Serene Falcon

And The Falcon Soared

March 10th, 2010 at 2:30 am (High Germany, Norse, Odin, Other, Poetry, The King of Terrors)

THY rest was deep at the slumberer’s hour
      If thou didst not hear the blast
Of the savage horn, from the mountain-tower,
      As the Wild Night-Huntsman pass’d,
And the roar of the stormy chase went by,
      Through the dark unquiet sky !

The stag sprung up from his mossy bed
      When he caught the piercing sounds,
And the oak-boughs crash’d to his antler’d head
      As he flew from the viewless hounds;
And the falcon soar’d from her craggy height,
      Away through the rushing night !

The banner shook on its ancient hold,
      And the pine in its desert-place,
As the cloud and tempest onward roll’d
      With the din of the trampling race;
And the glens were fill’d with the laugh and shout,
      And the bugle, ringing out !

From the chieftain’s hand the wine-cup fell,
      At the castle’s festive board,
And a sudden pause came o’er the swell
      Of the harp’s triumphal chord;
And the Minnesinger’s thrilling lay
      In the hall died fast away.

The convent’s chanted rite was stay’d,
      And the hermit dropp’d his beads,
And a trembling ran through the forest-shade,
      At the neigh of the phantom steeds,
And the church-bells peal’d to the rocking blast
      As the Wild Night-Huntsman pass’d.

The storm hath swept with the chase away,
      There is stillness in the sky,
But the mother looks on her son to-day,
      With a troubled heart and eye,
And the maiden’s brow hath a shade of care
      Midst the gleam of her golden hair !

The Rhine flows bright, but its waves ere long
      Must hear a voice of war,
And a clash of spears our hills among,
      And a trumpet from afar;
And the brave on a bloody turf must lie,
      For the Huntsman hath gone by !

Felicia Hemans : The Wild Huntsman
 
 
It is a popular belief in the Odenwald, that the passing of the Wild Huntsman announces the approach of war. He is supposed to issue with his train from the ruined castle of Rodenstein, and traverse the air to the opposite castle of Schnellerts. It is confidently asserted that the sound of his phantom horses and hounds was heard by the Duke of Baden before the commencement of the last war in Germany.
 
 
 
 

Comments

The Expression Of Correct Concepts

February 21st, 2010 at 8:15 pm (Correctitude, High Germany, Manners not Morals, Other, Royalism)

        I have never attached another value to words than that of the expression of correct concepts, to theories never the value of deeds, and I have always regarded preconceived systems as the product of leisured heads or the outburst of emotional minds.
        Not in the struggle of society towards progress, but rather in progression towards the true goods: towards freedom as the inevitable yield of order; towards equality in its only applicable degree of that before the law; towards prosperity, inconceivable without the foundation of moral and material peace; towards credit, which can rest only on the basis of trust — in all that I have recognised the duty of government and the true salvation for the governed.
        I have looked upon despotism of every kind as a symptom of weakness. Where it appears, it is a self-punitive evil, most intolerable when it poses behind the mask of promoting the cause of freedom.

        The concept of the balancing of powers ( proposed by Montesquieu ) has always appeared to me only as a conceptual error of the English constitution, impractical in its application, because the concept of such a balancing is rooted in the assumption of an eternal struggle, instead of in that of peace, the first necessity for the life and prosperity of states.
        The care for the inner life of states has always had for me the worth of the most important task for governments.
        As the foundations for politics I recognise the concepts of right and equity and not the sole calculations of use, whilst I look upon capricious politics as an ever self-punitive confusion of the spirit.

        My conduct is a prosaic and not a poetical one. I am a man of right, and reject in all things appearance where it divides as such from truth, thereupon deprived as the foundation of right, where it must inevitably dissolve into error.

        For me the word “freedom” has not the value of a starting-point, but rather that of an actual point of arrival. The word “order” denotes the starting-point. Only on the concept of order can that of freedom rest. Without the foundation of order, the call for freedom is nothing more than the striving of some party after an envisaged end. In its actual use, the call inevitably expresses itself as tyranny. Whilst I have at all times and in all situations ever been a man of order, my striving was addressed to true and not deceptive freedom. In my eyes, tyranny of any kind has only the value of absolute nonsense. As a means to an end, I mark it as the most vapid that time and circumstance is able to place at the disposal of rulers.
        The concept of order in view of legislation — the foundation of order — is, in consequence of the conditions under which states live, capable of the most varied application. Considered as constitution, it will prove itself best for any state that answers to the demands of both the material conditions and those moral conditions peculiar to the national character. There is no universal recipe for constitutions, just as little as there is some universal means for the boosting of health.

        I did not govern the empire. Therein the powers at every level were not just strictly administered and directed to their competences, but rather in this regard were even relinquished to trepidation, which brought hesitancy to the course of affairs. The principle of government of the Emperor Francis was set forth in the motto “Justitia regnorum fundamentum”, not only as it lay in his spirit and character, but also as it served him as strict guide in all governmental affairs. He agreed with my observation that the axiom, correct in its point of origin, could be abrogated in the excessive practice of particular cases, but he usually added: “I was born and through my status appointed for the execution of justice; the inevitable hardness in particular cases is better than the slackening of rule through too many exceptions.” My motto is “Strength in Right”. Both sayings run together in meaning, except that the imperial motto has an abstractly judicial significance, whereas mine has a significance more grounded in state law. In this regard, the motto “Recta tueri”, suggested by me to Emperor Ferdinand upon his most supreme accession, bids a further nuance.

Excerpts from The Political Testament of Klemens Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar, Fürst von Metternich-Winneburg zu Beilstein, as translated by Deoholwulf, Keeper of The Joy of Curmudgeonry

Full text here.

Comments

Kaiserlich

December 25th, 2009 at 5:00 pm (High Germany, Music, Self)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Emmerich Kalman — Czardas Medley
The Johann Strauss Orchestra of, and conducted by, André Rieu

Never let us forget that to each’s infinite credit, the usurper Hitler, delighting in his awesome melodic prowess, offered Kalman Honorary Aryanship and that Kalman refused it.

Comments

Where Skims The Gull The Baltic Waves

June 29th, 2008 at 3:15 am (High Germany, Music, Poetry, Self)

WHERE is the German’s fatherland ?
The Prussian land? The Swabian land ?
Where Rhine the vine-clad mountain laves ?
Where skims the gull the Baltic waves ?
Ah, no, no, no !
His fatherland ’s not bounded so !

Where is the German’s fatherland ?
Bavarian land ? or Stygian land ?
Where sturdy peasants plough the plain ?
Where mountain-sons bright metal gain ?
Ah, no, no, no !
His fatherland’s not bounded so !

Where is the German’s fatherland ?
The Saxon hills ? The Zuyder strand ?
Where sweep wild winds the sandy shores
Where loud the rolling Danube roars ?
Ah, no, no, no !
His fatherland ’s not bounded so !

Where is the German’s fatherland ?
Then name, then name the mighty land !
The Austrian land in fight renowned ?
The Kaiser’s land with honors crowned ?
Ah, no, no, no !
His fatherland ’s not bounded so !

Where is the German’s fatherland ?
Then name, then name the mighty land !
The land of Hofer ? land of Tell ?
This land I know, and love it well;
But, no, no, no !
His fatherland ’s not bounded so !

Where is the German’s fatherland ?
Is his the pieced and parceled land
Where pirate-princes rule ? A gem
Torn from the empire’s diadem?
Ah, no, no, no !
Such is no German’s fatherland.

