in sextus novembris

Reflecting on the upcoming and rather secularized celebrations of Guy Fawkes Night, commemorating the foiled Gunpowder Plot of the Fifth of November where the triggerman Guy Fawkes is burned in effigy, it is curious how in some four centuries of historical memory documenting revelry, sentiment and celebration, we witness perhaps the process of transposition and myth-making. The many hypotheses regarding Christianity supplanting pagan feasts with their own holidays in order to ease the tradition, like All Saints’ Day and Halloween for Nordic and Celtic Samhain or Christmas for Roman Saturnalia, cannot be tested and accounts are only implicit and worked backwards.

From the evolution of children making and parading straw men (guys—the word entered the English language because of Guy Fawkes) to burn, the excuses for partying, the waxing and waning of traditions to the modern day trappings and personae of anonymity and disestablish- mentarianism. A roundly reviled character has been elevated and romanced as a folk-hero, but as a charitable abstract of their original motives, to return the monarchy to a Catholic throne and stop the persecution and punitive taxation of recalcitrant Catholics. Such movements, I think, would not like to swap one dominating authority for another, nor order for chaos neither. The celebratory mood may have been co-opted or evolved convergent with the close lying customs of Halloween and poses a strange puzzle to unravel, despite being faithfully recorded. This year there is quite a bit of healthy competition, with the election, as to what day might be the scariest. The choice of symbols is often a bit ironic, I think, like the Alamo where the Texan freedom fighters lost and their ranks decimated or the sign of the Cross. This year, on the eve of the presidential elections of the United States, there are some vague and unclaimed threats to kidnap and ransom the executive and legislative branches until the government is returned to the people. I only fear that the plotters’ ambitions will be forgot and the aftermath celebrated as another reason to brag and to continue girding ourselves against all threats--real, imagined and opportunely rebuffed.

ölkur oder open sesame

Since sharing my crooked smileand knowing that others have scrolled past it, I have become more aware of what I can do to improve my dental state—or at least feel better about it whether any measurable change happens. Let me preface what might turn out to be a cautionary tale with medical professionals are much better suited to dispense sound advice than any non-sequitir blog sought out or found at random on the internet and one should seek consultation before trying to stave anything off with home-remedies that could become a serious and costly problem. With due warning, I took to heart my aggressive tooth-brushing habits and wondered if my gums weren’t receding. I was not exactly sure, since as with the dulling of the enamel, it’s a gradual process to look long-in-the-tooth. Aside from smoking and genetic-predisposition, however, brushing too hard is the top culprit for gum damage.

I researched a bit to become more conscientious about being gentler yet effective and kept running across the term “oil pulling,” which sounded likewise aggressive or complicated so I didn’t investigate at first. In German, it’s called Ölsaugen or Ölkur and is a technique based on the hygiene practices of Ayurveda and only calls for an undemanding and passive regiment of swishing a spoonful of vegetable oil around one’s mouth. There is some commitment that can’t be shorted: the session ought to last between fifteen and twenty minutes (that basic level of dedication to any task, I think, would make a difference) and preferably should be performed in the morning, after brushing (maybe reverse the order from time to time or see which way works better for you) but before breakfast and coffee and swishing, channelling and pulling the oil over and through one’s teeth in a purposeful way. The choice of cooking oil should be circumspect as well—maybe not Wesson but any quality oil will do. Many practitioners use a cold-pressed sesame oil or sunflower oil, which probably are also beneficial due to their high vitamin E content—I chose thistle oil (Distelöl), half recalling another recommendation from Ayurveda that one’s diet ought to be native to where one was born and plain old corn oil did not seem to be advisable. Some use coconut oil, too, but that seems a little exotic for me. The idea is that the swishing and churning action “pulls” toxins from one’s mouth and they are absorbed into the oil, spit out afterwards, since it’s full of poisons. I guess it is the exercise, rather than the details, that’s important and though I was a bit sceptical and reasoned that I could not make any judgments on the effectiveness until at least two weeks of keeping up the routine, after the first few times trying it, I was really impressed with how clean my mouth felt, like it had been to a mouth-spa, a bit sore in a good way from the motion and detoxed, not jarringly but in a way hard to describe, like a feeling of curious disorientation. At minimum, oil pulling is supposed to be good for overall dental health, whiter teeth, stronger gums and fresher breath. There is only a paucity of scientific evidence or study, but on balance, there sure are a lot of positive testimonials, and I think I will see for myself if this simple routine helps.

gestalt

Campaigning sets off a dissonance that I think goes hidden, unexamined too quickly for both the presenter and for the audience. It is not the art of oration, in my opinion, to suggest and convince segments of the public that what they want to hear untangles half-truths and heated promises, nor does anything more than mask the compromise and confusion. Though we’d like to look away and turn inwards, sometimes it is necessary to try to reconcile what does not quite correspond with reality.

