Watching What We Say: Lessons from Dachau

25 01 2011

It didn’t take long for those in the news to forget recent calls for less inflammatory political  speech following the shootings in Arizona.  I did not fare much better.  It would not be an exaggeration to say that 97.3% of what I utter is hyperbolic.  A clip from last night’s The Daily Show about the hypocrisy of Fox News condemning the recent comparisons of Nazi propaganda and that of the Republican party, which were made by Rep. Steve Cohen (D), reminded me to think seriously about what I say.

You can watch the clip here.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-january-24-2011/24-hour-nazi-party-people

As I sat there disgusted by those on Fox News, I realized that I am guilty of this myself. I actually called a woman the Sauna Nazi here in Munich.  Such comparisons between Nazi leaders and the people with whom we disagree is not only disingenuous but is frankly an insult to the memory of the victims of the Nazis. Seriously, I was comparing a bossy lady at the sauna to the people who organized book burnings outside of the building where I  now write my dissertation.  Working in what was once the Nazi Party headquarters which is opposite the Führer‘s building (where Hilter’s office used to be), you would think I would find this history hard to forget or at least hard to make light of.  But unfortunately it is not.

Almost a year ago my cousin and I took the S-Bahn to the outskirts of Munich. In less than 30 minutes, I stood at the site of the first Nazi concentration camp opened in Germany. Here at Dachau, which became the model for all later concentration camps, unspeakable horrors were carried out under the Nazis. When the camp was liberated, the Allies found more than 32,000 prisoners packed into 20 barracks that were only meant to hold 250each. The gas chambers here were never used. Possibly they were not required as sickness and brutality killed prisoners at truly awful rates.  It was horrible just visiting the site and the museum more than half a century later, but I am glad I went.  You can watch movies, you can read books, but standing where the prisoners were tortured and humiliated is an unforgettable and life changing experience. Or so I thought.

I know humor is how we cope with the things we fear, but I hope that I can remember not to let it desensitize me to such atrocities.  I believe spending just a short time remembering what happened at Dachau (not to mention the loss of life that occurred in the city all around me), is something we should all do  from time to time to not only re-sensitize us to the meaning of our words but also in memory of the victims.  Maybe then we will reserve the label Nazi for the Nazis.

I know all of what I just said is unoriginal, but I think it is worth being said and said again.  I guess I wrote this to remind myself and hopefully other people to simply watch what we say.





Food Friday: Ritter Sport

21 01 2011

[Waldenbuch, 1932, 3am]

Clara: Schatzi, wake up!

Alfred: (German swear words) what is it?

Clara: I have an idea.

Alfred: (more German swear words) what is it this time?

Clara: We should make a chocolate bar that fits into everyone’s jacket pocket.

Alfred: hmph, can’t we talk about this in the morning?

And thus the Ritter Sport was born!

 

Mmmm, chocolate

Ok, so I made up that it happened in the middle of the night and that Alfred Ritter swore like a sailor, but the rest is accurate. NB: Pocket does not mean jeans pocket because no one wore them in 1930s Germany and it would get all melty and gross.  Now you know why this chocolate bar that is full of fat and other goodness can have the name Sport. If you walk/run while eating the pieces in your pocket it almost makes up for eating one of these.

Yes, they now sell Ritter Sport in the States, but not in so many flavors. I frankly think the actual chocolate tastes kinda blah, but I love all the fillings.  My favorite is the strawberry yogurt filling.  Or maybe raisins and hazelnuts. Or maybe the white chocolate with hazelnuts.

The often release special limited flavors, last summer it was stracciatella gelato (which was really like ice cream), mango peach in white chocolate, and wild-berry yogurt.  I would never become a “Ribhead” but I would happily wander around Germany to get those flavors again if it would do any good.

The slogan in German “Quadratisch. Praktisch. Gut.” (“Square. Practical. Good.”)  Frankly, I think this says it all.





My Favorite Things Thursday: Müller’sches Volksbad

20 01 2011

Still smelling faintly chlorine, I thought I would sing the praises of my favorite indoor public swimming pool in Munich, the Müller’sche Volksbad.

When it was opened in 1901 it was the largest and most expensive public swimming pool (as well as the first public pool in Munich).  The funds for the swimming hall were provided by an Munich engineer, Karl Müller, hence the name “Müller’s Public Baths.”  This Jugendstil (that’s Art Nouveau to you) building was designed by Carl Hocheder.  It was built along the river not far from the Deutsches Museum, which means it is my neighborhood, Au.

