My Construction Projects

I describe, with photos, drawings and text, the various construction projects I undertook on our house after my retirement in do-it-yourself fashion. Along the way, I attempt to convey a sense of "how architects think".

My Construction Projects

By Ulrich Flemming

Sardinia 2023. A Photo Diary

My first trip after the pandemic! The text is in German, but the narrative is easy to understand, and the (sometimes spectacular) pictures should speak for themselves anyway.

Sardinien 2023

By Ulrich Flemming

Meta-Villanelle

Mein Freund Thom, offenbar inspiriert von meiner Fußball-Villanelle, hat mir die folgende Meta-Villanelle geschickt, eine Villanelle über Villanellen.

© Thomas Kreifelts

Ich bin die Villanelle
und bleibe hier am Ort.
Ich tret nur auf der Stelle.

Das gleichsam auf die Schnelle
hab' ich noch nie gemocht.
Ich bin die Villanelle.

Ich kreise um die Quelle
und dreh mich immerfort.
Ich tret nur auf der Stelle.

Ich reit auf keiner Welle,
ich kenn ja kaum das Wort.
Ich bin die Villanelle.

Ich jage keine Bälle
und treibe keinen Sport.
Ich tret nur auf der Stelle.

Selbst für den Fall der Fälle
geh ich hier nicht mehr fort.
Ich bin die Villanelle.
Ich tret nur auf der Stelle.

Fußball-Villanelle

Ror Wolf in memoriam

Die Villanelle ist eine ungemein anspruchsvolle Gedichtform: 6 Strophen mit dem Reimschema ABA ABA ABA ABA ABA ABAA (d.h. es gibt nur zwei Reime), wobei die erste und dritte Zeile der ersten Strophe abwechselnd die nächsten 4 Strophen beenden und zusammen die letzten beiden Zeilen der letzten Strophe bilden. Der unermüdlich wiederholte Reim und die immer wiederkehrenden Zeilen haben einen fast hypnotischen Effekt—sie schaffen einen Gedankenkreis, aus dem es keinen Ausweg zu geben scheint.

Eine Villanelle zu schreiben, die nicht gekünstelt klingt, ist eine Herausforderung. Der hab ich mich gestellt, allerdings in einem eher humorvollen Zusammenhang, als Hommage für Ror Wolf, den von mir sehr geschätzten Stammvater des deutschen Fußballgedichts.

© Ulrich Flemming

Der Ball ging heut nicht rein,
Trotz einundzwanzig Schüssen.
Es hat nicht sollen sein.

Mit einer falschen Neun
Wollt' es der Trainer wissen.
Der Ball ging heut nicht rein.

Doch mit 'ner echten Neun
Hätten wir siegen müssen.
Es hat nicht sollen sein.

Die spielten nur klein-klein
Mit Blei in ihren Füßen.
Der Ball ging heut nicht rein.

Der Coach sah mürrisch drein
Und fand es „echt beschissen“.
Es hat nicht sollen sein.

Wir werden, als Verein,
nun damit leben müssen.
Der Ball ging heut nicht rein.
Es hat nicht sollen sein.

Addendum: Offenbar inspiriert von meiner Villanelle hat mein Freund Thomas Kreifelts eine Meta-Villanelle verfasst.

German Soccer Terms

I am watching the German Bundesliga on ESPN+. The commentators are typically fluent in German and do not hesitate to insert German terms into their remarks, when they cannot think of an equivalent word in English or when they want to add some local color (or simply show off). Some of these terms are common words used metaphorically. But most of them have been coined specifically for the soccer context. Whatever their origin, they tend to be very expressive, and I started a collection (click on the link below). Collection of German soccer terms

Schwalbenkönig Neymar

Travels with Laraine

A photo album showing selected images taken during trips my wife, Laraine, and I made to countries in the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia. The travel photos are interspersed with pictures we took of each other or taken of us by others. The subtext is to show how two people grow old together.

Travels with Laraine

By Ulrich Flemming

Word of the Month: Der Zweisiedler, die Zweisiedlerin

Word of the Month: Index

For the first time, I'm introducing a WoM that does not appear in the Duden, the official dictionary of the German language—it's an invention of mine, triggered by the life my wife and I have been living during the current pandemic. The term is formed after Einsiedler, the German word for a hermit, which consists of the components ein (one) and Siedler (settler): It's a "one-settler", a person living by himself in almost complete isolation. Einsiedlerin is the female form.

Now, zwei is the German word for "two", and a Zweisiedler denotes a person who lives with another person in almost complete isolation, and that's what I have become over the last year and a half. My wife is the corresponding Zweisiedlerin.



