Playday

Up early for an ultrasound examination, to check whether the widely fluctuating bloodtest results indicate a problem in my guts. The specialist confirms that my liver, gall, pancreas, stomach and kidneys are all as and where they should be. Good.

The day being lovely (warm, blue sky, gentle breeze) and myself being damned hungry (one must arrive for the examination on an absolutely empty stomach), I decided to have breakfast outdoors at the Cafe Eberhard, and there met Slim. We talked for an hour while Larry was at a child psychologist across the street, and decided to continue to meet there on Wednesday mornings for as long as the fine weather and his sessions continue. She's looking very well, happy and healthy again after a rough spell last year.

Then walked on downtown intending to go to the river to see if last week's cranes were still there, but got distracted by the newly half-reopened Staatsgalerie. The collection has been entirely rehung, featuring many works that had previously languished in the cellars and mixing old and new together: rooms are now hung by subject or style rather than by age or country of origin. There are some wonderful pieces on display, and the arrangement is thought-provoking and occasionally amusing. Highly recommended to any Stuttgarters who haven't been lately; however those living further afield are advised to wait until after December 13, when the last few rooms will be opened and the renovation complete.

In the course of the renovation, the Herrenberger Altar has been moved to a larger and more central room, where there is now space and light to appreciate the rear panels (i.e. the opened-out wings). Since these were the outer "weekday" sides, they have faded considerably, but are still quite fascinating. I shall have to go back for another look, and will nab one of the little folding stools.

In other news the first competition was sent off with twenty minutes to spare yesterday. It looks very good, I think we have a fine chance of being in the money again with this project. That was our fourth third competition this year, and G is looking to do two more. Personally, I think he's crazy, but who am I to get between a man and his idea of fun?

Not sleeping

I slept for about half an hour, then woke up abruptly thinking that something in the room had moved. That was an hour ago, I've cleaned the kitchen and made hot chocolate, and am now (in theory) winding down to try to sleep again.

The competition takes shape very slowly, we still haven't managed to fit all the required spaces into the restaurant area. We've all had a turn at planning it now, and none of us has managed to make the thing work properly. My instinct when faced with a problem this close to intractable, is to assume that we have overlooked something pretty fundamental, but that does not seem to be the case. It's just a difficult problem. Once more unto the breach, dear friends.

In other news, I went to the Staatsgalerie on Saturday afternoon for another look at the Picasso exhibition (pretty much as I remembered it, no surprises there) and went on to see the Herrenberger altar again, where I found a surprise and a revelation. First the surprise: in the second panel (depicting Christ's trial and scourging) I noticed for the first time that "Levit. 6" was written along the upper edge of his loincloth. I had to read the chapter twice to figure out the reference, because it is not in any way prophetic.

The revelation was appropriately in the last (fourth) panel, depicting the Resurrection. I had always been puzzled by the posture of one of the guards at the sepulchre (the scene is from Matthew): lying on his back with his feet in the air, coins tumbling from his pockets, jamming the butt of his crossbow into the ground, he appears to be tumbling backwards head-over-heels - but where does he fall to, and why? I had previously noted that the sepulchre stands on a section of ground that appears to be rising out of the plain, with sharply defined cliff-like edges: pushed up by the earthquake that opens the sepulchre (Matthew again). This time I noticed what was beyond the edge in the utmost lower-right corner: blackness, nothing; a very significant nothing, a non-barking-dog of a Nothing. The background to this panel is the Last Judgement, and the breaking up of the ground around the sepulchre is not an earthquake but a reference to this. The soldier is falling backwards into damnation, and neither his wealth nor his weapons will save him.

Karfreitag

I walked down to the river yesterday afternoon, in the hope of organizing my thoughts to write this piece. The Neckar has risen nearly a metre above its midwinter average, and is running very fast and muddy. There must have been a lot of snow in the north of Switzerland. No ducks, no swans, no rabbits; but a red-tailed woodpecker and the first two herons staking out their fishing grounds.

It seems my fate in Blogger, to produce only trivia.

I've been trying since Thursday evening to write a piece about Judas Iscariot, triggered by going to see the Herrenberger Altar that afternoon, and by a fragment of a song which popped into my mind as I sat before it:

Through many dark hours I've been thinking about this:
That Jesus Christ was betrayed by a kiss.
But I can't think for you, you'll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot had God on his side.
Bob Dylan, "With God on our side"

I have always felt a certain sympathy for Judas, because I see him and Jesus both as victims (in vastly differing proportion, obviously) of the story of the Passion. Judas' role was also forced upon him by God's plan; he too was given a cup from which he had no choice but to drink. To what extent can one who carries out God's will, be said to be evil?

Sticky books

Jane Crow tagged me with a quiz:

You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?
Marcel Proust, Swann's Way. I already quote from it on the slightest of pretexts.

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
Yes, of course: Emma Bovary, Justine, Jordan Baker, Dolores Haze.

The last book you bought is:
David Taylor and Brian Jepson, Learning Unix for Mac OS X Panther. The last piece of reading-for-pleasure that I bought was Zonenkinder by Jana Hensel.

The last book you read:
The book I most recently finished is The Koran translated by N.J.Dawood.

What are you currently reading?
As always, I'm reading several books concurrently:
Neale Donald Walsch, Conversations with God: an uncommon dialogue.
The Bible as a crossreference to both of the above.
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Alte Meister also related to the above. I bought this 525 page reference catalogue for the sake of the 23 pages on the magnificent Herrenberger Altar which I visit regularly. After ten years of staring at it for an hour every two months, it still surprises and delights me.
Denkanstöße 2005, a local publisher's annual sampler, from Richard Feynman to Michael Moore via Gidon Kremer.

Five books you would take to a deserted island:
Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past.
Philip Larkin, Collected Poems.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.
W. Somerset Maugham, The complete short stories.
W. Shakespeare, Collected works.

Three people I choose to "stick this" to and why:
Krenneke because he needs a nudge to start writing again.
Smartmom because she is a book person: she blogged about finding a book by the elder Thomas Wolfe.
Savtadotty because she too is very likely a reader of catholic tastes ;-)