Harry´s Blog

Herbert Kuhner

Here’s Hemingway the pugilist: “I started out very quiet and I beat Mr. Turgenev. Then I trained hard and I beat Mr. De Maupassant. I’ve fought two draws with Stendhal, and I think I had an edge in the last one. But nobody’s going to get me in any ring with Mr. Tolstoy unless I’m crazy or I keep getting better.”
- Ernest Hemingway, The New Yorker, May 13,1950Believe it or not folks, this statement came from a man of letters, who was a Nobel Laureate, to boot!

He was sort of right - as far as fisticuffs are concerned. But I’d give him even more than he gives himself. He could have knocked out three of the four in a genuine boxing ring. I’m not so sure about Maupassant, who was quite an athlete; I’d place my bets on him.

The bookmaker may be the right address for bets on boxing, but it’s the wrong address for literary evaluation, since the matter of winners and losers is completely theoretical.

Incidentally, Tolstoy made comparisons too. He thought that Shakespeare was dwarf compared to him, and another genius he put down was the great Leonid Andreyev.

Literary merit is always a debatable quality. An author shouldn’t be asked to blow his own horn, and if he blows voluntarily, he’s invariably supercilious. Rating an author is the business of the reader and the critic. Only a fool or a tyro would publicly compare himself to others of the trade. When start to compare, you’re bound to lose.

Let me tack this on! I love Maupassant more than I can say. What would I be without him? And by saying that, I win.

Sharron Angle, Tea-Party Republican candidate for the Nevada Senate, wants to outlaw abortion universally, even in cases of rape and incest. She insists that a young girl raped by her father should know that “two wrongs don’t make a right. “Much good can come from a horrific situation like that,” Angle added. ‘Lemons can be made into lemonade.’”

Yes Sharron, you need lemons for lemonade. And while you’re squeezing them, don’t forget, “If you want to make an omelette, you have to break a few eggs.”

And while Sharron is squeezing and breaking, here’s Bishop Andreas Laun of Salzburg, Austria. If a child is raped and becomes pregnant, the child should have the child. “I would inform the child of the wonder of the new life in her body - that it is partially her child which will long for the love of a mother and that that it would grow up like a brother or a sister. I also say to her: This will enable you to heal wound that you have acquired …”
- Kreuz.net Catholic News, Interview with Bishop Andreas Laun, Sept. 9, 2006

- Herbert Kuhner

Herbert Kuhner

Herr Kuhner, if you do not withdraw your case, we will send the public health officer.
- Anonymous caller

Martin Luksan suggested I tackle this again, so here goes!

Yes, this is a trip down Memory Lane, but there is nothing sentimental about it. These were not the good old days. There’s no dabbing at the edges of your eyes with a hankie when you think back.

I’d like to express my gratitude to all the people I encountered who helped me achieve a better understanding of the past.

My First Experience with Inhumanity:
Let me go back to 1938. I was three at the time. My mother and I were in my grandmother’s apartment in Rueppgasse in the 2nd district of Vienna. The doorbell to my grandmother’s rang. I ran to the door and opened it. It was the SA. They entered to ransack the apartment. One of them, I remember clearly, wore a brown suit and limped. The other wore a grey suit. They searched the apartment. The brown-suited man pushed my grandmother, who was eighty-three away from the sideboard in order to ransack it. And indeed it contained her shopping money.

I see that occurrence as clearly as if it were taking place right now.

My parents left what had become Ostmark with me in 1939. Members of my family who remained at that address, as well as at Kärntnertrasse 28, my paternal grandmother’s address, were deported and murdered. Incidentally the latter address used to be occupied by the Educational Academy of the right-wing Austrian Freedom Party. It is now the home of a trend chain store.

After my return to Austria in 1963, I set about translating and publishing Austrian poets. I considered it my special mission to render those poets who had experienced the Shoah.

The conditions were anything but sanguine and salubrious. It was as if I had never left.

I soon got into hot water. Apparently, I can’t let things be. I simply had to stir the pot. And I seem to keep on stirring and stirring.

