blümchen

Every spring, one little, rather horizontal cactus blooms with vibrantly red flowers that cascade over the window ledge. For this monumental effort, there ought to be a very local festival in honor of this accomplishment, like harvest celebrations or Spargelzeit (Asparagus Time) in Germany. The gardens put on dazzling, perennial shows of their own too. I have never seen, however, the big schefflera tree in the corner go to fruit and flower before.

Sometimes they are called umbrella plants but I call it a big old mall tree, for the potted tropical vegetation one finds larger shopping galleries. They have no fragrance and these little grape-like clusters have just now bloomed but I will have to monitor them. It seems strange that such a lush plant has maybe anticlimactic blossoms, while a creeping, fuzzy desert plant would put forth such a performance.

casting czar

Remember that Barry Levinson film Wag the Dog? It was masterfully done and presented some uncomfortable questions about spin and public policy. I think it was not allowed to become such a phenomenon in the States or linger very long in sniping short-hand because of the eruption of events of the conflict in Kosovo and America’s role in it.

German commentators, and perhaps too soon but not expected to tow the party line, have raised that spectre concerning Osama bin Laden, and how might the death of a villain be staged who never existed, except as portrayed by a carefully casted troupe of actors. I have not followed these events very closely, admittedly, and a lot of the story-line is certainly inherited, and one cannot take too many liberties with the script, as it were, but there does seem to be an awful lot of theatrics going on. It is difficult to say which camp of critics either make the illusion or suggest the illusion, however. Is there enough subtlety in the way this operation played out to admit subversion? Real events, some could argue, do not tolerate irony and the story-arch as well as something scripted and story-boarded. Conspiracy theories create that kind of anti-cyclonic effects. A lot of disparate notions accompany an ongoing pursuit that become cul-de-sacs, other elements of a wild goose chase, that are later abandoned: bin Laden resided in that town in Pakistan for the past six years (numerous footnotes on the Wikileaks’ cable dump), was retired and raised bunnies for neighbourhood kids—and that mention of marijuana growing as wild weeds on his compound, which is not uncommon in suburban Pakistan, or the burial at sea to avoid idolatry of the graveside, a tenet rejected by conservative sects. What if it is all a carefully crafted tale, dynamic to anticipate and counter with plausible explanations the heckles of the audience?

look at books

Because we needed a fitting subject for our chrome and marble bookends to frame and we needed to balance our library with something in addition to the Bible (Der Heilige Schrift, the holy book) that H found from 1911, beautifully bound and with a running family chronicle through the 1990s of births and deaths and marriages, I stumbled across these two volumes, art nouveau, and the compendium of doctoring—Bilz’ (EN/DE) das neue Naturheilverfahren, new natural healing techniques.

I had not know anything about this edition before had but considering those lonely bookends and the conversation that I had with my mother recently about the copy of the Nurnberger Chronicle found in the desert in Utah and how we don’t rummage through book bins too often, I felt I should get these to peruse. Like Dr. Pepper, the practicioner Friedrich Eduard Bilz' tonics went on to become the Sinalco (soft drinks, sine alcohole or without alcohol) brand array of fizzy beverages.  One finds wonderful artistry and deep knowledge in old books and these were no exception: hundreds of coloured plated (I thought the books were separating from their spines in places but I found that these were separate posters, illustrated pullouts, possibly some material—like childbirth, censored perhaps from sensitive eyes, with unbroken seals. Carefully, we peaked inside and there are expansive reference guides in anatomy, where the layers can be peeled back, from skin to bone, like a pop-up book. Books such as these have definitely more worth than just decorative value and it is incredible what knowledge is vested within a single volume, repositories before mass-communication and hyperlinks, and when expertise was turned inward instead of outward. We will certainly be stocking our library with such hidden treasures.

night on bald mountain

Though we will be arriving a few days too late for the annual Hexentanz (Witches’ Dance) on the summit of Brocken, the highest peak in the Harz (EN/DE) Mountain range, H and I are really excited about getting away for a few days to explore that region. Wandering the trails in the primeval woods of one of the first, formally preserved nature-reserves in the world, inspired Goethe, Heine and Thomas Pynchon among others. There are churches and abbeys and villages from the Middle Ages and forsaken mines and waterways like the foundations of the Earth that are far more ancient. This blog will probably take a few days hiatus but you can follow all of our adventures on our little travel blog in the next few days.

who invited debbie downer or not merely dead but really, most sincerely dead

Though opinions usually only take a few seconds to cement, especially when already agreeable to one’s conscience, developments that 9-11 mastermind and reclusive Osama bin Laden has been assassinated by an American military team in a mansion in Pakistan take some time to digest. Though I would not want to veer toward the Teabag movement who’d surely not acknowledge that US president Obama could accomplish anything good until and unless a notarized copy of the death certificate is produced and I also wonder if these cryptic tracking devices uncovered embedded in some popular mobile device’s operating systems also mightn’t have hoisted bin Laden by his own petard (“This application would like to use your current location – Allow / Do not Allow”)—having moved on from dispatches via cassette tapes, timing and distraction are always factors that need to be considered.

Because the military-industrial complex and internal politics generally benefitted from having a boogey- man of semi-legendary stature who also conveniently made it acceptable to equate a religion with terrorism, I am disinclined to believe anything other than the opportunity presented itself and this ongoing hunt was concluded. There are many, however, who ascribe themselves to the opinion that the former president instigated the tragedies of nearly a decade past in order to boost his own flagging office and have a reasonable excuse to prosecute war. Given all the calamities that America faces, not least of which is its declining importance on the world stage, it does not seem outrageous that some side-show might be performed to boost the people’s spirits, especially with perpetual campaigning. In the heat of the moment, possibly the siege could not have had a different outcome, but I don’t understand all this blood-lust and surely in terms of obtaining useful insight and intelligence, it would have been better to have captured him alive. Although Saddam Hussein was taken prisoner, some claim that justice was carried out so swiftly precisely because he’d spill some awkward truths that his executioners rather not hear.