Harry´s Blog

Herbert Kuhner

• Liebesbriefe und andere Nachrichten

„’Harry, vergiß endlich den Schmarren!
Wir sind eben nicht der Peter Handke oder was weiß ich wer,
wir spielen nicht in der A-Liga, wir sind halt kleine Wursteln,
vielleicht schaffen wir es in den Mittelbereich hinauf.’
Aber das hat er nicht akzeptiert.”
- Peter Paul Wiplinger

“‘Harry, why don’t you forget all that gobbledygook!
We are not Peter Handke and we can’t play in the Major Leagues.
We’re just small potatoes and might be able to play in the Minor Leagues.’
But he would simply not accept that appraisal.”
- Peter Paul Wiplinger

* * *

Peter Paul Wiplinger
Schriftstellerbegegnungen 1960-2010,
Kitab Verlag,
Klagenfurt, 2010

Kuhner Harry, amerikanisch-jüdischer Schriftsteller und Übersetzer mit Wurzeln in Wien, wo er nach seiner Emigration in die USA und seiner Jugendzeit dort jetzt auch wieder seit langem lebt. Geboren 1935 in Wien.
Er ist der erste Übersetzer meiner Gedichte ins Englische bzw. Amerikanische, wir haben in gemeinsamer Arbeit meinen 1978 in New York erschienenen Gedichtband „Borders/Grenzen” publiziert. Ein Hauptthema des Buches war der Holocaust. Dieses Thema und die gemeinsame Arbeit waren es auch, was uns verbunden hat; jedenfalls für einige Zeit. Wir waren 1979 zusammen in London, haben dort im gleichen billigen Hotel gewohnt, sind miteinander spazieren gegangen, er hat mir eini¬ges in London gezeigt, weil er ja als Kind längere Zeit dort war. Er hat immer wieder von Literatur, eigentlich mehr von den Literaten, diesen und jenen, gesprochen und davon, daß man ihn in Österreich als Dich¬ter verhindere, weil, weil, weil … Ich habe ihm gesagt: „Harry, vergiß endlich den Schmarren! Wir sind eben nicht der Peter Handke oder was weiß ich wer, wir spielen nicht in der A-Liga, wir sind halt kleine Wur¬steln, vielleicht schaffen wir es in den Mittelbereich hinauf.” Aber das hat er nicht akzeptiert. Für ihn war Handke ein schlechter Dichter und der Thomas Bernhard auch nicht gerade wahnsinnig gut. Jedenfalls hätte er, auch als jüdischer Emigrant und als einer von den (österreichischen) Nazis Vertriebener etwas anderes verdient, als er hier dann in Österreich vorgefunden und wo man ihm nur Prügel in den Weg gelegt und seine Karriere verhindert hat, weil ihn der Herr Dr. Wolfgang Kraus, der Chef der Österreichischen Gesellschaft für Literatur, nicht als österreichischen Dichter angesehen und nicht seinen literarischen Rang (den er noch gar nicht hatte) anerkannt und ihn nicht nach Adelaide in Australien zu ei¬nem Weltpoesietreffen geschickt hat. Jedenfalls hat mich seine diesbezügliche Lamentiererei in London ziemlich genervt, sodaß ich sogar aus dem Hotel ausgezogen bin, um meine Ruhe zu haben. Wir haben uns dann aber doch wieder soweit versöhnt, daß wir miteinander Silvester gefeiert haben. Aber auch da gab es wieder eine typischen Kuhner-Vorfall, an dem er selbstverständlich nicht schuld war. Ich hatte eine Einladung zu einer Party, zwei nette Mädels warteten dort auf uns, jedenfalls auf mich. Aber der Harry mußte wieder so lange und so viel und so langsam in irgendeinem Restaurant etwas essen, daß wir die Party und sogar den Mitternachtsrummel am Trafalgar Square versäumten. Da war ich dann wirklich sauer.

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Herbert Kuhner

Herr Kuhner, if you do not withdraw your case, we will send the public health officer.
- Anonymous caller

Martin Luksan suggested I tackle this again, so here goes!

