seentour (12. 648)

H found a habour renting out sports boats for the day in Eldenberg, being on of themain tributaries and outflows for the system of glacial lakes that forms the landscape of the Mecklinburgerisch Seenplatte.

Maneuvering out of the marina, we took a turn in Lake Müritz and saw the palace, a fourteenth century knight’s manor redesigned most recently as a neorenaissance hotel,and boardwalk at Klink on the opposite shore from the campsite. Canals connect the major lakes and also saw Kölpinsee and Fleesensee.

We moored at the little fishing village of Damerow and had lunch at a place specialising in smoked local catch.

H had eel (Aal) but I am still too traumatised by Kurt Vonnegut’s passage in The Tin Drum to try though it did look good. There was a gathered regiment of swans to salute upon returning from a day on the lakes and our little dog was quite the trouper.

 

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit (with synchronopticæ) plus lethonomia 

thirteen years ago: WWII week: Berlin

fourteen years ago: counterfeit experiences 

sixteen years ago: diplomas mills  

coeli porta (11. 892)

 

Departing Röblinsee through the Fürstenberg lock and crossed the canal into Stolpsee, and although intending just to stop at a municipal harbour to check out the town, we ended up staying moored at entrance to Himmelspfort, the spot turning out to be idyllic, essentially all to ourselves and aligned with what we envisioned camping by boat would be. After we got settled, we took a look at the ancient town named for a former Cistercian monastery, abandoned and left for ruins after sacralisation but the adjacent brewery founded by the monks was still intact and active.

The town is also known for its Weihnachtspostamt, upholding a tradition began by two postal workers in 1984 when they started answering children’s letters to Santa Claus (the Weihnachtsmann in East German times)—the whole town kind of has a Christmas theme and today, the postal service answers around three-hundred thousand letters from all over the world, but apparently is only one of seven addresses in Germany for such dispatches.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: fantastic spiralling art with AI (with synchronoptica), a graphic design collection curated by Kristen Lound plus LEGO as a media for fine art

seven years ago: murderous dioramas, proposed sovereignty for a Great Lake plus Japanese bathroom ghosts

eight years ago: Obama to his successor on unfinished business, solar plasma eruptions, a new front in the Cola Wars plus early canned, robotic music

nine years ago: holiday creep

ten years ago: the Ebola outbreak, stealing drug-offenders identities plus the landed gentry unchanged for a thousand years 

saturday nite at the duck-pond (11. 747)

Despite (or possibly because of) a ban by the BBC, the surf-rock 1963 single from The Cougars, a short-lived collaboration of rhythm and bass guitars and percussions, that sampled from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake (the theme of Act II commonly known as the Dracula motif for its first use in sound cinematic adaptations of the vampire story and as a trope for other horror films), spent several weeks in the charts. The band also produced other instrumental variations on the composer’s body of work, including “Red Square” and “Caviar & Chips.” Cited as a travesty of a major classical piece and a distortion of melody and harmony, other reasons for the prohibitions on the airwaves included slushy sentimentality, innuendo and alleged drug references with the banned discography ranging from Mott the Hoople, select Beatles’ and Rolling Stones’ songs deemed too suggestive or political, Cher’s “Bang Bang,” “Dinner with Drac” from John Zacherle, “Monster Mash,” “I Don’t Like Mondays,” “In the Hall of Mountain King” the Nero and the Gladiators’ instrumental version and Bobby Darin’s and Louis Armstrong’s “Mack the Knife” takes on The Three Penny Opera. They really seemed to have it out for the undead and adulterated versions of the classics.  After mass protests following the broadcast of a censored version of The Pogues’ Fairytale of New York in 2007, BBC officially dropped its policy of cultural gatekeeping.

