Scenes from Budapest, Cogwheel Train

«A budapesti fogaskerekű — Budapest cogwheel train», mixed media 2012

The cogwheel train, with its toy-box red body, its bells and melodies, chugging up the hill on a winter’s night— one of my first impressions of Budapest.

In the years since, I have ridden the cogwheel through the seasons, spring, summer, fall, and winter, paced up and down its platforms, learnt each of its station names, saluted its conductors, walked alongside its cog tracks.

Even at home, unseen, the rumble of its passage is our grandfather’s clock, marking the passage of time. Its toy-like compartments mark the beginning and end of my trips to and from the city.

So bear me while I write a bit about this quaint hillside transport, its past and its role on New Years Day.

The snows had melted away a few days after Christmas, leaving the hills somewhat naked and forlorn. Along the cog tracks running behind the house, the ground had reverted back to the mottled brown of decomposing leaves, mute and humid underfoot. Evenings, only a few Christmas lights and the windows of the passing cogwheel would periodically illuminate the darkness— a series of rounded square windows framing muffled faces that ascended and descended with regularity behind a screen of stark trees.

But on the first morning of the New Year, I came to the window to find a fine filigree of frost lacing every twig, every branch, every leaf, every gate, every roof tile, every stone. And the air, it seemed a diaphanous white veil, through which one moved like a trembling young bride. From this hazy picture, the red and cream cogwheel emerged like a carriage from a fairytale. Its sliding doors opened with a whoosh just before our feet on the icy platform, and in we stepped.

It is a family tradition to take the cogwheel train up to the top of Széchenyi Hill for a little stroll in the forest on the first day of the year.

I imagine that at no other time, at no other moment, does the cogwheel ride resemble more its first journeys of the late 19th century than on a white winter’s day— snow and frost render almost invisible the houses that have multiplied in the past four decades on the hillsides, the canvas is once again blank. One is transported to those times when vineyards still covered the slopes, with only a scattering of villas, visited during the weekends by those living in the seething cauldron of Pest.

When Niklaus Riggenbach, a Swiss locomotive designer, built continental Europe’s second cog railway here in 1874, he replaced an hours-long horse-and-buggy service that had effectively limited expansion on the Buda hills with an open-window steam-powered train decked in green livery.

Even in the few decades following 1929, when the steam engines were replaced with electric trains and yellow passenger cars, there was nothing but a lone school among fruit orchards and grassy slopes near our station.

The present cogwheel trains are rarely ever filled to capacity. One begins to recognize faces, of passengers and conductors, one runs into neighbors. Once, on our way back home after midnight, well past the hour of the last train going up hill, we spied a darkened cogwheel heading towards a station we happened to be passing. Rushing to the platform, we waved to the conductor, who halted the train, and begged him to take us up. He opened the doors with a whoosh, and we took up seats in the dark. Up went the phantom train, with lights switching on midway, not stopping until it had reached our station, whereupon we thanked the conductor, bid him a good night and happy holidays, letting the cogwheel continue on its way.

A Romantic Idea of Village and Country Life

«Romantic village life» 2012

In the winter, you could see its fairytale tower puffing out a ribbon of smoke from its little chimney. The last leaves fallen away from the surrounding trees, its faux half-timber façade stood visible upon a mound further up the street. It was the one house that appealed most to the romantic idea of a provincial life.

Some abodes in the village have wooden shutters painted pastel, not common in these parts; still others have rounded rosy roofs or roofs that slope steeply downward and then gently flare with charm; but this is no Rothenburg ob der Tauber, and the vast majority of homes here are an unremarkable collection of modern-day constructions one can find in any German suburbia.

So when evening falls, and the meadow is enveloped in shadow, I can peer out the window at the tower’s moonlit silhouette, and life in a village takes on sweet and poetic notes, like horses grazing under apple trees, like yoga in a farmhouse, like a one-track train station platform, like the only café in the village that doubles as tailor’s and delivery service and closes shop at noon on Saturdays. Like the bird sanctuary trail winding along the hill, the ringing church bells, the stream running behind the village hall.

