The Awful German Language by Mark Twain (1880)

The Awful German Language was published as Appendix D in Mark Twain's A Tramp Abroad (meaning a journey abroad, a travelogue of Twain's European wanderings). The essay is a hilarious polemic on the tribulations of learning German as a second language, a subject close to my heart these days. I have assembled a few of the most humorous quotes from his essay below.

Portrait of Twain at work, featured in  A Tramp Abroad.

My philological studies have satisfied me that a gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French in thirty days, and German in thirty years.

Now there are more adjectives in this language than there are black cats in Switzerland, and they must all be as elaborately declined as the examples above suggested. Difficult? – troublesome? – these words cannot describe it. I heard a Californian student in Heidelberg say, in one of his calmest moods, that he would rather decline two drinks than one German adjective.

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.

In the hospital yesterday, a word of thirteen syllables was successfully removed from a patient.

I heard lately of a worn and sorely tried American student who used to fly to a certain German word for relief when he could bear up under his aggravations no longer -- the only word whose sound was sweet and precious to his ear and healing to his lacerated spirit. This was the word DAMIT. It was only the SOUND that helped him, not the meaning; and so, at last, when he learned that the emphasis was not on the first syllable, his only stay and support was gone, and he faded away and died.

It is true that by some oversight of the inventor of the language, a Woman is a female; but a Wife (Weib) is not – which is unfortunate. A Wife, here, has no sex; she is neuter; so, according to the grammar, a fish is HE, his scales are SHE, but a fishwife is neither.

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.

In German, a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has.

A German speaks of an Englishman as the ENGLAENDER; to change the sex, he adds INN, and that stands for Englishwoman – ENGLAENDERINN. That seems descriptive enough, but still it is not exact enough for a German; so he precedes the word with that article which indicates that the creature to follow is feminine, and writes it down thus: "die Englaenderinn," – which means "the she-Englishwoman." I consider that that person is over-described.

Would any man want to die in a battle which was called by so tame a term as a SCHLACHT (Battle)?

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.

I translated a passage one day, which said that "the infuriated tigress broke loose and utterly ate up the unfortunate fir forest" (Tannenwald). When I was girding up my loins to doubt this, I found out that Tannenwald in this instance was a man's name.

Every time a German opens his mouth an ALSO falls out; and every time he shuts it he bites one in two that was trying to GET out.

Bridget Bate Tichenor (1917-1990)

Bridget Bate Tichenor was a surrealist painter of fantastic art in the school of magic realism and a fashion editor. Born in Paris, she later resettled in Mexico. Bate Tichenor's painting technique was based upon 16th-century Italian tempera formulas that artist Paul Cadmus taught her in New York in 1945. She considered her work to be of a spiritual nature, reflecting ancient occult religions, magic, alchemy, and Mesoamerican mythology in her Italian Renaissance style of painting. The paintings below are mostly from her 1960's work. 

The Duke of Burgundy (2014)

This marvellous romantic drama directed by Peter Strickland is a cinematic masterpiece which, like great wine, is ever-maturing into a classic. Amongst its many delights is the conjuring of a bucolic  atmosphere chiefly mediated by the authenticity of subtle lighting and naturalistic set designs, without a modern contrivance or electronic device in sight. If you were a child of the 70's you might recall something strange happened in that decade. We seemed to go from subtle browns, greens, plums and ochres; earthy colours and materials in the early 70's, to a dehumanised monochrome of formica, metal and plastic a bit like moving house permanently to the Death Star. Accompanying this, a garish explosion of compensatory synthetic pop colours occurred to assault the senses (and aid the advertisers). By the 1980's it seemed the human visual design landscape had been irrevocably transformed, and if a simple natural interieur was desired, it had to be deliberately reverse-engineered, ironically out of wood-effect plastic and synthetic materials. 

The Duke of Burgundy exists in this pre-formica world where objects are naturally-derived materials; wood, stone, candles, wool, grasses, cotton, clay, ceramic, iron. Beyond that, it is a kind of imaginal world which cannot be accurately placed temporally or geographically. Although it is a British-made film, the sets richly evoke that of a pre-1970's rustic French chateaux or Italian mansion, which have a strongly European rather than British flavour. The professional and artistic interests of Cynthia and Evelyn extend to a Victorian descriptive natural history of lepidoptery, without cluttering the subject with modern technical detail. Surrounded by dusty books, brass microscopes, and entomological wall mountings, their research interest is at once a comforting retreat from the outside world, yet also a stagnating academic stricture which typifies their obsessively introspecting psychic existence.  

Although The Duke of Burgundy is often described as an erotic thriller, the kink-based relationship of Cynthia and Evelyn is artfully counterpoised to depict a formulaic sense of ennui and frustration, so it is neither truly erotic or thrilling. I can't help thinking this is a kind of anti-erotic feministic riposte to the conventional sexploitation trajectory a film like The Duke of Burgundy would take had it been produced in the 1970's. In the turgidity of the ritualised sexual encounters, the peripherality of the wandering mind and attention becomes enlivened; this only intensifies the artistic focus on lighting, opulent furnishings, the flickering of a candle. Only in this sense is the film sensual. 

