-The High Art of Creative Cruelty

von Herbert Kuhner am 8. April 2018 um 19:36

The High Art of Creative Cruelty

“I could well envision that murder could be a component of a work of art; the artist’s accountability would be on another level….Thus, art can consist of a crime.” [1] Killing was and is beyond all moral judgments.” [2]
– Hermann Nitsch, Actionist artist

During the closing stages of the Great War the Turks indulged in what is referred to as the Armenian Genocide. The motivation for this event was their alleged lack of loyalty to the Turkish State – so the Armenians had it coming to them.

Denial seems to be the Turkish manner of dealing with these historical proceedings.

When journalists and authors attempt to bring attention to past events, they risk being sent to Kingdom Come.

The perpetrators did not engage in simple barbarism, but rather in the high art of creative cruelty. They were masters in finding unique ways of causing their victims to suffer.

The Soviets, on the other hand, simply executed their victims, starved them or worked them to death. This is simply primitive, unrefined murder. Killing was quick, starving was relatively slow and slave labor was supposed to last for as long as a victim could last. That’s simply not creative.

The National Socialists were influenced by their Turkish counterparts, and they carried on the tradition with numerous innovations.

The Ustascha made great efforts to outdo their Nazi allies and succeeded with flying colors.

The Japanese, not to be left on the sidelines, hit the mark in Nanking and elsewhere.

The French in Algeria did a good job of emulating the Germans they had previously fought.

Graduates of the School of the Americas practiced the fine arts on South American lefties and liberals, with the assistance of Henry the Kiss and the Tricky One with the benediction of Pope John Paul. And the Kiss-and-Tricky-Duo also make the grade by poisoning Vietnam with Agent Orange.

Ratko Mladić and Radovan Karadžić, a poet praised by Peter Handke, did a splendid job of mass murder. Slaughtering 8,000 men and boys is no simple matter, but they and their henchmen did it without balking or flinching.

And so on and so forth.

The high art of cruelty lives today, and thanks to the original Twentieth Century perpetrators,
their beneficiaries carry on in the tradition internationally.

Regretfully, the perpetrators are squeamish about having committed these deeds, as were their antecedents. They have the wrong attitude!

Why pray, be ashamed? There is nothing to be ashamed of. These perpetrators are artists in the true sense of the word. Innovators should always be proud.

Let us laud them and spread the good word!

Indeed today ISIS is not squeamish about dastardly deeds.

They are devout members of an Abrahamic sect. and between prayers, behead their victims, using a paring knife, and what’s more, they have revived the tried and true practice of crucifixion. Kudos are due to these masters of savagery.

Changing the Past

Who or what can change the past?
Not even the one they pray to can do that.
The act completed in the last fraction of a second
is both fact and history.

As the Bard says through Macbeth:
“What has been done cannot be undone.”

Balderdash!

You can wash it all away
and start out again with a clean slate.

Why should you be dogged by unflattering history?
You don’t always have to resort to out-and-out lies;
half-truths will do the trick.

There’s nothing chivalrous about killing civilians.
It’s not anything to be proud of.

But if, God forbid, it has happened, don’t dwell on it
and do your best to prevent others from dwelling on it!

Life is much more enjoyable
if you have an honorable past.
And if you don’t have one, you can create one.

Why be burdened by past events?
Just put them out of mind
and erase all records!

The Turks have deleted the genocide of the Armenians
from the Twentieth Century,
The Third Reich Revisionists
have transformed the concentration camps
into idyllic recreation centers.

Don’t fret! Just take their examples!

Addendum:

Japanese Right-Wingers are attempting to wipe
the Massacre of Nanking from the slate of history.
Kudos are due to these purifiers.
Way to go, guys!

– Herbert Kuhner

[1] Falter 24-30, 7, No. 30, 1998, p. 18.
[2] Paula Devarney: “Nitsch – Art of Killing,” Caellian, 9. Oct. 1970; Hermann Nitsch: Das rote Tuch – Das Orgien Mysterien Theater – Im Spiegel der Presse 1960-1988, Freibord, Vienna, 1988, p. 106.