Yes, this is a trip down Memory Lane, but there is nothing sentimental about it. These were not the good old days. There’s no dabbing at the edges of your eyes with a hankie when you think back.

I’d like to express my gratitude to all the people I encountered who helped me achieve a better understanding of the past.

My First Experience with Inhumanity:
Let me go back to 1938. I was three at the time. My mother and I were in my grandmother’s apartment in Rueppgasse in the 2nd district of Vienna. The doorbell to my grandmother’s rang. I ran to the door and opened it. It was the SA. They entered to ransack the apartment. One of them, I remember clearly, wore a brown suit and limped. The other wore a grey suit. They searched the apartment. The brown-suited man pushed my grandmother, who was eighty-three away from the sideboard in order to ransack it. And indeed it contained her shopping money.

I see that occurrence as clearly as if it were taking place right now.

My parents left what had become Ostmark with me in 1939. Members of my family who remained at that address, as well as at Kärntnertrasse 28, my paternal grandmother’s address, were deported and murdered. Incidentally the latter address used to be occupied by the Educational Academy of the right-wing Austrian Freedom Party. It is now the home of a trend chain store.

After my return to Austria in 1963, I set about translating and publishing Austrian poets. I considered it my special mission to render those poets who had experienced the Shoah.

The conditions were anything but sanguine and salubrious. It was as if I had never left.

I soon got into hot water. Apparently, I can’t let things be. I simply had to stir the pot. And I seem to keep on stirring and stirring.

I’ve always said that I wanted to have smooth sailing, but I couldn’t help rocking the boat. Rocking seems to be in my genes. Stepping out of line, which is a movement my feet can’t seem to avoid making.

I’ve been termed a troublemaker. Yes, that’s what I am, and that’s what I’ll be as long as I am on this planet.

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Herbert Kuhner

The Big Night, directed by Stanley Tucci is about the art of cooking and art in general.

Time is the Fifties´. Primo and Secundo have left Italy for New Jersey and have established the Paradise Restaurant.

Primo is a culinary master who makes no compromises and Secundo, played by Tucci, is the front-man who takes care of the PR.

The Paradise provides culinary Paradise, but the brothers have established Paradise
in the wrong Jersey neighborhood. And unfortunately, they are on their last financial legs.

Okay, everyone likes spaghetti Napolitano, but apparently these Jerseyites, or Jerseyans if you will, wouldn’t recognize a gourmet meal, even if it floated from their plate to their palate. No slur to Jersey! I’m a Jersey boy myself. There are gourmet restaurants galore in the Garden State, but they have to be in the right Jersey location. Actually, I don’t know of a wrong Jersey location for Italian food. But there must be one. And Primo and Secundo seem to have found one. Let me say this, as far as Jersey is concerned, they have the best pizza parlors in the world - not the most elaborately designed, but the best.

Pascal’s Restaurant is fancy pasta eatery that offers run-of the mill fare. Let me interject that you have to look hard to fund a mediocre Italian restaurant in Jersey, but that there must indeed be such places.

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Lunch Table Retrospective

Before attending the Lunch Bunch Round Table in Vienna on Fridays, I thought that the American way was consensus. While attending, I started to use internet. Upon seeing how Town Hall and the National Review online ridicule those who do not share their political views, I had my doubts. After having experienced the Table, I knew that consensus was a thing of the past.

Concerning the Friday Lunch of March 5, 2004
Chronology of Comments by A, B & C at the Weekly American Lunch Table.

A: Here’s the opener by A: “You cannot be objective about the Freedom Party.” Well, it would be very sad if one had to be a Jew in order to be critical of a right-wing party with Third Reich revisionist elements. That would be very sad indeed.

B: After George W. Bush’s initial (questionable) first election victory, B stated that the victorious party would bring us clean politics, I directed two words at B: “Richard Nixon,” and I was promptly shouted down.

