Word: becher
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Austrians have officially given up the becher and the pfiff as units of volume. The Soviets likewise no longer use the zolotnik and the funt for weight. So why do Americans cling to such archaic units of measurement as the pound, bushel and inch? Our system of units, a modification of the so-called British imperial system, which even Britain has largely abandoned, is complicated. Converting from inches to feet requires dividing by twelve, (quick, how many feet is 97 inches?); going from pounds to ounces calls for multiplying by 16. By comparison, the metric system is a breeze: just...
...Bernhard Becher is one of the few people in the world who hate to see a bright sunny day. Before his blonde wife Hilla even pouts on the morning tea in their Düsseldorf apartment, she looks outside, hoping to see the kind of lead-gray overcast for which Germany's Ruhr Valley is noted. Becher's concern with the weather is not a matter of whim. He is a photographer, his subject the collieries, mills, water towers and other rugged structures of Europe's coal and steel industries. Only a dull diffused light...
...haul to the coal fields of Liège, Belgium, or the grimy Bassin du Nord of France, they ply a favored route leading from Düsseldorf into the heart of the Ruhr, home of Germany's coal and steel industries. Before a visit to Oberhausen recently, Becher had made contact with one of the plant offices, cajoled plant guards with a few cases of beer, and cut down a few shrubs on a nearby slag heap. When he returned, photographic equipment in hand, he found a splendid view of an awful sight. There, in the foreground, were...
Anonymous Sculpture. The Bechers' interest in photographing what most people prefer to forget has understandably raised many a questioning eyebrow. "The hardest thing when I first started was getting permission," says Bernhard. "They thought I was crazy." Descended from coal miners and steel workers, Becher came to his interest in industrial relics naturally. At first he pursued a painting career, soon found that the sights that captivated him were factories, machinery, construction sites...
...bounderish British blend of sad sack and pukka sahib: busby brows that shoot up in startled innocence or beetle down with Mac the Knife malevolence; lugubrious eyes rocketing around like apoplectic billiard balls; a Scotch-sodden thatch of mustache, and, of course, those two front teeth, gaping wide as Becher's Brook. Wherever he takes a stroll, from Soho to Sunset Boulevard, Terry-Thomas is stopped by little old ladies who ask him to smile. When he obliges, they always exclaim: "It's real...