what are you reading?

[sally]

lol well there's a part 3 which i'm assuming must then be topological, because it's called 'theory of budapest' but i haven't started that yet

[thoxans]

til that i'm a very morbid person, cuz i really don't like accounting (sorry to any accountants here, you poor miserable bastards), but i really enjoy depreciating stuff...

[sally]

i have got no further with montano since i conflated 2015 with the literature-killing pico movie that doesn't look exciting enough to watch, and now i find 2015 is still at it, reminding me just how troublesome it is

duchess of warsaw (2015)

[nrh]

i had to stop reading gombrowicz's diary after a few too many days where "gombrowicz collusion" started to be a thing.

[Curtis, baby]

Dunno what that means but I googled it and found this quote??

And just as he had earlier, during their lunch hour, insinuated the problem of innocence to the formalists - which had incensed them and boosted their immaturity a hundredfold - he was now making an issue of my modern legs. And there I was, listening and lapping it all up - his linking the calves of my legs with those of the new generation - and coming to feel the cruelty of youth toward old calves! And there was also a kind of leg camaraderie with the schoolgirl, plus a clandestine, voluptuous collusion of legs, plus leg patriotism, plus the impudence of young legs, plus leg poetry, plus young-blooded pride in the calf of the leg, and a cult of the calf of the leg. Oh, what a fiendish body part!

Holy fuck I need to read that

[nrh]

always read gombrowicz

[mesnalty]

If I recall right, there's a character in Ferdydurke who translates a poem but the translation basically just consists of the word "calves" repeated a bunch of times.

[thoxans]

i like it when a textbook tells me 'earlier you learned about...' cuz i'm always like 'i did? really...? i don't remember that at all, but good for me'

[Curtis, baby]

Are you enrolled somewhere or is this strictly edificatory

[ole dole doff]

i am currently reading (obviously) "The Travels of Sir John Mandeville"
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/964 ... Mandeville
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mandeville

during my roamings across London in 2019, i peeked inside British Library — being primarily curious about the architecture of Sir Colin St. John Wilson (1922–2007).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_St_John_Wilson
He spent over 30 years progressing the project to build a new British Library in London

to my surprise (i was not aware of it prior my visit), British Library offers an exposition of many charming old manuscripts (and the access to the exposition is free of monetary charge).
i spent a lot of time at the spot and one of the manuscripts that charmed me was "The Travels of Sir John Mandeville".
so, after my return to my homeland, i searched if i would be able to read it.
in the past, i read another medieval travelogue called "Travels from Bohemia to Jerusalem and Egypt" written by Martin Kabátník (1428–1503), a person who was a resident of the East Bohemian city of Litomyšl that is coincidentally a town i was born a few centuries later (if you will ever visit the town, in the local museum you can afford a reprint of this book).
so, while searching after "The Travels of Sir John Mandeville" i discovered the local version was published in 1963 — it is a reprint of the translation done in Bohemia around 1400.
now, it has to be stated that John Mandeville is a fictitious character (an alter ego of a physician from Lutych who hardly ever traveled outside of Lutych and his name was Jean de Bourgoigne).
he collected all kinds of snippets of accounts about foreign lands and (self-styling himself as a Britton knight) he describes his "own" 34 years long travels (started supposedly in 1322) across various exotic lands.
there is a competing theory the author is a Frenchman by the name of Jehan à la Barbe.
judge for yourself what is right and what is wrong.
in any case, this book became a best-seller (the second best-selling book — the first ofc was/is the Holy Bible).
paradoxically, an authentic account of exotic travels by Marco Polo was taken rather with suspicion by Marco's contemporaries.
as opposed to the fabricated accounts of fictitious John Mandeville that were widely read and widely translated across medieval Europe (and taken prevalently as authentic).
as already stated, translation in medieval Bohemia was carried around 1400 by Vavřinec z Březové (1370-1437) — known abroad as Lawrence of Březová.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_ ... ezov%C3%A1
a Czech writer of Hussite period, ... He wrote in Czech and Latin. He was a historian of the Hussite movement. His works are usually regarded as more or less reliable.
He was also a translator, his translations are usually deemed of high quality. He translated mostly during the time when he worked in the court, where he e.g. translated the so-called Travels of Sir John Mandeville.

