Voice of a Century

 

 Maria Callas (2 December 1923 – 16 September 1977)

Wolfram is back

Just in time for the start of the month, Wichtel Wolfram is back in No. 10.
He would even have moved in a night earlier, but unfortunately, as he wrote, he was unable to install his door, let alone make himself comfortable, as everything was clogged with toys, which he asked to be cleared away by the next evening.
Which of course happened immediately.

And so - "Hooray, hooray!" – Wolfram is back, writes that he is so pleased to be allowed by his boss to spend the pre-Christmas period with the same lovely family as last year, but asks for indulgence that everything still looks very much like a construction site. "I do suddenly feel very exhausted from all the lugging around and have to treat my self to a nap first."
However, he had already unwrapped a small gift – a Christmas calendar to listen to, on which a story is unlocked every day until 24 December.

First snow, late cranes

Opening my eyes yesterday morning,
first snow had been falling.

Few hours later I heard them singing.

But why would they fly northwards?!

Beers & Books CCCXL – In the Borderland

I'd suggest:
In the Borderland

Sherko Fatah * 28 November 1964

Beers & Books CCCXXXIX – Der kurze Sommer der Anarchie

Anarchy's brief summer:
the life and death of Buenaventura Durruti

 
Hans Magnus Enzensberger (11 November 1929 – 24 November 2022)

 

Beers & Books CCCXXXVIII – Never let me go

Never Let Me Go

Kazuo Ishiguro *8 November 1954

Beers & Books CCCXXXVII – German Autumn

German Autumn (1946)

Stig Dagerman (5 October 1923 – 4 November 1954)

Adios for a while

Surrounded by books
writing is nothing but joy.
And nights getting long.

Saturday Night Music – Moon Song*

Asmik Grigorian * 12 May 1981

Rusalka

Antonin Dvořák (8 September 1848 – 1 May 1904)

* for Paula @ el racó de sa luna ;-)

Friday is Skyday

Same procedure as last week.

Laughing Lhursday*

Cat(s) as cat(s) can.

* [For first time visitors]:

Typo in the title?
Nah. It's just that I would not let a tiny T spoil an avantgardistic alliteration.

Beers & Books CCCXXXVI – Codename Adler

Code name Adler (Eagle)
Klaus Barbie and the Western secret services*

 
* Also highly recommended:
Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie, which in 1988 won Marcel Ophuls the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature

Enough

The older I get, the less time I have to be diplomatic, which is why I'm not ill-disposed to (at least largely) put an end to blogging at the end of this month.
Time to write! Without scissors in head.
To put it with Seamus Heaney:
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests. ...

In praise of ...

Digging

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun.

Under my window a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbed
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rotted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade,
Just like his old man.


My grandfather could cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, digging down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mold, the squelch and slap
Of soggy neat the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.

Seamus Heaney

Friday is Skyday

Rain barrel fillers approaching

Laughing Lhursday*

The last visitor

* [For first time visitors]:

Typo in the title?
Nah. It's just that I would not let a tiny T spoil an avantgardistic alliteration.

 

Beers & Books CCCXXXV – Road to Brightcity

...

Máirtaín O'Cadhain (1906 – 18 October 1970)

Reconnaissance flight

On its way to the trout farm ...

Beers & Books CCCXXXIV – The Swan

The Swan

Guðbergur Bergsson (16 October 1932 – 4 September 2023)

Yummy

Courgettes, mangold, peppers.
And as there are still lots of tomatoes,
today we produced another ten jars each
of spice ketchup and curry ketchup.
Yummy.

Three feasts

Feast of colours,
feast for the bee,
feast for my eyes.

Friday the 13th

Friday the 13th started well:
Which ones from my wishlist
might be waiting for me there
so nicely packaged.
Control yourself, Sean.
First of all,
inaugurate the fancy ceramic grater.
Off to the kitchen!