-Gabriel

von Herbert Kuhner am 4. April 2018 um 18:34

Veröffentlicht in: Polemics

Gabriel

CLICK HERE 1934 Enric Madriguera – Blow Gabriel Blow (Tony Sacco, vocal)

Ich habe den Namen Gabriel immer mit dem Typen mit Flügeln und einem Horn verbunden.

Blow, Gabriel, Blow ist einer der wunderbaren Schlager aus Anything Goes von Cole Porter.

“Blow, Gabriel, blow!
Come on and blow, Gabriel, blow!
I wanna join your happy band.”

Jetzt hat der Name eine neue Konnotation. Es gibt einen Gabriel, der bei einer Band spielt, wo ich niemals mitspielen könnte. Diese Band ist nicht „happy“, dafür ist sie in der Kultur eine sehr einflußreiche. Sie ist eine „Familien“-Band, die ziemlich miese Musik macht.

Gabriel, ein einflußreicher österreichischer Rechtsanwalt, tadelte die Herausgeberin einer Sammlung „Klagelieder“ österreichisch-jüdischer Autoren, weil auch mein Gesang im Buch zu finden ist.

Gabriel hat denselben Hintergrund wie ich, und, obwohl wir uns nie begegneten, bin ich davon überzeugt, daß wir sonst nichts Gemeinsames haben.

Als ich dies einer Kollegin erzählte, die von Juden nicht besonders begeistert ist, sagte sie: „Siehst du was ich meine! Wer weiß, wenn du nicht wärst, was du bist, wärst du vielleicht auch ein Antisemit“.

„Oh“, antwortete ich, „das hielt manche, die wir kennen, nicht davon zurück.“ Dann nannte ich mehrere österreichische Schriftsteller und einen sehr prominenten Politiker.

Ich zitierte Henry Morgan, den Humoristen, nicht den Seeräuber: „Jeder ist ein Antisemit außer einigen Juden, aber die sind ihrer nicht sicher“.

Und ich fügte hinzu: Juden sind die besten Antisemiten, weil sie wissen, wovon sie reden!

* * *

Gabriel

I’ve always associated the name Gabriel with the guy with wings and a horn.

Blow, Gabriel! Blow! is one of the great hits in Cole Porter’s Anything Goes.

“Blow, Gabriel! blow!
Come on and blow, Gabriel, blow!
I wanna join your happy band.”

Now the name has a new connotation. There’s a Gabriel who plays in a band that I wouldn’t want to join, a band that’s not “happy,” but a band that calls the cultural shots in Austria. It’s a band that’s a “family,” and the music they play is pretty damn lousy.

An eminent Austrian barrister of prevailed on editor of a collection of “sad songs” by Austrian Jewish authors that I should not have sung my song in it, after the fact.

Gabriel has the same background as I, and although we never met, I am sure that we have nothing else in common.

When I related this to a writer I know, who is not enamored of Jews, she said: “See what I mean! Maybe if you weren’t what you are, you might be an anti-Semite.”

“Oh, I replied that didn’t stop so-and-so and so-and-so-and so.” Actually I named some Austrian fellow writers and a very, very prominent politician.

And I then quoted Henry Morgan, the humorist – not the pirate: “Everybody is an anti-Semite, except a few Jews, and they’re not sure.”

Then I added: Jews make the best anti-Semites, because they know what they’re talking about!

-Epigram

von Herbert Kuhner am 31. März 2018 um 15:58

Veröffentlicht in: Epigrams

Comparisons

Being in Third-Reich-Austria at an early age,
and then returning to my birthplace 24 years later,
afforded me a unique historical view.

My piece bearing the title
Violence Under the Guise of Art
contains aspects of the Aftermath and Aftereffects
of the Third Reich that have not yet
been brought to the fore.

The present is a key to the past
and vice versa.

The Aftermath and the Aftereffects
exceed being a Shadow and an Echo.

Is Actionism* a follow-up
of days gone-by
that have actually
not quite gone by?

Was the Brown Baton passed on?
Did the Actionists grab it
and fill the gap?

