David Prashker's Book Of Days

http://davidprashkersprivatecollection.blogspot.com

http://davidprashkersworldhourglass.blogspot.co.uk/

The Argaman Press

September 12

1880, 1977

Henry Louis Mencken, H.L to his followers, US critic, born today in 1880, a man I only discovered when I spent a year in his hometown, Baltimore in Maryland, in 2012 and 2013; but oh how I wish I had known about him younger. Famously the birthplace of Edgar Allen Poe, it transpired the town had produced two men of literary genius, and I could not resist noting in my diary, when a most unlikely candidate for the US Presidency began to bully his rivals and abuse his critics, Mencken's prediction that:

"On some great and glorious day the plain folks of this land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

Who could imagine that such an appalling prophecy would actually come true!

I will be quoting his essay on Schopenhauer on my page for tomorrow, September 13, but why not a few more of his comments and observations here:

"Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under"

which provides the perfect follow-up to the previous quote.

"A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin."

And written separately, though they belong together:

"An idealist is one who, noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup."

These two probably belong together as well:

"Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood."

"Criticism is prejudice made plausible"

Amber pages

Alfred A. Knopf, publisher, born today in 1892

James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens, US olympic athlete, born today in 1913

Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, English poets, secretly married, today in 1846

Peter Mark Roget, English physician and author of the thesaurus that bears his synonym, died, today in 1869. I would like (prefer, be more partial to, favour, tend towards) not to include this here, as it his death date, but then I wouldn't be able to point out (note, observe, hypothesise, speculate) that he didn't actually die, he simply "became a euphemism".

Germany annexed the Sudetenland, today in 1938

Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia and founding deity of Rastafarianism, deposed today in 1974

And one name to add, its font of necessity black because that was the colour of his consciousness, but red-lighted for all time, beaten so badly by the agents of BOSS that he would die just six days later, today indeed, and for the very crime described by Mencken in the second of my illustrations, above; what follows is simply my diary entry for this date in 2002 (Debbie is/was my late wife):

Steve Biko, a man I always associate with Donald Woods, because really I knew nothing about him, or at least appreciated nothing about him, until I came to know Donald in the 1980s, and then saw Richard Attenborough’s ‘Cry Freedom’, based on Donald’s book. After that amazing escape, Donald went to the Commonwealth Institute for help, and it was Debbie who organised his national tours, talking to any audience who would listen about apartheid in general and Biko in particular. One of those audiences was the students at Lancaster University, where I was Vice-President i/c International Affairs during my MA year and arranged with Debbie to bring him. Wendy came too, and I added a fourth side to the square of that friendship which continued until the régime collapsed and they went back. Though Donald always played himself down, arguing that a middle class white man’s heroics could never be compared with a Bantu’s; but heroism is heroism, and Biko would have been forgotten without him.

As to the events themselves. Biko was arrested at a road-block on September 6th, and suffered such a severe beating that he died while being driven from one prison to another. Suicide was claimed, but of course they knew who their prisoner was, and no one was higher on their wanted list. Nonetheless, no one can be charged for suicide!

Addendum, October 7th 2003: S African Justice Ministry officials today announced that the five policemen accused, by Donald in his book and by others, of killing Biko, will not be prosecuted, for lack of evidence, lack of witnesses, and because the time-frame for a prosecution has expired.

You can find David Prashker at:

http://davidprashkersprivatecollection.blogspot.com

http://davidprashkersworldhourglass.blogspot.co.uk/

The Argaman Press

September 11

Amber pages

William Sydney Porter, a.k.a. O. Henry, US short story writer, born today in 1862

David Herbert Lawrence, author ("Lady Chatterley's Lover"), born today in 1885 - I am simply quoting a hundred different sources; because, sadly, this is the only one most people have even heard of, let alone read... a 2nd rate novel, written three times and he still wasn't happy with it, famous because it is full of embarrassingly badly-written sex scenes which got the publishers, Penguin, charged with obscenity; and that trial, thirty-two years after the book had first been published, became the key incident, the moment when freedom of literary speech was finally enshrined by precedent in English law... but what about his great works, "Sons & Lovers" and the two Brangwen novels, and "The Man Who Died", and his poetry, and the travel-essays from his "savage pilgrimage", and ... but like his paintings, also banished as obscenities, this was the work that got all the publicity, because there is nothing people like more than thinking about sex in all its infinite variety in the privacy of their mind or their porn-watching, but o my gosh it's obscene if ever it gets out in public...

