Deutschland über Elvis

The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Traveller

Dave's on a round-the-world globetrot.  Follow his adventures here.

The Other World Cup

As he inspected my papers on Sunday afternoon, the immigration cop wanted to fake me out.  They often try.  

Germany, at the crossroads of Europe, sees a lot of suspicious characters passing through.  I'm sure  the police get trained in how to make casual chat with a departing traveller, to reveal inconsistent stories which might bear a closer look.   

My Australian passport invites suspicion.  It was issued in Tokyo, and says that I was born in the USA.  Living now in Germany, but speaking atrocious German...well, it adds to a history of flaky national allegiances.

The cop made a play.  Also, wer gewinnt das Spiel? he asked.  So who's going to win the game?

Hmm...it's June 13, 2010, and a German asks an Australian about a game. He stumped me for a minute.  Maybe it's that pesky World Cup?  When flags appear on cars, you know something's afoot.

In der Weltmeisterschaft?.   

Ja, he sniggered.

Mein Hertz bleibt in Australien, aber ich gebe eine Wette auf Deutschland ab, was my clumsy reply.  My heart stays with Australia, but I'm betting on Germany. 

(Australians, let's look on the bright side.  The Socceroos kept Germany to a mere four-point margin. If we were playing Aussie Rules, that'd be a cliffhanger.  In many ways, Monday's game was a triumph!)

The cop wasn't satisfied with my answer.  He noticed the destination on my boarding pass, and raised an eyebrow. 

Why on earth would anyone want to go there?  

Well may he ask.   I had a perfectly good reason, but like all perfectly good reasons, it sounds preposterous.  

Master Right and I are attending a sports event.   A big sporting event.  A world championship, in fact.

Yes, that's right.   We—two prissy, middle-aged, unathletic fops—spent the last few days boning up on the finer points of weightlifting.   Before you crack a predictable joke, note that we'll attend the women's finals, so that's the last boning up you'll see.  Yes, you'll find us in the bleachers, there to cheer for our national team. 

Our national team?  A multicultural couple such as us often can't decide which of our several nations demands the most support.   (Master Right, for example, regarded himself as an honorary Australian until the whaling suit. )  But this time, we had a mission.  For the next several days, our team is Japan.  A 60 x90 cm Hinomaru flag sits, neatly folded, in my husband's carry-on.

I tried to explain this to the cop.

Wir besuchen die Weltmeisterschaft...  Dumb move.  In German, the World Cup is simply known as the World Championship, or Weltmeisterschaft.   After football, there are few other world champions which Germans want to become.  Since Boris and Steffi retired, nobody watches tennis.  Leave skiing to the Austrians.  Champions are football champions, period.

...die Weltmeisterschaft auf...fuck! What's the German word for weightlifting?  I fumbled for a second or two.

In this pause, the cop quietly suggested that if I were attending the Weltmeisterschaft, I should change my ticket to Johannesburg. 

German speakers will point out, in an instant, that the word is Gewichtheben.  A simple,  direct translation of the English. 

I think I said it.  Then again, I think I might have said something like Gesichtheben, which means, um, lifting your face. 

Of course, we could switch to English at any time—d'oh!—except that might create even more confusion. 

German has borrowed the word lifting, you see.  Das Lifting means a facelift, which Master Right discovered when he followed Brigitte Nielsen's makeover on local reality TV.   Using the word would confrm that I was trolling Eastern Europe for cheap plastic surgery. 

So, I took a time-honoured route, the last resort when a foreign language stumps you.  I mimed it.

Think about the challenge.  Just putting your hands in the air and moving them up and down really doesn't tell the story.  You have to do the facial expressions and sound effects.  Right?

That's when the cop dropped his Hans Landa routine and waved me through.  Not because he understood what I was talking about, I suspect.  Rather, he decided that anyone who stands in a public place drawing attention to himself wouldn't be engaged in crime on the sly. 