i must admit, that reading the medieval travelogues is mostly a pain in the ass.
occasionally there are some interesting descriptions of various people you can meet in foreign lands (including the acéphales, the headless)...



but otherwise, it is usually just a very dreadfully listing of various geographic locations and first-hand repetitive testimonies if locals already adopted the Christian faith or are still pagans or sacrilegists.
what however makes reading of the local translation of "The Travels of Sir John Mandeville" highly interesting is the aforementioned fact that in 1963 was reprinted (with only very mild edits) the translation done around 1400 and thus contemporary Bohemian has a unique chance to encounter a language that was used by locals several centuries ago.
the language is mostly comprehensible, many times very amusing, and only occasionally too enigmatic that one has to consult the enclosed "Old Bohemian - New Bohemian" dictionary.
so, i wholeheartedly recommend to any resident of any European country to look out if the best-seller "The Travels of Sir John Mandeville" was (in bygone ages) translated into your tongue and while reading this "real fake" travelogue you can get many insights about medieval Europe and the language of your ancestors.

[sally]

i don't know about medieval language but i struggle with 17th century english - i have the below (a 1975 reprint) and it's the first printed evidence of yorkshire dialect and i don't understand half of it, even with the 'dictionary' attached. sometimes you just need footnotes...

[sally]

also dialect is pushing it a bit

Well tidded, is when a Cow hath a good Udder, and promiʃeth fair for ʃtore of milk.

but i must get myself some Spatterdaʃhers (are things to put above ones Stockings to keep them clean from mire and dirt)

[ole dole doff]

my hypothesis why local medieval language is relatively comprehensible is as follows...
when the medieval Hussite revolt against Roman Catholic vices was crushed and forced re-Catholization was implemented by Habsburg dynasty — they acquired the Bohemian throne in 1526 and ruled Bohemia till 1918 — Czech language became more and more marginalized to the point of near extinction.
German & Latin became tongues of local intelligentsia and Czech was just an obscure dialect of the plebs.
this state of affairs lasted till 19th century — till the universal rise of the (post-romantic) revival movements.
some local dissenting members of the intelligentsia started to revolt against German hegemony and started to compile Czech-German dictionaries to prove Czech language doesn't lack anything.
ofc after centuries of marginalization the language was somewhat deficient and (medieval-inspired) neologisms started to become fabricated and newly found (fabricated) medieval manuscripts started to emerge miraculously here and there.
most acclaimed are forged manuscripts (hoaxes) of Dvůr Králové and Zelená Hora...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuscrip ... C3%A1_Hora
There were early suspicions about their authenticity, but they were not decisively established to be forgeries until 1886 in a series of articles in Tomáš Masaryk's Athenaeum magazine.
...
In the interim, the manuscripts were generally regarded romantically as evidence of early Czech literary achievement, demonstrating that such epic and lyric poetry predated even the Nibelungenlied.

so (in sum) i expect this long gap in the wide usage of Czech language between medieval times and the revival era is the reason contemporary Czech is not that far away from medieval Czech.
if the Czech language wouldn't become marginalized for centuries and could freely evolve, then it would probably be vastly different nowadays (in comparison to its medieval version).

