I was thinking about
Richard Strauss's tone poem "Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche" and realized I don't really know much about Till Eulenspiegel himself. So I started poking around and was delighted to learn that Eulenspiegel means "owl mirror." So any collection of the Till Eulenspiegel tales might be said
to have an owl in it, mightn't it? Sure it might. Why, look. Here's Till Eulenspiegel's supposed
gravestone and he's holding an owl and
a mirror over his head in case you don't get the point. During my idle research I stumbled on the website for
that certain corporate behemoth, the name of which I never utter here. And someone had reviewed a collection of Till Eulenspiegel stories like so: "It seems like the punchline of every single story has to do with Euelenspiegel defecating on or in something or someone. That's it. That's the book's running joke. I suppose if you were an illiterate
German peasant sitting around a hearth fire in
the 1500s, you'd find these tales of feces and bad puns hilarious, but I didn't." I was fascinated to discover this living person who is so worked up about Till Eulenspiegel. And as you can imagine, he had inadvertently composed
one of those "bad reviews" that made me want to read the book more than ever. For good measure, the reviewer rubs this salt in the wounds, though I hate to repeat it
so close to our nation's birthday: "Of course, since a good majority of modern Americans are probably less sophisticated than an illiterate German peasant from 400 years ago, perhaps Till Eulenspiegel is due for a comeback.
Hollywood could cast Johnny Knoxville... and he could crap all over American audiences, who will double over with laughter at every
fart noise." Sold! I was naturally drawn to this reviewer's other reviews, which form a kind of
epistolary novel or Robert Browning poem,
in which you get to know the narrator by filling in the gaps. It's like that famous intellectual essayist said in his manifesto that time,
we don't need novels anymore. Did he say that? It sounds like something somebody with a manifesto would say! Before getting into his one-star judgment of Folgers Classic Medium Roast Coffee Singles Serve Bags, our reviewer indulges in this bit of throat clearing: "I am no coffee elitist. I eschew status-conscious coffee drinkers and the frou frou
coffee houses they frequent in order to be seen carrying
green fringed cups emblazoned with quotes from left-wing icons." I've spent some part of my life trying to make up narrators who talk just this way, but I see once again that
I am unnecessary. Also recommended: the same reviewer on the moral depravity of the
Frankie Avalon movie
BEACH PARTY.
