kunstkammer, wunderkammer

This rainy and gloomy afternoon, another one in a series that’s really inverted the calendar all over again, turned into a perfect opportunity to spend some time in the local museum, quite a celebrated institution, and sheltering from the nasty weather in the endless maze of galleries, I really enjoyed myself.
The Wiesbaden collection consists to a large extent of the encyclopedic anthologies of the family of Johann Isaak von Gerning donated to the state, but due to the constraints of time and space, rotates its exhibitions with a hauntingly perfect thematic unity. A little leitmotif, follow the bouncing ball, subtlety tied everything together as I advanced from hall to hall.
One great interest of von Gerning was rejoicing in his native Rhine and the museum composed a very nice display of landscapes, and it was interesting to see a romanticized and sometimes fantastically impossible portrayal of some of the places we’ve seen in the area and places yet to visit—but that’s what art is and for an accurate image, one should settle with a photograph. Numerous guest painters who had also visited the Rhine’s castles and mountains also shared their impressions.
 The landscapes were punctuated with examples of baroque-era taxidermy and entomological collections, which were repeated later in the complimentary exhibits that featured the aesthetics of Nature in several acts, the whole spectrum of colour, range of motion and variations on any given theme. The permanent stores on show were also interspersed with some pretty unique installations of post-modern art that amazingly contributed to the natural progression.

getting to bayes

There’s an instrument of disabuse for everyday assumptions and likelihoods that I had not heard of before called Bayesian Probability, after its proponent 18th century English poly-math and minister, Thomas Bayes. Intent on rescuing providence, rationally, from chance, Bayes championed a sort of inverted inspection of odds, imploring people to look to prior arrangements and question how the deck may be stacked and weighted in favour of certain outcomes. Although modern interpretations of Bayes’ thinking maybe over-reach his original context, the notion that probability—writ large and scientish, is based in part on belief is not something merely synonymous with gullibility and naivety and magical-thinking.

Rather, how we measure the likelihood of outcomes can hinge on personal experience, and maybe to a fault, since successes and failures (surprises and dis- appointments, too) are counted by past usefulness and go unnoticed and with indifference otherwise. Sometimes it’s an over-simplification to believe that the chance is 50-50 since we are better acquainted with either something working-out or not and not something in between. Something about the way we pose the question or prime the conditions may obscure our judgment. We are also, sadly, more accustomed to failure than success. This is a bit revelatory and makes me wonder what misguided influences might be tarnishing my choices—not that perfect and logical decisions seem all that savoury either as an alternative. I am remembered to something along these lines whenever I play the lottery but also know that though a long-shot, one only needs to be right once.

put the needle on the record or ong, plong, kerplinky, plong

The imminent BLDGBLOG reports on a project that illustrates the amazing precision and focus that can be attained with laser-cutting techniques, with audio records scribed in a low-fi manner over disks of wood, and then departs into the author’s signature expansion—a flight of fanciful speculation that carries the idea to a certain and inchoate conclusion, with landscapes imprinted and the soundtracks of everyday objects amplified though an ultra-fine stylus.

I think this is pretty keen—I’ve always held a secret though unscientific conviction that every sound, from whispers and footfalls to bangs and other knalls, is preserved somewhere in an atomic memory—sort of like the growth rings of trees or the back-formations of the valleys and mountains where one can, with some causal algebra, solve for the factors that led to the present state.  

to market, to market

Though the superlatives of commerce are always a bit subjective and demands on definition, I was surprised to learn of a fully-qualified contender based in a tiny Swedish village, not far from Malmo, and with a massive caravan-park, a destination in its own right. In any case, the supermarket that offers everything under the sun is significantly larger than the traveling-mats of Star Destroyers that linger, sweeping across the screen for a few moments, is located in a place called Ullared (the Swedish term for a populated place is tätort, like the German Tatort that usual is translated as “crime-scene,” surely a false-friend) and is called Gekås, a continuity of the trend of Swedish discounters, attracting consumers from Scandinavia and beyond. Shoppers queue up in lines a hundred metres long before opening time and orchestrate holidays around this draw.

engadine-ga-doo and further

Though there’s a lot going on besides and notwithstanding my laissez-faire approach to crafting plans—although there’s barely a shade’s difference between preparation and spontaneity since both approaches aim for the same happy outcome, I always feel guilty about been thrown into a much-deserved vacation-mode—especially one long deferred.