[ole dole doff]

now, the mental image of me might not only be that of a person wearing a fake mustache but also holding underarm a forged manuscript.
which actually is not that far away from the truth because i have to admit i "found a manuscript in the attic" in the past!
those were scribbles of my then neighbor's deceased mom (as i figured out by reading them).
my neighbor was old, she didn't want to use her attic anymore and i was supposed to "help" and throw everything into the garbage can. (yes, i got the Max Brod task.)
however, i noticed noteworthy handwriting on some of the papers and started to put them aside.
i realized i discovered a treasure, didn't disclose the fact to anyone (not even my relatives — not to speak of the heirs of the authoress).
after a fleeting glimpse and reading randomly here and there, i hid the treasure and didn't touch it for a certain period of time.
later, during one summer holidays i read anything and everything, then transcribed everything that made some sense — making it more reasonable (now has to be stated the authoress was diagnosed as schizophrenic — which was the reason she wrote hilariously that however needed here and there some editing to make it comprehensible to non-eccentrics) — and i arranged everything into 40 chapters.
the text is basically a mind-blowing assault on the most renowned Czech writer Karel Čapek (as i already mentioned elsewhere, a favorite write of my paternal grandpa) accusing him of plagiarism.
mostly, Karel Čapek is being accused he "plagiarised" lady's peace-making efforts in his "hoax" novel "The White Disease" that has been adapted in film either under eponymous title "The White Disease/Sickness" or "Skeleton on Horseback"...
https://letterboxd.com/film/the-white-disease/
https://mubi.com/films/skeleton-on-horseback

i don't intend to translate my finding into English however i translated the table of contents (reading it you might get some idea what's inside)...

https://sites.google.com/site/drgalenova/home/contents
Contents:
She-Doctor Galen: Dark Peripetias of the White Sickness
— psychotomimetic utopia revealing repressed inspirational sources of the works by Karel Čapek
— microhistorical fresco mapping the distressful events of the first six decades of 20th century
— Czech-Polish-Soviet contribution to the history of the global microbiology, regenerative medicine and biogerontology
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
PROLOGUE
1/ SHE-DOCTOR GALEN, THE STAKHANOVITE SCIENTIST
autobiographical excerpts, October 1955
2/ KAREL AND KATERINA
legionary romance
3/ KAREL, KATERINA, VLASTA, MARKA, BOZKA
love polygon in the correspondence, 1921-1922
4/ FLEETING GLIMPSE INTO THE REMOTENESS
chimeric poem, 2 January 1924
5/ GRASS-WIDOW
three postcards, 1929-1931
6/ GRINDING POVERTY
three letters (and one additional comment), 1927-1930 (1959)
7/ GIRL WITH A BALD NOSE
minor observation, 1926
8/ BENEFICIAL MOUNTAIN CLIMATE
newspaper clipping, 17 January 1933
9/ FIRST VICTIM OF SUNBATHING
newspaper clipping, 30 March 1937
10/ LUMINESCENT CHILD
newspaper clipping
11/ ELECTRIC MEN
newspaper clipping and draft of a letter, May-June 1937
12/ AFOTIA OR THE PSYCHOSIS OF LUXONS
concept of an article, 18 May 1937
13/ CHAOS IN THE ECONOMY OF LIGHT
concept of an article, 15 July 1937
14/ CANCER IS A WONDERFUL DISEASE
uncompromising proclamation, 16 July 1937
15 / MARQUIS GUGLIELMO MARCONI
obituary, 25 July 1937
16/ TO INSIDERS OF THE SPIRIT
twelve poems, 1929-1937
17/ THE ILLITERATES OF LIFE
last (futile) attempt in verse, 1936-1937
18/ NUTHOUSE, DISENFRANCHISEMENT, DIVORCE
martyrdom during Protectorate period, 1941-1943
19/ MORE THAN JUST A REJUVENATION OF A DOG
rough outline of a peacemaking project
20/ NEW DESIGN OF TRACKSUITS
an innovative input
21/ PEACE, OR PLAGUE?
concept of a pacifist article, 1950
22/ SECOND MADAME CURIE
annotated excerpt, 1950
23/ I KNOW WHY AND HOW
annotated excerpts
24/ ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE LIVING SKULLS
annotated excerpts
25/ DIVINE JET-PROPELLED THINKING
nocturnal notes, 20 March 1952
26/ ATOMISTIC-ELECTROMAGNETIC LUXONOLOGY
nocturnal notes, 27 March 1952
27/ TOTAL BETRAYAL OF SCHOLARS I.
bitter letter, August 1953
28/ TOTAL BETRAYAL OF SCHOLARS II.
bitter review, 10 August 1953
29/ TOTAL BETRAYAL OF SCHOLARS III.
bitter inserted note, August 1953
30/ THE ADVOCATE OF MORALITY IN THE AIRCRAFT
two poems with a bitter postscript, September 1956
31/ ABILITY TO SEE THE MICRO-WORK OF MICRO-AUTOMATON
annotated excerpts, 1964
32/ POISONING DRAMA
neighborhood thriller, 9 March 1966
33/ WINTER AT THE DOORSTEP
favorable official decree, 15 September 1966
34/ GRAB THE HEAT AND LIVE WITHOUT PILLS
message to the granddaughter in verse
35/ NON-AFFILIATED COMMUNIST WITH FAITH WITHOUT DENOMINATION
global appeal, 18 September 1966
36/ AMAZING NATURAL REASON
draft of a letter, 1966
37/ LET'S START A REVIVAL
half-in-verse half-in-prose message to the atheistic couple, 1966
38/ WHITE SICKNESS
draft of a letter to the editors of “Notebook” magazine, December 1966
39/ MUST EVERYONE AGE?
comment to the article from “Work” newspaper, 1 April 1967
40/ MINOR ADVICES
practical triad (simultaneously “how-to-read” instructions)
NAME INDEX

