POETRY—AND
LIEDER—CORNER
(SPECIAL HALLOWEEN EDITION)
Dietrich
Fischer-Dieskau sings "Erlkönig," accompanied
by Gerald Moore. Words by Goethe; music by Schubert.
Filmed by the BBC, London, 14 May 1959. Included in the
EMI DVD Schwarzkopf/Seefried/Fischer-Dieskau:
Classic Archive.
|
Erlkönig
Wer
reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind?
Es ist der Vater mit seinem Kind:
er hat den Knaben wohl in dem
Arm,
er faßt ihn sicher, er hält ihn
warm.
"Mein
Sohn, was birgst du so bang dein Gesicht?"
"Siehst, Vater, du den Erlkönig nicht?
Den Erlenkönig mit Kron und Schweif?"
"Mein Sohn, es ist ein Nebelstreif."
"Du
liebes Kind, komm, geh mit mir!
Gar schöne Spiele spiel ich mit
dir;
manch' bunte Blumen sind an dem Strand;
meine Mutter hat manch' gülden Gewand."
"Mein
Vater, mein Vater, und hörest du nicht,
Was Erlenkönig mir leise
verspricht?"
"Sei ruhig, bleibe ruhig, mein Kind:
in dürren Blättern säuselt der Wind."
"Willst,
feiner Knabe, du mit mir gehn?
Meine Töchter sollen dich warten schön:
Meine Töchter führen den nächtlichen Reih'n
und wiegen und tanzen und singen dich ein."
"Mein
Vater, mein Vater, und siehst du nicht dort
Erlkönigs Töchter am düstern
Ort?"
"Mein Sohn, mein Sohn, ich seh es genau,
es scheinen die alten Weiden so grau."
"Ich
liebe dich, mich reizt deine schöne Gestalt;
und bist du nicht willig, so brauch ich Gewalt."
"Mein Vater, mein Vater, jetzt faßt er
mich an!
Erlkönig hat mir ein Leids getan!"
Dem
Vater grauset's, er reitet geschwind,
er hält in Armen das ächzende
Kind,
erreicht den Hof mit Müh' und
Not:
in seinen Armen das Kind war tot.
—Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe
|
The
Erl-king
Who
rides so late through night and wind?
It is the father with his child.
He holds the boy in his arms,
he clasps him firmly, he keeps him warm.
"My
son, why do you hide your face so fearfully?"
"Father, don't you see the Erl-king?
The Erl-king with his crown and train?"
"My son, it is a patch of mist."
"Come,
dear child, go with me!
I will play beautiful games with you;
many are the bright flowers on the shore,
my mother has many robes of gold."
"My
father, my father, and do you not hear
what Erl-king softly promises
me?"
"Be calm, keep calm, my child:
in dry leaves the wind is rustling."
"Will
you go with me, brave
boy?
My daughters shall tend you nicely.
My daughters will lead the dancing each night
and will lull and dance and sing for you."
"My
father, my father, don't you see over there
Erl-king's daughters in that deserted spot?"
"My son, my son, I see it
perfectly,
the old willows look so
grey."
"I
love you, am charmed by your good looks
and if you aren't willing, I shall have to use
force."
"My father, my father, he's clutching me now!
Erl-king has hurt me!"
The
father shudders, he rides apace:
in his arms he holds the groaning child.
Sweating and straining he reaches the courtyard;
in his arms the child lay dead.
—Translated
by William Mann
|
Kevin
Michael Grace,
1.36 pm, 31 October 2007►
THOUGHT
FOR THE DAY
"Modern"
libertarians have made their peace with the Empire. As
long as they can take drugs, abort fetuses, and sodomize
each other to their hearts’ content, [they] have no
problem with the US rampaging over half the earth,
regime-changing and taking out "rogue" states at
will. As long as it’s a "free market" Empire,
they’re all in favor of it.
—Justin
Raimondo, "Ron
Paul Versus The Beltway 'Libertarians,'"
Taki's Top Drawer, 29 October 2007
(And
see here)
Kevin
Michael Grace,
12.57 am, 31 October 2007►
THOUGHT
FOR THE DAY
The
bulls will tell you that foreign governments understand
the American economy is the key to global economic health,
and that they’ll suck it up and take it when we devalue
their debt. To which [Peter]
Schiff offers another analogy. Imagine if
five people were washed up on a desert island: four Asians
and an American. In splitting up their duties, one Asian
says he’ll fish; another will hunt, another will look
for firewood, and another will cook. The American assigns
himself the job of eating.
“The
modern economist looks at this situation and says the
American is key to the whole thing,” says Schiff.
“Because without him to eat, the four Asians would be
unemployed.” The alternative: Without the American, the
Asians might eat a little more themselves and even spend
some time building a boat. This is happening as we speak:
With the rise of the Chinese consumer class, the local
citizenry is now spending, and the country is no longer
totally dependent on exports. Which means they’re no
longer totally dependent on us.
