Man On The Moon

Mott the Hoople and the game of Life (Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah)
Andy Kaufman in the wrestling match (Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah)
Monopoly, Twenty-one, Checkers, and Chess (Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah)
Mister Fred Blassie in a breakfast mess (Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah)
Let's play Twister, let's play Risk (Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah)
See you heaven if you make the list (Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah)
Now, Andy did you hear about this one?
Tell me, are you locked in the punch?
Andy are you goofing on Elvis? [Hey, baby]
Are we losing touch?
If you believed they put a man on the moon, man on the moon
If you believe there's nothing up his sleeve, then nothing is cool
Moses went walking with the staff of wood (Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah)
Newton got beaned by the apple good (Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah)
Egypt was troubled by the horrible asp (Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah)
Mister Charles Darwin had the gall to ask (Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah)
Now Andy did you hear about this one?
Tell me, are you locked in the punch?
Hey, Andy are you goofing on Elvis? [Hey, baby]
Are you having fun?
If you believed they put a man on the moon, man on the moon
If you believe there's nothing up his sleeve, then nothing is cool

Here's a little agit [legend?] for the never-believer (Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah)
Here's a little ghost for the offering (Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah)
Here's a truck stop instead of Saint Peter's (Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah)
Mister Andy Kaufman's gone wrestling (Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah)
Now Andy did you hear about this one?
Tell me, are you locked in the punch?
Hey Andy are you goofing on Elvis, hey baby, are we losing touch?
If you believed they put a man on the moon, man on the moon
If you believe there's nothing up his sleeve, then nothing is cool
(Buck, Mills, Stipe)

Ligation Was His Religion But His Love Was Platonic

A relatively obscure Swiss chemist named Alfred Werner won the Chemistry Nobel Prize in 1913. In retrospect, it was ironic (but coincidental) that someone from a neutral country won for ostensibly organizing things, a year before things really started to fall apart in Europe. Stockholm did the same thing the following year when they awarded T.W. Richards, an American, the prize in the midst of the Great War. They even gave the prize to a German, Richard Willstätter, in 1915 for his seminal work on chlorophyll (which happens to an example of a magnesium-ligand complex: link). Then the Nobel Prize was suspended for two years until 1918 when another German, Fritz Haber won it, despite his innovations in poison gas warfare. But back to Alfred Werner.  What did he do that so moved the committee?

For starters, he reorganized the Periodic Table and he taught generations of chemists how to think about it. Secondly, he got chemists to think beyond carbon and the tetrahedron--to octahedra and polyhedra. What le Bel and van 't Hoff did for carbon, Werner did for everything else. He introduced the general notion of the coordination complex, merging the novel concept of a central atom surrounded and ligated with ligands arrayed like classical Platonic solids. Something new and something old.

An elderly professor once showed me the carefully preserved remnants of Alfred Werner's laboratories at the University of Zurich. They're stored under lock and key these days, partly out of lack of space, partly out of lack of interest. And yet Werner's long forgotten contributions changed chemistry as much as any of his peers.

Friday, I'm In Love

Compare & Contrast

Guys used to write this sort of lyrics:

It is the springtime of my loving-the second season I am to know
You are the sunlight in my growing - so little warmth I've felt before.
It isn't hard to feel me glowing - I watched the fire that grew so low.

It is the summer of my smiles - flee from me Keepers of the Gloom.
Speak to me only with your eyes. It is to you I give this tune.
Ain't so hard to recognize - These things are clear to all from time to time.

Talk Talk Talk Talk - I've felt the coldness of my winter
I never thought it would ever go. I cursed the gloom that set upon us...
But I know that I love you so

These are the seasons of emotion and like the winds they rise and fall

This is the wonder of devotion - I seek the torch we all must hold.
This is the mystery of the quotient - Upon us all, upon us all a little rain must fall...It's just a little rain...

Two decades later (1992), pop lyrics were met with this unrelated song:

What happened? Where did all that rage come from? What harshed the mellow? It couldn't have been Bush II. I blame bad parenting. Have I pointed out how Tom Morello and Barack Obama had nearly the same pedigree?

Here Comes Alex!

Klicken to Enbiggen

Letters Home: "About another month of this and I quit"

Aug 7, 1953
Vilseck [West Germany]


Dear Mom, Dad and all,


I got a letter from you today so I will answer it tonight while I am in from the field. I am not doing much of anything. It sure is cold over here. This morning I had to wear the top of my long underwear and gloves. We got our tops off the jeeps while we are up here and it's dusty and cold. 

About every other night we go out and sleep in the field. I have to follow the tanks (if I can) and after they stop at night 40 miles from no where I have to go back and pickup the chow and guide the gas truck out to our position. [1] It gets tiresome chewing dust and plowing through ditches. About another month of this and I quit. 

I bought myself a portable Radio this month. I have something to listen to at night. I can pick up stations from England, Spain and of course Germany.[2] 

You was asking me about that girl I sent a picture of. Nothing serious just a friend. Her folks like me. They have a nice swimming pool there. I go when it gets warm enough. It was in June, but now it is cold. I think it will snow. 

It's too bad about the girls not being like Marylou but you brought them up like they should have been and now they are on their own more or less. [3]
Bye for now,


Love, V.


