to remember because it appears at the end of words so often and its swoopy shape with the diamond or dot over it is distinct.

***

I read another page of the Koran yesterday but found it too enigmatic to be anything but steep going; but besides that I am skimming through the chapter on hadith and sunna in Muslim Studies, by Ignaz Goldziher. Goldziher was an old-school academic who, with a large metaphorical foot in the 19th century, pioneered the western field of Islamic studies in many aspects; his choice of topics is far-ranging to the point of being as universal as you can probably become within the field. So I have wanted to read more of his work for a while. As for Edward Said's verdict, regarding the degree of 'orientalism,' a certain online encyclopaedia explains,

Of five major German orientalists, he remarked that four of them, despite their profound erudition, were hostile to Islam. Goldziher's work was an exception in that he appreciated 'Islam's tolerance towards other religions', though this was undermined [etc.]

In the hadith and sunna chapter Goldziher is discussing the transmission of legends of the Prophet. — The Koran (I think) is about the messages of God, through Gabriel, to his Prophet. For stories about Muhammad's life and manners and those of his entourage, we turn instead to the hadith, anecdotes and sayings which have been shared and recorded (at least putatively) from his closest contemporaries, particularly after his death.

These hadith are the source of the sunna, which explains how Islamic principles and Muhammad's example are to be translated into daily life. At least that is the way I'd explain it. Then there is sunna which is the opinion of a Muslim writer who has passed into the religious canon, but not founded on a specific hadith — perhaps a Christian parallel might be the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas — and I think that Goldziher describes the Shi'a as being particular partial to these little innovations.

During an Islam-and-feminism research spree I came across Asma’ bint Umays, who recorded hadith as one of several women who were important in this scholarly tradition; but Goldziher seems to think she is unreliable, though at the same time mentioning that she married Abu Bakr, who was certainly in Muhammad's circle . . .

***

This past week, thanks to Twitter I've been following the situation in Egypt — according to American-Egyptian intellectuals and activists, Egyptian journalists, correspondents in Egypt, politicians, the Army's public relations staff, Muslim Brotherhood spokespeople etc. Everything which is happening seems wrong, pragmatically and ideologically, but it might not be polite to really vent about it here.

On the whole I found the news much more cheerful during the last week of June, even though I found the partial torpedoing of the Voting Rights Act by the Supreme Court very depressing and this feeling carried over to dampen even the joy of the rulings the next day on California's anti-gay marriage state law and on the federal law of the same aim. I have the feeling it will turn out for the best after all, but none of the language which I heard from the rulings in either gay marriage case seemed to me to provide a sturdy guarantee that gay marriage will be seen as a right under the 5th amendment. In federal tax law, marriage equality might exist; and in California it might exist now too as it does in a handful of other states where no successful referenda existed; but, in every other respect, it doesn't in over 30 states. Besides, how will the federal government safeguard the rights of people who live in a state where their across-the-border wedding isn't accepted?

On the other hand I very much liked that Anthony Kennedy seems to have written that a gay marriage ban is a malicious, gratuitous, and busybody-ish denial of someone else's freedoms (in other words, that homophobes should mind their own business). As for the legal hurdles, I think that the controversiality of the Prop 8 (i.e. Californian) ruling not on moral so much as on procedural grounds is very clear if you look at who agreed and who dissented — not the usual candidates, and even the gruesome twosome of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas decided to take up opposing causes. 'At the end of the day,' however, I believe that seeing the happy photos from Stonewall, etc., made even pessimists like me a bit more cheerful.

 *  *  *  *  *

Libération

Last week I decided to leave off university and set forth into the job market. So this coming weekend I might begin working as a cleaner for a lady in Tempelhof, and we'll see if I'll take more part-time or 'mini' jobs. Eventually I hope to work in something which trains me to a satisfyingly thorough standard in some field, because I would like to do more than one kind of work very well; but I feel happy and excited about this already. There are two other job applications I sent off, and we'll see if any reply arrives eventually.

The last year of university reminded me of school, too, so now I feel emancipated from educational institutions in general. 17 years, including kindergarten, is quite enough.

Even better, I feel old enough and confident enough to make my own decisions and to deal with whatever impediments and whatever good things they cause.

To a degree there isn't much of an alternative. Whenever I begin repressing instincts and adhering to the expectations of others, I feel as if I will never grow out of childhood, and never be a whole person, or even a person whom other people can rely upon, if I continue in that manner. It leaves questions unresolved which reappear later and with which one must deal eventually. So I refuse to continue and get an undergraduate degree simply because it is generally believed to be a prerequisite for decent work.

This seems like a dramatic line of argument to append to a declaration of intent to leave university, but to paraphrase Pope, trivialities at times give rise to big events. It is an open-ended question what to do so that I will arrive at the age of eighty knowing that I have done well and that I belong; and that I have laid a sufficient foundation to live happily for some twenty or thirty years more if need be. I have learned that it is best to start as you mean to go on, and if it means relying on one's own common sense and instincts in small things now, so much the better when big things present themselves later. Which sounds a bit morbid, but not nearly as morbid as the feeling of fighting against everything and hating the necessity to die, once the Grim Reaper approaches; or of living half a life long beforehand.

