...and pretty exhausted, despite which it will be a day at UEA for me tomorrow. Arrived home to find many copies of the double-whopping New and Collected Poems waiting complete with C's splendid cover, plus the handsome volume of Dr Sears's anatomy of my verses that I am almost afraid to read in case he pronounces me subtly dead. And some copies of my new Márai translation, Esther's Inheritance.
More tomorrow. This is tired stuff. Here's a picture of Frankfurt scraped off the web. I was disappointed not to find the four people shown at the bottom of the picture ready and in position. Not even the dog! O eternal disappointment! Now C will have to scrape me off the floor.
3 comments:
Hi George, Welcome back to Blighty. Did you shout "Ich bin ein Frankfurter!" I bet you did.
At first I misread the end of your last post as "C waits sharp clawed" but then I thought now hang on Gwilym this is George Szirtes not Dylan Thomas. This is George's C not Dylan's C - not Caitlin the wild Irish wifely cat.
Welcome home, George. I believe the reason so many young people were there was because Cracow is one of the largest university cities in Europe.
Now to a puzzle. For me. Who better to ask than you. You use the spelling 'Cracow'. Euronews spells it Krakow. Even their own official city blog spells it Krakow. Who is right and why? :)
By the way, a few of the guys, including Foster boy and Moi, are off there probably May 9th. We will be staying in the Jewish Quarter. Here, probably.
http://www.antiqueapartments.com/
I'm surprised that these youngsters - late 30's/ early40's - have chosen to stay in antique apartments when only one qualifies for residence. Ah well.
Another question for your wise mind. Some of the 'boys' are unsure about visiting Auschwitz. I've been there and left feeling somewhat disorientated. I don't know why. Only after I had visited the Daniel Libeskind's design Jewish Museum in Berlin did I have the answer. I walked into the Holocaust Tower and understood exactly what had missed me at Auschwitz. The awful finality of it all. I never shed a tear in Auschwitz/ Birkenhau, but I was tearful as I left that empty, poignent tower. It was if I had walked into the exit those poor souls had used before they left us.
At Auschwitz, they left behind their shoes. Maybe I'm a silly old boy, but those empty shoes said it all for me.
Right, back to the spelling and the advice I can pass on to these youngsters?
Thank you, Billy - just brief since I am at uni now. I have used both Cracow and Krakow myself. I noticed that when I used K to friend Eva Hoffman, who is from there, she replied using C. I didn't ask why, but will do so.
There they use the K. But then the French say Londres for London and the Hungarians use Parizs for Paris.
Both C and K are used as far as I can see, but I wonder whether anything hangs by Eva (originally Ewa)'s preference for C?
I'll respond to the rest later.
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