But I won’t shed a tear leaving. That isn’t to say I have given up entirely on village life. Some villages have grannies who sit on public benches on the main square watching the world go by. Some have a warm summer street where all the dogs go for siestas. Some have cottages with bunches of hanging herbs. Some have old stone walls covered in brier. This village had none of those. Something important was lacking, but I won’t wait to find out what.

Onwards with the tramontane life and spring cleaning.

Spring alights on my shoulder

«Yumeji's camellias» batik 2011

After a winter that was not really winter, a flurry of snow one day or two, green is timidly burgeoning, the smell of fresh grass in the air, the warble of thrush in the hedges.

Proljeće na moje rame slijeće
Đurđevak zeleni

Spring alights on my shoulder
Lily of the Valley is flowering

We had fun imagining ourselves traversing a Siberian winter, shut up in the living room in the after hours, poring over tales of provincial life in a village near Dikanka. One misty morning, we ventured out for a stroll, reaching the great clearing that gave Lichtwiese its name, Meadow of Light. From the other end of the mud path, a man with silvery hair approached on his rickety bicycle. We inquired about the way. He put one foot down, pulled out his handkerchief and dabbed his nose, then pointed us down the road he came. But before he set off, he made a sweeping motion with his hand towards the clearing, and asked us whether we knew the poem by Matthias Claudius. “It was at this very spot that he was inspired to compose it.” Before we had time to answer, he recited this poem:

Der Mond ist aufgegangen,
die goldnen Sternlein prangen
am Himmel hell und klar;
der Wald steht schwarz und schweiget,
und aus den Wiesen steiget
der weiße Nebel wunderbar.

Wie ist die Welt so stille
und in der Dämmrung Hülle
so traulich und so hold!
Als eine stille Kammer,
wo ihr des Tages Jammer
verschlafen und vergessen sollt.

Seht ihr den Mond dort stehen?
Er ist nur halb zu sehen
und ist doch rund und schön!
So sind wohl manche Sachen,
die wir getrost belachen,
weil unsre Augen sie nicht sehn.

Wir stolze Menschenkinder
sind eitel arme Sünder
und wissen gar nicht viel;
wir spinnen Luftgespinste
und suchen viele Künste
und kommen weiter von dem Ziel


— Matthias Claudius,
Abendlied (1778)

The moon has slowly risen,
The golden starlets glisten
In the heavens, bright and clear;
The forest stands dark and silent
And from the meadow rises
A white mist most wonderful

How still is the world,
And in the veil of twilight
So intimate, so fair!
As if it were a quiet chamber,
Where the sorrows of the days
Shall be forgot and slept away

Do you see the moon up there?
There is only half of it to see,
And yet it is round and fair.
So it is with many things
That we laugh at with good cheer
For our eyes see them not.

We proud human beings
Are only poor sinners
And ignorant too;
We spin webs of air
Casting about for many an art
Moving further away from the mark

«Lichtwiese» March 2012

Chile Rising, Rafael Sotomayor

This month, Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines released a special on Chile’s student protests that rocked the country for much of the past year and continues into 2012. With a largely privatized education system described as “capitalism’s ideal laboratory,” the cost of education is high and the state of public schools and universities in Chile are dismal. The faces of the students filmed were so bright, beautiful and young. They were demanding free, quality education to the rhythms of Chilean singer Anita Tijoux’s Shock, the song-turned-anthem of the movement, whose chorus went,

La hora sonó, la hora sonó
No permitiremos más, más
tu doctrina del Shock¹

…

Rafael Sotomayor, a young Chilean man, had moved to Frankfurt am Main some years ago. We had met him as a street musician on the Römerberg, the central square in Frankfurt when the apples were ripe on trees and the sun still reflected upon the city’s skyscrapers.

It is common in Europe’s metropolises to walk past accordionists who churn out La Vie en rose, whether you are in Paris, Munich or Istanbul, or violinists who will interpret The Godfather on a tram in Warsaw or the underground in London. And it is the same in Frankfurt, the banking capital of the continent.

