Musings of a China Addict

Is there a contradiction in "modern and beautiful"? Not logically, but it becomes apparent in too many cases to be entirely dismissable. Some people say that falling back on the style of times gone by is a sign of lacking self-confidence to create an own one or, as Jilly Cooper put it, that the things that make us cringe now will be considered exquisitely beautiful in a remote future. We won't be alive to see proof of that, but, to speak from a purely personal point of view, I have yet to find a post-Victorian period I find beautiful and -- and that's the point -- living-in-able, a word I just made up. Nobody will deny Art Deco or Bauhaus style beauty, but the thought of living IN such an environment make me freeze.

How did those profound thoughts occur to me? I am somewhat of a china (with a small "c", as in porcelain) -addict and currently I am looking at Ebay for additions to my discontinued Villeroy & Boch dinner- and coffee services. Browsing there makes me once again realize how very few things are modern YET beautiful, and I was delighted to discover a V&B design previously unknown to me called, somewhat uninspiredly, Flora.

Whether "Flora" will pass the test of time is a different matter, but it certainly passes my very own test for things modern yet beautiful.

To quote an opposite example: I always found the prohibitively expensive service "Zauberflöte" by Rosenthal, which shows scenes from Mozart's "Magic Flute", pretentious crap, even when it came out and I was very young and my friends were raving about it. More than thirty years later, I still think it's pretentious crap.

To me, the plates look like pancakes, the dishes like a self-conscious suck-up to the Religion of Peace and the ornaments like equally self-conscious references to various idolatary religions. If the effort was about creating something as un-German as possible, it can be considered a success. But that is just I.

However, I realize now, I took things much too far with my own choice of a "good" dinner service, Rocaille by KPM -- the "Königliche Porzellanmanufaktur Berlin", decor 36. It is hand painted with flower bouquets, blossoms, insects and a gilt edge.

The name of the service is derived from the French word rocailles, shell-shaped ornaments, typical for the Rococo period. Friedrich Elias Meyer developed the dinner service Antique Zierat in 1767. In 1857, it was renamed Rocaille by King Frederick William IV. In the picture below are a few pieces of the service shown without the painting.

When I got it I was too young, immature and presumptious to see that I would never be able to "stage" such a service appropriately. It is suited only to the grandest of environments.

The blue-and-white services I inherited from my mother, Musselmalet by Royal Copenhagen (there we have more of those shells!) and the timeless blue onion pattern from Hutschenreuther and Meissen, are beautiful, but for very formal purposes not grand enough.



By the way, traditional blue-and-white patterns mix very well with each other.

What would I get now, if I had a second chance to acquire a very expensive, very formal dinner service? Kurland from KPM would certainly be on the list. From the company website:

Around 1790, Peter Biron, Duke of Kurland, commissioned a table service from KPM. Following on from courtly rococo with its shells and tendrils, around 1770 the predominant style drew its inspiration from classical antiquity. A service in a strict classic form was the result: "Dinner service with classical edge" It pays homage to the ideals of the classical world – austerity and symmetry merge in a timeless form.

And no, I have not gone mad yet. Of course it would have to be a much less elaborate design not to make the same mistake:

Perfect!

To come to an end, what ARE my two discontinued V&B services that started this entry?

The first is Gallo Design, Switch 4. It is a contemporary design, which I find not entirely satisfactory for my taste and purposes, but it would be a bore to explain how I ended up with it. It is bone china and of the usual V&B quality and now I have a garden, it will make a lovely garden service. It would be perfect for a conservatory with an orangery theme.


The other one is Botanica. It's affordable, sturdy and makes an excellent everyday service for all purposes. By now it has, I think, become obvious, that I am heavily into floral decors. The overall design with its gently curved lines and its overall "oldfashioned" flair is appealing as well. As an aside: the shape of the coffeepot is the best for hand-brewed coffee as well.

I imagine that a kitchen with the Botanica theme can look very pretty as long as one doesn't overdo it. The result might easily be too fussy or too herbarium-like.

The Wordsworth design from Ramm may be a nice match.

How I Finally Came to Find Feminists Foul

To be honest, the "finally" I added to the headline for alliteration's sake. I found feminists always foul.

So here it goes:

When I first arrived at American message boards, Yahoo's, to be precise, in 1997, it was to improve my, a technical translator's, colloquial language and debating skills. My very first encounter happened on a board discussing the late Diana, Princess of Wales, and I was stunned how a lousy wife, bad mother and counterproductive job-filler could become a role-model for 95% of the contemporary female Western population, how a traitor to her own class, a cunning and malicious schemer who had done immeasurable damage to the family that made her, could manage to pose as a "victim", how a jet-setter with a money-spending habit of obscene proportions could have not just gotten away with it but become an icon and ray of hope for the underprivileged of this world. That was how it all started.

