picture-postcard

It is an ennobling project to try to capture the world’s wonders and share them with a public that may not be able to visit in person, and though a virtual tour will probably never be able to match the real experience, one effort, as theLocal reports, is falling perversely short. Using the same techniques that allow viewers to explore the world’s terrain, oceans, highways and byways, virtually drifting along any path, the towering Cathedral of Cologne (Kölner Dom) was inadvertently rendered squatty for this go around. The error will be redressed, I’m sure, but it would be a shock for anyone to see a favourite and important landmark sloppily portrayed. Some people trawl around for such gaffes but quite a few things that went overlooked were found by scouring satellite images and now endless pavement, and possibly this awkwardness will renew interest and pride and prevent the distortion (both through inattention and ignorance) of less familiar cultural and historic sites and allow more people to get to know as they really are.

pokal and fly-wheel

Some time ago, H found this beautiful and stern, smooth and geometric, loving cup or trophy (Pokal). There is no engraving or dedication, only a small plaque in the form of a winged wheel. I suspected that this logo was covering up something else but I’d never risk taking a peek, and is a little mysterious, like an unawarded prize and it is not clear what the symbol refers to: it could be the sign of a watch-making guild in München at the turn of the century or it could be a sign for the old Imperial Railroad (Reichsbahn) that preceded the Deutsche Bahn. Taking a walk around lunch time, I noticed for the first time this ornamental cornice piece of a cherub mounted above that same logo (although there’s a bit of variation with the spokes) cradling a steam engine. H found this treasure at a massive antique flea market (Flohmarkt), rather than in one of the sadly endangered emporia of hordes and cast-offs. It is has gotten increasingly harder to find a traditional antique or junk store, like this one occupying an old brewery building.

As this space and hobby gave the owners a mission to completely fill every available inch with stuff, one used to find a lot of store-fronts hanging on as vanities, something to showcase on the side that never sees much traffic or revenue, like photography or second-hand shops, proprietors got to have relaxed fun. Certainly the weekend markets are wonderful to explore and have traditions and trappings of their own as well, and though there’s a regularity to their season—with frequent and planned routes and tours and always a good excuse to discover some place new, I think towns and villages need this sort of kooky, lazy, sleepy enterprises (rather than ubiquitous telecommunication shops and fast food joints) as potential and permanent repositories of treasures.

beauty mark or parallax view

Our bit of the morning sun has unfortunately been hidden behind steely grey and rainy skies, so we weren’t able to try to see the shadow of Venus crossing the sun ourselves. The intense interest the event has garnered in hobby astronomers everywhere, however, does make me happy and I think expresses continued regard for the sciences and exploration. People flock and cluster around more common lunar eclipses (Sonnenfinsternisse) and meteor showers and though with more heuristic merit than a school science fair project reduplicated without discovery or method, and studying this rare transit will give planet hunters a better understanding of how to spot alien worlds around distant stars, who might disclose their existence by casting a similar tiny shadow and what the roughness of that shadow says about a planet’s atmosphere, size and composition. Historically too Venus has brought together astronomers from different countries and dispatched them to far-flung places, from Tahiti to the Desolation Islands (the French Kerguelen archipelago) by the Antarctic. For really the first time in modern times, scientists cooperated and collaborated on an international level to observe this phenomenon in the 18th century, needing to do so from several different vantage points, irrespective of national or religious convictions: comparing the incidence, size and angle of Venus from different points on the Earth at the same time let scientists extrapolate (from the known distances along the Earth) the distance between the sun and the Earth. That was a pretty nifty trick.

crystalline entity

With a franchise spanning over four decades, many creative and original story-lines, astute social observation and visionary gaffing and rigging that’s brought us so far the tricorder and synthehol, the talents behind Star Trek could certainly be forgiven for coming up with a few dullards. Topless Robot has gathered trading-cards on the top twenty lamest Star Trek alien encounters in a fun and irreverent way, demonstrating I think there was genius behind missing the mark. The web site also features a lot of other humorous collections of sci-fi superlatives that stirs memories of all sorts of forgotten episodes.

börsianer börsiana

The experimental nature and political integration that characterize the euro and the European Union I think may be draw unfair attention, as something perceived as more novel and catastrophic than it really is. Japanese public debt stands at some 230% of its gross domestic product (Bruttoinlandsprodukt), placing Greece squarely in the middle with 152% to America’s 99.5% reported debt that’s just at the break-even mark. Japan even managed to reach these heights outside of the strictures of a monetary or trade union and was free to fine-tune its economy and despite a robust manufacturing sector.

