Canada Slim and the City at the Crossroads

Landschlacht, Switzerland, Saturday 6 July 2019

In previous posts in both my blogs I have written about the quiet majesty and remarkable beauty of the French region known as Alsace.

 

 

As evidenced by the post you are reading, I continue to wax poetically about this region, simply because I find myself consistently drawn to exploring it every opportunity I have, even though I no longer live as close to the French border as I once did in the days when I lived in Freiburg im Briesgau, in southwestern Germany’s Black Forest, with my wife.

The easiest, and perhaps inevitable, introduction to Alsace is to first begin your explorations with the departmental capital, Strasbourg, for it is here that not only does the explorer develop a sense of what it means to be Alsatian, French and European, but as well it is here where the visitor finds a sense of what it means to be human, for better and for worse.

This particular travel description will differ from others in that I will not be prefacing it with datelines as I usually have done with other places I have visited, because I have visited Strasbourg on so many occasions that my actual moments stand out less significantly than the overall impression that the city has given me.

This city is one of those places where each visitor must discover and claim Strasbourg as their own in their own personal way.

I have visited Strasbourg on my own without any financial resources.

I have visited Strasbourg alone, with friends, and with my wife, flush with funding.

Each experience was entirely unique and original in itself.

I doubt there will ever be a time when I will ever say that I know Strasbourg, for Strasbourg is like the nearby Rhine….

You can never step into it the same way twice, for that what was of yesterday is a world alien to that of today and what will be tomorrow is unimaginable today.

 

 

Strasbourg is situated at the eastern border of France with Germany.

This border is formed by the Rhine, which also forms the eastern border of the modern city, facing across the river to the German town Kehl.

The historic core of Strasbourg however lies on the Grande Île in the river Ill, which here flows parallel to, and roughly 4 kilometres (2.5 miles) from, the Rhine.

The natural courses of the two rivers eventually join some distance downstream of Strasbourg, although several artificial waterways now connect them within the city.

 

Above: Gare de Strasbourg (rail station)

 

The city lies in the Upper Rhine Plain, at between 132 metres (433 ft) and 151 metres (495 ft) above sea level, with the upland areas of the Vosges Mountains some 20 km (12 mi) to the west and the Black Forest 25 km (16 mi) to the east.

This section of the Rhine valley is a major axis of north–south travel, with river traffic on the Rhine itself, and major roads and railways paralleling it on both banks.

 

Above: Notre Dame Cathedral, Strasbourg

 

The city is some 397 kilometres (247 mi) east of Paris.

The mouth of the Rhine lies approximately 450 kilometres (280 mi) to the north, or 650 kilometres (400 mi) as the river flows, whilst the head of navigation in Basel, Switzerland, is some 100 kilometres (62 mi) to the south, or 150 kilometres (93 mi) by river.

 

 

The city has warm, relatively sunny summers and cool, overcast winters.

Precipitation is elevated from mid-spring to the end of summer, but remains largely constant throughout the year, totaling 631.4 mm (24.9 in) annually.

On average, snow falls 30 days per year.

 

Above: Palais Rohan, Strasbourg

 

The 2nd highest temperature ever recorded was 38.5 °C (101.3 °F) in August 2003, during the 2003 European heat wave.

This record was recently broken, on 30 June 2019, when it was registered 38.8 °C (101.8 °F).

The lowest temperature ever recorded was −23.4 °C (−10.1 °F) in December 1938.

 

 

Strasbourg’s location in the Rhine valley, sheltered from the dominant winds by the Vosges and Black Forest mountains, results in poor natural ventilation, making Strasbourg one of the most atmospherically polluted cities of France.

Nonetheless, the progressive disappearance of heavy industry on both banks of the Rhine, as well as effective measures of traffic regulation in and around the city have reduced air pollution.

 

Above: Palais du Rhin, Strasbourg

 

Strasbourg is the capital and largest city of the Grand Est region of France and is the official seat of the European Parliament.

Located at the border with Germany in the historic region of Alsace, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin department.

Strasbourg is the 9th largest metro area in France and home to 13% of the Grand Est region’s inhabitants.

 

 

Strasbourg is the seat of over twenty international institutions, most famously of the Council of Europe and of the European Parliament, of which it is the official seat.

Strasbourg is considered the legislative and democratic capital of the European Union, while Brussels is considered the executive and administrative capital and Luxembourg the judiciary and financial capital.

 

 

Strasbourg is the seat of the following organisations, among others:

• Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine (since 1920)
• Council of Europe, with all the bodies and organisations affiliated to this institution (since 1949)
• European Parliament (since 1952)
• European Ombudsman
• Eurocorps headquarters,
• Franco-German television channel Arte
• European Science Foundation
• International Institute of Human Rights
• Human Frontier Science Program
• International Commission on Civil Status
• Assembly of European Regions
• Centre for European Studies (French: Centre d’études européennes de Strasbourg)
• Sakharov Prize

Above: Hemisphere, European Parliament, Strasbourg

 

It is the second city in France in terms of international congress and symposia, after Paris.

 

Success did not come at the head of a city that had passed almost without transition from a quiet regional capital to a European city.

It has not frantically thrown itself into the hands of promoters for a 21st century concrete facelift, even if its new status as a metropolis in a wider region is now pushing it to develop new neighborhoods, along the Rhine or at the gates of the old city.

It is no coincidence that its historic center, a real big island restored to life by a well-studied traffic plan, from which the car was largely driven out, was the first urban center in France in to be listed by UNESCO as World Heritage.

The former imperial German district Neustadt is also UNESCO-honoured since July 2017.

Strasbourg is immersed in Franco-German culture and although violently disputed throughout history, has been a cultural bridge between France and Germany for centuries, especially through the University of Strasbourg, currently the second largest in France, and the co-existence of Catholic and Protestant culture.

It is also home to the largest Islamic place of worship in France, the Strasbourg Grand Mosque.

 

Above: Strasbourg Grand Mosque

 

But do not believe, discovering the impressive number of monuments and neighborhoods waiting for your visit, that it is a city frozen in history that welcomes you.

Strasbourg, which has managed to put at its head women of character as well as skilled men, sailing skillfully between right and left, is a city that has also demonstrated its industrial and commercial dynamism.

Strasbourg proved that it knew how to win:

• The TGV Est Europe is there, putting Paris at 1h50 from the Alsatian capital
• The tram has reorganized the entire city center and brought some places to life:

All old Strasbourg is largely pedestrian now, and cyclists reign there as masters.

In short, in addition to its rich architectural heritage, you will discover a city with exceptional quality of life, which has found a rare commodity: silence and singing birds!

And if the sacrosanct winstubs, believed to be eternal, have disappeared for the most part after the retirement of those who made their reputation (they have kept their name but have become tourist restaurants essentially), tea rooms, terraces, trendy places, and even today’s trendy winstubs are opening up neighborhoods that have not been seen before.

 

 

Economically, Strasbourg is an important centre of manufacturing and engineering, as well as a hub of road, rail, and river transportation.

The port of Strasbourg is the 2nd largest on the Rhine after Duisburg in Germany, and the 4th largest river port in France after Nantes, Rouen and Bordeaux.

Above: The port of Strasbourg

 

Yet despite all of this, Strasbourg rarely receives the admiration and attention that greater-sized metropolises do, especially in popular culture.

 

Musically, Strasbourg is a sidenote.

 

Several compositions have specifically been dedicated to Strasbourg Cathedral by church componists Franz Xaver Richter, Ignaz Pleyel and John Tavener.

 

Above: Notre Dame Cathedral, Strasbourg

 

Strasbourg pie, a dish containing foie gras, is mentioned in the finale of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Cats.

 

 

On their 1974 album Hamburger Concerto, Dutch progressive band Focus included a track called “La Cathédrale de Strasbourg“, which included chimes from a cathedral bell.

 

 

British punk band The Rakes had a minor hit in 2005 with their song “Strasbourg”, featuring witty lyrics with themes of espionage and vodka and a cleverly inserted count of “eins, zwei, drei, vier” even though Strasbourg’s spoken language is French.

 

 

Havergal Brian’s Symphony #7 was inspired by passages in Goethe’s memoirs recalling his time at Strasbourg University.

Brian’s work ends with an orchestral bell sounding the note E, the strike note of the bell of Strasbourg Cathedral.

 

 

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart called his 3rd Violin Concerto (1775) the Straßburger Konzert because one of its most prominent motives, is based on a Strasbourg minuet dance that had already appeared as a tune in a symphony by Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf.

 

Above: Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf (1739 – 1799)

 

In literature, Strasbourg is a footnote.

 

A sole chapter, albeit a long one, of Laurence Sterne’s 1767 novel Tristram Shandy, “Slawkenbergius’ Tale” takes place in Strasbourg.

 

Above: Laurence Sterne (1713 – 1768)

 

(Hafen Slawkenbergius is a fictional writer referenced in Laurence Sterne’s novel Tristram Shandy.

Slawkenbergius was “distinguished by the length of his nose, and a great authority on the subject of noses“.

Sterne gives few biographical details relating to Slawkenbergius, but states that he was German and that he had died over 90 years prior to the writing and publication (in 1761) of the books of Tristram Shandy in which he appears — i.e., circa 1670, although Slawkenbergius’ tale includes a reference to the French annexation of Strasbourg in 1681.

Slawkenbergius is primarily known for his scholarly writings in Neo-Latin, particularly his lengthy monograph De Nasis (“On Noses“), purporting to explain different types of noses and their corresponding significance to human character.

The second book of De Nasis is said to be filled with a large number of short stories illustrative of Slawkenbergius’ characterizations of noses.

Only one of these stories is reproduced in Tristram Shandy.

Slawkenbergius is first referred to in Volume III, Chapter XXXV.

Volume IV opens with the relatively lengthy “Slawkenbergius’s Tale.”

This tale recounts the journey of a courteous gentleman, Diego, who was endowed with a massive nose.

Diego attempts to pass inconspicuously through Strasbourg on his way from the “Promontory of Noses“, but the sight of his giant nose sends the Strassburgers, especially the nuns, into a restless frenzy.

The tale relays the results of the upset in Strassburg and the travels of Diego to his admirer Julia.)

 

 

A solitary episode of Matthew Gregory Lewis’ 1796 novel The Monk takes place in the forests that once surrounded Strasbourg.

 

 

(Baptiste is a robber living outside of Strasbourg.

He lets travellers stay in his house so that he may rob and murder them.