Master Right waited on the other side of immigration—they hadn't hassled him at all, as usual—and we were off. 

To where?  You'll need to wait for the next installment to find out.  But the sign above hides a subtle clue.

Photo Friday: Family

Marienplatz, Munich
Christopher Street Day, June 2009

Photo Friday: Symbols

Lexington Aveue Synagogue, New York.  February 2007

English on the March. Cool.

Bleib Cool.  As a word nerd, this phrase perplexes me a bit. 

Oh, the literal meaning is easy enough to decipher.  Bleib is German for "stay", and cool is German for "cool".

Now, when I say that cool is German for "cool", I mean it.  Duden signed the adoption papers.  Cool is now a member of the Deutsch family, and shares all its hangups like inflections and declensions and endings and stuff. 

A cool car is a cooles Auto.  A cool dude might be a cooler Kerl.  A cool thing is a coole Sache, pronounced "Coola".

(Note to self: market children's toy called Coola Hoop and make fortune.)

No, a German hears only a distant echo of English in the word cool—even with that troublesome hard-C at the beginning. 

As an English speaker, think about words like double, baggage, mention or supreme.  Do they sound self-consciously French?  Well, it's the same deal with the word cool in German.  It doesn't feel foreign.

Here's my question about German cool.  Which cool?

1. Mildly cold? I'd better take a jacket, since the weather is a bit cool.
2. Moderating temperature downward?  I'll set the pie on the table to cool.
3. Unemotional, controlled, calculating? He's cool under pressure
4. Not objectionable? If you want to meet later, that's cool with me.
5. Reduced enthusiasm? A cooling-off period
6. Popular? All the cool kids wear Crocs.
7. Fashionably contemporary? He always buys the latest cool fashion.
8. Clever? That's a cool gadget.
   

Usage #7 is clearly on the rise.  The website Cool Hunting certainly doesn't waste any time talking about changes of weather, does it?

Such a cool is complex.  Take a look at this timeline of cool, adapted from Cool Rules: Anatomy of an Attitude, by Dick Pountain and David Robins. (click to embiggen)

 

OK, Mr. Snowman.   What cool are you?  Are you Plantation, Bebop, Brecht, Lenny Bruce, or Lodz Film School?

When other tongues adopt the word, we assume that they pick up Cool #7, or at a stretch, #6.  That's how it happened in German, Dutch and French, to name but three. 

(Interestingly, Italian hasn't adopted the word cool.  Because to be detatched and unemotional or to endorse without showing enthusiasm, is most certainly not considered  fashionable. )

OK, so our snowman is Cool #7 because he drinks the tea.  But does he gain relief from the heat?  The German word cool doesn't actually mean to moderate your temperature. 

But the German word kühl does. 

Kühl is, of course, where our English word cool comes from in the first place.  It's pronounced in almost, but not quite, the same way.   Actually, it sounds an awful lot like the English slang kewl.

But it only means Cool #1, Cool #2 and Cool #3. 

That's what makes this little ad so interesting.  If the teamakers just wanted to sound Cool #7, they might do the whole thing in English, i.e. Stay Cool. 

That would make more sense to English speakers, because the word "cool" would take on a double meaning.

But then, Germans would miss the other half of the double meaning, because they would read it only as "stay fashionable".  

By putting the German verb bleiben in front, the language switches to German, and the phrase becomes a pun on the word kühl. 

In English, a double meaning.  In German, a pun.  It may seem trivial to you, but to us Sprachnerds, it's pretty Cool #8.

Don't Touch

Touch-me-God.com

This little booklet brings together two familiar themes.

First, the spread of English words into other languages.  And second, the utter cluelessness and insensitivity of Catholic clergy.

Given the nature of the scandals which dog the Catholic Church in Bavaria, does anyone else agree that they might ditch a creepy religious website aimed at young people which encourages them to say touch me?  Am I the only one who finds the title insulting to victims of clerical sexual abuse?  Do they really think that just because the words are English, nobody cares?