* * * * *

 synchronoptica

one year ago: a classic from Lisa Loeb (with synchronoptica) plus a wagon train to space

seven years ago: more meltdowns at the White House, landscaping by AI plus when Americans were weird with science

eight years ago: empty mansion hunting in the Loire valley, emoji as art, more on the birthplace of King Arthur, the first website plus Trump as a Manchurian Candidate

ten years ago: liminal beings plus vanishing New York

eleven years ago: the Church goes after predatory loans plus the German census

7x7 (10. 905)

home taping is killing record industry profits: the 1981 moral panic over mixtapes  

lisa lionheart: labour force participation through the many careers of Barbie  

swipe left: patrons of 1920s Berlin nightclubs could flirt via pneumatic tubes—via Messy Nessy Chic  

the rivers and harbours act: Texas Department of Justice sues governor for refusing to remove a stretch of buoys that violates federal and international law—see previously  

sickbay: the Pirate Surgeon’s Journals—via Strange Company  

comeuppance: it’s time for the annual census on the River Thames—see previously 

a lot of skill, hand-eye coordination—it’s cheap and legal: video arcade addiction was seen as a threat to prevailing social values in 1982

 synchronoptica

one year ago: Ullapool and environs plus Wester Ross

two years ago: a colour advertisement on black-and-white TV (1967), Einstein on the Beach (1976), Thomas à Kempis plus a mosaic along the Thames

three years ago: Trump’s mental fitness, proto-Wikipedia (2000), more on the US Space Force, St Cucuphas, Nixon in China vis-à-vis today’s relations plus more on stock characters and archetypes

four years ago: RIP Rutger Hauer plus a doctored presidential seal

five years ago: a neo-classic Delphic festival (1927), a student project that may have unwittingly identified targets of value in the Gulf War, anti-social media, Mid-Century Modern minimalism plus the hunt for subsurface water on Mars

st. gall

Traditionally counted among the twelve companions of Saint Columbanus on his mission from Ireland to win converts in the lands of the Franks—having been ejected from Gaul where they first landed by local chieftains who wanted nothing to do with Christianity—Gallus (*550 - †646) is venerated on this day. Patron of geese, poultry and birds in general (for no particular reason) and St. Gallen, the saint’s rather complicated iconography relates the legendary encounter he had with a fierce bear, who was said to be terrorising the local settlement as well, in the woods. The holy man rebuked the bear for its behaviour and compelled it thereafter to gather firewood and became Gall’s trusted sidekick.

vacancy announcement

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your daily demon: ipos

This twenty-second spirit governing from today through 12 July presents in the form of a chimera described as having the body of a lion with the head and talons of a vulture, the feet of a goose and the tail of a hare, a fearsome earl commanding thirty-six legion. Giving good counsel on things to come, he imbues wit and charisma, Ipos is sometimes conflated with the ancient Egyptian jackal-headed Anubis (originally Inpu), god of the dead, protector of tombs and ferryman conveying souls to the Underworld, and is countered by the guardian angel Yeyayel.

hönkhalt

Spotted on Super Punch, a wildlife rescue sanctuary in Somerset in southwest England is using IKEA shopping bags to gently restrain swans for transportation and to keep staff safe, prompting a range of new names for the FRAKTA sacks such as the above, BYRDKONTAIN, ODETTEHOLDUR, SVANESÅNG, PÅSFÅGEL—the penultimate suggestion being actual Swedish for Swan Song and “Bag Bird” a near homonym for påfågel, peafowl—and others.

7x7

snuggling cygnets: avian photography of the year, also known as b-poty for short—via Colossal  

untitled pizza movie: documenting change in New York City slice-by-slice  

aqen the ferryman: Cairo hosts a parade for a score of royal mummies moving to a new museum—via Super Punch  

salvator metaversi: art historian turns supposed last Leonardo into an NFT to help out the family who sold it to unscrupulous art dealers 

theatre of machines: intricate gear illustrations from Agostino Ramelli (see also here and here)  

scenes from a mall: footage from the Southdale Centre’s grand opening in 1956  

knock knock: a swan terrorising a neighbourhood in Northampton—via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links

captain l'audace

Featured as the cover link of Nag on the Lake’s Sunday round-up (much more to explore there) we appreciated being acquainted with master of the disaster sketch Walter Molino (*1915 – †1997) whom excelled at illustrating dramatic near-death experiences and whose commission for a 1962 edition of an Italian weekly—the same publication that engaged Molino regularly, illustrating future visions which from our present (May 2020) looked quite prophetic, though this premonition made no reference to social distancing and pandemics.