His two sons by a previous wife, Jacques and Robert, assist him to this end.

He then forced Marguerite to marry him.

Marguerite, however, is disgusted by his life of crime.

Marguerite is first introduced as a short and unwilling hostess and wife of Baptiste.

Her first husband dies after receiving wounds from an English traveller.

The group of banditti do not trust Marguerite to keep their secret and she becomes the property of Baptiste.

She has two sons, Theodore and a younger unnamed boy.

She saves Don Raymond’s life by revealing Baptiste’s true intentions through mysterious bloody sheets and significant glances.

She stabs and kills Baptiste as Don Raymond tries to strangle him, allowing them both to escape.

Don Raymond is the son of the Marquis and is also known as Alphonso d’Alvarada.

He takes the name Alphonso when his friend, the Duke of Villa Hermosa, advises him that taking a new name will allow him to be known for his merits rather than his rank.

He travels to Paris, but finds the Parisians “frivolous, unfeeling and insincere” and sets out for Germany.

Near Strasbourg he is forced to seek accommodations in a cottage after his chaise supposedly breaks down.

He is the target of the robber Baptiste but with help from Marguerite, he is able to save himself and the Baroness Lindenberg.

Grateful, the Baroness invites Don Raymond to stay with her and her husband at their castle in Bavaria.)

 

Above: The Monk (2011 French film)

 

Sadly, these are books rarely read today by our generation of techno tots.

 

In film, Strasbourg is merely backdrop.

 

The opening scences of the 1977 Ridley Scott film The Duellists take place in Strasbourg in 1800.

 

 

(Fervent Bonapartist and obsessive duellist Lieutenant Gabriel Feraud (Harvey Keitel) of the French 7th Hussars, nearly kills the nephew of the city’s mayor in a sword duel.

Under pressure from the mayor, Brigadier-General Treillard (Robert Stephens) sends a member of his staff, Lieutenant Armand d’Hubert (Keith Carradine) of the 3rd Hussars, to put Feraud under house arrest.

As the arrest takes place in the house of Madame de Lionne (Jenny Runacre), a prominent local lady, Feraud takes it as a personal insult from d’Hubert.

Matters are made worse when Feraud asks d’Hubert if he would “let them spit on Napoleon” and d’Hubert doesn’t immediately reply.

Upon reaching his quarters, Feraud challenges d’Hubert to a duel.

The duel is inconclusive.

d’Hubert slashes Feraud’s forearm but is unable to finish him off, because he is attacked by Feraud’s mistress.

As a result of his part in the duel, d’Hubert is dismissed from the General’s staff and returned to active duty with his unit.

The war interrupts the men’s quarrel and they do not meet again until six months later in Augsburg in 1801.)

 

 

The 2007 Spanish film In the City of Sylvia is set in Strasbourg.

 

 

(In the City of Sylvia (Spanish: En la Ciudad de Sylvia) is a 2007 film directed by José Luis Guerín.

The film follows a young man credited only as ‘Él‘ (English:’Him‘) as he wanders central Strasbourg in search of Sylvia, a woman he asked for directions in a bar six years earlier.

 

 

Guerín, born in Barcelona, is a prolific and original documentary filmmaker who has made only a handful of fiction features, averaging one per decade.

He is often characterized as “inquisitive”, is never seen without a flat cap tucked over his forehead, and is fascinated with silent film, meta-fictional conceits, journals, and the relationship between person, place, and memory.

 

 

Sylvia may represent a real person from Guerín’s past (like his experimental companion piece, Some Photos In The City Of Sylvia) or she could be someone he made up, a purely rhetorical figure.

She is the girl with the white parasol remembered by Bernstein in Citizen Kane, a movie that’s all about the way fleeting moments stick like splinters in memory.

(“Rosebud”)

 

 

Or she is Madeleine, Vertigo’s woman that never was.

 

 

José Luis Guerín’s 2007 film In The City Of Sylvia doesn’t have much plot beyond what’s implied in the title.

An unnamed young man (French actor Xavier Lafitte) is visiting Strasbourg, a picturesque city just off the border between France and Germany.

He remembers a woman named Sylvia or Sylvie, whom he met very briefly at a bar called Les Aviateurs while visiting Strasbourg six years earlier.

She drew him a map on a beer coaster.

Perhaps he hopes to run into her again.

The movie is broken up into chapters (identified as “1st night“, “2nd night” and so on), which presumably correspond to the length of the young man’s stay in Strasbourg, during which he doesn’t appear to do anything except look, draw, and – in a series of scenes that takes up a third of the film – follow a woman that he may think is Sylvia or Sylvie.

It’s something of a masterpiece, filled with beguiling intangibles and apparent contradictions.

Part of what makes the film so elemental is the way it uses elementary techniques, be it close-ups, reverse angles or natural light.

There is nothing fancy about it, but, as is often the case, the simplest steps lead to the most sophisticated results, building to the crescendo of the final sequence, in which glimpses of strangers at a Strasbourg tram stop – alone or in groups – suggest a world of mystery, possibility and unacknowledged beauty.

Guérin romanticizes looking, by taking something completely mundane and, by breaking it down on film, makes it seem extraordinary.)

 

 

The opening scene of the 2011 movie Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows covers an assassination bombing inside Strasbourg Cathedral.

 

 

(“The year was 1891.

Storm clouds were brewing over Europe.

France and Germany were at each other’s throats, the result of a series of bombings.

Some said it was nationalists, others the anarchists, but as usual my friend Sherlock Holmes had a different theory altogether.”

“Strasbourg bombing.  Read all about it.  Anarchists suspected in Strasbourg bombing.”)

 

 

Before the 5th century, the city was known as the Roman camp of Argantorati, first mentioned in 12 BC.

That Gaulish name is a compound of -rati, the Gaulish word for fortified enclosures, and arganto(n)-  the Gaulish word for silver, but also any precious metal, particularly gold, suggesting either a fortified enclosure located by a river gold mining site, or hoarding gold mined in the nearby rivers.

 

 

After the 5th century, the city became known by a completely different name Gallicized as Strasbourg (Lower Alsatian: Strossburi; German: Straßburg).

That name is of Germanic origin and means “town at the crossing of roads“.

Gregory of Tours was the first to mention the name change:

In the 10th book of his History of the Franks, written shortly after 590, he said that Egidius, Bishop of Reims, accused of plotting against King Childebert II of Austrasia in favor of his uncle King Chilperic I of Neustria, was tried by a synod of Austrasian bishops in Metz in November 590, found guilty and removed from the priesthood, then taken “ad Argentoratensem urbem, quam nunc Strateburgum vocant” (“to the city of Argentoratum, which they now call Strateburgus“), where he was exiled.

 

Above: Statue of Gregory of Tours (538 – 594), Louvre Museum, Paris

 

Strasbourg celebrated its 2,000th anniversary in 1988.

 

Between 362 and 1262, Strasbourg was governed by the bishops of Strasbourg.

Their rule was reinforced in 873 and then more in 982.

In 1262, the citizens violently rebelled against the bishop’s rule (Battle of Hausbergen) and Strasbourg became a free imperial city.

 

Above: Battle of Hausbergen, 8 March 1262

 

It became a French city in 1681, after the conquest of Alsace by the armies of Louis XIV.

 

Above: King Louis XIV of France (1638 – 1715)

 

(Marguerite LePaistour was born in 1720 in Cancale.

Hated by her stepmother, she rebels against her family, runs away, and to go unnoticed, dresses as a man.

Under the name of Henri, she became a servant, soldier, and executioner in Strasbourg and Lyon.

Unmasked, she ends up behind bars, gets married on leaving prison.

And everything returns to normal!)

 

 

In 1871, after the Franco-Prussian War, the city became German again, until 1918 (end of World War I), when it reverted to France.

After the defeat of France in 1940 (World War II), Strasbourg came under German control again.

Since the end of 1944, it is again a French city.

In 2016, Strasbourg was promoted from capital of Alsace to capital of Grand Est.

 

 

Strasbourg played an important part in Protestant Reformation, but also in other aspects of Christianity, such as German mysticism, Pietism, and Reverence for Life.

Delegates from the city took part in the Protestation at Speyer.

 

Above: Martin Luther’s Ninety-five Theses that sparked the Reformation

 

It was also one of the first centres of the printing industry.

 

 

(Johannes Gutenberg, fleeing Mainz for political reasons, took refuge in Strasbourg and there developed his brilliant invention, but in developing the printing press, he went bankrupt.

And yet it was the most important invention of the time.

It must be said that Bibles of 1,200 pages were complex to manufacture and complicated to sell.

And yet, today, they are worth more than $30 million each!

He must be spinning in his grave.)

 

Above: Place Gutenberg, Strasbourg

 

Among the darkest periods in the city’s long history were the years 1349 (Strasbourg massacre), 1793 (Reign of Terror), 1870 (Siege of Strasbourg) and the years 1940–1944 with the Nazi occupation (atrocities such as the Jewish skeleton collection) and the British and American bombing raids.

 

Above: The Strasbourg Massacre

 

The Strasbourg massacre occurred on 14 February 1349, when several hundred Jews were publicly burnt to death, and the rest of them expelled from the city as part of the Black Death persecutions.

It was one of the first and worst pogroms in pre-modern history.

 

 

The Reign of Terror, or The Terror (French: la Terreur), refers to a period during the French Revolution after the First French Republic was established.

Several historians consider the “reign of terror” to have begun in 1793, placing the starting date at either 5 September, June or March (birth of the Revolutionary Tribunal), while some consider it to have begun in September 1792 (September Massacres), or even July 1789 (when the first lynchings took place), but there is a consensus that it ended with the fall of Maximilien Robespierre in July 1794.

Between June 1793 and the end of July 1794, there were 16,594 official death sentences in France, of which 2,639 were in Paris.

 

Above: Siege of Strasbourg (14 August to 28 September 1870), Franco-Prussian War

 

(During the siege of Strasbourg in 1870, the Prussian authorities allowed the wounded to communicate with their family, provided that the writings were readable by censorship, therefore without envelope.

Thus, no military secret could be disclosed.

The postcard was born.)

 

Above: Bombardment of Notre Dame, Siege of Strasbourg

 

Above: Plaque in memorium of the 86 victims of the Jewish Skeleton Collection, Université de Strasbourg

 

Some other notable dates were the years 357 (Battle of Argentoratum), 842 (Oaths of Strasbourg), 1538 (establishment of the university), 1605 (world’s first newspaper), 1792 (La Marseillaise), and 1889 (the discovery of the pancreatic origin of diabetes).

