To explain this and the upcoming posts tagged “A Swissbook”, I have to go back to the guest bathroom of the house I grew up in. On a small shelf we had a huge collection of small distractions; dictionaries translating between German dialects, various cartoons, small brainteasers and of course books. One of these books was “Ein Schweizerbuch” (A Swissbook) by René Schweizer (http://www.rene-schweizer.ch/), a collection of nonsense or plain absurd letters to numerous officials. Somehow this book made it to my new flat and cheered me up many times.
At a recent party with friends and a nice big bowl of “Feuerzangenbowle” I passed the book around and people just smiled and giggled reading a few of the correspondences. As some of them don’t speak German natively, I started translating on the fly and the idea came up to publish an English translation.
With the kind permission of René Schweizer himself, I decided to feature some excerpts in my blog:
René Schweizer
GAGA Basel
Aus der Lyss 20
4051 Basel
Tel. 25 12 06Basel, 25th January 1977
Department of Public Prosecution
Kohlenberg 27/29Basel
Dear Sirs,
I shat my pants and would like to know if this is an offence liable to public prosecution.
Respectfully with gratitude for you effort
René Schweizer
During the next few days or weeks I will publish more excerpts of this “tactical madness”, as the author calls it.
For those who read German, I can only suggest to have a look at “Das Original – Ein Schweizerbuch“, a collection of correspondences of the last 30 years.
Cheers Everyone
Tim (who believes in casual madness)