Merry Christmas to all. And a fine New Year, since I’ll post again around January 4 ’15.
It’s also the centennial of the Christmas Truce. Can’t forget that.
A worthwhile dramatization from the movie Joyeux Noel (2005). A bit of documentary about the incident is here.
As you’d expect, there’s a statue of Baron von Humboldt in Humboldt Park in Chicago, and it’s a good one, a ten-foot bronze by Felix Gorling. He’s standing next to a globe and an iguana. I like those details. But by the time I got there, my camera’s battery was exhausted – the modern equivalent of running out of film. Public Art in Chicago always features better pictures anyway, so here’s Humboldt.
The baron and I go back a ways. I did a report on him in the fifth or sixth grade. His science is impressive, but what I think really impressed me at the time, and still does, was how he successfully explored parts of South America without much in the way of modern equipment (though I guess what he had was state-of-the-art).
Also in Humboldt Park – another legacy statue of the long-gone German population in the area – is a bronze of Fritz Reuter by one Franz Engelsman. My knowledge of Fritz Reuter is meager, and at first I confused him with the fellow who started the news agency (Paul Reuter, as it happens).
The park district tells us that “Reuter is best known for Otto Kanellen, a volume of prose stories. But he is also remembered for writing against political oppression, a subject he understood first-hand. The Prussian government sentenced Reuter to death for high treason because he had participated in a student-run club promoting political activism. This was commuted to imprisonment, and despite poor health, Reuter continued to write throughout his years in prison. Reuter’s work included several comic novels that were popular with many of Chicago’s German immigrants.
“On May 14, 1893, more than 50,000 Chicagoans of German descent attended the dedication ceremonies. While Reuter is less well-known to the wider community than Goethe or Schiller—for whom monuments were also dedicated in Chicago parks—the impressive attendance at this dedication shows the great enthusiasm for Fritz Reuter within the city’s German community. Four bronze relief plaques of scenes from Reuter’s best known works originally ornamented the granite base of the monument; however, they were all stolen in the sometime in the 1930s and have never been recovered.”
Germans weren’t the only ones living near Humboldt Park more than 100 years ago. More from the park district: “On October 12, 1901, tens of thousands of flag-waving Scandinavian-Americans participated in events to celebrate the monument’s unveiling. Despite heavy rain that day, the festivities included a parade and a two-hour ceremony in Humboldt Park.”
The monument this time: a bronze of Leif Ericson on a granite bolder, the work of a Norwegian come to Chicago around the time of the world’s fair, Sigvald Asbjørnsen.
A determined “We’re off to Vinland, men!” look on his face? Maybe. Sure, among Europeans, he got to America first, not counting nameless Vikings who may or may not have been shipwrecked there. If I’m ever out that way, I’ll definitely take a look at L’Anse Aux Meadows. But it’s a historical curiosity more than anything else, and this kind of memorial speaks more of modern ethnic pride than anything else. Even if the Vikings had told anyone else, which they didn’t, what could have 11th-century Europe done with that information?
Three storms passed through northeast Illinois on the last day of June 2014, one in the wee hours, two others in the evening. All of them featured hearty electric displays and vigorous rain. We were warned about possible bursts of high wind, but didn’t see much of it. Not like the wind blasts of late summer ’07 (was it that long ago?) or the howling afternoon of June 18, 2010, but enough to worry property owners hereabouts, such as me. But the condition quite literally blew over.
Today, on this Canada Day 2014, it’s sunny and warm here somewhat south of Canada. (Actually, I could drive east and reach a small part of that nation.) Chamber of Commerce weather, as a former colleague of mine used to call it. Similar conditions are predicted for the run up to the Fourth of July.
Speaking of the last day of June, yesterday was the 80th anniversary of the Night of Long Knives. Who but Al Stewart would write a song about that? But as far as I know, he’s never done one about the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the centennial of which was of course over the weekend. Not long now till Der Tag.
Crystal Lake Cave, a few miles south of Dubuque, has some nice features, but it was one of the tightest commercial caves I’ve ever been through. Often the ceiling was low, and the walls were close in as well, just wide enough for an adult to pass through in many places. Our guide pointed out that in its natural state, the floor was a lot higher. So the original cavers – men who were looking for lead deposits – would have had to crawl through. No thanks.
