Author Archives: Kate Katharina

Unknown's avatar

About Kate Katharina

Kate Katharina wltm people with stories for literary fling and maybe more.

Familienfest: Part 2

Posted on by
5

There was barely time to change out of my wet shoes after the hike, as Tante Hortensia had called for the first choir rehearsal for tomorrow’s mass to take place before dinner.

One of the most charming features of the monastery at Kistenhof is the number of amenities which are tucked behind a neat row of modest-looking doors. Without really exploring, I discovered a library, swimming-pool and church.

At five thirty-five, I opened the door labelled “church”and discovered to my dismay that I was late. The Schultz family was already gathered around the piano, singing the Schubert Mass in four-part harmony. Tante Hortensia was conducting with passion and warning that even the most beautiful music performed too slowly becomes “kitchig”. “You’re an alto like me”, whispered my mum as we found a spot behind the sopranos and in front of the tenors.

My Tante Hortensia is amazing. For as long as I can remember, she has been directing all musical operations at Schultzfest events. She is vesatile and perfectionist in equal measure. The children’s choir of ca 1997, of which I was a part, performed a song about toilet paper (aptly named Klopapier) which she accomapinied on guitar. The performance was word-and-pitch-perfect. Now, fourteen years later, in a monastery in a remote German valley, she was just as exact as then.

There was much ado about where Tante Hortensia should stand. She complained that some memebrs of the choir weren’t watching her, and that as a result, the ritardandos weren’t being observed. Certain members of the choir retorted that the person in front of them was obstructing their view. Efforts at re-positioning enjoyed some success but were hampered by the constraints of the altar.

The rehearsal concluded with the arrangement to meet for a brief runthrough at 9 am the following morning.

It was now time to dash back to our respective quarters to get ready for dinner. I leave you with a picture of my mother and me just before we entered the dining hall. More to come, depending on demand.

Familienfest: Part 1

Posted on by
4

Familienfest 2011 took place in a monastery in the middle of the valley of Kistenhof, which was shrouded in mist all weekend long. I arrived just before lunch on Saturday afternoon and found thirty-two Schultzs gathered together in the vestibule, exchanging pleasantries. I was just rounding up my small talk with Tante Lisl when Onkel Fritz approached from the side and announced that he was going to kidnap me.

He took me through a side door, which led to a small room, attached to the dining area which we had reserved. He made his way to the back corner and fumbled for a small white plastic bag. “Hier”, he said. “You’re going to hand these over”.
“ ..’Schuldigung?”, I replied.
“You are Present number 7”
“Okay…”
I opened the bag, expecting to find anything but …
Several loose black sausages.
“Are these for Onkel Gideon?”
“Yes”, Onkel Fritz replied. “You are Present number 7. Make sure to come here and pick them up discreetly before dinner. You can hide them under your table until the required moment”.

It takes a Schultz to make the required leap of assumption that Onkel Gideon’s gifts would be presented in strict order according to the structure of Onkel Fritz’s speech.

“Did you know that I was a vegetarian?” I asked Onkel Fritz, who works in agriculture and would probably list meat as his pastime.
“You are?” he roared “that’ll teach you! No wonder you’ve got so scrawny!”

I slunk out and returned to the foyer, where I overheard Tante Hortensia and a nun making arrangements for the Schultz Family mass which would take place the following morning at 9.45 sharp. More of that in the next instalment but for now, I leave you with a picture of the Family hike, or Wanderung which took place in spite of inclement conditions.

The Familienfest: Schultzs to reunite in Forest

Posted on by
4

The Schultz Family Gathering (or Familienfest in the vernacular) is a singular event.
It usually features a hearty meal in a picturesque Bavarian inn, a carefully-prepared powerpoint presentation and musical repertoires courtesy of the constantly evolving younger members of the clan. Its principal charm, however lies in its relentless continuance and large attendance-due in no small part to the generous odds of procreation afforded by a family of nine children, and the large liklihood that this year is Onkel Such-and-Such’s 60th or Tante So-and-So’s 50th.