But Rafael Sotomayor was neither playing a famous melody nor any common instrument with his slender figures. In fact, we had not even spotted him by the fountain of Justice when the strange and rich undulating timbre halted my nightwatcher in his tracks. It seemed to warp time and space around us, drawing us into manifold resonances, successions of low rapid notes that caressed the ear, now as a soft reed brush, now as the tap of a fingertip. The air was already cooling, but a little party gravitated rapt around the seated young man tapping and waving his hands over what looked like upturned metal woks or alien saucers. A Japanese businessman, a couple from South America, a group of Indian tourists, we all stood still before the spectacle. The weekend bustle of the crowded square seemed to fade as the young man wrought his melodies.

The audience clapped heartily at the end of the performance, and the South American couple came eagerly to him, interrogating him about his strange UFOs, fingering his CDs. They were happy to speak a common tongue and listened intently as he explained how the instruments were a 21st century invention by two Swiss makers. They were called “hang,” from the Bernese word for hand, which was the only medium used to coax sound from the instruments— all handmade to this day by the same two individuals, whose artisanal production was dwarfed by growing demand. I can only liken the sound to the Indonesian gamelan, since the ensemble is composed of percussions, but it is a pale comparison.

Purses and wallets opened and CDs changed hands as Rafael Sotomayor bowed graciously and packed his instruments. The sun had set and the wind was rising.

The affable young musician told the crowd he would be playing in the city’s Königshalle (Emperor’s Hall) where kings and emperors used to be crowned, as well as at theatre and concert venues in and around the country. He also played in a band, The Art of Fusion, composed of musicians from Poland, Bolivia, Jamaica, Spain, India, as well other intermittent artists of diverse origins.

The crowd dispersed eventually, some still under the music’s spell.

It is time we should look him up again. “Chile Rising.” It seems to describe Rafael Sotomayor.


¹ The bell has tolled, the bell has tolled
We won’t allow it any more
Your doctrine of Shock

The song makes a direct reference to Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine, the name she gives to the free market economic policies of the “Chicago Boys” who had influenced Chile’s development under the dictatorship of Pinochet.

Listen:

Shock, Anita Tijoux
Skies over Germany solo piece, Rafael Sotomayor
Inner Voice, The Art of Fusion-Rafael Sotomayor

Milonga on the rails

In the lonely outskirts west of the city, overlooking the rails to Frankfurt, lies a former train depot, covered in ivy. To reach it from the town center, one passes many a nondescript warehouse, many a faded or peeling sign, many a billboard plastered with articles one doesn’t need.

If one were to take the train to the north via Darmstadt on a blue Sunday evening, one perchance might be surprised by a glimpse of lights dancing from glasses, bottles and chandeliers in this same brick depot, and by the shadows of pairs in close embrace. One might even be struck by the notes of red on the walls, without realizing that they are the blooms of amaryllis perched on the windowsill.

One would watch the scene as in a silent film, oblivious to the notes of the bandoneon or the voice of Carlos Gardel, from that train to Frankfurt or Cologne. Inside the depot, the dancing pairs would feel a slight tremor of the passing locomotion, and those waiting at the bar might glance through the windowpanes and meet the fading eyes of a passenger peering curiously out into the night.

Welcome to Weststadt Bar, on special Sunday evenings, when a train depot transforms into a ballroom, and a milonga brings cars from Wiesbaden, Heidelberg, Mannheim, Frankfurt, Aschaffenburg, to such a forlorn part of Darmstadt. What is it that makes people drive hundreds of kilometers for a tango?

«Un ilôt de beauté parmi les décombres» (An island of beauty among the ruins), 2011 (watercolor and digital collage)

Listen to Anibal Troilo and Alberto Marino's Milonga Triste, 1946 version

A Tramp in Heidelberg

“Deutschland im Sommer sei der Gipfel an Schönheit…” — Germany, in the summer, is the perfection of the beautiful— this exclamation, found in the Bild Atlas issue on the Odenwald (where we live), happened to be written by a fellow countryman, Mark Twain, in 1878, as he sailed from Heilbronn to Heidelberg, some 50km south of here. “But nobody has understood,” the writer continued, “and realized, and enjoyed the utmost possibilities of this soft and peaceful beauty unless he has voyaged down the Neckar on a raft.”