despite (unless learning Czech) you can't read the text, you can still go through chapters and cherish the handwriting because i attached to each chapter (oke, i still need to add few pics) photos of related hand-writing...
https://sites.google.com/site/drgalenova/home

[sally]

that's astonishing, how can it even be real? is everyone in czechia a graphomaniac?

[ole dole doff]

i hesitate to speak on behalf of others (my fellow countrymen) but i certainly am!

[wba]

What a story, Jiri!!
And kudos to you for saving and then doing all the work of transcribing these diary entries/essays.

[ole dole doff]

if anyone wants to watch a film about the "white plague"...
https://letterboxd.com/film/the-white-disease/
https://mubi.com/films/skeleton-on-horseback
that is based on Karel Čapek's "plagiarism" of "my" true story, then you can do so here (National Film Archive YT channel, Eng subs → CC)...
https://youtu.be/HJMUIBEzYnI

[ole dole doff]

btw. there is a great film called "RocketKitKongoKit" (Craig Baldwin, 1986)
https://letterboxd.com/film/rocketkitkongokit/
found footage film mocking the creepy German adventure in Zaire.
when i attended in 2013 JIDFF, Craig Baldwin was a guest and while making intro to this film he called it "mocku mockumentary".
it means, it is something with real gist that pushes that real gist to the absurd extreme and thus it is at first glance perceived as a simple mockumentary.
but once you realize it is only absurd (mocking) depiction of the (absurd) real occurrences you get to the point as if using two "negatives" in a single sentence and thus making a "positive" claim (because two "negatives" cancel each other), f.e. "i didn't see no cats" = "i saw cats".
the same way "mocku mockumentary" is a "real" documentary that only mimics mockumentary in its form but tells the "true" story.
after, i heard this intro speech to "RocketKitKongoKit" i realized my "She-Doctor Galen: Dark Peripetias of the White Sickness" is a literary equivalent of a filmic "mocku mockumentary".

Ltbxd reviews of "RocketKitKongoKit"...

A found-footage history lesson in colonialism, neo-colonialism, and anti-colonialism told in strange and disturbing imagery.

A history lesson on acid.

[wba]

if anyone wants to watch a film about the "white plague"...
https://letterboxd.com/film/the-white-disease/
https://mubi.com/films/skeleton-on-horseback
that is based on Karel Čapek's "plagiarism" of "my" true story, then you can do so here (National Film Archive YT channel, Eng subs → CC)...
https://youtu.be/HJMUIBEzYnI

Great channel!!
Do you know if there's an option to filter those films which have English subs?

[ole dole doff]

probably not.
i guess you have to check every single time by clicking CC.