 

Above: The Oaths of Strasbourg

 

Above: The world’s first newspaper, Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenkwürdigen Historien (Account of all distinguished and commendable news), published by Johann Carolus (1575 – 1634), Strasbourg

 

Above: Rouget de Lisle sings “La Marseillaise” for the first time at the home of Strasbourg Mayor Philippe-Frédéric de Dietrich, 25 April 1792

 

(It is said that Rouget de Lisle imagined the national anthem in a single night in Strasbourg.

Not so complicated, when we see strange similarities with “Esther“, an oratorio of a certain Grisons, composer in Saint Omer.

Note for note.

To listen on the Internet is edifying.

It must be said that Rouget de Lisle was captain of the garrison at Saint Omer.

Well, well.

No wonder he composed “La Marseillaise” in one night!)

 

Above: Marseillaise volunteers, Arc de Triomphe, Paris

 

Strasbourg was also the home of a bizarre epidemic, the Dancing Plague of 1518, where hundreds of citizens danced for several days, some even dying of exhaustion.

 

Above: The Dancing Plague of 1518

 

The dancing plague (or dance epidemic) of 1518 was a case of dancing mania that occurred in Strasbourg in July 1518.

Around 400 people took to dancing for days without rest and, over the period of about one month, some of those affected collapsed or even died of heart attack, stroke, or exhaustion.

 

Strasbourg has been the seat of European institutions since 1949: first of the International Commission on Civil Status and of the Council of Europe, later of the European Parliament, of the European Science Foundation, of Eurocorps, and others as well.

 

 

Those are the facts.

They speak little of beguiling intangibles and apparent contradictions.

They do not offer glimpses of this strange world of mystery, possibility and unacknowledged beauty.

They offer no romance and no hint of the extraordinary connection between people, places and memories.

 

City with many faces – the often strained phrase really hits the spot here.

In the center of the Alsatian capital, the majestic Gothic cathedral towers like a memorial of permanence in the sky, surrounded by medieval romantic slices, and not far away, ultramodern glass palaces testify to the spirit of the 21st century.

In the vibrant economic center with a cozy Winstub flair – a bit of a metropolis, a bit of a small town – enjoyable Alsatian ways of life complement well with cosmopolitan European government institutions and German neatness with French esprit.

If you walk through the streets of the old town, it seems hard to imagine that in the Greater Strasbourg area live about 470,000 people.

 

 

In addition, there are numerous guests, such as the MEPs, who come to town once a month, like locusts, and disappear just as quickly after a week.

During the parliamentary sessions, many hotels are fully booked, taxis are constantly on the move, and there is hardly any free space in the better restaurants.

The presence of these institutions, rich with well-off elected officials and their collaborators who are not less, represents a sacred manna for the city.

In some sectors, real estate prices rival those of the beautiful Parisian or Nicois neighborhoods.

The economic difficulties that the new Europe is experiencing daily have brought the city to more humility in recent years.

Even if it is more than difficult to stay here during the parliamentary sessions (it is then necessary to push up to Kochersberg), one can find accommodation at reasonable prices, especially if one knows how to play specials at certain periods.

 

Above: Logo of the European Parliament

 

As a long-term guest one can designate the overwhelming majority of nearly 50,000 students enrolled at the various colleges of the city.

In the cafés and pubs they prefer, there is the typical atmosphere of a university town.

 

 

Important guests for Strasbourg are, of course, the tourists who visit the city in large numbers – far more than four million a year.

To seduce a public who, more and more numerous, come here for a weekend in love or a few days with family, Strasbourg has no shortage of assets, winter and summer, by the way.

From traditional markets to the ever-popular Christmas market through the Musica festival, Strasbourg knows how to charm you.

And they are offered something truly extraordinary:

The picturesque Old Town island enclosed by the Ill, a unique district of Wilhelmine monumental buildings, the European Mile, a large number of important museums, just to name a few worth mentioning.

All sights are comparatively close to each other and are within walking distance.

In addition, there are some other ways of exploring the city by boat, a ticket, even by taxi or – very sporty – by bike.

And of course you can take a pleasant break: romantic on the banks of the Ill, in beautiful squares, in lively street cafes, quaint Winstubs or fine gourmet restaurants.

They are places of rest welcome between two visits of museums or churches, a walk on the quays or in the parks.

Strasbourg can be visited, it will never be said enough, first on foot, nose in the air, at one’s own pace.

Even in the evening, there is no boredom.

Various theaters, the opera, bars full of variety, music bars and discos provide entertainment.

 

 

Strasbourg also includes tens of thousands of people from the former French colonies in Africa.

Only a few of them are guests, most of them now own a French passport, their descendants have already been born in Strasbourg.

The visitor will usually encounter only a few of them as dealers near the tourist attractions.

Most live in run-down suburban neighborhoods, e.g. in Neuhof or in Elsau, where the social problems have led to more violence for years – this too is one of the many facets of the Alsatian capital.

 

 

Strasbourg is a unique destination filled with special eccentricities.

Take the Cathedral for example.

Unique in France, the building became Protestant in 1529, and was so until 1681, when Louis XIV took Strasbourg.

Even today, ecumenical services are held regularly in the Saint-Laurent Chapel (entrance, left side).

On this occasion, Protestants and Catholics pray together.

 

Above: Rose window, Notre Dame Cathedral, Strasbourg

 

There is so much to see and do in Strasbourg that one blogpost will not suffice.

Among the variety are:

• Strasbourg Cathedral
• Notre Dame Museum
• Pharmacie du Cerf
• Kammerzell House
• Place du Marché aux Cochons de Lait
• Chateau Rohan
• Museum of Decorative Arts
• Archaeological Museum
• Place de l’Homme de Fer
• Place Kléber
• Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art
• Place Gutenberg
• St. Thomas Church
• Petite France
• Rhine Palace
• St. Paul’s Church
• The Council of Europe
• Human Rights Building
• Palais de l’Europe
• Parliamentary Assembly
• Museum of Fine Arts
• Museum of Engraving and Drawing
• Tomi Ungerer International Centre of Illustration
• Le Vaisseau Science and Technology Centre
• The Rhine Navigation Museum
• The Strasbourg Bar Association Museum
• The Zoological Museum
• The Gypsothéque / Adolf Michaelis Museum
• Museum of Seismology and Magnetism
• Pasteur Museum of Medical Curiosities
• Mineralogy Museum
• Egyptology Museum
• The Star Crypt
• The Museum of Chocolate Secrets
• The Pixel Museum

 

Above: Strasbourg Observatory

 

Europe’s Crossroads lies at the very heart of western Europe, closer to Frankfurt, Zürich and Milan than it is to Paris.

Strasbourg is the seat of internationally renowned institutions of music and drama.

 

 

It also has a long history of excellence in higher education at the crossroads of French and German intellectual traditions.

The University has attracted eminent students such as Goethe, Metternich and Montgelas.

Its people have been awarded 19 Nobel prizes, thus making Strasbourg University the most eminent French university outside Paris.

The Université de Strasbourg includes:

• The IEP (Institut d’études politiques de Strasbourg), the University of Strasbourg’s political science & international studies center.
• The EMS (École de management Strasbourg), the University of Strasbourg’s Business School.
• The INSA (Institut national des sciences appliquées), the University of Strasbourg’s Engineering School.
• The ENA (École nationale d’administration). ENA trains most of the nation’s high-ranking civil servants. The relocation to Strasbourg was meant to give a European vocation to the school and to implement the French government’s “décentralisation” plan.
• The ESAD (École supérieure des arts décoratifs) is an art school of European reputation.
• The ISEG Group (Institut supérieur européen de gestion group).
• The ISU (International Space University) is located in the south of Strasbourg (Illkirch-Graffenstaden).
• The ECPM (École européenne de chimie, polymères et matériaux).
• The EPITA (École pour l’informatique et les techniques avancées).
• The EPITECH (École pour l’informatique et les nouvelles technologies).
• The INET (Institut national des études territoriales).
• The IIEF (Institut international d’études françaises).
• The ENGEES (École nationale du génie de l’eau et de l’environnement de Strasbourg).
• The CUEJ (Centre universitaire d’enseignement du journalisme).
• TÉLÉCOM Physique Strasbourg,(École nationale supérieure de physique de Strasbourg), Institute of Technology, located in the south of Strasbourg (Illkirch-Graffenstaden).

 

 

The Bibliothèque nationale et universitaire (BNU) is, with its collection of more than 3,000,000 titles, the 2nd largest library in France after the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

It was founded by the German administration after the complete destruction of the previous municipal library in 1871 and holds the unique status of being simultaneously both a student and a national library.

 

Above: The BNU, Strasbourg

 

The municipal library Bibliothèque municipale de Strasbourg (BMS) administrates a network of ten medium-sized librairies in different areas of the town.

A six stories high “Grande bibliothèque“, the Médiathèque André Malraux, was inaugurated on 19 September 2008 and is considered the largest in Eastern France.

 

 

As one of the earliest centers of book-printing in Europe, Strasbourg for a long time held a large number of incunabula – documents printed before 1500 – in its library as one of its most precious heritages.

After the total destruction of this institution in 1870, however, a new collection had to be reassembled from scratch.

 

Above: The Nuremburg Chronicle incunabula, 1493

 

Today, Strasbourg’s different public and institutional libraries again display a sizable total number of incunabula, distributed as follows:

• Bibliothèque nationale et universitaire
• Médiathèque de la ville et de la communauté urbaine de Strasbourg
• Bibliothèque du Grand Séminaire
• Médiathèque protestante
• Bibliothèque alsatique du Crédit Mutuel

There is a great longing within me to have you, gentle readers, discover this city for yourselves.

I want you to feel as I have felt and understand as I have understood why Strasbourg once experienced compels a person to want to return.

There are places to explore and tales to be told.

We shall return…..

Sources: 
- Wikipedia
- Google
- The Rough Guide to France 
- Antje and Gunther Schwab, Elsass 
- Le Routard Alsace (Grand-Est) 
- Marie-Christine Périllon, Alsace 
- Michèle-Caroline Heck, The Golden Book of Alsace 
- Patrick Schwertz, Alsace: 100 lieux pour les curieux
- Ignatiy Vishevetsky, "An overlooked masterpiece about looking", The AV Club, 22 March 2016

 

Canada Slim and the Legacy of Left Boy

Landschlacht, Switzerland (Schweiz/Suisse/Svizzera)

Thursday 24 April 2019

 

She is susceptible.
He is impossible.
They have their cross to share.
Three of a perfect pair.
He has his contradicting views.
She has her cyclothymic moods.
They make a study in despair.
Three of a perfect pair.

