Has the World Gone Batshit Crazy?

Chris Christie …..

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I’m not going to make any friends with this blog entry, but I am past that concern.

I’ll say it:  Trump is Crazy, Clinton I don’t trust, Cruz wraps himself in the Bible and I can’t find one person to vote for with confidence.  I liked Ben Carson, but he’s asleep, and probably our nation needs a  good neurosurgeon more than  another crazy politician.

Trump is a scoundrel, a misogynist, a pathological narcissist and I know my extreme narcissists when I see them.  God Almighty.  This guy’s platform is nothing but brio and insults.  Can you imagine Trump at an international conference in Europe, yelling, thumping the table with his shoe, acting like an ass?

Someone ‘important’ called Trump an ‘unstable narcissist’.  Well, that wouldn’t be so offensive IF he didn’t have a mighty military at his command.  But he would and then the fun begins.  Look out world.

I am as concerned about the Muslim invasion of Europe as much as anyone. People constantly ask where are the ‘moderate’ Muslims when terror happens by Islamic extremists?  Hiding under their beds, or claiming they are the real victims.  Bullshit.  These Muslims are as afraid of what would be in store for them IF they peeked out from their closets, etc.  They know that the sword of Islamic terrorists would take their heads as fast as any other person or group of people.

Hungary has been slammed for being right wing, putting up fences against the masses of Syrians, et al, but Hungary has long experience with Muslims.  Over the centuries, they have been invaded by Muslims many times. My Aunt Jean, who died in 2014 at the age of 102, and was Hungarian, said that our family were ‘pure’ Magyars…lovely, but I think we should remember all those invasions.

And about Turkey?  3 billion dollars were promised to Turkey to ‘try’ to keep these Syrian, etc. people in the settlement camps of Turkey, but now the head honcho of Turkey says it’s going to cost Europe 10 billion.  Of course it will.

Germany seems to be stuck in the guilt of Nazism and WWII.  So Merkel’s plan is to repopulate Germany with Muslims who in the main, have no interest in assimilating into German culture.  Merkel has fallen to the myth that 500,000 or 1 million Muslims is going to ‘repair’ what is wrong with Germany.  Fat chance.  What we see all over Europe today is truly troubling.  The rapes of women and children by young (and not so young)  Muslim men is beyond troubling.  Civil war is looming in Europe, and this is the root of WWIII.

I spent three years reading “Rise and Fall of the Third Reich”.  Just finished it this last fall.  The lessons in this remarkable book should be taken seriously.  Especially about the Brown Shirts.  I feel that Trump is possibly the ‘new” Hitler and the vicious, violent Brown Shirts can be either from the Left or Right.

So what is there to vote for?  Hillary scares me, she’s just a typical Washington politician,  and fat-ass Chris Christie looks like an expectant gopher ….expecting crumbs as a faithful servant of Trump.

I’ve had my rounds with ‘devote’ Christians.  I have two brothers who consider themselves Christians, but I wouldn’t.  Misogyny, arrogance and a lack of real humility is more to their methods, or brand of Christianity.  So Cruz and Rubio wrapping themselves in the Bible doesn’t get much from me.  I trust certain Christians as much as I trust Islamic terrorists. That goes for certain Jews of my knowledge.   Have I missed some group to insult?  Let me think…..The Buddhists in Indonesia aren’t so peaceful  lately.

Thirty years ago I would have voted for Bernie Sanders.  But now?  What the hell has he been doing?  Sitting amongst Vermont cheese rounds?

The real question  to me is this:  When will our country pull out of all these damn wars?  Trump and Clinton will continue these wars wherever there a foothold and we will not be free of this blight.

A thought on our southern migrants.  Trump wants to create a wall and Mexico is supposed to pay for it…Hah!  The money sent back to Mexico by illegals tops 30 billion a year) to stop this migration,  but almost all the farm workers that pick the crops, plant the crops, and are the only farm labor in this country…come from Mexico and lower on the map.  Farmers are very much against Trump because they see this policy as ruining American agriculture.  Certainly the middle level farms.  And further, farmers say that they can’t get Americans to do these jobs.  They just won’t do them.

