Puppet: An Essay on Uncanny Life

 

Puppet: An Essay on Uncanny Life by Kenneth Gross
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Puppets and I go way back. I want to say that the Muppets and Sid and Marty Kroft shows (HR Pufnstuf, Far Out Space Nuts), though the latter was more costumed humans than puppets, I admit, introduced me to bodies animated by unseen humans. But, outside of television (and that P movie by that D company), I quite fondly recall my mother making little puppets out of felt and doing little puppet shows for me. She was a drama-girl all the way. Furthermore, I remember seeing street puppets when I lived in Italy as a boy and at least one Punch & Judy show in Brighton, England, when I lived in the UK as a teenager.

But it was later in life that I learned to appreciate the uncanny nature of puppets. In the early 90s I discovered the movies of Jan Svankmajer, which sometimes featured marionettes, then, in the early 2000s, I discovered the stop motion films of The Brothers Quay, which have become an obsession of mine. Back in 2003, I believe it was, I saw another Punch and Judy show (this one in Minneapolis, of all places), I took my kids to a live puppet show (with puppets more reminiscent of Frank Oz's early creations, than anything else) not many years after. Then, in 2019, while on vacation in Europe, my wife and I visited Salzburg, Austria and attended the Salzburg Marionetten Theatre. And just tonight, I signed up for a Domestika course on making wooden marionettes.

I think I'm becoming a little obsessed. Maybe I was obsessed all along and am just now admitting it.

Back in 2021 (it feels strange to say that - has it really been that long?), I read and reviewed Victoria Nelson's outstanding book The Secret Life of Puppets, which I had stumbled on at Goodreads, if I remember correctly. Then, my favorite podcast, Weird Studies, did an episode on this same book in November of 2022. They followed this with an episode about the movie Evil Dead II, which also dipped into the uncanny nature of puppets. This is where I first saw reference to the book being reviewed presently.

It is this uncanny aspect of puppets that Kenneth Gross examines in Puppet: An Essay on Uncanny Life. All the while I was reading, I felt as if I had the voice of Mark Fischer whispering in my ear. His book/essay on The Weird and the Eerie could have formed the skeleton for Gross's essay, though Gross's work preceded Fisher's by five years. So, perhaps it is the other way around? However, I find no reference to Gross's work in Fischer's bibliography. Maybe this is just another magical synergy that seems to happen so often with these sorts of confluences.

The movement and intelligence that are apparent in a puppet is "weird" (in Fisher's sense) because there should be no movement or intelligence or intention in unliving material, yet that intent seems to come through the unliving (perhaps undead?) material of the puppet. There is movement in what there ought not to be. This offends our logic while simultaneously spiking our curiosity, a morbid curiosity for that which is incapable of morbidity, strangely enough.

It feels quite natural for humans to view these artificial beings as artifacts with some connection to the past. I've seen countless cast off dolls in the mud, for example, and it piques my sense of wonder. How did this get here? Who lost it? Is there some latent connection with a past owner? This begs the further question: Are puppets, dolls, and marionettes some sort of mana batteries, storing energy from some past life force? Perhaps the mystery of these unseen lives that live behind the figures is what we hope to see through to, with the "little people" serving as scrying devices into past lives, their joys, and tragedies. But are our visions clouded and warped by looking through these anthropomorphic lenses? Could some malevolent spirit twist or visions of the past if we are not careful? Do we dare look into their eyes?

Puppets and the stages on which they come "alive" ae not like us. They are exaggerated and often missing many of the subtle and not-so-subtle things that make up life. This creates what Fisher termed "the eerie". Much that should be "there" is not, yet some law of puppetry seems to govern their universe, laws that do not apply in the same way to us. Nor do our laws apply to them. So which reality is real? Which laws actually inhere?

Just as the paradox of life seemingly manifest in dead things causes unease and fascination, the utter unknowability of what it feels, tastes, smells, or sounds like to be a dead thing that was once living simultaneously terrifies us and fills us with curiosity, longing, even, to know and, with much fear and uncertainty, to experience what the dead experience. It is the age old push and pull of existential dread, brought to life(?) by the infusion of seeming intent into dead matter. The puppeteer possesses the puppet with life-force, animating it, the living possessing the dead in a reverse-seance. Who is the medium here?

