Sunday, August 31, 2008

Home is where the Smart is

I was born and spent a good part of my life in a place with a stupid name. The kind of name that features in silly party games and causes spontaneous, hysterical laughter in those who hear it for the first time ("You are from ... [splutter, splutter] wheeeere? [splutter, splutter, heee .... heee]").

That is not fair. The place where I come from is quite a nice place (though, hell, am I happy to be able to say that I've already spent more time of my life anywhere but there). It brought forth the German B-poet, translator and orientalist Friedrich Rückert, yours truly and, as Der Spiegel kindly informs us, the Smart avant la lettre.

And ain't I proud?

1 comment:

JCWood said...

A bit of help for our English-language-only readers to get the joke.

Splutter, splutter.... :-)

We once lived together on Fleischstrasse, i.e., 'Meat Street'. I found that more amusing, somehow.

Of course, Germany has no lock on silly place names.