thomas theisinger
Sat, 03 Feb 2001 13:43:23 -0800
Dear Bill, You suppose, Bill, you suppose. But you are wrong, I think. The culture regards nothing, maybe persons or people regard others. These days it is very controversial in Germany if one should appreciate such a phenomenon as a German culture. Ask about Leitkultur and the discussion about it. Are you really shure, that the person who bought your lute was really shocked? Was he not only astonished? Reasonable people in Germany like everywhere in the world do appreciate skills and knowledge, if they be acquired by self-teaching or by special education. Do you really think, any of the few professional lute-builders in Germany would look at you as a presumptious individual? Did your customer bring any suit against you? Oh, I know well what it is to build things like a lute - great, by the way, great, such a knowledge. I tought myself to build little sailing ships by means of hundreds and thousands of matches. The reason was that I was not quite satisfied with the Revell-kits, I would have the ships in real wood but in the same scale. I was a great admirer of captain Hornblower, then. Now I like more C. S. Forester as a writer and even poet. Maybe you know the German proverb Schuster bleib bei deinem Leisten or shoemaker you should not try to perform other professions. But that only means everybody should really know his trade. No more and no less. So I would suggest to bury words like Germanic influence and if you would agree, there would be no more reason for me or other –Germaniacs- to think you could be the victim of a too long lasting splended isolation. The result of which could be prejudices. More than 55 years after world-war-two. Note – Basteln has no negative meaning at all. The meaning is only of a private harmless mostly skillful pastime usually not designed to earn some money. Rather to spend them. Of course, I should not write about all that in English, because I had no occation to learn it in scool – to tell the truth, I was too lazy, then. Do not think about presumtion! I only think good-natured Ralph should not be caused to translate all that rubbish. He should sell Pouch-Boats as much as he can. At least about that you should agree. Cheers and grins, but also ;-) Thomas -- Sent through GMX FreeMail - http://www.gmx.net ######################################################### Foldingboats Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside Foldingboats or Foldingboats archives without author's permission Submissions: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscriptions: [EMAIL PROTECTED] #########################################################