Riddle me that: Switzerland is supposed to have the largest number of satirical publications per capita. There’s a stereotype-defying fact that will evaporate from my brain as fast as you can say yodel (defined as practicing a form of singing or calling marked by rapid alternation between the normal voice and falsetto.)
One of these publications, the oldest in fact, is Der Nebelspalter (The Fogsplitter) which in 1920, exactly 100 years ago and still under shock of the carnage produced by the Spanish Flu, published a poem that could be written for all of us, today. Looks like what goes around comes around – true both for pandemics and also the way people react to them.
I have translated the bitingly sharp verses, but of course had to do without rhyming since I am not a good enough translator for that. It was hard enough as is, since the German was quite old-fashioned. I thought, however, the gist would suffice to have us all feel like someone just put a century-old mirror up to our faces, with nary an occluding patina softening our recognition.
The Flu and the People
A slayer traveled through the land with drums and with a scythe with gruesome drumrolls from the band shrouded in black, the flu arrived. She entered each and every house and reaped the sheafs in full - many pink cheeked maidens died and strapping young men were culled. The people in their anguish called loudly for the public authorities: What are you waiting for? Protect us from death - Whatever shall become of us? You have the power, the duty too, show us what you can do - We'll warn you, don't dodge it now, what else are you good for? It's a scandal, the way it's handled, where are the prohibitions - there's singing, dancing, partying and bars, haven't enough people died already? The governors had puzzled thoughts traversing through their brains, how to combat this adversity their brows were deeply furrowed. Hark, their efforts found reward, their thoughts were indeed blessed; Soon prohibitions, harsh and unfamiliar, rained down onto the land. The flu ducked deep and timidly and was about to disappear, when the people newly clamored in a chorus of a hundred thousand voices: "Government, hey! What are you, nuts? What's this supposed to mean? What is all this stuff that oppresses us, you wisest of the wise? Are we only here to pay taxes? Why do you deprive us of all joy? Particularly now with MardiGras upon us - ha! The masses bellowed and blustered. You can prohibit church and all, the singing and the praying. But regarding the rest, we refuse to be shackled! That was not really what we wanted, allow us dancing and boozing, otherwise the people - listen to their grumbling - will march on the city in hostile mobs. The flu, already on its last leg, squinted quietly, and said, " Finally - after all!" And laughed maliciously. "Well, well, it never learns that old humanity!" She unfurls, grows, is pale and sharpens the scythe anew.
Sounds familiar?
I have a lot of positive associations with Switzerland. I learned how to ski there, something I loved if only because I scared everyone around me with my speed, inappropriate for a wobbly beginner.
I improved my French there, when farmed out to a family in Neuchatel for months on end, being left to my own devices which included hours on end spent in movie houses watching Brigitte Bardot in her prime.
I met an old lady in Lausanne who had spent her youth at the Russian Tsar’s Court before the revolution and had sketchbooks, shown to me at length, that documented every outfit she ever wore to any occasion at the palace, in watercolor no less. Since I was exactly in-between being starstruck with royalty (age 13 – 15 ) and devoting my life to being a revolutionary (age 16 to 16. 5) I drifted on a cloud of deliciously ambivalent reaction.
Add to that now the admiration for a satirical poem that describes ageless human behavior, when confronted with a pandemic, to perfection.
Re-emergence is, of course, not just reserved for viruses and human behavior, but exists in art as well. Case in point is captured in today’s photographs, chosen for their fit with the topic (and also, truth be told, because I have no photographs of Switzerland.)
The intricate glass objects were part of Glasstress 2015, an exhibition in conjunction with the Venice Biennale, titled Gotica. Curated by he State Hermitage Museum of St. Petersburg and Venetian glass blowing studios like Berengo, it explored how “medieval ideas and communication methods have imperceptibly crept into our modern conscience despite our technological advances and how the Gothic concept influences contemporary art.” Fittingly, it was on display in the neo-gothic Palazzo Franchetti, which in late September I had practically all to myself.
Venice itself is of course a city deeply imprinted with gothic and neolithic architecture. But its artists, or so the exhibition notes state, are also reclaiming medieval themes and styles, if not processes. Some of the works took themselves too seriously, some were witty, all were superbly crafted and some linger with meaning, even now, years later. My kind of show.
The artists used the vernacular, referred to exorcism, eschatology, death and resurrection, alchemy and the search for the Holy Grail. They asked, and I quote, the Gothic question: Are we about to enter the new Middle Ages?
Are we any closer to an answer now, five years hence?
Music today from the time of plague and courtly love…
