Cleveland State University EngagedScholarship@CSU The Gamut Archives Publications Fall 1985 The Gamut: A Journal of Ideas and Information, No. 16, Fall 1985 Cleveland State University Follow this and additional works at: https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/gamut_archives Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons, Engineering Commons, Life Sciences Commons, Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons, and the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! Recommended Citation Cleveland State University, "The Gamut: A Journal of Ideas and Information, No. 16, Fall 1985" (1985). The Gamut Archives. 14. https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/gamut_archives/14 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Publications at EngagedScholarship@CSU. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Gamut Archives by an authorized administrator of EngagedScholarship@CSU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The third annual of light verse and funny poems 179 poets including John Updike, W.H . Auden, Howard Nemerov, George Starbuck, John Frederick Nims, Daniel Hoffman Litmus To tell good poets I have this simple test: To read their work stirs me to write my best. Great poets are rather different. The latter Suggest to me that I forget the matter. - F.C . Rosenberger "That rare book that is even better than you think it's going to be." - Susan Sontag, Pushcart Foundation " .. a complete pleasure." - Los Angeles Times "Very bountiful ... high craftsmanship." - ALA Booklist Edited by Robert Wallace. Drawings by Leonard Trawick. Cloth, 279 pp., $13 .95 Light Year '85 Light Year '84 Cloth, 200 pp., $12.95 Cloth, 147 pp. , $12 .95 Bits Press Department of English Case Western Reserve University Cleveland, Ohio 44106 A JOURNAL OF IDEAS AND INFORMATION Number 16 Fall, 1985 CONTENTS 3 Klaus-Peter Hinze: Hitler and the Beetle One of America's favorite automobiles, the Volkswagen "bug," began as a pet project of the Nazi regime. 12 Ron Haybron: Packaging the Seasons Calendars of different societies have ingeniously struggled with the incompatible cycles of sun, earth, and moon. 27 Nancy McAfee: Philip Johnson's Play House Cleveland's new theater complex is a major example of Post-Modern architecture. 39 Carsten Ahrens: Recollections of a Dragonfly Man A naturalist's lifelong pursuit of the fascinating famUy of the Odonates. 44 Wojbor Woyczynski: Of Men and Martingales, or, How to Gamble If You Must A deceptively simple mathematical process that could help you to hire a typist, win a court case, break the bank at Monte Carlo . 52 Stuart A. Kollar: Short Story, "Performing Art" 57 William Chisholm: Ions, Eons, Yarmulkes ... Mysteries of Pronunciation More art than science goes into the dictionaries' decisions about how to say a word. 70 Leonard M. Trawick: John Bennett's Poetry of Beauty and Disgust Seemingly repellent poems repay sympathetic reading. 78 John Bennett: Poems "Diptick for C" Three poems from Puking Horse "Nips Works" "Biting the Brick" "French fries under water" "I was watching bug guts" 84 Harvey Pekar: The Novels of Daniel Fuchs, Neglected Master of the '30s Pioneering novelist turned screenwriter. 93 Harvey Pekar: Hypothetical Quandary. From American Splendor BACKMAITER 96 Nina Gibans: Supporting the Arts-A Comment 2 A JOURNAL OF IDEAS AND INFORMATION Editor: Louis T. Milic Co-Editor: Leonard M. Trawick Managing Editor: Mary Grimm Circulation Manager: Susan Dumbrys Intern Editor: Stuart A. Kollar Advisory Board John A. Flower Robert Cheshier David Guralnik Julie Haug Herbert Kamm Cover: Prototype of Volkswagen " beetl e" ap­ pea red on 1939 German postage stamp touting an Katherine Torgerson "International Automobile and Motorcycle Exhi­ Diana Tittle bition" held that year in Berlin . See article begin­ ning on faci ng page. Editorial Board Stephen R. Coleman George A. Coulman Fred E. Ekfelt Gary Engle John Gerlach William R. Martin Photography: Louis T. Milic Th e Gall/III : a JOllmal of Ideas alld Illforll/alioll is published in the fall, winter, a nd spring of each year by Cleveland State In Coming Issues University, Cleveland, Ohio. Subscription rate: one year Writing Harlequin Romances (three issues), $12.00; two years, $20 .00; three years, $25 .00. Library rate, $15 .00 per year. Foreign subscrip­ Technology: Bane of Women tions $3.00 per year additional. Single co pies, $5.00; back issues, $6. 