[ole dole doff]

if anyone decides to watch WHITE DISEASE/SICKNESS aka SKELETON ON HORSEBACK (i see on Ltbxd, Umbugbene watched it in the past!) these are some trivia related to the text upon which it is based.

Karel Čapek wrote (very fast — within a few weeks) WHITE DISEASE in 1937 (it is a play).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Disease
it portrays a human response to a tense, prewar situation in an unnamed country that greatly resembles Germany with one extra addition: an uncurable white disease, a form of leprosy, is selectively killing off people older than 45. It was adapted as the film Skeleton on Horseback by Hugo Haas.

practically along with the initial publishing of the book, it was also staged in the local National Theater, and only two months later film was made.
1937 was a time of rising nazi delusions and heated animosity between Czechoslovakia (with its vast German minority) and nazi Germany.
local Germans were prevalently shouting "Heim ins Reich!" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heim_ins_Reich (Back to the Homeland!) because they didn't felt comfortable as members of a minority in a new prevalently "Slavic" state.
WHITE DISEASE (with its strong anti-nazi and peace-keeping message) was perceived as a strong weapon in the 1930s fight of ideologies and thus was so quickly adapted on stage & on-screen.
the plot constellation is (in nutshell) as follows: 1/ an epidemic of incurable (white) disease spreads, 2/ Dr. Galen discovers an antidote to white disease but refuses to make the cure feely accessible until the warmongering establishment gives up warmongering, 3/ until his demands fulfilled, he is willing to give antidote (cure the white disease) only to selected few (the poor) who are clearly not part of the warmongering, 4/ etc., etc., etc.
in 1938 (after Munich Agreement), all the border territories with the prevailing German population were removed from Czechoslovakia and joined the Third Reich — ethnic cleansing followed (Bohemians and Moravians living in those territories were chased out (this was revenge in 1945-1946 after Jalta Conference agreement that made counter ethnic cleansing "legal" and German victimizers living originally in mixed territories became the victims).
so after the Munich Agreement and loss of border territories, in the atmosphere of deep frustration and hurt feelings (of being betrayed by the West), Karel Čapek became the main target (the scapegoat) whom locals decided to blame for all the shit (because he was known as the main cultural representative of the local orientation on Western countries — that "sold us" to Hitler).
Karel Čapek was exposed to immense pressure (stress), got ill, and died in December 1938.
by dying fast "saved" himself from the fate of his brother Josef who was in 1939 (immediately after the Nazis annexed the rest of Czechoslovakia) arrested, for 6 years was passing through various concentration camps until dying in 1945 on typhus just a few days prior to liberation of Bergen-Belsen) — just repeating what i already said related to Švankmajer's INSECT (adaptation of a play written by both Čapek brothers).
and to make it somewhat more complicated, here comes the crazy lady from the attic...