—Duff
McDonald, "The
Catastrophist View: What Would It Take To Send The US
Economy—And New York's Into Free Fall? A Doomsday
Primer," New York, 28 October
2007
Kevin
Michael Grace,
8.30 pm, 29 October 2007►
THOUGHT
FOR THE DAY
I
was listening to NPR
today at noon (KUOW
Seattle), and they were joking about lesbian
three-year-olds and discussing some unicorn show that
features a gay eight-year-old boy. Good thing my daughter,
who was in the car with me, is still too little to get it.
To me, this says the game's just about over. This country
is becoming a campy joke.
—"Bill,"
commenting
on "The Downfall Of Science In
Italy," isteve.blogspot.com, 27 October 2007
Kevin
Michael Grace,
10.32 am, 28 October 2007►
MASTERS
OF PROSE
The
key to overcoming public
paranoia of Prime Minister Stephen Harper was
always the electorate's belief he would never
ever possess all the launch
codes for Canada's parliamentary system.
His
ideological baggage and heavy-handed
personality were viewed as too dangerous to concentrate
power in his hands, particularly given the unchecked
clout of a Canadian prime minister equals or
exceeds almost any other democracy in the world.
Even
the Conservative leader sensed the sentiment while
campaigning in early 2006, and tried to quell voter
anxiety by claiming the Liberal-laden
Supreme Court, federal bureaucracy and Senate would handcuff
any drunk-with-power Conservative tendencies, even
if he owned a majority of the 308 Commons seats...
For
the Liberals looking for a happy
face in the polling results, well? sigh.
The
essence of their hopes for
success depend on making Mr. Harper appear too scary an
option to embrace. They aim to paint
their rival in Dr Seuss Yertle the
Turtle tones, the ruler of all he sees, oblivious
to the risk of teetering on the
shoulders of lesser subjects.
—Don
Martin, "Voters
Get Over Fear Of Harper: PM First Choice To Lead A
Majority, New Poll Says," National
Post, 20 October 2007
As
they like to say at FireJoeMorgan.com,
fuck the heck? What on earth do the first and last
sentences mean? There are words missing there, right?
As
for the abuse Martin deserves, simple and direct just
won't do. I thought of nicking (or modifying) Evelyn
Waugh's famous assessment
of Stephen Spender, "To watch him
fumbling with our rich and delicate English language is
like seeing a Sèvres vase in the hands of a
chimpanzee." But this doesn't work either. The
reference to French pottery is too high toned for a pleb
like Martin, and the essence of Waugh's rebuke was that
Spender's reach exceeded his grasp. Martin, on the other
hand, is not only comically inept but belligerent with it:
more flailing than fumbling.
Let's
put it this way, if Don Martin's prose were a car, it
would be a turd brown 1974 Ford Pinto. After its
incontinent teenaged driver has forced it over the curb,
it sways and wobbles, rolling backwards until it hits a
tree at 15 MPH. Then it blows up.
As
a three-time Master of Prose, Mr Martin has been retired
from this contest, as he is now a member of the Hall of
Fame.
Martin: Congratulations
Kevin
Michael Grace,
2.31 am, 25 October 2007►
THE
SYSTEM WORKS
So
Conrad Black says
that the works of John
Henry Newman have been "helpful"
to him of late. Heart speaks to heart, one might
say. More on that tomorrow. In the meantime, here's a
short piece published shortly after Black's conviction.
Born-Again
Canadian
Chronicles September 2007
I was one
of many who sighed with relief when Conrad Black was
convicted in US District Court July 13. He is exceedingly
litigious, and word had gone out that anyone who had
suggested anything untoward in Black’s management of his
newspaper empire could expect writs should the great man
be found not guilty.
But he
wasn’t, and I can now state categorically what I had only
hinted at in these pages three years ago: Conrad
Black is a crook. Specifically, Black was
found guilty of fraud for paying himself noncompete
payments for newspapers he had sold to himself and of
obstruction of justice for removing boxes of evidence from
his office while under investigation by the SEC.
He remains
free on bail while awaiting sentencing November 30. As the
prosecution is recommending a 24- to 30-year term, the
62-year-old Black will likely spend the rest of his life
in a US federal prison.
Unless,
that is, he manages to regain the Canadian citizenship he
abjured with contumely six years ago. The newly ennobled
Baron Black of Crossharbour declared
in 2001,
Renouncing
my citizenship was much more than a ticket to the House of
Lords; it was the last and most consistent act of dissent
I could pose against a public policy which I believe is
depriving Canada of its right and duty to be one of the
world’s great countries.
In other
words, You are not
worthy! Of me!
