Monatsarchive: Mai 2018

Hungarian National Museum

What did it mean to be halfway between serfdom and a middle-class way of life? Were peasants, agricultural and industrial workers happy? Was this what caused them to emigrate? Were did the new phenomena of the workers‘ movement come from? … Weiterlesen

Kommentare deaktiviert für Hungarian National Museum

Holocaust Memorial Center

I liked the physical design of the museum, with slanting walls, a lack of right angles, the entrance through a dark basement, long sloping ramps all emphasizing the disorientation of deported Hungarian Jews and Roma. There was a noticeable and … Weiterlesen

Kommentare deaktiviert für Holocaust Memorial Center

Budapest

Citadella Budapest from the Citadel

Kommentare deaktiviert für Budapest

Wien

Karlskirche. The thing about this view for me is that I remember taking this picture in 1997. It’s very strange to be here again 21 years later. Petra and her urban garden. With Rainer and Christian.

Kommentare deaktiviert für Wien

KZ Gusen

This is now a residential neighborhood. I was standing directly in front of someone’s home taking this picture.

Kommentare deaktiviert für KZ Gusen

Mauthausen

When I was a kid my parents had the American Heritage photographic history of WW II on a bookshelf in our living room. I remember poring over the thick blue volume with my dad, asking questions. Where is Ploesti? Who … Weiterlesen

Kommentare deaktiviert für Mauthausen

Prague

Prague Castle from the Charles Bridge Karel Boromějský Orthodox Church At 30 Gabčík was the oldest of the parachutists.

Kommentare deaktiviert für Prague

Uniqueness and Exceptionalism

This [US] is a unique, exceptional country. Russia is unique, but not exceptional. —Mike Pompeo, Senate confirmation hearing A few minutes ago I was in the Markgräfliches Opernhaus in Bayreuth, one of the last all-wood 18th Century opera houses in … Weiterlesen

Kommentare deaktiviert für Uniqueness and Exceptionalism

Wahnfried

I find myself wondering how much of my attitude towards high culture was shaped by Bugs Bunny cartoons. Surely the American culture I was exposed to disdained opera as foreign, effeminate, pretentious, suspect.

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Goethe’s Wohnhaus

Goethe’s house is quite large and very sensual. Wooden floors creak in every room, which are filled with paintings, drawings, busts, decorative plates. Outside the garden is filled with herbs and flowers. Birds chirp, an owl hoo-hoos. Visitors are offered … Weiterlesen

Kommentare deaktiviert für Goethe’s Wohnhaus

Eine andere Welt ist möglich

I loaded a washer and took a stroll this morning. This house is directly across the street from the Fürstengruft, with Goethe and Schiller’s sarcophagi. The other graffiti was all tagging, „fickt euch“ and such. News sites report the Obamas … Weiterlesen

Kommentare deaktiviert für Eine andere Welt ist möglich

Buchenwald

Jedem das seine. Arbeit macht frei. Coercion of the imprisoned into self-torture causes its own unique agony, as Mitchell and Jessen made millions proselytizing. I reflect on agency at places such as this. „But what can I do about Guantánamo? … Weiterlesen

Kommentare deaktiviert für Buchenwald