five-by-five

píratar: Iceland’s dominant Pirate Party may extend shelter and citizenship to the Fugitive

kinematografii: a collection of vintage Czechoslovakian film posters

3 quarks for muster mark: some of the invented words of author James Joyce

birds’ eye: an eagle presents Dubai as he descends to his trainer below

be mine: camera embedded in a ring box captures marriage proposals from a face-forward perspective

worth one-thousand

The Daily Beast has a very interesting profile of awarding-winning photographer Alec Soth and his team who are taking an epic road-trips and documenting Americana, sharing his dispatches with all and sundry that really draws in the reader, as the artist’s eye does.

Soth’s latest show is a collection of evocative, black-and-white images, all purposefully untitled and without a caption. The pictures are at first jarring and jumbled, and in trying to interpret what the subjects are doing and to make sense of the setting, one’s focus shifts to find little details that become extremely telling. Never staged and strangers appreciative of the attention, Soth’s work does invite the viewer to construct a narrative—but nothing more, as Soth know the story behind these images either, not wanting to impose his message or meaning. The artist’s publisher and agent also sponsors workshops and retreats to help other to hone their talents for visual story-telling.

la vie en rose ou cressonière

During autumn’s travels in Normandy, which we’ve been woefully remiss in writing about, H and I stopped at the village of Veules-les-Roses—a darling little spot, whose mills and watercress (Brunnenkresse) bogs (cressonières) are fuelled by the shortest river in France, la Veules—only eleven hundred metres long, escaping to the sea through a breach in the high chalk cliffs of the plateau of Pays de Caux.
This village was a jewel to discover, even on a soggy day, and has been made the subject of literature and visual arts. It was very pleasant to have this pause amidst all the other history and dramatic views of this region.

 

jack and jenny

Camping at the end of the travel season in Normandy, H and I had a little fright late one night at a campgrounds that we had nearly to ourselves. There was an awful clanging of a metal trash bin from over by the restroom building.

H peered out the window to investigate and saw these long and lumbering shadows. In this empty place, it would have been too much to bear had I not mentioned that there was a pair of donkeys corralled at the far end of the camp, which was set back from the coast by just a few grassy dunes and shared the land with a golf range—which looked tended but was also sleepy and deserted. The donkeys had escaped and were conducting the nightly rounds. Reading this article from Modern Farmer about the virtues of these sentinels and their advantages over traditional guard animals made me remember how gingerly we tried to shoo them away from the Bulli—in case they did get spooked and decide to kick a big dent in the side of the bus. Apparently, we needn’t have worried about that.

smarty pants

Kottke shares an addictive game that combines trivia with a familiar cartographic platform, called Smarty Pins. It's pretty fun and challenging and one is allowed to keep playing as long as one has a balance of kilometers left—when you put the marker down in the wrong spot, it deducts the difference in distance from one's round but one can always keep on playing and track one's achievements.

ad confluentes

We had the chance recently to visit the city of Koblenz, where the Moselle joins the Rhein, and survey the colossal monument to Prussian Emperor Wilhelm I, designed by the architect Bruno Schmitz who collaborated with other artists to build other gigantic monuments in the area, from high above on the cliff-top campus of Festung Ehrenbreitstein (Fort Honoured-Broad-Stone). This ruler wanted more than cooperation, strategic partnerships and petty tyrants but unity among the peoples of Germany.
Wilhelm never realised this goal during his reign and more democratic institutions were responsible for that, as for the Weimar Republic that followed soon afterwards, but the monument was erected originally to commemorate the decisive Battle of Sedan. Successive governments then used the monument as a call for unity.
It was the figure that is evoked in the patriotic song Die Wacht am Rhein and during the 1980s, an image of the sculpture was used in West Germany as a rallying point for unity, with the iconic symbol of the Deutsches Eck being the standard sign-off signal for television stations at the end of the broadcasting day (before the advent of 24 hour, continuous programming) shown, from this vantage point with the national anthem. Herman Melville, along with other contemporary writers, makes mention of the fortress above in Moby Dick, “this pulpit, I see, is a self-containing stronghold—a lofty Ehrenbreitstein,” and the massive installation is a venue for exhibits on art and history.
Though the fort was never taken in battle, the statue below was heavily damaged in 1945, less than fifty years after its dedication, by an American bomb-run and the French administration of the Trizone forwarded a proposal to demolish the giant completely and put a peace memorial in its place. Those plans were never realised and the decision to restore and rededicate the monumental statue at the head-waters was announced in 1990, just after Reunification.