Where is the German’s fatherland ?
Then name, oh, name the mighty land !
Wherever is heard the German tongue,
And German hymns to God are sung !
This is the land, thy Hermann’s land;
This, German, is thy fatherland.

This is the German’s fatherland,
Where faith is in the plighted hand,
Where truth lives in each eye of blue,
And every heart is staunch and true.
This is the land, the honest land,
The honest German’s fatherland.

This is the land, the one true land,
O God, to aid be thou at hand !
And fire each heart, and nerve each arm,
To shield our German homes from harm,
To shield the land, the one true land,
One Deutschland and one fatherland !

Ernst Moritz Arndt : Was ist das deutsche Vaterland ?

Arndt was not a good man, for he was a liberal; yet he partially atoned by proving that if the Devil must have the all good tunes, he also acquires striking lyricists to complement them well…

To demonstrate that the less mundane, and more subtle, system of absolute monarchism can subvert revolutionary liberal impulses and turn them to light, Franz Liszt — above politics and kaisertreue, put the above anthem to music, dedicated to King Friedrich Wilhelm IV who then bestowed one of the earliest civilian Pour le Merites in return…

Comments

Sure Of Hand

June 12th, 2008 at 5:00 am (Art, High Germany, Literature, Other, Self)

Jamie has this gift also, the gift of the compelling eye — which is not to be confused with the evil eye, nor yet witchcraft — which suggests to the unwary and lesser-willed the pure unreason of unobedience [ I wish I had it... ]

She believed profoundly in herself and in the suggestions of her own imagination. So fixed and unalterable was that belief that it amounted to positive knowledge, so far as it constituted a motive of action. In her strange youth wild dreams had possessed her, and some of them, often dreamed again, had become realities to her now. Her powers were natural, those gifts which from time to time are seen in men and women, which are alternately scoffed at as impostures, or accepted as facts, but which are never understood either by their possessor or by those who witness the results. She had from childhood the power to charm with eye and hand all living things, the fascination which takes hold of the consciousness through sight and touch and word, and lulls it to sleep. It was witchery, and she was called a witch. In earlier centuries her hideous fate would have been sealed from the first day when, under her childish gaze, a wolf that had been taken alive in the Bohemian forest crawled fawning to her feet, at the full length of its chain, and laid its savage head under her hand, and closed its bloodshot eyes and slept before her.

I was fond of F. Marion Crawford’s The Witch of Prague as a child, and though he wasn’t prone to incident in his unelaborate plotting, few could deny the beauty of his descriptive, suggestively so, powers.

The man introduced him into a spacious hall and closed the door, leaving him to his own reflections. The place was very wide and high and without windows, but the broad daylight descended abundantly from above through the glazed roof and illuminated every corner. He would have taken the room for a conservatory, for it contained a forest of tropical trees and plants, and whole gardens of rare southern flowers. Tall letonias, date palms, mimosas and rubber trees of many varieties stretched their fantastic spikes and heavy leaves half-way up to the crystal ceiling; giant ferns swept the polished marble floor with their soft embroideries and dark green laces; Indian creepers, full of bright blossoms, made screens and curtains of their intertwining foliage; orchids of every hue and of every exotic species bloomed in thick banks along the walls. Flowers less rare, violets and lilies of the valley, closely set and luxuriant, grew in beds edged with moss around the roots of the larger plants and in many open spaces. The air was very soft and warm, moist and full of heavy odours as the still atmosphere of an island in southern seas, and the silence was broken only by the light plash of softly-falling water.

He who has won woman in the face of daring rivals, of enormous odds, of gigantic obstacles, knows what love means; he who has lost her, having loved her, alone has measured with his own soul the bitterness of earthly sorrow, the depth of total loneliness, the breadth of the wilderness of despair. And he who has sorrowed long, who has long been alone, but who has watched the small, twinkling ray still burning upon the distant border of his desert—the faint glimmer of a single star that was still above the horizon of despair—he only can tell what utter darkness can be upon the face of the earth when that last star has set for ever. With it are gone suddenly the very quarters and cardinal points of life’s chart, there is no longer any right hand or any left, any north or south, any rising of the sun or any going down, any forward or backward direction in his path, any heaven above, or any hell below. The world has stood still and there is no life in the thick, black stillness. Death himself is dead, and one living man is forgotten behind, to mourn him as a lost friend, to pray that some new destroyer, more sure of hand than death himself, may come striding through the awful silence to make an end at last of the tormented spirit, to bear it swiftly to the place where that last star ceased to shine, and to let it down into the restful depths of an unremembering eternity. But into that place, which is the soul of man, no destroyer can penetrate; that solitary life neither the sword, nor pestilence, nor age, nor eternity can extinguish; that immortal memory no night can obscure. There was a beginning indeed, but end there can be none.

Here also is one of his pretty short stories: For The Blood Is The Life

 
As to Prague itself, it was no doubt a fine city, from when it was the capital of the Old Reich to the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; yet I do have some distance from all things Czech: excessive nationalism from when they first began their interesting practice of throwing people out of high windows and set off the most devastating war in modern history; a wry humour allied to a smug morosity similar to that of my own people which insisted on striving for barren independent democracy; and, of course, the depraved vengefulness which sped possibly the most unspeakable atrocities on Germans of any nation which had been under the nazi control ( after an occupation which was as collaborative as most [ they supplied superb weaponry with all their noted craftsmanship and the occupation was not as grim as in, say, Poland ] ) — here’s one link, but I’ve read far, far worse… If the Russians were dreadful, they were restrained compared to some of the smaller regimes which were to become their future puppets. Besides, they honoured the Grand Tradition by chucking Jan Masaryk — ghastly son of a still ghastlier father — out of a window…

 
Still Art has nothing to do with politics, and Bohemia even in it’s despicable guise of the late scarcely lamented Czechoslovakia had some severely unknown artists:
here’s a site devoted to Tavik František Šimon

 
with pages upon his confreres such as Hugo Böttinger

 
Mucha is naturally well-known, yet Golden Age Comic Stories blog has some nice examples of his work on the 8th June entry — for some reason I cannot link directly to posts there; this blog has a large resource of illustrative fantasy ranging from the fascinating to the banal [ I have to say I despise classical comic book 'art' and such genre; and find it generally as debased and weak-minded as say it's successors in film such as Star Wars or Star Trek ].

 
Finally, here’s another Perchta…

[ Although I have to preface this by pointing out that the painting above the snippet, Vincent Neumann's Witch on a Broom --- reffing to above mention of Bohemian witches... --- is uncannily reminiscent of Auld Scotia right up to the present time. Go into any Edinburgh pub. ]

 
The White Lady von Rosenberg
Perchta von Rosenberg, known as the White Lady, lived in the Český Krumlov castle in the 15th century. Her father, Ulrich II. von Rosenberg married her off against her will and without love to the Moravian lord Johann von Lichtenstein who was cruel to Perchta all her life. When Johann was dying he had Perchta called in and asked her for forgiveness. She refused, and her husband cursed her. Since then, the soul of the White Lady von Rosenberg has had to roam the Rosenberg castles and tends to appear before significant events. White gloves on her hand bear good tidings, whereas black gloves are a sign of impending disaster. Tales of the White Lady is a theme for many authors.

This is from the Tales & Legends bit of the site of Český Krumlov Castle.

