The Presence of Strings

Cairo’s Tahrir Square is vibrating with revolutionary demands. The American midsection is shivering under thunder snow. The Ilm Wiese is flooded and muddied by a rapid thaw. In a world gone crazy with man-made and natural disasters my solace is a library filled with grand ideas. I live several lives at a time. I am reading your Daybook of the Italian Journey 1786, while flipping through a modern novel about a father to son relationship, and, off and on, I am admiring individual contributions to the magazine Puppetry International.

            It is the magazine that makes me philosophical today. Issue #27. The piece is “Vertical Balance” by Irina Niculescu. She writes about strings – the connection between puppet and puppeteer. As she explores her relationship to marionettes she speaks of their helplessness, their “tragic-comic essence.”

            When I prepared P.K. I tried to make the strings as invisible as possible. I had never thought of strings as lifelines before. I was convinced that the manipulator should be hidden away. Then I watched a video clip in which a marionette discovers his attachment to the manipulator; the manipulator even holds his hand for a moment, but the marionette is obsessed with freeing himself; he tears down his strings and collapses on the floor. It was at that moment that I understood the connection.

When the kit arrived I wondered about the colorful strings attached to the wooden pieces. The color coding is designed to help the fledgling manipulator see which movement he is performing. I re-connected all the strings this morning after I had glued in the hands and sewn the scarf to the dress. But I did not try to walk the marionette. Clearly I haven’t found either form or balance or relationship yet; I am at the beginning of my journey. My marionette is evolving with each piece of clothing, each tug at her hair, each tentative pull of a string. Most importantly, with each photograph. In studying light and shadow, color, shape, I see movement develop and backgrounds and props emerge. I recognize a question mark in the face I painted. A faint proposal of essence.

Because I gave it some thought, I pause in my writing, feel bold enough to command the first steps.

Command, I said. Not a good choice of word.

After a failed attempt to make the marionette walk I have come to my senses. It is too early to make the connection. I am not ready.

A gentle lift of one green string. She waves good night.

Good night..                                   

Highstrung or Unbalanced? Who's at Fault when a Marionette doesn't Walk Properly?

I must tell you about my new obsession with marionettes. There are names. Important names. They influence the view of the builder, manipulator, actor, spectator. Tony Sarg and Bil Baird are two of them. Puppetry has its own language. I just read the article “My Own Private Püterschein” in Puppetry International. Ronnie Burkett – himself a famous puppeteer – talks about a Sarg knee joint and a Baird turnbuckle. Burkett is a Püterschein defender – Püterschein Authority seems to be an inside joke, having to do with the Dwiggins theory of counterbalanced marionette construction. And though I am a bit confused, I am learning lots of new terms.

Marionette Masters seem to have been seduced by puppet theater around the age of seven or eight and have started their own shows at eleven or twelve. I myself owned a set of hand puppets and have played with marionettes as child, but I preferred small dolls for which I sewed clothes and decorated shoebox houses.

The phrase, “marionettes are the hardest to control” has crossed my recent path more than once. “You’re a fool,” it mocks me. You are about 60 years too old for this.”

Hey, I know. That’s why I ordered a marionette kit after I chopped up a teddy bear for string manipulation, but was unable to manipulate him. I had already named him, before he began to turn and twist on his airplane controls. He wouldn’t walk – his legs dangled in the air and spun around. I had named him P.K. Pudels Kern.

Pudels Kern is not about truth; it is about balance, or in P.K.s case about the lack of it. Seeking balance is more important than imparting truth to a manipulated object. At any rate, it is the more realistically appropriate concern for now. Not that I should consider appropriateness over truthful transfer of information when reasoning myself into puppet play, but all my endeavors are subjective; they start with my interpretation. My truth. But apparently not always with my balance.

So! Well! Before I interpret I need a balanced puppet. It arrived on Saturday, January 29. A properly balanced, loosely jointed marionette skeleton with red, blue, yellow, and green strings and its own stand. I immediately began to drape and wrap and cover to establish a connection. After two days of testing we decided on black cotton for a dress and a red wig for the bald, wooden head. She required Walter Keane eyes to become the slightly melancholy wild child she decided to be. I am working on a purple scarf but don’t know yet if she will accept it. Her sad face and bright hair make me happy. I hope she is still in balance when she is completed. Maybe I am too impatient to be a puppeteer. Let’s see who is in control.

