choose your poison or balance of trade

Not terribly keen on Western goods and for the most part self-sufficient, for European naval powers—especially the British with their particular weakness for Asian luxuries and tea—Imperial China from the early nineteenth century became known as the Silver Bone Yard. This comparison to a gilded grave was employed as the only enticement for the Chinese—the only reserve-currency that they’d accept, not wanting truck with pelts, flagons of beer, bales of wool, missionaries or whatever else was a typical European export at the time which was not derivative of what the Chinese culture had already perfected, like gunpowder and the printed word—was silver dollars minted from bouillon from the colonies in North and South America.
The discovery of New World silver had initially glutted the market and the commodity temporarily lost some of its shine. The Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and British were willing to part with huge sums of specie in exchange for keeping up the trade in tea, silk and porcelain. As more and more silver went into China and none came out, however, a market-correction was due and again prices rose and the demand for precious metal grew, especially with wars to finance at home. In order to reverse the outflows of hard currency, merchants (with support of Parliament) plied the Chinese market with opium culled from poppy fields in Turkey and British-held India—which was an acceptable swap for a spot of tea, in lieu of coinage. Although used recreationally and for medicinal purposes—reintroduced to Western medicine as laudanum—use of opium as a war with drugs does strike me as rather unique, to flood one market to secure cheaper access to another, ostensibly equally habit-forming and ritualised item. Faced with a growing drug problem and traders flagrantly overstepping the bounds that had been proscribed for them, China capitulated (and the degree to which China was compromised is a matter of debate) by expanding access to British merchants that extended beyond a few select entrepôts and granting leases in perpetuity to foreign traders. Though of strategic importance and to modern eyes a serious territorial incursion, China had a standing practise of ceding land in the name of peace-keeping and appeasement, and in addition to the special administrative areas of Hong Kong (UK) and Macau (Portugal)—there was also Tsingtau (Prussia), Tianjin (Italy), Shanghai (Japan) and Shantou (jointly controlled by the English, French and Americans).

5x5: acoustic edition

nature sounds: meditative woodland megaphones in Estonia

milk-drop: the gorgeous music visualisation scheme called Panoramical

white-noise: addressing the Fermi Paradox, Edward Snowden suggests that highly encrypted communication becomes indis- tinguishable from cosmic background radiation

two-man band: the fabulous myriophone that mimics the effects of a full string orchestra section, via the resplendent Nag on the Lake

transduction: in addition to perceiving sounds, one’s ears also produce them

mountain high, valley-valley low

One of these days, we ought to sit down and plot all the routes we’ve taken to cross the Alps, as each time has seemed different and unique and taking the Splüngen Pass was certainly a memorable first. Not navigable during Winter, the roads took a zig-zag ascent up the steep mountain face, whose sharp curves were populated with serene looking cows that gazed at the passing cars unbothered by blind-corners and hairpin-turns.
The sentry-station at the summit was unmanned and seemed long-abandoned though not in ruin and lay at a nice geographical pocket of flatness to admire the peaks of the Bergamont Alps. We descended into the estuary of Lake Como, fed by the run-off waters of River Mera to return to a comfortable and picturesque campsite near the village of Sorico. I learnt that this terminus of the mountain range represents the easiest point for migratory animals to ford the Alps and there were scores of exotic birds to be seen at this cross-roads of African and Asian pathways.
I also learnt that the River Mera was named in honour of a wandering monk who roamed the hill tops over Sorico and venerated as a sort of miraculous rain-maker in times of drought for Lake Como below. Perhaps Hermit Mera was a little over-zealous at the moment as the deluge was unrelenting and the forecast did not bode any better. As a result, we decided to respectfully depart for sunnier weather on Lake Garda.

kapellmeister o frazione

Nestled in just the next sheltered cove over from Manerba, ringed by high cliffs, lies the fair village of Salò.
If it was not enough that this picturesque point had the same colourful and violent heritage as the rest of Lombardy during the early Renaissance, allying with the maritime Republic of Venice, hence the Saint Mark’s Lion, played a role in the burgeoning textile industry that was to eventually led to the Industrial Revolution, devolved into the Hapsburg Empire of Italy after the Napoleonic Wars and fostered the invention and refinement of the violin family—crafted and given language by native Gasparo de Salò, the community has another distinction of more recent times.
Elevated to the status of a city in conjunction with this promotion, from 1943 until 1945—when Il Duce was hanged by the next until dead from a lamp post in the town of Dongo, another place we’ve visited (leider, nur auf Deutsch)—Salò was designated as the de facto capital of the Nazi occupied Italian Socialist Republic, founded under extreme duress by Benito Mussolini.
To the south, Rome was still regarded as the Eternal City but administrative functions of the government and the fascist leader himself were removed to an ensemble of villas on Lake Garda in the north to be closer to Wehrmacht forces, who really controlled the puppet state and to be able to move easily between Milan and Venice.
Although sovereignty was only nominal, fascist factions were able to craft effectively an ideal (to their minds) totalitarian state, an achievement that had been blocked by the monarchy previously—and perhaps Mussolini did make the trains run on time.