Comments | labrysinthe: Adventures on Hot Dog Way

labrysinthe

Adventures on Hot Dog Way

Jun 08, 2008 21:33

About five years ago, I was pedaling a LifeCycle, a stationary bike, in a Brooklyn gym. Sick of reading and sick of watching the monitor count how many calories I'd burned off, I closed my eyes and imagined traveling through the country.

And then I remembered that, when I was a kid, they had bikes with actual wheels, and you could ride them to ( Read more... )

berlin

Comments 7

rikochan9 June 9 2008, 06:56:12 UTC

Figured I'd still leave you a comment. :)

Yes re: the computer keyboards....totally confusing...

and it sounds like we both had awesome weekends. :)

Can't wait to see you!!!

btw, one of my rehearsals turns out to be TODAY!

labrysinthe June 9 2008, 09:46:50 UTC

yee haw! have fun! :D can't wait to see you either!

Pergamon mrothman June 9 2008, 23:01:52 UTC

Hi Natalia... when Judith and I visited Turkey last summer, one of the highlights was a visit to Pergamon. It is a vast and beautiful site of great historic interest.

To hear our guide tell the story, the German archaeologists who "transfered" the remains of the Alter did so under guise of a "deal" struck with the bankrupt Ottoman Emperor in exchange for a few miles of German built rail lines in Turkey.

Oh, by the way, the Turks would like their Alter back, if you please.

Re: Pergamon labrysinthe June 10 2008, 09:43:08 UTC

Yep, and the Native Americans would like their ENTIRE COUNTRY back :D :D :D

History's just full of shortsighted business deals, ain't it?

Anyway, yes: archaeology used to be a fancy word for "plundering," before someone got the idea that maybe antiquities belonged to the actual countries they were found in...

Re: Pergamon morsobscena June 10 2008, 21:13:34 UTC

As Natalia says, such "transactions" were not uncommon in 19th and early 20th century archaeology, which, sadly, was in many cases no more than antiquities smuggling and tomb raiding. Certainly, the practice was not limited to the Germans. Museums all over the world are filled with artifacts and sometimes entire buildings or other monumental works that were removed and carted across oceans in wooden crates and reassembled as "found" works of art ( ... )

Re: Pergamon mrothman June 11 2008, 04:11:15 UTC

It is a complicated story, isn't it.

Recently we were in Golden Gate Park, an artificial creation in San Francisco, which in its natural state was one big sand dune. At the park, we walked around Stow Lake, an artificial lake in the artificial park. All very beautiful, mind you.

The lake is rimmed with massive stone blocks, the remains of an Irish monistary disassembled, crated and shipped by William Randalph Hurst to California nearly a hundred years ago. Once they arrived in San Francisco Hurst lost interest in rebuilding the structure and the crates sat in a warehouse for years, until the city took them to help form the lake.

All in all, it would have been better to have just left the monistary in Ireland.

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