Observed under the auspices of Public Law 100-104, 101 Statute §721 and proclaimed by Ronald Reagan on the two-hundredth anniversary of the landing back in 1983, German-American Day marks the 1683 arrival (see also) of thirteen families from Krefeld near Dรผsseldorf and Duisberg in Philadelphia, founding the settlement of what would eventually become Germantown, Pennsylvania.
The occasion was commemorated from the seventeenth century onwards and held in other parts of the colonies and country with German diaspora but was discontinued during World War I. This first group of Mennonite families had fled Prussia for religious freedom and established the Pennsylvania Dutch identity and were among the first, along with the Quakers, to petition for the abolition of slavery in 1688. Though coinciding with Oktoberfest, the largest celebration of German culture abroad, German-American Day predates the first Wiesn of 1810 by several decades.
Sunday, 6 October 2019
deustch-amerikanischer tag
Saturday, 5 October 2019
detail & parody
Via Kottke, we find ourselves challenged to a bit of scansion and poetic graffiti in physician and writer William Carlos Williams’ (*1883 – †1963) 1932 modern, imagist kitchen table note “This Is Just to Say.” Its perfectly self-consistent typographical structure, which reads more like the accidental symmetry of found poetry, makes the intensifier seem out of place anywhere. Williams’ wife, Florence (Flossie) nรฉe Herman (*1891 – †1976), herself penned a “reply” some years later—which I think far and away is the best “none-of-the-above” responses:
Dear Bill: I’ve made a
couple of sandwiches for you.
In the ice-box you’ll find
blue-berries—a cup of grapefruit
a glass of cold coffee.
On the stove is the tea-pot
with enough tea leaves
for you to make tea if you
prefer—Just light the gas—
boil the water and put it in the tea
Plenty of bread in the bread-box
and butter and eggs—
I didn’t know just what to
make for you. Several people
called up about office hours—
See you later. Love. Floss.
Please switch off the telephone.
7x7
sonic smock: a garment that allows the hearing-impaired to experience music through tactile impulses
mixtape: the greatest hits of 1979 in three minutes
apophenia: the state of being exceptionally receptive to imagining synchronicity where little exists, accounting for the resonance of mashups—especially exemplified by The Dark Side of the Rainbow
it’s got a sort of woody quality about it, gorn, gorn—much better than newspaper or litterbin: celebrating Monty Python’s fiftieth anniversary—via Slashdot
peacock throne: the nicely framing wicker chair (previously) that’s the stuff of celebrity
bucatini: drinking straws made of pasta instead of plastic stand up in cold beverages—I had wondered about that sort of application but was sure that they wouldn’t last
we’re going to party, karamu, fiesta forever: musician Jacob Collier remixes Lionel Ritchie’s 1983 hit single
langer donnerstag
Though this thirtieth anniversary of the 1989 decision to allow retail operations greater flexibility in opening hours falls on a Saturday—the last day of the working week for which stores were obliged to close up at 14:00, something I can still remember from when I first moved to Germany, the Extended Thursdays rule allowed businesses to stay open for one day a week past the statutory closing time of 18:30, addressing weekend hours as well.
Impacted employees who had to reckoning with their schedules disrupted on a weekly basis referred to Thursdays as Schlado—a portmanteau, an acronym for sh*tty long Donnerstag. Since the 1960s, one langer Samstag was permitted a quarter, occasionally more depending on when Advent began as the lead up to Christmas. Since 2003, most stores remain open until 20:00 Monday through Saturday (laws now vary greatly by state), with Langer Donnerstag only relevant to banking branches, doctors and some government offices.
Friday, 4 October 2019
ใณใคใณใฉใณใใชใผ
The top prize was given to a combination hair salon and laundry service that let patrons start their washing while having their hair cut, and this clever time-saver reminded me of la laverie automatique we spied in the parking lot of a supermarchรฉ in France not too long ago. For both schemes, I think it might take some test-runs to synchronise the chores.
fika
Celebrated in Sweden and Finland on this day since first organised in 1999, Kanelbullens dag (Cinnamon Roll Day) is a way to increase awareness on traditional Scandinavian baking traditions (see also) and has proved to be a popular holiday domestically and for Swedish and Finnish communities abroad. Though we might be comfortably familiar with the above term for “coffee break,” the Kanelbullen that could go with it might also be infiltrating the language.
rolling stock
Via Nag on the Lake, we are directed towards an installation, Kirkby Design’s submission for the recently concluded London Design Festival, that rehabilitates and revamps the interior dรฉcor of a vintage subway carriage. The new palette is informed by the dreadful-excellence of traditional moquette (previously) that was meant to durable, aesthetic and invisible all at the same time. I think it would be fun to transform our foyer (or at least the entryway of my little apartment) into something like this and pass through each morning.
Thursday, 3 October 2019
fernsehturm
On this day in 1969 in East Berlin’s Marienviertel, just adjacent to Alexanderplatz, the Television Tower was declared complete, the occasion marked with an inaugural elevator ride by a delegation of high ranking government officials and the launch, the start signal of two stations to broadcast in colour. Opening to the public on Tag der Republik four days later, the tower was at the time, at over three hundred and sixty metres, the tallest freestanding structure in Europe and with its viewing platform and rotating restaurant remains one of the most frequented tourist attractions of the capital.