The site is littered with pointless English, by the way.   They say see you later.  You're invited on a daily date with the Almighty.  And you can meditate in the—wait for it—Praystation.

This website is led out of the diocese of Augsburg, where Bishop Walter Mixa recently resigned amid accusations, inter alia, of robbing orphans and beating children.  Perhaps the site could be renamed.  Rather than Touch Me God, it should be Spank Me Bishop.

The programme has a facebook page, too, with a whopping sixty-seven fans.  Why don't you leave them a message, everyone? 

Life After Death: Will There Be Cookies?

"You know, one of the best things about believing in a big fat God up there, is that nobody can disprove He exists."

This remark came from a woman of science, who is also a woman of faith.  We weren't arguing about atheism—well, not exactly—but we brushed up against the wall such conversations face.  Proof.

Science never proves anything.  It disproves.  That's the scientific method.

When you've disproved every other alternative, then you have a proper scientific argument.  If someone comes along with another explanation, you need to disprove it to defend your theory. 

This debating point catches many skeptics and atheists without a reply, or with an unconvincing one.

Metaphysical Physicians

In December, CNN muscled in on Oprah territory when it broadcast a Very Special Larry King Live.  The subject was Life after Death. 

Curiously, King himself didn't lead the discussion.  One imagines he'd take great interest in the subject.  By the looks of him, he seems perilously close to speaking from experience.

The entire piece is embarrassing—so embarrassing, CNN seems to have ditched it from the LKL website. 

The three panelists took the life-after-death position—CNN's medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and authors Dr. Deepak Chopra and Dinesh D'Sousa.  Professor Michael Shermer served as the lone spokeperson for skeptics. 

And you know what?  Shermer lost, big-time.

He deserved to.  It's one thing to split hairs in philosophical discourse, but quite another to win minds and hearts in popular debate. 

Sometimes, the best strategy is to abandon your case.

Malostranské náměstí, Prague

Am I talking to your neurons?

The Afterlifers raised patronising snark to high art.  They petulantly asked Shermer: "Am I talking with you, or your neurons?"

Shermer pretty much just pfaffed around in reply.  What might he have said?  As a direct answer, the best I could come up with was something like this:

"Dr. Gupta.  You're a neurosurgeon. You've seen a body without functioning neurons?  So you would say that I could talk to you without neurons? Wouldn't you say that consciousness, then, is a product of neurons, in some way?"

Well, that doesn't exactly slam the case closed. 

The real truth (which both believers and skeptics need to acknowledge) is that we don't know. 

But by the rules which govern debate on American television in 2010, the first person to admit he doesn't know, loses.  Shermer caved.

One of the commenters on Shermer's facebook page pointed out a response that could have been more effective.  "You should have asked: are there cookies?"

Indeed.  Now, they're on the back foot.   Doctors Gupta and Chopra, and Mr. D'Sousa must confirm that there are cookies in the afterlife.  Or, alternately, that there are no cookies in the afterlife.  Or that they don't know. 

"How do you know we'll find cookies?  We might find tea cakes.  Maybe the tea cakes are only for the ladies, and men find 72 virgins?   How about bacon?  Bacon is better than cookies.  How about nothing?  Maybe we'll find nothing in the afterlife.  Isn't that just as likely?  Why do you refuse to acknowledge that possibility, Dr. Gupta?"

The churchyard at St Georg's, Bogenhausen, March 2010.

Even the usually unflappable Richard Dawkins stumbled over the proof/disproof issue when he spoke at Liberty University.  (LU is enemy territory; an Evangelical Baptist institution founded by Jerry Falwell himself)

A student asked Dawkins a simple question: What if you're wrong?   The real answer, which he eventually reached, runs something like this:

"If I should believe in an Abrahamic God because he might exist, then I should also believe in every other god whom humans have seen fit to worship, because they might exist.  