One, one too many
Schizophrenic tendencies
Keeps it complicated
Keeps it aggravated
And full of this hopelessness.
What a perfect mess.

 

It has been said that there are two true tests of a relationship:

• Assembling IKEA furniture together
• Travelling together

Though we are not much good at the former, we are not too bad at the latter.

 

I have previously written about our visit to Gardone Riviera by the Lago di Garda in northern Italy.

 

 

I described with much detail the life of Italian poet Gabriele d’Annunzio and the Il Vittoriale degli Italiani where he spent his last days in this town.

 

Above: Gabriele d’Annunzio (1863 – 1938)

 

Above: Il Vittoriale degli Italiani, Gardone Riviera

 

(Please see Canada Slim and the Shrine of Italian Victories of this blog.)

 

We discovered that there is more in this town of 3,000 than just a Fascist rabblerouser’s monument to ego.

 

Gardone Riviera, Italy, Sunday 6 August 2018

In the sweltering summer heat we discover that the town has two other claims to fame….

 

On 21 June 2000, the English band King Crimson recorded in its auditorium the songs “Three of a Perfect Pair” and “Blastic Rhino” for the album Heavy ConstruKction.

Above: L’Ampiteatro, Il Vittoriale degli Italiani, Gardone Riviera

 

King Crimson are an English progressive rock band formed in London in 1968.

They have been influential both on the early 1970s progressive rock movement and numerous contemporary artists.

The band has undergone numerous formations throughout its history, in the course of which 22 musicians have been members.

Since October 2017 it has consisted of Robert Fripp, Jakko Jakszyk, Tony Levin, Mel Collins, Pat Mastelotto, Gavin Harrison, Jeremy Stacey and Bill Rieflin.

Fripp is the only consistent member of the group and is considered the band’s leader and driving force.

The band has earned a large cult following.

They were ranked No. 87 on VH1’s 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock.

Although considered to be a seminal progressive rock band (a genre characterised by extended instrumental sections and complex song structures), they have often distanced themselves from the genre.

As well as influencing several generations of progressive and psychedelic rock bands, they have also been an influence on subsequent alternative metal, hardcore and experimental/noise musicians.

 

Heavy ConstruKction is a live album (3-CD set), incorporating video footage, by the band King Crimson, released by Discipline Global Mobile records in 2000.

The album features recordings from King Crimson’s European tour of May to July 2000, taken from DAT recordings of the front-of-house mixing desk.

King Crimson’s 2000 European tour was conducted to promote the Studio album The Construkction of Light.

 

 

The band members at the time of the tour were Robert Fripp, Adrian Belew, Trey Gunn and Pat Mastelotto.

Bill Bruford had previously left the group, and Tony Levin was not included in this particular King Crimson project due to prior commitments.

The third disc features band improvisations from different shows, which are often spliced together in the same track.

The liner notes describe the disc as “a cohesive presentation out of a series of incoherent events“.

Which also accurates describes the band itself.

 

“We’re so different from each other that one night someone in the band will play something that the rest of us have never heard before and you just have to listen for a second.

Then you react to his statement, usually in a different way than they would expect.

It’s the improvisation that makes the group amazing for me.

You know, taking chances.

There is no format really in which we fall into.

We discover things while improvising and if they’re really basically good ideas we try and work them in as new numbers, all the while keeping the improvisation thing alive and continually expanding.“

(King Crimson violinist David Cross on the band’s approach to improvisation)

 

Above: David Cross

 

Gardone Riviera’s second claim to fame….

 

The Giardino Botanico Fondazione André Heller (2 acres), also known as the Giardino Botanico Arturo Hruska, is a botanical garden located on the grounds of the André Heller Foundation above Lake Garda, in via Roma, Gardone Riviera.

It is open daily in the warmer months.

 

 

The Garden was established c. 1901 by Arturo Hruska (1889 – 1971), who, from 1910-1971, collected many species on the grounds of his villa, organized as a dense forest of bamboo, Japanese ponds, streams, and waterfalls, as well as alpine plants in ravines.

 

 

The Giardino Botanico Fondazione André Heller is a few minutes below the Vittoriale.

Gardone’s heyday was due in part to its mild climate, something which benefits the exotic blooms that fill the Austrian artist’s sculpture garden.

Designed by the Austrian dentist and botanist Arturo Hruska at the beginning of the 20th century, thousands of tropical, subtropical and alpine plants grow here, between streams and wild limestone, is where one meets orchids and a whole bamboo forest.

 

 

Laid out in 1912, the Garden is divided into pocket-sized climate zones, with tiny paths winding from central American plains to African savannah, via swathes of tulips and bamboo.

There are more than 500 species, including cactus, edelweiss, ferns including Osmunda regalis, magnolias, orchids, water lilies and trees.

Within 10,000 square metres there are botanical species from all over the world, from the Alps to the Himalayas, from Mato Grosso to New Zealand, from Japan to Australia, from Canada to Africa.

 

 

Around 1901, Arturo Hruska, originally from Czechoslovakia, graduated in Monaco, dentist to the Czar, the Italian Royal Family, Popes Pius XII and Johannes XXIII, and King Albert of Belgium, naturalist and botanist, moved from Austria to Gardone Riviera.

The moment the beauty and the light of the Lake struck the dentist he was spurred to acquire land on the slopes of Mount Lavino.

Lake Garda with its typical Mediterranean greenery, the brilliant and magnificent peacock-blue of its waters, is numbered along with the most beautiful landscapes of Central Europe.

 

 

The garden town of Gardone Riviera extends from the foothills of the Alps down to the Po Valley.

Gardone Riviera is made of two parts: the group of houses by the water and the other located on the slope by the church.

The locals call them Gardone Sopra (Upper Gardone) and Gardone Sotto (Lower Gardone).

Gardone Sotto is the elegant part:

• The Grand Hotel, immortalized in the literary novel “Untergang eines Herzens“(Beware of Pity) by Stefan Zweig
• the cocktail bar where Winston Churchill rested after painting

 

Above: Stefan Zweig (1881 – 1942)

 

 

Above: Winston Churchill (1874 – 1965)

 

• the park of the Savoy Hotel, that in the early 1900s would offer every night a great ball with an orchestra to the noble guests from Russia, Sweden and other cold lands.

 

Gardone Sopra is more rustic, scents of olives and dry grappa, and occasionally, within the tortuous alleys, pious women still carry the Virgin Mary in procession.

 

Probably their grandfathers worked as errand boys for the devious Gabriele D’Annunzio, whose luxurious residence, extending for nine hectares and located next to Gardone, is a token of magnificent outlandishness, celebrating war victims and cruel sacrifices that were so important for Mussolini but are repugnant to me.

 

Above: Benito Mussolini (1883 – 1945)

 

Gardone Sotto and Gardone Sopra combine to create a place of magic and sensuality.

 

The Botanical Garden, a collection of Continental stature, where Africa, South America, Asia, Europe and Australia are interwoven.

Edelweiss among orchid meadows, meter tall ferns next to splendid pomegranates.

Creeks and falls, ponds with koi carps, trouts and reflections of flying dragonflies, stone hills next to cacti and ivy towers.

Indian and Moroccan sculptures in harmony with art works from Roy Lichtenstein, Susanne Schmoegner and Keith Haring.

 

 

I am among this paradise, that never stops amazing me and filling me with joy, since 1988.

The dentist to the last Tsar, Dr. Arturo Hruska, funded this fortune, which also hosts a Venetian villa, that is now my beautiful home.

When I watch from one of the balconies the majesty of Lake Garda or one of my bamboo woods, it is always difficult for me to believe that this park wanted me as its custodian and ally, and I thank it, as much as I can, with love.

André Heller

 

 

With a panoramic view over the Gulf of Salò and the wide, soft hilly landscape of the southern shores of Lago Garda, Gardone Sotto and Gardone Sopra reconcile between themselves a highland landscape covered in woods and dominated by cypresses, palms and evergreen magnolias.

 

The owner of this Garden of Eden since 1988 has been the Viennese artist André Heller.

The playful touches Heller has hidden among the greenery include 30 pieces of contemporary sculpture.

Look out for the jagged red figure by Keith Haring near the entrance, Rudolf Hirt’s Gandi-esque Ioanes, God of Water and Roy Lichtenstein’s polka-dot take on the Pyramids.

 

 

The botanical garden acquired by André Heller, to be transformed into a centre for environmental awareness, hosts several works of art either donated or commissioned by the Austrian artist.

From the enigmatic snakes and symbols of day and night welcoming us at the entry gate, the whole environment indicates that this is not a common botanical garden.

The ticket office is decorated by Susanne Smoegner, displaying colours and shapes that connect adult world with memories of childhood, like Ferdinand’s House built and decorated by Edgar Tezak, water plays and distant sounds.

 

 

Several elements connect with multiple traditions and spiritualties: Buddhist and Tibetan symbols, Hindu statues such as the Great Ganesh by Rudolph Hirt, elephant-god of luck and wisdom, protector of education, coexist with symbols of metropolitan culture and modernity.

 

 

 

Monstrous elements recur by the Bridge of Monsters, where the intolerance of contemporary man transfigures into two monstrous heads on pikes that spit at each other.

 

 

Then through a Chinese red door, Torii, you reach a purifying and cathartic path, which includes the water play Shishi-Odoshi: a sort of water clock that marks the fleeting time.

 

 

Beside a walkway several large bamboo canes invite you to tickle them: striking one against the other they play like a xylophone. 

 

The link with this modern and cosmopolitan humanity is underlined by the works of Keith Haring, metropolitan artist, friend of Heller, founder of the Pop Shop.

His characters walk, hug, dance, like the Red Man next to the tree/umbrella.

Another important work by Haring is the Stele which recalls a cross, but the characters moving on it carry sexual references.

 

 

Haring gifted us with his peculiar and precious interpretation of the garden with a drawing that is represented on the tickets.

 

 

Other artists employed the tools that Nature and the Garden offer:

Novak built boardwalks, walls and pavements, with the 28 different species of bamboo present in the garden that provide colors and effect that no other material can grant and used a large stone suspended by rope to deviate the water flow.