Besides I think I can permit myself the luxury of making my own mistakes, because I have no one relying on me yet. If I had three or four children . . . maybe not an entirely good idea. :)

Early Renaissance Drawings of Demons

Though it would be nobler to take the trouble to write and think through some sort of commentary, not much has come to mind so I will just post three pieces of this series of very strange drawings as standalone curiosities. I came across them a few weeks ago in connection with the Ashmolean Museum. I will say that the demons look remarkably un-frightening — more comical.
***

Temptation of Faith (c. 1450), by Master E.S. (1420-68)
Copper engraving, 91 x 69 mm, in the Ashmolean Museum (L.175)
From Janez Höfler: Der Meister E.S: Ein Kapitel europäischer Kunst des 15. Jahrhunderts via Wikimedia Commons

Ermutigung im Glauben (92 x 70 mm) [via Wikimedia Commons]

Temptation of Despair (89 × 67 cm [sic?]) [via Wikimedia Commons]

A Political Rant, Mostly About the USA Scene

It's a very sunny day and fortunately not as nearly a hot a day as one of two hellish ones in the past week. After deliberating on how to navigate the U-Bahn on the way to university on those days, I ended up merely staying at home. Barack Obama, of course, had no such luck; his visit coincided with the first of these days, so he got to enjoy the 34°-in-the-shade mark as well as the humidity which had mounted for the past week or so beforehand. Since the speech was held before a preselected audience I didn't go hear it, and besides the anticipation was much greater in 2008, so I contented myself with watching the news coverage.

In the past week I read two or three romance novels online, translated from English into the Portuguese. After a while it was clear that they were homemade translations, so the English syntax and idiom was intact and probably confusing for a Portuguese reader. But it seemed more important to learn the vocabulary than any grammatical idiosyncracies, so I copied-and-pasted much of the books into Google Translate and inched through them. This pace was only really a bit disturbing when I encountered a prolonged childbirth scene; in the English original I would have sped through it, but in this particular situation little was left for me to do but to slog through it bit by bit and end up feeling pretty queasy despite holding the general conviction that it is shallow to be bothered by the miracle of existence etc. At the end of the days I almost felt as if I could write in Portuguese mas acho que é melhor não ter muita temeridade and por isso I usei Translate to check, which is a very good idea because my first attempt at a sentence was mostly Spanish with incorrect Italian thrown in.

*

After that preoccupation ended, I finally had the time and inclination to catch up with the American news again, which is even more of a circus than anywhere else so there are always good tidbits to be found. This time what occupied my thoughts most was the news of the iffy racial philosophy of a Food Network television chef, in her deposition for a court case in which she and her brother are accused of creating a terrible work environment.

For one thing, since she made a name for herself as a 'Southern' style cook, and some of her supporters are trying to excuse her peccadilloes on the grounds that she grew up in a time and a place where the 'N' word isn't so uncommon, I'm probably not the only one who sees broader ramifications regarding the centuries-long cross-Dixie squabble. For one thing, in a sense much of the outrage which Southerners expend in internet comments (Gawker and elsewhere) on arguing that Yankees mischaracterize and exaggerate the quantity and quality of racism in the South, is being temporarily forgotten; this tradition of racism — much denied — is suddenly being reclaimed from the historical ether.

Quotidianity on a Rainy Wednesday

This afternoon I decided to cook chicken broth for a separate recipe, and since Ge. bought the few ingredients and Mama had bought three bundles of asparagus yesterday, it all went into a meal.

First I fried the soup chicken in a little oil since it is supposed to improve the flavour, and threw in the celeriac while I was at it. Then I took them out of the pot and put salted water to a boil, and chopped up the remaining 'soup greens' (Suppengrün: e.g. three carrots, a small leek, a willowy parsnip and curly parsley as well as a celeriac fragment), and then threw them into the water gradually after the chicken had already found a home in it. Then it boiled and boiled, I skimmed off a little of the protein? which flocked to the rim, and I added a quartered tomato since one was sitting around and the weather does not conduce to palatable longevity.

Part of the broth then went into a beaker for the sake of the recipe for which it is intended, and I added asparagus stock to the rest on Mama's recommendation. After that came the fun bit of sprinkling in salt for flavour, and then hoisting out the chicken and reducing it to bite-size little pieces of boiled meat with the assistance of a fork and our most enormous carving knife. Which also took a while.

It was a cloudy and mildly tempestuous day today; oak leaves being blasted in the wind and showing their greyish undersides, tropically large drops of rain, etc. Uncle Pu was there for a visit, so in the evening we ended up playing the customary three Haydn trios again. Lately I've been playing mostly Beethoven's late sonatas and bits of Chopin, though not so much today, when I turned to the cembalo and tried out Baroque pieces.

It may be silly or obvious or venom to the soul of a true connoisseur, but one of the best ideas to approach a Baroque piece seems to me to be to consider it carefully and assign a particular method to playing the different values of notes. Sometimes I play all of the eighth notes staccato, sometimes the quarter notes; sometimes I play them detached or play them legato, and often I do something different in the left hand. It sounds quite good once one strikes the right balance, and I think Glenn Gould did something similar. And, frankly, I think it just sounds bad in my case if I don't do it.