Today 531 years ago

 The American who was the first to discover Columbus made a nasty discovery.

Der Amerikaner, der den Kolumbus zuerst entdeckte,
machte eine böse Entdeckung. [G 183]

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742 - 1799)

Laughing Lhursday*

This is ...

... no fairy tale.

 

* [For first time visitors]:

Typo in the title?
Nah. It's just that I would not let a tiny T spoil an avantgardistic alliteration.

Cat and mouse

Not even in Seanhenge can be overridden
what seems to be natural law.
In this case, a suddenly approaching distraction ensured
that the little mouse escaped with its life.

"Tous les cris, c'est de la douleur"*

Jacques Brel (8 April 1929 – 9 Ocober 1978)

* All the crying is pain

Less and more

While getting almost 90 percent
less apples than in '22,
this was an extraordinary
good onions-peppers-and tomato-year.

 

We might even go nuts. ;-)

John Hume: It is time

“[...] The renewal of Ireland is scarcely thinkable outside the process of the development of a political and cultural Europe. [...] It (the EU; sj) is the greatest example of conflict resolution in the history of humanity. Nations who for centuries invaded each other, occupied each other’s territories, expelled each other’s peoples and massacred each other, came together freely to bury their old hatreds. [...] But the fact that these nations have preserved their identities is even more encouraging. It proves that institutions can be created to pursue common objectives without sacrificing Europe’s diversity of culture and traditions. [...] The more people are given responsibility for their future, the more they show their ability to take such responsibility. The more people believe that their political institutions belong to them, the more effective those institutions will be. [...] Working for a new Ireland in a new Europe [...] It is time to look honestly at the virtues and defects of our society and find new answers capable of preparing us for the challenges which lie ahead. It is time to paint a realistic portrait of society and to abandon the consolation of outmoded imaginary mental pictures. We need the courage to imagine new perspectives which will help us to formulate answers to the questions of social diversity, possible political institutions and the eventual resolution of our conflict. ”

John Hume in Everything is Political in a divided Society. Above excerpts were taken from “Arguing at the Crossroads – Essays on a changing Ireland”, 1997, pp 105/106.

John Hume (18 January 1937 – 3 August 2020)

Beers & Books CCCXXXIII – Cage Eleven

...

 

Gerry Adams *6 October 1948

Long Kesh

Happy 112th, Flannie!

When health is bad and your heart feels strange,
And your face is pale and wan,
When doctors say that you need a change,
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.

 
Flann O'Brien * 5 October 1911*

* In case anyone should miss a date of death:
No, he did not die on 1 April 1966. Flann fooled you all, folks.

Instead of a rant

A few ...

more dahlias ...

to calm ...

my blood.

Colour mix

Blue, green, white, yellow.

Chimney

Chimney - well, and a bit of sky.

October

Not only the buzzard flies.
Time as well.
It's October again.

Friday is Skyday

18:32

Just a daily phenomenon

The last potatoes digged up, the field rakened and green manure sowed, one morello tree shortened by about two metres, peppermint and sage picked and dried;
... that happened end of August. Ah! And the magic of all those flowers ...

Meanwhile almost four weeks have flown by; since, there has happened quite a lot on this planet quite a few of which you might even have come to "know" as it has been covered in (y)our media.
One daily news you will neither have read in your daily newspaper nor heard elsewhere, though, as being published / told day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year, decade by decade that yesterday approximately 30 / 40,000 children have been dying of starvation would be bloody depressing ... well, at least damn boring, would you agree?

Life is difficult enough to thoroughly enjoy, isn't it? If only I think of that the other day a bit too much sea-salt in the tomato soup spoilt my dinner.

Who in our civilised world would be able to care about how many women have been raped in Congo or elsewhere, while I was kept busy with picking plums, for hours? I mean, it's not my or your business. I can't change anything, can I? And neither can you, hm?

Not that I would not feel pity, whenever I come to think of it for some seconds now and then; but that's life, isn't it?