Perhaps the pen of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, who had grown up along the banks of the Mississippi, found a touching reverberation of his childhood in one of Germany’s most charming waterways.

In any case, the notes and sketches Mark Twain made of his Teutonic stay were eventually condensed into a travelogue, A Tramp Abroad (or Bummel durch Europa in German), amusing to expatriates and locals alike. Its contents will undoubtedly find their way time and again into this blog, but I will simply content myself for now with his ode to Heidelberg. When many years ago on a summer day, I first set sight on this city, I sneezed my nose red from its pollen and I too fell under the spell, as Twain had, of its charm.

Heidelberg lies at the mouth of a narrow gorge—a gorge the shape of a shepherd's crook; if one looks up it he perceives that it is about straight, for a mile and a half, then makes a sharp curve to the right and disappears. This gorge—along whose bottom pours the swift Neckar—is confined between (or cloven through) a couple of long, steep ridges, a thousand feet high and densely wooded clear to their summits, with the exception of one section which has been shaved and put under cultivation. These ridges are chopped off at the mouth of the gorge and form two bold and conspicuous headlands, with Heidelberg nestling between them; from their bases spreads away the vast dim expanse of the Rhine valley, and into this expanse the Neckar goes wandering in shining curves and is presently lost to view.
(….)
From the north cage one looks up the Neckar gorge; from the west one he looks down it. This last affords the most extensive view, and it is one of the loveliest that can be imagined, too. Out of a billowy upheaval of vivid green foliage, a rifle-shot removed, rises the huge ruin of Heidelberg Castle, (….) with empty window arches, ivy-mailed battlements, moldering towers—the Lear of inanimate nature—deserted, discrowned, beaten by the storms, but royal still, and beautiful. It is a fine sight to see the evening sunlight suddenly strike the leafy declivity at the Castle's base and dash up it and drench it as with a luminous spray, while the adjacent groves are in deep shadow.

— Mark Twain, A Tramp Abroad, 1880 (available in its entirety on Project Gutenberg)

Engraving from 1880 edition

still vivid green foliage, summer 2011

of herb and forest spirals...

Walking around town one summer day, my friend and I stumbled upon a curious mound of rubble in the courtyard of a primary school. Upon closer inspection, I perceived that the pile was dirt contained by natural stones arranged in a spiral from which weeds had sprouted and flourished. My friend, a native, enlightened my notion by explaining that it was a Kräuterspirale, an herb spiral, that children had built as a school project. One finds these spirals in gardens, private and public, and they are quite popular here.

Its larger cousin, the Waldspirale (Forest Spiral), designed by (grownup) Austrian architect Hundertwasser (A hundred waters), right in Darmstadt's backyard!

The idea is that one can grow a variety of herbs from different climates in a relatively small space by placing them at different levels in the spiral. A whole herb community can thus be cultivated.

I later discovered that it was an Australian, Bill Mollison, who had come up with the idea, as part of his “permaculture design”. Some years ago, the word “permaculture” had so captivated my imagination that I was ready to set off for farms in Wales and Japan to study it (the word permaculture comes from permanent, or sustainable cultivation of the earth). In particular, I had read about a Japanese farmer by the name of Masanobu Fukuoka who had published a book in the seventies called One Straw Revolution. It was essentially a manual of techniques Mr Fukuoka had distilled from thirty years of “natural” farming— that is, farming that rejected industrial techniques of heavy machinery or the use of herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers. It was, in short, the antithesis of the so-called “green revolutions” that promoted modern industrial agricultural techniques in developing countries such as India in the 1960s.