Our contacts with other people have been reduced to the absolute minimum—doctors, sales staff, repair people, and the occasional visit with a friend, no longer masked because everybody, and I really mean everybody, among our acquaintances has been fully vaccinated. Of course, the relative isolation of our house, on its 3.5 acres of land and surrounded by woods and, closer by, a garden needing a lot of attention, encourages this kind of life. But the funny thing is, we like it—we feel the world at large is in such a sorry state that retreating from it is an obvious choice (if one can afford it), and that's what we have in common with the original hermits when they chose to live all by themselves in the desert or on a mountain top.

Addendum (9/15/2021): My friend Thomas Kreifelts sent me this e-mail (m.t.):
Yes, really very nice. The meaning becomes immediately obvious after months of the pandemic.
But as far as the priority of word creation is concerned, I have to pour a little water into your wine, because "Zweisiedler" is already an entry in the Grimms' dictionary [by the famous Grimm brothers—U.F.] (vol. XVI 1954) with Jean Paul, Nietzsche and Peter Rosegger given as sources, all 19th century: Zweisiedler. I liked Rosegger best.

The meaning these authors assign to the term is somewhat different in each case (and from mine), but each of them apparently took delight in forming a tongue-in-cheek analogy to an established term, and since at least two of them are considered masters of German prose, I am not at all saddened by the fact that I can no longer consider myself the inventor of the word—rather, I am flattered by finding myself in such distinguished company, and I'm grateful that Thom pointed this out to me.

Word of the Month: Der Schlachtenbummler

Word of the Month: Index

There is an obvious reason for the present WoM, the UEFA 2020 soccer tournament taking place, in spite of its official name, right now, in the summer of 2021. Schlachten is the plural of Schlacht (battle) as in Schlacht von Waterloo (Battle of Waterloo). Bummler is a noun derived from the verb bummeln, to dawdle or, and that’s the meaning in the present term, to stroll in a leisurely fashion. A Schlachtenbummler, then, is a person who strolls from battle to battle, where the battles in question are typically not of a military nature.



The term is used most frequently to denote soccer fans who travel from town to town to watch matches, especially those involving their favorite team. The general connotation is that they behave peacefully—nobody would call soccer hooligans Schlachtenbummler (the plural is the same as the singular): Yes, they look for battles, literally, but they want to participate in them, not just watch them. The accompanying photo shows my two brothers and me as Schlachtenbummler during the 2006 World Cup in Germany.

An aside: There is an obvious relation, both linguistically and semantically, between Schlacht and the verb schlachten (to slaughter). But this does not mean that one is derived from the other; rather, both derive from a Middle High German word for "kill" [Source: Online Duden].

UEFA Euro 2020, played this year

In the past, I created posts on which soccer fans among my friends and I could discuss and comment on the games played during a concurrent soccer tournament. It was great fun, and I am doing this again for the UEFA Euro 2020 competition from June 11 to July 11, which was delayed by a year due to the pandemic.

For the group phase, Germay finds herself in the mother of all "groups of death", Group F with, aside from Germany, the reigning World Champion, France, and the reigning European Champion, Portugal. Hungary will complete the quartet.

In the old days, only the first- and second-placed teams of each group advanced to the elimination rounds. This would have meant that Germany would have to finish ahead of France or Portugal in Group F to get beyond the group phase, a daunting prospect given the decidedly mixed record of the German side over the past several years. But UEFA, in its wisdom, decided in 2016 to increase the total number of participating teams from 16 to 24, which makes it necessary to start the elimination phase with a round of 16 that also includes the 4 third-placed teams with the best records. That is to say, 4 points in the group phase (1 victory and 1 draw in 3 matches) will probably be enough to advance. In fact, even 3 points may be enough, as demonstrated by Portugal during Euro 2016: They tied three times during the group phase, advanced to the elimination round as a third-placed team, and won the tournament in the end! And so, even a team with a checkered recent record like Germany's has a chance to advance beyond the group phase.

I will start the discussion in my first comment with a few additional observations about the German side.

Word of the Month: Das Affentheater

Monkeys and apes are Affen, and an Affentheater is, in the literal sense, a theater production performed by such animals. But the term is used always figuratively, to denote actions by a group of people behaving in a noisy, exaggerated, or annoying fashion that is ultimately pointless. It's a catchy image that captures succinctly a multitude of (mainly negative) connotations, and that's why I like the term.