Most of the industrialized states in Western Europe hover around eighty percent. Some can abide and that’s a clever little measure that puts us all in our places all a great spectrum of investment and returns but of course that too is imperfect, not capturing intangibles and not taking into account circumstance like needs and means. Much impatience and frustration (right or wrong) is being visited on Germany for action, and Germany probably will in the end, before the capital and patience of the public evaporates, make a move that inspires a strange, predatory sort of confidence—a more direct endorsement, seemingly, than the mechanisms of bureaucracy. Such heroic cooperation, however, begs the question whether member states are agreeing to whatever bundle of rules and accords out of solidarity and desire to reform, regroup or just in a bid to get enough support to continue the same game. Germany certainly would not want to see all the avatar currencies returned, making a situation where the once-and-future Deutsch Mark is considerably more valuable than a splintered euro. Is such reasoning for this experimentation and not political unity the driving-factor behind a broader movement of aid and assistance?

swatches

I suppose I am not organized or disciplined enough to be a proper curator—or stick with an intelligible theme—and such things do matter among miscellany and easy-of-access considering what goes forgotten and neglected, but I was looking for a specific kind of pattern and all these diverse textile designs did strike me as having some sort of association, in a Jungian common-fate sort of way. The first is a very mod pattern from 1960, British I think. The second is from an artist working in the 1920s named Maria Likarz and suggests a hail of unread emails. The third is a 1950s Eames Era inspired print that looks like something viral, a transmission. The fish pattern is by Wiener Werkstätte compatriot Hans Carl Perleberg and I think is brilliant for the hues and direction. The blackboard abstraction is by Orphian movement founder Sonia Delaunay. And the narrow stack of arches are also from the workshops of Vienna and prefigure one of the standards of Art Dèco architecture, whose successor style—like all these other periods—hold a timeless that maybe groups them together.
















 

ex ante or porto portugal you are permanently punished

This week’s vote in Ireland whether to accept or reject the conditions of the European Union Fiscal Compact, a treaty meant to promote financial stability and responsibility through punitive measures and supranational controls, was a stirring of an issue that goes dormant as member states shuttle in queue and declare what they expect their prerogatives to be.

All countries, with the exception of the UK and the Czech Republic, have now assented and one can expect the process to lurch quietly towards enforcement next year. Ireland, uniquely contrary and potentially ruinous, had a pivotal decision, not so much for deigning to participate, but for letting the voters of Ireland make that mandate—being the only EU member to put the Fiscal Compact up to a plebiscite. Public engagement results in education and a better understanding of the expectations and consequences. The Irish constitution has to now be amended in order to conform to the terms of the compact, which demands that signatories stay just under budget or face fines and surrender trade and tariff matters to the EU government. States still retain control over tax regimes and public projects but it is a legitimate question how meaningful that exercise of prerogative and priorities are still when tethered within the latitude of treaty rules and whether the conditions of this pact are going beyond the reserved rights of individual sovereignty as put out in the language of the Lisbon Treaty (Vertrag von Lissabon). Rejection would mean that Ireland or any other dissenter would be ineligible to receive emergency aid and rescue funds. The EU has the bully pulpit, along with the deportment of its top performers, but also has a sloshing budget of billions with only nominal and ethereal accountability and negatively reinforced, and it seems to me that this poses more of a danger than a deterrent, like keeping a standing army in times of peace.

peer gynt

Though still several weeks away, I am very, very excited about planning for our next big vacation—this time to explore a bit of Norway, and the maiden voyage of our new camper van. And there is definitely something too about being about to plot one's own course that is only gotten through driving. I have been studying quite a bit about the history and culture of the place and find it interesting how the more attention that one pays to a subject (parallel to the car we are waiting to take possession of, which seems to be on the road everywhere right now) happenings and coincidence seem to coalesce and get in the spot-light.

Though I am sure that the majesty of nature, one of the chief things to find out, is something immediate, I suspect that knowing at least a little of the historical and cultural context of a destination (or a whole string of them) infinitely contributes, beyond the facts and the figures and preparedness, to the whole grand experience of discovery and reconciling the unexpected.