on Karl Kraus & Thomas Bernhard
(noun) diocese / (noun) the office of bishop / (noun) the administrative body of a Mormon ward consisting of a bishop and two high priests as counselors
(noun) a region or scene of simple pleasure and quiet
That there was within Kraus a jealously guarded arcadia--a shy, tensed love of certain Bohemian and Alpine retreats--is certain.
That there was within Kraus a jealously guarded arcadia--a shy, tensed love of certain Bohemian and Alpine retreats--is certain.
(noun) a person who sells quack medicines from a platform / (noun) a boastful unscrupulous pretender; charlatan / (verb) to beguile or transform by trickery / (verb) to play the mountebank
In front of Hitler, an anti-master of the word more ruthless than he was--an actor, mountebank, declaimer more mesmerizing--Kraus fell silent.
In front of Hitler, an anti-master of the word more ruthless than he was--an actor, mountebank, declaimer more mesmerizing--Kraus fell silent.
(verb) to wear off the skin of; abrade / (verb) to censure scathingly
an instrument wholly fitted to its excoriating purpose
an instrument wholly fitted to its excoriating purpose
I was soon confirmed in my suspicion that our relations with Jesus Christ were in reality no different from those we had had with Adolf Hitler six months or a year earlier. When we consider the songs and choruses that are sung to the honour and glory of any so-called extraordinary personality, no matter whom--songs and choruses like those we used to sing at the boarding house during the Nazi period and later--we are bound to admit that, with slight differences in the wording, the texts are always the same and are always sung to the same music. All in all these songs and choruses are simply an expression of stupidity, baseness, and lack of character on the part of those who sing them, The voice one hears in these songs and choruses is the voice of inanity--universal, worldwide inanity. All the educational crimes perpetrated against the young in educational establishments the world over are perpetuated in the name of some extraordinary personality, whether his name is Hitler or Jesus or whatever.
quoting Thomas Bernhard (Gathering Evidence)
I was soon confirmed in my suspicion that our relations with Jesus Christ were in reality no different from those we had had with Adolf Hitler six months or a year earlier. When we consider the songs and choruses that are sung to the honour and glory of any so-called extraordinary personality, no matter whom--songs and choruses like those we used to sing at the boarding house during the Nazi period and later--we are bound to admit that, with slight differences in the wording, the texts are always the same and are always sung to the same music. All in all these songs and choruses are simply an expression of stupidity, baseness, and lack of character on the part of those who sing them, The voice one hears in these songs and choruses is the voice of inanity--universal, worldwide inanity. All the educational crimes perpetrated against the young in educational establishments the world over are perpetuated in the name of some extraordinary personality, whether his name is Hitler or Jesus or whatever.
quoting Thomas Bernhard (Gathering Evidence)
(adjective) fatty oily / (adjective) smooth and greasy in texture or appearance / (adjective) plastic / (adjective) full of unction / (adjective) revealing or marked by a smug, ingratiating, and false earnestness or spirituality
Austria's unctuous burial of its thoroughly Nazi past
Austria's unctuous burial of its thoroughly Nazi past
(verb) to give off or reflect light in bright beams or flashes; sparkle / (verb) to be brilliant or showy in technique or style
a coruscating epilogue to fin-de-siècle Vienna
a coruscating epilogue to fin-de-siècle Vienna