italy week: testing the waters

In the province of Pistoia in Tuscany, there is an ancient storied town called Montecatini, known since pre-history as a strategic stronghold, with the oldest parts of the settlement built on the high (Alto) promontory, and later renowned for its ensemble of spas.
The thermal springs were harnessed for years with the plumbing of different civilizations but evolved into their current form during the height of the Art Déco movement. There are several resorts within the city, all ornate and inviting but designed to cater to different classes, from the proletariat to the upper-crust.
This most luxurious playground is a period folly called Terme Tettuccio, with its grand porches and galleries, like a very fancy neo-Classic train-station of the age except open and with that invisible fourth wall surely for those relaxing and testing the waters to be seen by their peers and passersby in the gardens.
There are quite elaborate and old baths in Germany but none with such an airy design that we have found yet. There is also of course the therapeutic waters on tap from several fountains lining the arcade, decorated with these beautiful mosaics that suggested the different waters were ideal for the different ages of life.
 Only a few taps were open at the time and youth tasted of sulfur—and smelled of eggs a bit. There was an authentic café, cavernous and fully lined in dark-stained wood, dating from the time with all the classic fixtures and fittings of the associated culture and ceremony and we were able to enjoy a coffee in the sun.

italy week: along the ligurian coast

Primarily, we came to the town of Rapallo in order to take the ferry to Porto Fino but it turned out to be an interesting destination in itself, including a lesson in relatively recent recent history formative to world geography and political developments.
 There were two treaties of Rapallo in quick succession: the first was a settlement in 1920 between the Kingdom of Italy and the lands that would become Yugoslavia in the aftermath of WWI to allow Yugoslavia access to the sea and repudiate the secret agreement made between Italy and the UK during the fighting that promised Italy retention of its historic holdings in Croatia; the second Treaty Rapallo in 1922 was between the Germans (the Weimar Republic) and the newly established Soviet Union.
The delegates of these two powers retreated to a sea-side hotel, actually in neighbouring Santa Margherita Ligure, and during what became known as the Pyjama Conference as the Communists, fresh from the October Revolution found themselves basking in the luxury resort, began their own negotiations, the main meeting in nearby Genoa having not proved favourable to either party. Because of the Bolshevik Revolution, the Soviet Union was not able to fulfill commitments it had made to the Entente powers, as the Russian Empire, and France demanded that the new government stick to the previous obligations and that Germany pay right away for war damages. Also due to the revolution, the retreating tsarist powers had no choice but to abandon their western provinces to the Central Powers, Germany Austro-Hungary, the Ottomans and Bulgarians, which temporarily gave them a great swath of Poland, the Baltics, and Ukraine until their the surrender to the Allies when these territories were created as independent states. Separately, the German and Soviet negotiators agree to pact where neither side would demand reparations from the other and that Germany would recognise the Bolsheviks as the legitimate government and normalise diplomatic relations, as both countries were isolated as an outcome of the war.
This agreement led to secret military cooperation and the partitioning of this buffer zone in later years. These heady circumstances were not weighing us down, however, as we explored the bay with evidence all around of more ancient history to consider, defense from marauding pirates and connections to Columbus' voyages. We did not come to this area during high-season but the crowds were already encroaching a little, but we came also to learn that Rapallo and the neologism Rapallizzazione, referring to indiscriminate building up and catering to the tourist industry (which came after the Gilded Age addressed above) made this place on the Ligurian coast a symbol for contention between locals and the throngs of holiday-makers.