 

 

These interventions blend harmoniously in the surrounding environment like the great wooden Praying Mantis that crops up between tufts of grass: so well hidden that is almost unseen:

“Of all arts, seeing is the hardest to learn“.

 

 

 

The union of Art and Nature is fully celebrated within the great figure of the Genius Loci, created by André Heller.

The great anthropomorphic bust with open arms, emerges from the grass and erects himself as protector and spirit guide. 

The structure completely covered by ivy encloses the constant change of nature,

Every day leaves grow and are blown by the wind, but the great blue eyes, the nose and mouth are human interventions, added value that comes from the artist.

 

 

Arturo Hruska was a student of his father Josef and was already engaged in his youth with dental alloys and metal prostheses.

He completed his training in Belgium, Ireland, Austria, France, Germany, Switzerland and the USA.

He received his doctorate in 1906 in Munich and completed his studies in 1913 in Padua.

He was a surgeon and traumatologist, as well as a biologist, anthropologist and essayist.

 

 

Hruska dealt with the aetiology and therapy of periodontal disease.

He described it as “a disease that leads to tissue and enzyme changes through environmental influences and mutations” describing it as a characteristic disease of the civilized and consumerist world.

He was also the first to describe the therapy.

 

 

In 1901 he was called to the court in Petersburg.

The Czar allowed him to practice his profession throughout Russia.

 

Above: Czar Nicholas II of Russia (1868 – 1918)

 

Hruska, however, preferred to return to Italy.

In 1903 he bought some property in Gardone Riviera and started to transform the abandoned vineyard into a garden with streams, ponds and paths.

Hruska built various small lakes with water from the nearby springs which he created as naturally as possible.

The water kept the Garden damp and cool while the trees protected it from wind and cold.

 

 

On 30 September 1903, Hruska married Dutchwoman Cornelia (Corry) Anna Lelsz (1874 – 1917).

They had four children.

Like all Austrians, the Hruska family suddenly had to leave Italy during the First World War.

They hid their valuables in the caves and under the waterfall in the garden and fled with a boat.

They later settled in Bressanone (Brixen).

The Hruska family received Italian citizenship.

 

 

Arthur Hruska continued his medical work in plastic surgery and operated on maxillofacial injuries.

After the end of the First World War, the house and garden in Gardone Riviera were restored.

 

 

Hruska traveled the world, including the Pyrenees, Himalayas, Tenerife and China.

He studied mountain formations, collected plants and crossed Lapland on foot.

He then built an alpinum, a rock massif, to allow the plants to thrive in their natural environment.

His children called the Garden “Elephant Cemetery“.

The Garden is lush and green, shaded by tall exotic trees: conifers, palm trees, camphor trees, banana trees, bamboo grass, ferns, agaves, lilies and shrubs in the landscaped jungle, water plants blooming along the streams and around the ponds.

 

 

Franz André Heller is an Austrian artist, author, poet, singer, songwriter and actor.

 

 

Heller was born in Vienna into a wealthy Jewish family of sweets manufacturers, Gustav & Wilhelm Heller.

He visited Café Hawelka almost daily.

It was in this coffeehouse that he met many men of letters including Friedrich Torberg, H. C. Artmann, and occasionally Elias Canetti, as well as Hans Weigel, and Helmut Qualtinger, with whom he later on collaborated and performed.

 

 

Heller took acting classes from Hans Weigel and his cohabitee Elfriede Ott.

Heller has been writing prose, poetry and songs since 1964.

He left school shortly before obtaining the Matura.

He went to a Jesuit boarding school.

From 1965 to 1967, he was a moderately successful actor at various Viennese avant-garde theatres.

In 1967, Heller co-founded Hitradio Ö3, the ORF’s then progressive pop music station, where he was one of the hosts of the daily Musicbox programme.

 

 

That same year, he recorded his first LP record with the title Nr1 that was released in 1970.

His second LP Platte was released in 1971, and, subsequently, his first play premiered entitled, King-Kong-King-Mayer-Mayer-Ling at the Vienna Festival in 1972.

As a poet-songwriter, his work spans across a period of more than 15 years selecting diverse topics and writing for a German-speaking audience.

He has worked with not only international names, such as Ástor Piazzolla, Dino Saluzzi and Freddie Hubbard, but also with Austrian artists, such as Toni Stricker, Wolfgang Ambros and Helmut Qualtinger.

Heller’s own poetry has been set to music.

He has also sung texts by other authors.

For instance, “Catherine“, from 1970, was set to one of the first hits of Heller.

The text came from the then still largely unknown Reinhard Mey, and the music from the Austro-Canadian Jack Grunsky.

With Werner Schneyder, he created Viennese German songs that are translated from Jacques Brel, such as “Franz” (after the Brel title “Jef“).

Using intimate memories of traumatic childhood experiences, and insights into his life, as well as his Catholic-Jewish origin, he created songs with the title “Angstlied” (Verwunschen, 1980).

Titles like “Miruna, die Riesin von Göteborg” (Verwunschen, 1980) are, in turn, influenced by the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism.

“Das Lied vom idealen Park” (Narrenlieder 1985), or, as a duet with Wolfgang Ambros, he also introduced the Bob Dylan cover, “Für immer jung” (Stimmenhören, 1983) are now titles that are part of the Austro-pop cannon.

In 1983, he appeared on Stimmenhören with the song “Erhebet euch Geliebte“, a song at the time of the peace movement in the early 1980s.

Since the early 1980s, he turned increasingly to large public productions, installations and performances, until 1982, where his concert career came to a close.

In 1985, the album, Narrenlieder, was released.

Between 1967 and 1985, he published a total of fourteen LPs, twelve of those were gold records, and earned him seven times platinum.

In 1991, he wrote, looking back on this period:

“I started in 1967, to put my poems together using my voice on record and in recitals before millions of people.

This was following the example of Bob Dylan’s first meaningful and self-published poetry.

1982 was certainly the zenith of that career, where I had to stop my concerts. I realized at this point, it was spoiled for me, because at 8pm, I had to act gifted in front of a few thousand listeners, just because they had paid for admission.”

(Heller in the liner notes of Kritische Gesamtausgabe, published in 1991)

However, on his 60th birthday, Heller gave a concert in April 2007 at the Viennese Radiokulturhaus, after twenty-five years of absence from the stage in a recital entitled, Konzert für mich (Concert for me).

Between 1968 and 1983, Heller recorded 15 albums as a singer of his own texts, and in part of his own compositions.

He was on the road with 9 international concert tours and was the host and entertainer in 12 evening TV shows.

In 2006, thanks to the initiative of Chris Gelbmann, he released his last album called, Ruf und Echo.

The 3-CD compendium is the first release in the past 20 years, containing new songs, and interpretations of old hits by artists like Brian Eno, Xavier Naidoo, Thomas D, and The Walkabouts.

 

 

Heller was appointed as an Artistic Director of the Artistic and Cultural Programme that ran parallel to the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany.

His company, Artevent, was also responsible for the presentation of the Germany bid for the 2006 FIFA World Cup project.

He designed the final presentation in 2000 for the successful German application, and, in 2003, designed a “Fußball-Globus“, an architectural project consisting of a huge lit-up football globe that toured through Germany standing in public places such as Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.

Heller invented the motto for the football World Cup, Die Welt zu Gast bei Freunden (A time to make friends).

For the World Cup, Heller planned an opening gala in Berlin’s Olympic Stadium, where Brian Eno and Peter Gabriel would be involved.

On 13 January 2006, it was cancelled by FIFA.

The reason cited was that the turf, which would have been re-installed after the end of the gala, would not be in perfect condition for the first game there.

 

 

Since 2003, Robert Hofferer is his manager and leads the firm Artevent, with headquarters in Vienna.

From 1976 until 1981, Heller played major roles in various international movies.

In the late 1960s, Heller joined as a financier in the film, Moos auf den Steinen (Moss on the Stones), with Erika Pluhar in one of the main roles, for which he claims to have used up his inheritance.

It was not long before he was in front the camera as an actor:

Heller played the leading roles in Hans-Jürgen Syberberg’s Hitler: A Film from Germany, in Fürchte dich nicht, Jakob! by Radu Gabrea, in Doktor Faustus by Franz Seitz, and in Peter Schamoni’s Frühlingssinfonie (Spring Symphony), a supporting role in Maximilian Schell’s 1979 film, Geschichten aus dem Wienerwald (Tales from the Vienna Woods), which is based on Ödön von Horváth’s play.

In 1969, Heller participated in a televised version of Arthur Schnitzler’s tragicomedy, Das weite Land (The Wide Land), directed by Peter Beauvais.

 

 

In 1989, he also worked as a stamp artist.

On behalf of the United Nations Postal Administration, he designed a stamp to commemorate UN Vienna’s tenth anniversary.

 

 

Heller has received numerous international awards.

He has to date written 14 printed publications, among them are collections of stories Die Ernte der Schlaflosigkeit in Wien, Auf und Davon, Schlamassel, and Als ich ein Hund war, the novel Schattentaucher, and the collection of poems Sitzt ana und glaubt, er is zwa(with Helmut Qualtinger), as well as two picture books Jagmandir – Traum und Wirklichkeit, and Die Zaubergärten des André Heller.

 

21 TV documentaries have been produced about Heller’s projects, productions, and plans.

These were done by the likes of Werner Herzog, H. J. Syberberg, and Elsa Klensch, among others.

Heller was married from 1970 to 1984 to the actress, singer, and author Erika Pluhar.

 

Above: Erika Pluhar, 2018

 

For some years, he lived in the 1970s with the actress Gertraud Jesserer, and much later, with the actress Andrea Eckert.

 

Above: Andrea Eckert, 2016

 

Heller was romantically involved for short periods in the mid-1980s with Anke Kesselaar, Rudi Carrell′s former wife.

 

 

The artist lives in an apartment in the Palais Windisch-Graetz in Vienna’s Innere Stadt quarter that is owned by the Augustinian monastery of Klosterneuburg.

 

In 2000, Heller received there German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.

 

Above: Gerhard Schröder, German Chancellor (1988 – 2005)

 

Among Heller’s works is “Blind Spot – Hitler’s Secretary” (2001): a documentary interview presented at the 52nd Berlin Film Show.

 

 

Heller also became a famous visionary artist, displaying fantastic ideas, artistic creations, multimedia shows and later realized several shows with active participation from the public, managing to create a world in opposition to the daily rational one based on technology.

