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Watercolor Update

Early Fall, Mount Storm Park, Cincinnati, 5" x 7"

Watercolor Update

October Evening, Saylor Park, Cincinnati, 5" x 7"

Watercolor Entry

October Dusk, Otto Armleder Park, Cincinnati, 5" x 7"

The Schmindle Pamphlet Library

Beethoven's Lost Love Letters

The Schmindle Pamphlet Library offers an eclectic variety of topics as pocket-sized booklets that are usually 8 pages. In most cases, tasteful graphics accompany these texts. Edition #27, “Beethoven’s Love Letters,” is available for only two cents and a self-addressed stamped envelope. The full text is shown below:

Though Ludwig Beethoven’s (1770-1827) compositions are among humankind’s greatest achievements, his love letters reveal the temperament of a frustrated suitor whose overwrought prose would benefit from a rewrite by the average Tin Pan Alley songwriter. The Schmindle Pamphlet Library has discovered a small cache of his letters, luckily never mailed, in an article from the March 1930 issue of The Etude Magazine. The following letters were found after Beethoven’s death in a secret drawer of his desk. The addressee is unknown. They bear no date, nor even the place where they were written. Some musical scholars maintain that the “Immortal Beloved,” to whom they were addressed, was Countess Giulietta Guicciardi.

My Angel! My all! My second self! Only a few words written with the pencil (your own!). Why this deep grief, when necessity compels? Can our love exist without sacrifices and by refraining from desiring all things? Can you alter the fact that you are not wholly mine and I wholly yours? (Translator’s note: The “not” seems to indicate that the young lady had other ties.) You don’t sufficiently remember that I must live both for you and for myself. Were we wholly united you would feel this sorrow as little as I should. We will soon meet again…My heart is overflowing with all I have to say to you. Ah! There are moments when I think that speech is actually nothing…Take courage! Continue to be true and only treasure, my all, as I am yours. The Gods must ordain what is further to be. “Your devoted Ludwig”
You suffer, my faithful creature—just now I discover that the letters must be mailed early in the morning, Monday or Thursday, the only days when the post goes from here to K. You suffer—ah, be assured that where I am you are with me. I must live together with you. However dearly you may love me, I love you still more fondly. O Heaven, so near and yet so far! Is not our love a truly celestial mansion, as firm as the vault of Heaven itself? I must live either with you or not at all. Indeed I have resolved to wander far away till the moment arrives when I can fly into your arms and feel that they are my home and send forth my soul in unison with yours into the realm of spirits. Alas, it must be so! Take courage, for you know my fidelity. Never can another possess my heart! Never! Why must I fly from her I so fondly love? Your love makes me the most happy and, at the same time, the most unhappy of mortals. Yesterday, today, what longing for you, what fear for you! My life, my all! Farewell! Oh, love me forever! Never doubt of the faithful heart of your lover.” “Ever thine Ever mine Ever each other’s!”

Translator’s note: We possess more documentary evidence of his (as it appears unreciprocated) passion for Therese Malfatti, the daughter of a wealthy Austrian landowner.
You receive here, my dear Therese, what I have promised, and, were it not for serious obstacles, you would receive still more. I hope you are having a pleasant time—however not so pleasant that it makes you totally forget us! It would be perhaps too great a presumption from my part to tell you that some persons are not only together when they are present in reality, but also when they are distant. And still, who would dare to say so to one who like you takes everything so lightheartedly? I live very lonesome and quiet, and, although some light would seem to radiate on me, a deep chasm has been opened in my soul, which even my art, otherwise so faithful to me, seems not to succeed in bridging over.

Translator: To make poor Beethoven drain the cup of misery to the dregs, Therese married afterwards Baron von Drossdick, yes, Drossdick.

Despite encroaching, then absolute, deafness, Beethoven was able to soldier on with his compositions. Though he had no luck with his femme fatales, he was able to victoriously barnstorm the divine muse to the bitter end.