It has been a tradition familiar to me all my life, but I believe true initiation occurred when I was five years old and hence qualified as the aforementioned younger generation. An aunt was marrying and it was decided that the Ferguson sisters three should perform on their fiddles. Dressed in uniform purple dresses and wearing ivy headpieces, we appraoched the stage where an older cousin had just performed a tap dancing routine. My older sisters played a delightful duet (it could have been the Chaconne, must check). Then it was my turn. I was not skilled enough to join the siblings so naturally I had been given a solo slot.

I played Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to raptuorous applause and in the years that followed, I continued to showcase my (very limited) talents, sometimes in small choirs made up of the under 12 Schultz contingent and other times on the recorder and flute to which I had progressed. Lack of ability and regard for the stage did not offer possibilities for exemption. Performance, just like attendance, was mandatory.

There may have been much bemusement and faux resignation regarding the festivities over the years but we all secretly loved them, and still do -well into the age of reason- when work commitments or smiliar could easily offer an excuse not to go.

What’s so amazing about the Schultz Familien Fest is the meticulousness with which it is organised. Seating is strictly arranged according to chronology. Therefore I’m always beside Cousin Maximilian. For years – in fact until my legs grew too long to fit under the kids’ chairs- I was stuck at the Kindertisch. Evrything worked like clockwork, with slight variation year-to-year from the following routine: Starter at 14.00 hours, with power point presentation to precede the main. A wee clink of the glass gives those in attendance the opportunity to add relevant anaecdotes to those already referred to in the presentation. Dessert comes after a brief musical interlude or equivalent performing art. Kaffee und Kuchen served, during which seating plan is allowed to fall apart.

I’m flying off at an ungodly hour in the morning to attend such an event: My Onkel Gideon’s 60th and my Tante Rosemarie’s 50th. This year the family is staying in an inn in the Bavarian forest. My Greek cousins are performing on the violin, recorder and piano. The powerpoints have been made, the seating and sleeping arrangements finalised. This time tomorrow I’ll be in the forest, mingling with Schultz relatives I haven’t seen in years. I can’t wait.

The Retro-White-Laced Floral collar: a brief treatise on Reverence

Posted on by
3

In the pew in front of me a white lap dog lay at its owner’s feet as the Reverend proceeded up the aisle, flanked by a choir of two Nigerian men. My period of absence from Church had been sufficient to make the experience of a service yesterday morning a little surreal. Of course, I recognised the hymns and some of the readings but uncanny for me was the order of ritual, which unfolded like scenes from a play. The regular congregation performed their responses perfectly and they sat and stood almost before their cue.

It got me thinking about sacred spaces and how I revere them, in spite of my private apprehension of gathering with a group of people in a space reserved for those with a similar belief. It’s more than a respect for the liturgy that those quiet churchgoers have: it’s a respect for the institution.

Religion is not the institution for me but I feel I would benefit from further schooling in reverence. In fact, even when you remove all traces of God you stumble into the most awe-inspiring of places.

Today I bought a delightful dress in the Irish Cancer Society Charity shop on the Rathmines Road. I knew I had encountered the Devil of Temptation as soon as I saw the retro white -laced collar. The colours weren’t quite ‘me’ and it was a bit too big. But not even the unflattering mirrors and harsh lighting could conceal the fact that the garment itself was enchanting and that the retro white- laced collar fell around the neck like petals on a flower.

I bought it for €8, at LSB’s encouragement. It was a minute after 5 pm when I left the store. One of the cashiers was locking up as the other closed the tills. They were both elderly, cordial, wispy-haired. And I thought: they do this every day. They do this for a cause outside of their own gain. LSB and I crossed over to browse the book sections in Barnardos and Oxfam. In the latter, a lady was polishing dust off a framed picture, which she then returned gingerly to the display shelf. And for that, I revered her.

Celebs Spotted in Sandymount: LSB with lover in self-service till tiff

Posted on by
3

There was only one News of the World to be had today. It was torn and soggy and lay abandoned on a shelf in Tesco, Sandymount. As always, LSB was first to spot it. “There’s one there, Katzi” he said, “but it’s a bit of a mess”.

I picked up the grubby scraps of newssheets and examined them carefully. I’d been into every newsagent between Rathmines and Sandymount and: nothing. Nothing but broadsheets brimming with supplements sealed in surround wrap, and boxes full of half-price jammy dodgers.

I wanted the last- ever copy. And scarcity is a great fuel to desire.