Puppeteers I have met indeed often speak of waiting for some impulse from the puppet they hold, a gesture or form of motion that they can then develop often being shocked by what emerges.

The act of puppeteering blurs the line between tool and wielder. yes, the human informs the dead material, but the dead material imposes its own limitations, resisting, even fighting back!

The unliving puppet is, of course, innocent, as it can only react to others' manipulations. Yet many puppet shows are transgressive and anything but innocent (go watch a Punch and Judy show, if you don't believe me). Here the inherent innocence of the puppet allows for a buffer to the audience. Hence the shocking nature of the horror trope of puppets and other artificially animated human stand-ins possessed of self-realized inimical animation.

Remember, though, that's it not always the humans facing the puppet that have need to fear that strange intersection of life and death, of immaterial energy and material existence. As Gross implies, this liminal zone is fraught with danger for all:

Then there was the marionette of Antigone who had hung herself with the very strings that had earlier given her life. That had its own kind of truth.

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Asterix und die Goten

 

Asterix und die Goten by René Goscinny
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As a kid, I grew up with Asterix, having discovered him when we moved to Italy in 1975. Asterix and the Goths was one of my absolute favorites. They're all great, but there was something about all the factional infighting among the various tribes of Goths that I found hilarious.

Fast forward to 2019, when my wife and I take a long-anticipated trip to Europe. A large part of that time was spent in Austria, with a couple of days in Germany (Frankfurt and Munich). We stopped in multiple bookstores, including a comic book store in Vienna and a used bookstore in Munich. I was specifically looking for this Asterix book auf Deutsch, but I could not for the life of me find it. Several stores had ALL of the Asterix books in German, except this one. Then I remembered that one of the speech bubbles had a Goth chieftain, who had just been thumped on the head with a club, swearing up a long string of explicatives (I thought of my German-swearing grandmother when I saw this). The swear words were represented by lots of different symbols, including (gasp) a swastika.

Then it dawned on me: the book had been banned because it has a Nazi symbol in it.

Germany, Austria, I love you, but . . . seriously? I'm all about punching nazis, but really?

Anyway, I eventually found a copy . . . on Ebay. I bought it right up because who knows how many of these will survive?

It's kind of strange how things turn. Banning books, in particular . . .

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Carl Otto Czeschka Illustrations 1895-1900

 

Carl Otto Czeschka Illustrations 1895-1900 by Thomas Negovan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Perhaps it has something to do with having spent half my childhood in Europe (Germany, Italy, England), or maybe it's just a matter of taste; regardless of the impetus, I am a hardened europhile (if there isn't such a word, I just made it. You're welcome, Shakespeare lovers). And while Americans are exposed to European art, cinema, literature, etc. now more than ever, I tend to dive into some of the more obscure, recondite works that my co-patriots (can I use that term in this context? Again, you're welcome) might miss either because of lack of interest or lack of exposure. This is particularly true in my taste in books and literature. For example, I've met few Americans who know the works of Géza Csáth, Marcel Schwob, Paul Willems, or Hanns Heinz Ewers. More are aware of the works of Kafka, obviously, or even Gustav Meyrink, but there is a treasure trove of great literature that is only recently being brought to the attention of American audiences.

In terms of visual arts, however, we Americans are more well-versed in the breadth and depth of the European tradition due, I think, largely, to the timing of the Renaissance, when the United States simply did not exist as a nation. Most of our modern western art springs from techniques developed in the Renaissance. Sure, there are many, many exceptions (Fauvism, Japonisme, etc), but by and large western art is rooted in European precedent.

Still, we Americans have much to learn. On the whole, I am amazed at the cultural illiteracy of the masses here. Yes, I'm an over-educated snob, yes, I'm a cultural elitist. So shoot me (that most American thing to do, N'est-ce pas?). I was born in Europe. Half of my childhood was spent there. I am a Europhile and I am frankly appalled at how Americo-centric my "home" nation is.

Now that my ranting is over, let's proceed on learning a tiny bit more about European art. For this purpose, I am giving my strongest recommendation to "read" ("see?", "meditate upon?") Century Guild's absolutely fantastic presentation of Carl Otto Czescha Illustrations 1895-1900.

Normally, I would take a moment here to introduce the person whose artwork is under consideration, Carl Otto Czescha. But I don't want to spoil that aspect of the book for you. Thomas Negovan has collected and collated a great deal of information that is otherwise scattered across physical and virtual archives so thinly as to be ghostlike. Czeschka's life alone makes for an interesting biography. It's an inspiring story, to say the least.

