Thrifty & Crafty

I have an occasional Zoom "craft date" with friend J.R., when we chat over video while she weaves or sews and I mend or do other crafty projects, like the "surgery" I performed on two Styrofoam "hell cat" Halloween decorations that needed weighted bottoms to make them less likely to tip over in the wind. (A scowling guard feline looks so much less fearsome on its side.)

This month I tackled the green-glass desk lamp I bought second hand whose metal based was wonky. I couldn't get the central disk to line up with the two outer rings, so I invested in a mini-glue gun, harvested some sturdy cardboard from a box in the attic, and created a green-felt-wrapped layer to even out the bottom. Now it no longer rocks against the wooden desk.

I'm pretty pleased by the way it turned out.

When the lamp was finished, I used some of the corner scraps to pad the paws of the iron mouse doorstop I thrifted for the attic door. We have to prop it open so Rosamunda can get up and down from her litter box, but when the weather was warmer and the windows were open, the door banged every time there was a draft. Now there's a bright idea.

"Cholera and Fear" / "Die Cholera und die Furcht"

"'Tis the season," said one of my colleagues, to explain the sudden influx in gifts from patients in a single morning clinic session. One woman who "stress bakes" brought her provider a veritable pyramid of goodies. Others picked up pre-packaged chocolates: foil-covered milk-chocolate balls, Ghirardelli squares, locally famous Sarris chocolate-covered pretzels. You can see that by the end of the day, we had made significant in-roads.

The same morning, the parents of one of my special-needs patients gave me a jar of home-made, preservative-free plum jelly. His father reassured me that he was evidence it was safe, as he had eaten it for years. I did once throw away the fish spread a patient made because my colleague pointed out it was made from "bottom-feeders" who consume who-knows-what, but I felt safe putting this on a bagel with cream cheese. It has an interesting sour-sweetness, and I am delighted they thought of me. Why, then, did I photograph it with my most recent column in the local medical society magazine? Because the parents mentioned they had seen my name in it while picking up the mail for a friend, read the poem and my translation, and were impressed. Since it has already come out, I will share it with you here.

„Die Cholera und die Furcht.“ Von Hermann Friedrichs.           

Schwüle Nacht—Am Thor der heil’gen Stadt,
Die einst Welt und Geist geknechtet hat,
Pocht ein Fremdling mit dem Schwertesknauf:

,,Hollah, Pförtner, schlieβ daβ Thor mir auf!“
            Schaurig dröhnt der Ruf durch Nacht und Graun,
Und des Wächters helle Augen schaun
Forschend in des Pilgers Angesicht:
,,Deiner Stimme, Fremdling, trau‘ ich nicht!

Harre drauβen bis der Morgen graut—

Diese Stadt hat Gott mir anvertraut!“
,,Gott ja sendet mich!“ ruft Jener wild.
,,Komm und prüfe meinen Wappenschild,
Hab‘ vor kurzem erst ihn aufgefrischt,
Wo der Nildunst mit dem Smum sich mischt—
Emsig mäht mein Schwert, wenn ich es schwinge,

Fiebergluthen stählen seine Klinge!“

            ,,Doch der Pförtner, vor Entsetzen bleich:

,,Dennoch,‘‘ spricht er, ,,wehr‘ ich dir mein Reich,
Leistet du mir nicht den heil’gen Schwur,
Mir zu nehmen tausend Seelen nur.
Denn ich weiβ, du bist ein Nimmersatt,

Schafft gern mehr, als Gott geboten hat.“
            Jener schwört. Der Pförtner läβt ihn ein.

Düster schleicht ein Schatten hinterdrein—
Eine Alte, bleich und abgezehrt,
Mit des Allgewalt’gen Schild beschwert.
            Fragend miβt der Pförtner die Gestalt,

Doch ihr Blick durchzuckt ihn meh und kalt—
,,Gott, erbarme dich der tausend Seelen!“
Spricht er schauernd, ,,laβ sie dir empfehlen!“

            Wochen flohn—Die Stadt füllt Schreckt und
Graus.