Mon. I will have 12 months in Germany

_____________________________

[1] Tanks were fuel-hungry machines and needed constant supply lines. My dad's remark reminded me of General George S. Patton's famous line "My men can eat their belts, but my tanks have gotta have gas." link  I think I first heard Patton's quip from my dad because I don't think it was used in the 1970 Patton biopic (correct me if I'm wrong) and I've never read a Patton biography. He may have heard it first as 3rd Armored Division lore, even though Patton most famously led the 2nd Armored Division.

[2] Radio Free Europe? I lived for a year in Mülheim an der Ruhr, a city located in the former British sector, where I used to listen to the BBC. This was 1992 and Thatcher's successor, John Major, was Prime Minister.  He wasn't very eloquent, but I enjoyed hearing his recorded broadcasts from the House of Commons. The radio broadcasts had a certain intimacy along with a sense of raucous background back benching that make our televised Congressional sessions look and sound like stadium rock concerts by comparison. Years later, I recall watching Tony Blair speaking from the House of Commons (those green leather benches!). I can only imagine what it must have been like to see Thatcher there, or even Churchill.

[3] I can read between the lines here. My grandmother had probably complained to him about one of his sisters. He had three: one older, one younger, and one much younger. Of the three, the oldest was the saint, the middle one was mischievous but level-headed, and the youngest was the absolute wild child. I could share many stories but I would consider this a breech of family ethics.

Letters Home: Greetings From Marktredwitz

A postcard my father sent home during his Army service in Germany 1951-53 (click on the tag "Letters Home" for the whole series):

Click to enlarge. Clockwise from top left: [1] Schlageterstrasse, [2] Kreuzstrasse, [3] Krankenhaus, [4] Schillerstrasse. Note the name Marktredwitz is in the old Fraktur script lettering. The Nazis had a love-hate relationship with that style and ultimately sought to limit its use.

The reverse reads:

July 12, 1953

Hi Mom,

I am spending the weekend in Marktredwitz. I have been swimming twice. I am staying at my girlfriends house. They live in a small rented apartment. I will sign off for now.

Love V.

______________

[1] Schlageterstrasse was named after Albert Leo Schlageter who was heralded by the Third Reich. Many German streets were renamed Schlageterstrasse or Albert-Leo-Schlageterstrasse during the NS times. After the war, many were subsequently renamed. By 1953, de-nazification had not yet reached the smaller towns.

[2] Kreuzstrasse, which means, I believe, simply Crossroad.

[3] Krankenhaus, literally the "Sick House", or the hospital.

[4] Schillerstrasse was named after Friedrich Schiller, the great German poet and philosopher.

Easter Confessional

Probably the most ruthless thing I ever did to another fellow American happened on Easter.

The time and place: a small village in Alsace-Lorraine, the exact name of which escapes me at present. The year must have been 1991 or 1992.

We, the self-styled "Toxic Trio", comprising an attractive woman and two male admirers were sitting at a small cafe, nursing a previous evening's hangover. We conversed in a mixture of German and English as we were wont to do, though this particular cafe had a definite French vibe going and the proprietress spoke only French.

An older American gentleman entered the cafe and rather loudly ordered coffee and a couple of breakfast rolls. He took a seat in an opposite corner. We continued our own muted conversation, not wishing to give away our identities.

The man finished his coffee and on his way out he paused and, looking at the woman behind the counter, wished her (in English) "Happy Easter!" She gave back a blank stare. The man tried again but, lacking the word for Easter in French, again got nowhere. Now that's where one of the Toxic Trio could have intervened and offered some help. But we sat back, amused.

The man resorted to hand gestures: raising both hands and arms up against his head, he feigned "rabbit ears" and said to the woman: You know, "Easter, Easter Bunny!?" Again she drew a blank. The exasperated man did a little hop, which added nothing to his impression.

Frustrated, the man dropped his secular interpretation and instead extended both arms as if he were a man on a cross.

"Easter, you know, Christ, Jesus Christ!?"

Something about the similarity or universality of those words got through to her, and she finally flashed acknowledgment. The man left, apparently having made his point.

At the exact moment the American left the cafe, a German tourist poked his head in the door and demanded: "Guten Morgen! Haben Sie Espresso?"

The French proprietress just rolled her eyes in acquiescence.
__________________

Happy Easter All!

50 Years Of MyTunes: 1992

Dirty by Sonic Youth.  I have a wonderful memory of seeing them in Cologne, Germany the following spring. Best part of show: the guys wandering through the audience selling beer! Unfuckinglaublich! Highlights: Sugar Kane, Chapel Hill

Copper Blue by Sugar. Bob Mould reappeared on my radar with his new band, Sugar. He retained some of his edge and proved that he was the stronger half of the working two in Husker Du. Favorite song: If I Can't Change Your Mind.

Check Your Head by the Beastie Boys.  Favorite songs: So Whatcha Want and Professor Booty. These guys only got better as they aged and matured.

1992 Singles

Friday I'm In Love by The Cure.  Love, love, love that song.

My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It) by En Vogue. You have to watch this video to see how smokin' hot they are.

Man On the Moon by R.E.M. from Automatic for the People. The ever prolific R.E.M. released yet another album on the heels of their smash "Out of Time."

Killing in the Name of by Rage Against the Machine.  Man do I hate these guy's politics but the guitar playing on this song undeniably rocks.

Creep by Radiohead. I thought this was 1993 but it was 1992.

In A Bit Of A Rut

Pompeii ca. 1992