Regards,

Gisela

           

Thank You!

A Rose in Winter for Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Parallel Noises

Good Evening Herr Goethe!

Tyana and rose at Goethehaus

I woke to parallel noises this morning. Not the down-below rumblings and mumblings one is used to in a third story apartment or hotel room, but the loud attack of a garbage truck loading the neighbor’s trash out front, on your street. During the moments before my mind became fully aware of my back-at-home status it read the event as bumpy expressions of a battery of luggage carriers, filled with chained down Facebook pages, crossing an airplane’s runway. It even allowed me a brief viewing of my latest photo album and selected Tyana with the rose in front of your Gartenhaus as a favorite. The mixed up, multi-language dreams of a world traveler who has not yet pinpointed her latest position. 

And then the silhouetted branches of the black ficus in front of my bedroom window reeled me in to the reality of my return to everyday life. The bumping and clanging must come from the recycling truck that picks up paper and plastics and glass bottles to give them a new life.

“It’s seven a.m. Get up. Make coffee. Go to your desk.”

And here it is, the orange glimmer of the rising sun, filtered through bushes along the fence across the street. Bright. Reliable. Twenty-four years of history. 8,760 mornings, take away those spent abroad on journeys, or just away for ordinary reasons. Twenty-four years spent in the same house, the longest I’ve lived anywhere. I know, Herr Goethe, it doesn’t compare to the 50 years you lived in Weimar, but it shows a soothing trend of sameness, a strong probability of reoccurrence. (Discounting an earthquake, of course) I needed this statement after the oddly final imprint I registered when I looked out over the Alte Brücke in Heidelberg on the morning of my departure. Yesterday morning.

“I will never see this place again.”

Lat view from the hotel window in Heidelberg

How strange. A damp cityscape, an icy mountain I had climbed, a river, a bridge, buildings I have been accustomed to for sixty years have imposed their final goodbyes. There are two ways to look at the feeling of “never again,” the first would be too sad to continue. No, I don’t believe that this is the end of my travels. I prefer the second way, the route informing me that I have done all the searching that was needed to put the past behind me. Logos, the deed, words, actions – whatever I want to call it – previous wrongs, old hurts, unresolved anger - have finally lost their sting. I am celebrating a new era.

The sun is shining brightly now above the rooftops. Skeletal wisteria branches entwined with the railing on my front porch tell me that it is still winter. But there is no snow. And here comes the second garbage truck, roaring through the street, the one that picks up the real leftovers. They call it Restmüll in Germany. I don’t have any of that yet today. I just came home.

California morning

Yours,

Gisela.

On Sale - 50 % Off

     Good Day Johann Wolfgang von Goethe!

How much is the girl in the window?

There's always a last day sale. I gathered a few of my favorite windows to display while I get ready to travel home. I will be in touch with you soon again.
Bis bald,
Gisela

My favorite models in Heidelberg in the spotlight

Modus Vivaldi

Last Good Evening from Heidelberg, Herr Goethe!

                The play “Wer sind Sie?” (Who are you?) had quite an impact on me, probably because of my own age, and definitely because of my love for my “American mother,” my ex-mother-in-law for more than 40 years. She is approaching 99, still calls to tell me about political and cultural events on television, still sends newspaper clippings, still feeds crows and blue jays every morning, still remembers our first meeting; at least she remembers that we met in Heidelberg; I added that it was in the fall of 1963. But she also battles moments of confusion, of darkness, of fear, moments we wish she wouldn’t have to endure, but know that we can’t protect her from.

                “Wer sind Sie?” is a study of dementia. How do we treat a woman who is gradually sinking into the twilight, allowing less and less of the external world to penetrate and only remembering fragments of her own inner world? Through family dialogue the French author Michel Lengliney explores the subject of home care vs. institutional care; through the mother’s memories he gives us a melancholy, sensitive insight into the “patient’s” past, her love, her ambitions. He also exposes us to her grumbling, crumpling presence, her frustrations with the daughter who is the policing, decision-making force in her life now. We see her unrealistic adoration of a son who has gambled away his future. Four actors: mother, daughter, son, doctor. Dinah Hinz, who plays the mother, has been acting for 60 years, and this is, in my eyes, a stellar performance. Daughter and son, Bettina Franke and Armin Schlagwein, torn between sibling rivalry and love for their mother, are so real, I want to walk on stage and help them solve their problems. The doctor, Hans Zwimpfer, at first politely professional, becomes an engaged participant in the family drama.