            Wild, verzweifelnd schaut der Pförtner aus

Nach den Bahren, die vorüberziehn,
Nach den Bürgern, die der Stadt entfliehen.
Heiβ durchwühlt die Adern ihm der Zorn,
Ihn verwundert bangen Zweifels Dorn.
Immer neue Bahren ziehn vorbei,
Immer lauter hallt das Wehgeschrei.
Ach! schon fünfmal tausend liegen todt,
Und noch immer mehrt sich Leid und Noth.
            Endlich kehrt der Gottgesandte wieder,
Läβt zur Rast sich mit der Alten nieder;
Doch der Pförtner fährt ihn grimmig an:

,,Tausend, schwurst du, ungefüger Mann!
Und du brachst den Eid?“

                                                Der Andre spricht:

,,Nein! Denn mehr als tausend schlug ich nicht!
Was darüber, nahm dir diese da,
Stets, auf Schritt und Tritt, war sie mir nah—”
            ,,Und wer ist dies Scheufel?“
                                                ,,Blicke hin,
‘s ist die Furcht, die schlimmste Würgerin!“

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“Cholera and Fear.”  By Hermann Friedrichs.

On a humid night that oppressed matter and spirit, a stranger banged on the door of the holy city
with the pommel of his sword. “Hollah, porter, unbar the gate for me!”
            The shout boomed gruesomely through the night, and the guard’s bright eyes looked searchingly at the pilgrim’s countenance: “I do not trust your voice, stranger! Wait outside until the morning dawns—God has entrusted me with this city!”
            “It is God who sends me!” replied the other roughly. “Come and examine my escutcheon [crest]. I’ve just cleaned it where the Nile miasma and desert sandstorm mingle. My sword reaps assiduously when I swing it, [for] the heat of fever hardens its blade.”
            The porter blanched at the horror: “Nevertheless,” he said, “I will defend my territory against you, if you do not render me the holy oath, that you will only take a thousand souls. Because I know that you are a glutton who likes to do more than God has allowed.”

            The other swore. The porter let him in. Grimly skulked a shadow behind him—an old woman, pale and emaciated, burdened with the shield of the omnipotent one.

            Questioningly the porter eyed the figure, but her stare seared through him, painful and cold. “God, embrace the thousand souls!” he shuddered, “May they be commended to your care!”

            Weeks flew by, and the city filled with terror and dread. The porter watched with fury and despair as the stretchers passed by and as citizens fled the city. Hot anger coursed through his veins, as the thorn of doubt deeply wounded him. Always new stretchers went by, always louder rang the painful cries. Ach! Already five times a thousand lay dead, and the suffering and need continued to increase.

            Finally, the One sent by God returned with the old woman and sat down to rest; grimly the porter rounded on them: “A thousand, you promised, reckless man! Didn’t you break your oath?” And other replied: “No!  Because I felled no more than a thousand!  What is more, you must understand, she was always close on my heels—”          

            “Who is this monster?”  

            “Look over there, ‘tis Fear, the most terrible destroyer!”

 
Citation: Hermann Friedrichs, “Die Cholera und die Furcht,” Die Gegenwart 26 (1884): 86.

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Miasmata, citizens fleeing in panic, a plague sent from God, a moral punch line warning of the evil of fear itself—surely these are not imagery one would associate with a modern, industrial, scientifically-advanced country. And yet, this poem was written not when Europe first encountered cholera in the politically restive early 1830s, nor in 1848 when revolution also broke out (again), nor even during repeat epidemics in 1853-55 or in 1866-75. “Cholera and Fear” appeared in the weekly family magazine Die Gegenwart in 1884. From Calcutta (now Kolkata), Dr. Robert Koch (1843-1910) had just announced that he had identified the cause: Vibrio cholerae. Coming so soon after his identification of Bacillus anthracis in 1896 and Mycobacterium tuberculosis in 1882, it was yet another triumph for himself and the German state that financed his research in Germany, Egypt, and India.

