Animals, Mushrooms and Plants

This post is an answer to http://waibakram.amelibecht.de/#post77 who wrote:

Pilze sind Organismen, die nicht eindeutig tierisch oder pflanzlich zugeordnet werden können. Sie sind gewissermaßen eine Mischung aus Beidem. (freely translated: Mushrooms are organisms that are not definitely animal or plant, but something quasi in-between). 

This prompted me to make a picture of parts of the phylogenetic tree of some of my favorite organisms. Mushrooms, in the fungi clade, are genetically a little bit closer to animals than to plants. The main difference between animals and fungi, and between animals and plants, is the structure of the cell wall. Unlike animals and fungi, plants can make chlorophyll,  thus get their energy from the sun and not from other plants or animals.
For a more detailed and scientific view of the tree, please go to the NCBI Taxonomy Browser. 

Animals:

Fire Salamander - Feuersalamander
The Fire Salamander has a special place in my heart. I had one for 15 years when I was a kid (they can live 25 years). An irresponsible teacher gave it to me in 5th grade. His name was Hermann, and it still bothers me that I didn't take care of him better. I couldn't let him go free, because he was not used to the wild, and considered humans his food source.

Wolverine - Vielfraß
2008, the first wolverine have been seen since 80 years in California.  He is still around, and marking the territory like crazy, probably looking for a mate. According to genetic testing, he came from Idaho. Did he walk all the way, or did he get kidnapped?

Human - Mensch
Hmm, what are those?

Turkey Vulture - Truthahngeier
Prolific in California, great to look at in the country. 

Snake - Schlange
Snakes have a bad reputation, but I think they are quite lovely. We have them sometimes in the garden (look like a little red garden hose). They make me happy when I see them in the wild.

Jelly Fish - Qualle
At the Baltic sea, the beaches are often swamped with jelly fish. Fortunately, it is usually not the poisonous type. The Monterey aquarium has an amazing exhibition of pretty jelly fish.
Dried jelly fish in Chinese food is a bit tasteless, the sauce it usually comes with is utterly important!

Fungi:
Chanterelle - Pfifferling
Most wonderful mushrooms in risotto!

Oyster Mushroom - Austernpilz
The only mushroom we see when we look for Chanterelles.

Baker's yeast - Bierhefe
In German, it's more commonly called "Beer yeast", talk about priorities!

Plants:
Wheat - Weizen
What's not to like about a good bread (unless you are gluten intolerant, in which case you should buy your bread from Mariposa Baking). 


Beech - Buche
The tree of my childhood. Beech trees are prolific in northern Germany.

Crowfoot - Hahnenfuß
How I hated this weat!

Horsetail  - Ackerschachtelhalm
Pretty, old, nice ...

Vergangenheitsbewältigung

Das Kindermädchen by Elisabeth Herrmann

Unfortunately for the English speaking audience, this author has not (yet?) been translated to English.


This book is another example of present day dealing with "Vergangenheitsbewältigung" (process of coming to terms with one's past, one's country, family, parents, spouses, etc), that is quite common in present day Germany. Even Germans that are born too late to take the blame (blessing o late birth or "Gnade der späten Geburt") often struggle a lot with the country's past, and particularly with the (sometimes assumed) guilt of the parents and grandparents. And then others are deeply offended even by questions about these times. My sister is trying to get information about my family's life during Nazi times, but her very legitimate questions are readily perceived as hostile, and it is difficult to get answers. This leads to the suspicion that they have something to hide. But it just might be that they are afraid that somebody will find something embarrassing, and the easiest way to avoid it would be, not to talk about it at all.

This is the second book I read in the last few months, that cover similar issues that my sister researches: The lives and recognition of forced laborers in Nazi Germany, from Eastern European countries like Ukraine, is the main theme of the book. These particular forced laborers come from a barely known group: Nannies and housekeepers in wealthy, well connected households. The girls were young, between 12 and 16 years old. Working hours were 16 hours a day (as regulated by the authorities). Many were treated well by the families, many were not. They often formed a close relationship with "their" children.

The novel takes place in present day Berlin. In a quite entertaining way, a small demand of a former nurse, to be formally recognized by the family, so that she can collect a very modest pension, and the persistence of the leading character Joachim Vernau,  leads to the unraveling of two families, the discovery of a number of war crimes (stolen art), murder, love and betrayal, and the return of Vernau to the class of mere mortals after a discourse into the world of the "ruling class/quasi nobility" (at least in their perspective).

Schneewittchen und die sieben Zwerge (Snow white)

On the weekend, I saw (probably first time in my life) Disney's Snow White. What a wonderful movie! The animation, the expression and movements of the people, animals and plants were just exquisit!