                The Zimmer Theater in Heidelberg under Ute Richter produced a beautifully conceived brochure to go along with the play; non-fiction as well as fictional accounts, poetry, and details about the play give us a gentle look at dementia. My favorite is a very short poem by  Maschka Kaleko:

Die Nacht,

In der

Das Fuerchten

Wohnt,

Hat auch

Die Sterne

Und den

Mond.

The night in which fear looms also has the stars and the moon.

                A comforting thought that lets me remember how Mother sometimes gets up in the middle of the night and points to the big skylight above the staircase.

                “Look at the moon,” she says, “Isn’t it beautiful!”

                A phrase, uttered by Dinah Hinz, made me sit up in bed this morning. She is speaking of her love for music and her “favorite” son’s talent and instead of speaking of “Modus Operandi” – a phrase that has slipped her mind - she speaks of “Modus Vivaldi,” thus revealing the basics, the beauty of music in her life. She makes lists; she cleans her closet of clutter; she asks repeatedly what day it is; and in the end she reminds herself to tell her daughter that she loves her.

                I wondered about my own "Modus Vivaldi", Herr Goethe. I’ve always claimed that my travels are to produce a map of places, so deeply engraved into my brain, that they will last into the twilight. I imagine myself sitting at my desk, letting my thoughts roam from Hadrian’s Wall to the Library at Ephesus, to the Philosopher’s Way in Heidelberg, to your garden house in Weimar, across the coastal range in Guernsey, into the mountains of Jamaica, the streets of Cairo, the ruins of Marrakesh, the seashore of Carmel, the harbor of Victoria and on and on until I fall asleep forever.

                 I’ll call it “Modus Memorandi”

Immer an der Wand lang. (Along the Wall)

Good Evening Herr Goethe!

                Over time I have dug deep into the memories of my early years. Whenever I visited Heidelberg I sought answers to pain and betrayal in the facades of buildings I had once lived in. I’d take snapshots of dilapidated structures, roam alleyways, plead with crumbling sandstone walls to reveal their secrets. In an essay entitled “My Travels into the Past” written in 2005 I claimed,

                “I think that I have learned several lessons on this trip. The journey back to one’s youth is a solitary journey, tolerated by others, but not shared. Deep emotions come from interactions with people and are tethered to the time of their occurrence. They can’t be recreated by a walk in the footsteps of the past. As I found out, walls do not speak. And though it would be nice to belong, the spiritual flood of organ music does not bring back religion.”

                Today, January 2, 2011, I am pleased to announce that walls do speak, though they don’t answer my questions. And the sound of the organ, even if it doesn’t bring back religion, it brings much joy. Add to this three trumpets and two Pauken, and the tall, red walls of the Heiliggeistkirche (Church of the Holy Spirit) and you have yourself a magical, spiritual wonderfest.

                But let me explain, Herr Goethe. Last night I attended a New Year’s Concert “Radiance of Festive  Baroque.” Bach, Vivaldi, Haendel and more. Trumpet Ensemble Fruzsina Hara. The two Pauken (I can only describe them as large deep copper kettle drums) were played by a young man who used great restraint to punctuate the sounds of the trumpets rather than overpowering them. The trumpets themselves were elegant, pleading at times, sweet and seductive, strong, royal. I don’t know how to write about music, don’t know how to articulate what made this group so inspirational, but during the night I woke and smiled. I wanted to hug the young musicians, wanted to let them know that they had spoken to me. That they had made the church walls sing. And the organist, a middle-aged man with a well-trimmed grey beard, guided the organ with self-confidence and power, as only an admired teacher can. I realized in my night-time musings that looking back is not always a necessary prerequisite for understanding the past, and that ancient stone walls can be made to sing

                I do admit that my sentimental journey might have been influenced by the “Sektpause” as it was announced in the program. Not an ordinary break, but a champagne break during which tall-stemmed  glasses were distributed. I knew that the clear liquid was champagne and assumed that the other drink available was orange juice. The taste, however, did not confirm my belief, but this juice immediately warmed my feet. I didn’t learn until today that I had consumed something they call orange sect. What I, a non-drinker, had so carefully avoided during my Weimar days – alcohol - had suddenly made me realize how efficiently it combats the great chill that is in the winter air everywhere. My feet thank the orange sect, and, who knows, maybe it even is responsible for making the church walls talk to me.

