Ghost Stories
By ELIZABETH MAKER

Published: October 26, 2003

Hier ist, fuer Englisch Leser, eine alte Geschichte aus der NY Times, ueber einen barfuessigen Klavierspieler, allerdings ein Geist. Da fragt man sich ob vielleicht der eine oder andere von das gleiche Schicksal haben wird. (Ich, z.B. bin seit 32 Jahren in unserem Haus und bin hier herum als BF Otto bekannt.) Ich habe zwar kein Klavier aber eine Yamaha Keyboard und spiele diese auf einem Exersize Ball sitzend und barfuss auf einer Artificial Turf Matte (gute zusaetzliche Fussmassage. Ich kann mich so nach links und rechts, rueckwaerts und vorwaerts und auf und ab bewegen, macht das Spielen leichter und macht mehr Spass. Zur Nachahmung empfohlen. Bin allerdings kein guter Spieler und altmodisch, Johann Strauss Walzer etc.
Babel Fish uebersetzt das Folgende wahrscheinlich halbwegs gut.

Reundliche Gruesse Otto
hristine Baranski, co-star of the NBC sitcom "Happy Family," has a mysterious occupant in her home in Connecticut who provides an entirely different kind of comic confusion: a ghost named Barefoot Charlie Hunt.
Although ghost stories become quite common around Halloween, there are residents who say they deal with ghosts all year long. And these perfectly sane, successful people swear they are not just telling stories. "This is a ghost that seems to take great pleasure in mischief," said Ms. Baranski from the 1787 farmhouse that the family of her husband, Matthew Cowles, bought in Litchfield County about 50 years ago. "We'll buy a new hammer, a pair of scissors, a flashlight, and it will literally just disappear, gone completely from where we'd set it down. Then, years later, it will manifest itself in the strangest places of the house."

Mr. Cowles said his mother decided to buy the house despite warnings from the previous owner that it was haunted by Charlie Hunt, who lived in the house in the early 1900's. Hunt had been well-known for refusing to wear shoes.

"One night when we were kids, my brother was practicing on the Steinway," Mr. Cowles recalled. "A while later it was time to go to bed and I could hear Chris was down there playing again. I yelled, 'Chris, will you stop the music please! It's getting late!' But I walked by the bedroom, and there was Chris, asleep! We all knew for certain that it was the ghost."

Ms. Baranski and Mr. Cowles, who, coincidentally, met in 1982 while performing in the play, "Ghosts," on Long Island, said the ghost has many ways of getting attention. "There is movement of furniture and slamming of doors," Mr. Cowles said.

"This is by no means a malevolent force," Ms. Baranski said, "but he has made his point that he opposes all things electronic: computers, refrigerators, lights and televisions," which she said all act up. And faxes? The machine just won't work. "Forget faxes. My agents and managers want to come and have a séance just so they can send me a fax. It's as though he resists the very idea of modernity."