Interestingly, at the dawn of the “bacteriological revolution” (c. 1880-1930), popular imagery of cholera included both reproductions of drawings of comma-shaped bacteria as seen through a microscope and vivid, medieval imagery like exotic mists and sword-bearing phantoms. Hermann Friedrichs’ (1854-1911) poem drew heavily from motifs of colonialism, Orientalism (West vs East, Europe vs Asia), and militarized nationalism then circulating in Imperial Germany

I thought a lot about this poem at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. I considered how older means of coping with disease and societal disruption mingled with new discoveries, such as the SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequence and then mRNA vaccines. While hand washing, mask wearing, and quarantine (or “social distancing”) are tried and true, we have had a hard time giving up xenophobia and the kind of isolationist mindset that hoards vaccine until it expires instead of sending it to low-resource countries. I wonder what future historians will think when they look back to this period and its ubiquitous spiky virions.

Daytripping, part 2 of 2

When planning our daytrip to Carlisle, I found out that the Dickinson College Theater and Dance Departments were putting on a free outdoor adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's (1898-1956) play Mother Courage and Her Children [Mutter Courage und Ihre Kinder, 1939]. Sometimes described as the greatest play of the 20th century, it discusses the all-around tragedy of warfare through the rhetorical distance of the 17th century.

A. went back to the car to nap with a headache while K. and I gathered in the courtyard outside the theater arts building with a sizable crowd (of 50-60?) to enjoy the pandemic-safe performance. It took place entirely outside at 12 different spots around campus, with mobile scenery and the actors miked. The scenes were interspersed with dances by two different troupes, and some tableaus. It was quite well done, and the rain had cleared up. Here we are looking down over the railing of a walkway onto the action.

Dancers in orange overalls and plaid shirts on the left, action on the wagon on the right.

This was my favorite dance piece, involving a different group in blue and white. Too bad it involved beginning on the (wet) ground in slow motion as each dancer gather momentum, finally processing out through the gate with the college's name.

The scene that happened next in the courtyard involved a good bit of humorous staging involving the checkerboard in the foreground.

Interlude with both companies.

As the Thirty-Years War (1618-1648) drags on, Mother Courage loses her children one by one, including a son who was on the right side of the law as long as he was raping and pillaging during a campaign but was found to be a war criminal when a brief cease-fire was declared. This was a particular "Brechtian" moment of satirical irony. Meanwhile, Mother Courage wheels and deals, always trying to make a buck while avoiding any but the most superficial political allegiances.

By the time of the last dance piece, it was full dark. (Daylight Saving Time had ended the night before.) The last couple of scenes were done here in the original courtyard, in front of the white house in the background and then around the corner at this lawn.

Then it was back in the car for the half-hour trip back to Harrisburg, where the brewery I had picked out actually closed at 7pm, so we opted for my second choice, McGrath's Irish pub. It was amazing. (See my Yelp review.) Finally, I boarded a Greyhound bus back to Pittsburgh. Bless him, Dear Husband came to pick me up after midnight so I didn't have to walk to my car in the garage alone or drive myself home after a long but good day. I am really glad K. extended the invitation and that I was able to make the time and the trip.

Daytripping, part 1 of 2

One of my college buddies was in the Philadelphia area for her cousin's wedding and offered to meet me halfway, so I jumped on the chance for a weekend daytrip. A hamlet called Burnt Cabins is exactly halfway between Pittsburgh and Allentown, but the only thing there is an old grain mill, so I decided to go all the way to Carlisle, just half an hour from where they could pick me up at the train station in Harrisburg. Home of Dickinson College and not far from the beautiful Appalachian scenery of King's Gap, Carlisle (pop. 20K) is perhaps more infamous for having been the site of the first Indian Boarding School, where thousands of Native children were forcibly Americanized, and hundreds died.

