Jakobsplatz

They are building a new synagogue over at Jakobsplatz (to replace the one they broke). It will be accompanied by a Jewish Museum and Community Center, all of which will be next to the Munich City Museum (right, center).


The overall scheme of things will look something like this. The synagogue will be that golden box on top of a travertine base.


The upper walls seem to be more or less translucent, but it’s hard to say what these visual aids are in fact describing.


That’s why it was a bit of a shock to pass by the other day and see this...


A box made up of vertical space frames, which had been fabricated from steel plate welded together at acute angles (in all perceivable dimensions). It will have some sort of skin over it, as if you look closely you can see the brackets they will attach it to. I seem to remember seeing a rendering of the interior which would lead one to believe that the roof allows an enormous amount of light to flood the entire synagogue. I am definitely curious as to what the actual finishes will look like on this project, scheduled for completion sometime in 2006. It’s big and metal and, well, yellow...and you almost immediately realize that the configuration depicts a network of Stars of David. The true beauty of this metaphor is the fact that you also discover that it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish any one Star of David individually for any length of time. What makes it even better is the realization that some human beings are thinking of things like this, while others are sitting on their sorry, moronic asses in the local correctional facility for plotting to set off explosives (that would be die Sprengstoffe—blast stuff—auf Deutsch) during the groundbreaking ceremony.

It’s the only construction site I’ve ever seen with a turnstile at the entrance.

Perücke

Came across this word while reading about some 18th century German or other who refused to wear one. It translates from German as peruke, wig or periwig, which stems from the early 1500’s and is attributed to the word perwyke which comes from the Italian parrucca (head of hair). It has nothing to do with the Greek preposition peri (around, about, beyond).


Turns out there is an animated short from 2000 (featuring Kevin Branagh’s voice and a script taken from Daniel Defoe’s 'A Journal of the Plague Year' called The Periwig-Maker. Strangely enough, it is funded by an assortment of German organizations. Also strange is the fact that, due to religious persecution (he came from a family of Dissenters, as did William Blake) and general bad luck, Defoe— who wrote the highly successful Robinson Crusoe, not to mention a popular history of pirates—died hiding in a boarding house, trying to evade a bill collector. Not strange enough for you? Think I'm wasting my time looking up words that are never going to come up in day to day life? Behold the "Afroperücke"...


...from a German website selling them. As they say on EuroNews here, No Comment.

Grammar and Advertising

Why do they call it Löwenbräu (loeven+bwhroy)? "...there are very few changes to the endings of nouns" ― but what fun would it be without exceptions. A handful of nouns add an –n or an –en in all cases except the nominative singular, they are all masculine (phew!)...with the exception of the neuter 'Herz' (heart): Das Herz (nominative and accusative), dem Herzen (dative), and des Herzens (genitive). These words include those with certain endings stemming from Greek or Latin, several abstract nouns (peace, thought, name), and male persons or animals that end in –e (boy, colleague, French guy...although the adjective French would not be capitalized in German, and last―but not least―lion). Anyway, that’s why there is an 'n' in Löwenbräu (lion’s brew), and I’d feel better if we just didn’t talk about article and adjective endings at all...even though they were originally found in English also, today they only constitute a devastating surprise for any unsuspecting Brit or American who never thought for a minute that there could be a million ways to say 'the something-or-other'...


The lion was a symbol of the Counts Palatine on the Rhine. After Bavarian Duke Ludwig was granted the fiefdom of the Palatinate in 1214, it stood for centuries as symbol of the old Bavarian and Palatinate Wittelsbachs. Löwenbräu has been around since 1383, but like all of the other local breweries except Augustiner, it is no longer locally owned. They are probably pleased with, and yet not actually responsible for the infernal Lion Parade, and if you thought only the Western Hemisphere could generate a gratuitous array of flavors...think again. Everything from 'Triumphator' (7.6% alcohol, this one’s for Lent...because you don’t want to give up too much, now do you?) to Oktoberfestbier (6.1%), Original (5.2%), Radler (that means 'cyclist'―it's mixed with lemon soda, 2.5%), to Alkoholfrei (0.5%).

The motto is "Löwenbräu. Ein Bier wie Bayern." ― A beer like Bavaria.





Any wimpy, little blond here has no problem lugging around a couple of liters of beer and a smoked mackerel (and don’t be thinking they don’t do it).