italy week: high-rise or equus caballus

After passing Liguria and on to Tuscany, we made our first stop in the town Pietrasanta (meaning Holy Stone) to admire and take note of the transition in architectural styles.  The piazza, high brick tower (campanili or more generally torre), cathedral and church were certainly unique but also a highly typical ensemble for the towns and villages of the region and distinctive different than the layout for settlements elsewhere in Italy.
This place on the Italian Riviera on the foothills of the Alps neighbours the marble quarries of Carrara, which is the main building material and artistic medium for the whole area.  The main square featured also a rather brutal-looking exhibition of sculpted skeletal horses—including one huge steel installation with human skulls in the mid-section, like some dread, decaying Trojan horse.
The high tower was an impressive landmark and its design was promulgated to towns throughout the region, like the proto-skyscrapers of San Gimignano (which we visited later) whose skyline is unique for the Tuscan countryside and is visible for great distances with fourteen tall structures, commissioned by competing wealthy families, despite an ordinance issued by Florentine authorities in Middle Ages that buildings ought to be no higher than twenty-six meters.  Abstract artist M.C. Escher made an early wood-cut of the fine towers.
The towers of this region not only the free standing belfries of the adjacent churches, many eventually installed with a clockworks but were also strategic look-out points, with vantage from sea to mountains.

italy week: backseat driver

Though I am sure my perspective as just a passenger was quite different, driving in urban Italy was certainly a challenging and formative experience.
We have visited other parts of the country before but had not yet been confronted with the swarms of Vespas zipping pass on both sides and the fact that although lanes were clearly marked, there was no customary lane usage.  Somehow it all worked and we are certainly not ones to buck the system and impose an order to perceived chaos or road-anarchy.  I guess the biggest huddle to overcome was the change in attentiveness and reaction—certainly it is difficult to forecast ones next move but it was easier in the end to relinquish trying to make a prediction.

Also, those mopeds deftly negotiating are not wanting or expecting special accommodations—and to try to yield to them would be a unwelcome kindness, with more potential to cause an accident.  I found these traffic sign decals by a Florentine graffiti artist profiled on-line some time ago and was pleased to see in person that some of the clever additions still remain.  I can appreciate the humour and message even more now.

italy week: la superba

The city of Genoa is known as La Superba, the proud one, for its illustrious history punctuated with many treasures and landmarks as testament to its past and current achievements. The name of Genoa, like Geneva, means the knee—but possibly not because the Italian peninsula below looks like a boot.
We toured the old harbor with its ancient and iconic light house and wide berths.  The galleon that was the principle setting of Roman Polanski’s swashbuckling film Pirates is moored there as well.   The Port of Genoa, though with a lot of quays for cruise ships and flashy yachts, is one of the most logistical sophisticated and well-designed cargo marinas in the world, and also features a very fine aquarium that we’ll have to make it a point to visit next time—when we have more time to see it and the wealth of museums here properly.
We also visited Piazza de Ferrari with its large fountain, behind the Duomo and buffered by the Palace of the Doges and the Genovesi Bourse and get our bearings.
The fountain’s water was dyed orange for, as stated, multiple sclerosis awareness.  We strolled in a covered arcade and we walked through the maze of narrow alleyways (caruggi) of the oldest parts of the city to admire the rows of aristocratic palazzi along Via Balbi, constructed as residences for the Republic’s powerful families.  Cristoforo Colombo also hailed from Genoa (though there is some dispute among scholars and various countries and regions try to claim him as their own, like Charlemagne), though voyaged West to reach the East under the patronage of the Castillian crown.
Other powers rejected his requests for financial aid not because they believed the world was flat but rather that the explorer had majorly under-estimated the accepted size of the globe, known since antiquity.
In fact, Columbus never did acknowledge the existence of the intervening continent as anything other than an unknown part of Asia.  Against the advice of council, the Spanish court eventually agreed to fund the exploration, including Columbus’ request to be named admiral of the seas and royalties from any property claimed for the monarchs.  Some scholars believe that Spain conceded to such terms because they did not really expect him to return—and just in case, did not want him to take his plans elsewhere.
Despite Genoa’s decision not to vet its native son, the republic’s independent existence that spanned almost eight hundred years saw many conquests and colonies and outposts a world away, including Galata in Constantinople, the Crimea and other lands on the Black Sea, much of the Greek Isles, Flanders, Tunisia, Algeria, and Gibraltar (though often these colonies were just gated communities, sometimes just a single building, but with extra-territorial rights for merchants and their families—like a consul), with trade connections extending La Superba’s influence even further.