I’ve always said that I wanted to have smooth sailing, but I couldn’t help rocking the boat. Rocking seems to be in my genes. Stepping out of line, which is a movement my feet can’t seem to avoid making.

I’ve been termed a troublemaker. Yes, that’s what I am, and that’s what I’ll be as long as I am on this planet.

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Herbert Kuhner

The survivors,
after having been brutalized
and witnessing decimation,
learned the lesson
of humanity,
banished hatred from their hearts
and became kind, gentle and loving.

“Those who think that Jews will tread the moral high ground because they have suffered and experienced persecution are dead wrong. The main lesson of the Holocaust for Israelis is never again to go to the slaughter like lambs! If struck, we will strike back. Nations and governments do not have values - they only have interests.”
- Avi Primor, Die Presse, June 20, 2010, p. 48

Herbert Kuhner

There’s a Hollywood myth about Lawrence Olivier and Dustin Hoffman, Hofmann is reputed to have gone without sleep for a whole weekend in order to be convincing in a scene in Marathon Man. Olivier is alleged to have suggested to the dishevelled Hofmann: “Why don’t you try acting, dear boy?!”

Robert Di Niro, Silvester Stallone, George Clooney, Matt Damon, Jared Leto, Nicole Kidman, Renée Zellweger, Charlize Theron, Meryl Streep and Megan Fox have something in common. They all put on weight for film roles.

This is sheer and utter madness. Putting on and losing weight drastically a can result in quick or slow death.

Giving your all for a role should be limited to creating an illusion. It should not entail risking your health and life.

Take a look at the stars of black-and-white yesteryear! How about the great toupées and dental work!

Of course an illusion of extra poundage is not so easy to create. But how about letting the make-up man have a go!

An actor can act fat and camera angles can help him along.

“Why don’t you try acting, dear boys and girls?!

Herbert Kuhner

The Big Night, directed by Stanley Tucci is about the art of cooking and art in general.

Time is the Fifties´. Primo and Secundo have left Italy for New Jersey and have established the Paradise Restaurant.

Primo is a culinary master who makes no compromises and Secundo, played by Tucci, is the front-man who takes care of the PR.

The Paradise provides culinary Paradise, but the brothers have established Paradise
in the wrong Jersey neighborhood. And unfortunately, they are on their last financial legs.

Okay, everyone likes spaghetti Napolitano, but apparently these Jerseyites, or Jerseyans if you will, wouldn’t recognize a gourmet meal, even if it floated from their plate to their palate. No slur to Jersey! I’m a Jersey boy myself. There are gourmet restaurants galore in the Garden State, but they have to be in the right Jersey location. Actually, I don’t know of a wrong Jersey location for Italian food. But there must be one. And Primo and Secundo seem to have found one. Let me say this, as far as Jersey is concerned, they have the best pizza parlors in the world - not the most elaborately designed, but the best.

Pascal’s Restaurant is fancy pasta eatery that offers run-of the mill fare. Let me interject that you have to look hard to fund a mediocre Italian restaurant in Jersey, but that there must indeed be such places.

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Herbert Kuhner

“Jan Karski, a member of the Polish underground, met with President Franklyn D. Roosevelt and Supreme Justice Felix Frankfurter, informing them of the Holocaust.On. July 28, 1943.

“With Roosevelt he raised the matter of providing hard currency to buy Jews out of the ghetto.

“The President rebuffed him: “No one will like to know that we are subsidizing Hitler with gold and silver. Mr Karski, this is impossible; we will not do it.”

Karski then asked what he should tell his people.

“You will tell them,” said Roosevelt, “that we shall win the war and the enemy will be punished for their crimes. Justice will prevail.”
- www.telegraph.co.uke

Previous to meeting with Roosevelt Karski had met with Felix Frankfurter on October, 1942.

Frankfurter: “Will you tell me about the Jews! We have had many reports. What happens to the Jews in your country?”

Karski informs Frankfurter of what he knew and what he had seen.

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