Should we
see the error of our ways, however, Black was prepared to
reconsider: “If my views are taken up and implemented, I
will be happy to resume my citizenship.” Can’t say
fairer than that, can you? In 2006, Black announced that
we were once again worthy of his lordship. He was now a “demonstrative
Canadian flag waver,” and could he have
his citizenship back, please?
In his Dialogue
of Comfort Against Tribulation, the
Catholic scholar and martyr Sir
Thomas More wrote, “A man that [is] in
peril of drowning catcheth whatsoever cometh to hand, be
it never so simple a stick.” And the conversion
experience of the Catholic scholar and would-be martyr
Lord Conrad Black occasioned much cynicism, not to say
hilarity, in his native land. It’s not as if he wasn’t
already drowning in a sea of tribulation. Patrick
Fitzgerald, scourge of Scooter
Libby, had announced his intention to put
Black behind bars for decades, but, if Black could regain
his citizenship, he would be eligible for the Canada-US
prisoner exchange. This would guarantee him the comfort of
a short sentence in one of Canada’s “country club”
jails, where “offenders
reside in residential style housing units”
and “are responsible for their own meal preparation.”
Prime
Minister Stephen Harper says he won’t
get involved, and Black is now a convicted
felon, which should disqualify him. But Canada routinely
grants citizenship to foreigners whose crimes are much
blacker than Black’s, so who knows?
If the self-hating
Canadians who dominate “conservative”
opinion in this country had their way, Black would not
only be repatriated and freed, he would become Governor
General, allowing him to embrace his destiny as the General
Pétain of Vichy Canada.
But a funny
thing happened on the way to Black’s immolation. Our
neocon Fifth Columnists had no problem with Conrad Black
instructing us that there was no problem with Canada that
shouldn’t be solved by making her exactly like America.
This was only the truth. And they cared not when Black’s
crimes came to light. After all, $3.5 million is
“nothing,” and, anyway, theft isn’t theft when big
businessmen do it. Instead, the already indicted Black was
rewarded with a
column in the National
Post, and his noxious wife, the as-
yet-unindicted Barbara Amiel, with one
in Maclean’s.
Ken
Whyte, editor- publisher of Maclean’s,
testified for Black at trial, which is surely unconnected
with the $100,000
“performance bonus” he accepted from
Black in 2003, two years after Whyte stopped working for
him.
Even as
Conrad damned his Jewish
prosecutors as “those
Nazis” and Barbara damned the reporters
covering his trial as “vermin,”
Black’s claque smothered them with true unpatriot love.
Black’s ordeal was a latter-day Dreyfus
case. Maybe worse. Or so said Mark Steyn, David Frum,
George Jonas, Peter Worthington, David Warren, Adam
Daifallah, Christie Blatchford, and Ezra Levant.
And yet,
when it became clear that Black’s number was up, the
Vichy Canadians began denouncing the US government with
all the fervour of a Paul
Craig Roberts. Our Fifth Columnists became
as anti-American as all get out. Truly, God moves in a
mysterious way, His wonders to perform.
Black: Ecce homo
Kevin
Michael Grace,
11.52 pm, 23 October 2007►
DO
I HAVE TO COME RIGHT OUT AND SAY IT?
Edward
Michael George insists I've not provided a
"persuasive answer" as to why this site has been
"malingering in darkness lo this last month or
so." Okey dokey. Will a little Wittgenstein hit
the spot?
Whereof
one cannot speak, thereon one must remain silent.
But
it's not so much that one cannot speak; it's the
understanding that
the earth keeps spinning on its axis quite nicely without
one's puling contributions to the general debate. Of
course the same could be said for most opinion mongers,
paid or otherwise...
No,
more to the point are the words of the
great Ted Maul—the reporter, not the
band:
Depressed
beyond tablets.
This
space became oppressive to me, seemingly (Brass Eye
again) "the twisted brainwrong of a one-off man
mental."
(Not
that I've ever taken tablets, mind, prescribed or
otherwise. Don't hold with them, you see.)
Was
physically ill for several months —better now, ta
—lost a longstanding freelance gig, then lost a
near-promised staff gig. Moped throughout. Pretty much it.
Will this do, Ted?
Dr
Johnson kept a black dog too, but he
certainly had my number when he
wrote to Boswell:
If
you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary, be not
idle.
And
since I'm condemned to solitude, then I suppose I'd best
do the other thing. Expect regular posting henceforth.
Maul: 'They say a bored mind
makes a great office for the Devil'
Kevin
Michael Grace,
1.43 am, 23 October 2007►
THOUGHT
FOR THE DAY
[Claud
Cockburn] told me that if in doubt about
how to write a political story you should think: what is
the worst thing that the government could do in these
particular circumstances? And then assume that they had
done it.
—Richard
Ingrams
Kevin
Michael Grace,
11.28 pm, 22 October 2007►