The Chandelier.
The Pipe Organ.
The Chapel.
Apparently Crystal Lake Cave enthusiasts have been married in the small room called the Chapel, though as far as I could tell, there would barely be enough space for two people, much less an officiator.
There’s also an underground body of water in the cave, hence “lake.” What I saw looked more like a pond, but it might extend much further. And anyway, “Crystal Pond Cave” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.
Lübeck, June 28, 1983
Breakfast with Karen and Cindy, then boarded a bus for Lübeck. Nice ride up, lots of greenery, and as we approached, a view of the seven spires of Lübeck. Before we entered the city center (Zentrum) we stopped at a wide place in the road and disembarked. Three busloads of tourists, crowding around to take a look — from a distance, behind a large sign warning us to proceed no further — at a mean-looking fence and a grim guard tower, looking just like one you’d see over a prison wall. 
We’d come to the border with the DDR. We were told that there are guard towers like the one we saw every 500 meters along the intra-German border. [I forget who took this picture of Steve, me, and Rich.]
The first place we went to in the Zentrum was Marienkirche, St. Mary’s, an enormous, ornate, brickwork Lutheran church. It burned down during the war, but has been restored to what I assume was former glory. In one corner of the church, the bells that used to hang above lie broken on the floor, left as a memorial to the destruction. The story is that as the church burned, the bells rang and rang, moved by the rising heat, until they crashed to the floor. It’s a very effective memorial.
The church’s astronomical clock is an ornate marvel too, also rebuilt after the original was destroyed. It shows the hour and minute, of course, but also shows planetary positions, phases of the sun and moon, and signs of the zodiac. The town hall (Rathaus) was also well worth seeing.
Later we visited a large store specializing in marzipan. I’d never had marzipan before, never heard of it until I read about it in a guidebook. [I don’t know the name of the shop, but I suspect it was the renowned Café Niederegger in the Zentrum, which has a shop for the confections.] The variety of marzipan shapes you can buy is astonishing: large and small items, bricks and loafs, figurines and abstractions.
At 2:15 the bus took us to Travemünde, on the mouth of the River Trave and looking out onto the Baltic Sea. I sat with Bob, who lives in the Philippines, and Crystal from North Dakota, in a café as we drank coffee, tea, and chocolate, a watched the weather change with astonishing speed, from sunny to cloudy to rainy to sunny again, with the clouds always driven across the sky by strong winds we couldn’t feel closer to the ground.
Missed the green dye in the Chicago River on Monday, though of course plenty of pictures have been posted elsewhere. It’s a curious custom. Mostly the river looks like this in the colder months.
I’ve been transferring images from one place to another — from a very old computer to a somewhat old computer — and looked at some of the files for the first time in a while. I didn’t remember, for instance, that I’d scanned my Biafran one-pound note.
I bought it sometime in the late 1970s, and I know I didn’t pay very much for it. Biafra might have failed as a secessionist movement, but apparently they produced a lot of worthless banknotes during their try.
Then there’s this:
Weimar Republic hyperinflation currency, to the tune of 10,000 marks, dated January 19, 1922. Scanned slightly askew, but never mind. I bought four or five of these notes, in crisp condition, for $1 in 2001.
One more. The theme tonight, it turns out, is nearly worthless banknotes — not only as collectibles, but pretty much from day one.
This is a 1,000 rubles. Or was. Dated 1993, plucked out of circulation by me in 1994. During the two weeks we were in the Russian Federation, the value of the ruble against the dollar varied a lot. I seem to remember it being about 2,000 rubles to the dollar — or was it 3,000? I think it was both, at one time or another. This was small change in any case.
The currency has been redenominated since then. Wiki, for what it’s worth, says “the ruble was redenominated on 1 January 1998, with one new ruble equaling 1000 old rubles. The redenomination was a purely psychological step that did not solve the fundamental economic problems faced by the Russian economy… and the currency was devalued in August 1998 following the 1998 Russian financial crisis. The ruble lost 70% of its value against the U.S. dollar in the six months following this financial crisis.
