8 Feb 2013

Übermäßige Zeitungs-Begierde

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Ich muß […] bekennen […] / daß die übermäßige Zeitungs-Begierde / eine dermaßen schädliche Kranckheit sey / welche durch ihren Mißbrauch dem gemeinen Wesen viel Schaden bringet. […] Es ist nichts gewöhnlicheres / als daß die Bauren in der Schencke ein Collegium curiosum über die ordentlichen Post-Zeitungen halten / und durch den capabelesten aus ihrem Mittel selbige buchstabiren lassen / wenn man sie aber hernach […] fragen solte / was sie daraus verstanden / so würde es in nichts anders bestehen / als daß es weit rathsamer vor sie gewesen wäre / sie hätten […] mit dem Holtz-Axt an einem guten Eich Baume auf den Hieb gefochten / als daß sie die edele Zeit mit solchen Dingen verderben.

Philip Balthasar Sinold, gen. von Schütz. In »Das Curieuse Caffee-Haus zu Venedig« (1698).

10 Mar 2008

Groucho Marx Job Application

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After graduation naturally comes application. Now it seems that application naturally comes with frustration.

Each and every company knows exactly what they want to a degree that just saw me printing 14 pages of a single job description – the job being »PR nut«.

You must be flexible, proactive, and willing to work at unsociable hours as well as come with considerable experience. And, most important of all, you are willing to work for a monthly bag of rice and some mutton fat in this exciting times for this thriving company.

All this had me rather depressed until I spoke to my wise friend. He said it was all too similar to the famous Groucho Marx statement:

I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member.

Only the companies seem to have a slightly altered statement written all over their job descriptions:

We want somebody who is so qualified that they’d never work for us.

17 Jan 2008

»Might Make You Laugh«

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Yesterday we arrived in London for a short holiday. In the early evening we were rambling the streets, not sure what to do. When at last we made our minds up and opted for cinema, a couple stopped us. Something was with their daughter, I did not quite get what, but it was the reason they couldn’t make it to the theatre. If we fancied to see »Absurd Person Singular« at the Garrick in fifteen minutes? He said it was a comedy and that it might make us laugh.

Given my theater experiences lately I honestly wasn’t too keen; but A. already had taken the tickets – and off they went in a great hurry.

So, unknown couple: thank you ever so much. It was a lovely play, indeed the first theatre experience I had in some ten years that was not only not dreadful but far from it. It did indeed make us laugh.

31 Aug 2007

A Mighty Hunter

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In the course of writing my thesis I came across Nimrod, grandson of Ham, great grandson of Noah (Gen 10, 1-12). Now Nimrod is not only »a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord.« (Gen 10, 9), according to Wikipedia, he – under the name of Namrūd ibn Kan’ān – also tried to build a tower so he could reach Allāh and dispossess him. Allāh did not at all approve of this plan, so he came up with a rather creative punishment:

Allāh ließ eine Mücke durch die Nase in sein Hirn fliegen. So wurde Namrūd 400 Jahre gequält, bis er starb.

(Allāh had a midge fly through his nose and into his brain. This tortured Namrūd for 400 years until he died.)

03 Oct 2007 – 12:23

Update

A worm crawls into Nimrod's brain

In the meantime I found a source for the bug-in-brain thing in Jo­hann Hein­rich Zedlers Grosses voll­stän­di­ges Uni­ver­sal Lexi­con al­ler Wissen­schafften und Künste. However, in this version it is not a midge but a worm that crawls into Nimrod’s head. The worm causes that much pain that Nimrod has other people beating him over the head with a stick from time to time in order to get some relaxation.

The scientific community laughs about Johann Becanus

I also enjoyed the opening paragraph of the article.

16 Jul 2007

»Then, I grab a TEXAS«

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From a time when intellect apparently sold:

Willi Baumeister grabbing a TEXAS

»Then I grab a TEXAS…«
says Prof. WILLI BAUMEISTER of the Academy of Arts Stuttgart
Combining flavour and sweetness so auspiciously, she regains my sympathy each day anew.«
»Whenever a whole lot of thoughts is at work within my head, I grab a Texas, who became a dear friend of mine.
 

Then again: maybe intellect didn’t sell all that well, or did you ever come into a situation where you actually could have grabbed a TEXAS? Anyway, here’s the German Original.

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