The invention of the oud in the early Middle Ages is the subject of a provocative new documentary (currently unreleased & feeling a little rejected in its metal container) by former filmmaker & current electrical engineer Hermann Wrassler. Wrassler, whose lovely wife Maybelline is the leading Avon Brand Raspberry Rouge salesgirlie in the South-West Idaho District for three years running, can't play the instrument & is in fact completely tone deaf (also, color-blind & uppity-nosed), & so relied on expert testimony from friends of his who speculated on the past, future, current whereabouts & possible philosophic/political bent of the instrument which most scholars believe preceded the lute & which some betting men wager could hand the lute its ass in a basket.
Wrassler remains passionate about the project despite mistakenly returning one copy he had to Netflix instead of the recent Indiana Jones sequel. Netflix executives reportedly sent it on five more times until someone complained that they had gotten the wrong movie, & that person had mistaken Harrison Ford for Henry Ford, at whose auto plant the customer once lost the use of every long vowel after a mishap with a power window. But Wrassler was not cheered by the meager reception his magnum opus has thus far received:
"Did you see the last Indiana Jones movie?" he said, exasperated. "That fucking sucked!"
Scholars of the War On Sailing often find themselves enraptured by musical instruments, a common way to mis-transmit information in repressive or otherwise nonsensical cultures. Tweed Muppet's landmark seven volume History Of The Tambourine once reportedly sent Vladimir Putin into a rage because it revealed KGB techniques that he - Putin - thought were invented in his lifetime. As well, Young Sandy Arfster's Oboe, written & re-written at least two dozen times during her lifetime, & three times since her death, is widely read not only to discover what a "double reed" is but to understand how Hoover failed as the economy crashed around him.
Is the same true about Wrassler's "filmic history" of the Middle Eastern stringed instrument called the oud? The five Netflix customers who have seen it chose not to review it for the DVD rental agency, & the agency would not reveal the names for further research. What of Wrassler's friends? Have they seen it?
"I have no friends," said Wrassler.
Too many complete works are either unavailable (think of the last seventeen novels JD Salinger has written) or have been completely destroyed (think of the first seventeen novels JD Salinger wrote) for scholars to be sanguine about this short film (apparently only thirteen minutes long, minus previews) which was filmed on location in South-West Idaho, with some scenes secretly shot in a Home Depot ten minutes before closing. Repeated requests to Wrassler by this writer were denied, although when I offered to throw in a donut, he hesitated.
More research, as always, is needed.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Astride The Auld Libertine
"Frank Pankuk, a Hungarian, boarding at No. 72 East Fourth-street, was called on last evening by his brother Joseph, a worthless young ruffian, 21 years old, who wanted money. Frank refused to give it to him, whereupon Joseph pulled a revolver and fired two shots at his brother. One took effect in his right breast, inflicting a dangerous wound. Joseph fled, and had not been arrested at a late hour. The wounded man was removed to Bellevue Hospital."
So reported the New York Times on January 9, 1885. But about the incident's outcome, the paper is silent - as is history itself. What happened to Frank Pankuk? Did he live? How dangerous was his wound? How did he, a simple boarder, afford his bill at Bellevue?
& what about that worthless young ruffian, Joseph Pankuk? Was he ever caught? Did he ever shoot anyone again? Will he continue to be vilified by history, being an unhappy example of young, worthless Hungarian ruffians?
Alas, the "grey lady," the "paper of record," does not answer these questions. Frank Pankuk, a young adult Hungarian male who had arrived in the United States in early 1883 in order to find work in the slave labor trade, distinguished himself early on as an obvious foreigner & strange-looking person who couldn't speak English very well. His brother Joseph, too, seemed very much unlike average New Yorkers unless they had recently arrived from Eastern Europe or were in some ways unpleasant to the observer. The two brothers chose not to live together, Joseph instead preferring to hang out with other young ruffians, & Frank being far more comfortable with sitting in his filthy room drawing pictures of naked women in his bible.
Why wouldn't the New York Times report these obviously untrue facts? & why, after deigning to report on a bloody skirmish between the two brothers, not bother to report on their fates? What was more important? Teddy Roosevelt at Harvard? Kaiser Wilhelm learning how to tango? Sarah Bernhardt in La Fille de Roland? The discovery & subsequent loss of Fred Hermsch's entire oeuvre? What I had for breakfast?
