Sunday, April 10, 2011
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The Shadow of Heidegger
Continued.
The Shadow of Heidegger
She had big round and black eyes, immeasurable eyelashes, and looked as if a perpetual surprise might dominate her. Her movements were shameless, her clothes tiny, she sang in a rural English to which she added, looking for the complicity of her public, words in German. To me she seemed pretty, cute, but decidedly insulting, or, even worse, blasphemous. Rainer wore the uniform of the SA. I listened to him breathing with a rabid harmony and his hot breath was reaching me, as if he were about to explode. Something that happened as soon as Miss Bowles -- that was her names: Sally Bowles -- and the repugnant master of ceremonies sang and danced together a song that celebrated money as the dynamic spirit or the world. It was a hymn to materialism, of the Semitic voracity for riches, for capitalism without nation, to the miseries of modernism. They repeated the word money many, too many times. And they concluded, cheerful, asserting that money is what makes the world go around. Rainer didn't allow them to finish. He got up and shouted at them the insults that he, a patriot of our German awakening, an enemy of Jewish monetarism, a man of the soil and blood, and not of urban and mercantile culture, must shout at them. It was devastating. Miss Bowles and her repugnant clown stopped dancing, and singing. Some of the locals shouted the expected insults at us. Others supported us. There were fist fights, spitting, broken chairs, and everything ended in a frozen silence, even terrifying, when Rainer took out his pistol and fired two or three shots in the air and cried that the next shots would look for the rotten hearts of the rotten clients of that infernal place. We looked for the exit. I followed Rainer and, before leaving, I looked over my shoulders and saw, towards the stage, where Miss Bowles still was. I saw her collapsed over a chair and crying loudly, and the makeup from her big eyelashes made black furrows on her face, and her eyes had traded their surprise for fear. I swore to visit her the following day.
And so I did. Unusually, I asked her to forgive my companion's attitude. Unusually, she accepted, we drank a pair of beers, and more unusually even, she told me stories of her life, some of them sordid; others less sordid, or even illuminating, or entertaining.
I advised her to leave Berlin.
Labels: The Shadow of Heidegger
¶ 5:57 AM
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blasphemous
Weimar had lots of that, but I find it interesting the Shadow of H. writer insists it was all pro-capitalist, jewish, decadent etc. There were leftists in the german theatres (Brecht's posse, the expressionists, etc) and that was one of the Nazis' biggest gripes--ie the jew bolsheviks ruining the Vaterland, corrupting the holy family, so forth (though the theatres were not all jews--Brecht associated with jewish people, but he was..evangelische, right-- of course to some papists that's close enough).
Caberet's hardly Brecht. The play was based on some of Isherwood's writings on Berlin...though greatly altered. The flick, not really to my taste, had little to do with the original story whatsoever, though at least had some historical connection (unlike say Lucas-Spielberg space dreck).
Thus there appears an odd ambiguity to the ...fascist mind: on one hand they hate jewish finance (with some reason) yet at the very same time detest the marxist leftist ("bolshevik-zionists," etc). Pound at times seemed to suggest as much--the dreaded zionists are the dreck of the earth, whether british bankers, or soviets.......
There are distinctions to be drawn, one would like to think. Chomsky is not a ...Blankfein or Eric Cantor (though he's not so bolshevik either....).
Weimar had lots of that, but I find it interesting the Shadow of H. writer insists it was all pro-capitalist, jewish, decadent etc. There were leftists in the german theatres (Brecht's posse, the expressionists, etc) and that was one of the Nazis' biggest gripes--ie the jew bolsheviks ruining the Vaterland, corrupting the holy family, so forth (though the theatres were not all jews--Brecht associated with jewish people, but he was..evangelische, right-- of course to some papists that's close enough).
Caberet's hardly Brecht. The play was based on some of Isherwood's writings on Berlin...though greatly altered. The flick, not really to my taste, had little to do with the original story whatsoever, though at least had some historical connection (unlike say Lucas-Spielberg space dreck).
Thus there appears an odd ambiguity to the ...fascist mind: on one hand they hate jewish finance (with some reason) yet at the very same time detest the marxist leftist ("bolshevik-zionists," etc). Pound at times seemed to suggest as much--the dreaded zionists are the dreck of the earth, whether british bankers, or soviets.......
There are distinctions to be drawn, one would like to think. Chomsky is not a ...Blankfein or Eric Cantor (though he's not so bolshevik either....).
There's the Shadow of H. writer, and then there's the narrator's voice. Later, Müller's son will take over the narrative.
For Weimar decadence, my favorite source is Mel Gordon's Voluptuous Panic.
I've been looking for pictures on the street battles between the brown shirts and the bolshies, but haven't found any good photos on the web. If anyone knows of a good illustrated book, please send me the info.
For Weimar decadence, my favorite source is Mel Gordon's Voluptuous Panic.
I've been looking for pictures on the street battles between the brown shirts and the bolshies, but haven't found any good photos on the web. If anyone knows of a good illustrated book, please send me the info.
Yeah we shouldn't assume the narrator's a nazi, though....at times (at least from the excerpts youve included) he sounds like he's sympathetic to Rainer. But Id need to read it all to make a definitive judgment.
Feinmann was, according to Wikiland, a Peronist--that goes links oder rechts I guess, though IMHE most Peronists are...rechts. And quite a bit of german blood in Argentina... even on the holy Albicelestes .
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Feinmann was, according to Wikiland, a Peronist--that goes links oder rechts I guess, though IMHE most Peronists are...rechts. And quite a bit of german blood in Argentina... even on the holy Albicelestes .
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