Huh.

Last night I tuned in, by accident, to a Congresswoman from Hawaii.  She put it thus:  Sanders seems to be the only candidate who wants to break this war cycle.  I don’t know how he is going to do this, and his other proposals make me  queasy, but in the end….it seems that we are no closer to peace in our lifetimes than our parents were with WWII.

I don’t know.  Right now, I feel the only thing I can do is to plan the garden and read as much as my eyes will allow.  To be grateful to Nature surrounding me and to try to live my life in a more Peaceful way, avoiding human irritants, family or not,  ignoring the chaos that courses around me.  There is such confusion and corruption in life today. It makes it necessary to detach and fine values again.  This world is crazy and crazy-making.

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2016

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Violins and Head-Wound Hannah.

To those who don’t know me well, I was SUPPOSED to be a violinist. To those who know me well, and there are only a few who would claim that….they know why I’m not.

Jerry Steele is one who knows me very well, as  we go back to high school dozens of decades ago.  We are so old now and though we aren’t immortal, perhaps we are vampires or the undead in some important way.  At least it seems  to me to be so as we rack up life experiences and some of them very dangerous, yet we still puff along.  There has to be some explanation for all of this.  I’m remembering  motorcycles (him) horses and flying hockey pucks and misplaced hardballs……some nasty headwounds.

Jerry and my brothers are true musicians.  Anything they can get in their mouths, or under their fingers, they can play.  These guys even made their own instruments.  Jerry knows this to be true, because he was one of the early (I’m talking ’60’s) members of the myriad groups my brothers and others formed in Princeton High School.

Marrowbone Creek Vagrants was one of the earliest bluegrass bands.  They were incredible. Guitars, an old bass fiddle  (Jerry), mandolins, banjos, violins, dobro playing, foot stomping, errie harmony, rib sticking music.   Did you know that American Standard, who makes toilets also makes Bass Fiddles??   Just a ‘for your information’ piece of trivia.  (I’ve known this for decades, but just remembering makes me laugh…and it’s a good ‘out’ Jerry, for all that lousy toilet playing bass fiddle stuff….well, I’d lean on that genesis of the bass fiddle.  Hard instrument to play…almost as hard as enamel.)

But I was supposed to be a violinist.  My father tried hard to make his only daughter and first child one.  He bought me a lovely lionheaded Steiner somewhere, and it couldn’t have been cheap.  That violin was a 3/4 violin, and permanently messed up my fingering.  Or that’s my story and I’m sticking with it.

No, I am fishing around for any excuse I can find, because from 5th grade, I was the very worse violin student you could ever find.  My poor teachers (all men) dis pared of me even showing up for lessons, and my father made sure that I did.  As I remember, 5 days a week in school, because that was back when the curriculum of elementary school had arts and music.  Arts might be paste and construction paper, but music was a mainstay.

Mr. ____ (I can’t remember the name of this very gentle and kind man) in elementary school would look crestfallen when I appeared because he knew as my lack of proficiency grew with the violin, so did the excuses and my stubbornness.  I would drag the case down the hall, down steps, and knew by this trick that the violin would be out of tune by the time I reached him.  That would take up 5 minutes of a 40 minute lesson.  I complained about the rosin that made my teeth clench, I complained about the possibility of a string breaking and hitting me in the face, I complained about how the violin made my chin and shoulder sore.  This issue of the violin strings breaking was real, because I experienced them popping suddenly (and not when I was playing hard and fast) and slapping me across the face…and almost taking out an eye.

There were a lot of head wounds in childhood, and the violin just contributed to this.  I wanted to play the bugle, something that my father, a French Horn player…a serious musician, brought home for us kids, but he threw a hard ball to his only daughter who insisted that she knew how to catch it, (and placed the mitt right in front of her face) and it went through the mitt (and I don’t think it even hit the leather) and badly bruised the left of my face,  including my mouth.  The swelling for a week stopped my bugle career because my mother was a nurse and thought I would permanently damage my face if I continued.  Who knows?  She probably was right, and considering other handicaps, perhaps I would never get married?  A major concern of mothers back then with tomboy daughters…

The four years of high school for violin playing got no better.  I remember vaguely being in orchestra, so I must have learned something. I remember my violin teacher, a lovely hard pressed man who was orchestra and band teacher, on the floor, picking up my foot, and pressing it down, trying to make me play some sort of rhythm, with me on top playing the stupid, rosin flying violin and STILL not getting the rhythm.