Its use is best illustrated by an example. On Jan. 6, 2021 some far-right members of Congress tried to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election by formally objecting to the certified results from several states during the—essentially ceremonial—joint certification session in Congress. These efforts were doomed to failure from the outset, as the objections would have required majorities in both Houses to be sustained, and these majorities were simply not there. Like everyone else, the politicians raising the objections knew this, but did it anyway, as a political stunt and with great fanfare, apparently to impress their right-wing base. As a result, the ceremony was delayed twice for hours to allow for pointless debates whose outcomes were known from the outset. To me, these debates illustrated nicely what Germans call Affentheater.

Note also that the term does not apply to the storming of the Capitol by a right-wing mob on the same day, which interrupted the confirmation session and caused mayhem inside and outside the Capitol for hours. This was a riot with far-reaching consequences at home and abroad and far more sinister than anything one would call an Affentheater—exasperating as it may be, an Affentheater will in the end amount to not much more than an annoyance.

Word of the Month: Index

Word of the Month: Der Wichtigtuer

Word of the Month: Index

I'm reviving the word-of-the-month feature, which has been dormant for a while, to introduce a word that has been on my mind a lot these days.

Wichtig is an adjective meaning "important", and a tuer (derived from the verb tun—to do) is someone who does something or acts. A Wichtigtuer, then, is a person who "makes him- or herself important", i.e. seeks the limelight. The term is more specific than the English "attention-getter": A Wichtigtuer always participates in some public debate, whereas an attention-getter may simply dye a strand of hair baby-blue. That is, a Wichtigtuer is always an attention-getter, but not every attention-getter is a Wichtigtuer. Wichtigtuerin is the female form, and Wichtigtuerei is the noun, the thing a Wichtigtuer does.



The term often comes to my mind in connection with the current pandemic, where certain people take it upon themselves to criticize, for unconvincing reasons, the restrictions on public life recommended by epidemiologists. Note the emphasis on "unconvincing"—I do not deny the usefulness of a public, fact-based debate about the most effective response to the Covid19 virus. But I cannot take serious a self-proclaimed expert who claims that the pandemic is no more dangerous that the common flu—really? Do morgues overflow or are intensive care units in hospitals stretched to the limit on a regular basis during flu seasons? Why would anyone go public with such outlandish claims? To me, it's a Wichtigtuer, who cannot stand that others get all the attention.

Wichtigtuerei is also often at the core of the seemingly ever-increasing readiness of people to take offense (see my post on this topic). Take political cartoons as an example. Cartoonists exaggerate distinctive features of the persons they depict—Merkel's jowls, Obama's ears, Clinton's nose, Trump's corpulence—it's part of their job. This also means that when we can tell a person's ethnicity from his or her appearance in real life, we should also be able to tell it from their caricature. But when this happens, there will be, with predictable regularity, people accusing the cartoonist of racism on social media. I often feel that it's the only way for such people to feel self-important—they are Wichtigtuer (the plural is the same as the singular!).

Note that neither of these manifestations of Wichtigtuerei is harmless. People have died because they did not take the pandemic serious, and people have lost their jobs and careers have been destroyed by spurious accusations on social media.

New Photobook

This is my latest photo diary, describing a truly memorable 12-day trip through the Republic of Georgia, a small country that is fast turning into a go-to travel destination.
Preview at blurb.com

In my humble opinion, the book looks particularly good on an iPad or other Mac device. Get it here: iBooks edition

Word of the Month: Die Kulturbrille

Word of the Month: Index I'm reading Helen Macdonald's book Falcon, where she introduces, on the first page of the introduction, our current Word of the Month. It is a term coined by German-born Franz Boas (1858-1942), who is considered the father of American anthropology (pictured at right). The word has two compounds: Kultur ("culture") and Brille ("glasses" or "spectacles"). In Macdonald's words, it's "the invisible mental lens your own culture gives you through which you view the world". The author describes in subsequent chapters how our very human Kulturbrille makes falcons the "repository for human meanings". For Boas, it was important for anthropologists to become aware of their Kulturbrille to prevent them from making biased judgments about the alien cultures they encountered and tried to understand. The same is important for people like us, who increasingly live in a multi-cultural environment. I like the present term because it captures an abstract concept through a very concrete image, a characteristic it shares with other words of the month I have introduced.

FIFA World Cup 2018

Continuing a tradition I started many years ago, I'm creating again a post that allows the soccer fans among my friends to share thoughts about the tournament as it unfolds. The difference this time is that for health reasons, I cannot travel to Germany to watch the matches with my brothers. I have to find ways to do this here, which may mean that I cannot watch every match I want to see.

