Harry´s Blog

Jozo Boskovski the Macedonian poet left this planet on April 2nd of 2008. I will never forget him. Here are three poems in my translation.
I was so moved by the sprouting of this year’s set of crocuses that I wanted to write a poem about this wonderful flower. But I don’t have to. My dear friend Jozo has done it for me. I could never write a better one.
H.K

• The Crocus

The game begins with the bud

The crocus is nature’s first flower
The crocus comes in many colors.
The crocus grows with a flame its tip
and gives warmth to the year

The winter snows
and the dilemma of time
take flight from this flower

The crocus hails spring

The earth inhales
and with one breath
there is joy
and everything is fertilized
Thus birth begins

The game always repeats itself
Loneliness is the fate of all those who stand outside of the mainstream.

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or A Bit of Truth and a Lot of Lies.

In 1934, Hitler had the SS eliminate Emst Roehm and his SA minions. Roehm was a fellow-Nazi but Hitler’s rival. It often happens that men with the same or similar points of view oppose each other, not due to ideological reasons, but for the sake of achieving or maintaining power.

It is essential to know what one favors as well as what one opposes.

The “Non-Aggression Pact” between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, which was signed in the summer of 1939, was a misnomer. It was a military pact directed against Poland.

In September of ‘39, before invading Poland, Hitler gave orders to dress some concentration camp inmates in Polish uniforms and then have them shot on German territory. He did not want the invasion to appear unprovoked, and thus before embarking on it, he made a transparent attempt to justify it to the world.

The worst of men attempt to keep up appearances and maintain a sense of propriety.

Nazi Germany invaded Poland from the west and the Soviet Union invaded from the east.

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Herbert Kuhner

“I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms.”
- President Barack Obama Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech, Oslo, Dec. 10, 2009

Could any sensible person disagree with that statement?

When military action is taken, children will be killed. That cannot be avoided. The foe, al Qaeda like the Nazis, targets children. So the foe must be fought.

What is the alternative? You have to try to put mass murderers out of commission. There’s no avoiding it - it’s a vicious cycle.

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I had the honor
of playing with Connie and Sam.

Connie sings the lyrics
as if they were her story,
and sometimes they are.

When you hear her sing
I Fall in Love too Easily ,
she makes you think
that it could be her story.

“I fall in love too easily
I fall in love too fast
I fall in love too terribly hard
For love to ever last.”

Sam’s guitar backs Connie
in a way that makes
the words and music one,
and I know that my brush stroke
has to bind that unison.

There’s no haste about it.
There’s no reason to hurry
if the words and music are right.

When you start at the beginning,
there’s no problem about
getting to the end.
The end comes
when you get to the end.

Ballads don’t have to be belted.
What they need is a soft touch.

You don’t have to force
an audience to listen.
You have to make an audience
want to listen.

That’s what it’s all about.

Who needs more than a guitar
and drums with a vocal?

That’s the way I felt
when I played

with Connie McKay
and Sam Kulok.

- Herbert Kuhner

Herbert Kuhner
from Swing Man and Women

Louis

Louis played a fine Dixie horn
then he went on to swing
and he swung.

And what’s more,
Sing, Sing, Sing
is to his credit,
as well as other tunes
like Robin Hood
and Oh Babe.

Whenever and whatever Louis played,
he played pretty for the people.

This Louis,
like his namesake,
was good at scat
and got his act going
and went on to be a performer.

He teemed up with Keely Smith
and tenor man Sam Butera.
Keely had a melodic foggy voice
and she and Louis
did jivey-jokey vocals
with Sam providing sassy riffs
in a rock ‘n’ roll style.

Every one of their numbers,
like Angelina and Oh Marie,
is a humdinger,
with Louis dishing out
pommarola
over spaghetti and meatballs,

I know they’re not jazz,
which is okay,
everything doesn’t have to be jazz.

But my question is
didn’t Louis, Keely and Sam
ever get the urge to jam?

Didn’t Louis Prima
ever have the itch
to go at it again?

Couldn’t there have been
one more recorded session?

Did those wonderful commercial pieces
cancel jazz out?

Why is it that once you sell something else,
there seems to be no coming back?

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From Violence Under the Guise of Art
or Third Reich Recycling.

In 1977 Valie Export was brought to trial for having engaged in cruelty to animals and found guilty of having tied a canary to a perch. However the scalding of the birds with boiling wax, which had been filmed, came under the statute of limitations. (1) This “art object” was on view as part of the Export Exhibition in the Museum of the Twentieth Century in Vienna in March of 1997. On March 17, 1997, in Treffpunkt Kultur, a program devoted to culture on ORF, Austrian State TV, films by Export were broadcast. In one scene Export uses a bloody kitchen knife to slice the neck of a turtle, a mouse and a parrot, but the actual decapitations are deleted by film cutting.(2)

Valie Export “herself”: “A bird is tied to a rostrum with thin cord. I kneel in front of the bird on the rostrum and pour hot liquid wax on it. Then I pour wax on my feet and my left hand; the wax container is knocked over and the bird’s head is covered with wax. I free myself by cutting the cord with a knife which I lifted from the rostrum with my mouth and use it. The rostrum is encircled by nails.” (3)

After Export was invited to submit a design for the monument on Judenplatz some years ago, she had thoughts about the Holocaust. “Not directly or for a specific reason, as happened when I was invited to participate in the competition.” She didn’t win that one, but on August 28, 1999, her anti-fascistic monument in Allentsteig, Lower Austria, was unveiled. She may be able to contribute a valid analysis since violence plays a primary role in her work.

In the spring of 1995, an official Austrian exhibit commemorating prominent Austrians who were forced to emigrate was shown at 565 Fifth Avenue in New York. The organizer of the exhibit and co-editor of the accompanying book, The Cultural Exodus from Vienna (5)  is Peter Weibel, who is also co-editor of the previously-mentioned Wien. Among the highlights of the latter scholarly work are photos of co-editor Export engaging in fellatio with Weibel. Here’s a quote from the horse’s mouth: “When Valie Export is sucking my cock, one can see it.”(6)

Also featured in this volume is the depiction of an event in Cologne organized by Weibel and Export in which bullwhips, coils of barbed wire, beer bottles and ether were used to injure actionists and members of the audience. (7)  One of the most revolting aspects of the book is the juxtaposing of documentary photos of murdered children with photos of Hermann Nitsch actions with innards. (8)  Thus, infanticide too is part of Show Biz. Nitsch: “Killing was and is beyond all moral judgments.”(9)

During the Third Reich children were taught to kill birds
with their hands in a camp called Kinderland,
which translates as “Children’s Land.”(10)

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Andy by Andy  

There he is: Andy on canvas
with the hair of his white wig standing on end,
as if he had stepped on a live wire.
It’s worth millions.

You can’t prove that it’s great.
And you can’t prove that it’s not.

You can’t prove that it’s worth the tab
and you can’t prove that it’s not.

It’s all a matter of opinion.

But what difference does it make?
Money is money.
And in these days of recession,
there are millions to be made
and millions are changing hands,

Van Gogh goes for millions too.
So you can compare Andy to Vincent.
Nobody’s going to call you crazy if you do.

Andy has it all over Vincent.
Andy made a mint in his lifetime
and Vincent sold only one painting.

The only thing that you can prove
is that in these days of recession,
there are millions to be made
and millions are changing hands.
Or is it billions or trillions?

-Herbert Kuhner