(Sorry about how blurry some of these pictures are, I was sneaking them with my iPhone)

The building originally cost 1.8 million gold marks. Pretty impressive for the turn of the century

I have read that the water reserve is kept in a tower here, I am guessing this one

The part of me that still likes fairy tales, is a sucker for Art Nouveau

This one is concerned because her baby looks like a monkey

I love the details you find everywhere on the building.

Blurry, but you can get a sense of what it is like inside.

The next time I have to teach the second half of survey, I am using this in class

When you pay to use the pool, you are given a time card which lets you into the rest of the building, you then put the card in a little post box sized cabinet and receive a key to wear around your wrist. This key has the number of your locker.

This is the larger pool, which was originally for men. It is colder than the smaller pool and therefore is better for lap swimming. Photo: not mine 🙂

Formerly the women's pool, it is now nice and warm and great for floating. You can admire the beautiful stucco work of the ceiling while you bob along

After the hard exercise, you will need sustenance. Fortunately, there is a great little cafe here

There is also something they call a Roman-Irish bath, I have never used these saunas and anyway I couldn’t take my phone in if I did. Next time you are visiting Munich, skip your hotel’s pool and swim in this restored gem of a building.





Manic Munich Monday: The Awful German Language

16 01 2011

German is sneaky.  Sometimes I finally feel like I am getting a handle on it, and then I pick up a new book.  Although I feel like I am a Grade-A complainer, no one can beat Mr. Samuel Langhorne Clemens when it comes to humorous rants about the German language. (Aside: Mom and Dad, why didn’t you give me the middle name of Langhorne? Sue Langhorne Hasenclever could quite possibly be the best name of all time.)

Without further ado, take it away Mr. Twain…

I went often to look at the collection of curiosities in Heidelberg Castle, and one day I surprised the keeper of it with my German. I spoke entirely in that language. He was greatly interested; and after I had talked a while he said my German was very rare, possibly a “unique”; and wanted to add it to his museum.

If he had known what it had cost me to acquire my art, he would also have known that it would break any collector to buy it. Harris and I had been hard at work on our German during several weeks at that time, and although we had made good progress, it had been accomplished under great difficulty and annoyance, for three of our teachers had died in the mean time. A person who has not studied German can form no idea of what a perplexing language it is.

Surely there is not another language that is so slipshod and systemless, and so slippery and elusive to the grasp. One is washed about in it, hither and thither, in the most helpless way; and when at last he thinks he has captured a rule which offers firm ground to take a rest on amid the general rage and turmoil of the ten parts of speech, he turns over the page and reads, “Let the pupil make careful note of the followingexceptions.” He runs his eye down and finds that there are more exceptions to the rule than instances of it. So overboard he goes again, to hunt for another Ararat and find another quicksand. Such has been, and continues to be, my experience. Every time I think I have got one of these four confusing “cases” where I am master of it, a seemingly insignificant preposition intrudes itself into my sentence, clothed with an awful and unsuspected power, and crumbles the ground from under me. For instance, my book inquires after a certain bird — (it is always inquiring after things which are of no sort of consequence to anybody): “Where is the bird?” Now the answer to this question — according to the book — is that the bird is waiting in the blacksmith shop on account of the rain. Of course no bird would do that, but then you must stick to the book. Very well, I begin to cipher out the German for that answer. I begin at the wrong end, necessarily, for that is the German idea. I say to myself, “Regen (rain) is masculine — or maybe it is feminine — or possibly neuter — it is too much trouble to look now. Therefore, it is either der (the) Regen, or die (the) Regen, or das (the) Regen, according to which gender it may turn out to be when I look. In the interest of science, I will cipher it out on the hypothesis that it is masculine. Very well — then the rain is der Regen, if it is simply in the quiescent state of being mentioned, without enlargement or discussion — Nominative case; but if this rain is lying around, in a kind of a general way on the ground, it is then definitely located, it is doing something — that is, resting (which is one of the German grammar’s ideas of doing something), and this throws the rain into the Dative case, and makes it dem Regen. However, this rain is not resting, but is doing something actively, — it is falling — to interfere with the bird, likely — and this indicates movement, which has the effect of sliding it into the Accusative case and changing dem Regen into den Regen.” Having completed the grammatical horoscope of this matter, I answer up confidently and state in German that the bird is staying in the blacksmith shop “wegen (on account of) den Regen.” Then the teacher lets me softly down with the remark that whenever the word “wegen” drops into a sentence, it always throws that subject into the Genitive case, regardless of consequences — and that therefore this bird stayed in the blacksmith shop “wegen desRegens.”