One is getting raped, a second tortured, a third murdered, while I am busy with watching butterflies and (bumble-)bees enjoying their kind of milk and honey that is flowing in Seanhenge, and while you perhaps are struggling with what outfit to choose for tomorrow's dinner party.

Ah, I should not have started this. Did I write 30,000 children per day?
That means, 750,000 children within 25 days, doesn't it? Phew!

Coming to think of it: Isn't it wonderful, magic well-nigh, that despite of this marginal phenomenon not worth to daily make its way into the news, there are living more than eight billion human beings on this wonderful planet, thus about four times more than when I was born, about 20 years more than half a century ago?

Thinking positive - and aren't we told to always think positive?! - we are blessed that day by day 30- / 40,000 children are dying of starvation, aren't we?

Ah, no! Really! See? Such easily a post's content is being manipulated by thoughts about marginal daily phenomenons that are not worth mentioning.

Let alone, that I can be absolutely sure that those who are reading this are able to distinguish cynism from sarcasm, it's a great relief to know that most of those poor? nameless? anyway: unnamed creatures - and I am not talking about those 40,000 children who day by day are leaving this planet to enjoy life in this or that paradise, depending of the god their still somehow surviving parents are made to believe in - are analphabets.

In this sense.
A most joyous week to those
able to read.
May your god bless you,
and if it (read: your god) were the head of a dead sardine.

Enjoy
the peace of the night ...

in which - provided you are sleeping eight hours - approximately some more than 10,000 children are dying of starvation.

Friday is Skyday

Looking northwards at 12:14:25

Looking southwards at 12:16:37

 

Satur(day)ation

The last potato cellared for this year,
my heart rose up like a falcon to the sky:
Two bees and a bumble-bee 
enjoying a sunflower feast.

Friday is Skyday

. . .

 

Laughing Lhursday*

Once again I feel relieved
that Fortune favours fools,
or as a German saying goes,
"Die dümmsten Bauern
ernten die größten Kartoffeln."
/
"The dumbest farmers
harvest the biggest potatoes".

Sometimes a saying
can be a great comfort.

* [For first time visitors]: Typo in the title? Nah. It's just that
I would not let a tiny T spoil an avantgardistic alliteration.

 

Kind of Idyll

It's been raining.

Bowing to courageous journalists

Freedom of the press is not only endangered in war zones or dictatorships.

Today, the 1st Hamburg Press Freedom Week began; with interesting guests talking about interesting topics.

Coincidence it's September 11?

My thoughts go back ... no, not 22 years. 50 years.

September 11, 1973: Chilean coup d'état

Never shall I forget this day and the atrocities that followed. 

And I shan't forget José Carrasco. 

Chile, my tortured country

In the morning hours of 8 September 1986, shortly after a regrettably unsuccessful assassination attempt on General Pinochet, José Carrasco, editor of the magazine Análisis, was kidnapped from his flat and shot by a death squad at a cemetery wall.
The cemetery wall became a site of resistance. Residents of the adjacent poor quarter painted the wall white and decorated it with flowers.
At first, policemen came every night, painted the wall black, tore out the flowers, even sawed off an iron cross the poor of Caonchali had put up.
There, people who barely had enough money to eat, let alone buy newspapers, demanded freedom of speech and honoured the courage of the journalist and his colleagues.
Take my words as a tribute to all those who had, have and will have the courage to speak out against injustice, arbitrariness and totalitarianism of any kind.
I am not sure I would have been or would be so courageous.
The peace of the night.

Another pleasure for the eyes

Yucca filamentosa

 

Marguerites ... and the Master

As I am just once again re-reading
Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita
and to please Paula with her favourite flower.

Friday is Skyday

Late August
these were messengers of much rain.

Insects Bar

Especially during the dry period
in early summer, uncounted insects
appreciated this safe place
to quench their thirst or
simply enjoy a refreshing bath.