BETWEEN WAVES AND WANDERINGS:

A NOTE FROM MRS CONTRETEMP

Filed under: Continental Drift, Cultural Misunderstandings & the Surfable In-Between.

Dearest Gentle Readers of the Council’s Better Instincts,

A few earnest inquiries have recently floated in—no doubt on the wings of cinematic nostalgia—wondering whether our curious European cohort, the Nouvelle Vague Zwischenschaft [NVZ], is in some way affiliated with that grand old French film movement of cigarette smoke and jump cuts.

Permit me to clarify. Or rather, to fog the glass just enough that you may see through it more clearly.

Despite the linguistic overlap, our “vague” is not the nouvelle sort of “new wave,” à la Godard or Truffaut. It is the English vague—hazy, meandering, gloriously uncertain. A fogbank, not a manifesto. A shimmer in the atmosphere, not a cinematic revolution. And as for “Zwischenschaft”, allow me a moment of precision.

Zwischenschaft, from the German zwischen (“between”) and –schaft (“state or condition of”), is a neologism we coined to name the place where we dwell: not in doctrine, but in betweenness.

A habitat of ambiguity. The continuity of becoming.

And whether we realized it or not, it is also what Jung described.

“I exist on the foundation of something I do not know… In spite of all uncertainties, I feel a solidity underlying all existence.”

In other words: Zwischenschaft.

(And yes, darling, it’s one of those infamous German compound words—technically known as a Kompositum. Ours is mercifully restrained. Others, like Rechtsschutzversicherungsgesellschaften—“legal protection insurance companies”—make the English tongue feel like a child learning cursive while falling down a staircase. The Germans, bless them, build words like bunkers and expect you to move in.)

We did not mean to describe the Council’s motto, but in hindsight, it’s rather perfect:

“Between Jest and Earnest.”

There it is—Zwischenschaft in four words. We named a mood, and found a mission was already humming underneath it.

It is not a bridge but the air between arches. Not indecision, but the deep patience before form.

We were, I must confess, as startled as anyone to learn of the other nouvelle vague while toasting the memory of Jean-Paul Belmondo with a rather sentimental glass of pastis. A charming man, from what I gather. All cheekbones and chase scenes. But I digress.

Our Continental cousins are, let us say, not film buffs. They are mood buffs. And their wave is less Nouvelle than perennially swelling and receding, without clear origin or end. Which, I dare say, makes them rather modern—though they’d likely wince at the suggestion.

That said, we were tickled by one description of the cinématographe movement that does seem to apply to our general ethos:

“Storytelling that could express complex ideas while still being both direct and emotionally engaging.”

Granted, we’re not always direct. But one must go out on a limb occasionally, if only to feel the wind.

To anchor this breaker of aquatic ambiguity in something more solid, I offer the following passage from our patron mystic of meaningful incoherence, Herr Doktor Carl Gustav Jung—who, it turns out, defined our Zwischenschaft far better than we ever could.

Here, without commentary and with considerable admiration, is Jung:

“I know only that I was born and exist, and it seems to me that I have been carried along. I exist on the foundation of something I do not know. In spite of all uncertainties, I feel a solidity underlying all existence and a continuity in my mode of being.”

“I am satisfied with the course my life has taken. It has been bountiful, and has given me a great deal… I am astonished, disappointed, pleased with myself. I am distressed, depressed, rapturous. I am all these things at once, and cannot add up the sum.”

“The world into which we are born is brutal and cruel, and at the same time of divine beauty—

Probably, as in all metaphysical questions, both are true: life is—or has—meaning and meaninglessness. I cherish the anxious hope that meaning will preponderate and win the battle.”

— C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections

So there you have it: not a wave, but a wandering. Not new, but never quite old. And not French, but vaguely European.

As always,

—Mrs. Begonia Contretemps

Council Cultural Attachée-at-Large

Keeper of the Continental Mood Ring

Postscript from Anna Graham, Language Arts, Puzzles, and Word Games Correspondent

On the Clunky Grandeur of the Kompositum

German compound nouns—called Komposita (singular: Kompositum)—are a national pastime, a bureaucratic art form, and, let’s be honest, a delightful form of lexical excess.

They’re formed by fusing multiple roots into one often unwieldy but strangely precise word. We love them. We also laugh at them. They are what happens when a language chooses honesty over elegance and refuses to stop describing a thing until everything about it is inside the word.

Here are a few that are real (we checked!)—some official, others beloved colloquialisms:

Fahrvergnügen (German): “The pleasure of driving.” Den kennst du! Popularized by a 1990s Volkswagen ad campaign, now reclaimed by the Council to mean any activity so needlessly elegant it transcends purpose.

Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän (Captain of the Danube Steamship Company) Perfectly plausible and legally permitted. Try shouting it during an emergency.

Fernweh (Longing for faraway places) The romantic cousin of homesickness. And unlike its longer peers, this one’s actually poetic.

Backpfeifengesicht (A face badly in need of a slap) Equal parts insult and art. The compound itself feels like a slap.

Kraftfahrzeug-Haftpflichtversicherung (Motor vehicle liability insurance) Mundane, necessary, and practically longer than the accident report.

Sitzpinkler (A man who sits to urinate) Not exactly flattering. But oh so efficient.

Zahnfleischbluten (Gum bleeding) Because German does not flinch.

Treppenwitz (“Staircase joke” – the perfect retort that arrives too late) As if the language itself knew the sting of missed timing.

Yes, they’re clunky. Yes, some feel like cathedrals built entirely out of filing cabinets.

But in their stubborn literalness and bricklaying honesty, they are weirdly beautiful.

Like Zwischenschaft, they don’t hide their structure—they make you live inside it.

— A.G.