...but I still say carrying 34 ounces of beer in a heavy glass mug just isn’t zierlich (dainty).

Das Hochwasser

Literally high+water → flood. It’s one of those words in German that, like memorabilia (die Denkwürdigkeiten → things worth thinking about, or die Erinnerungsstücke → pieces of memory) or diameter (der Durchmesser → through measure), are pretty straightforward. Remember, "...a language expresses the inner life and knowledge of its speakers" ― Wilhelm von Humboldt (no, not the guy the county is named after, but his brother the linguist). As far as the inner lives of the 'locals' go, people in Munich are almost as likely to have relocated from elsewhere as Californians are. This particular water will flow to the Black Sea, which seems weird since we are so close to the Adriatic...that’s what you get for being north of the Alps.

Highest water levels since the announcement of the Weimar Constitution. We’re pretty safe though, what with being on the other side of town and six floors up. Is it impressive? Probably. Can I be bothered to go over there and take a look? That’s another question. They are having a little trouble keeping everything dry over at the Deutsches Museum though, it's on an island in the middle of the river.

Joe Ranft died a week ago. He was a major contributor to everything from The Brave Little Toaster to movies that aren’t even out yet. He left a wife and two children. He is already inherent in every kid. He also left a younger brother, as nice and as funny as he was. I spent thousands of hours with his brother (primarily in the claw), back when watching the Ranft brothers do a belly slam before it went into the script was just another day at the office. I once got the opportunity to compliment their mother on her sons...for example the one that was standing next to me at the time, she laughed and said, "Yeah, he’s a keeper."

Kunst und Politik

Someone has come up with a bogus campaign poster for the conservative coalition that says―"Keine halben Sachen" (No halfway measures)..."Jetzt räumen wir den Sozialstaat richtig ab!" (Now we’re really doing away with the welfare system). This is accompanied by Bruegel’s 'Schlaraffenland' (you know, the imaginary medieval 'Land of Cockaigne'). Even in the dreamlike metropolis of Munich the number of households receiving unemployment benefits rose from 33,000 to 37,000 between January and June of this year, and the number of welfare recipients in general here has increased by over 25% since January of 2004. The local fascisti are ready and willing to pounce, 15 were arrested in the Main Square just the other day (and I must say, the things they gather to celebrate are infinitely ridiculous).


The following is Berlin dialect for 'can she do that?'


No matter how this election turns out (should they have one, and no I cannot vote), I’m putting this sticker on the back fender of my bike.


You rarely see a work of art that inspires so much joy that you actually laugh, as when I walked into the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco and saw this


A cartridge case full of lard. Unfortunately, I attempted to regale a doctor of art something or other from UCLA with that story once...not impressed, to say the least. Seems Beuys (a founding member of the German Green Party) went down in a plane during WWII and some Crimean Tatars slathered him with lard and wrapped him in felt to keep him warm. Who knew?

In the clear blue skies over Germany

Less than two decades after the Wright brothers’ first experiments with manned flight, a German cavalry officer transferred to the air service and painted his plane red.


Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen (Freiherr means baron, he really was one) was born in Breslau, now Wroclaw, capital of southwestern Poland's province of Lower Silesia. He had been to Oxford, and enjoyed communicating with opposing pilots when he got the chance. He was fond of trophies and had a light fixture made out of an enemy engine block. He didn’t fly a triplane until well into 1917, the year he took command of das Jagdgeschwader (fighter squadron) I. They lived in tents, and for this reason became known as "the Flying Circus"...command was assumed by Hermann Göring after Richthofen was shot down in April of 1918.

He had an uncle that had moved to Denver in 1877 (founding the Denver Chamber of Commerce), and was only distantly related to Frieda von Richthofen, wife of D.H. Lawrence.


However, this didn’t stop the British government from accusing them of signaling U-boats with laundry hanging from their clothesline in Cornwall.

eine edle Einfalt

If I don’t post on this site, it doesn’t mean I don’t have anything to say...or that my spouse is home with (without actually) a recently extracted wisdom tooth, or anything...it just means that there is simply too much to say.

A. The other night we watched Vercingetorix, a movie about an actual barbarian who was one of the first to unite the heathen tribes against the Roman Empire (Julius Caesar to be exact, and he died in a showy beheading in Rome--because they like that down south--as a result of it). You can rent it on the French DVD rental service


...but not on ours. It’s called "Druids" in English (the language it was filmed in).

