Wednesday, October the 14th, 2015

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Swabian Hothead

Perhaps the least-known of the Swabian hotheads, so obscure that we do not know his name, and have never known it, can be seen in the bottom left corner of a mezzotint by the noted mezzotintist Rex Tint, where he is to be seen in full Swabian hothead mode, suitably attired and, we surmise, purple-faced in the throes of tempest, though the mezzotint is monochrome, yet purple we see, by dint of Rex Tint's artistic chops, honed, if his sister Dot Tint's memoir is to believed, and why should it not?, upon Tyrolean peaks, in inclement weather, with pencil and paper, and a pipe stuck in his mouth, as gales howled around him, scribbling furiously with the same scribbly fury he would bring, famously, later, oh! years later, to his depiction, so gauche yet valiant, of the Swabian hothead in the corner of a mezzotint otherwise empty of human figures, a picture populated largely by cows, and herons, or moorhens, or some other birds, for as was often said of Rex Tint, not least by his sister Dot Tint, in her memoir, if there was one thing the maestro could not do, for love nor money, it was to draw accurately any of the birds which God created to bless the skies, if, that is, that was the reason for their divine invention, during the seven days of creation, or rather six, six, I am forgetting that on the seventh day He rested, just as Rex Tint liked to take a day off from his indefatigable mezzotinting at least once a week, usually on a Thursday, when he would prop up the bar at his local kloppisguelph and knock back an entire litre of absinthe, in homage to the habits of his hero Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938), but so unlike the Swabian hothead, who never rested at all, never, never, so hot was his head that it never allowed him to rest, at least not when he was in Swabia, and he was always in Swabia, as far as we know, he never went further afield, they wouldn't let him, they'd've stopped him at the border, forbidden him to cross, wisely, it has to be said, wisely, for who can guess at the enormities that would ensue if once the Swabian hothead were given entirely fresh territories in which to be a hothead?, it fair boggles the brain, mine at least, and possibly yours too, though I cannot guarantee it, even if you have been concentrating hard, and furrowing your brow, and chewing the end of the pencil with which, I hope, you have been taking notes, scribbling furiously, like Rex Tint atop a Tyrolean peak, all those years ago, smoking his pipe, swept by gales, that will do for the time being.