Apart from the fact I find the notion of forgiveness unmanly and fairly inexplicable, the trouble here is that under no rational or irrational standard can forgiveness be demanded, and why this poor girl should have to expiate her lack of pity for the brutish lout who had injured her is totally beyond me.

 
I blame christianity.

Comments

Behold Thy Virgin Daughters

April 29th, 2008 at 2:00 am (High Germany, Melancholy, Other, Poetry, Spengler)

Last night I idly considered the tragic life and death of Anna Nicole Smith, and wondered why the keepers of Amerika still have not yet transformed the Statue of Liberty into her likeness — for that life and death perfectly capture the parallel destiny of the land… A century ago George S. Viereck wrote this predictive fantasy. He was quintessentially an odd bird, and despite some sympathy for his Hohenzollern cousins was rather a teutonophile than in any way royalist, yet his Germanic imagination qualified him as a seer.

 
PRELUDE

THE EMPIRE CITY

HUGE steel-ribbed monsters rise into the air
Her Babylonian towers, while on high
Like gilt-scaled serpents glide the swift trains by,
Or, underfoot, creep to their secret lair.
A thousand lights are jewels in her hair,
The sea her girdle, and her crown the sky,
Her life-blood throbs, the fevered pulses fly,
Immense, defiant, breathless she stands there

And ever listens in the ceaseless din,
Waiting for him, her lover who shall come,
Whose singing lips shall boldly claim their own
And render sonant what in her was dumb:
The splendour and the madness and the sin,
Her dreams in iron and her thoughts of stone.

I

NINEVEH

O NINEVEH, thy realm is set
Upon a base of rock and steel
From where the under-rivers fret
High up to where the planets reel.

Clad in a blazing coat of mail,
Above the gables of the town
Huge dragons with a monstrous trail
Have pillared pathways up and down.

And in the bowels of the deep
Where no man sees the gladdening sun,
All night without the balm of sleep
The human tide rolls on and on.

The Hudson’s mighty waters lave
In stern caress thy granite shore,
And to thy port the salt sea wave
Brings oil and wine and precious ore.

Yet if the ocean in its might
Should rise confounding stream and bay,
The stain of one delirious night
Not all the tides can wash away.

Thick pours the smoke of thousand fires,
Life throbs and beats relentlessly —
But lo, above the stately spires
Two lemans: Death and Leprosy.

What fruit shall spring from such embrace ?
Ah, even thou wouldst quake to hear !
He bends to kiss her loathsome face,
She laughs — and whispers in his ear.

Sit not too proudly on thy throne,
Think on thy sisters, them that fell;
Not all the hosts of Babylon
Could save her from the jaws of hell.

II

Through the long alleys of the park
On noiseless wheels and delicate springs,
Glide painted women fair and dark,
Bedecked with silks and jewelled things.

In peacock splendour goes the rout
With shrill, loud laughter of the mad —
Red lips to suck thy life-blood out,
And eyes too weary to be sad !

Their feet go down to shameful death,
They flaunt the livery of their wrong,
Their beauty is of Ashtoreth,
Her strength it is that makes them strong.

Behold thy virgin daughters, how
They know the smile a wanton wears;
And oh ! on many a boyish brow
The blood-red brand of murder flares.

See, through the crowded streets they fly,
Like doves before the gathering storm.
They cannot rest, for ceaselessly
In every heart there dwells a worm.

They sing in mimic joy, and crown
Their temples to the flutes of sin;
But no sweet noise shall ever drown
The whisper of the worm within.

They revel in the gilded line
Of lamplit halls to charm the night,
But think you that the crimson wine
Can veil the horror from their sight ?

Ah, no — their staring eyes are led
To where it lurks with hideous leer:
Therefore the women flush so red,
And all the men are white with fear.

As in a mansion vowed to lust,
Where wantons with their guests make free,
‘Tis thus thou humblest in the dust
Thy queenly body, Nineveh !

Thy course is downward; ’tis the road
To sins that even where disgrace
And shameful pleasure walk abroad
Dare not unmask their shrouded face !

Surely at last shall come the day
When these that dance so merrily
Shall watch with terrible faces gray
Thy doom draw near, O Nineveh !

III

I, too, the fatal harvest gained
Of them that sow with seed of fire
In passion’s garden — I have drained
The goblet of thy sick desire.

I from thy love had bitter bliss,
And ever in my memory stir
The after-savours of thy kiss —
The taste of aloes and of myrrh.

And yet I love thee, love unblessed
The poison of thy wanton’s art;
Though thou be sister to the Pest
In thy great hands I lay my heart !

And when thy body Titan-strong
Writhes on its giant couch of sin,
Yea, though upon the trembling throng
The very vault of Heaven fall in;

And though the palace of thy feasts
Sink crumbling in a fiery sea —
l, like, the last of Baal’s priests,
Will share thy doom, O Nineveh.

George Sylvester Viereck : Nineveh

Comments

The End Of Faustian Man

April 24th, 2008 at 10:00 pm (High Germany, Melancholy, Music, Self, Spengler, The Enemy, The King of Terrors, Videos, War)

The doom of our culture was already well upon it’s way by the time of the Second World War — or War of the Republics as I would prefer it to be known, since this was conducted entirely betwixt differing republican systems, all equally loathsome. Possibly not Japan, I guess, since it was at least nominally a monarchy, although cursory search indicates it was more of a constitutional monarchy. WWII may be summarized as that the nazis were detestable; the western allies despicable; and the communists disgusting.

The Russians had reverted to becoming savages by 1945: the Americans maintained their customary anthropological status as barbarians. Their especially barbaric political system of representative democracy had grave consequence as victors… The very first moralistic theatre was the judicial murder of General Anton Dostler, of which may be read here, written by the son of his American defense counsel. Essentially, 15 American soldiers were captured disguised as Italian civilians, and the — non-nazi — General referred the case to Kesselring, who ordered them to be executed. Admittedly Smiling Albert had enough to occupy his mind right then without giving this a great deal of thought, but under the laws of war this was a done deal anyway. It is pointless to object or blame soldiers for disguising; it is equally pointless to object to the consequence — which procedure is actually there to protect civilians. Thus although guiltless — neither prosecutor nor defence expected anything except acquittal — General Dostler was then sentenced to death after new instructions were handed down from Washington in response to the revelation that the prosecution would fail, that is that henceforth in these trials hearsay evidence would be admissible. This was to satisfy the voting constituents. Democracy is awesomely repellent not merely in practice, but still more so in idealist theory…

‘Hope to God we never lose a war.’ said the prosecutor.

 
Another version, shorter, but with a few more frames

Incidentally, this trial caused the innocent prosecutor to lose his faith in the Rule of Law forever…

Comments

Social Reports Unrequested

April 7th, 2008 at 5:30 pm (Correctitude, High Germany, Other, The King of Terrors)

For those of us without any massive sense of humour the German variety does just fine. One would have idly considered that Charles V HRR could only appear capable of pure fun if compared with his son Philip, but appearances are usually deceptive.