At the dawn of its independence, an India suffering from famine turned to the United States for food aid. In 1960, 92% of the aid that the US provided to India was alimentary in nature. It was then that the Green Revolution was launched, supported by the American Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, and India was able to considerably increase its cereal production (from 70 million tons in 1954 to 220 million today). However, the price India paid was heavy: dried-up canals and underground waterbeds, soil salinization, soaring personal debt of farmers (more than 100,000 among them committed suicide in less than a decade), an alarming rise in cancer rates in the countryside. And that without mentioning the grave repercussions at the political and social level. Many considered the Green Revolution as a major factor that led to the secessionist revolt in Punjab in the 1980s, a movement during which Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh guards in 1984, following the assault by the Indian army of the Golden Temple, a Sikh sacred site, where the insurgents had taken refuge.¹

Back to Fukuoka… one of his most cherished projects was combatting desertification through “plant irrigation,” that is, by spreading the most water-hardy plants throughout the desert first, and then using their network of roots to accumulate and hold ground water. He envisioned forests eventually engulfing the desert, although not in his lifetime.

An herb spiral is similarly concerned with water irrigation in its distribution of plants at different levels. Below are instructions on how to build an herb spiral, taken from a gardening book found in a café in Heidelberg.

Plants in an herb spiral

The upper level of the herb spiral is ideal for Mediterranean plants such as oregano, lavender, winter savory, sage, rosemary and thyme. The middle level is good for culinary herbs from the continent, such as marjoram, hyssop, basil, chives, parsley and burnet. And finally, on the lowest level of the spiral are moisture-loving plants, such as peppermint, lemon balm and watercress.

Constructing the spiral

The spiral is made out of natural stones, like a dry wall. Draw out the spiral at the location desired with a spade or stick. For the first stones, dig a foundation about 10 cm deep. From this foundation, the next levels will be built. The maximum height of the spiral should be around 50-60 cm, with the sides sloping gradually until the edges.
The space between the stones should preferably be filled with rubble. This chalky and permeable material is ideal for herbs. The rubble should then be covered with about a 10cm thick layer of earth. A good mixture would be two parts garden soil and 1 part sand.
Fill the outermost sections of the spiral with good garden soil. At the end of the spiral, one can create a small pond that collects water. Just make a hollow and line with film or simply install a plastic tub inside.


⁽¹⁾ Mira Kamdar, “L’Inde résiste à la séduction de l’agroalimentaire américain,” Le Monde diplomatique, March 2010.

Kakania or k. & k.

There, in Kakania, that misunderstood State that has since vanished, which was in so many things a model, though all unacknowledged, there was speed too, of course; but not too much speed. Whenever one thought of that country from some place abroad, the memory that hovered before the eyes was of wide, white, prosperous roads dating from the age of foot-travellers and mail-coaches, roads leading in all directions like rivers of established order, streaking the countryside like ribbons of bright military twill, the paper-white arm of government holding the provinces in firm embrace. And what provinces! There were glaciers and the sea, the Carso and the cornfields of Bohemia, nights by the Adriatic restless with the chirping of cicadas, and Slovakian villages where the smoke rose from the chimneys as from upturned nostrils, the village curled up between two little hills as though the earth had parted its lips to warm its child between them. (…) Here one was in the centre of Europe, at the focal point of world's old axes; the words 'colony' and 'overseas' had the ring of something as yet utterly untried and remote. (…) The administration of this country was carried out in an enlightened, hardly perceptible manner (…) by the best bureaucracy in Europe, which could be accused of only one defect: it could not help regarding genius and enterprise of genius in private persons, unless privileged by high birth or State appointment, as ostentation, indeed presumption. (…)And besides, in Kakania it was only that a genius was always regarded as a lout, but never, as sometimes happened elsewhere, that a mere lout was regarded as a genius.

— Robert Musil, A Man Without Qualities (Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften), tr. by Wilkins/Kaiser

There is a lingering of a perfume from a world of yesterday, a world that has since vanished, concentrated in certain coffeehouses of the most emblematic cities of Mitteleuropa, Vienna-Prague-Budapest. By some curious will, it has wafted its way even to places it never originally occupied, to the far-flung Hessian city of Darmstadt, where it has revived the initials k. u. k. (pronounced “Ka und Ka”), or kaiserlich und königlich. Those initials that once gilded all the workings of the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy now grace the front of a conscious-looking café just behind the city’s transport hub, Luisenplatz.