Is Actionism the old spirit
in a new garb?

Violence has been integrated into the arts
and poses as a protest against violence
of a brown hue..

Actionist anti-humanist deeds and declarations
cry out for comparisons.

Comparing today’s diction to yesteryear’s
more than makes the case

Actionism is not a catharsis for barbarism.
It is a bona-fide ideology and mode of behavior.
.
The perpetrators of the Third Rich
showed the Actionists the way.

Advocates of Actionism espouse
extreme forms of violence
with no holds barred.

Actionist dedication t
o promulgating inhumanity
is unadulterated.

Actionists are providers
as well as doers.

Actionist violence borders on crime,
and at times
transcends that border.

Violence Under the Guise of Art
is a money-making operation.

Sado-masochism sells.
Sadism is a bestseller!

You have to hand it to the hucksters;
their forerunners had inhibitions
about declaring themselves.
They have none.

The idea of packaging violence as art is brilliant,
and labeling it as anti-fascism
is a stroke of genius.

It is not an easy matter
to defend the indefensible
(even for a genius).

The powers-that-be
present the tormenting of man and beast,
as well as the abuse of minors and children,
successfully (so far).as ant-fascistic art.

The proponents of Actionism
do not engage in a debate,
since they know that they do not have
a polemical leg to stand on.
Thus there is no alternative
to cancelling the critic out.

As it is, everything is hunky-dory.
The anti-fascists are fighting fascism,
the purveyors and perpetrators
of Violence under the Guise of Art
are enjoying international fame
and someone comes along
and tries to gum up the works.
No wonder they do their best
to cancel the critic out.

I give them an A+
for effort.

No doubt about it.
Third Reich inhumanity was the precursor
to today’s Actionist cult in the arts.

The Third Reich fought
almost to the last man and the last bullet.
If barbarism had been declared as art,
the enthusiasm would have been even greater,

more is here

*Vienna-Actionism

-Anticlimax

von Herbert Kuhner am 28. März 2018 um 13:34

Veröffentlicht in: Politics, Reviews, Text

Dem goldenen Jahrestag des Anschlusses & Dreissig Jahre danach

Brief an Dr. Manfred Weylan: „Die magistratsunabhängige Jury (der Kulturabteilung der Stadt Wien) hat sich einstimmig gegen dieses Buch ausgesprochen … Ich fühle mich an das Urteil dieser Jury gebunden.“
– Dr. Ursula Pasterk, Stadträtin für Kultur der Stadt Wien im sogenannten „Gedenkjahr“ 1988

Eine Einstimmige Jury

„Die magistratsunabhängige Jury (der Kulturabteilung der Stadt Wien) hat sich einstimmig gegen dieses Buch ausgesprochen … Ich fühle mich an das Urteil dieser Jury gebunden.
– Dr. Ursula Pasterk, Stadträtin für Kultur der Stadt Wien im sogenannten „Gedenkjahr“ 1988
(Die Jury: Otto Breicha, Elfriede Mayröcker, Julian Schutting, Reinhard Urbach)

Kommentar

„Ich möchte nur eines sagen: in keiner einzigen Jury der ich angehört habe, ist gegen eine Arbeit abgestimmt worden, auch wenn Dr. Pasterk das behauptet: die Juroren waren einzig bestrebt, sich auf die vorgesehene Anzahlan zu fördernden Büchern /Projekten zu einigen. Eine Jury, in der gegen vorliegende Arbeiten abgestimmt hätte werden sollen, hätte ich sofort verlassen auch aus Erinnerung an Bücher-Verbrennungen.“
– Julian Schutting, 27. Juli 2013

Weitere Kommentare

Herbert Kuhner ist unwesentlich als Autor und wird bei uns nie lesen.
– Dr. Reinhard Urbach, Österreichische Gesellschaft für Literatur

Bevor Museumsdirektor Otto Breicha im Dezember 2003 verstarb, erklärte er, daß organisierte Kindesmissbrauch auch in Künstlerkreisen ausgeübt wird, und er fügte hinzu, daß es gefährlich sein könnte, Informationen darüber weiterzugeben.

