Pancake Magic

Don't you just hate it when someone casually drops in a name, a first name or surname, and expects you to know to whom they're referring? Scholars, I find, do this a lot, as do introductions to classics by translators or authors, since they seem to assume that if you've got this far i.e. picked up a certain volume that you must be well-informed and know all the persons and works they might reference. Now, I like to think I have scholarly leanings, but I'm still learning i.e. there's a lot I don't know and even more I don't retain, and when you have only a surname, for example, to go on, then you just have to hope that any further research comes up trumps with the very man or woman you want to verify, as well as blindly trust the source it comes from.

The above, whilst it's not a very gripping way to start an article, is a sort of disclaimer before getting on with it (I'm getting to it, I promise!), for I'm still not sure I've got the right Lichtenberg (Georg Christoph) and if I haven't I can deny that I've done anything wrong, other than attribute something the Lichtenberg I want said to the wrong Lichtenberg. And before then laying the blame at the feet of Michael Hulse, the author and translator, unless of course I've missed an earlier paragraph where a brief sentence mentions all I needed to know: his name, in full, and what he did or was known for, maybe. In which case, if such a passage is discovered, my sincere apologies to Hulse for denying any responsibility for the matter and for being an ignoramus i.e. for wanting more detail, of the sort that a university educated person would know or be able to infer.

Though I'm not such a fool as not to gather, from his introduction, that this Lichtenberg was a satirist, or at least had a dry wit, which he used to great effect in his letters. In one, he is said to have remarked: 'the smell of a pancake is a more powerful reason for remaining in this world than all young Werther's supposedly lofty conclusions are for quitting it.'

I find that amusing, but don't agree; I can think of other smells that would convince me to remain. The smell of a pancake is not the first I would think of - I can't even think, at present, what a pancake smells like, but I can taste the lemon and white sugar - it must be white sugar, though I am often led by my nose.

Why a pancake, I wondered? And wonder still. And then, too, for Lichtenberg wrote this in May 1775. Perhaps pancakes were the best thing since (or even before) sliced bread. Though Thackeray (oh, another surname, no first name, but I know of him – do you? It's William Makepeace) in 1853 made a to-do about bread and butter, and also in connection with Werther, which incidentally was another Hulse note. But at least the cutting of bread was featured in the novel. Pancakes were not.

Had they been and if I were in young Werther's (or maybe even Goethe's) position would the smell of a pancake, or the mere thought of tasting one, make me choose this world over the next? Could those intent on doing themselves harm be saved by pancakes?

Maybe a pancake would delay the inevitable, and then if you kept on eating them, because well, who can refuse another, would keep postponing it, until the act he or she thought they would commit had been escaped from. Can food do that?

It fills a hole, definitely. But not indefinitely.

Maybe, however, pancakes have some magic I don't know of. Although now I come to think on it, my maternal nan's were so light and airy they must have contained not just the usual ingredients. We would all (all those in the household on Shrove Tuesday) come back for more. With a squeeze of real lemon and a sprinkle of white sugar. I never found out exactly what she did to that batter; she must have done something different to it, for even imperfectly cooked it was perfect.

Is perhaps that their magic? They can be a little burnt or a little underdone, but none of that matters, nor somehow affects the mouth-feel or the lifelong remembrance of it.

Pancakes, then, mixed well, might just be the saving of you. 

Picture credit: Making Pancakes, Boris Grigoriev (source: WikiArt)

Acknowledgement to:  The Sorrows of Young Werther, Goethe, Penguin Classics , intro/notes by Michael Hulse.

This post was penned during 2019.

Attenborough and Goethe

Attenborough, Sir David Attenborough, and Goethe have struck up an acquaintance.

In some encounters Attenborough is young and Goethe is old; in others, Goethe, as Werther, is young and Attenborough is the man of 'great learning and mature judgement' that Werther confides in and appeals to. Attenborough is in this scenario Count C., whom you'll find mention of in Book Two, should you care to buy a copy.

And this acquaintance – that imagined between Attenborough and Goethe - if there was a time in which it could exist which as you know there's not - would have led, in my opinion, to a great friendship, for they would bond over Nature. One would be more lyrical, one would be more scientific; depending on what nature of flora and fauna was being discussed.

If I met Sir Attenborough, I would ask him had he ever in his lifetime met Goethe and was it, as I would like to think, a meeting of minds. Though I would have to phrase that better, wouldn't I? to make it abundantly clear I meant through his works, as otherwise Security might decide to tackle me to the ground, or grab both my arms and swing me along it.