Situated on Carree 1 with a view of Darmstadt’s Central Station, Café KuK seeks to recreate the Imperial and Royal of its initials to the letter. Its walls, painted the yellow of Schönbrunn, are adorned with framed prints of flowers and 19th century vistas, women in petticoats with gloved hands, purse and parasol. They hang in their prettiness above its wall-length mirrors. Among the ornaments, an engraving of Sissi l’impératrice in all her petulant grandeur. The sheltered interior is doubly warmed by numerous modest but bright chandeliers. Hot chocolate served in porcelain teacups as well as coffee with orange liqueur and whipped cream, known as the Maria Theresa, are the beverages of choice, especially on such overcast wintry days.

The café ignores Herr Musil, who was rather hard on everything that was k.k. or k. & k. Rather, its muse is a certain A. Polgar, urbanite and wit of Viennese society and lover of its cafés. His fond observations on coffeehouses (or rather, a certain Café Central), are sprinkled all across the menu’s pages, some of which I will reproduce here:

Das Kaffeehaus ist eine Weltanschauung, und zwar eine, deren innerster Inhalt es ist, die Welt nicht anzuschauen. Was sieht man da schon!

The coffeehouse is a worldview and one, to be sure, whose innermost essence is not to observe the world at all. What does one see in it anyway?

Die Bewohner des Kaffeehauses sind Menschen, die allein sein wollen, aber dazu Gesellschaft brauchen.

The inhabitants of coffeehouses are people who want to be alone, but need companionship for the purpose.

Teilhaftig der eigentlichen Reize dieses wunderlichen Kaffeehauses wird allein der, der dort nichts will als dort sein. Zwecklosigkeit heiligt den Aufenthalt.

The only person who partakes of the most essential charm of this splendid coffeehouse is he who wants nothing there but to be there. Purposelessness sanctifies the stay.

How true these notes are of KuK’s clientele, and of the café itself, we shall verify at present. For the most part, the patrons of this smug little corner in the city of science and art nouveau are those approaching or in their autumn years. They make their entrance in fur coats, felt hats, abundant scarves, canes or wheelchairs, and settle in their favorite spots after a drawn-out peeling ritual (although the felt hat is often kept on). Half arrive alone and sit alone, the other half join a table of senior friends. They ostensibly occupy themselves with their cake and Sudoku puzzles, chat discreetly with their neighbors, perhaps after a morning of aquatic exercises at the Jugendstilbad.

A silver-haired gentleman in tweed sits a table down from me, a glass of König Ludwig Weissbier in one hand and the Frankfurter Allgemeine in the other. He frequently peers over his paper and spectacles, shifting his eyes now right, now left, at the waitresses shuffling to and fro in black vests and long white aprons.

Of course, such a pretender to the atmosphere of Habsburg glory would not be complete without a choice selection of newspapers, international preferably, for its clientele. Indeed, by the entrance next to the coat racks and baby carriages, one finds fresh copies of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), Die Zeit, Die Süddeutsche Zeitung, Der Spiegel, and selections from the NY Times. Here, one can spend hours poring over its pages without the slightest disturbance. The service is brisk, but friendly, and never attempts to shoo away a client who dallies after long finishing his Hawelka-Becher sundae, despite the rarity of an unoccupied table.

Although we barely tipped the median age of the café dwellers, I would not say that Café KuK is unpleasant for young people. On the contrary, from half past two to half past four in the afternoon, there was never a dearth of company, such that one has only to observe the world of the café.