I was revolted by the general lack of intelligence and common sense and even more of the vulgarity, smugness, viciousness and misandrist views of her female supporters, so the leap from "Di" to the femboards was only a short one. Surely the feminist view wouldn't support anything like that?

To cut it short: I was appalled.

I had no radical anti-feminist views then. As a woman who reached adulthood in the Seventies, I never (and I MEAN never!) had to face "gender discrimination" in Germany. If anything, I had been treated just a little bit better because of my "gender". Feminism, to me, was Alice Schwarzer, a crone remnant from the Sixties who finally, for want of a cause and because of a strong liking of the limelight, turned free rider of the patriarchal establishment, and whom hardly anybody of any importance and nobody of any weight takes seriously in Germany.

I had never met a "women's studies" student, I didn't even KNOW then that there WAS an "academic" environment where anything like "women studies" (but no "men studies") existed, where women were given preferential admission status because of their "gender" (even though it made up for the majority of graduating students), where they after graduation headed to a job they got through "affirmative action" and where they STILL WHINE AND WHINE BECAUSE THEY FEEL UNDERPRIVILEGED AND DISCRIMINATED AGAINST and I had never heard of the anti-male hatred and hostility discharged by Dworkin, McKinnon and other violent bigots.

Being all too readily brainwashed by a bunch of vicious delinquents was one thing, I felt. So was feeling underprivileged while being cushioned by a network of affirmative action and other props. What REALLY irritated me were those Bliss Ninnies at the femboards whose condescending conflict resolution counsellor attitude and the fact that they are unable to post yet the simplest of messages without being self-congratulatory even made a saint - and I am no saint - scream abuse at them.

Here are a few random examples for your edification and entertainment, I marked my added comments in gray:

sweetjek (45/F/somewhere over the rainbo)
11/28/00 06:10 pm EST Msg: 1265 of 2515
and you know what, raul? I agree that there are differences...and I'm glad they are there. Would you accept the difference if it were presented as "males are not equal to women..." [blah, blah, blah] I don't want to be a cop or a marine...I teach inner-city kids and I'm very good at this TOUGH job...but not because I'm a woman. I love being a woman, and a nice mixture of feminism and strength... [blah blah yabber yabber...] sort of a yin/yang sort of thing. The man in my life [so now we know there is one] would not be attracted to me if I were too "helpless!"

Jaazzmyn (F/Southwest USA)
01/29/01 04:51 pm EST Msg: 1524 of 1524
Ahh Creepy, I am flattered that you keep tossing out Jazz bits to lure me into the conversation. Did ya miss me?? For the record, no matter what you choose to believe about a seventeen year old male that does a stint as cheerleader [i.e. the old prat's son], one thing he definitely is NOT, and that is a mama's boy. He is one of the most independent, stubborn, individualist I have ever known. Always thought he was born with an old soul….when he was just a toddler he so resented following orders from me, that I wondered if he had been MY parent in another life. We are talking about a young man who has been supporting himself since high school, and living on his own for most of his adult years…including moving (alone) cross country for almost half of that time. This kid would never be confused with one who is trying to crawl back into mama…..he is a kid who roared out full steam, ready for life and damn anyone who gets in his way. [Yep, another special male in HER HER HER life AND SHE SHE SHE even MADE him!].

sweetjek (45/F/somewhere over the rainbo)
12/10/00 05:20 pm EST Msg: 1621 of 2515
roadwarrior says:...the "cheering" and willingness to immediately resort to violence against men and have femicunts like you"cheer" is not going to be tolerated any longer.<<< … If you are so damn unhappy being a male, by all means, do something about it. I am happy being a woman, and the man in my life is very happy that I am too [in case we have forgotten there is one]. Other than the few guys on these boards who feel that they are being wronged, most men don't seem to have a problem with any of this...what's WRONG with you??? Also, why does a fictional commercial cause you such anger?? Yikes!

Jaazzmyn
12/23/00 12:03 pm Msg: 29 of 35
And one more thing….I think women can tell when another woman is ..ummmm…..willing. When my father was alive, the women regulars (many of them married) were all over him. He had plenty of opportunities. It wasn't because of his money - he wasn't rich, just a hard working guy. Today at our restaurant, I see the same thing with my husband [Yeah, ANY man in HER HER HER life just HAS to be special]. If he wanted to take home a different women every night, he could. But, he is holding out for that really rich sugar mommy. :- ) [Isn't she precious?]

What I found even more annoying was, that they didn't seem to be able to make a point, even an abstract, ethical, moral or philosophical one, without quoting a personal experience plus the fact that they were obviously unaware of the fact that their sickeningly blinkered Jolly-Hockeysticks-Sauberwoman attitude, peppered with some "New Age" drivel, has no relevance whatsoever for anybody or anything.