I wanted it so that in years to come – if this whole teaching-writing thing doesn’t work out – I can advertise it on e-bay as a journalistic artefact. A wealthy media tycoon will invest and my fortune will be made. In public, my friends will praise my foresight but privately they will deeply regret popping their own copies into the green bin.

On the other hand, if this whole teaching-writing thing does work out, I will be moving in the kinds of circles where possession of such a sordid journalistic relic will afford no small amount of Fleet Street cred. Either way, my quality of life will improve.

But I was in a bind. Nobody was going to want a dirty, torn copy, and by the time I was ready to sell it, there’d probably be a NOTW nostalgia app available for the iphone26.

Today's NOTW; the last ever.


I dropped it back on the shelf with an exaggerated sigh.
“You’ve never bought the News of the World before, have you Katzi?”, LSB asked tentatively.
“No, no of course not”, I answered- rather ashamed that LSB was made of more moral fibre than to suspect me of a mercenary motive.
“I suppose I’ll get the Sunday Times then”, I said, grumbling all the way to the self-service till, where I tried scanning the main headline in favour of the barcode repeatedly, much to LSB’s contained mortification.

“Katzi”, he whispered “you put the coins in this side”.
“Yes I know”, I answered briskly. “Obviously”.

As we were sipping our mocha (his) and cappuccino (mine) a little later, I had a look at the front page of the Sunday Times. I could not believe my eyes.
“LSB?”, I ventured.
“Yes, Katzi?”
“Is Amanda Brunker very famous?”

“Well Katzi She is quite famous as an Irish celebrity,” he answered, measured as always.

“Hmm”, I said.

“Why do you ask?”

“She was profiled in the Irish Times yesterday” I said “but I’d never heard of her. Has everyone heard of her?”

“Most people”.

“Oh.”

“I saw her video on youtube yesterday” I said. “She’s awful”

“Yes Katzi, she is”.

“How come I’ve never heard of people that everyone else has?”

“I don’t know, Katzi”.

I allowed a pregnant pause to occur.

“I should have read the News of the World more” I said with gravitas, tossing aside the Sunday Times Culture section and diving into my scone.

.

On pens and penises

Posted on by
12

Meet Gilbert and Gubar; two ladies whose collaborative feminist treatise The Madwoman in the Attic opens with the question “Is the pen a metaphorical penis?”

I’ve had a long look at my black felt tip. It doesn’t appear virile- though of course that ejaculation might be premature.

For decades, academics and journalists have been considering women’s place in the world. They have been characterised as angels, whores, monsters and mothers. In the name of progress, their gift in writing has been likened to a product of the male reproductive organ.

In western society, traditional notions of a woman’s place in the home have become taboo. Of late, the idea that a woman might choose to become a fulltime mother rather than a professional has been rendered unthinkable.

The reluctance to accept that a woman may decide on motherhood over career advancement was exemplified by a New York Times article by Jack Ewing published last week, which meditated on the surprisingly small number of German women who return to fulltime work after availing of the government-paid 12-month parental leave.

The writer laments the fact that “Despite a battery of government measures … only about 14 percent of German mothers with one child resume full-time work, and only 6 percent of those with two”. He goes on to cite example after example of corporate bodies where only a tiny proportion of women have ended up at the top. Part of the problem, he muses is that “most schools still end at lunchtime, which has sustained the stay-at-home-mother image of German lore”.

While it’s worthwhile to draw attention to gender disparities in top corporate positions, the discourse that surrounds it – while well-intentioned – does a good job of enforcing the idea that women remain passive beings with little control over the course of their lives.

Ewing expresses the misgiving that “when it comes to empowering women, no Teutonic drive or deference seems to work”. Far from promoting any egalitarian cause, such speculation denies women the right to make life choices outside of a socio-political narrative, which subtly yet forcefully dictates that having a career is more worthy than caring for a child and that empowerment can only be measured in economic terms.

Germany is a good example to focus on to illustrate the point. Government measures strongly support the mother in the workplace – she is allowed 12 months parental leave with pay and is guaranteed her job back at the end of it. Although it’s probable that a larger proportion of mothers return to part-time work, the fact that only 14% go back to a fulltime career is indeed surprising.