Like a good Girl Scout, I packed my snack bag the night before with first breakfast (cherry Kuchen, clementines, and a hard-boiled egg), second breakfast (tres leches cake and a banana), lunch (cheese, crackers, carrots, grapes, mixed nuts, chocolate, fizzy water), an apple and cookies for afternoon snack, and an emergency granola bar. In the morning I added a mug of Irish breakfast tea with milk and honey and a thermos of ice water. I brought 2 layers and an umbrella for any potential weather, a book for work (a handbook on preoperative evaluation), a magazine for fun (National Geographic issue on pirates), and my laptop for work on or off the internet during the 5-hour train trip to Harrisburg in the morning and maybe for a short while on the bus ride back to Pittsburgh before hopefully catching some Zs that night. Oh yeah, I packed my sleep mask, earplugs, and some melatonin, because our ETA was just after midnight, and I still had to work on Monday!

Dear Husband kindly drove me to the train station but had to drop me off a block away because of road closures for a Sunday morning race. Here I am under the fancy dome of The Pennsylvanian, which used to be Pittsburg's [sic*] Union Station but is now luxury apartments. The current train/bus station underneath is decidedly more utilitarian. The sleepy crowd boarded as the sun came up, and then the train pulled away. I worked on this and that while enjoying the late-fall Pennsylvanian countryside. (The foliage was definitely past its peak.) I was going to take a photo or video from "the world-famous horseshoe curve" outside Altoona, but a slow-moving freight train had the inside track.

Happily reunited, we piled into the car for the short trip westward to Carlisle. First stop: Molly Pitcher's gravesite and memorial. She was born Mary Ludwig in 1744 and died Molly McKolly (or McCauley) in 1832. K. and her husband hadn't grown up reading about her heroic actions during the Revolutionary War and were impressed to learn how she carried water to the soldiers and womaned her first husband John Hays's canon when he was injured at the Battle of Monmouth. If you look closely in the second image, you can see that someone has added a white lace collar like those that the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg used to wear.

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania erected the monument in 1916 with a poem by Sarah Woods Parkinson (1864-1933) on one of the markers:

O'er Monmouth's field of carnage drear

with cooling drinks and words of cheer, a woman passed who knew no fear,

the wife of Hays, the gunner.

With ramrod from her husband's hand,

beside his gun she took her stand

and helped to wrest our well-loved land

from England's tyrant king.

From the ranks this woman came,

by the cannon won her fame;

'Tis true she could not write her name

but Freedom's hand hath carved it.

Shall we then criticize her ways?

Nay, rather give her well-earned praise,

then doff our caps and voices raise

in cheers for Molly Pitcher.

While researching this I learned that Parkinson was "the outstanding authority in the country on facts relating to Molly Pitcher," according to her death notice in the New York Times, and had gone blind by the time her poem was used. She also published a biography of the first president of Dickinson College (1908) and wrote a book entitled, Memories of Carlisle's old graveyard: containing a list of the inscriptions on all stones in the enclosure in 1898 and describing a walk through a part of the graveyard (c1930). Many of the headstones dated post-1900, so it wouldn't have everything, but it would have this unique horseshoe-shaped marker for "Our father and mother," Melchior and Catharine Hoffer, who died in 1849 and 1884, respectively. I had also never seen a marker made out of metal before, so when I inspected this white one for A. W. Walker, I was surprised to discover that my rings made a hollow sound, and that there are seams where the sheets of what I assume is aluminum are joined together. I suppose the original stone from 1890 was damaged, so this replacement was made.

Then we found a coffee shop and enjoyed a round of hot chocolate while waiting for a rain shower to pass. In the second part, I will share photos of the unusual performance we attended next.

*Union Station was built in 1900, in the middle of the 20 years when Pittsburgh didn't have its "h" (1891-1911).