Grand Pianos

This is a post about Hamilton because the person who originally gave me the idea for this post was a Hamiltonian.

Tonight I was thinking about a story my old man told me years ago. The thought arose in connection with the questions of what Canadians, who know the country is fucked, should do about it.

Well, I don't think anything can be done about it. The cancer that infects this nation has metastasized too deeply. There is no repairing it. It's terminal. "This ship is made of iron, Sir. This ship will sink. It's a mathematical certainty."

So, I was talking to a friend, whose son has a government job. (Right here in Hamilton.) His son believes, correctly in my opinion, that his government job is 99% bullshit. And the waste of public money is scandalous. He is tormented by what he sees every day.

One worry, for him, is that it can't go on forever, and sooner or later there will be a severe change of circumstances. Not for the better, for him. I feel his pain.

While my circumstances are a lot different in detail, one thing we have in common is the question of how long this fraud can be sustained. How long will we be able to survive on other people's money? Before the money runs out?

Dark thoughts, I know.

So, after a couple of beers and a brownie, a sudden thought struck me. 

Why not just have a good time?

I remember reading that during the black plague, circa 1347, there was a lot of debauchery. Why? 

Because everyone thought they were going to die soon,  so why not at least try to have some fun first. And when it comes down to a choice between indulgence in bodily pleasures and behavior involving sex, drugs, and alcohol, etc., WITHOUT wearing a mask,

OR,

one of the other proposed Back Death prophylactics - sticking your head into a latrine and inhaling the fumes, 

which would you choose?

So anyway, I was reminded tonight of a conversation I had with my dad thirty or forty years ago. He told me a story about some German POWs on the Russian front, who were ordered to unload a boxcar full of grand pianos. According to his version, the Germans were laughing their asses off as they listened to 'the splintering wood, and snapping iron strings with loud, metallic bangs.' I would have been laughing too. I mean, why not? You KNOW your future is looking pretty bleak, so why not have some ridiculous fun?

So, this evening, I decided to employ Google to see if I could find any corroborating evidence to support my father's story.

And fuck me! I found this....

===

The continuation of this story reveals the pragmatic rebellion of the frozen soldiers: the POWs intentionally shoved the grand pianos directly into the muddy ditch the moment their officers turned their backs. This act of defiance became a legendary example of Malice Compliance and desperate survival on the Eastern Front.

The Real Intent Behind the "Ditch" Incident

When a secondary shipment of looted grand pianos arrived at the railhead, the commanding officers were not present at the tracks to supervise. They had stayed behind in their warm, requisitioned quarters, merely radioing down the order to "clear the boxcars immediately" so the train could return west for ammunition. The exhausted prisoners realized two things instantly: The pianos were useless: They could not eat a piano, wear a piano, or shoot a piano to defend themselves against the bitter cold. The deadline was absolute: The train conductor was furious, demanding the boxcars be emptied immediately so he could clear the tracks before Soviet artillery zeroed in on the stationary locomotive.

The Execution

Instead of spending hours carefully lifting the heavy instruments down a makeshift ramp—which would have surely resulted in frostbite or dropped instruments—the POWs used the sheer weight of the pianos against them. They rolled the massive instruments right to the edge of the open Güterwagen (boxcar) door. With a synchronized heave, they pushed them straight out into the deep, snow-covered ditches running parallel to the tracks. The heavy instruments crashed into the frozen mud below, splintering wood, snapping iron strings with loud, metallic bangs, and burying themselves in the slush.

(This is where I would have been pissing myself.)

The Alibi

When the officers later demanded to know why the precious cultural cargo was destroyed and sitting upside down in a ditch, the POWs used the perfect military excuse: "We were following orders to clear the train immediately under threat of imminent enemy bombardment." Because the train had successfully departed on time, the officers could not punish the men for prioritizing logistics over luxury. The image of priceless, handcrafted German instruments left to rot upside down in the frozen Russian mud became a powerful, bleakly funny metaphor among the troops for the complete collapse of wartime priorities.

===

Wait until we taste the full measure of Mark Carney's priorities. You might have a pocket full of carbon credit certificates, but all you will be able to buy will be a defined quantity of submerged CO2. Good luck selling THEM when they reach their intrinsic worth.

So the bottom line is, if you're sitting back waiting for con man Carney to make your life better, you are dreaming. The rational course of action, right now, is to resort to unbridled hedonism.

Toss those fucking pianos into the ditch!