And no, I shan't write more on DHL here. You can find a piece on his poem "Snake", in Private Collection, by clicking here; and a lengthy study of DHL will be published in my collection "Homage To Thomas Bowdler", sometime soon. And in the meanwhile, see my comment about him on Nov 22.

Military coup in Chile, today in 1973. Or was that a CIA coup? The overthrow of Allende anyway (Salvador, not his cousin Isabelle), a democratically elected, civilian government, but America only seems to support such things when they happen at home, or in favoured areas of Europe; in Central and South America they have to be removed a.s.a.p. So Allende was murdered (or may have committed suicide before they had the chance to do that), and Pablo Neruda, his number two, forced into exile - see February 8 for a small mention of Neruda, my piece on Chile in The World Hourglass for a more detailed account of the coup, and one of Neruda's great political poems.

The death of Sir Peter Hall, today in 2017, the man without whom there simply wouldn't have been serious theatre in the UK through the second half of the 20th century. The key to the man? His comment after watching the première of Samuel Beckett's Waiting For Godot: "At last theatre is no longer simile, but once again metaphor". Read him explaining it in full by clicking here.

And apparently there was some big event in the USA on this date, in 2001 was it, "the day that they wounded New York" (click here). I seem to remember doing a cartoon about it, oh at least ten years later. Goes with the cartoon on Aug 1.

You can find David Prashker at:

http://davidprashkersprivatecollection.blogspot.com

http://davidprashkersworldhourglass.blogspot.co.uk/

The Argaman Press

September 10

Amber pages

Another day of "I didn't know that":

Robert Koldewey, a German archaeologist of whom I had never heard until I found this entry in an almanac, but who turns out to be the principal excavator of Babylon, and therefore deeply interesting to me, born today in 1855

and

Hilda Doolittle, who turns out to be the "HD" I have come across repeatedly in D.H. Lawrence's writings, an American poet, or poetess perhaps, though whether any good or not will have to wait for the lights to change; born today in 1886. (Same spelling as G.B. Shaw's Eliza in "Pygmalion": double-o)

Whereas Cyril Connolly, famous English critic, much quoted, alluded, referenced and instanced down the years, especially in A level English classrooms. But what, you might well ask, what is the point of criticism anyway? I shall eventually write a critique of that question - when the lights change; born today in 1903

Simón Bolívar named president of Peru, today in 1823 - see July 5 and the Bolivia page of The World Hourglass, (and also June 24)

You can find David Prashker at:

http://davidprashkersprivatecollection.blogspot.com

http://davidprashkersworldhourglass.blogspot.co.uk/

The Argaman Press

September 9

Amber pages

Leo Tolstoy, Russian author, born today in 1828

The United Colonies renamed the United States, today in 1776

Mao Tse-Tung, or Mao Ze-Dong as we are now supposed to write his name, Chinese Communist Party Chairman, died today in 1976 - see my piece on this in "Travels In Familiar Lands"

You can find David Prashker at:

http://davidprashkersprivatecollection.blogspot.com

http://davidprashkersworldhourglass.blogspot.co.uk/

The Argaman Press

September 4

Amber pages

Francois-René de Chateaubriand, French novelist and politician born, today in 1768.

I have commented before, that writing these pages provides me with a splendid excuse to find out more about people whose names I recognise, but know nothing, or virtually nothing about them. Then there are the reverse of these, people who I once did know something about, but then forgot it, or them.