Not only is the research well done it is well-presented. The narrative of Czescha's life and career is written in a font somewhere between gothic and art nouveau. I have no idea what the font is, but it is beautiful and appropriate to the atmosphere and work. I have the hardcover copy of the book (limited to 650 copies - get yours), rather than the deluxe slipcase edition (limited to 150 copies - #lust), which has a different front cover. But I presume the inside pages are identical because, let's face it, who wants to lay out the same book twice?

The artwork is, as one might expect, absolutely stunning. Should you require visuals, I'll point you to the Century Guild Salon episode where Negovan and Kat Handler explore the book in depth, answering listener questions (yes, a few by me - I can't help myself) along the way. Note that these are Czeschka's early works, in a different "voice" than his later, more geometrical works, but obviously drawn by the same deft hand. Many of the works are collected from the Allegorien published by the Wiener Werkstatte around the turn of the 20th century and some are from children's books, if I remember correctly. You'll note several "ex libris" book plates, as well, and I have to say that as a booklover, I am tickled pink (that sounds so painful) by the fact that so many of these are from this artistic sub-sub-sub-genre. I love ephemera, and here you get snapshots of such ephemera in abundance.

The art itself is dreamlike or, in some instances nightmarish. For those of us with both a strong romantic and morbid streak, it's a perfect place to land. Czeschka's sinuous figures ooze into the eyes and brain with such ease! Subject matter includes oh-so-many faeries, mermaids, fruit and flowers in abundance, angels, and even a few appearances by Death. The mythopoeic energy here is strong, echoing loudly even though these illustrations are only a little over a century old.

In publishing Carl Otto Czeschka Illustrations 1895-1900, Century Guild has yet again provided a window into which we can peek to see a seminal artistic vision from an artist whose work resonates both backward in time to the pre-Raphaelites and, hence, to medieval art, and forward in time to the 1960s and '70s, the influence of which continues even today.

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Gustav Klimt: Complete Paintings

 

Gustav Klimt: Complete Paintings by Tobias G. Natter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I first saw this beautiful book at the gift shop of Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum when my wife and I visited there in 2019. I lusted after the book, but I had already shot my wad on book spending, mostly when we visited the "booktown" of Hay-on-Wye, Wales. Keep in mind that I had just consumed possibly the largest amount of art treasures (consumed with my gaze, that is) that I had ever seen. And I have visited a fair amount of art museums in my day. So, for me and this book to look out across the room and catch each other's eye was nothing short of love at first sight. Of course, one sets themselves up for failure when they romanticize a relationship that has not yet happened, and we did hit a couple of rough spots in our little 663 page fling. But all in all, I'm wrapped up in the afterglow. We loved and we loved with great gusto. Granted, it was all one sided - me indulging in the beauty of my lover. Love is sometimes like this.

As with any great book, I learned a great deal. I had never actually read a bio of Klimt (sorry, Wikipedia - I'm seeing someone else), and his life had a fair amount of twists and turns, from his young talent being recognized and rewarded, to the deaths of this brother and father (which greatly affected him), to the many, many love affairs he had (he sired 14 children - yes, you read that right). Klimt was a very, very interesting person.

This is not to mention his skill as an artist. His early work was intimately tied with some background in architecture and his greatest commissions were for artwork in state buildings or upper-class residences. Many of the "paintings" you've seen are actually murals. The cover of the book itself is a prime example of this. I was very excited to read the section about the secession building in Vienna, which my wife and I visited. He didn't do all of the art on the building, but he had a very, very strong influence on it, being the official leader of the secession movement. It is, to be candid, one of the most beautiful buildings I've seen in my life.

Taschen, the book's publisher, spares no expense in showcasing the fabulous art. For instance, pages 119-122 are a four-page full-color fold-out spread of the Beethoven Frieze. This is only one of four such fold-out spreads, if I am counting correctly. I didn't realize these fold-outs were a part of the book when I first purchased it (the book is bought wrapped tight in plastic). The book is littered with beauty. It's almost overwhelming. Such is Taschen!