In the absence of financial and political disincentives however, the fact that is continuously over-looked, is that women are opting not to return to work. Instead of being respected as free agents, those that make this choice are treated as victims of a social order which is portrayed as significantly less than the sum of its egalitarian parts.

For true parity to exist, the Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus mantra must be debunked. Ewing describes Germany as “one of the countries in most need of female talent” (my italics) but doesn’t define what he means by the term. If male and female talent aren’t viewed with equality, the prospect of a roughly 50:50 breakdown of gender in all sectors of professional life is unrealisable.

Furthermore, unless it’s accepted as equally scandalous that the proportion of male nurses is equivalent to that of female corporate executives, a discussion of gender can never be detached from a social weighting in favour of money.

Were society’s priorities reversed, public discussion might centre around the outrage that a man’s right to parental leave is considerably more restricted than a woman’s, that a boy’s emotional development is stunted by the expectation that he will advance up a corporate ladder and that the male body is no more than a military tool.

While you can’t spell “metaphorical penis” without pen, as I look again at my black felt tip I begin to think that Gilbert and Gubar might have been feminists equipped with rather (pardon me) fertile imaginations.

Irish judges above the law? Objection!

Posted on by
3

A small and silent rebellion is taking place on our shores. Though they remain anonymous, the twenty-two dissenters are known to carry hammers. A number among them are purported to disguise themselves with a mass of white curls, which they pin to their heads. They are protected by Article 35 of the Constitution and the extent of that defence will be put to the Irish people in a referendum next September. Should it be passed, the band of twenty-two judges who have elected not to make a voluntary contribution to the revenue in lieu of the levies imposed upon all other public sector workers will be forced to take a cut in pay as their 126 colleagues have already seen fit to do.

The judiciary must remain independent, so for that reason Article 35.5 of Bunreacht na hEireann states simply that The remuneration of a judge shall not be reduced during his continuance in office. From a political, psychological and economic perspective such reasoning is utterly non sequential.

Given that the aim of such a clause appears to be to prevent judges from state influence, that purpose is itself contradicted by a notable omission. Judges’ pay may not be reduced but it may be increased at the whim of a minister looking for a favour, for example. The possibility of a salary rise is the principle behind performance-related pay, which employers use as an incentive in order to encourage workers to perform in line with their expectations and desires.

The difference between loss aversion; working to avoid a drop in salary and performance-related pay is trivial from a psychological perspective. As a motivating factor, the distinction lies in personality type: some people are more encouraged by risk avoidance and others by self-advancement. There is no reason why judges should be disproportionately oriented toward the former.

There is another principle that has been overlooked in the omission in Article 35.5 however, which is psychologically universal. You see, if somebody does you a good turn, you like to return the favour. If the Minister decides to increase pay, there’s a niggling, self-imposed obligation to display gratitude by performing in accordance with his desires. Social theorists have called it Reciprocal Determinism and in everyday parlance we say: I scratch your back; you scratch mine.

Of course, all of this speculation treats the individual as a machine: you put this in and you get that out. The prospect that judges will carry out their duties in relation to their salary is akin to considering that teachers will write report cards for students in accordance to their pay slip and that a nurse’s bedside manner fluctuates in tandem with his or her remuneration. It’s well known that poor conditions lead to sloppy work but in the case of judges, sloppy work results in poor decision making generally rather than in partiality.

Furthermore, where an entire class of workers is in question, an individual is less likely to respond with venom than in a case where their pay alone has been cut.

Where the issue of judicial partiality arises glaringly obviously is in the appointment procedure. Since candidates need to be selected by the Oireachtas and favoured by the president, the hope of a justice system independent of political influence is thwarted before it has any hope of being established.

This Septermber, when the people cast their votes to elect their president they are by extension influencing the selection of their future judges. It is this cosy relationship between politics and judicial administration which Article 35.5 sustains rather than prevents.

The measures taken by the new government to curb these relationships have so far been encouraging. Leo Varadkar’s threat not to reappoint all seven of the board members of the DAA should the bonus allotted to Chief Executive Brendan Collier not be reversed is a sign that a new era of political responsibility might be upon us. Brendan Howlin’s plan to cap salaries of future Chief Executives of Commercial state companies is also a signal that politics is moving away from its traditional links with largescale enterprise.

