It’s with some amusement that I’m posting this. My article on chrematism has attracted a large number of visitors since I posted it in August 2009 on my original website. What I didn’t know in my naïvety was that I was one of very few people to use this word. Possibly one of only two: the other was the person I learned it from, Don De Lillo whose novel Cosmopolis was where I discovered the word. So really, most of my visitors are probably De Lillo readers punching the mysterious term into search engines. My article being the only article on chrematism, Google promptly directs them there.
Amongst the more interesting responses was a request from the J.A.K. Bank in Denmark, asking permission to translate the article into Danish and to print it in their newsletter. The J.A.K., which also exists in Sweden and Italy, is a revolutionary bank that does not believe in interest as a financial instrument and therefore does not charge any on its loans; instead members accumulate points when saving money in the bank, and these points are redeemed for loans.
You can read my article in Danish online here. If your command of Danish is anywhere as good as mine, you’d rather read the original English version here. I thank Asbjørn Mikkelsen, the son of the J.A.K. Bank’s chairman, for the excellent translation. Not that I’m actually in any position to know, but I did have it read by native speakers and have been assured it is.
When I got the request from J.A.K., I was in the middle of producing a recording of the music of – of all people – Carl Nielsen, the ‘Great Dane’ of composers. The mischievous universe was at work once again.
