<It's cure will never be found..." >

Not so!

<Trig> is saying

"It is cure, found never will be?".

He is referring to the mysterious crash of an airplane carrying the famed 80s crap band <The Cure> which went down somewhere over Papua New Guinea.

When the natives were questioned, a "Pidgin" (or squab) English was employed (think Yoda) so that the question would be understood.

do you really play?

I was taught <klabberjass> by my Dutch neighbor Brent Rensma when we were little.

I remember it well because he insisted that the 10, rather than the Ace, was the highest card!!

<Neighbour Phenomenon> heh:

[Definition]: <[...] you can gain insight into the priorities, motivations, obsessions, blind spots (usw) of a culture by looking at their words for things that are important to their neighbours.> ... as well as at their neighbours' words for things, customs, achievements, that are of importance, to "them" - I would propose to add.

Important - as in desirable, appealing to a higher sense of cultural awareness and status... notably, e.g. French influence in 17th century Dutch. (Which can hardly be called "my turf", I'm afraid.)

Actually, I had done some research last year following a thread we had here, on the assimilation of foreign words into a language, and what stood out - I remember - was the higly complex and differing nature of historical- and cultural events, impacting, impregnating several key layers of society, *within* a certain period of time...

Yet I am a bit hazy on the details at the moment, but will return with renewed energy and vigour!

Coffee and tea with pralines and Cognac were exquisite, as is the prospect of ... me .. entering ... but ... and then .. well ... hang on ...

[*Kibitzers in various stages of post-Festivus deshabille swoon into their puddings ... *]

Erster Punkt: <famed 80s crap band <The Cure> > ...

It is my considered opinion that - right at the *very* start, viz 'Three Imaginary Boys' and 'Seventeen Seconds', The Cure weren't half bad.

Then they *were* half bad, and thereafter <JFQ's Law of Crapness> applies without exception.

Zweiter Punkt: ackshully, I can't think of anything else to disagree about at the moment. It'll come to me, as L. Ron Hubbard said about <Billy the Mountain>.

*Feetnotes*
(1) "Billy was a mountain with a small tree growing outta his side" - Frank Zappa, the infamous scatological chess engine who invented *scat* and the *Weasels Ripped My Flesh* Variation of the Sicilian Defence, so called because black's pawn formation looks just like weasels ripping somebody's flesh.

(2) "You can do what you want but, sheet/ Don't you step on my blue suede feet" is the national anthem of the blue-skinned guys in Star Trek who sometimes stand around on the margins holding phasers - as if to say 'the Federation is for everyone, not just pinky-brown puce-and-tan humanoids'.

Sounds indeed like <clever Jazz>, <Klabberjass>

Do you remember the "troef-kaart" (trump card) order?

Heh no, the trumps are crazy though. My memory is hazy due to the hard work I put in on designing the world famous and award winning <Rotterdammerung Werken> Flood gates.

<Dom> did you know that there was a real Punk Band who toured as a <Cure tribute> act?

"Fat Bob and the Cures"....

Yep it's true.

Of course, yes, the French influenced everyone in those days. Vive Le MacCutcheon et l'attaque de Chatard!

Also, I can't pretend to know much about Finnish art. Finnish movies, a little, but art ... I have some ground to cover. But I'm getting there, like a *Bat out of Helsinki*.

It's a relatively long distance to go looking for neighbours, but the Finns allegedly discovered cyberspace before everyone else.

Something to do on winter knights.

Reason being, that French was very much loved and used by the upper class, in holland, with a higher education, especially in Law, but still very much alive in the 1960's eg on Dutch Television, as the ability to speak almost fluent French, was a considered to be following naturally from just having attended a "good school"...

That disappeared in the seventies and eighties, indeed at warp speed... Incredible speed such processes develop, as we were shamelessly turning 180 degrees towards american culture and entertainment...

It was like pop, poof, and suddenly the idiom that lasted for centuries, has gone up in smoke, while the new one has entered...

Commercial Television was born in the early/mid eighties here, and per direct, following the sitcoms, the commercial networks carbon-copied the formats and aired so called "home-made" TV shows by the name of 'The Surprise Show', The Honeymoon Quiz, All You need is Love, the list is endless... America (the Wild Beast) was it, the promised land and all that jazz...

To put things in perspective - it may be interesting to note that the well known satirical writer JK Huysmans, son of a Dutch father and a French mother, wrote his most noted work, 'A Rebours' (aka The Bible of Decadence), back in err... around 1900 or so. (too lazy to look things up now - but give or take a few years..) - which would indicate that we are on more or less a permanent downslope, with a few bumps and leaps along the way...