In 1987 he opened the avant-garde fun fair “Luna Luna” in Hamburg – a travelling territory of modern art – in 1992 the monumental sculpture “Bambus Man” in Hong Kong.

 

 

Heller’s works include art for gardens, Wunderkammern, parades, millions of LPs sold as a singer-songwriter, concerts and conferences across Europe, Asia and North America, large flying and floating sculptures, movies, fireworks and labyrinths, renewal of circuses and variety shows, as well as theatrical plays and shows for the public from Broadway to the Burgtheatre in Vienna, in India and in China, in South America and in Africa, designer of museums among which the Swarovski Crystal World, Meteorit, the art direction of the Germany World Cup in 2006, and the fantastic AFRIKA-AFRIKA circus. 

 

 

Heller lives part-time in the Giardino Botanico Hruska in Gardone Riviera.

He currently lives with the former model Albina Schmid in Vienna and travels the world.

 

 

Heller has one son, Ferdinand, who goes under the stage name “Left Boy” for his music.

 

 

Ferdinand Sarnitz, known by his stage name Left Boy, is an Austrian DJ, singer and producer from Vienna.

Sarnitz was born in Vienna in 1988 to Austrian musician André Heller and Sabina Sarnitz.

He attended the American International School of Vienna and graduated in 2007.

In his free time at school Sarnitz spent most of his time rapping.

At the age of 18, Sarnitz went to New York City to study audio engineering at the Institute of Audio Research for a year.

After living in his hometown Vienna for a short while, he decided to move to Brooklyn to live in a shared apartment with two directors, a producer and a photographer.

In December 2010, Sarnitz released his first mixtape The Second Coming for free download.

In mid-2011, he started making music videos for all of the songs.

Sarnitz often uses samples for his English songs, which haven’t been released for usability, which is why an official sound carrier couldn’t be released.

Even though he hadn’t been signed to a record label, he was able to perform at festivals in 2012, including “Sea of Love” and “HipHop Open“.

Live, he is accompanied by the dance group “Urban Movement“.

Ruan Roets is a big fan, describing the Left Boy sound as “poes goed“.

Sarnitz has a son, Yves-Louis.

He cites Wu-Tang Clan, Oxmo Puccino, De La Soul, Atmosphere, Ugly Duckling, Daft Punk, Édith Piaf, Nina Simone, Oumou Sangaré and Gipsy Kings as his inspirations.

In 2015, he rapped in the official theme tune “Building Bridges” for the Eurovision Song Contest.

 

I wonder if Left Boy truly appreciates his father’s garden.

I wonder if anyone truly appreciates what came before to make what is possible today.

 

I think of Austria – Italy relations.

 

 

Austria (Österreich) has an embassy in Roma (Rome / Rom), a general consulate in Milano (Milan / Mailand) and 10 honorary consulates in Bari, Bologna, Firenze (Florence / Florenz), Genoa, Napoli (Naples), Palermo, Trieste, Torino (Turin), Venezia (Venice / Venedig) and Verona.

 

Above: Austrian Consulate, Milan

 

Italy (Italia) has an embassy in Wien (Vienna), a consulate in Innsbruck (Isprucco) and four honorary consulates in Graz, Klagenfurt (Clanforte), Linz and Salzburg (Salisburgo).

 

Above: Italian Embassy, Vienna

 

Since the Middle Ages, Austria has had a great influence over the Italian states, especially in the north of the country, but as well Italy has also influenced Austrian culture, architecture and cuisine.

 

Above: Antonio Salieri (1750 – 1825), Italian composer who worked mainly in Austria

 

Above: Nicolò Pacassi (1716 – 1790), Austrian architect of Italian descent

 

Many Italian artists and architects, like Santino Solari, Martino Altomonte, Giovanni Zucalli, Vincenzo Scamozzi, worked and contributed to the Baroque in Austria, most notably in Salzburg.

 

After the Congress of Vienna, Austrian control of the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia, with its key cities of Venice and Milan, created the conditions in which Italian nationalism and Austrian interests clashed in the three Wars of Italian Independence between 1848 and 1866 ultimately leading to Italian victory.

Tensions remained throughout the 1870s as continued Austrian rule over Italian inhabited lands such as in Trentino and Istria, inflamed Italian nationalism which in turn threatened Austrian integrity.

As a result the Austrians built further fortifications along the Italian border.

 

In 1876, the Austrian Archduke Albrecht advocated a preventive war against Italy.

Above: Archduke Albrecht (1817 – 1895)

 

Despite entering into the Triple Alliance of 1882 (along with Germany), areas of clashing interest remained.

Italy’s improving relations with France, Italian interests in the Balkans, and continuing nationalism amongst Italians within Austria-Hungary concerned leaders in Vienna.

Italy’s adherence to the Triple Alliance in the event of war was doubted and from 1903 plans for a possible war against Rome were again maintained by the Austrian general staff.

Mutual suspicions led to reinforcement of the frontier and speculation in the press about a war between the two countries in the first decade of the 20th century.

 

As late as 1911 Count Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, chief of the Austrian general staff, was advocating a military strike against Austria’s supposed Italian allies.

 

Above: Conrad von Hötzendorf (1852 – 1925)

 

During World War I, Italy fought against Austria–Hungary despite their defensive alliance signed some decades earlier.

By World War I’s end, Italy emerged victorious and gained new territories from Austria and border agreements were secured.

 

Today both countries are full members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and of the European Union.

The countries share 430 km of common borders.

 

 

Austrian Interior Minister Herbert Kickl said on 5 June 2018 that Italy is a strong ally of Austria.

 

And here’s the point….

 

Old enemies can lay down their swords and beat them into ploughshares.

And the result, such as a botanical garden and sculpture park, can be remarkably beautiful.

 

 

This is the legacy bequeathed to Left Boy, bequeathed to those of us who reside in Europe.

 

Certainly individuals and nations have their unique talents and opportunities, but when we sacrifice unity in pursuit of selfish gain that beauty, so difficultly obtained, so delicately fragile, can be lost.

We live in an age where popularism and nationalism has nations in nervous anxiety and dangerous xenophobic paranoia with all those who are different than we are.

 

But Italian baroque in Vienna and Austrian artistry by the shores of Lago di Garda show that, rather than divide nations, differences can enhance them.

 

A world-renowned dentist, a multi-media multi-talented superstar, and a rising musical phenomenon, Hruska, Heller and Left Boy have shown Austrians that one can find purpose outside Austria and have shown Italians that the acceptance within Italy of strangers whose ancestors had once been mortal enemies can make Italy flourish.

Father Heller and son Left Boy have travelled and will continue to travel the world, but they were never kicked out of their Garden of Eden that their fortunes nestled and nurtured in Gardone Riviera.

 

Their Garden is waiting for them, and us, to return to.

 

Sources: Wikipedia / Google / King Crimson, "Three of a Pair" /Giardino Botanico Fondazione André Heller, www.hellergarden.com

Canada Slim and the Visionary

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 7 October 2018

“I caution you.

Expect much!”

(Hugo Gernsback, Electrical Experimenter, January 1919)

Above: Hugo Gernsback (1884 – 1967)

 

In my apartment we have many things.

These things seem so commonplace that we have taken this electrical world in which we live in for granted.

Amongst the flotsam and jetsam and choas that is a modern apartment, much is powered by electricity: the lamps and overhead lights, the computer upon which I type this blog, the TV and two radios, the toaster, the kettle, the dishwasher, the fridge, the freezer, my wife’s hairdryer and iron, the vacuum cleaner, and batteries and cables used for mobile devices.

Our apartment is by no means super-modern nor overly luxurious in terms of all the bells and whistles other flats might produce, but we are nevertheless grateful for the manner in which our lives are blessed, materialistically and otherwise.

There are names you might have heard of in regards to the history of electricity: Thales, Aristophanes, Euclid, Pliny, William Gilbert, Benjamin Franklin, Joseph Priestley, Charles Coulomb, Luigi Galvini, Alessandro Volta, Humphrey Davy, André-Marie Ampère, Georg Ohm, Michael Faraday, Samuel Morse, James Prescott Joule, Thomas Edison and Heinrich Hertz.

I have even written at great length about Alessandro Volta….

Above: Alessandro Volta (1745 – 1827)

(See Canada Slim and the Life Electric of this blog.)

 

There are names equally important to the development of electricity that you may have never heard of: Shen Kuo, Alexander Neckham, Pierre de Maricourt, Gerolamo Cardano, Cabaeus, Sir Thomas Browne (who first coined the word “electricity“), Otto von Guericke, Robert Boyle, Francis Hauksbee, Stephan Gray and the Reverend Granville Wheler, Charles Francois de Cisternay du Fay, Pieter van Musschenbroek of Leyden, Ewald Georg von Kleist, William Watson, C.M. of Scotland (still unidentifiable to this day), Georges-Louis LeSage, William Nicholson, Anthony Carlisle,  Johann Ritter, Gian Domenico Romagnosi, Thomas Young, Étienne-Louis Malus, Hans Christian Orsted, Johann Schweigger, Thomas Seebeck, William Sturgeon, Francesco Zantedeschi, Paul Schilling, Heinrich Lenz, Jean-Charles Peltier, Joseph Henry, David Alter, Alexandre Becquerel, James Clark Maxwell, John Kerr, Oliver Heaviside, Galileo Ferraris, John Fleming, Heike Onnes, Louis de Broglie and Martin Ryte.

To name a few….

 

There is one man who we might never had heard of were it not for his greatest fan’s determination to demonstrate to the world his hero’s legacy.

A legacy remembered in Croatia, Serbia, Austria, Hungary and America.

A determined traveller can find plaques and memorials to this man in Smilijan (Croatia), Zagreb (Croatia), Niagara Falls (USA / Canada), Baku (Azerbaijan), Wardenclyffe (USA), Manhattan (USA), Palo Alto (USA), Hamilton (Canada) and Belgrade (Serbia).

This great inventor has had his name given to a ship, a song, a high school, a planetoid, a crater on the Moon, a power plant, a museum-archive, an airport, a unit of measurement, an electric vehicle rally, three holidays, a rock band, an electrotechnical conglomerate, an electric car manufacturer and a major scientific award.

His name has endured in books, films, radio, TV, music, live theater, comics and video games, and most recently a new Hollywood film (The Current War) and a Netflix documentary.

But much like Sherlock Holmes needed Dr. John Watson for his fame, so we are grateful to Hugo Gernsback (“The man who invented the future“) for the fame of a man he called “the greatest inventor of all time“: Nikola Tesla.