N. B. — I was informed, later, by a higher authority, that there was an “exception” which permits one to say “wegen den Regen” in certain peculiar and complex circumstances, but that this exception is not extended to anything but rain.

There are ten parts of speech, and they are all troublesome. An average sentence, in a German newspaper, is a sublime and impressive curiosity; it occupies a quarter of a column; it contains all the ten parts of speech — not in regular order, but mixed; it is built mainly of compound words constructed by the writer on the spot, and not to be found in any dictionary — six or seven words compacted into one, without joint or seam — that is, without hyphens; it treats of fourteen or fifteen different subjects, each inclosed in a parenthesis of its own, with here and there extra parentheses which reinclose three or four of the minor parentheses, making pens within pens: finally, all the parentheses and reparentheses are massed together between a couple of king-parentheses, one of which is placed in the first line of the majestic sentence and the other in the middle of the last line of it — after which comes the VERB, and you find out for the first time what the man has been talking about; and after the verb — merely by way of ornament, as far as I can make out — the writer shovels in “haben sind gewesen gehabt haben geworden sein,” or words to that effect, and the monument is finished. I suppose that this closing hurrah is in the nature of the flourish to a man’s signature — not necessary, but pretty. German books are easy enough to read when you hold them before the looking-glass or stand on your head — so as to reverse the construction — but I think that to learn to read and understand a German newspaper is a thing which must always remain an impossibility to a foreigner.

Yet even the German books are not entirely free from attacks of the Parenthesis distemper — though they are usually so mild as to cover only a few lines, and therefore when you at last get down to the verb it carries some meaning to your mind because you are able to remember a good deal of what has gone before. Now here is a sentence from a popular and excellent German novel — which a slight parenthesis in it. I will make a perfectly literal translation, and throw in the parenthesis-marks and some hyphens for the assistance of the reader — though in the original there are no parenthesis-marks or hyphens, and the reader is left to flounder through to the remote verb the best way he can:

“But when he, upon the street, the (in-satin-and-silk-covered-now-very-unconstrained-after-the-newest-fashioned-dressed) government counselor’s wife met,” etc., etc. [1]

1. Wenn er aber auf der Strasse der in Sammt und Seide gehüllten jetzt sehr ungenirt nach der neusten Mode gekleideten Regierungsräthin begegnet.

That is from The Old Mamselle’s Secret, by Mrs. Marlitt. And that sentence is constructed upon the most approved German model. You observe how far that verb is from the reader’s base of operations; well, in a German newspaper they put their verb away over on the next page; and I have heard that sometimes after stringing along the exciting preliminaries and parentheses for a column or two, they get in a hurry and have to go to press without getting to the verb at all. Of course, then, the reader is left in a very exhausted and ignorant state.

We have the Parenthesis disease in our literature, too; and one may see cases of it every day in our books and newspapers: but with us it is the mark and sign of an unpracticed writer or a cloudy intellect, whereas with the Germans it is doubtless the mark and sign of a practiced pen and of the presence of that sort of luminous intellectual fog which stands for clearness among these people. For surely it is notclearness — it necessarily can’t be clearness. Even a jury would have penetration enough to discover that. A writer’s ideas must be a good deal confused, a good deal out of line and sequence, when he starts out to say that a man met a counselor’s wife in the street, and then right in the midst of this so simple undertaking halts these approaching people and makes them stand still until he jots down an inventory of the woman’s dress. That is manifestly absurd. It reminds a person of those dentists who secure your instant and breathless interest in a tooth by taking a grip on it with the forceps, and then stand there and drawl through a tedious anecdote before they give the dreaded jerk. Parentheses in literature and dentistry are in bad taste.

The Germans have another kind of parenthesis, which they make by splitting a verb in two and putting half of it at the beginning of an exciting chapter and the other half at the end of it. Can any one conceive of anything more confusing than that? These things are called “separable verbs.” The German grammar is blistered all over with separable verbs; and the wider the two portions of one of them are spread apart, the better the author of the crime is pleased with his performance. A favorite one is reiste ab — which means departed. Here is an example which I culled from a novel and reduced to English:

“The trunks being now ready, he DE- after kissing his mother and sisters, and once more pressing to his bosom his adored Gretchen, who, dressed in simple white muslin, with a single tuberose in the ample folds of her rich brown hair, had tottered feebly down the stairs, still pale from the terror and excitement of the past evening, but longing to lay her poor aching head yet once again upon the breast of him whom she loved more dearly than life itself, PARTED.”