No, I can't imagine Sir David Attenborough sanctioning that kind of behaviour, but then all Nature can be studied, can't it?, and perhaps my reaction to brute force would prove interesting. Would I lash out? Would I submit and allow myself to be sheepishly led away? Would I instead of using my limbs use my voice: scream my horror at such treatment, shout and try to explain the confusion I'd caused?

No, I think Attenborough would entertain my unusual question and attempt an answer. And if it turns out they haven't yet met, maybe my asking would bring them together.

Then one can be Count C. to a young man.

But if you can't, in fact, converse with another whom you esteem, or think you're likely to, can there be a true meeting of minds? Minds change and may not meet all the time. Written material doesn't always allow for that, unless some document somewhere testifies to it, so a mind, in that case, can only be met at that particular time and place.

I think, however on that score, we're safe with Goethe. And Attenborough, too. Because their fascination with, and love of, Nature is deep-rooted like a large oak with an unquenchable thirst.

But why Attenborough? Why shouldn't Goethe meet someone like Gilbert White (1720-1793), the “parson-naturalist” and ornithologist? Perhaps he did as a very young man, though it seems unlikely they could have met in Selborne, Hampshire, and I don't know if White travelled. I didn't have to, like my mother, read about him at school. I wonder if Goethe had heard of him...but if he had there's no record, to my knowledge, recorded of it, but it wouldn't be the first time I've been wrong, and later proved so.

No, it's no good, I can't imagine that because I don't know White and I do know Attenborough by his face and voice and Goethe by his words. I think for this you have to at least know visually one of the people, and have perhaps read something of or by the other.

What would the pair of them talk of, though? Well, I think Attenborough would end up listening, mostly, particularly if Goethe was Werther, because that young man can talk, but Sir David, would, I think, respond to him kindly, understanding that here was a sensitive soul. Goethe would speak on the little worlds, so laboriously built, that Man destroys underfoot,or of a magnificent walnut tree that has been cut down and bring himself to tears; or even be so moved (or maddened) he resorts to reading aloud, in a voice half-broken, passages of Ossian. I'm not sure Sir David would have much sympathy with or feeling for the latter. I think, however, he would remain stoic, from which Goethe (as Werther) would draw strength.

Maybe such a meeting, even imagined as it is, is selfish of me, for what would Attenborough get from it? Very little, it seems, if he had the fortune (or misfortune) to meet a tormented Werther on the brink of despair.

Oh, let's hope, in my head, Attenborough meets Goethe instead!

Book recommendation: The Sorrows of Young Werther, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Picture credit: Goethe or the Metamorphosis of Plants, 1940, Andre Masson

This post was penned during 2019.

Jack

There's a piano teacher in this building. On my floor, the third.

On exiting the lift he would, if the flat number's right, go right, then left, whereas I, although I take the lift rarely, go left, through a partitioning door and then straight ahead to the dead end of the corridor. However, if either of us took the stairs, we'd both, after coming through the door to this floor, take a left, then he'd go straight and I'd take another left which would take me to the lift and to the partitioning door. So although he's on my floor, as I've so recently learned, it's like he's in a separate building.

I'm not sure if I've ever seen him. I think I might have done, perhaps once or twice, but he didn't strike me on either occasion as a piano teacher. But possibly it was the right flat, different tenant. Or maybe the flat number where I've been told these lessons are held is wrong.

When I pass through this section of the building I don't linger, yet now I'm sorely tempted, because maybe if I do I'll hear some notes being beautifully played or laboured over. And maybe too, I'll find out which flat burns incense.

I've been told his name is Jack. Just Jack, I wonder, like in Will and Grace? My mind, of its own volition and not long after I'd heard of him, began referring to him as Mister Jack after an old childhood neighbour now long gone, though this Jack is apparently young. Only twenty-one, so I'm told.

But that was before my mind began associating him with Jack London whom I was reading of at the time, despite the only link being the name of Jack. Unless, this young man, too, also harbours compulsions to swim and a love of 'the Road'. You never really know someone when you know them, and I don't know him at all, so maybe he does.

Piano-playing, in itself, doesn't sum a person up.

I came to know Jack London through his novel Martin Eden, whereas his more popular works: Call of the Wild or White Fang don't interest me at all, which means that up until now I've only had that one view of him and knew little of his character, and even less of his other lesser-known (and hard to come by) novels, which feature, so I've read, more battles of lone man against the elements.

But that Jack and his philosophy has nothing to do with this piano-playing Jack. I don't even know if this Jack has a philosophy. Or if indeed he does what it is. I have to remind myself constantly the two Jacks aren't related, although living close to London doesn't help.

Stupid mind.

