Franken, genealogy, mago, travel, work

Melting

When last Sunday (oh, only yesterday!) was a stroll in the park, this Monday was a walk on hot coals. It’s 22:00 and I am dripping with sweat. I left for the Spessart around midday and looked for an easy drive through the river valley, over the hills and into the forest. But it’s summer, and I forgot the gods of road construction. I thought it’s a specialty of this lovely town to schedule all major maintenance works for summer, especially when the large festivals take off (Mozartfest, Africa Festival and so on), but no – it seems to be common practice in Lower Franconia. They ripped out the surface of the major Bundesstrasse, put up a sign to keep out the heavy trucks (like 40 tons) and send the traffic (at least in one direction)  through the vineyards. So I drove behind a 20 ton truck that managed to manoeuver through ways which normally are reserved for pedestrians, bicyclists and smallish vineyard equipment – I feel deep respect for the driver.
What the administration in the valley can, the administration in the woods can do better – at least they thought so, but in the end they went for a standard solution with traffic lights. They also have a Bundesstrasse and for whatever reasons it needs reconstruction – but they have no wine there – HA! So waiting in front of a red traffic light in the middle of nowhere is what you do in the Spessart. I’ll get used to it, because (with a little luck) I’ll return tomorrow morning for additional research. Hopefully I will not feel like a baked potato again when I’ll climb out of the tin can on wheels we call the Magomobile, a trusted little treasure by the way.
The recherche itself was successful: It is the correct place, I found the family name, the books are readable – well, the last quarter of the 17th century is a bit difficult, because of the priests tiny handwriting, sometimes the ink is a bit awash, but it works; the 18th is very good, a new and good readable hand. And best of all: They allowed me to take photographs (without flash of course!), that’s the only reason I was able to work through hundred years of marriages in a little less than two hours, then the battery of the photographic apparatus gave up.  I could have stayed there for another hour reading, but I have to confess, I simply wanted out of that place! It is tiny and cramped – as my appartement you may say, but it’s different: I can put out books on a table, and I do not have to welcome visitors here on a regular basis. Frankly, I would refuse to work in that hole! The next room where the very friendly and competent secretary is working is a bit better, in the course of the conversation it surfaced that she’s only some months there and that she renovated her working area by herself, if I understood a certain hint correctly.
Now I should look at my photos and transcribe the entries, but it’s 22:30 and I am in no more mood for any work that involves concentration and heavy thinking and such. In fact all I want is a glass of cheap white and a thunderstorm. At least the cheap white is here and at a pleasant temperature.

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muzag, Sunday, Sunday Music

Sunday Music

What a beautiful day it was! A walk in the park with ice cream, lying lazy on  the sofa, evening walk around the fields – easy, relaxed, no computer. It was, as I feel it, the first real summer day of the year; the temperature will rise well over 30 ° Celsius in the coming days until a sharp drop back towards the end of the week. Time to sit on the balcony with a chilled rosé.
Tomorrow it’s work again – around midday I will start the engine and travel into the Spessart, at least one clergyman could not escape anymore – to be fair, it was a friendly telephone conversation. The other one is, to put id mildly, a bit strange. They should make them chance the parish after some years, too long in the dark woodlands can make a man a bit weird; more a bout this only when I have seen him in person.

This Sunday Music is a piece by DEBUSSY (Ger., Eng.), Rêverie, sorry, I do not know who plays it here.
I hope you enjoy it ! And finally summer !

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mago, personal

… godawful …

This morning I found it pretty damn difficult to recognize myself in the mirror. My eyes were so swollen that they literally were slits and I could hardly open them. I looked like Charlie CHAN (Ger., Eng.) after a booze-up. Over the last days its hard to get up, to awake fully. I never was one of those persons who are “click !” awake, get up and go over whatever tasks may lay ahead. I always need some time to reach working temperature, this involves two cups of coffee.
Also waking up is normally a process that lasts about ten minutes, until I know who I am, where I am and what I should do. In earlier years I could condition meself when a job had to be done and I needed to get up after some hours in the very early morning. I would concentrate on f.e. four hours, look at the watch or the alarm clock and go to sleep; I would wake up one minute before the alarm and then could rise and go about my business. I doubt that I can still do this. But over the last days this strange status inbetween, betwixt being fully awake and fully asleep, this strange transit area either increased, or I stay there for longer times. It is not uncomfortable, there is action, I speak (don’t know whether in my head only); sometimes I have the feeling it is a real other world, and when I sleep there, I am awake here.
Maybe I was drinking in dreamland.

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muzag, Sunday, Sunday Music

Sunday Music

The clergymen in the Spessart seem to vanish one by one. One is simply not reachable, I have no clue whether he is on vacancy or just got lost in the woods; the other one is on a congress here and there and does seemingly anything to avoid staying at least one damn afternoon of the week in his parish. I have a bill to write, men of the cloth!
At least I was in another parish, north of Schweinfurt, where the position of the priest is vacant: I had to deal with the secretary only, and – of course! – things worked fine. Except the hefty price she charged for using the book – yes, book: The village is that small that one book does the trick for all the marriages, baptismal entries and deaths from 1593 right to the middle of the 19th century. It is one of the few areas I still had not visited. Any other region evokes a kind of image in front of my inner eye, like the blue ridges of the Rhön to the north, the idyllic parts of the valley of the Tauber to the South, something like that. I found the area I visited so plainly nondescript that I could not take a photograph, it is just countryside. One must be born there to love it.
Ach ja, die Schnüdel …

All you need in order to love the luteduo from Warszawa is to listen. Here they give us a ciacconna (Ger., Eng.) by Alessandro PICCININI (Ger., Eng.) – I hope you enjoy it, and have an untroubled week.

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mago, personal

Room(s)

I was looking for something my father had given to me when I was a child, maybe five or six years old. A kind of toy. I did not find it here in this chaos, what makes me a bit nervous; I hope I have not lost this item.
When rummaging through drawers and thinking of places where things could be, I found other things I had not thought of for quite a long time; I have not forgotten these objects, their meaning that is, this would not describe it correctly, and while I went from drawer to drawer I found that it once made sense where I had put what, when I moved to this place.
I need to reconquer this apartement. For the last – na, fifteen months or so I was basically living somewhere else, in the bookmines, out of the suitcase, and came here only on weekends to take a bath, have internet access, and prepare for the next week. Now I am here again – and it is more than only mattress, bath and desk. I know that in these two small rooms are too many things, especially books. But I will not get rid of them – even if it is a very nice idea sometimes. But I find meself increasingly using them – it is possible to take one of these out of the shelf and even look into it! Of course there is a big cloud of dust, but nevertheless, it’s a start!
And it’s a kind of re-discovery. “Oh, look, the fool was once interested in this!”
So besides all the other Wahnsinn, like  f.e. searching for customers, trying to make sense of foreign texts for a yearbook, and fighting over money with an authority (I never have went to a court before, but even this sheep becomes rebellious when fucked over one time too many, a rude expression, I apologize, but it’s  fitting), besides I say the normal nonsense we call life, I am determined to make this piggery my home again: Cleaning the dust (yes, we want clean dust here), preparing the Balkon for the summer, cleaning the windows – I was told there is something to see out there!
Maybe I will post about things I’ll find, “show and tell” as it is called.

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