So Anton Bruckner, Austrian composer, born today in 1824, whose music I used to listen to, on CD, years ago, before I took my CD collection to the GoodWill store with the CD player, because who needs them when you have the Internet. Except that it turns out that you did need them, because seeing them on your shelf reminds you to play them, but on the Internet you have to think of them, and hunt for them, and then you save it in your history file, only to find out next time that the websource has deleted it because of a copyright dispute, or somesuch reason for it no longer being there. So I went for years without playing Bruckner, or maybe the 9th because it tends to come up on recommendation lists...

And then there are the completely unforgettable, even if they leave your immediate consciousness for years and years. Mary Renault, for example, historical novelist, born today in 1905. I read everything I could find by her when I was crippled for a year in the late 1990s, the discs at the base of my spine having collapsed and trapped the nerves and paralysed me till they could work out what had happened and what to do about it. Weeks turned into months of lying there, bored but for the books, translating Dante in a notebook, learning how to write historical novels from Robert Graves' Claudius novels, and Mary Renault's various, the "Alexander" trilogy especially, and "The Bull from the Sea".

You can find David Prashker at:

http://davidprashkersprivatecollection.blogspot.com

http://davidprashkersworldhourglass.blogspot.co.uk/

The Argaman Press

August 31

Amber pages

Maria Montessori, Italian educator, born today in 1870

"Solidarity", or Solidarność in Polish, founded today in 1980. Lech Wałęsa's Nobel prize can be found on Oct 5

Sir Bernard Lovell, astronomer, born today in 1913

Itzhak Perlman, violinist despite the polio, born today in 1945 - an accompaniment-piece for Jacqueline du Pré on October 19.

Van Morrison, singer and songwriter, the only man of genius to build an entire career on just three unvarying chords, without even a relative minor, without even changing key, born today in 1945

You can find David Prashker at:

http://davidprashkersprivatecollection.blogspot.com

http://davidprashkersworldhourglass.blogspot.co.uk/

The Argaman Press

August 29

1897

Opening of the First Zionist Congress, in Basle.

But what to write? Perhaps an account of the bringing together of the participants, most of them Jews who had more or less left religion behind for an assimilated secular life in post-Napoleonic Europe, the ghetto walls torn down, their freedom theoretically guaranteed, and yet still the need for a Jewish homeland, because still the same old anti-Semitism...

But Herzl was not the founder of modern political Zionism, despite that credit now being attached. More interesting perhaps to go back to Disraeli, and even further, and more remarkably still given that she was not herself Jewish, to George Eliot, and an exploration, even a comparison, of his "Tancred" and her "Daniel Deronda".

Or maybe a history of Zionism, starting with its founding, by the rivers of Babylon, in late 586 BCE, so that contemporary anti-Zionists can see that "Free Palestine" today is no different from "Free Israel" then, or again after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, and every year, in every pogromised ghetto, for the 1900 hundred years that followed...and with that, a link to the wilfully and deliberately anti-Semitic "Protocols", on August 26...

But I would also like to write a piece that trawls the best parts of Herzl’s Jerusalem diary, from his visit there in 1898, starting with that deliberately self-conscious playing with the words of Psalm 137, the original Zionist Psalm:

“When I remember thee in days to come, O Jerusalem, it will not be with delight."

The diary confirms what a very good journalist and reporter Herzl must have been:

“The musty deposits of two thousand years of inhumanity, intolerance. and foulness lie in reeking alleys. The one man who has been present here all this while, the loveable dreamer of Nazareth, has done nothing but help increase the hate."

“If Jerusalem is ever ours, and if I were still able to do anything about it, I would begin by cleaning it up... I would clear out everything that is not sacred, set up workers’ houses beyond the city, empty and tear down the filthy rat-holes, burn all the non-sacred ruins, and put the bazaars elsewhere. Then, retaining as much of the old architectural style as possible, I would build an airy, comfortable, properly sewered brand-new city around the Holy Places.”

Yes, a filthy hovel was Jerusalem, including the sacred area on the Temple Mount, and Mark Twain in his "Innocents Abroad", his account of his "Grand Tour" of 1867, Twain the disinterested non-Jew, confirms it:

“Rags, wretchedness, poverty and dirt, those signs and symbols that indicate the presence of Moslem rule more surely than the crescent-flag itself, abound.”