Surely you can see my point. Alas, we may never know what fate befell the Pankuk brothers, but you can make sure the same thing never happens to you, especially if you're Hungarian, a young ruffian, &/or living in the 19th century. So please do. & tell them it has everything to do with the War On Sailing.
So reported the New York Times on January 9, 1885. But about the incident's outcome, the paper is silent - as is history itself. What happened to Frank Pankuk? Did he live? How dangerous was his wound? How did he, a simple boarder, afford his bill at Bellevue?
& what about that worthless young ruffian, Joseph Pankuk? Was he ever caught? Did he ever shoot anyone again? Will he continue to be vilified by history, being an unhappy example of young, worthless Hungarian ruffians?
Alas, the "grey lady," the "paper of record," does not answer these questions. Frank Pankuk, a young adult Hungarian male who had arrived in the United States in early 1883 in order to find work in the slave labor trade, distinguished himself early on as an obvious foreigner & strange-looking person who couldn't speak English very well. His brother Joseph, too, seemed very much unlike average New Yorkers unless they had recently arrived from Eastern Europe or were in some ways unpleasant to the observer. The two brothers chose not to live together, Joseph instead preferring to hang out with other young ruffians, & Frank being far more comfortable with sitting in his filthy room drawing pictures of naked women in his bible.
Why wouldn't the New York Times report these obviously untrue facts? & why, after deigning to report on a bloody skirmish between the two brothers, not bother to report on their fates? What was more important? Teddy Roosevelt at Harvard? Kaiser Wilhelm learning how to tango? Sarah Bernhardt in La Fille de Roland? The discovery & subsequent loss of Fred Hermsch's entire oeuvre? What I had for breakfast?
Surely you can see my point. Alas, we may never know what fate befell the Pankuk brothers, but you can make sure the same thing never happens to you, especially if you're Hungarian, a young ruffian, &/or living in the 19th century. So please do. & tell them it has everything to do with the War On Sailing.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Contents May Unsettle After Opening
While the international debacle in regards to feral children continues unmolested, let quasi-independent observer & part-time committed activist Ernest Growl weigh in on this airy subject:
Contrary to popular misdirection, there is no "problem" with feral children provided you have a continual demarcation between so-called "raised by wolves" types & "raised by douchebag" types. The three Austrian girls, for example, whose mother kept them in a cellar for seven years - raised by a total douchebag. The young Romanian boy allegedly reared by dogs who was discovered in 2002 - a feral child. Let's put too fine a point on it: you cannot bandy the phrase "feral child" about when you just want to inflate the numbers so you have extra heft to your empty doctoral dissertation. You should write about Bruce Springsteen like you wanted to & forget this subject. You'll get a PhD! They give them out like condoms!
As a former feral child (I was raised by pumas because my parents couldn't afford to get me into a decent prep school), I can say with virtual certainty that being able to clean oneself with one's tongue is a talent that verges on the heaven-sent. I can also say that, although English is my second-language, it has none of the elegance of the truly subtle purr-speak of most felines. These kinds of insights are not only exclusive to me & my feral brethren, they are highly disputed among the jealously elite we call the "raised by their own kind." Are these haters able to kill & eat their own dinner despite the fleas? Are they able to differentiate a threatening footstep from a friendly padding? How about in a thunderstorm? How about while tripping balls on catnip? Why do they, then, insist on reporting on & classifying "feral children"? You wouldn't let someone who didn't know Czech teach Czech to some No Children who were Left Behind, would you? You wouldn't.
This maligning of the feral child & mislabeling of the truly abused must end here & it must end now. Although we'll totally understand if you need time to think about it. There are maybe only a few dozen feral children & obviously tens of thousands of abused children, so we understand that our anger at being treated this way is not proportional to the number of those who are suffering. We're not dumb. & we also won't mind if there's government money available for us which we are - oh, let's just pile it on - for which we're just too socially awkward to ask. We were raised by turtles! & peregrine falcons! & grizzlies! & evangelicals! Help us with some cash!
For more information on feral children, please visit big ominous forests & ask the animals there if they've found anything that belongs to you. They'll know what you mean. They'll take you straight to the feral child nursery. Just take care they don't eat you - animals in the forest are hungry!