In the heat of the chase Charles V once found himself separated from his suite. He rode through the forest till he saw a wood-cutter who showed him the way to a lonely inn. Hungry and tired he dismounted, tied his horse to a tree, and entered. Inside he found four men who seemed to be asleep. Their appearance was not prepossessing, but he sat down and bade the landlord bring him something to eat and drink. Suddenly one of the men stood up and rubbed his eyes. He strode up to the emperor, snatched away from him his sword, and then said with exaggerated politeness: “Pardon me ! but I have just dreamed that I was to take your sword.” The others seized his hat and cloak and had just begun to search his pockets, when some of the emperor’s servants appeared. They soon succeeded in overcoming the robbers. When Charles had described his adventure in a few words, he shut his eyes and was silent for a few moments. Then he opened them again and said: “I have just dreamed that I saw four thieves hanged.” The villains screamed for mercy, but the emperor remained firm. Four ropes were lent by the landlord, and the emperor’s dream was fulfilled.

Comments

And This She Did By Her Singing Fair

February 29th, 2008 at 10:35 am (High Germany, Melancholy, Music, Videos)

A notable instance of the futility of human judgement would be to blame Lorelei of the golden hair: she is how she is made, and her pitiless effects — if unfortunate — indicate no absence of a soul, nor malice; but rather the workings of mechanical fate and her inability to feel deeply. Of course, the forlorn sailors are equally blame-free — except perhaps for not suppressing feeling enough.

 
The first two are of the Heine text; the third is not.

Comments

And God Said, “Let There Be Blood”

February 28th, 2008 at 9:00 am (Animals, High Germany, Literature, Places, Self, Spengler)

Lingering self-respect has oftimes preserved me — ‘gainst all temptations — from the more egregious effects of the zeitgeist of sentimentality: a modest pride holds in that I have never ever seen either It’s A Wonderful Life or The Wizard Of Oz, f’rinstance. Now, Upton Sinclair was a notable story-teller, but a Hemingwayesquely poor writer — ‘What other culture could have produced someone like Hemingway and not seen the joke ?‘ as Gore Vidal wrote of his native land — and his themes here are rather trite; bad capitalists… bad religion… exploiters… the family saga genre… so it’s rather unlikely I shall bother to watch There Will Be Blood. Having a nearly all-male crew probably clinches it — single sex movies suck as much as single sex communities… However the title is awfully good — especially considering the vast importance of titling and it’s common neglect — so I tried to find from whence it came.

The Boston Globe attributed it to Byron:

Tears Like Mist

It makes good on the film’s title, which may be taken from Lord Byron. “The king-times are fast finishing,” he said. “There will be blood shed like water, and tears like mist. But the peoples will conquer in the end. I shall not live to see it, but I foresee it.”

This is pretty painful stuff even for Byron, who ever veered precariously betwixt plodding doggerel and occasionally splendid fustian, and rarely hit the rocks of glorious lyricism. And as with Marx — But Hubbard’s superb record for inaccuracy of statement clouded any of his positive remarks with a fog of doubt. to quote Stewart H. Holbrook on a notable capitalist of the latter’s era — it’s not easy to ascertain the finished construct of the promised Paradise: presumably it will include peace, love, harmony, compulsory gender and racial equality, an incredible amount of daily uplift though one way communication, and a total absence of thought. Or, let us say, no class whatsoever.

 
Fortunately though, the probably ever-reliable China Daily gave the definitive origin:

Smite The Waters

The film’s resonantly Old Testament title comes from the seventh chapter of Exodus where God, via Moses, orders Aaron to smite the waters so that “they may become blood; and that there may be blood throughout all the land of Egypt“. In the context of the film this biblical blood is oil, the contaminating element dealt in by its forceful central character.

The Bible is so beautiful…

 
[sarc] And God said, “Let there be Blood.” [/sarc].

***

More importantly, a link from the China Daily went on to better news; in Düsseldorf the police are equipping their dogs with shoes.

Small, Medium And Large

“All 20 of our police dogs — German and Belgian shepherds — are currently being trained to walk in these shoes,” Andre Hartwich said. “I’m not sure they like it, but they’ll have to get used to it.”

The unusual footwear is not a fashion statement, Hartwich said, but rather a necessity due to the high rate of paw injuries on duty. Especially in the city’s historical old town — famous for both its pubs and drunken revelers — the dogs often step into broken beer bottles.

“Even the street-cleaning doesn’t manage to remove all the glass pieces from between the streets’ cobble stones,” Hartwich said, adding that the dogs frequently get injured by little pieces sticking deep in their paws.

The dogs will start wearing the shoes this spring but only during operations that demand special foot protection. The shoes comes in sizes small, medium and large and were ordered in blue to match the officers uniforms, Hartwich said.

It’s rarely one sees police-dogs in Great Britain — nearly as rarely as police-horses — but I hope they institute it here: broken glass on the streets, however, is not rare at all. [ If randomly picking up shards, I've found that one hand can hold a dozen of any size, but not more; and of course, one can only fill one hand... ]

 
I was born in Düsseldorf, and that is why they call me Rolf…

Comments

“War Is A Matter Of Expedients” Said Von Moltke

February 27th, 2008 at 8:20 am (Correctitude, High Germany, Places, The King of Terrors, War)

Manstein ordered a signal to be sent back: “Withdrawal must be stopped at once.”
But the signal no longer got through. Corps headquarters did not reply any more. Count Sponeck had already had his wireless station dismantled. It was the first instance of a commanding general’s dis­obedience since the beginning of the campaign in the East. It was a symptomatic case, involving fundamental principles. Lieutenant-General Hans Count von Sponeck, the scion of a Düsseldorf family of regular officers, born in 1888, formerly an officer in the Imperial Guards, was a man of great personal courage and an excellent com­mander in the field. While commanding the famous 22nd Airborne Division, which in 1940 captured the “fortress of Holland” with a bold stroke, he had earned for himself the Knights Cross in the Western campaign. Subsequently, as the commander of 22nd Infantry Division, into which the Airborne Division had been converted, he also distin­guished himself by outstanding gallantry during the crossing of the Dnieper.
The significance of the affair lay in the fact that Count Sponeck was the first commanding general on the Eastern Front who, when the attack of two Soviet Armies against a single German division faced him with the alternatives of hanging on and being wiped out or with­drawing, refused to choose the former alternative. He reacted to the Soviet threat not in accordance with Hitlerite principles of leadership, but according to the principles of his Prussian General Staff upbring­ing. This demanded of a commanding officer that he should judge each situation accurately and dispassionately, react to it flexibly, and not allow his troops to be slaughtered unless there was some compel­ling and inescapable reason for it. Sponeck saw no such reason.

Comments

Blood Relative

February 15th, 2008 at 7:10 am (Correctitude, High Germany, Manners not Morals, Self, The King of Terrors, To Know Know Know Him)

Jamie stifled his yawns politely at precisely three minute intervals during the compulsory talk on blood donation, his form-teacher did know that none of his family were favourers of this quaint practice, since they had odd old-fashioned views not unlike Jehovah’s Witnesses on hygiene; to her relief Jamie did not raise these views in opposition to the speaker’s sermonising, but actually it might have been nicer if he had. Instead he obligingly recalled that: “one of my first cousins twice removed had his blood-group tattooed under his armpit. It must have hurt like b… awfully.” The speaker beamed uncertainly, and, before vaguely dragging from some recess of memory in her dim little mind what this signified, remarked that this seemed rather excessively prudential, but no doubt could have saved his life. His teacher goggled palely as he replied sadly that no, he had stepped on a ‘S’ land-mine which had blown both legs off. The speaker then remembered.
He, in his playing, generally rather expected his classmates not to pick up all his references, which made some of it more of a game between he and whichever teacher, the main enemy, usually to his private appreciation mostly. But they did this, and added it as ammunition for making his life hell, although as he expected, none knew the difference between a first cousin twice removed and a third cousin: whilst he could have claimed a diminution on the grounds that as far as he knew — and his relatives in Germany may have been only as truthful as most there feel necessary in discretion — it was Waffen rather than Totenkopf, but to him that actually wasn’t an excuse, they were all as potentially unpleasant bastards as any group of murderers. He couldn’t see why it was worse than being related to the other untold millions of traitors though: few people in these islands would not have had a distant connection to some scum who fought for or supported parliament or Cromwell among the 6 million living then: and nothing could be as bad as that.