Also contributing to comic books, his flair for the dramatic, style which references celebrities that the readership would recognise and subject matter recall a couple other pulp artists (here and here) we’d had the pleasure of learning more about recently. Much more snakes on trains, violence, wild beasts, natural disasters, omens, crashes (a fighter jet into said locomotive), armed pets and daring rescues at the links above.   

hugh of lincoln

Venerated by the Catholics on 16 November and the Anglican church on this day, and arguably the most popular English saint after Thomas à Becket, the bishop and Avalon native established the first Carthusian charterhouse off the mainland in 1179—financed as part of the penance of Henry II for the murder of Becket in lieu of going on crusade, and is considered the patron of the sick, shoemakers and swans—the iconography and associated legends stemming from his lasting friendship with a swan from the village of Stow, who was very protective of Hugh (see also) and would attack any strangers that approached him and guarded Hugh when he slept.  

ducks unlimited

Via Super Punch, we learn that in order to meet a federal mandate issued by the Trump administration in May that the US Fish and Wildlife Service make permanent the theme of “celebrating our waterfowl hunting heritage” and thus require the inclusion of hunting paraphernalia in the art works submitted for its popular annual “duck stamp” contest.

Purchased primarily by bird-watchers and conservationist, the yearly licensing image has generated revenues in excess of a billion dollars since the 1930s to purchase and protect habitat for wildlife by the service and many are afraid that the politicising, shift will alienate contributors. Submitting artists have found subtly cartoonish ways to insert spent gun shell casings, discarded duck-calls, etc. in their work.

anatiferous

From the editors of the Merriam-Webster dictionary, there is a new podcast series entitled Words Matter that features some serious logophile conversation about linguistics, usage, semantics and etymology that’s rather brilliant. 

A recent episode presents us with a discussion, a treasury of “aggressive useless” obscure words—like the above, which means “producing geese” dating back to the strange idea that water fowl were generated out of barnacles—and in a more generous, wider sense suggestive of, as is the case with peristeronic. Do look up the episode and subscribe and foster some of these superannuated words. We also enjoyed the separate discussion of another word, jentacular, and a derived term, antejentacular—pertaining to breakfast generally, particularly one taken just upon getting up. The latter refers to something prior to said repast, as in “Would you care to have an antejentacular coffee with me?”

fränkische schweiz

Located in the uppermost pocket of the Franconian Jura and originally bearing the name the Muggendorfer Hills, we had the privilege of touring the region previously “rediscovered” and romantically marketed at the end of the eighteenth century by a couple of law students from the University of Erlangen who wrote about enthusiastically, followed by a 1820 volume by a local historian who coined the new endonym die kleine Schweiz and now had the chance to see it again for a few fresh impressions over the weekend.
First we entered in County Kulmbach the market town of Wonsees with its medieval Felsenburg (rock castle) Fortress Zwernitz, hewn into the dolomite stone, originally the family seat of elevated peasants called the Walpoten—a so-called ministerialis line, that is serfs raised up as servitors and agents into positions of responsibility within the class system of the Middle Ages.
While not technically free and independent, these families held social power and could cultivate their estates and pass along their wealth to the next generation, with equal status accorded to men and women.
Beneath the tower and keep is a seventeenth century cliff garden called Sanspareil landscaped around some strange rock formations and with oriental follies—reminding H and I of the gardens at Veitshöchsheim or Schwetzingen.


Next, following the Burgen- und the Fränkischen Bierstraße (the region having the one of the highest concentrations of traditional breweries in Europe) we came to a village called Aufseß, named for the stream that flows through it, dominated by a castle and chapel with a clutch of some pretty fancy chickens in the property opposite the courtyard who were eager to have their pictures taken by us paparazzi.