As they beat their hammers on their oak writing tables and whisper “Objection” in advance of September’s Referendum, the twenty-two dissenters will inevitably privately concede that the scrapping of Article 35.5 represents good riddance to bad rubbish. Objection over-ruled.

Enda Kenny: The teacher that Ireland needs?

Posted on by
3

If Ireland loves an underdog story, it has all it could wish for in Taoiseach Enda Kenny. In less than a year, he has gone from leader of an opposition party whom nine members of his front bench did not support to heading a government party with an approval rating of 41%.

Resilience, tenacity and no small amount of luck have been the hallmarks of his success.

Though his entry into the Dáil at age 24 may have been facilitated by the vacancy of his late father’s seat, his rise in that chamber came gradually and faced its fair share of setbacks.

He spent nearly 10 years on the opposition benches and failed to be promoted when Garret Fitzgerald became Taoiseach in 1981 and 1982. In 2001 when John Bruton resigned leadership of the party following a vote of no confidence, Kenny contested the leadership unsuccessfully. The following year, when Fine Gael suffered its worst ever electoral performance, he was reported to have prepared a concession speech in anticipation of losing his seat, though he did in fact manage to take the third of five seats in his constituency.

Enda Kenny’s strength lies considerably less in his rhetoric than in its tone. He can inject equal measures of passion into expressing indignation at Fianna Fáil’s “crippling government” and pride at Ireland’s “performance” on the world stage during the recent state visits.

And of course he’s had serendipity on his side too. Not only did he replace the least popular government in Ireland’s history but he has also hosted impeccably staged visits from the two most important heads of state, from Ireland’s perspective.

Kenny himself describes his leadership as teacherish. In fact the four years he spent working as a primary school teacher (before he was elected to Dáil Eireann at only 24) would have entitled him to draw a pension of €100,000 in April of this year, having in his own words “simply being paying into it” since his excedingly premature retirement.

Though it has been thirty-six years since Enda Kenny taught the times tables, his performance in office thus far indicates that his politico-teaching strategy may well be amounting to quite a success.

He told Ryan Tubridy on the Late Late Show that he intended handing over report cards to his minsiters and made a point of expressing pride in his people’s performance during the state visits. He even went as far as explictly pointing out that not one person had “shamed him” – as if he were a trainee teacher and Ireland his trophy class performing for an inspector. In this way, Kenny espoused the essential quailities of a conscientous teacher: a tendency toward supervision, evauluation and praise when merited. At the same time he let slip the less popular characteristics of didacticism and condescension.

It will take immense ambition and steadiness to reawaken the disillusioned pupil that Ireland has become. But as somebody who has suffered his own setbacks and flings with public opinion, a teacher that genuinely cares could just be what Ireland needs at this time. After a long hiatus, Enda Kenny’s teaching career has now begun in earnest.

Ikea and Ireland: a practical love affair

Posted on by
6

On its way to the blue and yellow superstore in Ballymun, the 13A (officially known as the “Ikea Bus”) passes three horses grazing lazily on a patch of grassland. At the entrance, a Swedish flag flutters in the breeze alongside the tricolour and opportunistic taxi drivers line up to ferry the furniture of impulsive bus passengers.

Inside, The Stereophonics’ Have a nice day provides a soft soundtrack to three Corkonian ladies who are perusing a kitchen/living room display unit. One of them is pointing at a collection of cream-coloured cookie jars: “they’re gorgeous, aren’t they?” she asks her companions, but gets no response. One of them is occupied with opening and closing the door of a bookcase to reveal again and again the flatscreen TV it conceals. “Look how it slides” she gasps in the direction of the third, who is regarding a navy shelving unit with a little suspicion; “I wouldn’t be mad about the colour”, she says, adding “it must be the fashion now”.

Around the corner, in the bathroom display area, a father has one hand curled around the bar of his shopping trolley and the other clasped to a lead attached to his toddler. Inside his trolley is a tiny sleeping baby lying flat on its back beside a large plastic toolbox. A few metres away a couple kissing by the fabric stand is separated by a middle-aged man in glasses, who strokes a piece of material and casts a thoughtful glance in the direction of the sofas in front of him.