Rückkehr

„Rückkehr an den Tatort … In seinen Memoiren zieht er Bilanz … über seine Erlebnisse als Literat nach der Rückkehr ins „neue Österreich“. Und er beschreibt sie als Kette von unglaublichen Intrigen,
Niederträchtigkeiten, Boshaftigkeiten und Verleumdungen … „Der Ausschluß“ bringt Geschehnisse in der österreichischen Literaturszene ans Tageslicht, die nicht totgeschwiegen werden dürfen. Auch wenn sich eine magistratsunabhängige Jury der Kulturabteilung Wien einstimmig gegen dieses Buch ausgesprochen hat.“
– Karin Bauer, Der Standard

„Der Ausschluß von Herbert Kuhner ist in meinen Augen eine Liebes-geschichte, die Geschichte einer unglücklichen Liebe. Der Autor wurde in Wien geboren, ist als kleines Kind in der Nazi-Zeit aus Wien ge- flüchtet, in Amerika aufgewachsen und nach Wien zurückgekehrt mit der Illusion, daß er nun mit offenen Armen in seiner wirklichen Heimat aufgenommen wird. Aber er wurde enttäuscht wie alle unglücklich Liebenden. Er erweckt die Erleb- nisse eines, der heimkehre wollte, mit krassen Farben zum Leben. Seine Auseinandersetzungen mit der Bürokratie wären geradezu komisch, wenn sie nicht auch traurig wären. Ich wünschte, er würde diese Kraft nun in die Zukunft richten und endlich akzeptieren, daß seine Liebe zu Österreich und dessen Hauptstadt Wien eben eine unglückliche ist.“
– Stella K. Hershan, austro-Amerikanische Autorin

„Hätte mich das Buch literarisch überzeugt, so hätte ich nicht weiter nach den Details des Inhalts gefragt. So aber komme ich natürlich zur Frage, ob es sich hier nicht um eine höchst persönliche Angelegenheit handelt, deren Darstellung allzusehr in erratischen Blöcken vorliegt.“
– Dr. Peter Huemer, ORF, 1988, betreffend ein Rundfunk-Interview im „Gedenkjahr“ von „Anschluß“ und „Reichskristallnacht“, dem goldenen Jahrestag des Anschlusses.

Ja, es ist die Verpackung – nicht die Inhalte, inklusiv das Verhör im Aussenamt, Drohung mit dem Amtsartzt und eine allgemeine politische Hetzjagd. Das alles werden wir ignorieren.!

Komplikationen

„Der Pensionswerber (Herberrt Kuhner) ist nicht genügend als „Schriftsteller“ qualifiziert und seine Publikatioinsliste würde nicht einma eine DinA4 Seite füllen.“
– Direktor Mag. Popp bei der Vorstandssitzung der LVG am 19. 6. 1995

„Die Liste von österreichischen Lyrikern, die Herbert Kuhner ins Englische übersetzt hat, liest sich wie der Who’s Who der modernen österreichischen Dichtung.“
– Harry Zohn, German Dept., Brandeis University, Modern Austrian Literature

Als es „Komplikationen“ in Bezug auf eine Schriftsteller-Altersversorgung gab (die Grüne Abgeordnete Terezija Stoisits: „Die Fronten sind verhärtet.“), sprachen Konstantin Kaiser und Stephan Eibel mit der Grünen-Politikerin Friedrun Huemer. Sie sagte ihnen, daß sie sich nicht weiter dafür einsetzen sollen.

Grund: „Er ist gegen Artmann.“
(H. C. Artmann ist in Austrian Poetry Today/Österreichische Lyrik heute und anderswo in meiner Übersetzung erschienen.)

Ich habe mich nie uber Artmann Stellung bezogen. Übrigens, man darf für oder gegen einen Künstler sein.

Betreffend Eibel: „Du bist nicht in seiner Anthologie.“ Austrian Poetry Today/Österreichische Lyrik heute, Schocken Books, 1985.

Ich habe Eibels Arbeiten damals nicht gekannt. Eine Auswahl von Eibels Prosa und Lyrik ist unter dem Titel Eine lebenswichtige Frage/A Question Essential to Life ist 2017 im PROverbis Verlag veröffentlicht worden.

