September 2004
Companions of the Order,
"Look Mum, no hands!"...ok, so I don´t really get what this arrangement of figures is trying to say but neither apparently do the critics.
What I can tell you is this fittingly incongruous monument was created in 2000 by sculptor Klaus Friedrich Messerschmidt to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the death of the troubled genius and existential philosopher, Herr Friedrich Nietzsche - one of the most brilliant, perceptive and influential thinkers of the last 200 years - oh, and a notorious and incendiary athiest (Yes, at least HE is certainly dead - and could be still trying to explain that somewhere!). I ran across his grave and this monument next to the church in Röcken, a tiny village in former East Germany where he was born, while on a bike ride through an area that the once fierce Swedes regularly raped and pillaged a few hundred years ago...and are nowdays, rather oddly, fondly remembered!...but I digress.
Ask the Germans about F. N. and you´ll find they either don´t know much, or tend to not want to talk about him because his name is so strongly linked to the Nazis. What I´ve managed to learn however, is that some of his ideas seem to have been misunderstood and promoted by his openly anti-Semitic sister after his death, and subsequently misappropriated by the Nazis (a bit like the Wagner music problem) - probably why he doesn´t feature much in the school curriculum here! Most of his ideas were centred around the concept of Man as ruler of his own destiny, that God doesn´t exist, and morality is just a secondary consideration - a celebration of Life as nothing more than a rat race in other words (my words - his are a bit fancier). A bit of an unsentimental chap you might say - and it´s easy to see why his ideas appealed to the fascists. Anyway, cos his minister father died when he was four...he was brought up by mother, grandmother, aunts and sisters (one of whom he slept with), detested Christianity, eventually fell out with his hero/mentor Wagner, had all his marriage proposals rejected, and in fact he seems to have eventually really disdained women ("When you go to a woman, don´t forget your whip!")...hated everything perhaps!...which may explain why my percipient and erudite American redneck buddy is such a fan - won´t mention his name of course - but it was kinda amusing when Pat got stung by a wasp while standing next to Fred´s grave and immediately muttered, "I KNEW he´d do something like that!"
Ironically, the "unsentimental" philosopher suffered a permanant mental breakdown at the age of 44 when he saw a horse being badly whipped, and spent the last 10 years of his life being taken care of by his sister - who even used to prop him up for visiting portrait photographers!
Fine...some tech observations: this pic was shot with Delta 400, but I have to say that so far I´m more drawn to the nuances of Neopan 400 in my new film tests...but wait, the revamped Tri X is up next! There was a somewhat un-Nietzschean twist during the last printing session: along with this image, I printed a quick (Neopan) shot of my 2 year old daughter...I know I am biased, but she glowed like an angel!!!
Writing this on the 3rd anniversary of the tragedy in New York: time is passing too fast...think about death.
Dean
(and take more pictures!)