August 1 2015. I don’t remember my mother with much affection—for very good reasons—but she was a remarkable woman in many ways—and charismatic to the point of being dangerous. In truth, she was dangerous. She had 12 children (5 fathers were involved) and outlived 3 husbands.

I HAVE REMARKABLY FEW PHOTOS OF MY MOTHER—BUT NOW AND THEN ONE APPEARS THAT I HAD FORGOTTEN ALL ABOUT

MOTHER WAS A MAN-KILLER—AND IN THIS PHOTO YOU CAN SEE WHY. SHE WOULD HAVE BEEN IN HER MID TWENTIES THEN

ME (VICTOR), MY MOTHER JOJO, AND MY SISTER, MAXINE

Sadly, neither my mother nor stepfather were much interested in photography—and my much loved grandmother, who had all the right intentions, may have been one of the worst photographers on record. She had a Box Brownie, and took quite a few, but then they seemed to vanish into Sturm Und Drang

Speaking of which:

Origin of the term[edit]

The theatre director Abel Seyler

The term Sturm und Drang first appeared as the title of a play by Friedrich Maximilian Klinger, written for Abel Seyler's Seylersche Schauspiel-Gesellschaft and published in 1776. The theme of the play is the unfolding American Revolution, in which the author gives violent expression to difficult emotions and extols individuality and subjectivity over the prevailing order of rationalism. Though it is argued that literature and music associated with Sturm und Drang predate this seminal work, it was from this point that German artists became distinctly self-conscious of a new aesthetic. This seemingly spontaneous movement became associated with a wide array of German authors and composers of the mid-to-late Classical period.^[2]

Sturm und Drang came to be associated with literature or music aimed at shocking the audience or imbuing them with extremes of emotion. The movement soon gave way toWeimar Classicism and early Romanticism, whereupon a socio-political concern for greater human freedom from despotism was incorporated along with a religious treatment of all things natural.^[3] There is much debate regarding whose work should or should not be included in the canon of Sturm und Drang. One point of view would limit the movement toGoethe, Johann Gottfried Herder, Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz, and their direct German associates writing works of fiction and/or philosophy between 1770 and the early 1780s.^[4]The alternative perspective is that of a literary movement inextricably linked to simultaneous developments in prose, poetry, and drama, extending its direct influence throughout the German-speaking lands until the end of the 18th century. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the originators of the movement came to view it as a time of premature exuberance that was then abandoned in favor of often conflicting artistic pursuits.^[5]

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