A few initial remarks. This Cup promises to be really exciting because there is no clear-cut favorite. In 2014, Brazil was expected to win. Especially the Brazilians themselves seemed to be believe that, which made their historic 1:7 loss to Germany in the semi-finals the more devastating. This time, they are again one of the favorites, and for much more legitimate reasons. But France, Spain, and Germany also have strong teams, and the English, Portuguese, and Belgians should not be counted out. All of this looks very promising.

Postscript: And it was an exciting Cup, which will go down in history as the Cup of Surprises. Upsets seemed to be the rule, not the exception, although the (well-deserved) winner, France, was not one of them. But Croatia made it to the final!

Word of the Month: Der Richtungsstreit

Word of the Month: Index

We are hearing that within the Democratic Party right now, there is a raging battle between its 'centrist' or 'moderate' wing and its 'liberal' or 'left' wing, recently energized by Bernie Sanders' campaign. At issue is how to respond to the loss the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, suffered in the presidential election of 2016. (I believe, by the way, that these labels are wrong, at least from a European perspective, but that's not the topic of this post.)

The Germans—surprise, surprise!—have a word for this type of debate: Richtungsstreit. The term combines the word for direction, Richtung, with Streit, the word for a controversy in which both sides are fully engaged. It usually involves strong language and may even occasionally end in fisticuffs (but nothing stronger).*



A Richtungsstreit, then, is an intense debate about the direction an organization, especially a political party, should take. One reason why the Germans have a special word for this may be that every political party of any standing in the country gets involved in a Richtungsstreit on a regular basis when it's confronted with a new challenge to which it has no ready-made response: If its base is broad enough, it will be almost impossible to "bring everybody under one hat" right away, to use a German idiom.

A very good example are the Greens (die Grünen), a party that grew out of the student movement of the 60s. To its ever-lasting credit, it succeeded in making environmental protection and climate change mainstream issues supported across the political spectrum in Germany. But the party is also engaged in what seems to be a permanent Richtungsstreit between 'Fundis' (short for 'fundamentalists') and 'Realos'.

The Fundis value ideological purity over everything else and would rather not join a coalition government if that would involve compromising some cherished principle. The Realos, on the other hand, want to participate in government in order to be able to influence the direction of the country and are willing to compromise, to a degree (they may also have doubts about the validity of some of the more extreme positions the Fundis have been taking, like their refusal to sanction any involvement of German troops abroad, no matter what the objectives are).
________________
*Note that the s between the components Richtung and Streit is a Fugen-s (joining s), which we have encountered already in other Words of the Month: Its function is to make the pronunciation easier.

Word of the Month: Der Scherbenhaufen

Word of the Month: Index

Scherben are potsherds or shards, and a Haufen is a heap. A Scherbenhaufen, then, is a heap of shards—think of what happens when a china cabinet topples over and spills its contents on the floor.

Image source: Langerwehe Pottery website

Why is this an interesting word? Because it's used most often metaphorically in German to indicate the complete failure by a person or persons in charge of some goal-oriented outfit like a team, a corporation, or a government. The term commonly appears in phrases such as "she is standing before a Scherbenhaufen" or "he left behind a Scherbenhaufen" when someone's attempt to reach some goal turned into its opposite and resulted in a debacle.



Depending on the context, the term may carry a mix of connotations, from the dashed hopes and heartbreak on the part of the person who failed to glee and Schadenfreude* on the part of observers who thought the effort was hopeless, or too grandiose, to begin with or who wanted it to fail for other reasons.

The very concrete image of a Scherbenhaufen thus can carry multi-faceted connotations, and that's why I like this word: When you use it, you say much more than a simple statement of failure could express.
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*I never made Schadenfreude a WoM because it seems to me that it has entered English as a foreign word no longer in need of an explanation.

Word of the Month: Der Nervenkitzel

Word of the Month: Index

Nerven are German nerves, and Kitzel is a noun derived from the verb kitzeln (to tickle). A Nervenkitzler, then, is a "nerve tickler", something that significantly raises your adrenalin level.



The Skylodge Adventure Suites in Peru are a spectacular example. They consist of three 4-bed cabins suspended from a sheer, 1200ft-high cliff overlooking the Cuzco valley and reachable only by ropes and iron handholds anchored into the rock. Getting and staying there is indeed a "pure Nervenkitzel" as stated in a recent article about the lodge.

Word of the Month: Der Winkeladvokat

Homage to August Sander

Word of the Month: Index

Winkel is the German word for 'angle' or 'corner', and Advokat is an old-fashioned term for an attorney or counselor (replaced in modern German usage by Anwalt). In its original meaning, a Winkeladvokat was someone who gave legal advice 'out of a corner', that is, without proper training and certainly without a license. Nowadays, the term refers to an inept or unscrupulous attorney. It's similar to English 'shyster', but I have the sense that a Winkeladvokat is distinguished more by ineptitude than questionable morals, while a shyster can be extremely clever.



