Workers of the world untie? Unite? Unitarian? Usdfs?
Marx had ridiculous handwriting:
That is all.
That is all.
posted by shrf at 8:01 PM
Sunday, April 30, 2006
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4 Comments:
I haven't looked into this at all, but it looks like shorthand. Much like this Woodrow Wilson gem:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/images/in0055.p1s.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/inaugural-exhibit.html&h=938&w=600&sz=78&tbnid=2qapFMK9rh4cEM:&tbnh=147&tbnw=94&hl=en&start=1&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dwoodrow%2Bwilson%2Bshorthand%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN
dogg we wish it were shorthand. From an unconfirmed but seemingly repeated blurb:
At one time during his years of living in London Marx applied for a job as a clerk but was turned down becuse of his handwriting. Only his wife and Friedrich Engels could decipher it.
Dude's penmanship teacher was probably a bear, raccoon, colbus monkey, or similar mammal.
1. The thing about bad handwriting is that there are two kinds: the Marx/teacher/professor kind, which is impossible to read, and the me kind, which is equally impossible to read, but looks unmistakably like the work of a 5-year-old. I would take Marx's anyday.
2. This whole business merely confirms the rather postmodern thesis I've been presenting at cocktail parties since the early 80s: that Engels was the one driving the ship, and he unwittingly interpreted/deciphered Marx's handwriting to say what he wanted it to say. Marx, who never read his own work after it was published, was clueless.
Your thesis is bold, but having read some of Engels' solo work, I must disagree. The real pomo thesis would be that we should actually read only the manuscript copy, and then each one of our interpretations will create a 'new' communist manifesto liberated from the shackles of soviet malfeasance. E.g.:
"Dude, This says that the spectre haunting Europe is cannibalism...I knew it!"
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