I sort of knew that Klimt did portraiture, but I was unaware that he drew so many beautiful portraits. Klimt was a master at capturing personality. The Portrait of Rose von Rostborn-Friedmann is a good example. There is an adventurous spirit there (she was an alpinist who was one of the first women to scale two notable peaks), with a strong, sensual attractiveness that equals her pioneering elan.

As I alluded to earlier, I didn't agree with the editors all of the time. At first, I didn't buy the argument that Klimt was influenced by the Fauves after his golden period. The colors were all wrong: not fauvist at all. Later, though, I could see some Fauvist influence in the backgrounds of his later portraits. It wasn't as obvious as the authors portrayed it, but it's there, I'm willing to concede. Also, It's in landscapes, Tobias Natter (the editor) claims, that Klimt is most like the Symbolists. While I see that in some of his landscapes, I think it's in his mosaic works that I see the resemblance in a more profound, concrete way. Yes, the early landscapes are ethereal and hazy, like some of the Symbolists, and even his portraits show influence from Fernand Khnopff and Jan Toorop, but the outright iconography in his golden, bejewelled works speaks more to the mythic and symbolic to me than either his landscapes or portraits.

If you think Klimt's paintings are good, take a look at his drawings. The editor calls them "a parallel universe, existing alongside his painterly ouvre". So very true. Klimt's paintings and drawings are two sides of the same coin, each distinctive and each valuable. As with coins (I've collected a few medieval silver coins), one recognizes that both are beautiful and equally valuable, but any given viewer tends to prefer one over the other. It's obvious how Klimt's paintings have endured, but his much less-well-known drawings show a deft hand that might be overshadowed by the renown of the paintings. One thing I appreciated about the book's presentation of the drawings is that the editors chose to view Klimt's drawings not just through the lens of subject matter, but through the lens of mood and emotion. While they aren't always convincing in their categorization of this drawing or that, the mere attempt is bold and causes the reader to look at Klimt's drawings in a different, more interesting light.

Klimt's obituary provides great insight into the artist's influences, providing, with hindsight, a great window into his creative world:

What initially struck the viewer as being Klimt was not him, but something with which he was connected. Japan, China, Byzantium and the ancient and modern Orient. Italian and modern English Pre-Raphaelitism. French decorative and magical painting of the Moreau kind, Low Countries mysticism from the region of Khnopff, with colonial goods and gods in between. But if he took something from everything, it was because he was nothing less than an eclectic. He simply used this as nourishment and transformed it into Gustav Klimt.

The end of Klimt is, however, not quite the end of this review. I love works that push me into other stories, and this book is no exception. Here, the never-finished portrait of Ria Munk, who committed suicide after her scandalous affair with Hanns Heinz Ewers has stolen my attention. I will take many things from this book, but this portrait and the story before it, around it's unfinished creation, and it's aftermath (pushing well into the World War 2 era - Ewers was a noted Nazi supporter who was later considered "deviant" by the regime) is the sort of thing that epic myths are made of.

I think I'll be feeling the influence of this book for a long, long time.

Gustav Klimt is dead: Long live Klimt!


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Vienna Part I

 After our visit to the UK, which ended on a wonderful, exhausting day hike, we were off to Heathrow the next day to fly into Munich. After a very pleasant talk with the Munich police (no, really, they were super nice) we entered Germany and drove our rental car to an outlying hotel where we spent the night before heading to Vienna the next day.

And by "rental car," I mean the Mercedes that I splurged on. It was almost my 50th birthday, and . . . you know . . . the Autobahn!!! Now for some, a Mercedes is pretty run-of-the-mill, but not to this guy, whose fanciest car ever is the Camry sitting in my driveway.

I should note, also, that I was almost born on the Autobahn. My Dad had to drive my Mom from Frankfurt to Wiesbaden, where the hospital was, when she was in labor with me. There was a traffic jam and my Dad, being a brash American, decided to drive up the shoulder to bypass traffic. Mom was apparently about to pop! And, of course, he was pulled over by the Polizei. However, like a scene out of a bad movie, when the officer saw my mom's condition, he turned on his siren and led my Dad up the shoulder of the Autobahn all the way to the hospital. I waited until we were inside to make my entry into the world.

So, I had a sort of affinity to the Autobahn. I made sure to watch a LOT of youtube videos on Autobahn etiquette, because I was certain (and correct) that driving like an American there would land me in handcuffs explaining myself to some US diplomat. 

