Not the Azerbaijan Daily Photo - reloaded - #1263

One of the best things about being back in Nelson is popping into Baku in Richmond and being greeting like long lost friends by people like Lynda.

Secretly, I'm hoping for a hug next time....

Slipping and sliding...#1262

A fry of Steve Fullmer's eels

On reflection.....#1261

 

With thanks to Meg and Ben for tolerating the intrusion

....I'm convinced that this is one of the best galleries I know.

Run by one of the nicest people I've met.

With a cool café and the best brownies in town..

Jay Farnsworth at Red Gallery in Nelson

It's in the mail - #1260

Having received a further invitation to spread my profound wisdom among the youth of the world, I'm sure that it's only a matter of time before this outfit begs me to join them......

Strike a light - #1259

Brobdingnagianism at Mainz's Academy of Arts.


Last year.


This year's was such a well-kept secret that I didn't find out about it until I couldn't go any more.


Rats.

Objekt L/300 - #1258

"Hommage a Gutenberg" a 1988 work on the Rhine promenade by Wulf Kirschner,  a Hamburg sculptor.

Massively big (taller than me, anyway) wavy steel pages with welded implied text bound together with steel rings.

Bloody good stuff.

Hand-coloured and lenticularly trussed - #1257

 

  Sounds like a lyric from "Highway 61 Revisited". (Who said speed kills...?)

Here be that bridge again with a severe paucity of cumulo-thingies, but a surfeit (that's the collective noun of the moment) of contrails.

Effects courtesy of TrueHDR, which captures three ranges of brightness in an image, selects the best two and creates a single high dynamic range image.
[That's what it says here, anyway - Ed]

Back to the drawing board - #1256

These pigeon barriers appear to require a redesign.

Unless of course it's a pigeon prison which would be a VERY GOOD IDEA.

Fort Malakoff

Tripolitanerin - #1255

I'm in two minds about Emy Roeder, the Mainz sculptress.

On the one hand, I rate her work untold - this is the "Tripolitanerin" from 1961 on the banks of the Rhine.

On the other hand, the road they named after her is home to the local office of the Finanzamt/HM Revenue and Customs/IRS (or whatever it is you call it in your neck of the woods) and it's normal for any right thinking person (i.e. non- civil servants, professors, students and similar excluded) to have an aversion to those bloodsuckers.

Anyway.

"Tripolitanerin" (which always reminds me of Tipitina's, the music place in New Orleans named after Professor Longhair's song [listen]) comes from Tripolitanien (Greek: Tripolis = "Three cities"), one of present day Libya's three historic provinces, the others being Kyrenaika and Fessan.
The three cities? The phoenician colonies Oea (later Tripolis), Sabratha und Leptis Magna. [That's enough trivia for today. Editor]

Shine a light III - #1254

Navigation lights at Michael Teschke's vineyard in Laurenziberg.

The easy way to remember the port/starboard/left/right/red/green confusion is this one:

"PORT wine is RED and is best LEFT well alone"

I'm not sure if there's one for starboard, but I suppose you could use the process of elimination....

Strike a light II -#1253

"I've got my eye(s) on you...."

Metallic Triffidity on the Theodore-Heuss bridge linking Mainz with heathen lands.

Shine a light I - #1252

The floodlight towers between the Rathaus and the Rheingoldhalle.

(Jockel-Fuchs-Platz, to give it its correct name)

Tweaked just a tad.

But only with iPhoto....
 
(Back in the day, of course, you'd get this effect by polarising the image and then dodging/light-painting in the darkroom. Only took an hour or so - 5 prints to throw away and one to keep)

"Oi.....! - #1251

Where are you going with that cake?"

Scene from the Villa Musica hoolie last year.

Tilt-shifted with this here thingie

These modern materials....#1250

...don't appear all they're cracked up to be.


Wilful damage to the Coneheads* on the Alte Universitätsstrasse

*Aka as the conical decorative skylights for the lower levels of the theatre

The Roman Stones....#1249

How bloody dull can you get?

"Die Römersteine".

These are the remnants of one of the most significant Roman structures north of the Alps, for goodness sake!

An aquaduct that transported 7.000m3 of water a day from Mainz-Finthen (Fontanetum) over 9km to the 2 legions stationed in Mainz in the 1st C AD.