B. A friend of mine has this to say about the upcoming German elections:
"It must be interesting to listen to a politician and not have a knee-jerk reaction to them being either Democrat or Rebublican and having that fit in a category of your brain. When the categories have changed slightly, I guess you can actually listen to them in an open way."


Yes and no, there is definitely a lot of pigeonholing that goes on here...one just hopes the natives don’t make a REALLY bad choice...it’s been known to happen. Said friend was responding to this:

"We watched a show on Angela Merkel last night. Even though she is running for the conservative party, I can't help but like her. The German Gloria Steinem said that if a man succeeds in politics it's just great, but if a woman does then all anyone talks about is all the men she must have stabbed in the back on the way. She is a former physicist (from East Germany, who basically spent her whole life knowing that this would severely limit her in relation to the rest of the world). Her father was a preacher, not a popular thing in communist countries so she had that to deal with as well. From her earliest days she was very aware of what could or could not be talked about publicly, the fact that they listened to western news at home for instance...this was, of course, not technically allowed. She also said that people accuse her father of having been close to the state, and that this is a misunderstanding, that he helped many people deal with the reality of the communist government and the secret police. He was (what we would call) a Democrat, and was earnest enough about what he did to move his family to East Germany (nobody went in that direction, naturally...almost unheard of)--so I can't imagine he was a bad man. Her mother, a school teacher, was not allowed to work in East Germany (as a preacher's wife). Her husband is a scientist and wants no part of the media brouhaha, and only shows up for one event a year. She speaks excellent English and Russian. Maybe she's just evil incarnate and it doesn't show. They definitely need a leader here who has a chance in hell of dealing with the massive problem of what is to be done economically with East Germany...it is a gargantuan issue, I would think having one of their own lead the country (one who isn't retarded enough to want the communists or the nazis back, as many of them do), would be a step in the right direction."

C. I found out who Winckelmann was today.


Murdered in a particularly rough trade kind of way, not unlike a famous local (who owned the oldest restaurant in town). Of course, there is a difference between having a 'tie' store...and influencing the great minds of your century (and beyond).
Anyway, ten euro type bucks were almost immediately spent in garnering 2 German books on the subject as those in English are frightfully expensive, even the Getty sponsored version of his major work coming out on February 1‚ 2006 ($67.50...paperback).


He is most well known in Germany for the line:
"Das allgemeine vorzügliche Kennzeichen der griechischen Meisterstücke ist endlich eine edle Einfalt und eine stille Größe, sowohl in der Stellung als im Ausdruck."

Which means:
"The exquisite characteristic Greek masterpieces have in common is, in the end, a noble innocence and a quiet grandeur, in the bearing as well as the expression."

...and , as you might imagine, it is primarily used in a shortened version ('eine edle Einfalt, und eine stille Größe') as a sarcastic dismissal of someone’s intellectual prowess.

Riffels have Rudges

Schlemmerreise

A Schlemmer is a glutton, or perhaps a sybarite (a person devoted to pleasure and luxury), a Reise is a journey--again, be careful, as a Riese is a giant. Bayerische Rundfunk, a local TV/Radio entity (funk means radio) has a show called Schlemmerreise. They travel all over Germany, and occasionally to other nearby locations (France, Italy, Hungary, Switzerland, Spain, Austria) and describe a bit about the surroundings while focusing on the best local restaurants. This usually involves filming the chef making one or two of the specialties. They sell books and DVD's, all in German (not that it isn't an enjoyable show anyway)...but you have to be interested in actual recipes.


However, I do think I'll swipe the Pfifferlinge (local mushrooms sold on every street corner when they're in season, kind of like Chanterelles...really good, better with cream but what isn't)


sautéed in butter with shallots and Speck (bacon).

Aww...can't come to Munich?

Send your favorite stuffed animal. Better to send it to these people, instead of me, as Hell will probably freeze over before I get to the Olympic Tower, Hofbräuhaus, Hard Rock Café, National Theater, Oktoberfest or BMW-World...and you can forget about the "Munich-by-night trip!"

It’s my Partei, and I’ll cry if I want to

The German phrase for being spoilt for choice is, "die Qual der Wahl" (kvahl dare vahl)―the torture of the selection. After Germany’s leader (claiming inadequate support) called for general elections to be held a year early, and the President gave the go ahead some weeks later...the question of an upcoming Wahl is still in the hands of Germany’s legal system.