So, I don't know this Jack, to speak to, and maybe not even in passing, so how did I come to know he's in this building, on my floor, teaching piano? For that's what you're wondering isn't it? And the answer is of course from the same source that all such snippets come to be learned: my mother. Who one morning after visiting me shared the lift with one of his pupils, a retired lady which my mother presumed, much later upon divulging all to me via that long-abandoned instrument, the telephone, put her in her sixties. She gave me a description of her personage too but it wouldn't be fair, I feel, to disclose that since I didn't see her for myself, although it was all quite complimentary I assure you.

My mother can never resist a chat and I suppose in the confines of a lift, and it is quite a cosy lift, it seemed appropriate to engage, and naturally being of similar ages it came quite easily to the pair of them, I imagine. Although I've always been amazed (and embarrassed a number of times too) by my mother's conversational skill. I rarely meet anybody in this building, from this building, much less converse and yet my mother somehow always manages to.

However, she failed to, in this instance, get to the bottom of how in Jack's name did a piano get in here?

Picture credit: Young Man Playing the Piano, 1876, Gustave Calliebotte (source: WikiArt)

This post was penned in 2019. Jack , if rumour (and my ears) are to be believed has since left the building.

The Room Attendant

A hotel room is a lonely place. Indeed it is. To the lone traveller. Interesting (and disgusting too) to clean, though.

If you're interested, that is, in people's habits, yet disgusted by cleaning up after them, which can make you feel somewhat superior. Dirty Beasts! because well, you would think that wouldn't you? if you were forever changing soiled sheets, picking up debris from the carpets, mopping up spills, and coming across hairs of all types. Nobody likes cleaning the bathroom. I don't even like cleaning my own, and I'm the sole user.

My favourite task is vacuuming. As a little girl, I was given, I think by a great-aunt a toy vacuum, which I want to say was a beige colour and modelling itself as an Electrolux. I don't know if I'm right about the last detail but I seem to remember a tiny silver emblem bearing that name. Unless I'm confusing it with my grandparents' full-grown upright model. Anyhow, it wasn't a Dyson and it certainly wasn't a Henry. The latter, by the way, I have a great dislike for, but lots of hotels (God knows why – and maybe he does) swear by them.

That same great-aunt also gave me, I believe, a toy stove and washing machine. I don't believe I'm making this up, but maybe I am? Memory is a funny thing. But now I think about it I also seem to recall tiny pieces of silver cutlery, not real silver, mind, just shiny plastic. I loved all those mini-household appliances, playing with them, but you do when small, when the adult world is inaccessible.

Until you get there and realise the labour behind them. I still enjoy vacuuming though, if it's an upright model and not one that has to be yanked along on its wheels. Come on Henry, heel. There's a good boy.

Bed-changing, I don't mind either. There's something quite satisfying about pulling a dirty sheet off and putting a fresh, crisp one on, though I do, at times, wish large hotel chains would invest in elasticated sheets. I'm tired (and bored) of hospital corners. Laundry wouldn't be able to cope, I suppose, because flat sheets are so much easier to press and fold.

I did a couple of days in the pressing room once, for guests' clothes. It was hot and uncomfortable. And there was a laundered steam smell. Hard to describe, really, but that type of steam does have a smell. Nothing overpowering or floral, just, well, clean. The air was as humid and moist as the hothouse at Kew Gardens, causing my hair to turn to frizz and my face to melt. The supervisor I had to report to was creepy. He gave these funny little smirks and I'm sure he had unsavoury thoughts. About me. It was a relief to get out of there and return to attending rooms, on my own with my trolley and a smiley Henry.

Best of all, I like checking rooms. You could say it's my party piece. I walk into a serviced room, mine or one of my fellow attendants, and pretend to be a floor supervisor. I run a finger along skirting boards and tops of cupboards, examine it and tut. Then I check the bed is made correctly with the crease down the middle, frowning and making little adjustments here and there. I count the sugars, milks, coffees and teas and mutter profusely; I point out smears on mirrors and shower doors; I wrinkle my nose at toilet seats and inspect the shampoos and soaps. I make a pantomime of it basically and make myself and the girls laugh.

Such moments are rare, though, in this line of work, especially when the Head Housekeeper, as she is here, is a little like Miss Trunchbull, you know, the school headmistress in Matilda. Mind you, I will say this for her, everyone gets treated the same, even on occasion the guests. But for all that, it's not a bad place.

And there are perks to this job, although maybe you might not think of them as such, for instance subsidized meals on duty, tips should any be left but most guests are tight-fisted these days, lost property if unclaimed, and discounts off holidays.

I've checked in, as a resident, to a sister hotel once in my life and hated the experience. Not the room, the room itself was a bit old-fashioned for my taste but clean, but being in a city very different to my own, and alone. Because God, can a hotel room be a lonely place then.

Picture credit: French Maid, Banksy (source: WikiArt)

This article was penned during 2019.