Unrühe
[lgc_column grid=”50″ tablet_grid=”50″ mobile_grid=”100″ last=”false”]From a review of “A German Tragedy” by Keith Botsford in the NY Times, 1999:
Grass is important to the German public — I would go so far as to say “necessary” — because he has accepted being the emblem of the “German problem.” For instance, in his play, Grass is trying to force his countrymen, on both sides of the Wall, to admit the truth about at least one incontrovertible fact in German history: that the June, 1953, manifestation, which the East Germans describe, in Grass’s words, “as the work of Nazis sent in by the West” and which the West Germans call a heroic “uprising of the people,” was, in fact, “neither one nor the other, but a simple workers’ demonstration. The intellectuals, the church, the bourgeoisie abstained completely,” Grass said to me (slipping, for the only time in our talk, into real bitterness). “It was neither the Nazis, nor was it the whole German people. That would be too easy. I subtitle my play ‘A German Tragedy’ because, by telling a few lies, everyone got off the hook.”
Naturally enough, I asked Grass what he would have done in the circumstances. He would not, he said with some anger, have told the German people, as the Adenauer Government implied in 1953, that keeping peace and quiet was the citizen’s first duty: “Rühe ist die erster Bürgerpflicht.” For Grass, the horror of this attitude was its calculating hypocrisy, which he finds everywhere in West German society.[/lgc_column]
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What Is An Anarchist?
The judge, to Ammon Hennacy, who had just pled “anarchism” to the charge of illegal demonstration, in Salt Lake City – “Mister Hennacy, what is an anarchist?” Hennacy – “Judge, an anarchist is a fellow who don’t need a cop to tell him what to do!”
Pancake
One of my earliest memories, when I was not yet three years old, in Ohio. A neighbor had a reflecting telescope and we were observing the full moon with it. The adults were, anyway. When I was hoisted up and looked into the eyepiece, I was convinced there was a pancake – yellow, with bubbles – at the bottom of this tube and I was baffled by why we would be looking at it through a tube and not taking it out and eating it. Clearly, a hungry child.
An early experience that reinforced my distrust of grownups.
Photo of moon by flickr user coniferconifer
Business Lesson of the Day: Point of View
When I worked at the outsourcing company, in the call center, for quite a while I was the only one on the night shift. So I was always happy to see people in the morning, and was usually quite chatty.
The company hired a service to take care of their plants. They’d moved twice in the short time I’d been with them, each time to a larger space. Early one morning, I was chatting with the fellow who came around to trim and water the plants. Remarking on the size of the new space and the size of his job, he told me “I remember when you were a three-plant company!”
Naming of Parts
Today we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And tomorrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But today,
Today we have naming of parts. Japonica
Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens,
And today we have naming of parts.
This is the lower sling swivel. And this
Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,
Which in your case you have not got. The branches
Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
Which in our case we have not got.
This is the safetycatch, which is always released
With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms
Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
Any of them using their finger.
And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
They call it easing the Spring.
They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy
If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,
And the breech, and the cockingpiece, and the point of balance,
Which in our case we have not got; and the almondblossom
Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,
For today we have naming of parts.
Henry Reed
Diarabi Niani
I Don’t Like Your Hard Rock Hotel
Come down and see me, dead or alive,
Come down and see me, dead or alive.
North Wind In March
. . . the work went well on the picture – I established firmly the great black North motif in the sky, with wind clouds, the largest of which is spewing forth snow-flurries. I think I have established with the relation of the wind-blown red maples in bloom, and the sky and inevitableness which every picture must have – that is, the assurance that absolutely no other arrangement could possibly be right. . . . This picture gives me great joy. How slowly the “secrets” of my art come to me – it seems to me I have been searching all my life for this motif of Black North combined with the wind-cloud and snow-flurry. When I said this to Bertha, she said “aren’t you thankful that at 71 new secrets are being revealed to you?” and I certainly am.
Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, March 30, 1964
Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967), North Wind in March, 1960-66; watercolor, 47 1/2 x 59 1/2 inches; OMAA Permanent Collection, Museum of Art of Ogunquit
Sit-Down
From the sit-down strike in Flint, 1937:
[Michigan Governor Frank] Murphy decided to ask John L. Lewis what he would do if he sent in the troops. Lewis’s reply: “You want my answer sir? I shall personally enter GM Plant Number Two. I shall order the men to disregard your order, to stand fast. I shall walk up to the largest window in the plant, open it, divest myself of my outer raiment, remove my shirt and bare my bosom. Then, when you order your troops to fire, mine will be the first breast that your bullets will strike. And as my body falls from the window to the ground, you will listen to the voice of your grandfather, as he whispers in your ear, ‘Frank, are you sure you are doing the right thing?'” Murphy hesitated: his grandfather had been hanged after an Irish uprising.