This Länder’s my land, this Länder’s your land―
Von Kalifornien, to the New York Inseln.

Actually that’s not technically correct, as Länder is plural (and the apostrophe 's' is a bastardization regardless), das Land refers to a state or country in German. Here’s where the German states―or Länder―stand on the soon to be or not to be plebiscite:


You can pick out Bavaria, because we have our own special brand of conservatism...it’s shown there in Bavarian blue, which is really sort of turquoise. Politics are color coded here, kind of like the George W. Bush national security gauge. The conservatives are actually all considered black (not navy blue or turquoise as shown here, for some odd reason), the middle of the road SPD (Schröder’s Partei) is red, the Green Party is―well―green...und so weiter. Governments are formed by creating coalitions to achieve a majority, or Mehrheit (moreness) as they say here. Should there be an election next month, black and yellow will be running against red and green (really red and green―inspired by the surprisingly popular 'ostalgie' [a play on the word nostalgie, nostalgia, alluding to the desire to bring back the Staatssicherheit―East German Secret Police, or 'Stasi'―and all the warm, fuzzy charm that went with it...basically, nostalgia for the DDR] seems to have been more or less ruled out, but one can never tell here...they still love a wildcard). Black and yellow, red and green―guess it hasn’t occurred to anyone that all of these combinations make...


...brown.

Der direkte Draht zur Staatsregierung

This is the direct line to the government of the Free State of Bavaria. Go ahead, call it...get something off your chest. I like to imagine that Minister President, Edmund Stoiber, would answer the phone himself. I think it would go something like this...


By the way, Draht means wire and an Esel is a donkey...German slang for a bicycle is Drahtesel (wire donkey).

Ivory Tower

Two hundred years ago there were more towers around here. Just down the street was a block that used to form part of the old city wall, this block was bordered on either end by towers (gates) of the old wall.


Earliest recorded mention of the Pütrichturm, above, was in 1289. It has also been referred to as the Inner Sendlinger Gate, Blauententurm, the Stockhamerturm, the Rudolfturm, and the Ruffiniturm. Pütrich was the name of a patrician Munich family during the middle ages, the Ruffinis (who owned a house near the tower from 1708 to 1816) must have just been Italian Johnny-come-latelies...at any rate, the tower was taken down in 1808.


The Schöner Turm was around the corner in the other direction. It was damaged by a French grenade in 1796, and dismantled in 1807.


Four hundred years ago, there were not only more towers, but our view to the 500 year old Kreuz Kirche tower would have been augmented by several open yards and two planted fields.


There were definitely events here you would have wanted to miss, like the massive powder explosion that destroyed the city gate behind us on September 15th, 1857. Most of this information comes from a large book on subterranean Munich that we got for 13 bucks on sale (because, frankly, it’s a rather boring topic and nobody gives a rat’s ass). It’s always hard to resist a remotely decent deal on a book, take "In Europe’s Name: Germany and the Divided Continent" purchased yesterday. Even with shipping from the U.S. it’s only about twelve and a half euros, that’s pretty good for a 680 page hardcover book that’s like new. Not only that, but a prominent American scholar in Berlin is quoted as saying that it's the number one book on the German character, but even more amusing is the fact that his interview took place at 'the Starbucks next to Checkpoint Charlie'...personally, I think that phrase is all you need to know about German history, period.

Einstein Jahr 2005

Einstein was born in Ulm and lived in Munich until he was about fifteen. His father and uncle started an electrical company and supplied the first electric lighting to the Oktoberfest. Einstein himself worked as an electrician’s assistant at the Schottenhamel tent. There is still a Schottenhamel tent at the Oktoberfest (check out the videos at the top of the page)...gingham shirts, Tracht, blurriness, electric lighting—it’s all there. They serve Spaten at the Schottenhamel tent, Spaten is also our landlord. Their site features a list of essential Oktoberfest terms, they are pretty much all in Bavarian (Bairisch...which sounds like Irish, only the beer is lighter). The most important phrase, of course, is Hendl (a roast chicken). Want to know how to say someone is stacked?—because I gather that comes up at the Oktoberfest as a topic of conversation frequently—it translates to: wood in front of the hut. Then there’s my favorite, Schunkeln, 'locking arms with your neighbor and swaying from side to side at the table in time to the music. A great ice-breaker and impressive to behold when practiced in large numbers’...a great ice breaker? —damn, I wish I’d known that years ago!