jenseits or rhinegold II

Having the day free with finer weather but with H unable to join me, I didn't want to have too grand of an adventure or venture too far from my little apartment, so I decided to revisit some of the romantic scenery at the beginning of the Mittel-Rhine that we had seen together before, the plunging valleys with a mighty river coursing below and the ensemble of villages and castles cleaving to the ridges and flatter lands until overtaken by vineyards—just from a different angle. On the way to Bingen am Rhein, I stopped first to explore the village of Ingelheim, host to the ruins of an imperial palace of Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne (Karl der Große).

The emperor decided in the late eighth century to transform the existing, ancient manor of a Merovingian king into a stately palace—the village being kindred to our fair city, leagues away in Bavaria, but also commissioned by Charlemagne to include a few forts, a residence and a town wall that's heart-shaped for his wife (I still like that story even though probably no one thought to draw a heart like that or particularly associated the organ with love until much later).
Destroyed by the battles during the Thirty Years War and the wars of the Palatinate's succession, the palatial remains were fully incorporated into the architecture of the town and the extent of the ruins were really forgotten until they were rediscovered as architectural elements throughout the town by archeological studies and showcased, opening up the land that was the Aula Regina, beginning in the early 1990s.
Last summer, H and I had the chance to see the colossal statue Germania, the Niederwald Monument, from the opposing bank of the Rhein, taking a gondola ride from a station in Rüdesheim that clipped the vines as it flew up the hill to the park above and look down at the river from above.
The city of Bingen is directly across and I remember gazing at it from a distance back then and wondering what all there was to discover.
I trekked across the city and visited the Basilica of Saint Martin and former grounds of a once expansive nunnery that's provided a wealth of early medieval artefacts, including the first inscriptions ever found in German, the written testament to the language copying Roman tablets and I climbed to the top of the dominating tower of Burg Klopp—now the administrative offices of the local government but fully accessible to the curious and with some beautiful landscaping that highlights the fortress and ancient foundations, for a spectacular view, even though the skies turned a bit threatening.  

I went back down into the city next and crossed the park that ran along the waterway—there were a lot of cultural and historical installations to look at—and got progressively better views of Germania and the famed Mäuseturm, Mice Tower, on an island in the Rhein.

I got the tale mostly right about the greedy and cruel archbishop of Mainz who exacted such high tariffs on passing boats that the peasants could not afford grain and the bishop in his tower was besieged by an avenging army of mice that ate him, along with the grain he was hoarding, in retribution. I like this story too, even though it's more likely that the name derives from the Old German infinitive mûsen for spying or lying in wait, since the strategic location of the tower with the defensive fortresses around it allowed the rulers of this bend in the Rhein to control trade.  I was surprised how close one could get and how peaceful it seemed, no crowds and I had the view all to myself and could well imagine again how the romantics were inspired.  I rather like too the creative explanations and etymologies.

picture-picture or instamatic

Kottke, purveyor of fine hypertext products, presents a thoughtful reflection on how pervasive photography, saying it and sharing it with pictures, marks a fundamental change in how we experience things and how we in turn incorporate and interpret those moments. It is certainly an idea to give one pause, as images and the medium depart from documentation, archiving to communication itself. Rather than being worth a thousand words, the tales that illustrations impart could be an even greater abbreviation. What kind of shutter-bug are you? Do time and distance make photos, artefacts, more dear and meaningful or can instant and constant mirroring co-exist?

call your parents

The BBC reports about a new “Elderly Rights Law” enacted in China to promote, under pain of fines or jail time, adult children visiting their parents and never neglecting the spiritual and emotional needs of older people. Though a nice message, regulating visits and enforcing the policy maybe such not be something left up to the authorities and perhaps the criticism is somewhat deserved, since there's no equitable way to apply it and no allowance to help keep children in compliance. I miss my parents and family very much but personally don't need legislated guilt to encourage me to make the time. What do you think? Is such a law necessary and do people need this sort of nudge?

administratively embargoed or not the droids you're looking for

I never thought that civilised nations would ever again, at least until the environment cannot sustain the world's population and resources run out, bicker by any means other than by proxy—preferring to leave the bully-pulpit to business and industry lobbies to statecraft or open aggression, countries in thrall to corporate interests like colonies to the metropolitans of ages past—but I think that some secret-sharing (and not martyrdom) has really revitalised all those antics of the Cold War.

Not only is the scale of recontouring similar, guilt by association hyperactive, but also the response and psychology. Regardless of the details, the perception of refusing the private jet of a Head of State passage because of political sympathies without consenting to a search has the chill of mistrust. Besides any fugitives would be hiding under a false panel in the floor, like when the Millennium Falcon was captured and brought aboard the Death Star and the droids were the only passengers that the Storm Troopers could find. Likewise at the beginning of the saga, they didn't fire on the escape pod carrying C3PO and R2D2, thankfully, because no vital signs were detected, one would have thought the Empire might have learnt from its mistakes. Meanwhile, embassies all over the world are turning over sofa cushions, like for a frantic search for loose change, and finding bugging devices. France and other members are calling to postpone United States and European Union accession to trade agreements over these on-going revelations—especially considering business-intelligence has been kidnapped in trust too. Among the scatter-shot of applications for asylum, this stateless fugitive has been rebuffed by the EU for the most part, refusing to grant him sanctuary—until or unless it can be accomplished through regular channels. Though this stance has courted public displeasure and disbelief, it's probably a strategic decision—not face-saving or not wanting to accept the liability neither—but realising full-well that such an arrangement would quickly become unsustainable and such persons-of-interests have other, better safe-havens.

conservation of surveillance

Though I am in no position to make some unbreakable Law out of policy or a cache of politically wilting realities, it does seem that disillusionment forgets compromise.
There is no excuse for intense and indiscriminate spying or having one's innocent details scrutinized but at least partially the reform that led to more celebrated departures and commitments to end occupation or torture necessitate some kind of reciprocity elsewhere—that lost intelligence is made up for by details served up on a platter and easily captured. Such give and take, of course, has precedence and may certainly be disabusing but perhaps not the sole basis. I do wonder if such a violation might really change the landscape of America's pseudopodia and make its presence less welcome in defending some indefeasible belief.

muzak or ambiance

One cultural difference that I have noticed due to conditioning and expectation between Hessian and Bavarian Frankonian behaviours is a minor but one that I find myself always walking away from with an experience—the kind that nearly pushes one towards leaving a customer comment card but since it's positive, few bother though the feeling is nagging.

Because of the hectic pace of employees manning the check-out lines back home, I have myself prepared well in advance, ready to hand off the fiat Geld and little cloth bag ready to pack with not more than I could handily manage and a bevy of apologies if I could not keep pace and held up the line. There is a certain regional deftness that was never really rude but lent to this daily sort of transaction a sense of urgency not to waste any more time of this chore than necessary—plus I imagined that this poor youngish class of cashiers were under pressure, the time that cash drawer was open counted, and constantly rated and expected to go back to stocking the shelves when business was slow. The same chains and the same tyranny of barcodes exist of course elsewhere, however, in Hesse there is less rush expected on the part of the customer, with even divided padded and inclinded lanes behind the register for shoppers to collect their purchases and make room for the next customer, like a plinko game. I wonder what these small but forgiving considerations mean in the broader sense. Still trained to gird myself otherwise, I walk away always a little surprised and with a feeling of accomplishment, however coloured by marketing and etiquette.