R.L. Swihart's Blog, page 28

NZ's Tui

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From Sebald's A Place in the

The painter Friedrich Pecht, in a reminiscence from this time, relates how on several occasions he observed Mörike noting down things which came into his head on special scraps and pieces of paper, only soon afterward to take these notes and “tear them up again into little pieces and bury them in the pockets of his dressing gown.”

NZ's Blue Duck

 

New Zealand Blue Duck @ Orana Wildlife (near Christchurch). I didn't see this beauty in the wild (it's endangered), but was lucky enough to get a few good shots at Orana. TGIF. Enjoy the weekend.
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Red-crowned Parakeet in New Zeal

New Zealand's Red-crowned Parakeet (Maori name kakariki) in the Orana Wildlife Park (near Christchurch). A Happy Little Fella for you on a cloudy Friday in SoCal: TGIF. Enjoy your weekend.;)🎈🦜
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Red-crowned Parakeet in New Zealand

New Zealand's Red-crowned Parakeet (Maori name kakariki) in the Orana Wildlife Park (near Christchurch). A Happy Little Fella for you on a cloudy Friday in SoCal: TGIF. Enjoy your weekend.;)🎈🦜

#rlswihart #oranawildlifepark #newzealand #christchurch #parakeetsofinstagram #redcrownedparakeet #nature #beauty #poetry #readmorepoetry2024🎈🦜🪶

Speak, Silence

One of the best scholars of Sebald, Uwe Schütte, argues that his grief for his grandfather was the real one in his life and work, the one for the victims of the Third Reich a psychic cover. That is going much too far: it is as wrong to say that the Holocaust is not Sebald’s subject as to say that it is his only one. His grief over German crimes was what broke him, and what he wrote about. But this grief was the first.†

White-fronted Tern

New Zealand Birds: White-fronted Terns @ Rangitoto Wharf. They and some Variable Oystercatchers (my shots of those were less impressive) were there to greet us. Gone by the time we went back. 

#rlswihart13 #newzealand #rangitotoisland #newzealandbirds #whitefrontedterns #ternsofinstagram #summithike #insearchofthesaddleback #pestfreeisland #nature #beauty #poetry #readmorepoetry2024♥️ 🪶

Speak, Silence

The other question concerns Dr Abramsky. He is certainly invented: no doctor can talk about a patient, and everything he tells the narrator about Ambros’s torture is in the books Sebald consulted. He is also symbolic: a saint and martyr for the guilt of Samaria, with his fire-red hair like the flames over the heads of the Apostles. But now there’s a problem. The horror for which he bears the guilt, though he has deeply repented, is German: the annihilation method, so reminiscent of other German annihilation methods. But Abramsky is a Jewish name, and he grew up in Leopoldstadt, which is the Jewish quarter of Vienna. And Samaria, as Abramsky’s sanatorium is called, is Jewish too – Judea and Samaria made up the ancient kingdom of Israel. Sebald certainly knew all these things; yet he chose them. It is strange enough that the models for Sebald’s Jewish characters are so often non-Jews. But that is a hidden strangeness; this one is visible to every reader. Why is Abramsky, the bearer of German guilt, a Jew? His part of ‘Adelwarth’ is one of the most beautiful, but also the most disturbing.

Speak, Silence: In Search of W.G. Sebald

Cosmo Solomon is Sebald’s image of what happens when you can hear the grass grow and the squirrel’s heart beat, as George Eliot wrote; when you hear the roar on the other side of silence.

New Zealand Fantail

NZ Fantail (I thought "Helicopter Bird" but I guess for the Maori he had several long names, e.g., piwaiwaka, and was a messenger from the gods concerning life or death). This one I shot in heavy shade on Rangitoto (pest free island about a 40 minute ferry ride from Auckland), and if you don't like the flowers I'll try to post one later that I took mid-trip near Hokitika (South Island, West Coast). New Zealand: trip of a lifetime, though I told my wife if we ever go back I want to go all the way to Stewart Island. New Zealand Birds: many "lifers" (seen or "sacked"). But also nice to be back.♥️ 🪶

#rlswihart13 #newzealand #rangitotoisland #pestfree #shoescrub #summithike #newzealandfantail #helicopter #messengerofgods #lifeanddeath #nature #beauty #poetry #readmorepoetry2024♥️