I remember the ‘etudes’….some Polish or Frenchman who was determined to kill school violinists by these practice pieces.  I can still play them in my sleep, and actually they weren’t too bad…musically.  They were actual music.  I must have practiced them because I still have dreams of the fingering, and that is why I am writing this blog entry because I was having a nightmare about the Violin.

In college….Westminster Choir College, I was a violin minor. Very minor if you ask me.  I had one of the finest violinists around the NE, Nicholas Harashonyi…a fellow Hungarian of my father’s friendship who was head of the string department there.  He wanted me to give up voice (major) and ‘apply myself’ to violin, but no going.

I knew my limits.  I  hated the violin much more than he loved it.

Years later I actually picked up the same Steiner (which was never returned by a ‘friend’ because his daughters had fallen in ‘love’ with it..) and played bluegrass on radio with a band.  A couple of times, but I really still hated that violin.

But karma has something to do with our lives in some sneaky way, and I haven’t been able to shake the damn instrument.  Just when I thought it safe to go back into the water, my brother, who plays every instrument made…including the oud and lute…and does so professionally, bought me a full sized violin from China.  That was about 4 years ago.  I played it once outside on the patio at my mother’s in Savannah, and then packed it back in the nice case.  It actually was not a bad fiddle.   We were very surprised…because we had been such snobs about instruments, and apparently China has churned out some excellent fiddles lately.

I forget that I come from fiddle players.  My paternal grandfather was a Hungarian fiddle player, first somewhere in Budapest, and then founded the first Hungarian Folk Band in the US in the early part of the 20th century.  For years his lovely fake Strad. propped open an attic window.  I remember my father carefully driving to NYC to have it appraised by a famous fiddle maker.  It was lovingly wrapped in a blanket and placed on the front seat of his VW.  On the trip back it was in the back seat, so I guess the fiddle wasn’t a Strad.  But the label inside said it was…..Cremona something….17th century.  My brothers I HOPE still have  that fiddle.  Never know…most kids traded baseball cards, my brothers traded lots of instruments.

About  4 years ago, Jerry Steele put down the guitar and his bass fiddle and picked up a violin.  Jerry is one man who will punish himself with hard work, and picking up the violin at our age is torture.  But he soldiered on.  He actually learned to play this devilish instrument.  I remember him calling once a week and cursing the damn instrument. We had plans for us to do a duet (we had a very long history in HS with music together….folk bands, etc…and a bit after if I remember well…but Jerry was really the musician…I just sang and hung out) but I dropped my end of it.  I still hated the violin with great passion.

Perhaps it didn’t help  we picked “The Maiden’s Lament” or some such song….I even got a cd of it, but it was fruitlooped because it got really complex in the middle of the piece, and Jerry, who heard it over the phone said: What the fuck was that??? and kinda killed it right there.

Well, Jerry, I know you try to read this blog every day…mostly…something about RSS bottomfeeders or something like that..you will be ‘happy’ to know  the violin is back.  I had a terrible time finding the ‘d’ on the damn thing to tune….because the ‘d’ on my old baby grand has popped….lol! and for some reason, the violin wasn’t cooperating at all.  Must have been the rosin again.

But!  “The Maiden is Lamenting” again and the cats are scattering and the dogs look like they are going to howl, and THIS time, I’m going to again meet you in NYC with the violin tucked under my chin and we can play that damn duet.

In about 3 years.  I even cut off my fingernails.  See? I’m serious this time.  And the rosin doesn’t bother me anymore, either.

Lady Nyo

“Diary of a Changeling” Part 9

A continuation of the “Diary” series in a different form…but slightly.

Diary of a Changeling, #9

Diary Entry, July 20th, 1940

S. has gone out, and I finally get a chance to write.

This morning, breakfast definitely showed the scarcity of food Parisians are suffering.  S. tells me the countryside fares better. There is the blackmarket in Paris, but the prices!  Bread is almost not to be had.

