castellum cattorum or trizonesia

Here are some more images from our recent trip to the Kassel area.

The town itself was devastated during World War II, which saw a lot of intense house-to-house fighting, and many of the destroyed historic building were not restored but rather a mid-century modern city emerged from the rubble but it was nonetheless interesting to tour and recall the region’s history. Kassel was in competition with Bonn to be the capital city of West Germany.
 Kassel became a garrison-town for American soldiers instead, but immediately following the Potsdam Conference (in order to ensure that the exchange of foodstuffs from the Soviet Union for raw materials from the Ruhrgebiet was administered properly) the Office of Military Government, United States established its economic ministry in nearby Minden and the headquarters of the British Element of the Control Commission for Germany was also close by in Bad Oeynhausen.
Having not participating in the Potsdam talks, French forces originally clung to the western border but later joined the US-British condominium to administer the so-called “Trizone” until the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) on 23 May 1949 (Germany turns 65, retirement age soon).
Although the endonym for Germany is and was Bundesrepublik Deutschland, the initialism BRD was never used by West Germans and was only a foil to DDR (East Germany, Deutsche Demokratische Republik) to keep either nation from calling itself Deutschland.
All of these challenges barn-stormed the plain, the corridor in this part of northern Hesse (earlier still, those Hessian mercenaries that fought alongside the rebel forces against the British during the American Revolutionary War hailed from Kassel and earlier still) and it is unfortunate that the inner-town was ravaged and wiped clean—without an ensemble to jar these long memories, but happily the periphery was spared and is cherished.

mata hari or gene gene the dancing machine

Austria's talented entrant for the Eurovision Song Contest is highly deserving of all her accolades and acclaim and has managed to unite a big part of the world in respect.  The evening did not go so well for Russia and affiliates that took a sour-grapes attitude after being the brunt of much booing and jeers, not only the performance but also when the viewer and jury votes were tallied and anyone voted for Russia.

Russia distained the whole extravaganza, blocking the segment in national broadcasts when the Austrian power-ballad was aired and holding it up as emblematic of what the West and European Union represents and shamed any Western-oriented former satellite states for aspiring to such things.  Russian government officials went so far as to claim the contestant was part of US intelligence psychological operation, meant to demoralise and upturn the spiritual values of the Russian peoples.  Although I don’t believe that for a second, stranger plots yet have been hatched: Chuck Barris, host of the wonderfully bizarre Gong Show was in fact a spy and an assassin for the US CIA and the absurdists’ game show (and spin-offs, the Dating Game and the Newlywed Game) was a means for transmitting coded messages to other field operatives, though the agency disavows any knowledge of this.

tardy-slip or enten/eller

In a very beautifully terse and compact analysis, Maria Popova writing for Brain Pickings weekly thoughtful digest looks at the nature of happiness and discontent through the focused lens of Søren Kierkegaard's fragment of life: Either/Or.

Bracketed by brilliantly illuminating quotations, it comes obvious how ones hour by hour orientation, frantic and fearful of savouring the present for fear that it comes at the expense of the future or set-backs to earlier times or nostalgic for escaping achievements, estranged from the truth that that future is in fact the same as that moment we are wrestling into something productive. The treatise rings even more relevant today and I think that this is a book I would like to revisit, since it is one that is meant to grow with you—though not literally and more akin to engagement, I took the philosopher's words on absence semantically as non-attendance and know I did not get as much out of it as I should've more distracted by the Don Juan level at the time. We may all feel that such a struggle is pedantic and we do not have the time to be lectured about such daily challenges, sore that there is not a quick-fix, some enchantment to reverse this rush—though not many of us would like the hunting-trophies of the great here-and-now, but to be busy or otherwise engaged is a choice and such lessons are definitely something that one ought to keep in his back-pocket.

solo shot first

Groaning about the working title for the next episode of the Star Wars trilogy “the Ancient Fear” has elicited many comments on the subject of facelifts and remastering and general bad story-telling. Among things as bad or worse than the character Jar Jar Binks (though there was similar criticism for the Ewoks), the list includes Darth Vader having actually been the one to build C3PO, re-inserting scenes that were on the cutting-room floor simply because now the producers had better technical capabilities and the introduction of the midichlorians—the microoganisms that are the welders of the Force (the director's nod to the fact that a human being cannot remain healthy and functional without his hitchhikers in the form of gut-flora).
 I don't care for such trends at all—they did this not just to the Jedi but to the vampires and werewolves as well, implying that these powers are a treatable or manageable condition with the right drug-therapy and are not attributable to something supernatural. Fan at large Bob Canada also has a nice related review on kind of lame action figures that were brought to market for the prequels, including Ms. Jocasta Nu, librarian of the Jedi archives. Walk-on roles can be pretty fun, nonetheless.

crack-pot scheme

The ever-brilliant Colossal shares a thoughtful and patient post about the Japanese practise of kintsugi (golden repair)—rather than disposing of broken pottery or other objects or trying to conceal the chips and cracks and imperfections, the fine art of mending is intended to honour the history and trials of well-loved objects, putting the pieces back together again with jointing infused with precious metals. After the technique and philosophy was established, reportedly when a shogun in the fourteenth century sent a damaged porcelain tea bowl back to China, kintsugi became wildly popular with some breaking vases and urns on purposes so they could display the golden seams of wear and long-use.