Blockiert von einer „richtigen“ Präsidentin…

Eine Erzählung von mir, Princeton nostalgisch, ist im Das kann einem nur in Wien passieren, Alltagsgeschichten, Ruth Wodak, Czernin Verlag, 2001.
Klappentext: Diese „Alltagsgeschichten“ sammeln Eindrücke, Erlebnisse, Geschichten, die viele Menschen in Wien erlebt haben oder auch erleben könnten. Allerdings nicht irgendwer, sondern Juden und Jüdinnen aus drei Generationen.
Princeton nostalgisch aus Das kann einem nur in Wien passieren, Ruth Wodak, Hrsg., Czernin Verlag, Wien, 2002 und Zwischenwelt 3/2001, Übersetzung: Bruni Blum. Nostalgia for Princeton, published in The Sons of Camus International Journal, London, Autumn, Issue, No. 4, 2006. Literary Short Fiction Writer Award from The Sons of Camus Writers International Journal for Achievement, presented by editor Ann F. Davidson to Herbert Kuhner on 30 October 2007.

Nach der Veröffentlichung von Das kann einem nur in Wien passieren organisierte Gabriel Lansky, Rechtsberaterin der SPÖ und der Jüdischen Gemeinde und „Menschenrechts-Aktivist“ ein Treffen in der Wohnung der Herausgeberin, um zu erklären, daß ich nicht in dieses Buch gehöre. Lansky wurde dabei von Rubina Möhring, der Präsidentin der Reporter ohne Grenzen, unterstützt.

* * * *

Unanimity at Golden Anniversary of the Annexation of Austria & at the Eightieth Anniversary of that Event

It’s Unanimous!

“The jury, which is independent of the Municipal Cultural Department, has unanimously cast its vote against this book (Der Ausschluss/Memoirs of a 39er)
I feel that I must adhere to that decision.” (Jury members: Reinhard Urbach, Otto Breicha, Friederike Mayröcker, Julian Schutting )
– Dr. Ursula Pasterk, the Municipal Cultural Coordinator of the City of Vienna, Letter to Dr. Manfred Welan, scholar specializing in law

“I just want to say one thing: in no jury in which I participated, did the jurors vote against any work as Dr. Pasterk claimed: the jurors only voted on selecting books/projects for subsiding. I would immediately have departed from a jury that was asked to vote against literary works, in remembrance of book bonfires.”
– Julian Schutting, July 27, 2013

“Herbert Kuhner is insignificant as an author and he will never read on our premises.” (1)
– Dr. Reinhard Urbach, Austrian Literary Society

Shortly before his death in December of 2003, Museum Director Otto Breicha confirmed that pedophilia is practiced in artistic circles. He added that these groups had international connections. He advised a colleague who had information that divulging it could have dire consequences.

After Returning to the Scene of the Crime: Herbert Kuhner was forced to leave Austria in 1939. In his Memoirs Kuhner presents the balance sheet. Kuhner’s book deals with his experiences after returning to the “new Austria.”In it he describes the incredible chain of intrigue, baseness and calumny that he has encountered. The aspects of Austria life that the author brings to the fore in his Memoirs, which have been unanimously rejected by the „independent“ jury of the Municipal Cultural Department of the City of Vienna, must not be hushed up.
– Karin Bauer, Der Standard, Vienna

“This is a chronicle of an Austrian emigré, who as a child had to flee from the Nazis to the United States and who as a young man returned to the scene of the crime and discovered that the moral substance of the Austrian character has basically remained unchanged since 1945.Against the background of exemplary political, cultural-political and artistic emanations of an intolerant provincialism, which is a frightening way, of ever more bluntly anti-Semitic resentments, which we believed to have been overcome, the author creates a kaleidoscope of his personal life experiences in Austria, which were so bitter, depressing, humiliating and indeed frightening, that he finally comes to the dreadful conclusion: ‘When I returned to my birthplace to live, it was if I had never left’”
– David Axmann, Der Ausschluß/ Memoirs Afterword

