Donkeyshott & Xuitlacoche

Celebrate Else Steinhardt. People should not be defined by their victim-hood. Fraulein Else is the name of the novella Arthur Schnitzler wrote in 1924. It was a forerunner of Joyce's stream of consciousness writing and it incorporated some of the psychosexual ideas from Freud's theories. It's about a young girl of 19 who lives in Vienna and is cornered into stripping for an old voyeur by her own mother. The father is having financial problems and the man will help the father if the girl obliges. There are some parallels with our Else. She was roughly the same age as the character in the novella when it was written, and she probably moved in the same circles as Schnitzler, as a young opera singer. Moreover, Else was, if not classically beautiful, highly flirtations and attractive. In the pictures of her she is often arch: she licks ice creams, sits on laps and embraces naked statues. In other pictures she is dressed in loose, flowing clothing, matching the ope...

Great-grandpa  Isidore Steinhardt, the Foreign Editor of the Neue Freie Presse,  is third from the right.   Isidore Steinhardt, it seems, was partly instrumental in promoting the annexation of Bosnia Herzegovina to the Austrian empire. He was involved in Count Alois von Aehrethal's machinations. On the back of this picture it says : "Papa Steinhardt just before World War I."  If the picture was taken in 1912 then the figure on the left is probably  Count Alois von Aehrethal. Perhaps they are at Bachlau.  Great Grandpa Isidor features as the person who put George Nastic up to writing the Statute for the Liberation of the Southern Slavs along with his brother.  in   The Inside Story of Austro-German Intrigue Or How the World War was Brought about , by Joseph Goricar and Lyman Beecher Stowe:          "Now that George Nastic had become a notorious character, I resolved to acquaint myself more fully wi...

. Uncle Wilhelm was made into a non-comissioned officer, a Master Sergeant (feldwebel)  in the Luftwaffe in 1942 which suggests that he had a career in the army from the beginning of the war. He was a Nazi. Perhaps he was an involuntary Nazi. He sent his love to Babylein and Lisa. He wasn't bad hearted. But Lisa and Heini said that he was an unambitious boy. He had few dreams and ambitions and so let the army give them to him. And so, I suppose, he, involuntarily, was a war criminal. In the last days - when the Luftwaffe was all but destroyed. He was sent to fight and die on the Eastern Front in late 1944. He was probably drafted from the Luftwaffe into the infantry later on when the forward airbases in Poland where he might have worked were all but destroyed.

The Pintailed Whydah is a bully. To comment on the cleverness or stupidity of birds, one has to be anthropomorphic – how else translate their actions, and give them a meaning? So that’s the way I’ ve tried to think about it and I’m afraid I’ ve  come to the conclusion that they’re nothing but a pretty face - the “bird brain” label sticks. Chickens are stupid. When they’re scared, they huddle together and suffocate each other; and they rush across roads in the face of oncoming traffic. In fact their brains are so redundant that they can still run around without them. From my experience, geese too are stupid, never mind what the Romans say – they can’t in fact tell friend from foe, and gaggle indiscriminately. My landlady in Harare had a flock of them in her garden that refused to recognise me as a legitimate, fully paid-up tenant. What’s more stupid looking (and actually, bloody frightening) than seeing 12 geese rush at you, necks outstretched, hissing? Hadeda ibi...

Korpiklaani is Folk- metal band  from Lathi in Finland. The band has six members. Jonne Järvelä – vocals, guitar Jaakko "Hittavainen" Lemmetty – violin, jouhikko and woodwinds Kalle "Cane" Savijärvi – guitar Matti "Matson" Johansson – drums Jarkko Aaltonen – bass Juho Kauppinen – accordion The band has been active since 2003 and signed on to the "Nuclear Blast" label and onto "Napalm Records". They started as a Sami folk music group called "Shamaani Duo". Sami people are from  the Northern Countries in Europe and many of them were reindeer herding. They have their own Sami language which is different from any other. Later they got new members and renamed themselves "Shaman". Sami's are famous for their Shaman. After they recorded two albums they changed their name again to "Korpiklaani". They also changed the language of their Lyrics. They now sing in English and not in their Sami languag...

Dearest Family and friends,

To: Mr & Mrs J. Hall, Box 49 Eikenhof (TVL) Johannesburg Afrique du Sud. 28.3.76 Dear John and Nola, Today a week ago we were still in New Delhi with Eve and Tony and the boys and the whole thing looks like a dream. We arrived on the 28.2 in New Delhi and were happy to see the whole family fit and in good health. The boys have grown very much, Phil is just about the size of Tony and the twins are above average. We stayed untill the 22nd March, as our visa ran out and we did not want to go through all the ceremony of asking for an extension. It also got hotter and I don't know how I would have supported the heat. The extra week would also have passed, so we decided not to go to all the trouble with the authorities and leave on the 22nd. I cannot tell you how happy we have been to see such a lovely family, so happy and united. It is rare to experience sucha thing and we have both all the reasons to be proud of them (when I say goth I mean you and us ). There is su...