Contrary to popular misdirection, there is no "problem" with feral children provided you have a continual demarcation between so-called "raised by wolves" types & "raised by douchebag" types. The three Austrian girls, for example, whose mother kept them in a cellar for seven years - raised by a total douchebag. The young Romanian boy allegedly reared by dogs who was discovered in 2002 - a feral child. Let's put too fine a point on it: you cannot bandy the phrase "feral child" about when you just want to inflate the numbers so you have extra heft to your empty doctoral dissertation. You should write about Bruce Springsteen like you wanted to & forget this subject. You'll get a PhD! They give them out like condoms!
As a former feral child (I was raised by pumas because my parents couldn't afford to get me into a decent prep school), I can say with virtual certainty that being able to clean oneself with one's tongue is a talent that verges on the heaven-sent. I can also say that, although English is my second-language, it has none of the elegance of the truly subtle purr-speak of most felines. These kinds of insights are not only exclusive to me & my feral brethren, they are highly disputed among the jealously elite we call the "raised by their own kind." Are these haters able to kill & eat their own dinner despite the fleas? Are they able to differentiate a threatening footstep from a friendly padding? How about in a thunderstorm? How about while tripping balls on catnip? Why do they, then, insist on reporting on & classifying "feral children"? You wouldn't let someone who didn't know Czech teach Czech to some No Children who were Left Behind, would you? You wouldn't.
This maligning of the feral child & mislabeling of the truly abused must end here & it must end now. Although we'll totally understand if you need time to think about it. There are maybe only a few dozen feral children & obviously tens of thousands of abused children, so we understand that our anger at being treated this way is not proportional to the number of those who are suffering. We're not dumb. & we also won't mind if there's government money available for us which we are - oh, let's just pile it on - for which we're just too socially awkward to ask. We were raised by turtles! & peregrine falcons! & grizzlies! & evangelicals! Help us with some cash!
For more information on feral children, please visit big ominous forests & ask the animals there if they've found anything that belongs to you. They'll know what you mean. They'll take you straight to the feral child nursery. Just take care they don't eat you - animals in the forest are hungry!
Zazen & The Art Of Mandible Rewiring
Brief items shall be the order for the day for the War On Sailing from this moment until the moment it stops. Things have changed too slowly to be quickly overlooked in this rapidly decelerating world. So I must be quick. Or else everything may grind to a halt.
The radio show is not perchance the tour de force perforce that one might have originally perceived it to be. Indeed, it's not so much a pearl of great cost as a mock pearl tossed before mocking swine. Just the tonic, indeed, for these troubled timbers. While we have as a matter of course not focused on either the current financial crisis nor the current American election - seriously, we're not that easily fooled - we have decided to support the castanheiros in South America in their desire to rename the month of August "Brazil Nut Month." Well! The meeting at which this decision took place was not well-attended, but that's because it was not well-advertised. Which is all well & good.
A correspondent in Corcova has asked in slightly trippy Romanian if we intend to become more up-to-date in the manner accustomed to "posting playlists on the world-wide-wonk." I am entirely sure this is a reference to a game that Vladimir Putin has been known to play with extraordinarily renditioned guest-workers from the Caspian, but we shall demure in the name of global sanctimony & instead reply, "We'll try." We who watch & learn & report on the War On Sailing are kept very busy with alcohol & pencils, & it's truly a wonder that Your Historian has managed to play records two hours a week in the short term. Don't hassle me with your sighs, Chuck.
Stay tuned for regular outbursts. No one need know you were here. Just walk along as if nothing has happened.
The radio show is not perchance the tour de force perforce that one might have originally perceived it to be. Indeed, it's not so much a pearl of great cost as a mock pearl tossed before mocking swine. Just the tonic, indeed, for these troubled timbers. While we have as a matter of course not focused on either the current financial crisis nor the current American election - seriously, we're not that easily fooled - we have decided to support the castanheiros in South America in their desire to rename the month of August "Brazil Nut Month." Well! The meeting at which this decision took place was not well-attended, but that's because it was not well-advertised. Which is all well & good.
A correspondent in Corcova has asked in slightly trippy Romanian if we intend to become more up-to-date in the manner accustomed to "posting playlists on the world-wide-wonk." I am entirely sure this is a reference to a game that Vladimir Putin has been known to play with extraordinarily renditioned guest-workers from the Caspian, but we shall demure in the name of global sanctimony & instead reply, "We'll try." We who watch & learn & report on the War On Sailing are kept very busy with alcohol & pencils, & it's truly a wonder that Your Historian has managed to play records two hours a week in the short term. Don't hassle me with your sighs, Chuck.
Stay tuned for regular outbursts. No one need know you were here. Just walk along as if nothing has happened.
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