The damn boches are demanding that all the good stuff be sent to Germany, so there goes our meats, flour and cheeses.

I wonder about S.  After our meager breakfast of stale-ish bread and tea, she suggested that I go with MN into the countryside and see what I could obtain from the farmers. She mentioned that MN would be meeting with a man about some business…what she never clarifies.  At that time I could take baskets and buy whatever was possible at the farm houses or the village market.  I asked where, and apparently we are to return to the farmhouse she owns.

That is all to the good, because perhaps MN and I will be able to stay over again in that lumpy bed.

Right after breakfast, one of these damn Germans came to visit and brought a sack of flour.  S. was very gracious and poured him some of her dwindling cognac.

I wonder what her neighbors think with these Germans welcome in her salon?

Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2008

“Diary of a Changeling” Part 6

These have been extended outwards from one form to more of a quickie.  Hope that doesn’t raise any sand….they are not flashers because they have no beginning/middle/end in each episode.  They are a continuation.

‘Nuff said.

Lady Nyo

Diary of a Changeling

Diary, June 28, 1940 (#6)

I was at S.’s today, telling her about our night over in the countryside.

How MN filled the woodstove with splits stacked in the kitchen, how the stove puffed and groaned and how good the three eggs I found in the old hen house tasted. I heard a rooster crow so there must be hens around. I took a chance but the eggs were fresh.

S. laughed, she seemed at ease.  She said I am good for MN.  He needs a diversion in his life. He needs a woman to fry him eggs in the morning. He needs a woman to warm his bed at night.

MN has never told me about his past.  I thought it would come in time.  There is such little chance now, with him scarce and not even S. knowing where he is from day to day.

But I do miss him, and wonder what he is up to.  When I see him, I fall under his spell, and my body responds to his presence faster than my mind.  My skin seems softer, my movements more languid.  S. laughs when she questions me, saying all this is natural.

He is a man and I am a woman.  What could be more normal?

S. and I were having our usual talk when the maid informed her the German, Lieutenant Wolflauf was downstairs.

This German is very cordial, quiet, but commanding.  He kissed my hand, which I thought outrageous considering his army has just invaded Paris.

I sat and said little. S. was her usual self, elegant and unflappable, but I could tell a bit nervous.

I kept staring at his shiny black boots.  They seemed more than boots, and they made me nervous for some reason. They were like mirrors into the future.

Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2008

“Diary of a Changeling” #8

Another installment …..ANOTHER NON_FLASHER

Diary, #8

I have settled in with S. for three days now. I thought it best for I can’t get back to England now because of the war. S. has a magic wand to produce the good cheeses and we actually have a bottle of wine at dinner.

I saw MN yesterday for the first time since I moved. He looked drawn and tired, but he was hungry, and it wasn’t for food.

S. has given me some blouses, silk, and some skirts. She is taller but the skirts I can hem. The silk feels lovely and she gave me some beautiful lace and silk brassieres. They make me feel sexy.

Had an effect on MN when he appeared at S.’s. He grabbed me up and pushed me against the wall, palming my breasts. I would have raised my leg around his hip, a la Tango style, but the damn skirt was too narrow. Didn’t matter too much because he grew pressed against me and put my hand on his cock.

We heard S. come back down the hall, heels tapping on the polished floor. I broke away, settling my clothes.

I didn’t fool S. one bit. Her smile said it all.

Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2008

“Diary of a Changeling” #7

N.B. THIS IS A NON-FLASHER FORM.  Mackerals flying around here..

This series is proving popular with some and absolutely hated by others. Perhaps it is frustrating because the truncated, flasher form (200 words) leaves too many questions as to what is happening and this form doesn’t give enough to keep some folks interest.

For others, the form does exactly this: it creates tension and nuance that draws them into the web of the story. I have received some emails privately from readers that are frustrated because they want MORE story immediately and have asked to ditch the flasher form and write longggg. And about the same who appreciate the ‘tease’ of the story as presented.

