Wandering a bit through the neighbouring market town of Ostheim vor der Rhรถn and learned our area had a connection—and a celebrated one at that—with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, marking his visits to the town in 1780, accompanying Duke Karl August of Saxe-Weimar, whom ennobled the writer and polymath, in his role as privy councillor and highway commissioner.
On one occasion, under the advisement of local economics chair, Goethe directed the construction of two ramparts bridging the river Streu, designed to straighten the flow of the waters and provide irrigation to the meadows, a system used by famers through 1985. Referred to in local dialect as the above (Wackeliege Stege) as the original wooden footbridges, replacing the stepping stones, became wobbly shortly after installation. The master baker Hans Bickert was an avid researcher of local history and was particularly intrigued by the connection to Goethe and acquired in 1970 the old Saxe-Weimar Amtshaus (we have been to a Flรถhmarkt inside this building) from the State of Bavaria (see above: Ostheim is historically tied to Thรผringen but joined Bavaria in 1947)—restored and renovated the history structure next door and hung signs bearing important transitional dates in the ownership and allegiances of the town. The chronicle includes the second visit of Goethe in April of 1782, this time to recruit draftees for the American Revolutionary War, a task which Goethe detested as human thievery and resolved to keep his focus on his earlier project of improving the towns river shallows and apply new irrigation techniques, and adding a basin for wading and ablutions—see also. Not many men were conscripted for Prussia. This minor but lovingly attended to construction together with notable correspondence dispatched from here not only helped the amateur historian to commemorate Goethe’s time in Ostheim with several plaques but also inspired the baker to dress up as the poet laureate while giving guided tours of the town.Thursday, 24 April 2025
Wednesday, 5 March 2025
the man in black (12. 279)
Courtesy of our faithful chronicler, we learn that on this day in 1953, whilst stationed in West Germany Air Force staff sergeant Johnny Cash in Landsberg am Lech (which also hosted the detention facility where Hitler was incarcerated following the abortive Beer-Hall Putsch in 1921 and on the 1933 anniversary of the National Socialist party’s ascendancy in the Reichstag) was likely the among the first to learn about the death of revolutionary leader Joseph Stalin outside of the Soviet inner political circle. The General Secretary of the Communist Party had suffered a stroke a few days earlier and succumbed whilst recuperating in his dacha after extensive medical intervention (probably of a brain haemorrhage) and not announced to the public immediately and possibly disclosed due to this interception. Monitoring coded radio communiques, Cash broke the news through his chain of command to Eisenhower after the message was deciphered. Aside from this important intercept that penetrated the highest echelons of the regime, the balance of Cash’s three year tour was isolating and uneventful, leading to a formation of a band called the Landsberg Barbarians (a play on Bavarians) that played during off duty hours in local venues and saw the inspiration and development of such signature songs as “Folsom Prison Blues” and “Hey Porter.”
Monday, 18 November 2024
die osingverlosung (12. 011)
Inscribed on the UNESCO register of intangible cultural heritage in 2016, we had never heard of this five hundred year old custom, that takes place every decade (in years ending with four) on the arable plateau called the Osing near Bad Windsheim in Middle Frankonia after the harvest when lots are drawn by farmers of the four villages that share the land to determine who will work which parcel for the next ten years, until the next lottery. This unique system dates back to the late Middle Ages and ensures that fertile and less desirable fields are distributed equitably, this tradition surviving no where else in Germany has been upheld as the community appreciates the element of fairness—one farmer consigned to a poor allotment will have an equal chance to work more high-yielding patch of land next time, instead of selling off the commons to the highest bidder. Even taking place in 1944 when other long-standing traditions were put on hiatus, the custom is said to date back to around the year 1020 when Kaiserin Kunigunde von Luxemburg went on a hunting expedition in the then densely forested area of the Osing. Her party got lost but thanks to the pealing of church bells of the four villages surrounding the woods at the cardinal points, Herbolzheim, Humprechtsau, Krautostheim and Rรผdisbronn, they were able to find their way, and in gratitude, the empress deeded the land to the people to share in perpetuity.
* * * * *
synchronoptica
one year ago: terraforming Mars (with synchronoptica)
seven years ago: bioluminescence
eight years ago: majestic sandcastles, a particular aesthetic, the uncanny mantis shrimp, digitising archival photos plus a collapsing bike helmet
nine years ago: saving the bees
ten years ago: linguistic redundancy plus high-fructose foods
Sunday, 25 August 2024
sunday drive: fasanerie u deutsch-deutsch grenze (11. 792)
Taking advantage of the cooler weather, H and I went to the next village over (see previously here and here) of Hermannsfeld to see a classic car show held on the grounds of the Jagdschloss Fasanerie—a pheasant-hunting lodge built for Duke Georg I of Sachsen-Meiningen from an existing menagerie at the end of the eighteenth century and by turns a nature reserve, a refugee encampment, accommodations for the border police, a teacher training facility and then back to a park and place for excursions.
Afterwards we took the long way home over Henneburg and stopped again at the sculpture park at the former Inner-German border. With an expanded and changing selection of artworks and installations on division, reunification and freedom, the Friedensweg lining the crossing from Thรผringen and Bavaria was dedicated by Bundeskanzler Helmet Kohl in 1996 and began with the central construction of the Golden Bridge and features contributions from children and artists from both East and West coming together.
Saturday, 3 August 2024
katzenkopf ii (11. 742)
Over the weekend, H and I returned with our neighbours and dogs to Frankish wine island of Sommerach, on the loop of the River Main. As the namesake of our campsite, it has one of the more famous and well-distributed vineyards of the region and dating from 1901, the one of the oldest cooperatives (Winzergenossenschaft) in Germany—we get most of our wine from the grocery stores from this area.