It’s 3 pm on a Monday in June and Ikea is awash with customers. A cursory glance about the car park, which is decorated with pretty picnic table displays, reveals that shoppers have come from far and wide. At least one third have travelled from outside of Dublin. There are a particularly large number of registration plates from Cork, Kildare Longford, Meath, Kerry and Wexford and the accents inside the store represent this diversity. It’s far from just Irish accents that can be heard though. In the kitchen display area Polish children play with saucepans and mothers soothe their children with cooing foreign sounds.

How can it be that in Recession-depression Ireland, shoppers are coming in their droves to buy flat-pack furniture and frozen cinnamon buns? In the 12 months leading up to last August, Ikea Ballymun made a pre-tax profit of €11.4 million, making it one of the most profitable stores in Europe.

Ikea seems to be ergonomically designed to thrive in a recession. Its emphasis on accessibility and transparency as well as on low prices appeals to a public, which has lost faith in a politics dominated by wastage and concealment. In sum, Ikea defines “customer friendly”.

The entire store is constructed with the busy, multi-tasking customer in mind. Underneath the escalator at the entrance are a number of wheelchairs so that older and less mobile customers can navigate the store with ease. At every corner you can pick up a measuring tape, note-cards and pencils to keep track of your shopping. It would be easy to become frustrated trying to find your way through such an enormous store but measures have been taken for that eventuality too. You can find a map at every turn and each time you are about to enter a new section a sign helpfully vouches safe a missive along the lines of “By taking this shortcut you will miss workspaces, kitchens and dining.” (Heavens forbid.)

In Ikea, customer-friendly means “family-friendly”. On the ground floor, an enormous play area (“Smålan”) provides children with a huge quarter in which to expend their energy. It’s supervised and free. In the restaurant there are microwaves available for parents to heat up their babies’ bottles. Adjustable high chairs are available for toddlers of all sizes and there’s even a quiet nursing area for mothers who wish to breastfeed their babies in private. There’s a fold-out changing table in the downstairs toilet too.

There’s a great emphasis on communicating the manufacturing process to the consumer. In the living room display area for example, there is a large glass box housing an armchair. Attached to it are two mechanical levers which press again and again into the seat and back of the chair. Though it looks like some bizarre modern art fixture, the sign above it explains that this chair, like all sold in Ikea is undergoing quality testing: “Only if it withstands the pressure and still functions as well as before is it approved”.

As if furniture weren’t enough, the food is customer-friendly too. The “meatballs for all” mantra is sincere. You get a plate of 10 for €3.95 and for 50 cent you get a cup of coffee and a cinnamon bun. The soup of the day is less than two euro and you can be full up for less than a fiver. From the window of the restaurant, you can see what remains of the Ballymun tower blocks and on closer inspection, a cluster of mobile homes and caravans amidst some unwanted furniture strewn in a rubbish heap.

As they make their way to the tills, the Corkonian ladies stop to admire the pink and white orchidaceae and agree that with quality stalks like those they’re “dirt cheap”. They pick up a pot each and proceed to the checkout.

Why my career as a jouster was doomed to fail

Posted on by
1

I – KateKatharina – have never had poise and I never shall. For one, I was born with poor posture and no amount of my mother’s creative corrective strategies succeeded in straightening a back that was destined to curve. My movements too are sloppy and graceless. I scurry along; hunched forward with ostensible purpose (an elementary error) rather than amble breezily about my business, accomplishing tasks with efficiency while looking like I am casting but an impartial eye on my surroundings.

I have observed (obssessively) people that do in fact possess poise. Their handsbags (unlike mine) are never overflowing and they seem to have an ingenius packing strategy of which they are largely unaware. They never fumble for change for the bus or wear their dresses inside out (two of my favourite things) and their schedule is always just busy enough but never ever hectic.

In short, people with poise are cool as cucumbers whereas KateKatharina has the relative gracelessness of an aubergine. In this context, I release for the first time to public view footage of my jousting attempt at a medieval children’s festival in Bratislava.

The iron horse I have mounted was designed for children. During the day, I had not seen a single child fail in the mission which I finally mustered up the courage to undertake in the cover of night. If you laugh half as much as LSB did (and does) you will have a pain in your tummy.

Poise. Who wants poise?