Tuesday, September 21, 2004
Was: Unortgemaesse Betrachtungen
The original title of this blog was Unortgemaesse Betrachtungen.
Now, giving a blog this name was clever rather than smart. Here´s the back story:
The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote a book attacking the sacred cows of 19th century Germany. Because he believed (accurately) that his ideas would be more or less ignored in his lifetime, he gave his book a title which is quite hard to translate into English: I´ve seen it rendered as Expeditions of an Untimely Man; Untimely Meditations; and Thoughts Out of Season. (I like the last one best). At any rate, the title in German is Unzeitgemaesse Betrachtungen.
The German word Zeit means "time" and the German word Ort means "place", so unortgemaesse Betrachtungen would be Thoughts out of Place or perhaps the thoughts of a man who is in the wrong place. Which is what I have been for most of my life: in the wrong place, in a place that is wrong for me. Readers of my blog will know my contempt for Europe. London itself might be bearable, weather or no weather, if not for two unforgivable defects: the women are bug-ugly and everything closes too early.
So UB was an expressive title for my blog, but the problem was that few people could pronounce it, fewer still could understand it and probably nobody would ever get it. Clever. Not smart.
Therefore, the new name of this blog is Chasing Waterfalls.
The title honors the magnificent Iguacu Falls, and it´s also a better expression of who I am.
Now, giving a blog this name was clever rather than smart. Here´s the back story:
The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote a book attacking the sacred cows of 19th century Germany. Because he believed (accurately) that his ideas would be more or less ignored in his lifetime, he gave his book a title which is quite hard to translate into English: I´ve seen it rendered as Expeditions of an Untimely Man; Untimely Meditations; and Thoughts Out of Season. (I like the last one best). At any rate, the title in German is Unzeitgemaesse Betrachtungen.
The German word Zeit means "time" and the German word Ort means "place", so unortgemaesse Betrachtungen would be Thoughts out of Place or perhaps the thoughts of a man who is in the wrong place. Which is what I have been for most of my life: in the wrong place, in a place that is wrong for me. Readers of my blog will know my contempt for Europe. London itself might be bearable, weather or no weather, if not for two unforgivable defects: the women are bug-ugly and everything closes too early.
So UB was an expressive title for my blog, but the problem was that few people could pronounce it, fewer still could understand it and probably nobody would ever get it. Clever. Not smart.
Therefore, the new name of this blog is Chasing Waterfalls.
The title honors the magnificent Iguacu Falls, and it´s also a better expression of who I am.