And although the charm of the antiquated is Café KuK’s aim, it nevertheless has evolved a progressive view of the meaning of k.&k.:

Kunde und König       Client and King
Kunst und Kultur       Art and Culture
Kaffee und Kuchen       Coffee and Cake
Kellner und Koch       Waiter and Chef

Some practical information:

Kaffeehaus KuK
Im Carree 1
64273 Darmstadt

Opening hours
Sommersaison
Monday - Saturday 09.00 - 22.00
Sundays & Holidays 10.00 - 22.00
Wintersaison
Monday - Saturday 09.00 - 21.00
Sundays & Holidays 10.00 - 21.00

Lunch served from 12.00

de "l'amour de voyage" au "Spießbürger calme de la forêt"

To the girl back then, traversing the lands of Europe was a grand affair of love and travel. Roses thrown from ship decks in dramatic farewells, trains departing in billowing smoke, platforms of waving handkerchiefs. Flushed cheeks, banner unfurled, the bare-breasted Marianne leading the people to their Destiny. An excess to occupy.


Bienvenue en province!

Now in this provincial corner of Europa, there is nothing to occupy but the well-cushioned seat in Hotel Waldesruh (Forest calm), like a good Spießbürger, at the edge of a foggy meadow.

adieu automne

«Martinsviertel», 2011 (watercolor)

Martinsviertel, a charming quarter of Darmstadt northeast of the city's green grounds, Herrngarten. The streets bear quaint names such as Pankratiusstraße (Pancras St), Gardistenstraße (Guardsmen St), Löffelstraße (Spoon St), Liebfrauenstraße (Our Lady St), all meandering around Kantplatz (Kant Square). A little more than three centuries ago, the philosopher from Königsberg wrote before his routine afternoon walk, "Sapere aude! Dare to know. Have the courage to use your reason," in his essay What is Enlightenment? Apparently, the only time he failed to accomplish his beloved daily ritual was when he was awaiting news of the French Revolution a few years later...

Painted in the early days of October.

In the afternoon, the children of the house come out and play with the big fat cat with white paws.

an autumnal procession

It was a week ago, -- when all the French (the sensible or lucky ones) were spending their last three-day weekend holiday before Christmas season dipping themselves in the Mediterranean, sipping pastis 51 by the Vieux Port of Marseille in oblivious content, and while I donned on earmuffs, gloves, two scarves and a winter coat for the icy journey to Frankfurt-- at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, that exactly 93 years had passed since the cease fire on the Western Front.

Before leaving the house, I glanced at a news photo of Julian Assange in front of the London courthouse with the red poppy of Remembrance on his lapel.

In the sundry lands where I have lived, the eleventh of November is remembered in different ways. I think of the scene in the whimsical Czech film Postřižiny where the wife of the brewery manager cuts her golden hair at news of the armistice, in an exuberant gesture towards Czechoslovak independence. Just days before, I had received an email from the American Embassy in Warsaw cautioning its addressees to avoid the plac Konstytucji, where both right and leftwing demonstrators could potentially clash on the anniversary of Polish independence-- although I could only recall the peaceful celebratory events from last year. And finally winding back to the days in the Midi, when earth, sea, sky were blue even as the calendar raced towards mid-November.

In these parts (Val de Moulin etc), what seems like a more charming, quainter version of Halloween takes place on the evening of 11.11. On Martinstag, or Martinmas and the feast of Martin le Miséricordieux, groups of children carry paper lanterns and candles in an autumnal procession through their towns and villages, singing songs about Saint Martin. And, since the nights here are cold, the children are buried under caps and mittens and woolen sweathers, rounding even more their little forms.

St Martin de Tours cutting a piece of his cloak for a shivering beggar

What exactly this has to do with St Martin, I am not sure. The Catholic Church of St. Elisabeth north of Herrngarten did arrange a horse, on which the saint is often depicted astride, to greet the children after their round about the neighborhood. And there was a jolly bonfire on St Martin's eve on Riegerplatz in Darmstadt's Martinsviertel.

Here is one of the songs the children sing:

Laterne, Laterne,

Sonne, Mond und Sterne,
brenne auf mein Licht,
brenne auf mein Licht,
aber nur meine liebe Laterne nicht.

Lantern, lantern,
Sun, Moon and stars,
Burn my light,
Burn my light,
but please not my lantern bright.