“By calculating the product of all six redenominations, it is seen that a pre-1921 ruble is equal to 2×1016 current rubles.” About 20 quadrillion to one, that is. Good thing they’ve been redenominating. Even Zimbabwe doesn’t have a currency that small, I think.
A major re-arrangement of books and other items continues on the lower level of our house. Today I moved my copy of the 14th Edition of Encyclopædia Britannica. Why do I have a copy of such a weighty set of volumes – and I mean that literally, since I had to move them all – in this age of vast libraries accessible via broadband? Sentiment. Inertia. My fixed notion that I’ll never get rid of a book unless it’s completely fallen apart.
That isn’t quite true. I’ve donated books. But only ones I have no interest in, and I’ve never had many books like that.
Besides, I acquired the 14th Edition nearly two decades ago, before the rise of easy Internet information, misinformation, and pseudoinformation. I chanced across a church rummage sale one day in 1995. The entire set was being offered there for exactly $2. So at 24 volumes, that was 8.3 cents a volume. Not the famed 11th Edition, but at that price worth the investment.
I can’t say I’ve spent a lot of time with Britannica over the years, but I’ve dipped into the well now and then. One day I spotted the entry for Hitler, Adolph. The entry isn’t as prominent as you’d think, because the 14th Edition was published in late 1929, which turned out to be awful timing for selling expensive books. Hitler merits only 16 lines on Volume 11, page 598, there between entries for Hitchen, a town in Hertfordshire, England, and Hittite Law: see Babylonian Law. Would that he had stayed there in his obscure corner of an old reference work.
He’s called a “Bavarian politician.” It’s clear from the text that his main claim to fame at that moment, at least in the English-speaking world, was his part in the Beer Hall Putsch. (Ninety years ago this month, which I’d forgotten; but the Chicago Tribune, of all things, recently reminded me of the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht this month. The paper was able to find a few survivors and interview them.) The text also points out that, whatever his status in the NSDAP, Hitler didn’t even have a seat in the Reichstag representing the party – Dr. Frick and Ludendorff did.
Ludendorff, whose entry in the encyclopedia is a lot longer than Hitler’s, later broke with the Nazis and had the good fortune to die of natural causes in the mid-30s. By contrast, Wilhelm Frick, not one of the better-known Nazis any more, was shown the business end of a rope in Nuremberg in 1946.
It’s the oddest thing: looking at this snapshot, taken 30 years ago this month, I can remember the name of only one person in the picture besides me, but I remember almost everyone’s nationality. Then again, the grundstufe 1 class at the Goethe Institut in Lüneburg, West Germany, in the summer of ’83 was a motley one, representing four continents and at least 10 countries. That must have made an impression on a lad traveling outside of his country for the first time.
I was traveling that summer with college friends Rich and Steve. It was their idea to study German in Germany, the better to read philosophy. My interest in 19th-century continental philosophers wasn’t as keen as theirs, but I thought spending five or so weeks in one place, taking classes in the morning and knocking around the rest of the time, would be a good idea. And so it was.
How they picked Lüneburg, I don’t remember, but it’s a fine Lower Saxony town near Hamburg. I ought to ask them sometime. They might not remember either. Rich and Steve knew some German already, so were in a higher class. I was in the beginner class, grundstufe 1. One day, the class went outside an lined up for a photo.
On the upper row, beginning on the left, are three Americans. The fellow on the farthest left was nicknamed Howdy Doody (by the other Americans) for his red hair, small stature, and childishness. Fourth on the left was Herr Witt, our teacher. A fitting name, since he was a lively, entertaining teacher. Next, and to the back, a Japanese fellow. Then me. Next to me, a Finn, who was something of a celebrity on Finnish children’s TV, if I remember right. I ought to remember his name, since he lived in the same building as I did, and we spoke fairly often, but I don’t. Behind him, a Frenchman, and then a South American whose nation I forgot. At the end is an Italian woman.
On the lower row, beginning on the left, two Italian girls; Howdy Doody in particular was fond of flirting with the girl second to left, and she was fond of brushing him off. The black fellow was from Canada. Next to him, another Japanese guy. I ran into him one day at the Lüneburg McDonald’s, and we had lunch together. Next to him, a Venezuelan, and finally a Hungarian, our only classmate from behind the Iron Curtain.