this lady (authoress of the diaries that i found, edited, and labeled as She-Doctor Galen: Dark Peripetias of the White Sickness) claimed to be the real Dr. Galen and was accusing Karel Čapek of plagiarism and for thwarting her peace-making project.
this lady (let's call her She-Doctor Galen) was convinced to be able to cure cancer and rejuvenate ppl (to make them forever young).
i can't tell what exactly was her anti-cancer & anti-aging antidote because she didn't want to make it explicit in her diaries because she feared her formula might be stolen by unscrupulous ppl — like f.e. Karel Čapek who was (in her view) writing books that "plagiarised" her life story.
She-Doctor Galen devised a plan to rejuvenate president Masaryk (a very old man in 1930s), this way to lure the interest of Hitler and to exchange the rejuvenation formula for a peace treaty.
she had no access to the president but knew Karel Čapek is Masaryk's personal friend, so she allegedly approached Čapek, shared with him her plan, and asked him for an introduction to the president.
and Čapek allegedly kicked her out and instead "plagiarised" the plot as WHITE DISEASE because he allegedly wanted to gain the 1938 Nobel Prize for literature.
again, i have no clue what exactly Hitler would be offered if Karel Čapek would cooperate, Masaryk would become rejuvenated and Hitler would come to Prague to sign the peace treaty (in exchange for rejuvenation formula) but i believe she was convinced one can harvest rejuvenation energy via hairs.
she never mentions words like "prana" or never makes hints to the long hairs of yogis who used to tie all kinds of gems into their hairs to harvest prana and gain mystic powers, but she allegedly had nearly 2 meters long hair (i have 4 pics of her and on first 2 she evidently has very long hair — can't verify if really 2 meters long tho) and for sure she was convinced that hairs play a crucial role in the rejuvenation process.
she was also an advocate of washing hair with egg yolk.
thus i tend to "amuse" myself by the idea that if everything went smooth (if Karel Čapek would cooperate) Hitler might have been (in Prague, in 1937, in exchange for a peace treaty) advised, "Wash regularly your hair with egg yolk and you gonna stay forever young!"
and i guess Hitler would respond, "Fuck you all! You fucking crazy nuts!" and immediately after his return to Germany would give orders to Luftwaffe to bomb Prague (that might cause more dead ppl than after the assassination of Heydrich).
i have no clue if She-Doctor Galen ever really approached Karel Čapek with her unorthodox plot but i can tell that the whole story of plagiarism surrounding the WHITE DISEASE is even more complicated...

She-Doctor Galen accused of plagiarism a few more writers besides Karel Čapek that made me try to investigate this issue of plagiarism.
btw. (coincidentally?!?!?!) the last (unfinished) novel of Karel Čapek called "Life and Work of the Composer Foltýn" has plagiarism as its main theme

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%BDivo ... lt%C3%BDna
an unfinished novel, written by Karel Čapek. It was first published posthumously in 1939. It is a fictional biography of a composer Bedřich Foltýn (pseudonym Beda Folten), who perceives himself as a genius and is hopelessly obsessed with an idea to become a great artist and to write a big opera about Biblical Judith. Unable to finish this goal because of a lack of talent, he plagiarizes works of talented young music students and poor poets and joins these musical and poetic scraps into an opera.

it ofc made to include a quote from ""Life and Work of the Composer Foltýn"" by Karel Čapek about plagiarism in the Prologue to the "She-Doctor Galen" novel.
and while researching the subject i stumbled upon a claim that genealogy of the WHITE SICKNESS contains one more accusation of Karel Čapek's plagiarism.
allegedly there was a writer who invented the WHITE DISEASE plot and approached Karel Čapek because he believed Karel is a better & more acclaimed writer and thus to serve the anti-nazi & anti-war cause it will be a better solution to renounce his own authorship and let Karel Čapek write it.
allegedly Karel Čapek was not interested and thus the writer started to compile WHITE DISEASE on his own.
meanwhile, however, Karel Čapek allegedly changed his mind and within few weeks wrote WHITE DISEASE, and the book and theater play gained immediate success and film was fastly being prepared.
meanwhile, however, the supposed author of the idea started to write his own rendering of the story and now was perplexed by the sudden turn of events and felt being fooled by Karel Čapek (because it became obvious that his rendering of the story nearing its competition became obsolete).
so, he allegedly made some bitter public announcement about the origin of the WHITE DISEASE and threatened to sue Karel Čapek.
and Karel Čapek subsequently (allegedly) entered some kind of negotiation with the dude, apologized for his behavior, and offered to write a prologue to the other dudes rendering of the story in which he would explain why he changed his mind a made such a rush to publish the story (without bothering to inform the original author of the idea that he changed his mind, etc.).
allegedly the negotiations were successful, there was no authorship trial, and the other version of the WHITE DISEASE (under a different title) was published (with Čapek's prologue).
i was not able to spot yet the supposed alternative version of the WHITE DISEASE so i don't have undeniable proof this alternative (original) version exists.
and i have no clue if She-Doctor Galen was aware of this dispute over WHITE DISEASE authorship (if it at all took place) — she never mentions it, she only says she is the real Doctor Galen of the WHITE DISEASE and Karel Čapek is a dirty thief.

obviously, to be a writer is a tough and complex job!