bunnicula, count duckula

Lore and superstition regarding vampirism, even preceding the imaginations of the writers they’ve inspired, sanction standard horror and a well-developed, though flexible, codex of rules governing the undead, but can also be keenly abstract in their beliefs.
Folklore of some populations in the Balkans, but surely anchored to a place, a patch of land as much as a particular people, created the overall apparition of the traditional vampire but also held the nightmare that inanimate objects, left out in the pall of the full moon, could become vampires. Certain fruits and vegetables were especially prone to being turned, especially melons, squashes and pumpkins still on the vine during this witching phase of the Moon. It is not clear if the vampire produce took on a changed appearance—nor caused much of a bother, other than rolling about and maybe lurching and bumping into things, but they were no longer fit to eat and needed to be ritually destroyed. The notion that gourds could harbour a malevolent, though paralyzed, force is pretty spooky, and there have been some creative and slightly goofy modern retellings. The idea of possession, a curse settling into a plant also made me think of that troupe of evangelizing vegetables from that children’s Christian television show. The practice of making a jack-o’-lantern out of a pumpkin comes from a completely separate string of traditions and folklore from the British Isles—originally, probably from a hollowed out turnip with the practical objective of making a torch whose flame was protected from the winds.

consider yourself part of the furniture

Before living in Germany, I had never heard the word Stammtisch, although the phenomenon and culture of a table for regulars, a salon-society, and a designated meeting point, a reserved spot, for networking and politicking, like the word, had been long since an established fixture of many societies. That term sounded very formal, like holding court, and maybe that made me seek out a less down-to-earth translation or equivalent. It comes under other names, too, of course, including the cracker-barrel or Coffee-Klatch, which surely has German origins too, and all the different words with differing connotations of hierarchical sophistication. Cafes, guesthouses, inns (Gaststätte) and pubs usually distinguished the gathering point for their regulars with a special ceremonial ashtray or a table flag (Wimpel). Mostly the get-together has been sublimated in the form of a virtual presence, but in some places the tradition continues unbroken.

ingot audit or treu ounce

While the merest suggestion that all the gold reserves in Fort Knox might not be fully accounted for is dismissed as the anarchistic and rambling speculations of a Sanka drinking mountain woman, the same question posed by the German Schatzkammer, the competent authority for auditing such things as the nation’s some 3 400 tonnes of gold, seems to have drawn some serious, if not careful and apologetic attention.

Germany and other countries have some of their supplies held in case of emergencies at central banks and depositories around the world, in order to be able to more quickly liquidate their stocks in a foreign currency, should a crisis break out. Given advances in electronic commerce, the common currency of Europe and the shaky state of the economy in general, this arrangement does seem a little outmoded. Although assurances are issued annually, Germany also worries that its treasure might not be inventoried and guarded properly, if not loaned out from time to time, used as door stops or treated to a tea-party rather than quietly resting inert in the vaults. Unlike Fort Knox, with little trouble, the public can arrange tours and get a glimpse of the horde (it’s Germany’s that they get a peek of) in the deep cellars of the Federal Reserve Bank in New York City, some fifteen levels below the street and beneath the waters Hudson Bay. I am sure it’s a safe place but perhaps the gold should be repatriated and not on permanent-loan.

for you, vor ort, vorbei

While I believe these events were unrelated, it is of note that the push to institute a quota scheme for women in top management in German businesses came on the wake of the collapse of a drug store chain (Drogerie-Kette)that served as a pedestrian anchor in many neighbourhoods and smaller communities. The loss of this retailer not only means that residences need to go further for staples but the chain was also an important local employer in these host communities.
German public radio aired profiles of the so-called Schlecker-Frauen (mostly women worked there) and how they are managing after suddenly finding themselves unemployed, and it was an interesting portrayal of rippling insolvency that has not been the norm for German companies, just evaporating and leaving vacant units with no successor. Triangulating between these two matters, there was also a study sponsored by the Finance Ministry recently, perhaps to inject support for the arguments in favour of introducing quotas, that clearly showed that companies with female management and influence go under less often than their masculine counterparts. The research cited the more balanced and cautious leadership traits that women decision-makers tend to exhibit more than men, organic and holistic approaches that incorporate multiple elements into business factors and not an unwavering focus on returns. Under-represented as they are in the largest concerns (which the quota law is hoping to remedy), the Ministry does own that a risk-averse approach (riskioscheu Vorgehen) and may be attributed to the fact that women managers tend to mind smaller businesses in general and thus have less cash and resources to take gambles with. Conservative practices, however, are not the antithesis to striking a balance between personal and work life, no matter how a wager is underwritten. I am not such of the makeup of the decision-makers for the chain gone bankrupt but I wonder if it would have fared better, more discriminate expansion and focus on its original purpose, if management was a better reflection of its employees.