In his book "A Year in the Country: Wandering Through Spectral Fields", Stephen Prince describes the intimate relationships in The Duke of Burgundy as possessing a "Kafka-esque sense of unending" and, laughably, a central relationship which resembles the 1979-87 sit-com Terry and June. I would reject Prince's fancifully vacuous stream of consciousness if it wasn't for his wonderfully redeeming phrase that Duke of Burgundy creates "a particular esoteric, luxuriant, golden atmosphere and an almost fairytale-like world." Yeah, I suppose just like Terry and June. 

In his fairytale-like evocation, Price also forgets to mention the almost classically hallucinogenic soundtrack by alt-pop duo Cat's Eyes (comprising Faris Badwan and Rachel Zeffira) which greatly helps to thematically situate the film within a sensibility of dreamy European folk-imbued decadence. The other thing Price fails to pick up on is what I regard to be the principal narrative of the whole movie; and that is the suffocating sense of confinement which accompanies human life. Whether its at the sharp end of the lepidopterist's pin, a specimen being fixed under a microscope, the soulless rigidity of academic life, the tedious ritualised entrainment of sex and relationships (for example how Evelyn becomes confined to a wooden chest to fulfil her sensory deprivation fantasy), The Duke of Burgundy is a stylish but devastating excoriation of the insatiably spurious wants of the post-scarcity human condition and a gently moralising admonishment of living a life which is psychically cut adrift from the libidinal rhythms of nature. 

Shit Aurora Photos

Yo! Last night was a pretty good one for northern lights. I saw them earlier on in the year, but owing to misplaced trust in Nokia's night photo setting, nearly all of my photos turned out as grainy and dark as the bottom of an abandoned asylum sick bucket. Not so last night. I just used my usual portrait setting on the phone and the photos turned out as reassuringly amateurish as I could hope for. I did try using my Canon on timer but owing to my lack of technological aptitude (scrub that, technological interest) the results on my mobile camera were better. The aurora was mostly pink, scarlet and red but with tinges of green and on occasion quite extensive streaks arcing across the sky. It grew over the period of an hour or so and moved about much more than the one earlier in the year, eventually dissipating. Very impressive. Thank you God. 

John Burroughs: The Simple Life

I am bound to praise the simple life, because I have lived it and found it good... I love a small house, plain clothes, simple living. Many persons know the luxury of a skin bath- a plunge in the pool or the wave unhampered by clothing. That is the simple life - direct and immediate contact with things, life with the false wrappings torn away - the fine house, the fine equipage, the expensive habits, all cut off. How free one feels, how good the elements taste, how close one gets to them, how they fit one's body and one's soul! To see the fire that warms you, or better yet, to cut the wood that feeds the fire that warms you; to see the spring where the water bubbles up that slakes your thirst, and to dip your pail into it; to see the beams that are the stay of your four walls, and the timbers that uphold the roof that shelters you; to be in direct and personal contact with the sources of your material life; to want no extras, no shields; to find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter; to find a quest of wild berries more satisfying than a gift of tropic fruit; to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird's nest, or over a wild flower in spring - these are some of the rewards of the simple life. 

From: "An Outlook Upon Life" quoted in Our Friend John Burroughs (Clara Barrus, 1914). 

The current of the lives of many persons, I think, is like a muddy stream. They lack the instinct for health, and hence do not know when the vital current is foul. They are never really well ... The dew on the grass, the bloom on the grape, the sheen on the plumage, are suggestions of the health that is within the reach of most of us. 

I would live so that I could get tipsy on a glass of water, or find the spur in a whiff of morning air. 

You and I perish, but something goes out, or may go out, from us that will help forward a higher type of humanity. 

Oh, the wisdom that grows on trees, that murmurs in the streams, that floats in the wind, that sings in the birds, that is fragrant in the flowers, that speaks in the storms - the wisdom that one gathers on the shore, or when sauntering in the fields, or in resting under a tree, the wisdom that makes him forget his science, and exacts only his love - how precious it all is!

Naturalism does not see two immeasurable realities, God and Nature, it sees only one, that all is Nature or all is God, just as you prefer ... The universe was not made, it is, and always has been. God is Nature, and Nature is God. 

I shall not be imprisoned in the grave where you are to bury my body. I shall be diffused in great Nature, in the soil, in the air, in the sunshine, in the hearts of those who love me, in all the living and flowing currents of the world, though I may never again in my entirety be embodied in a single human being. My elements and my forces go back into the original sources out of which they came, and these sources are perennial in this vast, wonderful, divine cosmos. 

We are links in an endless cycle of change in which we cannot separate material from what we call the spiritual ... Each of us is an incarnation of the universal mind, as is every beast of the field and jungle, and every fowl of the air, and every insect that creeps and flies; and we can only look upon creation as an end in itself ... [Humanity] is a link in an endless chain of being (Accepting the Universe, 1920).

All quotes above from: Meditations of John Burroughs: Nature is Home. Chris Highland (Ed), Self-published, 2007. 

