Clinical Assessment

1805 clinical assessment of Hölderlin, who is my favorite poet—a somewhat prolific writer until 34 years old, then becoming a crazy, piano-pounding, unintelligible mess, looked after by a Tübingen carpenter his last 39 years:

“During the course of my visits his condition worsened and his speech became more unintelligible. Once his madness reached the point of a constant, wild agitation and his speech became a jumble of German, Greek, and Latin, one could no longer stand him at all.”

You’re not a great artist if you don’t go nuts!

Flammable Skirt

Let’s face it: Authors aren’t known for having great web sites. Most don’t even bother with them at all. But I’m glad that Aimee Bender is at least trying to delve into other media and giving it a shot at flammableskirt.com.

Now if only they had release calendars for them, like MetaCritic’s for music. Ah, I guess you can’t have everything. But, in looking for hints on new ones from Bender, Tim O’Brien, and Melissa Bank (and of course I found nothing), I at least found a cool interview with Bank about what record her latest book would be, if it were set to music. A good dialogue about The White Stripes and Billy Collins’s influence on her too (yay poetry!) is here.

My New Hero

Wilhelm Waiblinger: Hölderlin visitor and biographer, but, in my eyes, and much more importantly, Romantic era cultural cynic! Audacious young German dude who moved to Italy and wrote lots of funny short poems…like 19th century twittering, almost.

Was für ein Unterschied ist zwischen Römer und Deutscher?
Jener schafft nicht und lebt, dieser, er lebt nicht und schafft.
And 252 more here.

Best Burns in Austria

Well, today is the last day of Spring Semester 2009. What can I say? Anyone who has had to put up with me in the last two weeks is aces! Particularly the last three days have been stressful, filled with endless editing at all hours, from Wednesday’s Büchner to Thursday’s Sanders-Brahms to today’s Grillparzer. But I’m stoked to report I turned in three damn good grad papers, and Franz G. is lookin’ back at me now, with the best burns in Austria, might I add, seemingly saying, “I’m aces. Yes, I am, but so are you, pal!”

Ahh, it’s good to be done. And how great is it to be done on a Friday! Fridays are the best. I always come home to new podcasts (The Bugle, a few NPRs), and today I’m straight back on my way out again, listening to them en route, to go party at my good buddy Gabe’s!

Danton, Robespierre

Can’t wait to leave these two behind…