Walter Benjamin - Radio Benjamin

As I arrived home, imagine my astonishment at seeing Anton, who had been waiting there for five hours. He wanted to apologize for the silly letter he had sent to me early this morning via his housekeeper. I said that it didn’t matter all that much, and then told Anton my whole day as I’ve just told it to you now. He couldn’t stop shaking his head. When my story was over he was so astounded that he was speechless. He then left, still shaking his head. As he disappeared around the corner, I suddenly realized: this time he really has forgotten his hat. And I — of course I had forgotten something as well: to ask him the answer to my riddle ( Gong ): The peasant sees it often, the king only seldom, and God never at all.

But perhaps you’ve found the answer by now. And with this, I say goodbye.

Repetition of the fifteen questions:

1. The first question is an old German folk riddle: The peasant sees it often, the king only seldom, and God never at all. What is it?

2. What’s fishy about a barber who hangs an enamel sign in his window reading, “A shave today ten pfennigs, a shave tomorrow free”?

3. If I have a small circle and then around its center point I draw a circle whose circumference is five centimeters greater than that of the original, this creates a ring between the two circles. If I then take a giant circle, one as big as the circumference of the Earth, and around the same center point I draw another one, whose circumference is five centimeters greater than that of the first giant one, there is then a ring between those two circles. Which of the two rings is wider, the first or the second?

4. If the clock pendulum swings ten times to the right and ten times to the left, how often does it pass through the middle?

5. How can a man who is 100 years old have had only twenty-five birthdays?

6. What is the quickest way to add up all the numbers from one to 1,000? Try it first with the numbers from one to ten.

7. A country is surrounded by four other countries, each of which borders the middle country and two of the others. What is the fewest number of colors needed so that each country has a different color than its neighbors?

8. How do you spell dry grass with three letters?

9. How can you write 100 using only four nines?

10. In your ABC’s, which is the middlemost letter?

11. There are three identical flowers in a field. In the morning, how can you tell which of them has not been there overnight?

12. If each day a bookworm eats through one volume in a series of books, how long will it take for it to eat its way from the first page of one volume to the last page of the next, provided he eats in the same direction in which the series of books is arranged?

13. You have a piece of paper with the word “money” [ Geld ] written on it. Which two letters can you add to convey a request for patience [Geduld]?

14. What’s wrong with the logic of a man who orders a piece of cake, exchanges it for another once it arrives, and then won’t pay for the new piece because he claims he traded the old piece for it?

15. The old riddle once more, whose solution is worth four points because it has now appeared twice: The peasant sees it often, the king only seldom, and God never at all.

Answers to the fifteen questions:

1. His equal.

2. If the barber were serious about his offer, he wouldn’t have made a permanent sign out of enamel, because “tomorrow,” when shaves are free, will never come.

3. The two rings are of equal width.

4. The pendulum passes through the middle twenty times.

5. The man was born on February 29.

6. Calculate: 999 + 1 = 1,000; 998 + 2 = 1,000; 997 + 3 = 1,000; there are 500 such pairs. Then all that’s left is 1,000 at the high end, and 0 at the low end; so adding 1,000 to 500,000 gives a total of 501,000. Using the same method, the numbers from 1 to 10 add up to 60. 2

7. Three colors are needed: one for the country in the middle, one for the two countries above and below the one in the middle, and a third color for the two countries to the left and the right of the one in the middle.

8. Hay.

9. 99 9/9.

10. B.

11. The flower that was not there overnight is the one with no dew on it.

12. The bookworm needs only a moment to get from the first page of the first book to the last page of the second, because in a properly arranged library, the first page of the first book is right up against the last page of the second.

13. Inserting the letters “du” into the middle of the German word for “money” [ Geld ] spells the German word for “patience” [ Geduld ].

14. The first piece of cake, which he did not pay for, does not belong to him, so he should neither eat it nor exchange it for the second piece.

15. His equal.

List of the fifteen mistakes:

1. Heinz realizes that summer daylight saving has just begun and sets his watch back one hour. He should set it one hour forward.

2. If the barbershop is just around the corner and it would take him as long as three minutes to get there, it would be impossible for him to see it.

3. If Heinz is cut on his right side, the wound will be on the left side of his reflection.

4. Nineteen marks cannot be disbursed in five-mark notes.

5. Five groschen and twenty five-pfennig coins equals 1.50 marks. Heinz should have received only ninety pfennig in addition to the nineteen marks, because he gave the barber twenty marks for a shave that cost ten pfennig. 3

6. If the barber, the pharmacist’s twin brother, is a young man, then the pharmacist cannot be an old man.

7. A window cannot be closed from the outside.

8. Even if he is dead, a man has only one skull, not two.

9. One could not yet take photographs in the time of Frederick the Great.

10. A bladeless knife missing its handle is simply not there.

11. Someone with a corner seat cannot have neighbors to the right and the left.

12. If Anton’s housekeeper is deaf and alone in the apartment, she wouldn’t know to open the door after Heinz rings the bell.

13. If someone lives on the sixth floor, a two-story building cannot block his view and he cannot see the faces of passersby.

14. If the train station clock reads 14:00, it’s 2 pm, not 4 pm.

15. The crescent of a waxing moon looks like the start of a German uppercase “A,” not “Z.”

“Ein verrückter Tag, Dreißig Knacknüsse,” GS, 7.1, 306–15. Translated by Jonathan Lutes.

Broadcast on Southwest German Radio, Frankfurt, probably on July 6, 1932. The Südwestdeutsche Rundfunk-Zeitung announced for the Youth Hour on July 6, 1932, at 3:15 pm, “ ‘Denksport’ [Mental Exercise], by Dr. Walter Benjamin (for children ten years and older).” “A Crazy Mixed-Up Day” was most likely the text Benjamin prepared for this broadcast.

1“Moor’s Head,” a direct translation of Benjamin’s Mohrenkopf, is rarer in English as a name for this chocolate-coated marshmallow pastry. The English term for this dessert is usually “mallomar,” and the modern-day German is Schokokuss, “Chocolate Kiss.”

2Benjamin has made a mistake here. There are only 499 number pairs adding up to 1,000, giving a subtotal of 499,000. Adding the two remaining numbers, 1,000 and 500, gives a correct total of 500,500. Correspondingly, the sum of the numbers between 1 and 10 is 55. Benjamin’s mistake was first corrected in the GS, 7.2, 649–50.

3There were ten pfennig in one groschen, and 100 pfennig in one mark.