With a few detours through Plankenfels and Waischenfeld, we stopped at Burg Rabenstein—a well-preserved Spornburg, a spur castle which is constructed where natural topography aides in its defences that also featured a quite good restaurant, a dripstone cavern and a bird-of-prey demonstration. The intact castle is one of the best conserved—most are ruins but romantic ones—along the route and was originally also in the capable hands of the Rabenstein ministerialis family, who were eventually able to buy the property and ennoble themselves. The castle appears as the main stage for the 1995 wildly popular PC game Gabriel Ritter sequel “The Beast Within”—I was not familiar but I think it was like the equivalent of the King’s Quest saga.
After securing a campsite (we had miscalculated a little and instead of the season’s end like we thought it was busier than expected) in the Veldensteiner Forest outside of Pottenstein, we returned to Gößweinstein with its Burg and basilica minor designed by Balthasar Neumann as a pilgrimage destination.
Our last stop on the way back to the campsite, we drove back through Pottenstein and visited the town, crisscrossed by canals, more fowl not shy of the camera and a row of sleeping ducks (I did not know they did this) and dominated by towering karst towers.
The town is absolutely awash with roses of all sorts; learn more of the story behind that and Saint Elizabeth of Thüringen at the link up top.
We looked at the rock formations from another perspective in the Tüchersfeld neighbourhood of Pottenstein on the way out of Little Switzerland and on our way home.
While not on the itinerary, our last impression for this visit was of the ruin of Burg Neideck, towering above the Wiesen river valley and considered the icon of the region, just outside of the town of Muggendorf

divinisation or pompatus of love

We enjoyed reading this short, collective hagiography that profiles several saints named Hyacinth, including one from Fara: “A martyr about whom nothing is known,” but we were more intrigued by the footnote for namesake flower (Giancinto, Jacinto, Hyakithos) and its mythological origins in a handsome Spartan prince and his fatal love-triangle.
Hyacinth was the lover of Apollo, but he had the attention and advances of a host of other suitors including the famous Thracian singer Thamyris, Zephyrus and Boreas—respectively the West and North Winds. Hyacinth preferred the company of Apollo and together in a chariot drawn by swans, they had adventures. While playing a round of frisbee (discus), Hyacinth was struck in the head and perished, the eponymous blossom rising up where his blood was spilled—a trope appropriated by Christianity as a symbol of renewal. Devastated Apollo blamed himself but there is strong suspicion that the winds conspired to punish the prince out of jealousy, and the god wanted himself to become mortal to join him after his healing powers failed him. The Spartan month that coincided with early summer when the flowers bloom was named in his honour and included three days of festivities. Hyacinth was eventually resurrected and joined the pantheon of the gods. This attainment of godhood is apotheosis and usually in Antiquity heroes were accorded local status alone, whereas in Imperial Rome, a deceased ruler was generally recognised by his success, decree of the senate and popular consent—though some ridiculed this practise as it also included the corrupt and inept—satirised by referring to the tradition with another Greek borrowing apocolocyntosis—that is, pumpkinification with accompanying lampoon that features Claudius and Caligula in the underworld.

1up

Via Strange Company’s Weekend Link Dump, we learn that for only the second time in living memory (there was a partial cancellation in 2012 due to extreme flooding), the census—called the Upping of the Swans taking place along the River Thames during the third week of July, an ideal time before the cygnets mature and the cobs (see previously) are themselves moulting and flightless—has been called off entirely due to social distancing measures. Dating back to time when swan husbandry and ownership counted and the birds were roasted for special occasions, the landed gentry employed wranglers to mark the beaks of their birds with a special, distinctive pattern (nowadays they are ringed for study and entry into an ornithological database, much more humane than the earlier filigree)—as all unclaimed mute swans were property of the Crown, see also. Learn more about this event at Spitalfield’s Life at the link above.