Whick complicates matters for me, since people got drunk and destructive in all ages, as decadence is of all ages, and in 20 (well - now already - yugoslav 'immigrants' - ed.) years from now people will say to eachother: "Remember the Surprise Show? The Honeymoon Quiz? *ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE??* -- Those were the days when you could still walk around Amsterdam safely, but now you have to watch out for gangs on scooters, jerking your car door open at a stop sign, knocking your lights out, grabbing anything of value, and within 30 secs they are on their way, with credit cards, medical records, personal ID data, AND YOU'RE DONE!"

heh

(cough)

So, you were saying about Finnish Art's Golden age? Ah yes, turn of THE century...

<Golden Age of Finnish Painting> And surely, alongside painting, in music, <Jean Sibelius> may also have been a product of Finland's flourishing culture at that time... A giant among both 19th and 20th century composers.

<like a *Bat out of Helsinki*.> heh

Well - I have to admit I am jumping off the deep end with some of my statements, lacking nuance... and I would certainly like to stress that I am far from an expert on pretty much any subject matter. I've always tried to avoid it.

And not just here...

Anyhow, my taste in 19th century decadence runs more to <Les Chants de Maldoror> by Le Comte de Lautreamont -- actually a Paris-based student from Uruguay named Isidore Ducasse, who awarded himself a title in *hommage* to De Sade. Though I'm not really sure whether I could go back and read Maldoror again either.

<mack> got me interested in the writing of Walter Benjamin (died 1940) -- and then, quite by accident, I got a Christmas present of a book by him, 'Archives'. Wonderful stuff. The point here being that, among Benjamin's many unfinished projects, he planned to write a book called <Paris - The Capital of the 19th Century>.

Unfinished projects, elaborate notebooks ... I feel an affinity with this guy already. Connections, connections: both WB #1 (W. Benjamin) and WB #2 (Wm. Burroughs) produced elaborate notebooks using collage, handwriting, drafts, experiments, drawings, diagrams, notes and meta-notes ... not to mention *Lists*.

So do I. Even now, when people think a notebook is a kind of computer. After a few years of routinely taking my laptop with me on train journeys, I've gone back to basics -- select a special (paper) notebook and pen(s) for that particular journey, and off we go.

Oh, tres tres heh heh. But instead of putting the whole country on <Stilton>, I suppose they could just build a big <Edam>.

Though Bomber Harris would probably send in the <Edam Busters> ... after all, he apparently based his WW2 bombing strategy on something called the *Butt Report*.

So, like, what became of the neo-dadaist Kurt-Schwitters-on-MDMA collage thing that served as your *avtaar* and public face all these years?

If some schwein nicked it, they'll get headaches.

Then again, maybe it's being auctioned at Christie's. I bid 5p.

'Premium Member' just isn't you, especially with the stonking great emblem of tyrannical monarchy on top.

- Tyrannical monarchy? There's another kind?

- Well, yes, *nice* monarchy, like King Charles III will practice towards those of his subjects who happen to be flowers, vegetables, and neo-classical buildings. Especially the kind one owns.

Makes the current construction on paper of a Unified Europe, with capitals Brussels et Strassbourg, look very pale in comparison.

Your and my country voted boldly against it. heh

Well, I'm too young to even pretend to have a "feel" or understanding of the atmosphere in 19th century Europe, or mid 20th century Europe for that matter...

Maybe I should read more.

But I did pick up a few clues here and there, along the way.

<Maybe I'm being paranoid, but when I did this on Saturday - for about six hours rail-time - I thought I detected pitying looks from other passengers -- "Oh, that poor guy, still stuck in the pre-techno era" or maybe just "Who let that scumbag on board?"> heh --- You probably are - and in my opinion these second guessing inquiries pertaining your "audience's" perceptions of you should take as little of your time as possible.

H Westerinen vs G Sigurjonsson, 1977
A Afifi vs Beliavsky, 1985
P N Wallis vs NN, 1923
P N Wallis vs NN, 1923
Y Shulman vs D Marciano, 1997

N Shoup vs Marshall, 1906
E Kengis vs R Djurhuus, 1991
W Knoop vs L Malandain, 1995

Y Shulman vs D Marciano, 1997
E Vladimirov vs V Vorotnikov, 1974
A Fritz vs J Mason, 1883
R Plunkett vs S Fink, 2003

(Sorry Dom...

Can't resist temptation...See any pattern?

I've declassified my Encyclopedia Britannica, hid my worn out American Heritage Dictionary, closed up my Columbia Viking Desk Encyclopedia and purposely misplaced both my oversized Atlas and the Bausch & Lomp 'magnifying glass' to the Compact Edition (2 volume set) of the OED... Now I'm ready! <grin>

Happy New Year! :^)

Cheers, - Mal

and clarity of thoughts and purpose.

Thank you and

About four hours of 2008 remaining here. To any of you precariously balanced between the old year and the new ... just try to fall in the right direction.