I'll be honest: Germans (and Austrians) are some of the best drivers I've ever encountered. Granted, that's comparing them to drivers in Italy, the Philippines, and Utah (ugh, Utah drivers - UGH!!!!), but the combination of courtesy, a strict adherence to the rules of the road, and a certain confidence in their driving ability made driving the Autobahn a pure pleasure.

I'll anticipate your next question: How fast did you go? Well, I topped out at 225 KMH or so, or around 140 MPH. Yeah. That was good stuff. Would definitely do it again, in a heartbeat. Natalie got some really bad pics of me approaching that speed, but she was a little freaked out that she might bump my arm and make this our last drive ever, so she only got the following shot. To be honest, I was really worried about her bumping me, too. What is the quote from Mario Andretti? "If you're in total control of your car, you're not racing." Or something like that:

After checking in to our Air B-n-B (thank you, Vera, you were wonderful!) we got passes for the U-bahn and headed to Figlmüller, which is, from what I understand, fairly famous for its schnitzel. You can see the extensive "specials" menu in the background behind Natalie here. We chose . . . um, let's see . . . uh . . . oh, yeah . . . schnitzel!

And, oh my, if you're in Vienna, make the time to get a meal here. Oh my, oh my, oh my. I ate mine like any good Wisconsinite would:

Okay, so Door County isn't exactly accurate here, but we had been in Europe for a week. I just forgot the correct proportions. Besides, I like abstract art.

There was also a potato salad that was to die for, but pictures of potato salad are so blasé, I will pass. The chocolate cake at the end, however . . . you know, I'm typing this while fasting. Sometimes I really hate myself:

Then there was this apple-soda sort of thing that I absolutely fell in love with: Almdüdler. I had it a couple more times while we were over there. I need to find a US source for this. NEED . . .

Why do all the best things in German-speaking countries have "ü" in them? I don't know.

After dinner (Tip: You'll DEFINITELY want to get reservations ahead of time!), we headed to Stephansdom to check out that beautiful cathedral. 

And, lest we forget: Gargoyles are everywhere in Vienna:

Yes, it is as gorgeous in person as in the pictures. No, actually, it's better!

One bit of advice: If you visit Vienna, LOOK UP!!! There is so much gorgeous architecture there, from gothic to art nouveau to modern and everything in-between. It's an architectural historian's dream. For example, there's this building (I never did get the ID on this one, as with many buildings there, since I was too busy gawking to worry about names), which is right on Stephansdom Platz.

Or, there was this very cool modern building that faced Stephansdom. Note the thinned reflection of Stephansdom in the photo I took here.

Also note that in that upper window area was a statue that looked down (probably with great condescension) on the Platz. I couldn't tell what the statue was, but I got the impression that some power broker of some type had his office in there:

Most people just went about their business, completely ignorant of this inanimate onlooker. I had about a dozen story ideas flash through my brain when I saw this. I'll need to work on those.

And we saw this beautiful art-deco cornerpiece on our way to the Secession building:

I had visions of Wim Wender's "Wings of Desire" here. No, it's not Berlin, but this style would have fit right into the movie. Or maybe "Blade Runner"?

On to the Vienna Secession building, which was absolutely stunning. Here, try pictures, not words:

Again: more beautiful in person, but you get the idea. I'd say this was my favorite building that we saw on our entire Europe trip. I was absolutely gobsmacked.

After waking up from that architectural dream, we took the U-Bahn (the transportation system that makes Vienna one of the most "livable" cities I've visited) to Marien Theresa Platz. I'll skip the history lesson (you can look up Maria Theresa on the interwebs) and show our first impression of the old Empress:

Yep, she had her back to us, the old snob. So we favored her by going around front:

As you can see, night was falling, so we turned our backsides to her (turnabout's fair play, as they say) and headed for Hofburg Palace and the surrounding buildings. 

The palace was all nice and such, but I had really come to see . . . Orcs?

Isn't that some fine, fine Orcitechture? And don't try to tell me it's not an orc, it totally is, and you are wrong!

There was an interesting building that was obviously made for grand entrances and exits to the palace grounds that we quite liked:

Hercules beats people up, absconds with women, you know, his typical schtick. What I love the most about this, though is this lion "hiding" atop the gate (#rollforinitiative):

And these decked out battle maidens:

I would totally want these paladin-ladies (Paladiens?) in my adventuring party. They are ready to rumble!