italy week: square of miracles

Even for the Ancient Romans, Pisa was considered an old city and the glory and tumult comes through with its architecture. The chief draw—though there were many other treasures to discover, is of course the so-called Piazza dei Miracoli, which was began in the year 1076 and went through nearly two centuries of refinement before taking its present form but has always been an allegory of the life of man, beginning with a charity hospital in the front adjacent corner (now housing a museum) and across the lawn, a baptism fount, preceded by a cathedral, with its free-standing belfry to herald important events like marriages and funerals, and finally a peaceful and serene cemetery for the symbolic ensemble.
The tower was raised here despite warnings that the foundation was too weak to support such a structure, and I seem to recall that native son Galileo Galilei helped prove that gravity was a compounded constant by dropping and timing canon balls and prop wooden ones off the tower, whose exaggerated angle of pitch helped with the calculations—as well as being mesmerized by the pendulous motion of the incense chandelier in the Duomo so as to describe it mathematically and reverse-engineer periodicity.
This city on the confluence of the Arno and Serchio rivers—though without direct access to the sea—albeit the sea itself might have receded over the millennia, was a mighty maritime power, culling the marble for its showcase square from exploits in the Holy Land and recycling building materials from its conquests.
Pisa also had far-flung colonies in Jaffa and Constantinople among other places. Pisa lost prominence under constant one-upsmanship from the neighbouring sea-going republics of Genoa and Florence but fared better than others during the following economic collapse and unrest that came after the Crusades, by controlling the inland waterways that linked former rivals, spanning all the way from the Genovesi to the Venetians and profiting from trade and tariffs, and retaining its importance through the ages.

italy week: oultrejordain

During our tour of the Mediterranean coast and the Bay of Genoa, we had the chance to explore the stunning and secluded coves of Porto Fino and the fishing villages of Cinque Terre. These sites were absolutely amazing and edifying as well. It was hard to believe that such jewels, essentially untouched but possibly re-touched as there seemed to be an element of keeping up appearances what with the carefully placed boats lolling in the harbour and in the way of cruise ships but nothing phony, existed and we wondered how such refined but remote places came to be and came to be regaled with such treasures. The picturesque quality was certainly endearing but seemed to be a little elevated out of proportion—nothing disappointing and certainly leagues better than a block of luxury hotels, just incongruous, somehow.
Though it is no account of all the incidents and accidents by any means, the elevation of Genoa and other maritime superpowers originated in the power of vacuum created with the fall of the Roman and Byzantine Empires. With new-found sovereignty and a need for a uniting mission among the independent powers, the houses of Europe went crusading. It was then that Genoa secured its place as an expanding empire, and for its missives to the Middle East, these protected coves sheltered their armada and acted as their commissariat.
Porto Fino, for instance, earned this bounty from the Kingdom of Jerusalem, with this church that housed the plundered relics of Saint George (the dragon-slayer), and many other holy treasures were heaped up as tribute from the long list of short-lived Crusader States established.
It certainly sounded like a legitimate and worthy adventure, despite the costs and the potential reward was of course great and enduring.  This hybridized form of colonization created all sorts grasping exclaves that were never quite reconciled and who can say whether forgiven, among the combatants and much less among the sending-forces.

The claims and honours were various with duchies and marches granted often under dubious authority—like everything to the west of the River Jordan. Incidentally, the Crusades were not limited to the Holy Lands but was also a claim-jump in Greece and neighbours as well—referred to as Frankokratia, the period of rule by the French and the Germans.
This incursion cemented the division between the Western and the Eastern Church, with other repercussions down to this day.
Do not believe for a second that we were not dazzled and relaxed, but rather knowing a bit of the history and context of what's resisted time and tide and what's been preserved and dismissed certainly enhanced our experience.