Above: Nikola Tesla (1856 – 1943)

 

Were it not for Tesla’s eccentric personality and a poor sense of financial management, he might have ended up as famous as Edison or Einstein.

Tesla was the electrical engineer who invented the AC (alternating current) induction motor, which made the universal transmission and distribution of electricity possible.

 

This spring I spent six days, by invitation from my good friend Nesha, in Serbia, a country that everyone in the West thinks they know but hardly anyone in the West really knows.

(For a further description of Serbia, please see Canada Slim and the Holy Field of Sparrows & Canada Slim and the Land of Long Life of this blog.)

Above: The flag of Serbia

 

Ask the average North American what little they know about Serbia and chances are strong they will mention NATO bombings, Milosevician atrocities and…. Nikola Tesla.

 

I have often believed that Americans are the world’s best marketers and there is a grain of truth to the song dedicated to the American metropolis of New York City, but applicable to America as a whole….

“If you can make it there, you’ll make it anywhere.”

In other words, until America knows you, very few others will.

 

Were it not for Tesla’s work in America and Gernsback’s American technical science monthly magazine for which Tesla wrote for and in which his autobiography appears, the world might not remember as it does the name of Tesla.

 

Were it not for my visit to the Tesla Museum in Belgrade I might never have learned of the legacy of Tesla and his greatest publicist….

Despite a lack of enduring international recognition, Tesla remains a Serbian national hero and it is his face that currently decorates the 100 dinar note.

The Museum has captions in English and guidebooks available in Serbian and English.

Regular tours in English are given by the enthusiastic and knowledgable staff.

Some of the rooms relate to Tesla’s scientific work and have a number of hands-on displays and dynamic working models that are fun for children and adults alike.

Two more rooms are dedicated to the personal life of the physicist.

The urn containing his ashes is housed here too as well as his death mask.

Above: Nikola Tesla Museum, Belgrade, Serbia

 

Belgrade, Serbia, 5 April 2018

To say that Hugo Gernsback was a fan of Nikola Tesla is an understatement.

In Gernsback’s own words:

“Nikola Tesla, in the opinion of authorities, today is conceded to be the greatest inventor of all time. 

Tesla has more original inventions to his credit than any other man in history. 

He is considered greater than Archimedes, Faraday or Edison. 

His basic, as well as revolutionary, discoveries for sheer audacity have no equal in the annals of the world. 

His master mind is easily one of the seven wonders of the intellectual world.

Tesla has secured more than 100 patents on inventions, many of which have proved revolutionary.

Science accords to him over 75 original discoveries, not mere mechanical improvements.

90% of the entire electrical industry pays tribute to his genius.

The question as to why the world at large does not know Tesla is answered best by stating that he committed the unpardonable crime of not having a permanent press agent to shout his greatness from the housetops.

Then, too, most of Tesla’s inventions, at least to the public mind, are more or less intangible on account of the fact that they are very technical and, therefore, do not catch the popular imagination, as, for instance, wireless, the X-ray, the airplane or the telephone.

Tesla is a man of extraordinary knowledge.

He is remarkably well read and has a photographic memory whereby it is possible for him to recite page after page of nearly every classical work, be it Goethe, Voltaire or Shakespeare.

He speaks and writes twelve languages.

He is an accomplished calculator, who has little use for tables and textbooks and holds the slide rule in contempt.”

Nikola Tesla’s autobiography, My Inventions, appeared in Hugo Gernsback’s magazine Electrical Experimenter in six monthly installments (February to June 1919 and October 1919) and is in a hard cover book offered by the Nikola Tesla Museum, which has been in operation since the 150th anniversary of Tesla’s birth (2006).

To fully appreciate and comprehend both men and the Museum dedicated to Tesla and Tesla’s autobiography printed by Gernsback, we need to look back at not only both men’s histories but as well back to an age where electricity existed in a realm that lay somewhere between magic, science and commerce.

 

Nikola Tesla (1856 – 1943) was born an ethnic Serb in the village of Smiljan, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, now Croatia.

Above: Tesla’s house, Smiljan, Croatia

 

His father Milutin was a Serbian Orthodox priest, his mother Duka was the daughter of another priest.

Above: Milutin Tesla, Nikola’s father

Milutin was the son of an officer who served in Napoleon’s army and, in common with Nikola’s uncle, a professor of mathematics, had received a military education but later embraced the clergy in which vocation he achieved eminence.

Milutin was a very erudite man, a veritable natural philosopher, poet and writer.

Nikola’s father had a prodigious memory and frequently recited at length from works in several languages.

Milutin often remarked playfully that if some of the classics were lost he could restore them.

His style of writing was much admired.

He penned sentences short and terse and was full of wit and satire.

 

Nikola’s mother, Duka, descended from one of the oldest families in the country and a line of inventors.

Both her father and grandfather originated numerous implements for household, agricultural and other uses.

Duka had a talent for making homemade craft tools and mechanical appliances and the ability to memorize lengthy Serbian epic poems, even though she had never received a formal education.

Tesla credited his eidetic memory and creative abilities to his mother’s genetics and influence.

Nikola was the 4th of five children.

 

Nikola Tesla was born during a lightning storm at the stroke of midnight on 10 July 1856.

His midwife is reported to have exclaimed:

“He’ll be a child of the storm.“

To which his mother replied:

“No, of light.“

“How does the world’s greatest inventor invent?

How does he carry out an invention?

What sort of mentality does Nikole Tesla have?

Was his early life as commonplace as ours?”

(Hugo Gernsback, foreword to Nikola Tesla’s My Inventions, 1: My Early Life, Electrical Experimenter, February 1919)

 

“Our first endeavours are purely instinctive, promptings of an imagination vivid and undisciplined.

As we grow older, reason asserts itself and we become more and more systematic and designing.

But those early impulses, though not immediately productive, are of the greatest moment and may shape our very destinies.”

(Nikola Tesla, My Inventions)

 

Nikola had three sisters (Milka, Angelina and Marica) and an older brother named Dane, who was killed in a horse riding accident when Tesla was five.

Nikola attended primary school in Smiljan and Gospic and middle school in the latter town.

Above: Gospic, Croatia

 

“In my boyhood I suffered from a peculiar affliction due to the appearance of images, often accompanied by strong flashes of light, which marred the sights of real objects and interfered with my thought and action.

They were pictures of things and scenes which I had really seen, never of those I imagined.

When a word was spoken to me the image of the object it designated would present itself vividly to my vision and sometimes I was quite unable to distinguish whether what I saw was tangible or not.

This caused me great discomfort and anxiety….

To free myself of these tormenting appearances, I tried to concentrate my mind on something else I had seen, and in this way I would often obtain temporary relief.

But in order to get it I had to conjure continuously new images….”

(Nikola Tesla, My Inventions)

 

In 1870, Tesla moved far north to Karlovac to attend high school where he became interested in demonstrations of electricity by his physics teacher.

Tesla noted that these demonstrations of this “mysterious phenomena” made him want “to know more of this wonderful force.”

Tesla was able to perform integral calculus in his head, which prompted his teachers to believe that he was cheating.

Nonetheless he finished a four-year term, in three years, graduating in 1873.

“This (mental imaging) I did constantly until I was about 17 when my thoughts turned seriously to invention.

Then I observed to my great delight that I could visualize with the greatest facility.

I needed no models, drawings or experiments.

I could picture them all as real in my mind.”

(Nikola Tesla, My Inventions)

 

That same year, Tesla returned to Smiljan.

Shortly after he arrived, he contracted cholera, was bedridden for nine months and was near death multiple times.

 

In 1874 Tesla evaded conscription into the Austro-Hungarian army by running away southeast to Tomingaj.

There he explored the mountains wearing hunter’s garb, believing that this contact with nature made him stronger, both physically and mentally.

Tesla read many books while in Tomingaj and later said that Mark Twain’s works had helped him to miraculously recover from his earlier illness.

Above: Tomingaj, Croatia

 

In 1875, Tesla enrolled at Austrian Polytechnic in Graz, on a military frontier scholarship.

Above: Graz, Austria

 

During his first year, he never missed a lecture, earned the highest grades possible, passed nine exams (twice as many as were required), started a Serbian cultural club, and received a letter of recommendation from the dean of the technical faculty to his father, which stated:

“Your son is a star of the first rank.”

Tesla claimed that he worked from 3 a.m. to 11 p.m., no Sundays or holidays excepted.

 

(After Milutin’s death in 1879, Nikola found a package of letters from his professors to his father, warning that unless Nikola were removed from the school, he would die through overwork.)

 

At the end of his second year, Tesla lost his scholarship and became addicted to gambling.

During his third year, Tesla gambled away his allowance and his tuition money, later winning back his initial losses and returning the balance to his family.

When examination time came, Tesla was unprepared and asked for an extension to study, but was denied.

He did not receive grades for the last semester of the third year and he never graduated.

 

In December 1878, Tesla left Graz and severed all relations with his family to hide the fact that he dropped out of school.

His friends thought that he had drowned in the nearby Mur River.

 

Tesla moved to Maribor where he worked as a draftsman, spending his spare time playing cards with local men on the streets.

In March 1879, Tesla’s father went to Maribor to beg his son to return home, but he refused.

Nikola suffered a nervous breakdown.

Above: Maribor, Slovenia

 

On 24 March 1879, Tesla was returned to Gospic under police guard for not having a residence permit.

On 17 April 1879, Milutin Tesla died.

That year Nikola taught a large class of students in his old school in Gospic.

 

In January 1880, two of Tesla’s uncles put together enough money to help him leave Gospic for Prague, where he attended lectures in philosophy at Charles Ferdinand University as an auditor but did not receive grades for the courses.

Above: Prague, Czech Republic

 

In 1881 Tesla moved to Budapest to work as chief electrician for the Budapest Telephone Exchange.

Upon arrival, Tesla realized that the company, then under construction, was not functional, so he worked as a draftsman in the Central Telegraph Office.

Within a few months, the Budapest Telephone Exchange became functional and Tesla was allocated the chief electrician position.

During his time with the BTE, Tesla made many improvements to the Central Station Equipment and invented a device known as the telephone repeater, a precursor to the modern wireless telephone.

Above: Budapest, Hungary

 

In 1882, Tesla moved to Paris to work for the Continental Edison Company, in what was then a brand new industry, installing indoor incandescent lighting citywide in the form of an electric power utility.