Interesting that Herzl sees the damage done by Christianity, but not the equivalent damage done by Islam, other than the Third World degradation of the place which was the norm for anywhere that had the misfortune to be located in that ultimate decadence of humanity the Ottoman Empire. Yet he himself sounds like an imitator of “the loveable dreamer of Nazareth”, with his utopian vision of the city (Teddy Kolleck, who did rebuild it, shared very similar fancies it must be said, and did a most remarkable job). But moving the bazaars! To take the shouk out of the Old City, as the loveable dreamer yearned to do, would be to rip out its heart and bowels, leaving the sacred places like a nature park or a conservation site, something you could visit but not live in, and a sacred place in which people do not live is one condemned to fail and die. Sewers, on the other hand...

“We have been to the Wailing Wall. Any deep emotion is rendered impossible by the hideous, miserable, scrambling beggary pervading the place. At least such was the case, yesterday evening and this morning, when we were there.”

“In the afternoon we ascended the Mount of Olives. Thrilling moments. What couldn’t be made of this place! A city like Rome - and the Mount of Olives furnishing a panorama like the Giancolo.

Oh, no, please don't tell me he wants to dig up all the ancient graves and build a Hilton Spa Hotel!

“I would cordon off the old city with its relics, and keep out all ordinary traffic; only places of worship and philanthropic institutions would be allowed to remain inside the old ramparts. And on the ring of encircling hillsides, which our labour would clothe with greenery, there would gradually rise a glorious New Jerusalem. The élite from every part of the world would travel up the road to the Mount of Olives. Loving care can turn Jerusalem into a jewel. Everything holy inshrined within the old walls, everything new spreading round about it.”

I wonder what Herzl would think of today’s city. He would, of course, be humbled that his name has been attached to the central hill of the new West Jerusalem, where the soldiers are buried and the Holocaust Museum is located; and he would love the Knesset and its surrounding parks and suburbs. And he would adore the restored Jewish Quarter in the Old City. But would he appreciate the demolition of entire streets of Arab houses, to make a vast open plaza in front of the Western Wall and the Shrine of Omar and the al-Axar mosque? Would he appreciate the unchanged squalour of east Jerusalem, at least in those areas which have not been taken over and gentrified by Jews? Would he worry when the next Intifada was coming? Would he witness the trials and tribulations of the Palestinians, and equate them with those he witnessed of the Jews of Europe, and speak out for them as well? I like to hope he would.

UPDATE: July 19 2018. Today the Israeli Knesset passed a new law, entitled "Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People". By the standards of any coalition, a decisive result: 62 votes to 55, with two abstentions. The full text can be read here. Despite the howls of protest across the Arab world, it is a surprisingly innocuous document, and simply states formally what has been the case for the last 70 years, that Israel is a Jewish state, whose first language is Hebrew.

Amber pages

John Locke, English philosopher, born today in 1632

Charlie Parker, jazz saxophonist, born today in 1920

Sir Richard Attenborough, actor and producer, born today in 1923.

Cleopatra IV, bitten by an asp, today in 30 BCE

John the Baptist, beheaded, today in 29 CE

Atahualpa, the last of the Inca rulers, strangled to death, today in 1533

You can find David Prashker at:

http://davidprashkersprivatecollection.blogspot.com

http://davidprashkersworldhourglass.blogspot.co.uk/

The Argaman Press

August 28

Amber pages

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German poet, novelist and dramatist, born today in 1749, famous as a man of words, but who knew he was a man of colours too? I shall return to this.

Bruno Bettelheim, psychologist, born today in 1903

Robertson Davies, Canadian novelist, born today in 1913

Saint Augustine of Hippo died, today in 430; and I find him described as a "Roman African" in this encyclopedia, and as a "philosopher from Numidia" in that almanac, anything to avoid having to use that word which pains so much, the MLK word, the Desmond Tutu word, the very idea of a man (or it could, though even less likely, have been a woman) who reached a point of significant significance in that White Male religion of Christianity - a black; or more probably a North African Berber.*

* Not to be confused with St Augustine of Canterbury, who gave his name to the Augustinian canons, also known as the Austin Friars.