This largemindedness was occasionally irksome for his family since this cheerful lack of reticence could fail to emphasize their absolute normality; as when during a garden party Jamie chatted amiably on not only two great-uncles who had fond memories of Poland, one of their cousins who died in Crete, and someone who deserted in Greece to start a large family, but started recalling that a more distant relative drowned as a frogman in Italy.

‘Shut up’ screamed his mother, who didn’t want people to think her entire blood relatives formed the bulk of the German Armed Forces during the last unpleasantness.

To be fair though, those who had, were generous in their reminiscence to their kleiner englischer Teufel whenever he was visiting in the Fatherland. He never judged; and was politer than their own younger generation. Who judged a great deal.

 
Mrs. Beeston listened disfavouringly to the teacher’s embittered commentary in the common-room: “Personally, I always thought that little… that his blood would poison a rattle-snake.” was her comment. Literally true, but this was the nearest she ever came to making a joke, one not so anodyne as to be acceptable at a party conference, and they gazed approving of her levity.

***

***

Anyway… I can’t conceive of allowing even a blood transfusion, let alone having the more repulsive internal parts of some random stranger inserted. Chacun a son goût, of course, but it seems to be more fitted for those without a high sense of personal daintiness and those who prefer dishonour over death. A recent post in the splendidly named blog mediocracy — “‘mediocracy’ is a condition in which culture is subordinated to pseudo-egalitarian ideology” — points out one aspect of this vampiracy too little spoken about:

Do think about the fine print when you consider whether to sign up/out/whatever to organ donation.

How dead are organ donors?

Organs for transplant have to be taken from still-living bodies, bodies still perfused by their naturally beating hearts, warm and so reactive that muscle-paralysing drugs may have to be given to facilitate the surgery.

Their owners will have been certified “dead” on the controversial basis of bedside brain-stem testing, a procedure not sufficiently stringent to exclude some persisting brain-stem function and which includes no test for what may be abundant life elsewhere in the brain.

Read the rest of the post here

Comments

Bouguereau, Wagner & Elsa

February 2nd, 2008 at 5:35 pm (High Germany, Music, Self, Videos)

Following on from the Bouguereau in our last, the author of this video has merged Richard’s music with William-Adolphe’s paintings…

Comments

Universal Doom

January 28th, 2008 at 3:45 am (High Germany, Literature, Melancholy, Other)

Wolfgang Borchert wrote prose-poems rather than short stories, mostly of a despairing and strongly pacifistic tendency, but then he had a bad war, being imprisoned twice by the military for extending his critical faculty on the subject of the war — something not only that many soldiers through the ages have done and shall do, but which was in any case rather prevalent amongst German soldiers. Especially the less enthusiastic on the OstFront.

Stephen Spender, who added so much to the concept of effeteness for English authors, wrote an introduction to the posthumous translations by David Porter: ‘Borchert’s soldiers are the doomed race of the Russian winter of 1941, and of Stalingrad. Nothing existed for them before they went to Russia. They are filled with the sense that if there are other soldiers, they must all feel the same, and be equally passive victims of their time. The Russians are only a background to their own misery and to the German Doom which is regarded as universal doom.‘

Fair enough. Despite passivity not being quite the operative word for a front that was nearly 2000 miles in length, and a 1000 miles in the wild blue yonder.