“Memoirs of a 39er is the story of an unrequited love. The experiences of the author who was born in Vienna, had to flee the Nazis in early years, grew up in America and returned to Vienna with the illusion that he would be welcomed with open arms in his birthplace. But for those who love without being loved in return, a rude awakening in inevitable. Kuhner brings the experiences of his remigration to life in bright colors. His conflict with Austrian bureaucracy would be comical were it not tragic. I hope that he will find another location for his talents and finally accept the fact that his love for Austria and its capital Vienna can be nothing but unrequited.”
– Stella Hershan, Austro-American author, New York

“If I were convinced about the literary quality of the book (Der Ausschluss /Memoirs of a 39er),I would not have asked for details concerning its contents. I have come to the conclusion that it deals with a very personal situation, which is presented in erratic segments.”
– Dr. Peter Huemer, ORF (Austrian Radio) concerning an interview

Yes indeed,, the interrogation at the foreign ministryis a “ very personal situation.”

Sure, it’s the packaging that makes it invalid – not the contents, which include an interrogation in the Foreign Ministry,the threat of incarceration and a panoply of “official” harassment.

No Pension for the Upstart

When there were “complications” concerning a writer’s pension, Green Parliamentarian Terezija Stoisits’ reaction: “The front cannot be broken through!”

Here’s part of the front: Franz-Leo Popp, head of the Commission Pensions for Writers: “Herbert Kuhner does not qualify for a writers’ prison. The list of his publications would not even cover one page.”

“The list of Austrian poets that Herbert Kuhner has rendered reads like Who’s Who in Austrian Poetry.
– Harry Zohn, Modern Austrian Poetry Journal, Riverside, CA

Konstantin Kaiser and Stephan Eibel, writer colleagues, spoke to Green politician Friedrun Huemer, who told them to desist.

Reason to Kaiser: “He is against Artmann.” (H.C. Artmann is represented in Austrian Poetry Today and elsewhere in my translation. I would think that one would be able to discuss aspects of any author.

Reason to Eibel: “You are not in Austrian Poetry Today.” (I met Eibel after the publication of the aforementioned anthology.

Eine lebenswichtige Frage/A Question Essential to Life by Stephan Eibel, a bilingual edition of poetry and prose in my translation has been published by PROverbis Verlag in 2017.

A Genuine President Comes into Play

Thanks to Kuno Knöbl I am represented in Das kann einem nur in Wien passieren: Alltagsgeschichten/ Only in Vienna: Stories of Everyday Events, edited by Ruth Wodak/
Only in Vienna: Stories of Everyday Events by Austrian Jews. This is from the cover blurb: “These ‘stories of everyday occurrences’ comprise a collection of impressions, experiences and stories that many who live in Vienna have or could have encountered. However, not just anyone, but Jews of three generations.”

After publication, Dr. Gabriel Lansky, the Legal Counsel to the Socialist Party and the Jewish Community and “human Rights activist,” organized a meeting in the editor’s apartment for the purpose of asserting that I should not have been included in the book. Lansky was seconded by Rubina Möhring, Austrian President of Reporters Without Borders. (2)

Kuno Knöbl:“Gaby Lansky is financial advisor to Reporters Without Borders. “ (3)

(Messages to Reporters Without Borders in New York have gone responded. No answer is indeed an answer.)

Kuno Comments: “In my view there is a Biedermeier-like silence concerning this topic.
It is good that you have broken through it.” (4)

1. Source: Leo Mazakarini, 1973.
2. Source: Kuno Knöbl, former head of ORF (Austrian-TV) Entertainment.
3. Kuno Knöbl, letter to Herbert Kuhner, June 20, 2005.
4. Kuno Knöbl. March 3, 2004, Düsenberg; En Route Herbert Kuhner, Film by Fritz Kleibel, 2014.

