bamberger freiheit

It’s become a little tradition for us to visit the big gathering of antiques vendors spread throughout the Altstadt of Bamberg held annual on the Day of German Reunification (Tag der Deutsche Einheit). Though we sadly did not find any treasures to bring home this time, it’s always fun to look and find some of the same relics and artefacts from last year still up for offer and to explore a bit of the historic city.

Of the Old Rathaus—which today houses on of the largest porcelain collections in Europe, a fine place for window-shopping too, there’s a simplified legend that it was built on the artificial island that straddles the Regnitz, the tributary that divides the city in order to isolate a particularly tyrannical mayor. The citizens of Bamberg never had such an intolerable civil leader, but rather, like Nuremberg, aspired for Imperial Immediacy and (Reichstadt, only answerable to the emperor) but the episcopal and secular division of the city—the Lord Bishop’s borders were statutorily defined by the Regnitz—and civil authorities hoped that a little engineered encroachment might consolidate powers. Though the domains remained under separate governance, forcing the bishop and his retinue to pass through the civic hall did go far in keeping the Church in check.

5x5

pork rembrants: Liartown, U.S.A. now offering an Apple Cabin calendar, chronological accuracy guaranteed

everyday-carry: illustrated evolution of common objects by decade

victory garden: hobbyists were encouraged to irradiate fruit, vegetable and flower seeds in the 1950s and 1960s and see what mutations thrived

fire dance with me: arcade game dance-off to celebrate the weird genius of Twin Peaks

citizen science: the Pocketlab is an affordable Tricorder to conduct ad hoc experiments

attica or cultural studies

Though best remembered international for stellar performances of roles that were not able to contain her energy and talent, stock-characters in good but less acclaimed films like the happy hooker in Never on a Sunday, the good-time girl-type, naughty nun, or gal Friday in Topkapı, Greek singer and actress of the stage and screen, Melina Mercouri, had another equally impassioned calling as a politician. Finding herself exiled, stateless—her passport having been revoked for outspoken socialist sentiments against the junta government of a cadre of conservative colonels who overthrew the liberal government in 1967, while away on performing on Broadway, Mercouri—along with other prominent members of the Greek diaspora focused attention and shame on the military coup d’état.
Despite tepid support in Greece and an overall laughable platform that no one took seriously, the junta lingered on and on for seven unbearable years—not ousted until their adventures with a one-Greece-policy by invading the Cyprus that was so poorly executed and resulted in the partition of the island nation rather than its annexation. Once Mercouri could return to Athens, this “last Greek goddess,” as she was nicknamed, decided to focus her energies on rebuilding her homeland—which had suffered considerably in the intervening years with dismantling of cultural capital and censorship. When questioned on her credentials for entering politics as an actress, Mercouri retorted by questioning what qualified lawyers to represent the people. Mercouri went on to become the Minister of Culture, and lamenting that it was always just the chiefs of finance that met and that money was not certainly everything—a pretty bold truth to speak, especially in the present atmosphere where Greek financial ministers are characters people might actually recognise by name—and called together, for the first time, all the European ministers of culture and the arts. The legacy of this summit survives today in the rotating European Cultural Capital and the open dialogue it invites with a less rarefied form of diplomacy that everyone can appreciate. Mercouri was also the first voice in a growing choir of protests and calls of vandalism to have the so-called Elgin marbles returned to the Acropolis and for the protection, stopping trafficking and the repatriation of other national treasures.

badenov, godunov

Though for some the names Mel Blanc and Tex Avery are more instantly recognisible among the luminaries of animation, there was another Man of a Thousand Voices that gave life to as many memorable characters during his long and varied free-lance career.

The name Paul Frees with mention of his collaborator Natasha Fatale and their mission to capture moose and squirrel for Fearless Leader probable starts to materialise right away, but there is an endless succession of equally jarring, cameo performances: Frees was also voiced Morocco Mole in Secret Squirrel (never realising those two phrases were associated with same actor), the Pillsbury Dough-boy, the Ghost Host of Disney’s Haunted Mansion, Toucan Sam, Burgermeister Meisterburger, the Tree, Rook and the Cat of The Last Unicorn, styled John Lennon and George Harrison in the Beatles cartoon series, various villains for the Superman, Aquaman, Banana Splits Adventure Hours, the Knight Rider’s nemesis K.A.R.R, plus countless other narrations and re-dubbing to clean up the garbled lines of other actors.