 
Anyway, one of his short stories…

***

They crouch on the stone-cold bridge parapets and on the frost-hard metal railings along the violet-stinking canal. They crouch on the hollowed, gossip-worn area steps. Among the silver paper and autumn leaves at the side of the street, and on the sinful benches in the parks. They crouch, leaning, lolling against the doorless walls of houses, and on the nostalgic walls and moles of the docks.
They crouch in a lost world, crowfaced, shrouded grey-black and croaked hoarse. They crouch and all abandonment hangs down from them like limp, loose, crumpled feathers. Abandoned by the heart, abandoned by women, abandoned by the stars.
They crouch in the dusk and damp of the shadows of houses, shunning the gateways, black as tar and tired of the pavement. They crouch in the early haze of the world’s afternoon, thin-soled and coated grey with dust, belated, daydreamed into monotony. They crouch over the bottomless pit, held by the abyss, sleep-swaying with hunger and homesickness.
Crowfaced ( and how else ? ) they crouch, crouch, crouch and crouch. Who? The crows ? The crows perhaps. But above all human beings, human beings.
At six o’clock the sun turns the city mist and smoke red-gold. And the houses are velvet-blue and soft-edged in the tender light of early evening.
But the crowfaced men crouch pallid-skinned and white-frozen in their hopelessness, in their inescapable humanity, crept deep into their patchwork jackets.
Since the day before one man had been crouching on the dock, smelling himself full of harbour smell and rolling crumbled masonry into the water. His eyebrows hung on his forehead like the fringe of a sofa, despondent but with incomprehensible humour.
And then a young man came along, his arms elbow-deep in his trouser-pockets, the collar of his jacket turned up round his bony neck. The older man didn’t look up, he saw beside him the comfortless mouths of a pair of shoes and up from the water there quivered at him the tossing caricature of a melancholy male figure. Then he knew that Timm was back again.
Well, Timm, he said, there you are again. Through already ?
Timm said nothing. He crouched on the quay wall beside the other man and put his long hands round his neck. He was cold.
So her bed wasn’t wide enough, eh ? the other began softly after many minutes.
Bed ! Bed ! said Timm angrily, I love the girl.
Of course you love her. But tonight she showed you the door again. So the billet was no go. It’s because you’re not clean enough, Timm. A night visitor like that has to be clean. Love alone isn’t always enough. Oh well, anyway, you’re not used to a bed now. Better stay here, then. Or do you still love her, eh ?
Timm rubbed his long hands on his neck and slid deep into his coat collar. She wants money, he said much later, or silk stockings. Then I could have stayed.
Oh, so you do still love her, said the old man, hell, but if you’ve no money !
Timm didn’t say that he still loved her, but after a while he said rather more quietly: I gave her the scarf, the red one, you know. I hadn’t anything else. But after an hour she suddenly had no more time.
The red scarf ? asked the other. Oh, he loves her, he thought to himself, how he loves her ! And once more he repeated: Aha, your beautiful red scarf ! And now you’re back here again and soon it’ll be dark.
Yes, said Timm, it’ll be dark again. And my neck’s miserably cold, now that I haven’t got the scarf. Miserably cold, I can tell you.
Then they both looked at the water in front of them and their legs hung sadly from the quay wall. A launch shrieked, white-steaming, past them and the waves followed, fat and chattering. Then it was still again, only the city hummed monotonously between heaven and earth, and crowfaced, shrouded blue-black, the two men crouched there in the after­noon. When after an hour a scrap of red paper tossed by on the waves, a gay, red piece of paper on the lead-grey waves, then Timm said to the other: But I had nothing else. Only the scarf.
And the other answered: And it was such a wonderful red, d’you remember, eh, Timm ? Boy, was it red !
Yes, yes, Timm mumbled dejectedly, it was that. And now my neck’s damn well freezing, my friend.
How’s this, thought the other, he still loves her and was with her for a whole hour. Now he won’t even be cold for her. Then, yawning, he said: And the billet’s a goner, too.
Lilo’s her name, said Timm, and she likes wearing silk stockings. But I haven’t got any.
Lilo ? exclaimed the other, don’t tell me that, man, she’s never called Lilo.
Of course she’s called Lilo, replied Timm indignantly. D’you suppose I can’t know one called Lilo ? I even love her, I tell you.
Timm slid angrily away from his friend and drew his knee up to his chin. And he held his long hands round his skinny neck. A web of early darkness laid itself on the day and the last rays of the sun stood lost on the sky like a lattice. Lonely, the men crouched over the uncertainties of the coming night and the city hummed, big and full of seduction. The city wanted money or silk stockings. And the beds wanted clean visitors at night.
I say, Timm, began the other and was silent again.
What is it ? asked Timm.
Is she really called Lilo, eh ?
Of course she’s called Lilo, Timm shouted at his friend, she’s called Lilo, and she said when I have anything, I’m to go back.
I say, Timm, his friend managed after a while, if she’s really called Lilo, then you certainly had to give her the red scarf. If she’s called Lilo, in my view, then she can have the red scarf. Even if the billet’s no go. No, Timm, forget the scarf, if she’s really called Lilo.
The two men looked across the misty water away to the mounting twilight, fearless, but without courage, reconciled. Reconciled to quay walls and gateways, reconciled to homeless-ness, to thin soles and empty pockets, reconciled. Inescapably idled away into indifference.
Thrown high, startlingly, on the horizon, blown hither from who knows where, crows came tumbling, their song and their dark feathers filled with the presentiment of night, reeling like inkspots across the chaste tissue paper of the evening sky, tired with living, croaked hoarse, and then, unexpectedly, a little further off, swallowed by the twilight.
They gazed after the crows, Timm and the other man, crow-faced, shrouded blueblack. And the water smelt full and mighty. The city, a wild towering of cubes, window-eyed, began to twinkle with a thousand lamps. They gazed after the crows, the crows, long since swallowed, gazed after them with poor, old faces, and Timm, who loved Lilo, Timm, who was twenty, said:
The crows, man, they’re all right.
The other man looked away from the sky straight into Timm’s wide face, floating pale-frozen in the half-dark. And Timm’s thin lips were sad lines in his wide face, lonely lines, twenty-year-old, hungry and thin from too much bitterness too soon.
The crows, said Timm’s wide face softly, this face made up of twenty bright-dark years, the crows, said Timm’s face, they’re all right. They fly home at night. Just home.
The two men crouched there, lost in the world, small and dejected in face of the new night, but fearlessly familiar with its frightful blackness. The city, million-eyed and sleepy, glowed through soft, warm curtains at the night streets emptied of noise, their pavements deserted. They crouched there hard by the depths, leaning over like tired rotten poles, and Timm, the twenty-year-old, had said: The crows are all right. The crows fly home at night. And the other babbled stupidly to himself: The crows, Timm, hell, Timm, the crows.
There they crouched. Dumped there by life, the alluring, the lousy. Dumped on the quay and the corner. On pier and pontoon. On mole and hollowed cellar-steps. Dumped by life on the dust-grey streets between silver paper and fallen leaf. Crows ? No, human beings ! Do you hear ? Human beings! And one of them was called Timm and he’d loved Lilo for a red scarf. And now, now he can’t forget her again. The crows, the crows croak their way home. And their croaking hung comfortless on the evening.
But then a launch stuttered, foam-mouthed, past them, and its scattered red light crumbled quivering in the harbour haze. And the haze was red for seconds. Red as my scarf, thought Timm. Infinitely far off, the launch chugged away. And Timm said softly: Lilo. Again and again: Lilo Lilo Lilo Lilo Lilo.

Wolfgang Borchert : The Crows Fly Home at Night

Comments

The Queen Of The Raging Host Passes : Present Arms

January 27th, 2008 at 3:30 am (High Germany, Norse, Other, Royalism, Self)

The dusk of evening has fallen over Berlin. A great yet silent crowd is rapidly moving through the chief street towards the royal palace, and every now and then a low whisper is heard, in which can be distinguished the words: “The King is very ill.” In the palace itself yet greater silence reigns. The King’s guardsmen stand motionless, the servants’ steps are inaudible on the carpets of the corridors and the rooms. Now the tower clock strikes mid­night; all at once a door opens, and through it glides a ghostly woman, tall of stature, queenly of bearing.

She is dressed in a trailing white garment, a white veil covers her head, below which her long flaxen hair hangs, twisted with strings of pearls; her face is deathly pale as that of a corpse. In her right hand she carries a bunch of keys, in her left a nosegay of Mayflowers. She walks solemnly down the long corridor. The tall guardsmen present arms, pages and lackeys give way before her, the guards who have just relieved their comrades open their ranks; the figure passes through them, and goes through a folding door into the royal ante-room.

“It is the White Lady ; the King is about to die,” whispers the officer of the watch, brushing a tear from his eye.

“The White Lady has appeared,” is whispered through the crowd, and all know what that portends.

At noon the King’s death was known to all. “Yes,” said Master Schneckenburger, “he has been gathered to his fathers. Mistress Berchta has once more announced what was going to happen, for she can foretell everything, both bad and good. She was seen before the misfortunes of 1806, and again before the battle of Belle-Alliance. She has a key with which to open the door of life and happiness. He to whom she gives a cowslip will succeed in what­ever he undertakes.”

Schneckenburger was right. It was Bertha, or Berchta, who made known the King’s approaching death, but she was also the prophetess of other important events. Berchta ( from percht, shining ) is almost identical with Holda, except that the latter never appears as the White Lady. Many Germanic tribes wor­shipped the Earth-goddess under the name of Berchta, and there are numbers of legends about her both in North and South Germany.

One evening in the year was dedicated to her, and was called Perchten-evening ( 30th December or 6th January ), when she was sup­posed, as a diligent spinner, to oversee the labours of the spinning-room, or, magic staff in hand, to ride at the head of the Raging Host, in the midst of a terrific storm. She generally lived in hollow mountains, where she, as in Thuringia, watched over and tended the “Heimchen,” or souls of babes as yet unborn, and of those who died an early death. She busied herself there by ploughing up the ground under the earth, whilst the babes watered the fields. Whenever men, careless of the good she did them, disturbed her in her mountain dwelling, she left the country with her train, and after her departure the fields lost all their former fruitfulness.

Once when Berchta and her babes were passing over a meadow across the middle of which ran a fence that divided it in two, the last little child could not climb over it; its water-jar was too heavy. A woman, who a short time before had lost her little baby, was close by, and recognised her dead darling, for whom she had wept night and day. She hastened to the child, clasped it in her arms, and would not let it go.

Then the little one said : “How warm and comfortable I feel in my mother’s arms ; but weep no more for me, mother, my jar is full and is growing too heavy for me. Look, mother, dost thou not see how all thy tears run into it, and how I’ve spilt some on my little shirt ? Mistress Berchta, who loves me and kisses me, has told me that thou shouldst also come to her in time, and then we shall be together again in the beautiful garden under the hill.”

