Christmas, Birthday, New Year - a lot of cake on my plate before 2024 started

 

                                                                                   +

                                                                                  +

                                                    All in chronological order.  

    I wish all of you a happy, peaceful 2024!

I need your help to translate a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke

 On "https://burstingwithhappiness.blogspot.com I tried to translate a  beautiful poem of Rainer Maria Rilke. I would be very glad if you send me proposals how I can improve that translation. 

I have a few doubts: is it utterly wrong to say - as Rilke did in German - "It drives the wind in winter woods/ the snowflakes.."? Of course I could have constructed a normal English sentence - but that would not have expressed the way Rilke frames it. 

So: your help will be very welcomed! 

Saving Money with the Kakebo - a Recommenation for our German Politicians

 

Dear You, 

you might have read about the huge budget crisis into which our German government now slithered when our cheeky Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (the one who can't remember which part he played in the Cum-Ex-Scandal) planned to put not-used Corona-crisis money - only wimpish 60 billions Euro - into other pots, e.g. climate protection measures. 

The independent Federal Constitutional Court rendered a verdict against that shenanigans, so now our politicians are looking desperately for new interesting ways to find that money. By the way: our money, paid by us, the taxpayers. (The 137.000 euros we taxpayers have to give for annual make-up and hairdresser of our Minister of Foreign Affairs, Annalena Baerbock, are only ridiculous flyspeck compared to those 60 billions euro). 

I am a modest expert in the handling of money - in my book Home Basics, 10.000 of the over 60.000 books sold were bought from a Swiss building association which gave it to every young person who opened a savings account there. They liked my chapter on money and how to use it wisely. 

Well: the Kakebo above is a housekeeping book from Japan, invented by the Avantgarde-thinker Hani Motoko in 1904. She was the first female journalist of Japan. 

The books helps you to control your money, be disciplined and evaluate your data, and the best of it: you set yourself goals, see where you spend unnecessarily money on - in short: you see very clearly the results of your actions.   

If our politicians don't have 38,7 billions for Bürgergeld they must reduce it and NOT raise it for 2024 for 12%. Bürgergeld is a good thing for people who have lost their job - but when you don't have to try to find  work to get it that might be one reason why so many migrants want to come especially to Germany - and from the Ukraine refugees in Germany only 18% are in work, while in other European countries two thirds have found a job.  

It might help if our politicians used the Kakebo. 

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure 19 pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. 

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery." 

Mr. Micawber (Charles Dickens: Great Expectations)

The sad thing is: it is our money and thus our misery. And sorry to say: most of us don't have any "Great Expectations" at the moment. 

. . 

 

Reading for Pleasure

 Dear You, 

Do you have books you read again and again? 

I have a few - and at the moment I read this (again): 

Mavis Cheek: Mrs Fytton's Country Life   (published in 2000!)

"...this is exactly the anti-depressant you need: Prozac on the page" wrote the Daily Mail.

I think the book incredibly witty and funny (maybe only for my generation?), I still can laugh on almost every page, and agree with Mail on Sunday: "..she (Mavis Cheek) possesses the wickedly sharp eye of a born satirist." I think it is Cheek's best and funniest novel. 

And when I take it from the shelf it is always a sign for me that I want (or have to) change and to come down to earth again. 

And feel which direction I want to go. Even if the picture might look a bit foggy or blurred - there is a direction. 

For Anne

 

I needed solitude, to say good-bye to my very, very dear friend. 

She takes a huge part of our life with her. 

I thank her for all the time we spent together: from our very first day when we met as freshmen we shared our highly exciting time as students, supported us when love or life became difficult, shared in our joy that we got from our children and our careers. 

More than 55 years of shared thoughts, opinions and emotions. 

Travelling together a lot we enjoyed incredible adventures:

during our week as "Bed and Breakfast for Garden-Lovers", or another time listening to the sermon of the Bishop of St. Paul's Cathedral which he gave to us members of the E.F.Benson society, followed by a gorgeous dinner in the Guildhall (London). 

After she did her Ph.D with 67 years (!) I surprised her with a stay in the carriage house of "Downton Abbey". Another time we followed the footsteps of Lord Peter Wimsey and Inspector Morse in Oxford, another time we enjoyed the centenary of the Chelsea Flower Show, or were "Puttin' on the Ritz" - just to name a few. 

Energy, empathy, joie de vivre, and so much laughing: 

I thank you for all that, my dear friend, 

I miss you. 

Going to Vienna and Eating a Sacher-Torte (the original)

 

Mind, Dear You: I didn't write "for" eating a Sacher-Torte. 

As you might have noticed, sometimes I have to fight with English grammar and jesters as "for / of / and with" - but I hope that you didn't believe for a second that Yours Truly goes to Vienna with the single intent to eat an original Sacher-Torte - that would be "too much" of snobbishness. 

For a while I thought about publishing that photo at all - I sit so crumpled that I can hear my late blue-blooded grandmother hiss: "Posture, girl, posture!" (She was oh so right). My red-blooded granny (note the difference in loving feelings) only would say: "Enjoy!" 

Which I did. 

And next time I'll write about the intellectual pleasures of Vienna. (After having polished off the whipped cream...) 

  

Edvard Munch. Magic of the North (Zauber des Nordens) in the Berlinische Galerie.

 

Dear You, 

I promised to tell you about the Berlin exhibition Edvard Munch. And though I will travel to Wien on Tuesday, I sit here in the early morning in Bavaria, singing a duet with "The Frog King":"What you promised you have to deliver". 

The Berlinische Galerie writes: 

Edvard Munch (1863–1944) challenged his contemporaries with the radical modernity of his paintings, especially in Berlin, where the Norwegian Symbolist exerted a big influence around the turn of the century. The exhibition “Magic of the North” is a partnership with the MUNCH in Oslo. It tells the story of Edvard Munch and Berlin, illustrated by paintings, prints and photographs.

Among the 80 exhibits you will not find "The Scream" (sounds like cultural names-dropping when I mention that I saw it a few weeks ago in "Secessionen.Klimt, Stuck, Liebermann" at the Alte National Galerie in Berlin.   :-). 

I'll just give you a few headers of the exhibition: 

"Scandal. Berlin. City of Art. Exhilaration. Scream. Collapse. Psyche. The North. Life and Loves. Digs and Homes." 

And photos of a few paintings: 

 

(This one evokes some drawings of my beloved Tove Jansson)

So: if you are in Berlin - and promise (!) to be not too impatient 

I recommend to visit the exhibition - 

you have time till 22. January 2024 -

Berlin then will do anything to shovel a footpath free of snow  for you: 

PS: I add a few words of Florian Illies' review in DIE ZEIT: 

"painting of negative resonances, of intrusive force fields which can make people lapse into silence through loneliness,  fear and jealousy - or scream."