Monthly Archives: December 2018

Four years of blogging on a collaborative friendship

There is no Friendship, only great friends, each one incomparable and irreplaceable. With this post I am marking 4 years and 220 posts of my regular blogging on piano, poetry, and politics in dialogue with such a friend, Dr. Pantelis … Continue reading

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Daniel Herwitz: “Avant-Garde Legacies: Identity Politics in a Consumerist World”

What is the legacy of the avant-garde today?  My dear friend and colleague at Michigan, Daniel Herwitz, and I spent one of our regular lunches together exploring this question.  As I was telling him that my ten-part travelogue across five … Continue reading

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The 1916 Event “Cabaret Voltaire” in Zürich (Travels in revolutionary Mitteleuropa, from the Rhine to the Danube/10-end)

If rebels are damned and comrades turn into hermits, is it still possible to join friends in planning together the next revolt? In fact it is possible, especially among emigrés in a cosmopolitan city, as I remembered when I took … Continue reading

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The 1912 Friends as “Hermits” in Vienna (Travels in revolutionary Mitteleuropa, from the Rhine to the Danube/9)

If revolutions fail and rebels are damned, what happens to friends like my two favorite comrades conspiring in Caspar Friedrich’s painting in 1819 Dresden?   If they do not plan the next revolt, what do they talk about when they contemplate … Continue reading

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The 1910 Rebels’ “Hell” in Paris (Travels in revolutionary Mitteleuropa, from the Rhine to the Danube/8)

Near the end of my brief journey across Central European rivers and revolts, Rodin’s The Gates of Hell (1880-1917) appears to me as a memorial to the perennial, tragic failure of the revolution and the damnation of the rebels. Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) … Continue reading

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The 1849 Dresden Uprising (Travels in revolutionary Mitteleuropa, from the Rhine to the Danube/7)

Standing on the viewing platform of the exterior dome (the famous “stone bell”) of the restored Frauenkirche, I walked around, admiring the winding river Elbe and the Augustusbrücke, the oldest of its Dresden bridges. Yet I focused on the area … Continue reading

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The 1848 Prague Uprising (Travels in revolutionary Mitteleuropa, from the Rhine to the Danube/6)

Standing on the arch Čech Bridge on the Moldau in Prague, I can see Wenceslas Square, where one of the most important revolutions between March 1948-November 1849 against the Hapsburg Empire took place. Starting on June 2, 1848, the Czechs … Continue reading

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The 1848 “Hecker Uprising” in Konstanz (Travels in revolutionary Mitteleuropa, from the Rhine to the Danube/5)

In my visit to the Rosgarten Museum in Konstanz I was inspired to meet lawyer, politician, and agitator Friedrich Hecker (1811-81), one of the most passionate, adventurous, colorful, and paradigmatic revolutionary figures of his century. Hecker was a protagonist in … Continue reading

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