Then the mother wept once more a flood of tears, and let the child go.

After that she never shed another tear, but found comfort in the thought that she would one day be with her child again.

2 Comments

Death-Star Of The Revolution

January 12th, 2008 at 10:00 am (High Germany, Literature, Melancholy, Other, The King of Terrors)

Danton: Will the clock not be still ? With every tick it slides the walls closer round me, till they’re as narrow as a coffin. I once read a story like that as a child. It made my hair stand on end. Yes, as a child. What a waste of time fattening me up and keeping me warm! Mere work for the grave-diggers. I feel as if I were rotten already. My dear carcass, I’ll hold my nose and make believe you’re a girl all smelly and sweating after a dance and pay you compliments. We used to have better times together. Tomorrow you’ll be a broken fiddle, with no tune left in you. Or an empty bottle — the wine’s drunk but I’m not; I have to go sober to bed. Lucky people who can still get drunk ! Tomorrow you’ll be a worn-out pair of pants — you’ll be thrown in the wardrobe and the moths will eat you whether you’re stinking or not. — Ah, it’s no good. Dying is a wretched business. It apes birth. Dying, we’re as naked and helpless as new-born infants. We’re given a shroud as a napkin. But it’s no help. We can grizzle in the grave as well as in the cradle. Camille ! He’s asleep. [ Bending over him ] There’s a dream playing between his eyelashes. I’ll not brush the golden dew of sleep from his eyes. [ Stands up and walks to the window. ] I shan’t go alone. Thank you for that, Julie. Yet I’d have liked to die differently, effortlessly, like a falling star, like a note fading away, kissing itself to death with its own lips, like a ray of light burying itself in clear water. The stars are sprayed across the night like shimmering tears; there must be great grief in the eye that shed them.

Georg Büchner : Danton’s Death

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Flogging Molly — The Light of a Fading Star

Comments

Jerome I : The ‘Falcon’ At Gravesend

January 6th, 2008 at 11:30 am (High Germany, Melancholy, Other, Places)

Not merely because that year was a turning point, making a far truer start to the 20th century than 1901: the publication of ‘Three Men in a Boat’ in 1888 signalled a sea-change in literature: writing became more accessible — unlike, say, Scott — and humour became actual — unlike, say, Dickens.

However, this is from Jerome K. Jerome’s autobiography, which I found in a bookshop in Canterbury maybe five years back: it seems intensely rare… He began as a Cromwellian, and ended up as a socialist, but was generally agreeable. In this passage there is a really perfect joke; but it’s only gonna be accessible to those teutonophiles who are at least vaguely acquainted with America’s less than optimal entry into the Great War.

 
I cannot help fancying that London was a cosier place to dwell in, when I was a young man. For one thing, it was less crowded. Life was not one everlasting scrimmage. There was time for self-respect, for courtesy. For another thing, one got out of it quicker. On summer afternoons, four-horse brakes would set out for Barnet, Esher Woods, Chingford and Hampton Court. One takes now the motor ‘bus, and goes further; but it is through endless miles of brick and mortar. And at the end, one is but in another crowd. Forty years ago, one passed by fields and leafy ways, and came to pleasant tea gardens, with bowling greens, and birds, and lovers’ lanes.

Of a night time, threepenny ‘buses took us to Cremorne Gardens, where bands played, and we, danced and supped under a thousand twinkling lights. Or one walked there through the village of Chelsea, past the old wooden bridge. Battersea Park was in the making, and farm lands came down to the water’s edge. The ladies may not all have been as good as they were beautiful; but somehow the open sky and the flowing river took the sordidness away. Under the trees and down the flower-bordered paths, it was possible to imagine the shadow of Romance. The Argyll Rooms, Evans’ and others were more commonplace. But even so, they were more human — less brutal than our present orgy of the streets. Fashion sipped its tea, and stayed to dinner, at the lordly “Star & Garter,” and drove home in phaeton or high dog-cart across Richmond Park and Putney Heath. The river was a crowded highway. One went by steamer to “The Ship” at Greenwich, for its famous fish dinner, with Mouton Rothschild at eight and six the bottle. Or further on, to “The Falcon” at Gravesend, where the long dining-room looked out upon the river, and one watched the ships passing silently upon the evening tide. On Sundays, for half a crown, one travelled to Southend and back. Unlimited tea was served on board, with shrimps and watercress, for ninepence. We lads had not spent much money on our lunch, but the fat stewardess would only laugh as she brought us another pile of thick-cut bread and butter. I was on the “Princess Alice” on her last completed voyage. She went down the following Sunday, and nearly every soul on board was drowned. So, also, I was on the last complete voyage the “Lusitania” made from New York. They would not let us land at Liverpool, but made us anchor at the mouth of the Mersey, and took us off in tugs. We were loaded up to the water line with ammunition. “Agricultural Machinery,” I think it was labelled. Penny gaffs were common. They were the Repertory Theatre of the period. One sat on benches and ate whelks and fried potatoes and drank beer. “Sweeney Todd, the Barber of Fleet Street,” was always a great draw, though “Maria Martin, or The Murder in the Red Barn,” ran it close. “Hamlet,” cut down to three-quarters of an hour, and consisting chiefly of broad-sword combats, was also popular. Prize fights took place on Hackney marshes, generally on Sunday morning; and foot-pads lurked on Hampstead Heath. Theatre patrons had no cause to complain of scanty measure. The programme lasted generally from six till twelve. It began with a farce, included a drama and an opera, and ended up with a burlesque. After nine o’clock, half prices were charged for admission. At most of the bridges one paid toll. Waterloo was the cheapest. Foot passengers there were charged only a halfpenny. It came to be known as the Scotchman’s bridge. The traditional Scotchman, on a visit to a friend in London, was supposed to have been taken everywhere and treated. Coming to Waterloo Bridge, his host put his hand in his pocket, as usual, to draw out the required penny. The Scotchman with a fine gesture stepped in front of him. “My turn,” said the Scotchman. Before the Aerated Bread Company came along, there were only three places in London, so far as I can remember, where a cup of tea could be obtained : one in St. Paul’s Churchyard, another in the Strand called the Bun Shop, and the third in Regent Street at the end of the Quadrant. It was the same in New York when I first went there. I offered to make Charles Frohman’s fortune for him. My idea was that he should put down five thousand dollars, and that we should start tea shops, beginning in Fifth Avenue.

Jerome K. Jerome : My Life and Times

1 Comment

Deny’d In Heaven The Soul He Held On Earth

January 5th, 2008 at 10:00 am (Animals, High Germany, Other, Royalism, Self, Stuarts, The Building Blocks of Democracy)

C. Van Carter has two good blogs, Across Difficult Country, and Craptocracy.

From the first is an old post Arrival: Vaduz, where he rightly says:

What truly sets Liechtenstein apart as a country is that it has not succumbed to the foolish democracy fad which has ruined all other modern nations. Liechtenstein is still ruled by a monarch, as it has been since the the Middle Ages (not coincidentally the last decent period in human history). The current head of state is Prince Hans-Adam II of Liechtenstein, a rather dashing fellow, and over dinner at Vaduz Castle he describes to me the wealth and happiness that flows to Liechtenstein’s people as a result of its monarchical system

I may add that Princess Sophie of Bavaria, Hereditary Princess of Liechtenstein — daughter-in-law to Hans-Adam II and wife of Prince Alois, the Regent of Liechtenstein — is, after her father Prince Max, heir to the Stuart regalities when the Stuart-Wittelsbach conjunction ceases.