As some distressed male called it: The "American golden pussy notion".

Being aware of that phenomenon for quite a while now, I find that a similar attitude is creeping in at my end as well. I notice ever-growing misandrist overtones everywhere, be it an idiotic book about the upbringing of boys with a first chapter that is solely about being apologetic that the book was written in the first place and another one being headed (no kidding!) "Boys are not inferior, just different" (Who would have thought so!) or the fact that it has become acceptable -- "normal" -- for every dumb bitch to slag off or dress down her male counterpart in public, not to mention all the serious legal consequences for men as fathers including abuse allegations that have been turned into arbitrary weapons for women, the shamefully apologetic approach to the role of the women during the Nazi aera as victims and victims only, the appalling misandrist jokes and "funny" television commercials, the women who bully their men into role-reversal and then lose whatever little respect for him they had to begin with.

It's all about CHOICE isn't it? They can still choose what they want to be - damsel in distress or empowered performer and most of them them want and get both and use whatever suits their current agenda best, whining or bullying.

I'm asking myself what made a group of coddled, advantaged, white middle-class folks think they are underprivileged? Some time in one of those countries where REAL inequalities prevail would do them a world of good, India, for example, where female foetuses are selectively aborted and sick little girls are left to die, or African countries where genital mutilation is practiced, or Muslim countries, where an accusation of adultery is enough to be stoned to death if one is female, where young girls are arbitrarily murdered, mutilated or raped (or all of it) for real or imagined wrongdoings by the members of their own family.

But they don't go there. They don't because it's much nicer to stay here and dream of themselves looking like Pricess Diana in dungarees, tracking landmines.

And like so often, it's not so much what the perpetrators do, but how the world is reacting to them. Why don't men just put their feet down and, if necessary, beat some sense into those nagging nuisances? But then, they were brought up by women, after all. "The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world", as the feminists are fond of saying. And it's true. Men don't become mass muderers because of their deadbeat Dads, but more likely because Mum bathed them until they were more than halfway through adolescence or forced them to wear their older sister's clothes.

Men can't win.

Originally posted November 2008. 

A Little Too Obviously Jealous

What we have here is based on an old entry from my other blog. Although it, or rather the event that triggered it off, is dating more than three years back, I consider it still topical. It, too, has a strong style-aspect, which merits a publication here. It is about a nasty little bit of racism that went largely unnoticed for obvious reasons, but after having bellyached about it, the question remains what children ought to wear at a dignified public occasion, so here it goes:

An Image A Little Too Carefully Coordinated
By Robin Givhan
Friday, July 22, 2005

It has been a long time since so much syrupy nostalgia has been in evidence at the White House. But Tuesday night, when President Bush announced his choice for the next associate justice of the Supreme Court, it was hard not to marvel at the 1950s-style tableau vivant that was John Roberts and his family.

There they were -- John, Jane, Josie and Jack -- standing with the president and before the entire country. The nominee was in a sober suit with the expected white shirt and red tie. His wife and children stood before the cameras, groomed and glossy in pastel hues -- like a trio of Easter eggs, a handful of Jelly Bellies, three little Necco wafers. There was tow-headed Jack -- having freed himself from the controlling grip of his mother -- enjoying a moment in the spotlight dressed in a seersucker suit with short pants and saddle shoes. His sister, Josie, was half-hidden behind her mother's skirt. Her blond pageboy glistened. And she was wearing a yellow dress with a crisp white collar, lace-trimmed anklets and black patent-leather Mary Janes.


Even the clothes are conservative: Judge John G. Roberts, left, and his wife Jane, right, with their children Jack and Josie listen to President Bush's announcement.
(Pool Photo By Shawn Thew)
[...]

The wife wore a strawberry-pink tweed suit with taupe pumps and pearls, which alone would not have been particularly remarkable, but alongside the nostalgic costuming of the children, the overall effect was of self-consciously crafted perfection. The children, of course, are innocents. They are dressed by their parents. And through their clothes choices, the parents have created the kind of honeyed faultlessness that jams mailboxes every December when personalized Christmas cards arrive bringing greetings "to you and yours" from the Blake family or the Joneses. Everyone looks freshly scrubbed and adorable, just like they have stepped from a Currier & Ives landscape.

In a time when most children are dressed in Gap Kids and retailers of similar price-point and modernity, the parents put young master Jack in an ensemble that calls to mind John F. "John-John" Kennedy Jr.

Separate the child from the clothes, which do not acknowledge trends, popular culture or the passing of time. They are not classic; they are old-fashioned. These clothes are Old World, old money and a cut above the light-up/shoe-buying hoi polloi.

[...]