With a gradient of 0.9% and arches up to 30m high.

This sort of stuff never ceases to amaze me.

There's not much left - just the decayed stumps of 58 pillars in Zahlbach and few other bits here and there. Mediaeval builders recycled the rest.

The water was fed through subterranean homesick blues channels for the first 6 km, surfaced in what are were fields and is now the new Mainz 05 stadium and then swooped over the Zahlbach valley to the Castra (modern: Kästrich) and 12,000 thirsty legionnaires.

So IMHO "The Roman Stones" doesn't really do it justice.

Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

More (really good stuff) here

This I earned - #1248

 

Double espresso and a blueberry muffin at the (average age 17...) Kiddie Café  Annabatterie café on the Gartenfeldplatz.

Definitely worth a visit.

Follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow- #1247

Thomas Campion

   

Said Thomas Campion.

 

On yer bike, say I.

Old man's beard - #1246

Not mine.

Mine's neatly trimmed.

I think. (Confirmation required)

This is Clematis vitalba, taken with an iPhone 3GS

"I'm a bit nervous..." - #1245

...said Uschi.

Not surprised.

First time she's flown anywhere by herself.

Meet Uschi Niklas, my mate Christoph's wife.

She retired from her job at the University clinic in Mainz 2 weeks ago and almost immediately said "I think I'll go and see Stephan and Áine and the grandkids"

Who live in Ireland.

I got roped into working out which airline was cheapest (Lufthansa marginally more expensive than Ryanair, but quality beats naffness any day), booking the flights on my credit card and checking her in on-line last night.

Took her to the airport - she wanted to be there 2 hours before departure - and all we had to do was to drop her bag, show her how the check-in kiosk works (for next time...) and buy her a coffee, so she had a good 90 minutes to find the gate.

And of course it's a surprise, so only Áine (aka chauffeur service) knows about it.

Would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when she fronted up...

Loopy - #1244

 

I'm not a regular visitor to palaces of conspicuous consumption aka shopping centres, but I'll make an exception for The Loop in NQM Weiterstadt.

They have a place that makes REALLY good espresso.

Shame it's unlocal....

Not yer normal winery - #1243

Anthony Hammond (American dad, German mum) runs the Garage Winery just across the river in Oestrich-Winkel.

He calls his wine Sugar-Babe, Rosamunde, Kickstart and Goldmarie, sells them in 0.25 litre bottles as well as the standard 0.75l) he sells olive oil in sewing machine oil cans, honey in tubes and vodka laced with caffeine.

Not yer normal winery.

And it IS in what used to be a garage in the middle of town.

His open courtyard shindigs in Spring and Autumn are legendary - the last one featured a Johnny Cash revival band that - when you closed your eyes - WAS Johnny Cash and  a renegade cooking outfit from Hamburg that produced food beyond description - the "Bloody Hell" burger was sliced medium rare Charolais with a salsa dressing between toasted ciabatta, the Pussy de luxe burger was... chargrilled octopus.

And his wines are seriously good - clean, crisp, well-priced.

Nicest guy, too.

I realised when we got home that he'd given me too much change, so I zipped over on the bike the next day- it's only 40k or so - to pay him back.

He said "Look mate, honesty has be rewarded" and proceeded to fill up my rucksack with various Sugar-Babe/Rosamunde/Kickstart/Goldmarie minis.

Got them home intact, too.

Tempted, though....

Please don't bury me down....#1242

...... in the cold cold ground,
No, I don't wanna have them cut me up and pass me all around.
Throw my brain in a hurricane, and the blind can have my eyes,
And the deaf can take both o'my ears if they don't mind the size.

John Prine said it best

Music and lyrics.

Woke up this morning,
Put on my slippers,
Walked in the kitchen and died.
And, oh, what a feeling!
When my soul went through the ceiling
And on up into heaven I did rise.

When I got there they did say,
"John, it happened this-a-way,
You slipped upon the floor and hit your head,
And all the angels say, just before you passed away,
these were the very last words that you said:"

Please don't bury me down in the cold cold ground,
No, I don't wanna have them cut me up and pass me all around.
Throw my brain in a hurricane, and the blind can have my eyes,
And the deaf can take both o'my ears if they don't mind the size.

