Our trip to Germany is starting to fade further into the past.

A lot of good artistic mojo happened there. As I said in an earlier post, I took lots of pictures of details, among these being gargoyles. I have it in my mind that I'd like to paint these gargoyles. I've decided to make one of the kids' old rooms into a dedicated painting room, where my paints and easels can stand undisturbed. Actually, I read this story in the New Yorker about a couple who made their entire apartment into a working area for painting and sewing. I love that idea.

I also picked up European comic books which are hard to find around here from a store selling used comics. European comics, like Japanese comics, tend to be neat in terms of perfect binding. The stapled comics come in plastic with little toys for kids. I'd like to sit down and study the styles. I'm just crazy about them.

My biggest European creative jolt came at the opera where I would imagine scenes from my very own Heino opera. Afterwards, I'd try explaining the Heino opera to my daughter and her boyfriend. Daniel would often laugh (jot that scene down as a keeper) while my daughter would look at me for a moment then bring up another subject.

I'm feeling a lot better today. I'm a lot less hoarse. I have cartooning class for which I need to get ready. It's a make up class from a snowstorm we had four weeks ago. It's like a cartooning class in the middle of nowhere. The last class was on March 8 and the new classes begin April 26. I haven't figured out what we're doing, except we're definitely having cookies and watching cartoons. In Germany, I found this cool cartoon book in which you can make numerous captions appear above one cartoon or conversely, many different cartoons appear for one caption. I thing doing something like that might be fun for the kids...the only question is how.

While in Europe, I spent a lot of time photographing junk. Just junk. I was most interested in details of either ornamentaion or of the macabre. I have a lot of pictures of gargoyles. I also have a lot of pictures of skulls.

The first picture is a detail from the tomb of Maria Theresa in Vienna, I think. It's a fairly typical ornament for the tombs, beautifully executed, about as near to a real skull as you can get. The tomb of Maria Theresa is humongous because it's a tomb built for two. She bore her husband sixteen children before his untimely death. I think Franz Josef fell off a horse or something. She went on to live another fifteen years. She's an imposing figure historically as well as in statuary. The queen of all things Viennese and Baroque. She was a nice lady, too. The only tomb in the crypt not belonging to royalty belongs to Maria Theresa's beloved maid.

Only the bodies of the royals are entombed in the Kaisergruft. You can see shelves of copper urns containing royal innards in the crypts under St. Stefan's Cathedral. Some other parts of the bodies are located at St. Peter's, but I can't remember what. The royals were obviously generous people.

This second detail is from the Dom at Cologne. It's a huge Cathedral which dominates the countryside. The locals claim God spared the Dom from being blasted to oblivion like the rest of Cologne during the Second World War. According to Wikipedia, however, the Dom made a great visual reference for allied bombers who flew without radar. In short it was spared because it was used to help destroy everything else. I told that to a few people and they laughed.

Today, I'm in the third day of some kind of virus which has left me with no voice whatsoever. Moreover, I realized this morning that I've also lost the sense of taste. It's annoying more than anything else. Lydia called from Germany yesterday. Apparently, Daniel has been missing performances because of an illness which sounds identical to mine. While we were in Cologne, a few key performers had been struck down. The lead bass had to be replaced from a guy from another opera house rushed in only hours before the performance. There's no way on earth anyone can sing with this virus. I don't think I'm even capable of answering the phone.

I tried so hard to get that YouTube video to pop up on the blog when I first came home from Germany. Nothing. It completely refused. So I went on my blogging way until this morning when, bang, there were five youtube videos of The Flying Dutchman up on the blog, all my attempts had suddenly succeeded. I tell you, cyberspace is a strange and mysterious place.

While we were in Germany and Austria, we visited a lot of churches. Back in the day, churches were the convention centers of their time, attracting people far and wide to bring tourist dollars to the region. Competition was tough, however, and this meant the acquisition of saintly relics. The better quality of relic, the bigger the attraction. The Dom in Cologne had the local saint's relics, that it, the bones of St. Ursula, plus it had acquired something what was left of the Magi. When we were in Vienna, we were at the Cathedral of St. Peter where I snapped this picture. The Cathedral itself is an explosion of color. A Baroque extravaganza. Whereas Medeival churches are overwhelming with their huge coldness, here was a warm, inviting, happy church. Not surprisingly, the relics as well are likewise encased in color and excess. Maybe they aren'e even relics. The original church had burned down in 1601, allowing this baroque extravaganza to be erected in its place. At this point of time, the distribution of royal body parts seemed to be the attraction, with every dead Austrian king, queen, Duke, arch duke, prince and princess divvied up between no less than three churches.

Anyhow, for what it's worth, here's a really cool skeleton.

Here's a picture of our daughter, Lydia behind the scenes at the Stuttgart Opera.



Feel like getting your cultural mojo working?

