Beers & Books Havel

Moc Bezmocných* (1978)
literally translated:
The Power of the Powerless
*
The German publishers titled:
Versuch, in der Wahrheit zu leben
(Attempt to Live in Truth)
1980 / 1989 / 1990
*
The English title:
Living in Truth (1986)

 

Václav Havel (5 October 1936 – 18 December 2011)

Laughing Lhursday*

Natural Arts:
Butterface on knife point

* [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 XXXIX – Edna O'Brien

Today no beer.
On Edna O'Brien's 90th birthday
I shall raise a glass of wine
on her good health.
Sláinte, Saoi!
Agus go raibh maith agat as gach.

Edna O'Brien *15 December 1930

La Cetra Barockorchester Basel

La Cetra Barockorchester Basel

Monochrome Monday

 Bonjour tristesse.

 

Mail on Sunday

Today it's to be read on the frontpage of an English newspaper that Merkel wants Britain to crawl across broken glass.
Cited is an unspecified source as saying that the German chancellor was determined to see Britain suffer rather than reach a compromise on the sticking points of future government aid and fishing.

And who would not immediately and wholeheartedly believe?! After all it is coming from excellently educated journalists whose living is clean, whose manners are impeccable and who would never lie.

The more surprised I got, when my always trustworthy and absolutely reliable source let me know that she had heard by someone who knows the cousin of the doctor who had once got the opportunity to look in said journalist's brain, that instead of grey matter the one who had written the above has brown matter in his head.
Before I could ask for more details my always best-informed source went on:
"There is no need to worry for the average English(wo)man who does not only want her respectively his money but also her  respectively his sovereignty back.
Alternative fact is that each week 350 million quid will be pumped into the NHS, farmers will become rich, and the blessed English sovereigns will not be able to eat all the fish brave English fisherman will bring back from sea, escorted and protected against all the evil fishermen from abroad."

I hardly could believe my ears.
Finally my extraordinary credible source quoted Heinrich Heine on his 223rd birthday:  

"I have never seen an ass who wrote like a human being, but I have met many human beings who wrote like asses."

P.S. On request of A.Brit, readers may in their grey (sic!) matter replace England and English with GREAT Britain and British, because, of course, the people in Northern Ireland, in Scotland and Wales are blessed GREAT British sovereigns, too, and thus also will enjoy all the most wonderful fruits of what is their majority's will.

Beers & Books XXXVIII

"Where one burns books
one ultimately burns people."
- Almansor, 1832 -

  Heinrich Heine (13. December 1797 – 17 February 1856)

Saturday Night Music

 

Elīna Garanča *16 September 1976

The Noble Handke, Karadžić and the Leuchter Report

Reading what I posted last year on December 10th, I thought it's worth to get re-posted.

- -

How cometh, tonight I remember an episode of October 10th? Anyway, I do, as well as I know one ought not to disturb my friend while he is busy with proof-reading his 1669 pages short opus magnum "Pre-Assyrian Philately in a Nutshell".

I, entering his sanctuary.

He, without looking up: You would not dare to ask for my opinion about the Nobel Comitee's decision?

– Now you ask.

– Inconsequent.

– Inconsequent?

– Quite. Consequent would have been, had they split the Prize: 430,000 Euro for Handke, and 430,000 for the great poet Radovan Karadžić.

– You are kidding, Tetrapilotomos. Don't like Peter Handke, eh?

– An overrated egomaniac.

– It's easy to criticise. Did you read anything of him, perhaps, The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick?

- This and enough to see that, from the beginning, when Offending the Audience, he was an overrated bore. And now he's but an old fart.

- He will be able to live with that.

- Unfortunately, yes.

– May I ask if you read A Journey to the Rivers: Justice for Serbia?

– You may.

– And? Did you?

– Yes. 1996. In the Süddeutsche Zeitung. In the same year I also read "The Poet's Anxiety at the Reality"*, in which 16 journalists and authors had answered to the Handke Report, amongst them Marcel Ophuls, Dževad Karahasan, Bora Ćosić and Günter Kunert.

– Handke Report?

– Yes, Would have been the right title for what obviously is his opus magnum; showing his character in a nutshell.

– You would not mean, Handke Report analogue to a certain Leuchter Report, would you?

– Now you surprise me, Sean.

– You mean, he made his winterly journey allegedly to prove Serbian atrocities only to find out: Fake news?

– Well, fake news make presidents. Why not Nobel Prize Winners? In other words: Why should very young external advisors of the Nobel-Prize-Comitee be not as stupid as simple voters?

– Is it as simple as that?

– Well, perhaps one day they find time to read "The Little Red Chairs" and come to the conclusion that, amongst a few others, Edna O'Brien would have been the better choice.

* Die Angst des Dichters vor der Wirklichkeit, © Steidl Verlag, 1996

Beers & Books XXXVII

Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha

 Roddy Doyle *8 May 1958

Beers & Books XXXVI

A Manual for Cleaning Women

 
Lucia Berlin (12 November 1936 – 12 November 2004)

Monochrome Monday

15:08

 Update:

In "full colour"
it does, of course, look nice, too.

Beers&Books XXXV

Thanks, Saint Nicholas!
This morning in my boots I found
exactly the six books I had asked for.
Plus: A bottle of Talisker.
I almost fainted:
of joy and disappointment.
Had not my third wish been
to find the author in my boot
so that, after all,
we could share the bottle?!
Oh well,
to prove my good will
I shall drink each second wee dram
on his behalf.
Sláinte, Andrew!

P.S. In a little note I just discovered
where usually my toes are to be found,
St. Nicholas let me know
that it would have been his pleasure
to present me with the author,
"but your boots are to small".