As it may be, the subject heading of this blog is two separate subjects, but I guess one could say language is difficult to also penetrate dreams. But dreams first, I had my first dream last night where I was uttering a Russian phrase. Ya paneemayoo, which means "I understand". Which is funny, because later in the day I used the phrase again, this time in Spanish. yo entiendo. You could say that a prevalent theme throughout the day was that I understand. I get it. Dreams are significant for me. I don't think anyone should ever stop dreaming. I could expound, but I have a lot to say tonight and I must press on. Anyway, I watched part of this video at work. It's a guy who is dying's last lecture, he's a professor. I won't say anymore, except that you should watch it. I'll just post the video or the link, whichever I can figure out in my quasi-technical deficiency, but in my defense, I do know how to spell. Either copy and paste the link below or click on it, not sure if it's going to post as a link.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8577255250907450469&pr=goog-sl
Wow, so yea. It just keeps coming. Speaking again of simultaneous thoughts, I hate to bog you down with all of this deep thought but it's pretty heavy on my mind at the moment and this is my blog. ha. No I'll meander off to more whimsical places, in due time. So my simultaneous thoughts are having difficulty being sequentially ordered at the moment, fancy that. I will start with synchronicity, of which I am speaking when I say there is a place language cannot penetrate. That's me dorking out in my Foucoult linguistic mode which is a whole other schlep into the epistemological abyss. (Reading The Order of Things presently). Needless to say it followed me around today and yesterday. I'm not even going to attempt to present the web that's been weaved except with single phrases, because each of them is overlapping and definitely taking me somewhere. Maybe I'll discover the meaning of life. No, just kidding, I already know that. ha ha. Ok, so topics that have been presenting themself in multiplicity and overlapping in a vertical style rather than horizontal (thank you again Foucoult). Language and it's relevance to science, the study of knowledge and thought, Kant, The Master and The Margarita, death, patience, The Universe in a Single Atom, Jung, quantum physics, Jesus, peacocks, crazy people, Buddhism, rehab, recurrent power structures and last but not least, cuckoo clocks. Yes, coockoo clocks. Yep, that's what'sa goin around. Catch it if you can.
And now for the history of cuckoo clocks. I want one. I forget where this topic sprung into my head but I think a cuckoo clock would just look great on my wall.
Origins in the Black Forest
A short history of the origin of cuckoo clocks in Germany in the 17th century.
Germany in the 17th century was a hard place. Europe was going through a mini-ice age, and it was so cold during the winters that milk sometimes froze in the pail between the barn and the house.
In the Black Forest area of Germany, opinion has it that around the year 1630 a glass peddler who had traveled to Czechoslovakia brought back a crude, wooden clock called a “wood-beam clock” which used wooden gears and common stones as weights. There was no pendulum; it used instead a piece of wood called a “Waag” which moved back and forth above the clock dial. Crude or not, the clock was a definite improvement over the hourglasses and sundials that were the norm in those days.
The Black Forest
The original clock was greatly improved upon over the years by the volk of the Black Forest, and clock peddlers ( “Ührschleppers” in German) began taking the clocks all over Europe. The people would work at clock making during the Winter and the Ührschleppers would take them off for re-sale in the Spring.
In 1712, Friedrich Dilger from the village of Urach went to France for a year to study advances in clocks and clockmaking tools, and brought better technology back with him.
The clock caught on, and people began to make clocks in their homes during the long, harsh winters. These clocks soon became an important source of income; particularly among the so-called “Häuslers”. The custom of inheritance by primogeniture (i.e. the 1st born son inherits) was in effect and other, younger sons usually received only a small plot of land for a hut and had to work for others in order to survive. Very shortly, clock making was a roaring cabin industry.
But these clocks were still not cuckoo clocks. There were “artist clocks” in some European cities which had moving figures; the Astronomical Clock, which is in Prague and was built in 1410, is replete with animated, allegorical figures. Among others, there is a skeleton representing Death who turns over an hourglass while his bones rattle, and a rooster that crows each hour as the climax to the elaborate show put on by the clock. There were also small, domestic clocks that had, for example, a dancing couple turning this way and that, or a butcher striking a cow with an ax, but no cuckoo clocks.
An Ührschlepper
Triberg
Death and Greed—Prague
The very first cuckoo clock is attributed to Anton Ketterer of the village of Schönwald who added the famous cuckoo to his clocks in 1738. It is possible that the rooster clocks were Ketterer’s inspiration. It was certainly easier to make a clock go “coo-coo” than making it crow, but it still must have been difficult to develop the mechanism to do this. Ketterer’s answer was the same gadget that is used today; twin bellows that send air through small pipes like a pipe organ.
By this time, clockmaking had become widespread in the Black Forest, and folks began to specialize. Some cut gears, others carved the decorations or made the cases, and still others did the painting. Many cuckoo clocks in the 18th and 19th centuries were painted with elaborate scenes on the front of the case. According to one source, in 1808 in the town of Triberg, 790 of the towns 9,013 residents were involved in clockmaking. In 1850, the Duke of Baden founded a school for clockmaking in Furtwangen which taught students drawing and mathematics in addition to movement and case-making.
The decorations on the cases of cuckoo clocks have developed into different styles or themes. There are, as an example, the “Hunter’s Clocks” which have guns, powder horns, ammunition pouches and game animals decorating the clock. The animals can be represented as alive or dead. Many people prefer live animals on their clocks.
Then, there are the “Bahnhäusle” style of clocks that are usually festooned with grapevines. When a railroad was built in the Black Forest in the 1860s, a number of tunnels had to be built. Skilled tunnel-builders were brought in from Italy who, naturally, brought their life-styles and architecture with them. They built small lookout buildings along the railway which showed the Italian influence and which were often adorned with wild grapevines. These picturesque structures were the inspiration for the Bahnhäusle cuckoo clocks.
See cuckoo clocks below. After the jump, some fun I pulled from the vault. Sorry Michaela. But in all fairness I am showing the world how tough you are. The pictures speak for themself and Michaela packs a harder punch than I do, obviously. :) I got lots more to inform you on. Like how to make goat cheese, Tikkum Olam, the history of body hair removal, and other deep thoughts or random frivolties of the mind. Life is good. And I'm going to Puerto Rico, where I'm going to zone out and let the ocean breeze carry my imagination to grandiose places like living in a foreign land. lol. You see why I like cuckoo clocks? Cuz I'm cuckoo. har har.
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