Nonetheless, I am very excited about our up-coming adventures, south through Switzerland, transiting through the valley of Engadine—Rhaetorian, Romansch for the Garden of the River Inn, and beyond to Lake Como across the Italian border. Right now, I’m gathering facts and trivia, which has always proved a good gateway for further learning. It might put ambition and expectations off the mark a little, studying historical context and celebrity, and create toy kingdoms all stacked together, but I tend to think that our vacations deliver just that, living up even to prospects that cast away realities and contingencies of time and distance.

sunday drive: hofheim in the taunus

Once again driving to my workweek apartment, and hardly needing to use my car during the week and so intent on combining errands and excursions but I hope not unreasonably so, I tried to explore a bit of the environs along the way and especially the lesser known attractions that we might not have the chance to see together. Not far removed from my destination, I came upon the town of Hofheim am Taunus, a bedroom community bridging the metropolises of Frankfurt and Wiesbaden and the immediate neighbour of Eppstein, but since it was late in the day and the weather threatened storms, I saved touring the ensemble of the Altstadt for another time and sought out the remote Bahá’ï House of Worship (Haus der Andacht, after its Arabic name for the dawning-place of the remembrance of God).
This edifice is one of only eight “continental” houses and the only one for the faith in Europe. Though the setting was completely inviting, I learned (and would like to learn more—I don’t feel competent to say anything about the denomination but, and surely this is a gross over-simplification, in some ways they are like a Persian version of Unitarian-Universalists) that the parishioners held their services on Sundays, just about the time I arrived and did not want to be intrusive.

Maybe I ought not to be so shy. The location proved to be peaceful in itself and persuasive of meditation, with a notable, receding view of the busy skyline of Frankfurt and dozens of meandering trails. I thought it might be easy to keep my bearings, rambling downwards, but the major landmark was quick to disappear over the top of the hills.

zum grillen or flame on

In preparation for our next trip, H got this very clever portable barbeque called Son of Hibachi, which we had a chance to test out over the weekend on the balcony. Watching a demonstration on an outdoorsy magazine show the other day, rating the same model—with stellar reviews though one peripheral character, a taster but not an actual preparer, kept referring to it as sonofabitch—I was really impressed how well-designed the whole system was. Once filled with coal, the dual grills fold together and create a sort of convection oven to speed up the process.

After about ten minutes or so, the grill was ready and transforms back to form of BBQ. Afterwards, one can lock the unit back in standing mode and put it, hot coals and all into a fire proof pouch, where it cleans itself (I wish everything were so easy and was made to be put away dirty) and one does not need to wait for them to cool or toss out some infernal garbage before getting underway. It's very compact and all the components fit together securely. Partially expended coals can even be saved and reused for later.

brototyp or bakers’ dozen

In Germany, there are over six-hundred distinct varieties of bread and some additional twelve-hundred permutations of baking besides. Not including beer-brews, which Germany might be more renowned for and enjoy actually a legal status that classifies and protects them as a liquid bread, these hundreds of different recipes and preparations are governed, unsurprisingly and meticulously, by a system of standards that codify traditional variations on a theme.

This process is illustrated in development of Brötchen—buns, rolls, which go by many regional names, including Weckeln, Weggla, Stollen, Kipfle, Bömmeln, Semmeln, and Schrippen with further distinctions for topping, what kind of seeds or grains they are encrusted with, and how the dough is rolled out and baked, -laibchen (round, like a little loaf), -stangl (like a staff that can also be twisted in a pretzel) or -hörnchen, with a shape like a croissant. Each type has specific percentages of what kind of grains comprise the dough, usually a given ratio of two or more different wheats and barleys. Small bakeries keep the lesser known and uncommon varieties on offer and local interpretation and nomenclature alive. I wonder if anyone has managed to catalogue ever type of Brötchen in circulation and unraveled the etymology. We don’t visit the baker’s like we ought to but I am resolving to do so more often and see what sort of heritage breads—and their unusual names (I am not sure if it’s just marketing or what, but one bakery offers what’s called “Sündlicher Weck”—sinful rolls, as near as I can guess), that I can discover.