I could go long, but then the tension would be lost I believe. And, I think the story out as I go. I think this is important for any writer in that we bridle ourselves and enjoy the ride. For why do we write these things if not for ourselves first, and then others?

Lady Nyo

Diary #7

S. rang me up this morning. She wants me to consider moving to her apartment. She says she has too much room, and she gets lonely for company.

I think she is worried about me and wants me close. That is fine, MN also stays there on occasion and we would have more access to each other.

It would be nice to be able to sleep with him in a big, comfortable bed. That lumpy mattress did little for my bones.

S. is worried because I am thinner. It’s hard to get a normal diet with food rationing and the stores depleted. The Germans are getting the milk, butter and meat. We are seeing rutabagas and turnips showing up more and more and bread and cheeses are almost non existent.

There are posters appearing all over the boulevards, condemning the Jews, even saying “Kill the Jews.” Saying they wanted the war, let them have it.

Idiots! These have to be the French collaborating with the stupid Germans. Decent French would not sully their minds with such crap.

S. said we are living in dangerous times and it will get worse. We are surrounded with enemies posing as friends.

Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2008

“The Diaries”…continuing… these are ‘flashers’, 200 word stories…

WARNING: THESE are NOT Flashers….a whole lot of fish here (mackerals)

These flashers ‘tell’ an ongoing story about a woman caught in Paris when the Germans invaded France in the summer of 1940. She is involved in a sadomasochist relationship with “MN” who is a Frenchman.

Lady Nyo

DIARY OF A CHANGELING #4

Diary: June 21, 1940

MN is back. I was at S.’s and he just appeared! It’s been a week and of course I had questions, but S. warned me. Don’t ask him anything.

MN seemed tired, his face thinner, paler. But looking at him, my own gut clenching, there is little difference. Still that same full mouth, that smile which touched on a cynicism with all life, those eyes so expressive, or maybe I am so much in thrall with his power I can’t see the truth: he is just a man.

No, he is more. He is much more, now. And he knows it. There was almost an invisible thread that connected us across the room. All propriety with S. there, but when she answered the phone across the room, MN turned to me, his hand across his mouth, hiding his smile. Only his eyes danced over his hand, and it was enough for me to feel this flush of lust.

S. announced a Lieutenant Wolauf was to visit.

MN left too soon. Only a kiss on the cheek and a whispered “a demain, a demain” and he was gone.

Two cold words to warm me.

Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2008

Diary of a Changeling

Diary: June 24th, 1940 (#5)

The division of France is done, and no one is happy except the Germans and Marshal Petain. S. is puffing her stinky Gauloises, nervous. I can’t stand to be around her.

Petrol is scarce, but MN took me in S’s car out to the countryside. He has use of a farmhouse and this was new for us.

The house is old, with beamed ceilings and a stone sink in the kitchen. We ate bread,. stinky cheese and a bottle of wine.

Upstairs in the bedroom, MN said we shouldn’t ‘waste’ the beams and tied me with ropes he brought.

Perhaps it was the wine, or perhaps I am ‘getting tougher’ but he gave me more lashes than usual. I didn’t want to stop, but he was still careful.

This pain gets my attention fast, radiating outward and inward at the same time. MN stuck his hand in my crack and rubbed, cooing in my ear, whispering French nothings, soothing my tears with his breath.

We made love for the first time, MN slowly touching my body from my feet to my neck with his tongue and hands.

Why am I doing this? Because I must.

Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2008

Diary of a Changeling

Diary, June 28, 1940 (#6)

I was at S.’s today, telling her about our night over in the countryside.

How MN filled the woodstove with wood stacked in the kitchen, how the stove puffed and groaned and how good the three eggs I found in the old hen house tasted. Hens were around so the eggs were fresh.

S. laughed, she seemed at ease. She said I am good for MN. He needs a diversion in his life. He needs a woman to fry him eggs in the morning.

MN has never told me about his past. I thought it would come in time. There is such little chance now, with him scarce and not even S. knowing where he is from day to day.

S. and I were having our usual talk when the maid informed her the German, Lieutenant Wolflauf was downstairs.

This German is very cordial, quiet, but commanding. He kissed my hand, which I thought outrageous considering his army has just invaded Paris.