*****

And from the second, a more recent post discusses some absurd fellow who seeks the equally absurd position of president to the USA: never heard of him, but a Mr. Hucklebee. This unsavoury little chap wishes to ban smoking throughout the American dominions — admittedly one may say ‘fat chance‘ sceptically, but Yanks do adore ploughing their economy into pointless wars, and an extension of the War on Terror into a Second Front against domestic smoking will certainly appeal to the moral retard majority… — and there’s a nasty story regarding his son — who recently was fined for having a loaded gun whilst travelling through an airport [ don't try this whilst devoutly reading the Qur'an and mumbling ] — hanging a dog at Scout Camp. Something he later claimed was done since the animal was sick and suffering: must account for the rows of gallows adjacent to every retirement home… His benighted father is alleged to have attempted to interfere with the administration of justice. His Chief of Staff admitted asking the Director of State Police who was afterwards fired by Governor Hucklebee: “Is it normal for the state police to … investigate something that happened at a Boy Scout camp ?”

Kinda… police in most jurisdictions, even perhaps Pakistan, are going to get active over any allegations of torture unconnected to their own activities. It’s what makes us civilised.

Comments

5 Of January > Radetzky Marsch

January 5th, 2008 at 12:01 am (Correctitude, High Germany, Self, The King of Terrors, War)

Feldmarschall Graf Josef Radetzky von Radetz died at the age of 91 upon the 5th January 1858, having served his lord well for 91 years, and leaving Strauss the elder’s tribute march to perpetuate his memory.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Comments

Takes Me Way Back When

December 25th, 2007 at 11:00 pm (High Germany, Music, Self, Videos)

Crystal Gayle; the German song Karneval englished into One More Time; firstly in England, secondly in Holland.

2 Comments

Playing With Muspel Fire

November 17th, 2007 at 8:30 pm (Animals, High Germany, Music, Norse, Self, War)

Both the Bundeswehr and the late Nationale Volksarmee have/had no more legitimacy than Hitler’s mob, but although republican do/did obviously still carry out a little of the great tradition… Torchlight Parades are always so pretty.

Both uniforms are getting on the silly side, with ties and all ( and ugly impracticable Allied-Type helmets; which is kind of ironical now the Yanks are sensibly starting to model their helmets on the stahlhelm… ) and look really remarkably similar despite any supposed ideological differences betwixt state capitalism and the free-market kind.

Note the holy atmosphere of the NVA bash — no doubt anything would be a break from the necessity of writing up a daily report on one’s neighbours; and the poor production values of something shot in 1989 which films like 1962 outside the Iron Curtain. Note also the use of Jingling Johnnies aka La Pavillon Chinois which seem to really take one back…

Comments

Not Quite So Handsome

November 4th, 2007 at 1:35 am (High Germany, Other, Self, The Building Blocks of Democracy, The Enemy, The King of Terrors, War)

For sentimental reasons, the Lancastrian usurper PKing Henry V is somehow excused for ordering prisoners killed at Agincourt — even in the following civil wars affecting parts of England during the rest of the century, caused by his verminous House’s illegal seizure, this would only happen to prisoners of high enough status to merit expungement — however, although England has actually had more monarchs who were usurping thieves than legitimate rulers, this little fellow may well be in the top three for unpleasantness: a snivelling pious puritan who majored in self-righteousness and slaughtered as freely as any serial killer for pointless aggrandizement.

Usually however it’s considered a bêtise to slay the surrendered — the Aussie furore on behalf of Breaker Morant and his mates being shot for so doing may be charitably ascribed to pitiful anti-Pom nationalism rather than condoning his shooting of captives.

After the invasion of Russia in 1941 the Germans, partially through luck and partially through skill were rewarded with hundreds of thousands of prisoners: partially through immediate inability and partially through ideological imperative a large proportion of the 5-6 million soviet POWs were starved to death in a crime worse than the labour-camps. This had a precedent ( apart from the fact that 85% of German POWs died in the camps that Stalin kept for his own people, and anyone else he could collect… ):

 
In the evening of the long day, as the imperial column was approaching Gzhatsk, we were surprised to find a number of dead Russians, still warm, on the road in front of us. We noticed that their heads had all been shattered in the same manner, and that their brains were scattered about. We knew that two thousand Russian prisoners had gone before us under the escort of Spanish, Portuguese, and Polish troops. Some of our generals greeted this with indifference, others with indignation, still others with approval.

…

…but the next day those murders had stopped. After that we simply let our un­fortunate prisoners die of hunger in the enclosures where we penned them up for the night, like cattle. This was doubtless an atrocity; but what were we to do ? Exchange them ? The enemy refused to consider it. Set them free ? They would have spread the news of our destitute condition far and wide, and soon would have joined up with others and returned to dog our steps. In this war to the death we should have sacrificed our­selves in letting them live. We were cruel by necessity. The evil lay in the fact that we had got ourselves in a position where we were faced with such a terrible alternative.

Count Philippe-Paul de Ségur : Napoleon’s Russian Campaign

1 Comment

Prelude To Mayerling — Aged Six

November 2nd, 2007 at 3:30 am (Generalia, High Germany, Other)

He [ Crown Prince Rudolf ] was an intelligent child but delicate: an alarming bout of typhoid fever in December 1863 left him frail and in the following summer he suffered concussion after falling from a tree. In his seventh year he was removed from his Aja’s keeping and assigned his first tutor, Major-General Ludwig von Gondrecourt, a bachelor of whose high moral principles the Archduchess warmly approved.

As a field commander in the Danish campaign Gondrecourt won a reputation for using shock tactics. These he now applied to his young charge, whom he convinced himself needed toughening up. On one wintry morning Rudolf was forced to drill in the snow long before dawn; and when Gondrecourt thought the boy unduly timid, blank cartridges were fired without warning in his room to test his reactions, an experiment which may have had disastrous psychological effects on the Crown Prince in later life. In the spring Rudolf was again seriously ill, probably with diptheria; Caroline von Welden personally begged the Emperor to curb the sadistic streak in his son’s tutor, which she believed was weakening the boy’s constitution. But the Emperor, who could remember his own Aja’s affectionate interest in her boys once they left the nursery, played down her concern. Then, at last, Elizabeth intervened. She discovered that Gondrecourt had taken Rudolf to the Lainzer Tiergarten, an imperial game reserve a few miles from Schönbrunn. There Gondrecourt left the boy alone, behind a locked gate, and shouted at him ‘Look out, a wild boar is coming !‘ — at which warning the boy’s nerves gave way.

Alan Palmer : Twilight of the Habsburgs

Comments

Storm Of Steel — Strike Three [ Plus One ]

October 31st, 2007 at 10:00 pm (High Germany, War)

World War One Color Photos

 
As a bonus, a 17-year-old History Student explains the causes, progress and agony of the Great War

Comments

Visions False As Fair

October 16th, 2007 at 3:45 am (High Germany, Melancholy, Other, Poetry)

My thoughts by night are often filled
With visions false as fair:
For in the past alone I build
My castles in the air.

I dwell not now on what may be:
Night shadows o’er the scene:
But still my fancy wanders free
Through that which might have been.

Thomas Love Peacock : Castles in the Air

Comments