“Language is only a means of understanding and of not understanding”

Back in May 2016 I translated ‘Pin’, a collaborative Dada-Merz poem by Raoul Hausmann and Kurt Schwitters first published in 1962. The poem, however, is dated 1946. PIN was a projected magazine that Raoul Hausmann and Kurt Schwitters worked on before the latter’s death in 1948. I translated the poem almost certainly because May 2016 was around the 100^th anniversary of Dada. 11 years before 1957 the poem can be considered a bridge between the respective practices of Dada and Merz, and the soon to be instituted experimental practice of the situationist international. An anticipative plagiarism:

“You prefer to use language in order to understand platitudes that everyone already knowns by heart. We prefer language that will procure for you a new feeling for these new times”.

CHRISTAMS time has come. Consider this a follow up to ye olde taile of Santa Rosso. (Who is Santa Rosso? Check back here on the dark one’s birthday.) Consider this me hateful anti-christams card as anticipative Doctor Shamass.

All italics and spelling errors are intentional.  

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Pin

A fancy

A fanfan thing

Seize the right thing

The world has need of new tendencies in poeting and paintry

The old junk can no longer fool us

The Muses must fanfanter if humanity wants to survive

The cocky sprits fell pretty low during the war

We want farfader sprit, because we see with our ears and hear with our eyes

Our drsls and rlquars ghosts are full of fatatras.  They surpass “modern poetry” with their new taste

Their content is so very direct that they place themselves above language entirely

Language is only a means of understanding and of not understanding

You prefer to use language in order to understand platitudes that everyone already knowns by heart. We prefer language that will procure for you a new feeling for these new times

Leave behind your controlled feelings and look, if you please, over here at our fanfan and you will see that it is worth it

PIN

The right fanfare to know

—Raoul Hausmann and Kurt Schwitters, 1946

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TRANSLATOR’S NOTE:

PIN was a project that Raoul Hausmann and Kurt Schwitters worked on before the latter’s death in 1948. “Fanfan La Tulipe” is a French “larrikin” character. According to the Vincent Perez Archives, he is the personification of the French hero, a chronic jokester, ladies man and free spirit who refuses to surrender to a forced marriage and instead finds himself persuaded to enlist in Louis XV’s regiment of Aquitaine by the enchanting Adeline. The character of Fanfan La Tulipe has evolved through the times into playing a central role in the French national identity, originating from the tale of a French soldier who triumphed against the British in 1745, and later evolving into a character in numerous songs and plays who made fun of his superiors and somehow always got away with it through his wit and a quick draw.