I sat and said little. S. was her usual self, elegant and unflappable, but a bit nervous.

I kept staring at his shiny black boots. They seemed more than boots. They were like mirrors that saw the future.

Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2008

“Diary of a Changeling”……6 NON-flashers….

WARNING: These are NOT flashers for the above (much above) reasons..they are scenes that just happen to be 200 words long each.  They will stretch themselves in the newest episodes.  Don’t want any more mackerals flying around..

I’m going to post all 6 of these  non-flashers (200 word scenes) I have very recently written. I am doing so because people have asked to read them in sum…and I thought…why the hell not?

I post these one at a time on ERWA, but that is too slow for some readers..and i can understand their feelings. This was something I wanted to write to answer some of the pain/pleasures issues that I was discovering for myself recently, and I have set them in Germany, summer of 1940 when the Nazis entered and occupied France in general, and here, Paris.

Nazis, a Sadist, woman exploring these pain/sexual issues, the French Resistance, Jews in the Resistance, etc. The juxtaposition of all this makes me queasy because the formation is …..tricky.

But if we can’t take risks with history and our writings…we don’t grow.

Lady Nyo

“Diary of a Changeling” in Six episodes so far… (3 today, 3 tomorrow)

DIARY OF A CHANGLING (#1)

I have started a series of flashers in an epistolary form. This follows the development of a woman who begins to understand the issues of pain and its application to arousal and sex.

Diary Entry 1

It finally happened last night. This morning I feel a stranger in my skin. The welts from his whip will disappear soon.

I never thought it could be so! How could I crave this—torture? How could pain do this to me? Am I normal?

S___ was the one who set it up. She didn’t tell me much, just that it was ‘time’. All those conversations over tea, those events I thought she was making up. They were just lascivious stories, something a friend would tell another to wile the afternoon away. Besides, S___ was a writer, a novelist. She cultivated her imagination.

“What do you mean, ‘it’s time’?” I asked.

I remember her laughing, placing her cup on the tea table.

I quote her:

“I can smell your excitement. It gets stronger with each visit. You must not deny anything, ma cherie. You are wet now, yes?”

S__ had smiled and said: “Your responses are obvious. You crave it.”

Ah! I can’t write anymore. My hands shake. Even now my face burns with blushes!
Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2008

DIARY OF A CHANGELING

Diary Entry 2.

I saw S. today. She smoking a stinky Gauloises and looking so chic. French women are born this way, with no efforts to be so.

She asked me how it went with MN. I struggled to answer, my hands shaking, my teacup rattling in the saucer.

I told her ‘it went well.’ How could I explain??

We made small talk for she was expecting a guest and I was leaving anyway.

But my mind recalled when MN. traced the whip handle down my back, making me shiver. I remembered his breath in my ear, the scent of him close to my skin, the cuffs on my wrists, how he stroked my flesh, warming it with his hand, cupping my breast and my ass. Dipping his hand in my wetness.

Nothing could have prepared me for that first strike. The sting was like a hornet, the pain radiating outward, making me gasp. His whip owned me with the first blow. What had I done? I wanted to scream.

Rising to leave, MN. walked in. I froze. I saw S. smile. MN. kissed her hand, and turned. I must have looked the fool.

Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2008

Diary: June 14th, 1940 (#3)

I was looking out the window with S. and watching the Germans march past. They passed forever, seemingly endless supply of men in black boots.

S. is very nervous and puffed on her terrible Gauloises. I could have screamed but we are all bundles of nerves. She said things would radically change and we will have to ‘make do.’

I don’t know about S. though. She is well placed and has lovers in the government. She has the best brie and wine.

I can’t get back to England now, am dependent upon S. MN.disappeared this last week, but S. tells me he will be back, he is on ‘business’. What kind she doesn’t say.

He was a bit too lavish with the whip this last time, and my back and buttocks are still bruised. It is strange how these bruises have become something different to me than just examples of pain. His whip stings me, but he knows to wait and in the waiting something happens. I am resolved to find out more. Of course, this is rather outre considering what is happening outside the windows now.

I have become obsessed. Pain is the portal.

Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2008