Landscaped by the creation of the canal connecting Volkach and Gerlachshausen (see above), the steep sloping hills and unique conditions of the soil, loamy and ancient limestone have made this spot particularly well suited for viticulture for untold generations.
For this visit, we toured more of the town and wandered the streets lined with individual wineries (Weingรผter)—including a few with vending-machines after attending one tasting—which came to our campsite—and another in the historic Zehnthof, which delivered the cases we selected to the campground the next morning. Many of these buildings sourced to bureaucracies and tax regimes, began in medieval times because these “tithe farms,” originally storehouses for a tenth of harvests (see previously) collected by governing monasteries and other beneficent organisations from farmers individually were later given to a commissioned decimator to collect from tenants—the warehouses (see also) becoming stately manor homes for the overseers.
With the the end of ecclesiastical estates, this institution fell in the hands of prominent vintners representing the local industry. According to local lore, the name Katzenkopf comes from a woman who tried to dissuade her husband from drinking wine straight from the barrel and succeeded finally by frightening him into sobriety with a stuffed cat—otherwise a quick swat as a term for light corporal punishment of blow with the knuckles to the forehead.
synchronoptica
one year ago: a banger from Madonna (with synchronoptica)
seven years ago: Russia displeased with continued sanctions, emotional granularity plus drone delivery
eight years ago: a poem by Brian Bilston, a elevated superbus plus Thomas Edison’s clickbait
nine years ago: a visit to the Rennsteig plus more on Venus Flytraps
ten years ago: armchair coaching, Israel eavesdropping plus indoctrinating radio
Saturday, 8 June 2024
ellertshรคusen see (11. 614)
Described as a deserted village since the fifteenth century despite joint efforts of the Teutonic Order of Mรผnnerstadt and the Bishopric of Wรผrzburg to resettle the area that never materialised, the artificial reservoir near Schweinfurt, the largest of its kind in Lower Franconia, was created in the mid-1950s in order to provide irrigation for local farmers and as a means to mediate flooding. The former use-case however proved not to make economic sense and the lake was eventually developed as a recreational destination with beaches, jetties and a nature reserve.
H and I joined another couple and stayed at an eccentric but very hospitable campsite in the forest just behind the dam that provided some nice personal touches, like welcome beers (Begrรผรungsbier), delivering your breakfast Brรถtchen order and handing out tiki-torches in the evening. There is no Dana—only Zuul!
one year ago: assorted links to revisit plus ventriloquism and witchcraft
two years ago: a banger from Tears for Fears, more links to enjoy, record temperatures plus the ash heap of history
three years ago: composer Carl Orff, America’s first supermodel, a classic from Procol Harum, more links worth the revisit plus corresponding city maps
four years ago: the Festival of the Supreme Being plus pipeline funk
five years ago: buried urban rivers
Sunday, 26 May 2024
schutzzieles schutzwรคlder (11. 583)
Traveling a bit further on towards Suhl, we came to a crossroads of many trails through the Thรผringer Wald but with an an embarrassment of choices but finite time could only pursue hiking a segment instead of the proper loop that was nearly thirty kilometers to see all the highlights and returning to the campsite, we picked a peak in the Rennsteig and walked to Adlersberg through the protected landscape, sensibly managed since 1937 after exploitation dating from the Middle Ages.
one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting
two years ago: more links to enjoy
three years ago: your daily demon: Leraje, Johnny Mnemonic, the murder of George Floyd one year on, an educational short, more links to revisit plus a precursor to NFTs
four years ago: Dracula (1897) plus a cursed alignment chart
five years ago: Sweden traffic switches orientation, the EU votes plus a trip to Saxony’s Elbsandsteingebirge
Sunday, 19 May 2024
pfingstsonntag (11. 566)
Courtesy of H’s fancy drone piloting we had a nice bird‘s eye view of the grounds but we were soon sharing the airspace with avian friends (I had never heard the belching cries of swans or the clapping of a stork before) and craft launching from a nearby strip built for model airplanes which could really do some impressive stunt maneuvers—none of which I could manage to capture, not for the lack of trying.
one year ago: St Ivo, The Phantom Menace (1999), assorted links to revisit plus more medieval collective nouns
two years ago: Amy Fisher (1992), St Dunstan, an altarpiece by Titian plus the zine of William Blake
three years ago: a birthday wish (1962), an animated stratified map, a classic by Paul Simon plus the stadio typeface
four years ago: the UK public terror alert system plus unsustainable arbitrage
five years ago: the Dutch Venice, etiquette as a social wedge, a tardigrade stress-ball plus flora and fauna of the New World charted out
Saturday, 18 May 2024
neustadt a. / a. (11. 565)
We ventured out to visit the main town of the region, Neustadt an der Aisch—a member of the cohort of European municipalities called Neustรคdter numbering around a dozen—and saw the old town, which was cultivated through the auspices of House Hohenzollern under the burgraves of Nรผrnberg into a cultural, political and economic hub along the main overland trade route between Wรผrzburg and Nรผrnberg already by the twelfth century but ending after the Thirty Years War in the mid-1600s and falling under Prussian sovereignty. Neustadt faded in importance but due to subsequent developments in the rail network (which followed those ancient merchant roads) and repopulated with Germans expelled from the Sudatenland, Neustadt regained some of its former prominence.
one year ago: a classic from Looking Glass plus assorted links to revisit
two years ago: the Geneva Convention on Environmental Modification (1977), another MST3K classic, a national assembly in Frankfurt (1848) plus more links to enjoy
three years ago: even more links plus the plan to put a roller coaster on the Golden Gate Bridge
four years ago: the eruption of Mt Saint Helens plus more links
five years ago: an old/new painting by Vermeer