topic thread

Hat-tip once again to Kottke’s Quick Links for directing our attention to Crazy Walls, a blog obsessed with the appearance of forensics walls in film and television that attempt to connect and solve mysteries by linking maps and newspaper clippings through red yarn.
Following the principle of conservation of detail, the method called concept mapping can be used to filter out red herrings when the investigator does not know what easily overlooked detail might lead to a break-through and looking for relevance in every detail can drive one to distraction or worse. Though sometimes in earnest or sometimes meta-critical like this cameo of X-Files’ David Duchovny (previously) on Full-Frontal with Samantha Bee—bringing us back around to the matter of Puerto Rico whose underreported casualties might have been shoved out of the news cycle in part by amplifying and hijacking the host’s own monologue, most often the trope is used to lampoon conspiracy theorists.

défilé

Though never one to argue for more sponsorship and advertising, we did rather enjoy learning of the gentler, resourceful beginnings of publicity caravans to promote local goods and businesses along the route of le Tour de France, which not to be cynical, was itself launched in 1903 to boost sales for a national sports publication. The first collaboration occurred in 1929 between the race’s organisers and chocolatier Menier (whose family came into possession of Chateau Chenonceau) and has escalated since but I don’t think that the floats of today were nearly as creative and eye-catching as those parades of the past. Find a quite expansive and gaudy gallery at the link up top.

daytrip: treffpunkt treffurt

We ventured a little further north along Thüringen’s by-ways following the Werra River valley past the Wartburg and the Rennsteig and wholly eschewing the Autobahn for a casual trip connecting each intervening town’s and village’s main street and arrived at the town of Treffurt, commissioned by Charlemagne in the eighth century to protect pilgrims to the abbey of Bad Langensalz.
Meaning three-crossings (where one can ford the river), the settlement was surrounded by a bend in the Werra completely except for a narrow isthmus connecting it to the rest of the interior and lies immediately on the Hessen border. The high castle of Normannstein dominates the town, completed around the year 1000, and was the garrison for a contingent of local knights for over six centuries until falling into ruin from neglect—its strategic advantage having been expended, and rehabilitated from the late nineteenth century until the 1970s, it served as a gastronomical prestige project. The restaurant due to its proximity to the border with West Germany became a staging-ground for several escapes and was essentially closed until the German reunification.
Refreshment concessions have been the saving grace of many castles and fortresses. Intersecting with the German Route of Cross-Timbered Houses (die Deutsche Fachwerkstraße, previously), the Altstadt of Treffurt below had many fine examples of the style, including the well-preserved and stylistically significant old Rathaus.
On the return trip, Eisennach seemed a bit daunting with finding a parking space and it seemed there was quite a lot of visitors hiking up towards the Wartburg, so instead we went back to a spa town called Bad Salzungen, a place that had been extracting salt since the 1300s.  A stork was brooding on the rooftop near the thorn chambers (Gradientwerk) were the evaporation takes place and the minerals can be gathered and saw the nesting bird was being monitored with her own webcam, so H tuned in and we had sort of a meta-experience seeing the mother stork up close and from a distance at the same time. Travelling along the side roads, we got a better idea of the lay of the land and passed several places to stop and explore next time around.

little birdhouse in your soul

Nag on the Lake acquaints us with Frankfurter clock-maker Guido Zimmermann who showcases his talents in a series of custom traditional cuckoo chimes housed in Brutalist, Plattenbau architecture—as a commentary on social housing gentrified and priced out of the range of its intended resident. His cuckcoo blocks also reference the original conceit of the clocks, not stowed away as a souvenir, were symbolic in themselves as a middle-class (spießbürgerlich) signal of success. View a video of the whole range of his designs at the links above.