Lastly, there was this super-cool piece of statuary of an aquatic nature, though I'm not sure which myth it represents. Anyone? Bueller?

When we approached this statue, some guy was taking a picture of someone who was either his sister or his girlfriend and she looked EXACTLY like the woman at the top of the statue. I mean EXACTLY (well, except for the clothing). I didn't get a picture of her, unfortunately. But somehow, even though I tried hard to protect people's privacy, I caught some girl who had weaseled her way in just as I was taking my shot. She most definitely did not look like the statue and was, I am hoping, cursed by the goddess of the statue to be . . . I don't know, infested by eels or sea urchins or something?

On the way back to our place, we did some window shopping. We spotted the following in a window and were sad that we didn't have hundreds of Euros to just blow on an outfit for our grandson that he'd outgrow in a few months.

Is that not the kyooootest little boy outfit you've ever seen? Oh that I had money to throw around like that. *sigh*.

Then, of course, I spotted the following jacket in a window (the first of many such jackets I would lust after and not be able to justify buying):

So, our sartorial ambitions crushed by financial reality, we went back to our Air BnB to rest up for the next day and our visit to the Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien.

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Salzburg

 Did I mention that I'm fasting again? Social media fasting, that is. I would get used to it - the less time I spend on social media, the more I like being away from it, or at least limiting myself to blocks of time. At this rate, I will likely be spending more time off of social media than on it. Not that I'm anti-social - far from it - but I find that I just feel mentally healthier when I'm not on it constantly. Having that time allows me to work on writing and RPG projects, write snail mail letters to people I think are really cool, and do more blog posts like this, not to mention doing real-life projects (like I did with the Esoteric Denim). And while I do really enjoy most of my time on social media, I find that life without it, or with an intentionally-limited amount of it, is more fulfilling. I watched my parents die a few years ago, particularly, I spent the last two weeks of my Dad's life with him, and after that, I really took a more close assessment of what I really love to do in life, what makes me feel emotionally full and healthy, and social media was pretty far down the list. I don't disparage my friends who are on social media (some of which I became friends with because of social media), but there are only so many days allotted in a life, and I don't want to look back from my deathbed having spent a regrettable amount of time trying to get likes and getting in heated political arguments with people whom I don't even know, all the while feeling "hollowed out" in the process. Alright, enough of that.

One thing that I love to do, and that we can't really do now because of the coronapocalypse, is travel. Now, I can't afford to travel much. But in Summer of 2019, my wife and I went to Europe to celebrate my 50th birthday and our 28th anniversary. We spent two days in Salzburg as a part of that trip. This is all about day one. We had just spent about a week in Vienna (I'll do blog posts on that at a later date) and, after driving up from Vienna (in our nice Mercedes rental car), we found our AirBnB (man, I sure hope AirBnB survives COVID-19!), We simply crashed out. We woke, to this:

"Sehr schon," as they say, and that was just the view outside our windows! After a groggy awakening (mountain air is thinner, remember), we went online and got our bus tickets (Dear Biden administration: Want to really help the economy? Start subsidizing public transit on a large scale, especially in smaller municipalities. You're welcome.). We were about a ten minute bus ride from central Salzburg. But don't kid yourself - central Salzburg just means the "old town" - it's really not that big of a city at all. 150,000 people or so. And it felt much smaller than that! Still, the bus had to circle around for what seemed like forever before we disembarked, mostly due to that pesky Danube River one has to cross over. Note that the river was far from blue at the time. In fact, it was murky because there had been flooding up in the mountains. We saw chunks of wood rushing through the rapids that might have been pieces of houses, for all I know. After disembarking from the bus, we were here:

I love the high, steep walls abutting the calcareous alps. Cobblestone streets added to the charm, of course, as did the close alleyway shops. It just felt so darned European! Granted, we had been in Europe for almost two weeks by this point, but there was a certain quaintness about Salzburg that we really enjoyed.

We were really hungry, fresh of the bus, so we stopped at, what else? A sausage stand in the city square. My wife got Currywurst, while I opted for the more traditional Weisswurst. Oh, my, oh, my, oh, my. I had forgotten how much I loved that stuff. I don't think I had eaten it since I was a kid and my grandmother (oh, so very German) cooked it for us. It's a good thing we were only visiting, or I would have had to check into the hospital after eating there for, oh, about a month or so. Those lederhosen don't pop out like that for lack of good sausage.