Appendix Apocalypse: Album Artwork

This time last year I had a ruptured appendix which required surgery. Despite being wheeled into the hospital at 6am stating I had sudden cessation of agonising abdominal pain over McBurney’s point (a clear sign of ruptured appendix, which I pointed out) it took the NHS eight hours to give me a basic clinical examination, 15 hours to give me antibiotics, and 28 hours wait in A&E before I could get surgery. The extent of my condition only became clear after 2 hours of surgery: my appendix had ruptured by 50% at the base by the cecum, and wrapped tightly in the surrounding omentum which created a challenging clean up job. The surgeon said I would have died without the appendectomy, and had understandable concerns for my recovery. When a surgeon worries about your “recovery” that means your “survival”. 

Weeks ensued of peritonitis, followed by a grumbling postoperative abscess. Given the standard of ‘care’ I had previously received, I decided to treat myself using herbal medicine. During my interminable A&E delay, I had started hallucinating as though I was looking out on the bleak ignorance of the world from inside a stagnating lime green fishbowl, with my internal organs churning in a dishwasher of their own faecal gravy. All around me was the madness and brutality of a medieval hell, which reminded me of the Hieronymus Bosch painting The Garden of Earthly Delights (1510). Completely unable to get through to the NHS staff the importance of getting immediate surgery, and in a private fishbowl of mortal torture, all I could do was elevate my consciousness above my broken body, and shine down compassion and unconditional love upon myself. 

During my convalescence I compiled this album. I felt something creative was in order to say I am here, I am alive, I will be whole again. Fuck you NHS, I survived in spite of your murderous negligence. I won’t ever be inanely banging pots and pans on my front doorstep like a clapping seal to say thanks for all your bullshit hard work.

Metaphysical Artwork

Last year, I completed a qualification with the University of Metaphysical Sciences in many diverse aspects of metaphysics and divinity. Their teaching methodology is experiential, and quite unlike anything I had previously undergone in academia. The aims of one of the Masters electives was to paint some therapeutic art depicting a variety of emotions, for inner contemplation. As you can no doubt see, I am completely out of my depth as an artist, but instead of choosing a different elective I decided to embrace the challenge this module offered and ordered myself some acrylic paints and A5 paper. The great value of this exercise to me was to explore emotions in a different medium to usual, with a focus on the expressive process rather than the outcome. I learned a lot from this experience. I like painting! In future I might get a full size easel and learn a few techniques which allow me to generate some more expansive, expressive, abstract canvases, maybe with some Jungian themes. Underneath each painting below I have included the description so you can identify how I arrived at my technique, although it was tempting to leave you guessing as to what each painting subjectively suggests to you. 

Poverty: Poverty is often oversimplified and reduced to clean, sharp lines (usually imbued with the heavy-handed piety of others). In reality poverty is multifactorial and complex. The image is violently broken by the centrifugal vortex of enervating grey and blood red, which merge into a crushing sense of oblivion. 

Bliss: Complementary pink & green colours which resemble the icing of an Easter egg are shown. Chocolate provides comfort and releases serotonin. The egg is a symbol of completeness, the World, swollen contentment and dormancy. “The World egg, or cosmic egg, is a mythological motif found in the cosmogonies of many cultures. Eggs symbolize the unification of two complementary principles (represented by the egg white and the yolk) from which life or existence, in its most fundamental philosophical sense, emerges.” (Wikipedia). Bliss is the one thing which gives birth to the many. 

Worry: The green background represents the fertile matrix of the unconscious from which worries emerge. The orange wavy lines are energised ripples of consciousness carrying warmer energy or fire. They are the evanescent disturbances of primal fears seeking to be reabsorbed into the matrix.

Excitement: The gold outer frame signifies the Halcyon/ rose tinted/ vintage/ secure quality of childhood. The concentric rainbow colours reinforce this and supply a motive quality which draws one to the centre of the picture, a magnetic fixation, an ideal or goal. 

Balance: The image is equally divided into four sections with the colours orange, blue, green, brown. This indicates the seasons of the year and the dynamic ecologic balance which occurs without conscious effort or planning. The red trim helps to balance the image visually, and suggests solar energy, and the animal/human connection with nature, which is intimately connected to, and necessary to its functioning, like stitching or embroidery which hold the whole together. 

Anger: The red background represents passion, blood, animal warmth. The black arrows are opposing concentrations of conscious effort, which can only be destructive in the power of their expression. The overall image produced is redolent of fascist symbology and necessity for control/ containment of violent impulses.

Softness: This rich and sensuous violet background is embellished with a gold circular horizontal line which resembles a gentle planetary transit, surrounded by the distant panoply of yellow stars. The softness implied is remote and cosmic, and has a timeless eternal quality. 

Happiness: The colours of this card are the colours of nature, where I am most happy. The green at the bottom represents the landscape, and the blue is the sky. The red/orange/brown/ yellow circles represent the plant kingdom in its various stages and seasons.

Passivity: The neutrality of the brown background is punctured by the more energetic, but complementary colour yellow. Although the active principle cuts through the passive, there is no conflict and in fact a creative unity results. 

Lucidity: Blue is the colour of clarity. White accentuates and focusses the mind in laser-like concentration in pursuit of a singular aim.