Owls to Athens
TODESSA SEASON 01, EPISODE 28
HEIMATFILM DIPTYCH / LEFT WING
Livestream from Todessa
Camera: Tman
Cast: Totleb & Co.
Editor: Todito
Soundmix: Todonsky Junior
Directed by: T.L.
Hints & Definitions
Heimatfilm
German pronunciation: [ˈhaɪmatˌfɪlm], German for “homeland-film”; German plural: Heimatfilme) is the name given to a film genre that was popular in Germany,Switzerland, and Austria from the late 1940s to the early 1970s. They were usually shot in the Alps, the Black Forest, or the Lüneburg Heath and always involved the outdoors. These films were noted for their rural settings, sentimental tone and simplistic morality, and centered around love, friendship, family and non-urban life.
Diptych
a painting or carving (especially an altarpiece) on two panels (usually hinged like abook)
The term refers to official lists of the living and departed that are commemorated by the local church. The living would be inscribed on one WING of the diptych, and the departed on the other.
Owls to Athens
A calque of the Ancient Greek proverb γλαῦκ’ εἰς Ἀθήνας (glaûk’ eis Athḗnas). The owl, which roosted in the rafters of the old Parthenon (the one burnt by Xerxes I), was the symbol of the city of Athens, and was sacred to its patron goddess, Athena. It was featured on Athens’ silver coins, and as Athens both mined its own silver and minted its own coins, bringing owls (either the real birds, or the coins) to Athens would be pointless.
to bring owls to Athens
(idiomatic) To undertake a pointless venture, one that is redundant, unnecessary, superfluous, or highly uneconomical.
Synonym:
coals to Newcastle
Meeresküsten / Seacosts
Hölderlin
Wie Meeresküsten, wenn zu baun
Anfangen die Himmlischen und herein
Schifft unaufhaltsam, eine Pracht, das Werk
Der Woogen, eins ums andere, und die Erde
Sich rüstet aus, darauf vom Freudigsten eines (kommt?)
Mit guter Stimmung, zu recht es legend also schlägt es
Dem Gesang, mit dem Weingott, vielverheißend dem bedeutenden
Und der Lieblingin
Des Griechenlandes
Der meergeborenen, schiklich blikenden
Das gewaltige Gut ans Ufer.
…
As upon seacoasts when the gods
Begin to build and the work of the waves
Ships in unstoppably wave
After wave, in splendour, and the earth
Attires itself and then comes joy
A supreme, tuneful joy, setting the work to rights,
So upon the poem
When the wine-god points and promises
And with the darling of Greece,
Seaborn, veiling her looks,
The waves beach their abundance.
translated by David Constantine
Voiceover
Martin Heidegger reads Hölderlin
Acknowledgements
freesound.org, archive.org, Martin Heidegger, Friedrich Hölderlin