Since I am currently re-reading (after decades) Grimm's fairy tales, I jumped ahead to number 53, to compare the Disney version of Snow White with the Grimm's version. True to their name, the Grimm brothers have a much more "grim" story than Disney.

Here is a short summary of Grimm's Schneewittchen:

First the name: Schneewittchen's mother was spinning some wool, when she stang herself with the needle. A drop of blood fell on the ebony window sill, which was also covered partially by snow. So the queen wished to have a daughter that is "Weiss wie Schnee, rot wie Blut und schwarz wie Ebenholz" (white like snow, red like blood, black like ebony), hence the subsequent birth of Snow White with white skin, red lips and black hair. This description gets repeated frequently throughout the fairy tale, one of the numerous sentences from the Grimm's that I can recite.

The queen dies in childbirth, and a stepmother steps in her shoes, a vain mean person, who checks on the superiority of her beauty frequently through a magic mirror (Spieglein Spieglein an der Wand, wer ist die Schönste im ganzen Land?). When the mirror declares her the fairest, the queen orders the hunter to kill her. She of course gets away, and finds the house of the seven dwarfs. Schneewittchen then stays on as the house keeper, the queen finds her through the mirror, and eventually quasi-kills her with a poisoned apple. The dwarfs put her into a glas casket, a prince sees her, and she comes back to life.

This short summary leaves out a number of details, because they are different in the two version:

Version	Disney	Grimm
Age	Teenage	Seven
First Assassination	Hunter can't do it	SW pleads for life
Proof of death	Bring heart to queen	Bring liver and lung to queen (who eats them)
Dwarfs' house	Dirty, SW cleans all	Clean, SW messes things up
Queen	Once with poisened apple	Successful third time with poisoned apple
Awakening	Through kiss from Prince	Through clumsiness from Prince's servants (SW falls out of coffin, poisened apple falls out of mouth, SW wakes up)
Punishment of Queen	Falls off a cliff	Has to dance until death in red-glowing hot iron shoes

I was especially surprised by the difference in the first scene in the dwarfs' house. It is very dirty in the Disney version, SW spends a lot of time and effort in the cleaning process, quite the opposite of her behavior in the Grimm version, where everything is very tidy, and she goes from chair, to table, from plate to glass, from bed to bed, and tries everything, makes it all a little messy. As my GF points out, this part is very similar to "Goldilocks and the Three Bears", a children's story first recorded by Robert Southey in 1837.

According to wikipedia, Goldilocks also evolved quite a bit. It the Southey version, and in an earlier version from Eleanor Mure, an old woman finds the house of a "Little, Small, Wee Bear, a Middle-sized Bear, and a Great, Huge Bear", eats their food, breaks their chair, and sleeps in their bed. Already in 1853, the old woman got replaced by a girl, to make the tale more attractive to children, and the best known version was published in 1904 in "Old Nursery Stories and Rhymes" with Goldilocks as the girl (or maybe, the name was created by Flora Annie Steel in her "English Fairy Tales" from 1918). Additionally, there are various other permutations of the "Three Bears" story, and a connection of Snow-white with this one has been suggested before.

Apparently, even the Grimm's version evolved. Initially, it was the mother and not the step-mother, and she took her to the forest herself. This has been toned down to me more suitable for children, just as it has been done for Hansel and Gretel (which also had the evil mother first, then the step-mother that sent them into the forest).

The fairy tale has been known since the middle ages in many European countries, in different variations. It seems to change to reflect contemporary taste and preferences. I found a recent major work that tells Snow White's tale: Schneewittchen (the opera) by Heinz Holliger, premiered 1998 in Zurich, based on a dramolett from Robert Walser (~1900). The dramolett (and subsequently the opera) try a psychological evaluation of the circumstances around SW, apparently difficult to stomach both musically and content-wise. This is certainly not a beginners opera, and not a children's opera either.

 

Japanese Crime Fiction and Edogawa Rampo

Edogawa Rampo's 1934 novelette The Black Lizard came bundled with a shorter one: Beast in the Shadows, and also with an introduction about the author and Japanese crime fiction in general. 

Edogawa Rampo (the pen name of Hirai Taro) was instrumental in bringing crime novels to Japan. His name is supposed to sound similar to "Edgar Allen Poe", as a homage to Poe, who Taro adored. 

Rampo's Black Lizard is a peculiar novel. The main purpose of the story is to demonstrate how two rivals, the black lizard (a female thief, as she is described, but I'd rather say a head of a mafia-like organization) and the master detective Akechi Kogoro try to out-whit each other. In complicated sequence of disguise and deception the black lizard manages to kidnap the daughter of a rich man, but Kogoro's foresight made it possible to free the girl in the process. This prompts an even more intricate plan, to not just kidnap the girl, but gain a precious piece of jewelry as well. This time, Kogoro counters with smarter disguise and quasi magical deception, and ultimately defeats her gloriously.