                Another wall was very kind to me this morning. The moss-covered, damp, cold stone wall that runs along Schlangenweg to the Philosophers’ Way on the other side of the Neckar River. Schlangenweg is a snaking, steep, cobblestoned path that is not serviced by the city during the winter. Parts of it were slippery and iced over, others snow-covered, some just wet; all of the path seemed treacherous to me as I felt my way along the wall, grateful for every protrusion that allowed a better hold. My hands crept from rock to rock as one foot slid as far as necessary to rest against the edge of a cobble stone, before the second foot left its spot. A young man offered his help. A couple encouraged me to take my time. An older lady suggested I carry my backpack strapped to the front of my body to b e able to get closer to the wall. I inched forward, considering with every step how inconvenient it would b e to fall two days before my flight back home. When I finally reached a clearing with a bench I decided to take a few photographs and return to the Hotel. Later, from my window I saw that I had only been maybe fifty feet from Philosopher’s Way. I had no regrets. Sure, I had not made it all the way to the top, but I had gotten some good shots and I had not broken an ankle. I call that success.

At your own risk

Looking Back

Old Bridge, town, hotel (to right of bridge) and castle (top left)

Tyana on the wall above the town

Heidelberg castle

Going back down

slippery stairs

The end is in sight

               

It's a New Day and a New Year

Good Evening Herr Goethe!

And a Happy New Year!

                I’ve watched the Neckar River, the Old Bridge, the water front, the sky come alive. For hours young and old gathered, by the hundreds, and burned fireworks last night. An hour into the New Year, I still heard screams of joy and saw thundering multi-colored explosions light the darkness. When I opened the double-paned window the smoke was intense and the roar of the crowd was deafening. By midnight thousands had occupied the Alte Bruecke, the Old Bridge, the streets, and the parking area around the hotel. Occasionally I witnessed a fiery missile land in the midst of beer-bottle or champagne toting youngsters and uncensored revelry arose.  Germans know how to celebrate and don’t seem to have the same safety concerns as Americans; only a few of the elderly bystanders stepped cautiously around burning, still exploding objects. I am very happy that I was able to witness such a spectacle from the warmth and comfort of room 225 at the Hollaender Hof. It took three trains, two of them late due to weather conditions, and a cab ride with a young man from Sarajevo, but I made it to my favorite Heidelberg  in time for the celebration.

                “We were waiting for you” I was told by the receptionist as soon as I dragged myself and my suitcase into the hotel lobby. She knew I had been here before several times and treated me like a familiar guest.

                After unpacking I took a quick walk through the neighborhood before I began to observe the crowd that gathered below my room in the street. By one thirty in the morning I yawned noisily; it was time to get a few hours of rest. Little did I know that I would sleep until almost ten.  A look at Philosophers Way that zigzags across the mountain in front of one of my windows told me that Heidelberg would show me its weekday rainy face and not woo me with sunshine. A look out the other window offered the expected Japanese tour group admiring the Bridge.

         

       At breakfast downstairs I reflected on my approach toward writing for the next few days. I decided  I would not send letters to you unless something out of the ordinary happened. Writing about Heidelberg would be a repetition of past observations, I thought, but immediately I laughed, because the New Year’s celebration was an unfamiliar event. Seeing a young woman in short sleeves caught me by surprise; everybody in Weimar had entered restaurants in full winter gear and had only shed one layer, to be able to sit at a table.  That I was able to breathe without the filter of a scarf was something out of the ordinary to me after three weeks in the frosty winter air of Thueringia. Even not having to empty my own waste basket, being supplied with juice and mineral water, with chocolates on my bed, with a bathrobe, those are new experiences. Finding the streets cleaned after they had been trashed by the celebration during the night surprises me. Even seeing the castle over the rooftops shrouded in fog, gives me a feeling of a new beginning.  Happy 2011 to you, Herr Goethe.  Happy new beginnings in the city we both love.

Ihre Gisela