After this nice, hot breakfast, we dove into the alleys and had a look around:

If you can't tell, there are a LOT of churches in Salzburg. You wonder why the joke about Wisconsin is that every town has at least five bars and five churches? Look no further than their germanic roots. Speaking of churches, we ducked into one church, mostly because it was next to the most accessible public restrooms and, given the lines, I needed something to do while waiting for my wife to make it through the seemingly interminable line. Here are some snaps from that:

As to why they had the Witch King of Angmar seated outside one of the bigger churches, I can't tell you. No one seemed to want to approach this statue for reasons I can't fathom. I did have a look a the plaque on the base there, but I didn't think to take a picture of it. This is probably just as well. If I had, I'm pretty sure my eyes would have been scoured out by some vengeful spirit that night, a'la M.R. James.

It wasn't all traditional Austrian tropes there, though. There were some oddities. Take, for instance, these:

The Nazgul looked out on the scene you see in the first picture here. I was practically sitting on his lap when I took that picture. Was that the icy hand of doom I felt on my shoulder? Probably. Yes, that's a human figure atop that gold . . . ball . . . thing. I can't remember who it was. Maybe the founder of the city or some important historical figure, I dunno. Perhaps I should have paid more attention. And what's with the junior Nazi goat? Modern art, that's what! You can direct any further questions to the artist herself.  The Green Man is a more traditionally historic figure, but finding this statue in the middle of a small parking lot behind some buildings was highly unexpected, and yet, creepily welcome. 

After wandering many of the labyrinthine streets of Salzburg, we decided to climb up to the castle. Okay, truth be told, we didn't make it all the way up. Well, we did, but to actually enter the castle would have cost us something ridiculous or at least something out of our budget at the moment. Stupid American tourists thinking you can just walk into a castle for free. Oh well, we still got a great view over the rooflines. I kept waiting for a spontaneous LARP of Assassin's Creed to break out. You can see why in these pictures:

And, yes, we were bedraggled. Once again it rained a bit and we were unprepared for it. Oh well. We dried out later.

Returning to street level, we entered the labyrinth again. While there, I took a photo of the traditional Austrian dress, mostly because I was seriously lusting after the jacket there. Actually, I had been lusting after one since we were in Vienna, but wanted to get a picture of this specific one because I knew I couldn't afford it (did I mention funds were dwindling at this point?). Someday, though, I might spring for one. That Von Trapp getup is rather appealing to me.

I'm not too keen about the lederhosen, but that jacket is. To. Die. For.

There were some other quaint buildings. The courtyard in the first photo is something you don't really see in the US anymore (did you ever?) - a true Biergarten. And the yellow building is something something Mozart's birthplace something . . . 

Speaking of Mozart, one of the highlights of our trip (for me, at least) was attending the Salzburg Marionetten Theatre. Oh, yes, I had those tickets months in advance! I was not going to miss this! We went to see Mozart's Die Zauberflöte. This was the first full text I read in German in college and I love the fantastical, mystical story, full of occult themes and, well, magic. It was such a treat! If you're ever over there and if you have any liking for The Brothers Quay, Jan Svankmajer, etc., like I do, you cannot miss this! I couldn't take pictures of the performance, of course, nor would I have wanted to. I was too busy being transported into another world to fuss with a camera (besides, it was verboten). I hadn't been so eyeball-deep in a performance in a long time. It truly was magical. While in the lobby, I took some pictures of past puppets, sets, and murals.

I loved them all, but I was particularly enamored of the devil-bugs, though I can't remember what play they were taken from. In any case, they had a strong influence on one of my current (still secret, but you'll hear about it early next year) roleplaying projects I'm working on for Mutant Crawl Classics. If you need a dose of weird inspiration, I give the Salzburg Marionetten Theatre my absolutely-strongest recommendation. A must-see!

The next morning, we awoke and went back "downtown" to await our bus for The Eagle's Nest and Berchtesgaden (a tale for a later day).While we were waiting, I took a couple of shots, one of a garden and another of a stage in the middle of the garden's maze. I texted and told my daughter (a Shakespearean actress - I can call her that because she's been paid to perform Shakespeare) that I would love nothing more than to see her perform on this little, hidden-away stage. Perhaps someday.

Someday . . . 

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