On which subject, the kidnap and lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till took place today in 1955, a piece that goes alongside one (not yet written, but ambered on June 12) on Medgar Evers; and linked to the Nat Turner piece on October 2, though that really belongs on August 21; all of which, plus plus plus, is why:

The Reverend Martin Luther King led a civil rights rally in Washington DC, today in 1963 (and Dylan sang that day: The Ballad of Medgar Evers actually, not The Ballad of Emmett Till; but does it really make a difference?). For which they did the next-best-thing to lynching him as well (see April 4).

You can hear Dylan's full account of Emmett Till's murder here

You can find David Prashker at:

http://davidprashkersprivatecollection.blogspot.com

http://davidprashkersworldhourglass.blogspot.co.uk/

The Argaman Press

August 25

Amber pages

Today in 1552, the last verifiable date for Marguerite de Briet, or Hélisenne de Crenne if you prefer pseudonyms, who wrote the first French novel a hundred years before Madame de la Fayette, and did for Vergil's "Aeneid" precisely what I have done for Dante's "Inferno", which was to render the verse as prose, and take the opportunity to include commentary; more on her on the Ancient Régime page of "Woman-Blindness".

Czar Ivan IV, "Ivan the Terrible", of Russia, born today in 1530. What do you have to do to acquire such a sobriquet? I suspect that I may end up moving this to another date, since clearly merely being born doesn't provide an explanation.

Leonard Bernstein, composer and conductor, born today in 1918; at times he could be Leonard the Terrible - the pop-tunes of "On The Town" and "West Side Story", the schmaltzy sentimentality of "Kaddish" and "Jeremiah". But the"Chichester Psalms". But his conducting of Mahler (when he doesn't go too fast). Writers and artists never die, they are simply re-evaluated by posterity.

And then, more death-dates, of which the first is of little interest, though if he was what the almanac says, then GER.

George Lincoln Rockwell, Nazi leader, assassinated, today in 1967

Frans Hals died, as everyone must, eventually, though whether it was today, or tomorrow, the 26th, or three days later than that, depends entirely on which encyclopedia you take your facts from. And anyway, it's the life that matters, the tracks in the sand that you left behind, and if I am putting up the stop sign on his, it is partly because of the year, 1666, which was regarded as the Devil's number, and so no surprise that London was hit by plagues of rats the year before, and plagues of fire that year, and plagues of continuing superstition in every year since; and partly because...

...today, in 1900, the still existent deity noted in his diary that

In the year 1897

the year in which her mother died

Elisabeth Nietzsche returned home from Paraguay

where she had been working

with her husband Bernhard Förster

to establish an Aryan

anti-Semitic German colony

known as Nueva Germania

Just outside the town of Röcken bei Lützen

in that farming district southwest of Leipzig

where she and her brother had been born

Elisabeth rented a large house on a hill

known as the Villa Silberblick

and moved her brother

with his collected manuscripts

and his diagnosis of incurable dementia

to the residence

This became the new home

of the Nietzsche Archives

previously located

at the family home in Naumburg

and here Elisabeth received visitors

who wanted to gawk at

or pay homage to

the now-incapacitated philosopher

On August 25, 1900

shortly before his 56th birthday

Friedrich Nietzsche succumbed

to pneumonia apparently

in combination with a stroke

His body was transported to the family gravesite

directly beside the church in Röcken bei Lützen

where his mother and sister now also rest

A plaque on the grave

inscribed with his name and dates

makes unequivocally clear

for all the world to see and understand

that the philosopher Nietzsche

spokesperson for Zarathustra

dead

(the original of this can be found in my collected poems, "Welcome To My World" - click here)

Allied forces liberated Paris, today in 1944. The illustration is from my dad's personal photograph album, taken about five weeks later, on the steps of the fountain in the back garden at Versailles

Voyager 2 made its closest approach to Saturn, today in 1981.

You can find David Prashker at:

http://davidprashkersprivatecollection.blogspot.com

http://davidprashkersworldhourglass.blogspot.co.uk/