My original motivation for selecting the present WoM was to use it as an excuse for showing a portrait labelled 'Winkeladvokat' by August Sander (1876-1964), perhaps the greatest German photographer of the first half of the 20th century. He spent most of his career building a collection of portraits, which he called Menschen des 20. Jahrhunderts (People of the 20th Century). Each image in the collection represents a person identified by his or her profession or status (the farmer, the brick layer, the tramp); that is, in Sander's grand design, the subjects are seen less as individuals than representatives of the role they play in society. But Sanders treated his sitters with great respect—he let them pose however they wished, and as a result, they speak to us very much as individuals. It is this tension between role and individuality that intrigues Sander fans like me.

Sander's portrait of a Winkeladvokat stands out, first of all, because of its caption—it's the only one in his entire work, as far as I can see, that is not purely descriptive. It may be that at the time, being called a Winkeladvokat was less derogatory—I don't know. But the portrait is memorable not only because of its caption. The subject sits at a table surrounded by his tools—pencil, paper, and, prominently, rubber stamps, and he presides over his world with a suppressed smirk as if he wanted to say, "Yes, I'm a Winkeladvokat—so sue me!" And that's why I am so fond of the photo.

Alas, I am not allowed to show the portrait here for copyright reasons. I drew a caricature instead and hope readers feel motivated to google Sander and his Winkeladvokat.

The German Suffix -schaft

The suffix –schaft has a wide range of uses in German that overlaps to a large extent with the way in which the etymologically related suffix –ship is used in English. It may indicate, for instance, a state of affairs or a relationship between the type of persons indicated by the noun it is attached to. For example, Freund means "friend" and Freundschaft "friendship": It's the relationship that exists between friends.

It may also refer to a group whose members have something in common. For example, Leser mean "reader" and Leserschaft "readership": It's the community of people identified by the preceding noun. In German, this type of use may have negative connotations. For example, a Sippe is a clan or an extended family, while a Sippschaft is bad company.

The suffix can also refer to an event or action or their result. The word Erbe means "heir" and Erbschaft "inheritance": If you become an Erbe, you receive an Erbschaft. Analoguous examples for the use of -ship in English are "courtship" and "censorship".

The suffix can also be attached to an adjective. An English example is "hardship". But this use is rare in English. It's more common in German. A well-known and often commented-on example is Gemeinschaft, which is formed by adding -schaft to the adjective gemein in the now almost obsolete meaning of "relating to the larger community". It's often translated into English as "community", but this translation does not capture the connotations of the German term, the sense of belonging, on the one hand, and the rejection of outsiders, on the other hand, that are often implied when we speak of a Gemeinschaft.

There are also instances in German where -schaft is added to a verb. For example, wandern can mean "to hike" or "to roam", and Wanderschaft refers to an extended period of being on the move without having a fixed residence. I cannot think of an analoguous use of English -ship, unless one considers the "court-" and "censor-" parts in "courtship" and "censorship" verbs instead of nouns. In fact, I would consider this a more plausible explanation, but no online source I consulted supports this point of view.

Seilschaft vs. Deep State

Seilschaft is my current Word of the Month. It's a hidden network of people with a shared outlook and common background who work together and support each other inside an institution. Readers may wonder if a Seilschaft is the same as a "deep state", a term used by the Trump administration in its claim that there exists a clandestine network across the intelligence community that aims at undermining the president through leaks.

The notion of a deep state

"comes from the Turkish derin devlet, a clandestine network, including military and intelligence officers, along with civilian allies, whose mission was to protect the secular order established, in 1923, by the father figure of post-Ottoman Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. It was behind at least four coups, and it surveilled and murdered reporters, dissidents, Communists, Kurds, and Islamists." (David Remnick, "There is no Deep State", The New Yorker, March 20, 2017)

Clearly, a Seilschaft and a deep state have things in common: They are secret networks and established deliberately. But there are also significant differences. A Seilschaft tends to be smaller and restricted to a group within a single institution. Its purpose is, first of all, to provide fellow comrades with cushy jobs—someone gets in and then tries to help others to fill positions that open up. There may be a political side effect because the members of a Seilschaft have a shared world view, which may influence their decisions. There may even be Seilschaften (that's the plural) whose explicit goal is to advance a political agenda. But that is not a necessary condition for something to be called a Seilschaft. A deep state, on the other hand, tends to be large and spread over various institutions, and its members do pursue a common political goal. They spring into action when they see an opportunity to advance it or see it threatened by political enemies.