-The Sons of Camus- Writers International Journal

von Herbert Kuhner am 24. März 2018 um 0:30

Veröffentlicht in: Jazz, Poetry, Reviews

A Review by Morelle Smith

Issue 13 – Autumn 2017 –
An SCW Books Publication –

Review by Morelle Smith
Jazz-Poems: author Herbert Kuhner
Publisher: Proverbis (Andreas Schinko), Vienna, Austria (2015\
ISBN: 978-3 -902838-20-9
80 pages
Paperback.
12 Euros

This bi-lingual German/English collection is a series of poems
about jazz and the musicians who played it. Herbert Kuhner says in the introduction that he means them as a tribute to those „bandleaders, sidemen and singers who have enriched my life,“ He then describes some of the obstacles they had to overcome as touring musicians – the stresses of being on the road, the long travelling, the cheap hotels, the smoke-tilled clubs and, for the black musicians, the prejudice. Kuhner says, „They left us a great legacy.“ and it often seems in life that great art comes about despite the very real challenges to its accomplishment; and yet I want to say that art, and the life-course however fraught and difficult, of the artists, are twined around each other in some inextricable design.

Just to select a few of these poems:
„Miles Saw Stars“ describes the racism and police brutality that Miles Davis experienced, (which feels eerily relevant today). „A Rainv Day. in Vienna“ made me laugh. I have toured with musicians and this just the kind of delightful story they tell about other musicians as they sit around after the gig. This one tells of Django Reinhardt who came to the USA to tour and thought the American company would give him a guitar to play – „but they couldn’t even pronounce his name/much less spell it.“

„He Couldn’t Let it be“ and Weill’s „September“ are fascinating stories and are historical and social documents. The former is the extraordinary story of Eddie Rosner, his escape from Nazi Germany, capture in Poland, imprisonment in Siberia where „He formed a gulag band“ and eventually returned to Berlin and music performance. In the latter, we learn that Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht escaped by boat from Germany to the USA „but not the same boat.“ When I first heard, as a child, a recording of Louis Armstrong playing Mack the Knife, I knew nothing of its historical and artistic provenance. This feeds the interest of someone as fascinated as I am by the life stories of artists in theinter-war years in Europe, the stories of flight and (sometimes) freedom, the desperate sense of exile, and equally dangerous fate of those who remained. In many ways this time celebrated the human spirit the ability to endure, and to create, and their stories give inspiration.

Harry Kuhner reads „Saying Goodbye“

And if you did not know beforehand the lyrics Anderson put to Kurt ‚Weill’s music in September Song, you will be introduced to them. And in this wonderful internet age, you can find the song and listen to it, as I did. (I would recommend Ella Fitzgerald’s version).
At this point, I began to recognize Kuhner’s achievement – how do you make a tribute in words to such heartfelt music? Parng down the words in the way he does brings us close to the individual notes, and creates a landscape of its own, sometimes lyrical, but more often rocky, vegetation-bare, letting the vast views out over plains or oceans, speak for themselves. Several of these poems end with positive and uplifting lines that ring and remain in the mind – and perhaps this is an echo too of jazz songs.

Weill’s September ends with a quote from Maxwell Anderson:
„and Kurt managed to make
thousands of beautiful things
during the short and troubled time
he had…“

The last lines of „The New Masses and Café Society are:
„The sponsor insisted that blacks be allowed to listen to blacks, and they got their way. For the first time blacks sat with whites in Carnegie Hall.“

And I particularly like the ending of „The Wild Man“:

„That sassy, sound breaking through
all the sissy music
is the gritty tenor
of the great Arnett Cobb.“

They do not all end that way.‘.Kuhner is a realist and recognizes That the Eternal Coachman‘ is always going to catch up with us, and sometimes much sooner than we anticipate.
At first, it t.as the simplicity of the language that struck me, its conversational, flowing style. I read on with increasing interest in the stories and lives of the people Kuhner writes about and with increasing admiration of the almost invisible technique he uses in these poems, to evoke such a seemingly simple ease and flow. He portrays the musicians and their lives in a series of brush strokes that make me think of Chinese paintings, a few skillful lines creating whole landscape. You do not have to know anything about jazz music to enjoy these landscapes and lives, And you might just discover, as I did, a new depth and poignancy to their music.

Reviewed by Morelle Smith

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