[sally]

oh, hun

[ole dole doff]

oh, hun

what is the film where the phrase "medieval grimoire" is uttered?
i guess it is something i should definitely see!

[sally]

it's classical period, and he's adorable. even if you are meant to think that he's a desperately sad nerd

[nrh]

classical period is a lovely film. he might be a desperately sad nerd but who else makes or goes to see a 16mm art film deliberately made with an old fashioned mono soundtrack in the late 2010s.

[sally]

it is lovely! even if the mono thing passed me by. i need to be nerdier.

[ole dole doff]

i hoped to read some books during the current "free time" but (so far) i read hardly anything.
tho i finished few days ago "Eros and Fable: Novalis' Fairy Tale of Human and Earth Evolution".
i am quoting the title of the English edition but i read the local ("theosophical") one.
it presents a short excerpt from "Heinrich von Ofterdingen" by Novalis — limited only to the tale of "Eros and Fable".
(full) "Heinrich von Ofterdingen" was reviewed (above) by WBA and hopefully i will read the whole book as well once.
besides the tale of "Eros and Fable", the local edition contains quite an extensive (dreadful) prologue and epilogue elaborating at length about Rudolf Steiner (founder of theosophy) and his ramblings about Novalis in his last public speech (given in 1924, prior to his death in 1925).
Steiner was of the opinion that there is a line of rebirths starting in the biblical times with Elias and going through Raphael and Novalis.
he prophecized that the "golden age" will start when this xy-xy-xy-xy-etc-etc-Raphael-Novalis spirit takes over humanity.

https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/19240928p01.html
The Individuality of Elias, John, Raphael, Novalis: The Last Address given by Rudolf Steiner

Such was the life of this being. And it was so, that this Raphael life could only be, as it were, absolved in another life of thirty years — in Novalis. And so we see Raphael die young, Novalis die young — one being, who came forth from Elijah-John, appearing before mankind in two different forms, preparing through art and through poetry the true Michael mood of soul, sent down by the Michael stream as messenger to men on Earth.

Springing from Powers of the Sun,
Radiant Spirit-powers, blessing all Worlds!
For Michael's garment of rays
Ye are predestined by Thought Divine.

He, the Christ-messenger, revealeth in you —
Bearing mankind aloft — the sacred Will of Worlds.
Ye, the radiant Beings of Aether-Worlds,
Bear the Christ-Word to Man.

Thus shall the Heralds of Christ appear
To the thirstily waiting souls,
To whom your Word of Light shines forth
In cosmic age of Spirit-Man.

Ye, the disciples of Spirit-Knowledge,
Take Michael's Wisdom beckoning,
Take the Word of Love of the Will of Worlds
Into your soul's aspiring, a c t i v e l y !

— Rudolf Steiner

i am a fan of Novalis, but to read all those theosophical ramblings based on Steiner's "last address" was a big pain in the ass.
tho occasionally, there were moments that made me intrigued.
f.e. at one point, there is mentioned a special "hatching drawing technique" (promoted by Steiner) that (due to omitting the deluding outlies) allows manifesting (via drawing) the contents of subconscious (probably a more conscious version of making surrealist "automatic drawing").
tho when i tried to search for further details about this mysterious drawing technique all i was able to find (so far) is the "cross-hatching" drawing technique taught at the Waldorf school — mostly used just to depict (in a somewhat ethereal fashion) real-world objects (and not pondering into the subconscious).
so, as Alister Crowley would say, "I am perplexed."

[sally]

sitting by the river in the morning sun reading walser (from 1912!)

what could be nicer?

[wba]

Lauren Bacall's autobiography BY MYSELF, which is very warm-hearted. No gossip so far, only the interesting fact that Betty Bacal had a crush on this older jewish boy in acting school named Kirk Douglas.
I found the book in the mail the other day as a belated birthday gift from a good friend, who thought I was a Bacall fan.