Words, as any good dictionary will tell us, often have many meanings. Some words tell us the brutal truth; others are euphemisms, making the described matter fit for polite society. When Eliza, to Colonel Pickering’s amusement, encourages her racehorse she uses the real word, not a euphemism. She does not yell “Move your blooming posterior.” Fit for polite society as this blog is we shall call Eliza’s colorful expression the “a-word.” In Bavaria, where the following happened, the common folk speak German, but in a very earthy dialect. Needless to point out that they also prefer the a-word to the euphemism.
Apartment houses in Munich are typically four stories high and have flat roofs. People sometimes find their way up, spread a beach towel and take a sunbath. If you have chosen a house that is taller than the surrounding ones nobody can see you. Clothing, then, is optional. A lady friend of ours one day made use of that situation, luxuriating face down in the warm sun.
But there is also a lot of equipment on the roofs, boxes, pipes, conduits, drains and such. On that day a young mechanic had been sent up to test some valves. As he stepped out on the roof he must have been stunned. Yet, not showing a hint of embarrassment, he managed to express a most innocent, completely honest and guileless compliment. “Fräulein!” he almost shouted. “You have the most beautiful (a-word)!”
Given the young man’s lack of education and sophistication, I give him a lot of credit for taste in art. I suspect that in every human male’s soul there hides a Renoir or a Boucher.
When I was young I was a master of planning things that, every one agreed, were impossible, couldn’t be done. I would then attempt to do it anyway and sure enough: every one was right. It could indeed not be done.
Sicily has seen many conquerors and rulers, from the ancient Greeks to Mussolini. The Greeks left behind their temples. Mussolini left behind some government buildings in unmistakable fascist style. At about the time of the Battle of Hastings the Normans called the shots. They too left some of their architecture behind, notably the cathedral of Messina. It has been destroyed and rebuilt several times and is now a precious sight-seeing item for the tourists, worth a visit if you like to see what Norman Style means. Most tourists have simpler interests, such as the much advertised Golden Lion on top of the bell tower. As the guide books will tell you, this is a masterwork by a French clock maker. While other lions such as the one in Belfort or the one by the lake near Lucerne just sit there, the one in Messina is capable of letting go a most formidable roar, and he does this every day at twelve o’clock noon.
My greeting goes to Chateaubriand. Not the steak cooked in butter but the author of Memoires d’outre-tomb. Which he published at age 80 to tell us wise things from beyond the grave. I also am thinking of telling people wise things, but I prefer to do that from this side of the tomb. Life, he is said to have suggested, is spent hovering round our tomb. This is much too dark and morbid. Who wants to hear such pessimistic memoirs? I will write a book and call it Mémoires de ce côté-ci.
Where I come from they say that a person who has had one or two too many is “blau,” i.e. drunk. In America, blue is not a condition so much as it is a mood. We sing the blues. And if it is all about unrequited love, oh dear, things are not just bluer then blue can be, they are outright indigo if you listen to Duke Ellington. But those are the unhappy people. What if you wake up relaxed and the sky is blue from horizon to horizon and the sun is shining and it is Sunday and you have no appointments? And the Forget-me-nots are wearing their Sunday best blue? Suddenly the color blue changes meaning for us and we remember that the standard measure for beauty is to be blond and blue-eyed.