GOETHE WROTE GOETHE

Hi, crazy world, found that I had become a prisoner in Thüringen, so I decided to make the most of it (in other words constant trips to Berlin were too expensive. At first I reckoned I could go up every weekend, but this proved to be wildly optimistic. Trouble is the cost of travel, accommodation, meals etc etc and when all of these bills arrive at once it means a Hell of a bill.) Last weekend I took the bike onto the train, bought a Thüringen hopper ticket, went to Arnstadt, the place where JS Bach held his first appointment as Kantor, then proceeded to get lost in the Thüringen Wald. Got off the train somewhere nr Meiringen and cycled to Suhl, a place held in limbo somewhere in the God know´s where of the Thüringen landschaft, infested with oodles of Rentners. Seemed bizarre, this small city with blocks of flats splitting to the seams with Rentners hanging out of balconies, stuffed into portmantea seats and tiny dungeons. Then I took the train to Plau, another village located inbetween Arnstadt, Suhl and Ilmenau. I waited in this orifice of nothingness for 2 hours, then the train to Ilmenau arrived and I drove back with it, enviously eyeing up someone´s mountain bike as a putative replacement for my own chopper, an alu bike long past its sell by date which earlier bore me between Meiringen and Suhl, but almost disintegrated half-way between much to my consternation. Luckily I´m handy with the bike mechanics, so with a rubber band solution and on a wing and a prayer, I struggled onwards. Arnstadt is undoubtedly an interesting place, a little place of innocence and joy where it all began. I mean the Old Testament of music. There was a wedding taking place in the Bachkirche and friendly locals (???) arm in arm. Public events of any kind embarrass the Hell out of me so I went to hide in the shade while admiring the Bach statue there, which shows Bach truly relaxed, a very modern take on his memory. There isn´t even an echo of Germany´s darker moments there, just broad avenues filled with light, giant trees shaking in the wind and windy locals giving it their all. For some backside music go to the local pub, where loads of beerish swine fart out all the motets and recitatives you love. JS Bach roll over in your grave. I´m going back to camcorder a rendition of Bach´s Christmas Oratorio by the choir of Bach arses, the Knieper, Bogglemindstraße.

Gestern war ich in diesem Museum, für diese Stadt ist Goethestadt. JW Goethe bilden Ferien hier spät in sein Leben. Ihr war für die ganzen Länder begleitend. Dieses Museum ist mit vielen Austellung von Goethe und von Weimar interresant. Goethe hat den Wandrer´s Nachtliederben, der in das Kickelhahn, einen großen Berg geschrieben wird. Goethe überwachte folglich die region´s Gruben und dort, die Kupfer vorbei und mehr Silber hier von erstaunlichem Maß gewinnen. Anderes von Mineral suchen, wie Fluoride folglich hier gewonnen wurden. Goethe beendete folglich seine Abhandlung auf Licht hier, sich erinnern mehr an ihn, der polymath, vielleicht der gelesene große Polymath. Gestern Abend geliesen erstes Teil der Faust I in mein Bett, aber ich verstehe es nicht. Lassen Sie Faust geliesen? Ich auch Maria-Stuart von Schiller und Danton´s Tod von Büchner geliesen. Und folglich findet ´The Kindly Ones´, a-Roman durch Jonathan Littel, in englischem, aber in englisches TonnenBrennelement in solch einer Weise einfach, so und in einer Sache, dass I´m Tonne gelesenes innen französisches oder Deutschen jetzt reizte. Ich glaube, dass Fransözich schwerer als Deutscher sind? Was denken Sie? Aber ich denke Littel´s Roman ist einfach propaganda, mehr geld aus der letzte Krieg gemacht.

WARTBURG

Yes the nearest Bachstadt is Arnstadt, where JS Bach held his first appointment before moving onto Erfurt (the region´s capital) and then Leipzig, which is in Sachsen Anhalt (einen kleinen Paris as Goethe says in Faust I). He was born in Eisenach which is in the west of Thüringen. I haven´t been there. There´s a great statue of Bach in Arnstadt, the nearest small town to Ilmenau. I cycled there one Sunday, got lost on the lanes dappled with sunlight and the scent of pine. There were many Hell´s Angels on the roads, one big guy wearing a Wehrmacht style German helmet, which looks like a knob, and a pair of goggles with throat cover, which made him look like Darth Vader. They moved on fairly quickly after pointing at my alu bike and laughing at it. I got a hopper ticket and went down south after having lunch in Arnstadt (a lunch of Thüringen Spargel - asparagus - soup, bockwurst mit sauerkraut und brötchen and a great ice cream all washed down with a glass of Köstritzer, the local brew. I cycled for about 30 km into Suhl, a town totally nondescrit, housing mostly old people (I think it is Thüringen´s old people´s home.). Then I got back on the train, thankfully my alu bike was mostly still in one piece, although I almost came a cropper on several occasions, and went back to Plaue, an orifice of nothingness between Ilmenau and Arnstadt.

So I didn´t find out very much about JS Bach, except to say that Arnstadt looks like the nest of a great genius. I don´t know but Thüringen must have been amazing in Bach´s day, its certainly an amazing Länder today, although its a but too ruhig. Schiller was Professor of History in Jena, I´ve been through Jena on several occasions now. It has a big university with an active, radical student fringe. Erfurt looks like a painting, there´s the Krämer Brücke, the only example of a Medieval bridge in northern europe that has shops on it, like the Ponte Vecchio over the Arno in Firenze. (which I was also fortunate enough to visit).  There´s a statue there of Martin Luther, who preached in the town, and who also was kidnapped/imprisoned/in hiding in the Wartburg where he assumed the identity Junker Jörg (the local aristrocrats realised that Luther was going to change Europe, but they needed a way of placing him within their narrative, so they awarded him this imaginary appelation, Lord George. ML wore a strange beard in the Wartburg and was generally pretty mad most of the time, a really crazy, whacky character, the Michael Jackson of his day. I´ve seen ML listed as a famous manic-depressive. Hey who was his psychiatrist? Was it the Pope? There´s a great painting of him in the Wartburg by Cranach the Elder).