However, it is not well to dwell too much on the separable verbs. One is sure to lose his temper early; and if he sticks to the subject, and will not be warned, it will at last either soften his brain or petrify it. Personal pronouns and adjectives are a fruitful nuisance in this language, and should have been left out. For instance, the same sound, sie, means you, and it means she, and it means her, and it means it, and it means they, and it means them. Think of the ragged poverty of a language which has to make one word do the work of six — and a poor little weak thing of only three letters at that. But mainly, think of the exasperation of never knowing which of these meanings the speaker is trying to convey. This explains why, whenever a person says sie to me, I generally try to kill him, if a stranger.

 





Josef Albers in Amerika! Runaway! Runaway!

12 01 2011

Since coming back to Munich I have been ill and then have fallen in a rut (the good kind where I go and work at the library all day).  Today walking to work an old enemy resurfaced. Mr. Josef Albers. Now you might say didn’t he die more than thirty five years ago? You would be correct, but this doesn’t mean he can’t wreak havoc from beyond the grave.

Homage to the Square (photo: Pinakothek der Moderne)

There is currently  an exhibit of his works on paper organized by the Munich Graphische Sammlung at the Pinakothek der Moderne, which they are advertising around where I work.  I am sure it is a great little show and everyone should go see it. (There I have done my duty)

You might be wondering why this German-born American artist terrifies my very soul. The answer is simple. Color-aid!

Ahhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, these little pieces of colored paper were the bane of my existence one horrible undergraduate semester. Thanks to Mr. Albers and other art educators I was forced to play for hours with these little bits of paper to understand how colors work together. I admit this is an important thing to know if you want to be a painter. I however did not since I believed that any reason to paint ended around the time a Mr. R Mutt submitted his little work to an exhibit in 1917.  Also I kinda suck at painting 🙂

I never had a hard time in studio classes, but Color and Design nearly killed me. I had a difficult time working on assignments that involved only the manipulation of color or shape without any sort of concept behind them. Fortunately my teacher became ill (she was just fine later, don’t worry) and was replaced by someone who assigned slightly more concept-driven projects. Otherwise I would have flunked out of college. Let’s just say Albers and his book “Interaction of Color” are not some of my favorite things.





2010 in review

2 01 2011

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

Healthy blog!

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

Featured image

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 2,200 times in 2010. That’s about 5 full 747s.

 

In 2010, there were 62 new posts, not bad for the first year! There were 149 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 134mb. That’s about 3 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was October 26th with 90 views. The most popular post that day was “I’ll Grant you This”: What I have Learned about Applying for Fellowships.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, en.wordpress.com, Google Reader, alphainventions.com, and autoinsurance.any-info.net.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for erlkönig, erlkonig, der erlkonig, goethe erlkonig, and leberkäse.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

“I’ll Grant you This”: What I have Learned about Applying for Fellowships October 2010
6 comments

2

Der Erlkönig September 2010

3

About Me: Sue P. Hasenclever August 2010

4

Things Departments Should Tell You Before You Research Abroad November 2010
3 comments

5

Drei Haselnüsse für Aschenbrödel December 2010
2 comments





Frohes Neues Jahr: New Year’s Celebrations in Munich

1 01 2011

I decided to go easy on the resolutions this year and only made three.

1. Keep working on the blog over the year. Check!

2. Write about the New Year’s Firework Extravaganza in Munich. Check!

3. Finish dissertation. That will take a bit longer.

So last night I went with a friend to watch the fireworks from Wittlesbacherbrücke. If you are like me, an American that is, you are probably used to the sanctioned fireworks displays that are paid for by the city in which you live. These are all choreographed, often to music, and are put on by experts. In Munich things are a bit different. The fireworks are provided by everyone in town who buy tons of their own to shoot off willy-nilly.

Of course we do that in the States, but these displays are for the family on the 4th of July in the backyard. We do not go out as a city and shoot off serious fireworks together.

What followed last night was some amazing fireworks with some requisite danger thrown in to boot.

All Quiet on the Western Front (save a few fireworks)

Snow comes in handy for setting these guys up

S's Fire Dance

I taught S some important American English fireworks related phrases (i.e. Ooooo, Ahhhh)

Freezing together!

My favorite photo of the night, probably because it came out blueish

Why hold on to sparklers when you can set the tree branches on fire

Getting close to midnight

Now things are getting started

Soon there were so many fireworks it was bright as day

Second favorite photo of the night

Happy New Year!

And just in case you haven’t had enough, here you can experience it yourself in blurry iPhone video form. Enjoy!