00 . Claims for missing issues honored within History of the Telephone Booth six months of publication. Olympic Misinformation The Gall/III invites commentaries for its " Back Matter" In Vitro Conception secti on and al so the submission of new articles and crea­ ti ve works, especially by Ohio writers and artists, on top­ ics of interest to readers of this region. Preliminary inquir­ art, poetry, fiction ies are welcome; detail ed information for contributors on request. Submitted materi al will be returned if accompa­ Special issue on The Future nied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Address all correspondence to: The Gail/lit, Room 1216 Rhodes Tower, (Fall, 1986-see contest notice Cleveland State University, Cleveland, OH 44115 . on outside back cover) Copyright" 1985 by Cleveland State University. All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A. [SSN 0275-0589. 3 Klaus-Peter Hinze Hitler and the Beetle Many people noted with an inward By the time the American reporter wrote tear the newspaper reports in June, 1985, these words, years of hard work had been that the final Volkswagen " bug" destined for put in by an odd mixture of interested parties Germany had rolled off the assembly line of to usher in what was to become the world's the Volkswagen plant in Mexico. Few Ameri­ most popular car. cans, especially among city-dwellers, have Politics and engineering mingle not had an affair of the heart with one or strangely in the origins of this round midget more of the 20.5 million VW " beetles" that of an automobile so aptly called "the beetle" have dotted the world's streets and high­ (German Kafer), a name which was to be­ ways since 1950. College campuses in partic­ come its endearing nickname and its trade­ ular have welcomed the economical and eas­ mark, coined by the person most vehemently ily parked little vehicles with the air-cooled, active in its development, Adolf Hitler. rear-mounted engine and the awkward It is impossible today to determine ex­ trunk under the hood. Many have felt senti­ actly the extent to which Hitler was person­ mental about these dear little wagons, like ally responsible for the original idea and the Woody Allen in his film Sleeper, but probably ensuing instrumentation of the VW project. not one owner in a thousand is aware of the There are touching accounts by Nazi journal­ origin of this machine as the result of a collab­ ists of how the Fuhrer had felt sorry for the oration between Adolf Hitler and the Ger­ factory workers he had seen riding bicycles man designer Ferdinand Porsche in Nazi to work through rain and slush and how he Germany of the '30s. had determined as early as the middle twen­ The 1938 Automobile Exhibition in ties to present his people with an automobile Berlin was reported by Otto D. Tolischus in which would end their misery. Serious histo­ the New York Times in these words: rians today, however, admit that "we are faced with a disappointing paucity of source Now Hitler has decided that the Germans are to be material.'" Unfortunately, there is no way to the second [after the Americans] on the list of peo­ arrive at the indisputable truth of this matter ples who no longer put bankers' salaries and mo­ since all relevant documentary material kept tor cars in the same class ... Der Hihrer is goin g in the Chancellery, the archives of the Minis­ to plaster his great sweeps of smooth motor high­ try of Economy and of the Labor Front, and ways with thousands and thousands of shiny little beetles, purring along from the Baltic to Switzer­ the construction offices was destroyed or is land, and from Poland to France, with father, still lost. This much has been ascertained: it mother and up to three kids packed inside and see­ was the ingenious car designer Ferdinand ing their fatherland for the first time through their Porsche (1875-1951) who, as early as 1932, own windshield.' one year before Hitler took power, con- Klaus-Peter Hinze approached this subject with the affection of an old acquaintance-he has owned and driven no less than four Volkswagen " beetles." Dr. Hinze, professor of German and comparative literature at Cleveland State University, looked into the histonj of the " people's car" while teaching a summer term at a college in Weingarten , West Germany. His education has been cosomopolitan: advanced degrees in English litera­ ture and philosophy at Freie Universitiit (in Berlin, where he was born), and an M.A.-and Ph.D. at Washington University in St. Louis. The amount and variety of the material on the origins of the Volkswagen gave rise to adeeper interest in the subject. He says, "[ became fascinated by it. [ may even want to write a book on it. " 4 KLAUS-PETER HINZE structed a car called "Type 32," which looked like a father to the later beetle in its streamlined chassis and its four-cylinder rear engine. There can be no doubt that Hitler rec­ ognized the ingenuity of the design and ap­ propriated the concept for carrying out his own plans. Porsche, though always apoliti­ cal and uninterested in Fascist theory or in­ trigue, agreed to make his talents available to the Nazis in order to see his idea materialize. Starting in 1934, Porsche received generous financial support to develop, test, and pre­ pare the Volkswagen for mass production.