Above: Paris, France

Management took notice of Tesla’s advanced knowledge in engineering and physics and soon had him designing and building improved versions of generating dynamos and motors, as well as sending him on to troubleshoot engineering problems at other Edison utilities being built across France and Germany.

In 1884, Edison manager Charles Batchelor, who had been overseeing the Paris Installation, was brought back to the US to manage the Edison Machine Works, a manufacturing division situated in New York City, and asked that Tesla be brought to the US as well.

Above: Charles Batchelor (1845 – 1910)

 

In June 1884, Tesla left Paris for New York City and the United States.

An amazing future awaited him.

Fame, fortune and amazing creativity would be both his bane and his blessing.

And there would literally be blood as two business magnates fought a merciless war for power….electrical power….with Tesla in the middle and Gernsback and the world as witness….

(To be continued….)

Sources: Wikipedia / Bradt Serbia / Nikola Tesla, My Inventions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The dark side of the red light

It is called the world’s oldest profession and it can be found everywhere in the world.

It tends to be an industry of women serving male clients, but of course variations on this theme also exist – males servicing males, males servicing females, females catering to females.

When one looks at sex in history, we tend to look at it as a tangent of law, medicine or literature.

The law is more concerned with what is inadmissable than what is admissable.

Medicine is more concerned with what is abnormal rather than normal.

Literature, when not surrendering to themes of romance or caricature or dogma or drama, focuses on the extraordinary rather than the ordinary.

As far back as 4,000 years ago in one of the first pieces of literature ever written, The Epic of Gilgamesh makes mention of ladies of the evening.

Gilgamesh is 2/3 god and 1/3 man and King of Uruk.

The people of his city are unhappy with him:

“His lust leaves no virgin to her lover, neither the warrior’s daughter nor the wife of the nobleman.”

To take his mind off such undiplomatic activities, the goddess Aruru creates Endiku – a huge, brutish, hairy creature who lives on the steppes among the beasts – who menaces Gilgamesh’s subjects.

Gilgamesh, nobody’s fool, decides force is not the answer to this threat and sends instead “a harlot from the temple of love, a child of pleasure” to find and tame Endiku.

The harlot encounters Endiku, makes herself naked and welcomes his eagerness.

She incites the savage to love and teaches him the woman’s art.

For six days and six nights they lie together and afterward Endiku has grown weak.

When he recovers, the harlot describes to him the wonders of civilisation and leads him like a mother away from the steppes and down to the plains.

The profession of harlot carried no stigma in Sumerian or Babylonian times.

The ancient Jews fought hard against harlotry.

Moral objections were regularly raised against consorting with the women who traded their bodies in the red light districts which, in Palestine, were usually located against the city walls.

“One who keeps company with harlots squanders his substance.” Proverbs 29:3

Despite the prohibition against Jewish men and women prostituting themselves, Jewish women undoubtedly dd become harlots when they had no other way of staying alive, foremost among them were childless widows and rejected wives.

They always found customers, for only a minority of men could afford another wife or mistress.

The Old Testament hated prostitutes.

At best the language is impolite, at worst, obscene.

Ezekiel, politically motivated, used harlotry as a synonym for the sins of Jerusalem.

See Ezekiel 23: verses 8, 28 and 29.

Solomon himself was said to have had 700 marriages, of which one inspired the composition of the Song of Songs.

In ancient Rome, harlots would frequent the Circus Maximus in search of clients whose blood had been stirred up by the Games.

Evil-smelling brothels were found in every town on the Italian peninsula.

Private enterprise prostitution has flourished in Europe since time immemorial.

Its rulers could do nothing to stem the tide.

When French King Louis IX (1214 – 1270) tried to put an end to it, the irate people of Paris complained that it was no longer safe for their wives and daughters to appear on the streets without being solicited because of a lack of prostitutes.

(As late as 1976, citizens of Leicester and Southampton were still complaining that their wives and daughters could not walk along the streets without being solicited, but not because of a lack of prostitutes, but because prospective clients were unable to distinguish between them!)

The Church was not in a position to ban prostitution, and did not in fact want to.

Even St. Augustine (354 – 430) said that though the institution was sordid, immodest and shameful, “yet remove prostitution from human affairs and you will pollute all things with lust.”

Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 1274) compared prostitution with “the filth in the sea or the sewer in a palace.”

“Take away the sewer and you will fill the palace with pollution. Take away prostitutes from the world and you will fill it with sodomy!”

Thus temple prostitution came to Europe.

There was a Church brothel in Avignon where the girls spent part of their time in prayer and religious duties and the rest of the time servicing Christian customers only.

At the same time, dedicated to betting both ways, the Church urged all prostitutes to give up their evil occupation.

Mary Magdalene was a whore who had repented and followed Jesus.

A number of Magdalene homes were built for fallen women who had seen the error of their ways.

The number of public women in Rome in 1490 was about 7,000.

They lived in houses belonging to monasteries and churches and it was not unusual to see them parading the streets in company with priests.

The attitude of medieval society towards prostitutes is characteristically a dichotomy.

On the one hand, these wenches/whores/pretty women were seamlessly integrated into city life.

It was not uncommon for them to be sent to greet important visitors.

At the Council of Constance (Konstanz) (1414 – 1418) there were 1,500 prostitutes in the city.

At the Council of Basel (1431) there were 1,800.

On the other hand, only a very few managed to escape their status.

Most were condemned to a life on the margins of society by the very fact of their birth, while others found themselves in this position either through their own fault or as the result of undeserved misfortune.

The people of Schaffhausen once were forbidden to gamble, swear and dance, but a brothel was tolerated as a matter of course.

Patronage of brothels and ordinary prostitutes began to falter in the 16th century with the epidemic spread of syphilis.

The French called it “the Neapolitan malady”.
The Spanish called it “the French disease”.
The Germans called it “the Spanish scabies”.

In the 19th century, prostitution flourished as never before.

Paris alone had 120,000, London nearly 80,000, New York City 20,000.

In Vienna there was one prostitute to every seven men.

Today, the legality of prostitution in Europe varies by country.

Some countries outlaw the act of engaging in sexual activity in exchange for money, while others allow prostitution itself but not most forms of procuring (such as operating brothels, facilitating the prostitution of another, deriving financial gain from the prostitution of another, soliciting/loitering).

In eight European countries (The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Greece, Turkey, Hungary, and Latvia) prostitution is legal and regulated.

The number of people selling sexual services in Greece has risen by 150% since the start of the country’s financial crisis, according to the Greek Centre for Social Studies and Panteion University. The study found that only a handful of brothels are operating lawfully. (Newsweek, 17 July 2015)

The degree of enforcement of the anti-prostitution laws vary by country, by region and by city.

In many places there is a big discrepancy between the laws which exist on the books and what happens in practice.

Depending on the country, various prostitution related activities may be prohibited (where a specific law forbids such activity), decriminalized (where there is no specific law either forbidding or allowing and regulating the activity), or regulated (where a specific law explicitly allows and regulates the activity if certain conditions are met).

Activities which are subject to the prostitution laws include: selling and buying sexual services, soliciting in public places, running brothels, deriving financial gain from the prostitution of another, offering premises to be used for prostitution etc.

Often the prostitution laws are not clear-cut and are subject to interpretation, leading to many legal loopholes.

While the policy regarding adult prostitution differs by country, child prostitution is illegal throughout Europe.

Similarly, human trafficking, forced prostitution and other abusive activities are also prohibited.

The legal and social treatment of prostitution differs widely by country.

Prostitution in Switzerland is legal and regulated; it has been legal since 1942.

Licensed brothels, typically with a reception and leading to several studio apartments, are available.

Street prostitution is illegal, except in specially designated areas in the major cities.

Many prostitutes operate using newspaper advertisements, mobile phones and secondary rented apartments.

It is legal to advertise for “massages” in Swiss tabloid newspapers.

Swiss prostitutes pay VAT (value added tax) on their services and some accept credit cards.

The majority of prostitutes are foreigners from the Americas, Central Europe or the Far East.

In recent years the number of prostitutes has increased.

The prostitution business often becomes violent.

It can involve attacks, turf wars, gunfights and arson attacks on rivals’ prostitution establishments.

Prostitution is legal over eighteen years of age, having been raised from 16 in 2013.

However it is still only illegal to recruit teens between 16 and 18, but a person is still not liable for utilizing the services of a prostitute 16 or older.
(See Article 196 of the Criminal Code of Switzerland).

Furthermore, the local authorities in Zürich installed car port constructions called “Verrichtungsboxen” or ‘sex boxes’ to protect street prostitutes.

In 2012, voters approved the creation of “sex boxes” in Zurich to control suburban prostitution.

These have recently been described as a “success” by local authorities after a year, but a number of sex workers who have seen their earnings decline, disagree.

Some 120.000 women and girls are trafficked into Europe every year, according to the International Organisation of Migration (IOM).

So why do some men use prostitutes?

According to the Guardian of 15 January 2010:

Some men had experiences of childhood cruelty and neglect and link this to their inability to form close ­relationships with anyone, particularly women.

Some men have no idea how to get to know women “through the usual routes”.

Many men believed they would “need” to rape if they could not pay for sex on demand.

It’s not just feminists who are responsible for the idea that all men are potential rapists – it’s sometimes men themselves.

Many men seemed to want a real relationship with a woman and were disappointed when this didn’t develop:

“It’s just a sex act, no emotion. Be prepared to accept this or don’t go at all. It’s not a wife or girlfriend.”

­Others were clear that they paid for sex in order to be able to totally control the encounter, including one respondent who said:

“Look, a man pays for a woman because he can have whatever and whomever he wants.
Lots of men go to prostitutes so they can do things to them that real women would not put up with.”

Personally I don’t believe in being another person’s judge and jury.

I would not want a female relative of mine to be a lady of pleasure, but more out of concern for her safety than a moral judgement.

I have no personal interest in using the services of a lady of pleasure because I think to pay someone for sex demeans both the client as well as the lady, if for no other reason because both have been driven to extremes of desperation to meet their needs.

While I do not condone prostitution, as the client and the lady are in desperate situations, otherwise they would not be dealing with one another in this manner, I cannot condemn either one too harshly.

I do condemn human trafficking.

Human trafficking destroys the life of its victims, but this trafficking remains because it is a massive source of revenue for the traffickers who are quick to exploit women in desperate situations.

Every woman deserves love and happiness.

May they never have to stand under a red light to find them.