Our daughter is associate director at the Stuttgart Opera in Germany. Their production of The Flying Dutchman happens to not only to be the one we saw while in Germany, but also happens to have a small Youtube documentary. You can see our daughter 20 and then 40 seconds into the video. I think she may also be one of the people moving the dog house. It’s just the craziest opera. At the end of the opera, the entire stage become one big vat of mud. And this is Wagner, big voices and all that.

It was one of three operas we saw while in Germany. The other was a production of Tannhauser in Cologne with a really cheesy Eurocontemporary set, but a great bass by the name of Daniel Henriks (my daughter' boyfriend). We saw the premier of La Juive back in Stuttgart. It had a chorus of dancing Jewish sterotypes in the third act. Rod and I were mortified, perfectly conscious that he was a Jew sitting in a sea of Germans watching Hasids with pasted on noses killing plastic dolls on stage, among other nasty things. The ending was pretty bizarre too, with Rachel's Jewish father shooting her instead of the traditional auto-da-fe. When we mentioned our misgivings to Lydia she assured us that the opera had its bases covered. The director and the assistant director, not to mention the composer, were all Jewish. How can you argue with that?

The best we can hope is that this production of La Juive dies a quiet and completely forgettable death.

One of the highlights of our stay in Stuttgart was a tour of the backstage with Lydia. Stuttgart is a formidable opera house, and it's amazing to see what it's like behind the scenes. The painting area for the sets is as large as a soccer field. They have thousands of costumes, all hand sewn, in these huge moveable closets. It was a moment of great pride, too, as everyone was coming up to Lydia. She's obviously one of the popular kids on campus.

This is a picture of the balcony where Lydia sits in order to watch the performance and take notes. This is part of her job as associate director.

The programs from the Ronacher were a big hit. My father-in-law was so excited. "Leonard Hermann!!! Everyone loved Leonard Hermann!!!!" (that's how Leonard Hermann's name appeared in the program...followed by four exclamation marks) He also knew one of the comedians..."The funniest guy in the world" as the program put it. My father-in-lawi added that he was a high class clown, had a whole group of people working for him. And his act lasted three quarters of an hour.

It turns out the family owned the property, but didn't run the theater. My father-in-law's uncle Sam was a real estate wheeler dealer, which is why they kept moving from place to place. He made some bad deals and ended up having to sell half of the Ronacher property. When Hitler came to power, his partner assumed 100 per cent ownership because he wasn't Jewish. After the war, my father-in-law's rich aunt Aga sued and won back half the property. However, the state demanded ownership so she ended up selling out, so that the Ronacher is presently owned by the government.

Here's a picture of Rod and Lydia in front of my father-in-law's former home on Reisnerstrasse, on embassy row. From the age of fifteen (1929) til the age of 23 (when he fled Austria to come to America), my father-in-law lived there. His family owned the building. "We, the Steiers lived on the first floor-my grandparents and some aunts and uncles lived on the second floor. My aunt Fanka and husband Eric lived on the third floor."

I also snapped this picture of Lydia and Rod in front of the Ronacher cafe, across from the Ronacher. We didn't go in, but we did pig out on some delicious Austrian pastries while in Vienna, all slapped up with shlagobers, the Austrian term for whipped cream.

We spent one whole crazy day of our European trip seeing every single point of interest in Vienna. For us Steiers, that meant a trip to the Ronacher. This had been run by Rod's father's family back at the turn of the century. Lydia had tried to work a deal where we could visit the actual interior of the building, but alas the entire place was under repair.

The history of the Ronacher and its relationship to the Steier family is a bit murky. Was it state owned and family run, or was it both owned and run by Steier/Glucksmans? Rod's dad fondly remembers being raised in nearby apartments, doted over by seven aunts, while his father ran the theater. Now, as then, it was a venue for popular acts. I guess you could call it a burlesque. The week after our visit there, the musical tribute to Queen "We will Rock You" is slated to appear.

Right before we left for Europe, Rod's Dad hand wrote a long missive about where we should go and what we should visit. Rod handed it to me, unread, and equally unread, I shoved it into my paperwork cubby where it remained for the entire duration of our trip.

We managed to find some old Ronacher programs in a dingy little curio shop run by a plump old German woman. She wasn't too keen on letting us in. We so looked like tourists. Lydia got down to brass tacks and had the lady going through stacks of old programs.

I'd love to hire a geneologist or historical researcher to find out more about the Steiers and the Ronacher. I wanted to drag Lydia and Rod to the Jewish Museum in Vienna, but they both looked at me blankly. Well, I guess it's their heritage and whatever.

Holy Sacred Relics, Wendy. If I'd read your post a couple of days ago, we'd have made a pilgrimage to the church of St. Ursula instead of wasting our time traipsing over to the Karnivalemuseum. In the rain. In a windstorm. And it was closed.