In fact, I'd better disembowel you at the temple because Zeus could be angry.  I might need to toss you into a volcano, too.  I might just impale you because you're an infidel and the Crusaders could have a point.   I might need to beat you because I'm a Catholic schoolteacher who believes children are naturally evil and must be punished.  And I might just need to be an atheist, too, because that's equally possible.  

No, I won't take Pascal's Wager.  The stakes are too high."

Perhaps Shermer should have replied to the question thus:

"Well, Dr. Gupta, I confess.  You're not talking to my neurons. You're talking to Master Alien Zoog, who orbits Alpha Centauri in an advanced spacecraft.   He speaks through me as his prophet.  

Now, when we die, it is his white light that shines at the end of the tunnel, when he takes all our thoughts and turns them into anti-matter.  Many people with near-death experiences report images of relatives who stand at the other end of a brightly-lit white tunnel to welcome you.  They are anti-matter projections of your thoughts.

You're right.  All this stuff about neurons doesn't explain anything."

Many atheists, skeptics, or agnostics argue against religious belief by seeking to disprove it.  That's not just a losing strategy, but it's intellectually disingenuous. 

One cannot not prove a believer wrong—it's pointless, in any case.  God has been put to the test many times, and He has failed.  It doesn't shake the conviction of the faithful.

One must, however, show that belief is arbitrary.   This fact sows the seeds of doubt more effectively than a head-on attempt at disproof. 

It's more honest.  And it's more fun.

Hell, according to Reubens. From the Alte Pinakotek

god hates #tags

The merry gang from Westboro Baptist Church protests in many places, on many occasions.  Led by Pastor Fred Phelps and his family, you may recall their colourful signs which proclaim that God hates fags, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Obama, America, Italy, Ireland, Lady GaGa and much else of His creation. 

Yes, the Westboro Baptisits hold some mighty firm beliefs. And they love it when you try to disprove them.

"Read your Bible!", Meagan Phelps often shouts in reply.  Many of the least effective counter-protests involve those who have read the Bible, too, and argue that she and her family get it wrong. 

Twitter got it right.  When the Phelps clan protested outside their offices on Folsom Street in San Francisco this January, staff quickly desk-top-published a few signs of their own.  

(Iconic American writer Harmon Leon wrote a great post on Asylum.com about the incident.  Check it out.  He also deserves credit for the photo on your left.)

None of the signs actually attacked the Westboro Baptist Church, and their beliefs.  They simply provided alternative beliefs.

God, according to Twitter, hates ponies.  And broccoli.  He thinks we should build prisons on the moon.  And we should wear silly hats only.   One sign proclaimed, in a gesture pure and poetic, that I have a sign.

Read the Bible?  No, Meagan, read April Tips Number Two: What to Do if You Don't Have Time to Get Your Pants Hemmed, published in Esquire on March 31st 2008!  The prophets of style command us through Esquire.  If we obey them, we will be richly rewarded.  And our cuffs will be clean.

WBC was left speechless, and turned tail.

A Reasonable Objective.

When it comes to God, I call myself an atheist.  When it comes to the persistence of the soul, I'm mildly skeptical.

Frankly, I have no interest in converting a believer.  I do, however, have a very serious interest in preserving my right to dissent. 

Just as important, preserving my right to dissent also protects the rights of believers to disagree amongst themselves.  The faithful need to acknowledge this.

If mockery preserves these rights better than logic, then mock we must.

Happy Sunday, everyone.

EDIT: You ain't got no pancake mix!

Small Talk in the Time of a Volcano

Photo Friday: Cleanliness

Cleanliness, quiet and loud, from the Auer Dult, 2008

Two C's of Chuckie D.

A brief reminder.  Charles Darwin was born 200 years ago today, February 12.  That means today is a very special International Darwin Day, which according to the organisers, is dedicated to the promotion of science and reason.   I shall celebrate by evolving a little.  Or perhaps, I will be reasonable and scientific about things. I suggest you do the same.