everybody’s bloggin about da wall.
as usual, i will follow suit. historic footage here for you youngsters. are we still working out the consequences of this day?
[insert exclamations of how time passes. boring.]
i also give you this ‘testbild’, something that has been irrecoverably lost on TV, methinks.
phew.
my yearning today is at least as great as when i was fifteen. it takes no effort at all, but my head is wobbly and i cannot make decisions or work properly. i am accompanied by that song ‘desireless’ by eagle-eye cherry that i once categorised as the sexiest song ever. i’m not so sure about that now, but it’s an awesome song. 
i want to laugh about it all.
deliverance. now. yes. please
thresholdin’.
if someone were to ask how i was and i were to think about it rather than answering that “yes, i was fine, and how about them”, i would probably not know the answer. it is hard to stay grounded and acknowledge that i have moved on in different ways. that in the midst of all this thresholding i am, actually, fine and true and beautiful and at ease and smiling at the future. that i’ve made decisions that have made me grow away from people that used to live near me. that i may think i have not gone anywhere can be traced to the absence of any sustained effort to make a home in one place. and that the way this is judged in some parts more than others. for they do not believe in miracles and connection and vision.
i still do.
and that this feeling might be shared by others i love and miss.
names. patronymes.
came across the following which i had no idea about:
Dans la plupart des civilisations antiques, un seul nom, qui n’était pas héréditaire, servait à désigner l’individu.
Les Romains utilisaient un système de trois noms : le prénom, le gentilice (nom du groupe de familles) et le cognonem (surnom, devenu nom de famille). Deux seulement, en général, pour les gens du peuple. Ce système s’est étendu sur tout l’Empire et notamment la Gaule.
Les Barbares mettent le système à bas. Les populations ne portent plus désormais qu’un nom qui ne se transmet pas.
Problème : il y a trop d’homonymes. On ajoute alors au nom un surnom. Ces surnoms sont généralement issus de la profession exercée, Meyer pour le meunier par exemple, ou d’un sobriquet lié à l’apparence (Leroux, Lagrandeur), au lieu de vie ou d’origine (Dulac), à un trait de caractère (Loiseau, Lamy), ou au rang social (Lemaître). Ces surnoms ont été peu à peu transmis aux enfants et ainsi pérennisés.
Au XV e siècle, l’on commence à fixer les noms de famille. En 1474, Louis XI interdit de changer de nom sans une autorisation royale.
En 1539, François Ier promulgue l’ordonnance de Villers-Cotterêt. Celle-ci rend obligatoire la tenue de registres d’état-civil. Le but : trouver de la «chair à canon» pour les batailles à mener au nom du Roi. La tache est confiée aux curés. Etape suivante : la Révolution française. La tenue de l’état-civil passe désormais dans les attributions de l’État et se fait à la mairie de chaque commune.
La loi du 6 fructidor de l’an II (23 août 1794) interdit de porter d’autre nom et prénoms que ceux inscrits à l’état-civil, sauf autorisation du Conseil d’Etat. En 1870, l’apparition du livret de famille fige définitivement l’orthographe de tous les patronymes.
Certains, malsonnants, sont lourds à porter : Assassin, Baise, Bordel,Cosnard, Fayot, Garce, Gaudiche, Groslard, Lapine, Maquereau,Monsallot, Nique, Putin, Simplet, Soulard, Tapin. Il est désormais possible de les modifier devant les tribunaux.
Les noms les plus portés en France sont en fait des prénoms : Martin, Bernard, Dubois, Thomas, Robert, Richard… Le moins porté : Lancellotti.
also on jewish family names here and european family names here, here on russian names…
robert graves.
Just came across Robert Graves. Fascinating man. I love this poem. More of the sort here.
TO AN UNGENTLE CRITIC
The great sun sinks behind the town
Through a red mist of Volnay wine….
But what’s the use of setting down
That glorious blaze behind the town?
You’ll only skip the page, you’ll look
For newer pictures in this book;
You’ve read of sunsets rich as mine.
A fresh wind fills the evening air
With horrid crying of night birds….
But what reads new or curious there
When cold winds fly across the air?
You’ll only frown; you’ll turn the page,
But find no glimpse of your “New Age
Of Poetry” in my worn-out words.
Must winds that cut like blades of steel
And sunsets swimming in Volnay,
The holiest, cruellest pains I feel,
Die stillborn, because old men squeal
For something new: “Write something new:
We’ve read this poem—that one too,
And twelve more like ‘em yesterday”?
No, no! my chicken, I shall scrawl
Just what I fancy as I strike it,
Fairies and Fusiliers, and all
Old broken knock-kneed thought will crawl
Across my verse in the classic way.
And, sir, be careful what you say;
There are old-fashioned folk still like it.
when in doubt, turn to him.
When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
Sonnet 24, William Shakespeare
1989.
scânteia re-publishes the ‘jurnal national’ of 1989 every day this year. including the TV programme of the time, the photos and the anecdotes. great idea…
welcome to modernity.
dat as wi ech mer et firstellen wann ech texter liesen di vun dem absolutten ‘break’ tescht dem mettelalter an der modernzait schwetzen.
1600 am bulli.
d’sonn geet op iwwer engem klengen duerf iergendswou a metteleuropa.
den hunn kreit. kikerikiiiiiiiiii…
iergendwann enker as den jhempi erwaecht.
as dunn am laf vum moien bis an d’duerf getreppelt wou en de mett fanne wollt fir em eppes ze proposeieren.
wou en laanscht de kiirficht goung, as em de mond opstoe bliff, an en huet gegrommelt ‘nondidjoe’.
du hung ee grousse stofftene panneau gespaant tescht der kiirch an dem aeppelbaam op deem, op heckebelsch an latengesch stung: ‘wellkommen an der moderner zeit – si fenkt nexte mettwoch un’.
de probleem war just dass de jhemp nit vill fir d’liesen iwwrich hat…
wei geet d’geschicht weider?
4 comments