Interesting legend about St. Ursula. First report was that she and eleven virgin friends were killed. After a while, it became eleven thousand. And then, as if that wasn't enough, it became eleven thousand AND friends. No doubt it was from this last version that all the bones came from. We learned that from our visit to the Staatmuseum, a very cool place.

Right now, we're at the point in our trip when we're getting ready to leave Cologne permanently. Relatively speaking. Our daughter will be moving here in a bit, so I'm sure we'll have a second chance the bones. Sheesh. Anyhow, we were at the opera tonight watching her boyfriend in the Tannhauser premier at the opera. Oh my gosh, we were surrounded by weeping Germans. In the morning, we're on a train for Stuttgart and the premiere of La Juive, on which our daughter is assisting. Monday, Lydia, Rod and I will be on our way to Vienna (Any cool travel suggestions there, Wendy? I have so learned my lesson. From now on , YOU ARE my travel agent. Lord knows, I wouldn't have seen the Ghibli without your input.)

Oh well, Rod just called our luggage something vile, undoubtedly on account of being unable to close it. Now he wants his turn on the computer. Sharing a computer is as bad as sharing a bathroom, I swear. Are we spoiled americans or what.

I'm typing this from the computer of my daughter's German boyfriend. The letters z and y have switched places and the @ symbol has to be accessed from the L key. Some of the punctuation marks have found new spots as well so typing isn't as automatic as usual.

As I had suspected earlier, all the German movies I've been watching haven't much helped me understand the language. However, I'm reading the signage much better. I'm intimidated to speak to anyone because GOD FORBID THEY SAY ANYTHING BACK!

The first night here, we went out to a local pub for some Kolcher beer. It comes in these little glasses. The idea is you drink as many of these as you want, refills being the waiter's task. Lately, maybe on account of hormonal changes, who knows, I've been getting hungover even before getting drunk. This doesn't happen here. I can actually drink responsibly without feeling sick. Since I love beer, this makes me very happy.

Rod's been going to the tool show at the Kolnmesse. Our daughter has dubbed this "Daddy's meetings with his Tool Friends". In the meantime, I've been toodling around town. Both Lydia and her boyfriend are very busy, but still they manage to find time for us. Tomorrow, hopefully Rod will be spending less time at the show and we can both go on an explore of this very old yet very hip citz...I mean city.

Well, I managed to get two emails praising the Jane Quiet book with having but a single comic in my possession. I'd really like to thank my anonymous publicity department. They're doing a great job. I'd like to mention it to the printer, but what if it's someone working for the printer who took some extra books? I don't want to destroy the publicity department before I even know who it is.

The comics, however, did finally come in and they look fantabulastic. The act of receiving the books is fundamentally transformational. In one fell swoop, I've gone from being an artist to being a sales force and marketer.

Sigh.

We had dinner with my in-laws on Saturday night at the old folks' home. This is a semi-regular event. This time our usually uneventful supper was punctuated by a team of EMT's responding to an emergency. An old woman had collapsed. The home itself is under quarantine. All the residents of Caleb can neither go in nor out for fear of spreading respiratory disease.

Shortly after passing the gurney being wheeled out of the dining room, my mother-in-law suggested that she and my father-in-law would be visiting Weinstein mortuary this Wednesday to pick out coffins and finalize funeral arrangements. I said nonononono. You can't go there. My father-in-law is depressed enough as it is and taking drugs to make him happy. Visiting a mortuary would be counter intuitive or something. May as well serve him a bowl of depression soup.

My mother-in-law has formidable will power, however.

On the way home, I appealed to Rod. His point was simply that his parents didn't want to burden their children with the arrangements. Plus his mother is a control freak.

I couldn't argue with this second point.

The entire fish barrel of editorial cartoonists has been shot up by a masked man with a website which goes by the name of The Bad Cartoonist. Alan Gardner of The Daily Cartoonist posted an interview with the guy and all hell broke loose.

It's not like the Bad Cartoonist exposes anything new. Editorial cartooning has a fabulous array of varying styles right now, so the old complaint that everyone draws like MacNelly simply isn't true. On the other hand, there's the issue of content. You'll have to go to the badcartoonist website to know what I mean. You'd think editorial cartoonists would have learned something after being pummeled over the slew of post-9/11 crying statue of liberty cartoons, of which there are about 1.3 for every editorial cartoonist. Yes, I exaggerate, but you get the point.

If there's one thing I've learned about editorial cartoonists is that they'll never change. They have nice salaried positions and they win prizes. What more could anyone want?

Putting this in historical context, I can't seem to remember this phenomenon of the spontaneous generation of one gag among so many happening at any other time. It probably has to do with the mass consolidation of news outlets. Yes, sadly this means that people can in fact be homogenized in the same way as milk. Ironically, your typical editorial cartoonist will puff himself out as being an iconoclast while churning out cartoons very similar to about ten per cent of every other editorial cartoonist on any given day. More than ten per cent if there happens to be a monster news story.

Men.