dies vitiosus

The indispensably brilliant daily chronicler, Doctor Caligari, begins his detailed, far-reaching time-capsule by disabusing us about the pickle hidden in the Christmas tree, which was never some tradition enshrined in German holiday customs until one American retail fairy-tale marketed it as one—which we’ve ascribed to, as well. Incidentally, 5 December also marks the date that the last episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus was aired in 1974, and further back in 1484 (with allowances for the calendar reform) when Pope Innocent IIX endorsed with papal bull, the auto de fey of the feline variety, including the familiars of witches and their human wards, which resulted in the Black Death and Protestantism. Be sure to consult Doctor Caligari’s Cabinet regularly for what daily ripples we are living with.

daytrip: the rosenau

H and I were in Rödental by Coburg and made a stop at the nearby Schloß Rosenau, referred to apparently in English—as we were about to learn through a litany of intimate connections, as the Rosenau. Owned for centuries by the Knights of Rosenau, the estate passed into the House of Saxe-Gotha after the last impoverished owner became weighted down by more debts incurred by a wonderfully eccentric ornithological hobby that entailed teaching native finches to sing like English pipits and self-publishing a treatise on it. The duke and duchess bore and raised the future Prince Albert in this castle—who would go on to become the husband (consort) of Queen Victoria. The couple lived in and reigned from mostly Windsor of course, but returned often to the Rosenau and the palace in Coburg.
After the outbreak of World War I made the British royal family much more reticent about admitting to their German connections, the property stood empty. As the Russian Revolution displaced other relations, however, the surviving line of the Romanov family and titular empress of the realm—with her ladies in waiting—was allowed to live there in exile, and in relative peace and comfort, having converted the library into an Orthodox chapel, until her death in 1938. Today, the castle and grounds are maintained as a state park and museum, and we’ll surely visit again for a tour and to see the gardens and their follies—ruins, grottoes and an artificial waterfall, in full glory. I knew some of this history beforehand, but it will forever strike me as incredulous that such events took place right down the road and garner little attention or fanfare.

haters gonna hate

5x5

figgy-pudding: a blithe review of the finest, right-proper Christmas carols

ozzmosis: clinical studies into godfather of heavy metal reveals that he is genetically predisposed to survive and thrive decades of sex, drugs and rock-and-roll 

won’t you be my neighbour: Kottke directs us to a caring and thoughtful reflection on TV’s Fred Rogers

simulacraceae: a wildly imaginative piece on 3D printed gardening rooted in an exploration of pollinator-flower geometry

honey trap: farmers in Africa use fences of bee hives to deter elephants from wreaking their crops 

marchons or rearranging the deck chairs

Icelandic artist and activity Ólafur Eliasson working with geologist Minik Rosing have salvaged tonnes of icy obelisks, already doomed to their consummation, from the breaking front of Greenland’s glacial ice sheet and transported to them to central Paris, where delegates attending the crucial COP21 climate conference can witness them melt.
This is a pretty powerful statement and it’s highly recommended you visit the link and see more of Eliasson’s projects, but none to my mind was as stirring as the subdued Paris en Marche, when after the public rally was cancelled due to heightened security concerns and gatherings were banned, thousands brought pair by pair shoes to stand in for the absented protesters.