Give my stomach to Milwaukee if they run out of beer,
Put my socks in a cedar box, just get 'em outa here!
Venus de Milo can have my arms, look out, I've got your nose,
Sell my art to the junk man, and give my love to Rose.

Please don't bury me down in the cold cold ground,
No, I don't wanna have them cut me up and pass me all around.
Throw my brain in a hurricane, and the blind can have my eyes,
And the deaf can take both o'my ears if they don't mind the size.

Give my feet to the footloose, careless, fancy-free,
Give my knees to the needy, don't pull that stuff on me,
Hand me down my walking cane, it's a sin to tell a lie,
Send my mouth way down south, and kiss my ass goodbye.

Please don't bury me down in the cold cold ground,
No, I don't wanna have them cut me up and pass me all around.
Throw my brain in a hurricane, and the blind can have my eyes,
And the deaf can take both o'my ears if they don't mind the size.

Beuys will be Beuys - #1241

A young Josef Beuys holds court to a disinterested visitor at Frankfurt's MMK (Museum of Modern Art)

Why I like Portobello -#1240

 

"Portobello" is a small Italian restaurant run by Giovanni and Barbara Jelapi in Nieder Ober-Olm, a neighbouring village.

They opened about 18 years ago and we've seen their 2 kids (17 and 14) grow up from littlies (who came and sat at our table to draw on the screeds of mainframe printouts that I'd rescue from the waste-paper at work) to real people.

Why do I like it?

I don't have to order a wheat beer - they just bring it.

They've christened Mrs jb's favourite pasta dish (which isn't on the menu - spaghettini with olive oil, garlic and peperoni ) "Pasta Anna"

They think it's hilarious if you're sitting in a hidden corner of the restaurant and call them up on the mobile to order an espresso.

They think it's hilarious if Giovanni's sitting at a table talking to customers (leaving Barbara rushed off her feet) and I put a towel over my arm and go up and ask if I can get them anything from the bar.

Best of all - when Mrs jb scoffs the amaretti from my espresso, Giovanni asks "Did she steal it?", whips the cup away and comes back with some more "just for you, though"...

Suffer the little childen...#1239

Who don't in fact look too happy with the situation at all.

Not surprising, given what you read in the papers...

Update

The tablet sez Veni, Creator Spiritus

One of the most widely used hymns in the Church, Veni, Creator Spiritus, is attributed to Rabanus Maurus (776-856). It is used at Vespers, Pentecost, Dedication of a Church, Confirmation, and Holy Orders and whenever the Holy Spirit is solemnly invoked. A partial indulgence is granted to the faithful who recite it. A plenary indulgence is granted if it is recited on January 1st or on the feast of Pentecost. 

Does that mean that the unfaithful get a plenary indulgence if they pick the right day, too? And what is a "plenary indulgence" anyway? Doesn't sound too healthy to me...

By popular request - #1238

 

Oh, OK then.

But I did warn you...

Allegorical thingies clustered around Fastnachtsbrunnen.

Answers on a $20 note, please...

Here we go again - #1237

More white stuff.....

Monthly Theme Day - Fountains - #1236

Good thing it's winter.

Thinks: Even if the water WERE turned on, it would have frozen to ice, so there's no danger of my getting wet...

So a good opportunity to squeeze inside the Fastnachtsbrunnen (Karneval fountain) aka the Narrenbrunnen (Fools' Fountain) on the Schillerplatz and have a look at how it all works.

Of course, I'm none the wiser, because all you can see is the rather undecorative reverse of the structure, with only a few embellishments to hint at what's going on outside.

But it was renovated last year, removing decades of mineral deposits and other sundry grunge and it's scrubbed up quite well....

History lesson: The City Fathers asked around in 1963 whether some of the commercial outfits that had re-established themselves after the war would be prepared to donate towards a fountain celebrating Mainz's Carnival tradition. Ludwig Eckes, a drinks manufacturer from Nieder-Olm came up with the money, tenders went out, 234 proposals came back and the design is the result of a collaboration between Professor Blasius Spreng, a Munich artist and Helmut Gräf, a Mainz architect.

9 metres high, decorated with over 200 figures and allegorical thingies, a few of which you can see here.

Plus yesterday's Bacchanalian post.

Good thing I didn't crop him out.....

The rest of the gang's here with loads of good stuff.

Go and check them out

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