Translator: In the following letter dated June 25, 1800, Beethoven gives to his friend, Dr. Wegeler, in Bonn, a detailed account of his sufferings:
It seems that a jealous Demon has played a bad trick on my health. Since three years my hearing has become always weaker and weaker. They say it comes from my bowels, which, as you know, were always in bad condition. Here, however, they have more and more deteriorated and I was afflicted with an excessive weakness. Franz (a doctor) wished to strengthen my intestines through invigorating medicines and my hearing through almond oil, but no good came of it: my hearing remained in the same condition. This lasted until the past year when I at times was driven to desperation. Then a medical asinus (t: health care professional) advised me to take cold baths. My bowels improved; my hearing on the contrary grew worse. This winter I felt miserable. I suffered terrible colics and was thrown back into my former condition. I then went to Vering (another doctor) thinking that my ailments needed the care of a surgeon. He succeeded indeed in stopping the violent colics. He prescribed tepid Danube baths, into which I had to empty a bottle of invigorating salts. He gave me also some pills for the stomach, and tea for the ears, after which I felt stronger and better. Only I am worried day and night by a continuous ringing and singing in my ears, which make my existence miserable. For three years I have avoided all society as it is impossible for me to tell people that I am deaf. Would I be in another occupation, I could perhaps bear it, but, as a musician, it is maddening. What would my enemies, whose number is by no means small, say when they know of it? To give you an idea of this deafness, I must tell you that in the theater I must sit quite near the stage to be able to understand the actors. At any distance I cannot hear at all the high notes of instruments and voices. In conversation, it is a wonder that people do not become aware of my condition. They think perhaps it comes from my absent-mindedness. I hardly hear those who speak softly. I hear sounds but not words and, if somebody speaks loudly, I hardly can stand it. God knows what will become of it. I have often cursed the Creator and my whole existence. Only Plutarch has taught me some resignation, but there are moments when I feel the most wretched creature in the world. I beg of you not to disclose to anybody this secret which I entrust to you alone.

High-Tech Tacking

In the early '80s, a dedicated band of artists preferred
rubber cement to spray paint when challenged with
outdoor advertising projects.

The Security Breach

I had hunkered down at S.F. International all night long, since I didn't want to incovenience friends or family to give me a ride at dawn for my flight back to Cincinnati. I also needed to quell a serious cough, lest I be refused a seat on the plane. I felt like an immigrant with TB trying to get into steerage class. So I began at midnight to knock back a capful of Robitussin DM every hour. The first leg of my flight was to Minneapolis, and I sat in a stupor, several hours before the departure time. A nervous fellow with close cropped hair and a little mustache asked me from about thirty feet away where he might be able to smoke. I told him that he'd have to go outside. I remember seeing signs which said the airport was smoke free. To my astonishment, he bolted up about ten minutes later and walked towards me with his sad stained duffle bag. "You'll be around for awhile, right? I'm going out for a smoke." I gave him a raised eyebrow and a piercing glance. He seemed to read me telepathically. "It doesn't matter if they take my bag. There's nothing of value in there." The weight of the world, sad reflections on my former life in the Bay Area, and the serious cough had robbed me of all spunk. Normally, I would have loudly refused his request while laughing in his face.
I gazed intently at the bag for a few minutes after he left, then suddenly realized that a zealous cop could actually consider me to be in violation of law for harboring the property of an unknown person. I reflected on the new standards of trust that had been forged in the crucible of 9/11. It seemed a common courtesy to mind the fellow's bag, yet I was complicit in his behavior, wanton by contemporary standards. I thought of calling my wife, but knew that I'd get a severe tongue-lashing and that my judgement would once again be called into question. I was already in the doghouse for having left a ground level window open--which she discovered a full week after my recent departure. I summoned my mental clarity and stifled the impulse to discuss the matter with another male passenger, who had just sat down a few chairs away. I felt relief and venom when the miscreant returned about 20 minutes later. He casually picked up his bag without speaking to me while eyeing the distant coffee stand. He was about to saunter over there when I gave him the following dressing-down:
OH, NO YOU DON'T! YOU AND I NEED TO HAVE A SERIOUS TALK ABOUT YOUR TOBACCO ADDICTION! MAN-TO-MAN, I WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT I'M ANGRY AT MYSELF FOR AGREEING TO WATCH YOUR BAG. I LOST MY MENTAL CALM, BECAUSE YOU PUT US BOTH IN A DANGEROUS POSITION. YOU COULD HAVE BEEN DETAINED ALL DAY, AND I WOULD HAVE GOTTEN ROPED INTO IT, TOO, AND MISSED MY FLIGHT. THESE PEOPLE DON'T SCREW AROUND--IF YOU MAKE A JOKE ABOUT HAVING A BOMB OR SOMETHING, THEY'LL THROW YOU IN JAIL!
At first he was surprised by my tirade. Under normal circumstances, he could have kicked my ass. But he slowly nodded and looked at me sheepishly as I ranted on.
I'M AN OLDER MAN, AND I KNOW ALL ABOUT ADDICTIONS. YOU RISKED EVERYTHING FOR THAT CIGARETTE. WAS IT REALLY THAT GOOD? WAS IT WORTH IT?
Chastened, he walked away and sat in front of a pillar, which blocked my view. I felt alive again, and my voice has temporarily lost that hoarse rasping quality which had vexed me for over a week.