At lot of the peculiarities are probably an artifact of cultural differences, and the translation. For example,  "ha ha ha" accompanies jokes commonly to make sure, the audience understands it.  Also, especially in the beginning, the author explains to the reader complicated sections in the beginning of the following chapter, so that everything is clear. In the last third of the book, the speed of the story picks, the explanations become less obvious (more embedded into the story), and the whole writing becomes more interesting. However, the whole novel to me lacks characterization, and doesn't bring the individual players to life. I am curious, how this beginning of the Japanese section of the genre develops, and it made me interested in scooping out more modern novels. 

This is my first book from Asia for the Global Reading Challenge. 

In the Graveyard

A lot of mystery and drama is buried in Olmsted's Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland. A number of the rich and famous of their times have been buried here in large mausoleums, most notably in Millionaire's row. More interesting stories might be hidden behind the withered gravestones, gnarly trees, and overgrown graves tell stories of the forgotten inhabitants. The graveyard reminds me of Brahms' song "Auf dem Kirchhofe", based on a poem from Gustav von Liliencron, which has always been one of my favorite Brahms songs:

Liliencron: Auf dem Kirchhofe

Der Tag ging regenschwer und sturmbewegt,
Ich war an manch vergessnem Grab gewesen,
verwittert Stein und Kreuz, die Kränze alt,
die Namen überwachsen, kaum zu lesen.

Der Tag ging sturmbewegt und regenschwer,
auf allen Gräbern fror das Wort: Gewesen.
Wie sturmestot die Särge schlummerten,
auf allen Gräbern taute still: Genesen.



I'll attempt a translation:
The day was heavy of rain, and moved by storms,
To some forgotten grave I had gone. 
Withered stone and cross, with aged wreaths,
The names overgrown, barely to read. 

The day was moved by storms, heavy of rain,
On all the graves the frozen word: all over.
How dead of storms the graves were slumbering,
On all the graves it melted quietly: all healed. 

South Africa during Apartheid

A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn

When I grew up, we boycotted all goods from South Africa. At one point, I got mad at my father for buying Kruger Rand coins, because their sale supported the regime.

When a theatre group from Soweto, a town ship close to Johannesburg, visited my home town and gave a performance in the local church, I was impressed by their energy, their beauty, and their determination to make their stories known. The performance was a combination of traditional African dance, and realistic theatre, to demonstrate live in the townships. I was a kid, and at that point, I didn't quite comprehend that the play was not telling just stories, but events that were happening in the present. 

Although the novel doesn't focus on the African community, and the townships were created a few years later, the crime novel "A Beautiful Place to Die" reminded me of these childhood memories. It is set in 1952 rural South Africa, a few years into the Apartheid regime/rules. A white (boer) police captain, a pillar of the community, is found murdered. The unraveling of this crime by a detective from Johannesburg reveals an intertwining of the "races", deeply ingrained in the people, that is in sharp contrast to the racial segregation laws of the National Party, the ruling entity in South Africa.

The setup of the crime aspect of the story is a bit too much Chandler like for my taste (lone damaged detective), but the setting in South Africa, the description of the different ways people are dealing with the new segregation laws, make the book not just an interesting and entertaining read, but also educational. It reminded me, that I know very little about African history. I was not aware of the parallels of the National Party of South Africa with the Nazi regime in Germany. Just like the latter, the South African party justified their racial atrocities pseudo-religiously (the one chosen volk).  Both enforced their power by establishing a omnipotent secret police force. It seems inconceivable that the South African regime lasted as long as it did, but then, they didn't start a Word War.

This is my first African book for the GlobalReadingChallenge.

Revisiting Sara Paretsky

I was an early fan of Sara Paretsky's V I Warshawski crime novels, initially in German translation. At that point, I learned a lot about American culture and politics, the most shocking being the health system.

She took a break from Warshawski for a few years, which coincided with my first few years living in America, and I just forgot about her books, and pick her up again a couple of years ago starting with Hard Time, another very political book, amoung other themes touching on private security firms and  the atrocities committed in private prisons. 

Bleeding Kansas is a recent novel, which is nice to read, but to me lacks the intensity and speed of her Warshawski novels. On the other hand, it is an interesting portrait of the life and bigotry in rural Kansas.  

I recently finished reading Paretsky's autobiographical book Writing in an Age of Silence, yet another book from her, that is not just entertaining but also highly political. It's a collection with a lot of biographical information in the first chapters, and essays and speeches in the later ones. Includes essays about the development of the American individualism from the time of the early settlers, in politics and in literature; and about politics and individual freedom, women's rights, and the effects of the patriot act.