italy week: renaissance men

Here are some more images and impression from what we did for our summer vacation (the first installment): though I know intellectually that there is little to no elbow room in the lands of Italy when it comes to historic and cultural significance and the locations of important events and the famous and infamous sons and daughters of the towns and villages have to hail from somewhere, I was pleased and surprised to come to the village of Vinci, a little settlement amongst the groves of ancient silver-leaved olive trees and craggy vineyards where Chianti is produced.
It was here that one of the world's most influential individuals, regarded with the due awe of super-genius, was born in 1452 and baptized (though out of wedlock, his sire was no dead-beat dad) as Leonardo da Vinci. We toured the church and later the birth house (Casa Natale) and the town was regaled with icons of da Vinci's creativity and endless curiosity.
Another leg of our adventures brought us to a nearby village where literary figure Giovanni Boccaccio retired (and also was possibly born) after finishing his seminal work, the Decameron—a story within a story, like 1001 Arabian Nights or the Canterbury Tales, a century earlier in 1353 called Certaldo Alto. The Decameron is a collection of a hundred fables exchanged by ten companions who fled plague-ridden Florence during the height of the Black Death. In this fictional, though semi-autobiographical work, the refugees, waiting for the sickness to pass were holed up in an abandoned villa on the outskirts of the city.
After we settled in at our final campsite in Tuscany, until next time, we discovered that the village of Fiesole, with a breath-taking view of the metropolis of Florence sprawling below, was Boccaccio's setting. A compact but complete conurbation in itself, people have been escaping the city for the hills for centuries—including Frank Lloyd-Wright, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas and other expatriates, Fiesole enjoyed city-rights and even was a rival to Florence below.
Not having known beforehand, we could speculate on which of the many fine and ancient villas that inspired the author. There was an open field just up the hill from the camp-grounds, known for its unique veins of marble with a bluish-grey hue, and another luminous individual in the person of Leonardo himself visited that field and experimented with his flying machine. Da Vinci, though never discouraged, apparently made wider forays into all disciplines, and though errors were recorded as well as something visionary—he did not bother disclosing his studies that he felt did not further the arts or sciences. I wonder what other connections we stumbled over without even noticing.

ciào bella

PfRC will be taking an extended sabbatical soon for adventures in Ligûria and Toscana.

Here is a composite view of the villages of Cinque Terre, clinging to the shores of the Mediterranean. Did you know that Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms is considered to have introduced the word ciao to English and subsequently to other language where it was not already common-parlance? The greeting can mean both hello and goodbye—like aloha or saalam or shalom or namaste—and has roots in the Venetian saying “I am your slave,” like the German greeting Servus—I am at your service. There are apparently several other meanings and innuendo that the word can convey and perhaps we will be educated. Please switch the station to our little travel blog for on-going adventures.  Arrivederci!

castellum cattorum or trizonesia

Here are some more images from our recent trip to the Kassel area.

The town itself was devastated during World War II, which saw a lot of intense house-to-house fighting, and many of the destroyed historic building were not restored but rather a mid-century modern city emerged from the rubble but it was nonetheless interesting to tour and recall the region’s history. Kassel was in competition with Bonn to be the capital city of West Germany.
 Kassel became a garrison-town for American soldiers instead, but immediately following the Potsdam Conference (in order to ensure that the exchange of foodstuffs from the Soviet Union for raw materials from the Ruhrgebiet was administered properly) the Office of Military Government, United States established its economic ministry in nearby Minden and the headquarters of the British Element of the Control Commission for Germany was also close by in Bad Oeynhausen.
Having not participating in the Potsdam talks, French forces originally clung to the western border but later joined the US-British condominium to administer the so-called “Trizone” until the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) on 23 May 1949 (Germany turns 65, retirement age soon).
Although the endonym for Germany is and was Bundesrepublik Deutschland, the initialism BRD was never used by West Germans and was only a foil to DDR (East Germany, Deutsche Demokratische Republik) to keep either nation from calling itself Deutschland.
All of these challenges barn-stormed the plain, the corridor in this part of northern Hesse (earlier still, those Hessian mercenaries that fought alongside the rebel forces against the British during the American Revolutionary War hailed from Kassel and earlier still) and it is unfortunate that the inner-town was ravaged and wiped clean—without an ensemble to jar these long memories, but happily the periphery was spared and is cherished.