Dressing appropriately is a somewhat selfless act. It's not about catering to personal comfort. One can't give in fully to private aesthetic preferences. Instead, one asks what would make other people feel respected? What would mark the occasion as noteworthy? What signifies that the moment is bigger than the individual?

But the Roberts family went too far. In announcing John Roberts as his Supreme Court nominee, the president inextricably linked the individual -- and his family -- to the sweep of tradition. In their attire, there was nothing too informal; there was nothing immodest. There was only the feeling that, in the desire to be appropriate and respectful of history, the children had been costumed in it.

Well, nobody in his right mind would accuse Ms. Givhan of looking "freshly scrubbed and adorable" or, for that, like a fashion icon with the right of being condescending on the strength of her own self-consciously crafted perfection, and frankly, it is beyond me why the Washington Post (or ANY newspaper, for that) would make such a frump fashion editor. Or why this sort of fashion drivel is allowed to take up a lot of perfectly good space in a "serious" newspaper in the first place, even if it were NOT as politically prejudiced, sneering and vile as it is, but that is not the point.

Neither is the point that this piece of jealous media flotsam has obviously not the slightest compunction about abusing children to vent her well-calculated, class-ridden rants. Yeah, GAP has got ist SO right! X billion flies and hordes of idiot parents can't be wrong, eat more shit and buy more GAP. Who wouldn't just LOVE to see one's little girl clad like an underage prickteaser? Everything (but EVERYTHING!) not to appear "classy".

The real point is, that, had a white journalist written about the appointment of a black man to a major public position and referred to his family's hairdo as "too self-consciouly ethnic" with "their nappy heads standing out too much" we would have had a major earthquake in the media, whereas a not-so-sly dig at a blond pageboy's is quite okay for the self-hating whites in the media.

So now the bellyaching is over and done with, what would be the right choice of dress for children at such an occasion? I personally, think that they ought to be left at home anyway, but then, I am not American and the entire "human touch"-aspect in politics bores me, to put it politely. As it is, I think the Roberts made an excellent choice.

A Whiff of Real Life

I have several new entries in the pipeline and don't find the time (and the nerves) to complete and publish them. The doing-up of the villa was interrupted under pretty distressing cicumstances. We now have to look for other craftsmen to do the work and all my hopes of moving there before Christmas have been shattered. Ah well...

The good thing is that the Drückjagd season has started. Drückjagd is a shoot comparable to a battue, only it's not in the field and for hares and game birds, but in the woods for hoofed game (mainly wild boars). The drivers move more slowly and not as noisily as those at battues, so as not to disturb the game to an undue extent because it must not pass the guns at high speed. Dogs are important, specifically to flush the incredible clever boars who stay put and let the drivers literally walk over them. But dogs are not so easily fooled. In Germany, the traditional dogs used for flushing are usually Deutsche Wachtel (a Spaniel-type dog, but with the necessary "sharpness" to hold tight to and even kill hoofed game, if required) or braque-type dogs (hounds), called Bracken, although here in East Germany, due to the relative poverty and dearth of dogs, all sorts of gundogs are used, even those that are considered pure field dogs.

Not too long ago, the value of smaller dogs like Dachshunds and specifically terriers was discovered, who flush and (in case of the fight-and-not-flight animal wild boar) attack the game with much more zeal and are, being small, not so easily injured.

Last Saturday we (that is I and my little Jack) attended a Drückjagd in the Greiz-Werdauer Wald, which is one of the larger interconnected forest areas in Germany.



The meeting was scheduled for 08:00 and driving started at 09:00 and lasted, as usual, two hours. The terrain and the cover are not as difficult to tackle than terrain and cover I have seen at similar events in the West. I took part as a driver although I hold a shooting license but I would very probably not shoot anything anyway and going with the drivers is more fun (and even more so for the dog) than to sit somewhere stationary in the woods, waiting for game that will probably never come.



It was a wonderful morning. We saw lots of game (wild boars and red deer), mainly because little Jack did such an excellent flushing job. The weather was too warm for the time of the year, but it made things easier for me and improved the general spirit. The hospitality of the host and owner of the hunting ground, the state of Saxony, was great as always.



The "hunting bag" was a bit disappointing, though, as the forester representing the host justifiedly remarked. The above picture is from a more lucky event. I just took it from the Internet for illustrative purposes, and the same applies to the picture from another Drückjagd below.



And finally I don't even have a picture of my wonderful and wonderfully brave little dog in action, so I add one which was taken last year at the same occasion. The terrier with the white face is his son Jeremy who has found a great new home in the meantime where he won't be able to commit, as he clearly intended, patricide.



I know it's not a terrifically good picture. Yes, that are two tired, dirty terriers in signal coloured coats, but it's all I have.

Coming Saturday, we'll attend the next Drückjagd as well. I and (to a lesser extent) Jack are frantic right now about improving our shape. I hope there will be some time left for blogging.