B: This is the clincher, which took place at my last Lunch Table lunch: B, who was sitting at my right, discussed Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, referring the criticism by Jewish organizations of the depiction of the high priests in the film, stating that they indeed bore the responsibility for the crucifixion of Christ. When I mentioned that there are other historical views (Tacitus, for one) that lay the blame on Pontius Pilate, B proclaimed: “How would you like me to deny the Holocaust!?

C: Then C, who was sitting at my left, chimed in: “The Jews are always complaining.”

I happen to be someone who lost family members in the Holocaust. I do not know whether Pilate or the priests bore the brunt of the blame for the Crucifixion, but I have to admit it’s not something I lose any sleep over.

After that “repartee,” I decided that I would avoid the Friday Lunch Table in the future.

- Herbert Kuhner

Kutschkergasse 29, A-1180 Wien
Tel.: +43 1 402 43 68 - Fax: +43 1 406 21 55   e-mail: naturkost@brunnader.at  Öffnungszeiten: Montag - Donnerstag 9:00 - 13:00 Uhr und 15:00 - 18:30 Uhr, Freitag 9:00 - 18:30 Uhr, Samstag 9:00 - 13:00 Uhr

“Concerning the family who bakes and sells produce, you make the comment “the family sets a good example.” I love the way you write. You set a good example. You are economical, almost “dry,” but you do the job well with just the right details to create a clear tone and a point that I relish. You make blogging an art (and I’m skeptical about the whole blogging thing.)”
- David B. Axelrod, axelrodthepoet@yahoo.com

The Organic Store

Herbert Kuhner

I live in Gentzgasse in the Eighteenth District in Vienna. The next intersection is the pedestrian zone of Kutschkergasse, where there are two restaurants, a café and an ice cream parlor. Great to sit there in sunny weather! Further up, there’s a street market. On Saturdays the farmers come in, and you can buy direct from the source.

At the market there is an organic store: Brunnader’s with three tables in the back and sidewalk tables out front for coffee and snacks, as well as terrific vegetable juice.

Walter is the patriarch and Marta is his wife. Phillip, Annette, Tommy, Peter and Walter Jr. are the grown children. Walter Jr. and Christine, have new addition by the name of Lorenz.

Walter started out in five star hotels and gourmet restaurants. He knows the business like the back of his hand. The sons and daughter have successful careers. Peter, who’s a computer whiz, is still studying. They all help out in the store.

They are real Greens. Everybody is a vegetarian and nobody smokes. (As we know, the most consistent chain smokers are doctors, nurses - and Greens.)

Does that sound boring? It isn’t. There’s nothing boring about this family.

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Herbert Kuhner

She had made the break. She said that the distance had been too great. Yes, there had been an ocean between us, but I had crossed it, and I was looking for a way to solve that problem.

Now distance was no longer a problem. Here she was. I was listening to her and we were close. When I moved toward her, she did not move back. Our lips met. I kissed her and she returned the kiss. It was soft and tender, ever so soft and tender. It lasted and lasted and there was the touching of the tongues.

Did you have to make me wait so long, Doris, before giving me that kiss, and did you have to leave this world before giving it to me?

I saw Doris in a dream. Doris died five years ago, and I last saw her half a century ago.

But the kiss couldn’t have been more real. Who can say how fantasy differs from reality? And indeed why should it?

His Oyster and My Iron Maiden

I’ve never prided myself an intuition. There was my friend the small-press publisher, Don the nice guy, Don with the baby-blue eyes and meek look, Dan who gave me the Judas kiss and published a pack of lies in a human rights magazine. Don the turncoat pal, and all that he got for the job was a pat an the back. But perhaps that sufficed for the good boy of the class. There’d be rewards in the future,

I’ve been a sucker all my life, the fall guy, the chump, the patsy, the guy who ands up holding the bag. I’ve been promised the world, but what I invariable get is the dirty end of the stick.

When my hair turned grey, I didn’t get any wiser, but then I’m not the only one who’s been duped. If villains always looked like villains, the world would be a simple place. Life isn’t cast like a Hollywood film. But I shouldn’t be down an myself. The villains are on the march and their ranks are increasing. Jesus was lucky at the Last Supper. If that event were to take place today, he’d be hard put to find one non-Judas at the table.

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