Without Lifting A Finger

 Lubeck, Germany. St. Catherine's. Ernst Barlach's sculptures: L to R: Woman in the Wind, Beggar, Singing Monastic Student. #rlswihart13 @rl_swihart #lubeck #germany #ernstbarlach #art #poetry #sculpture #readmorepoetry 







J. G. Niederegger GmbH & Co. KG is a producer of marzipan and sweets. It is based in Lübeck , Germany . Niederegger was founded by Johann Georg Niederegger on 1 March 1806 [ 1 ] in Lübeck and is since known for their marzipan for about 200 years. The company is a family-owned limited private partnership.   [From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niederegger ] 

In Europa I ping-ponged between Mann's short stories and Gombrowicz's Diary (Ok, admittedly, I hit Mann harder than Gombrowicz). When I got to Niederegger's I thought maybe I should be reading Buddenbrooks (they'd turned the novel into a candy box). Still, both Tonio Kroger and Aschenbach hail from northern cities (I believe Aschenbach is from the city of L...). *      Nothing is stranger, more delicate, than the relationship between people who know each other only by sight -- who encounter and observe each other daily, even hourly, and yet are compelled by the constraint of convention or by their own temperament to keep up the pretense of being indifferent strangers, neither greeting nor speaking to each other. Between them is uneasiness and overestimated curiosity, the nervous excitement of an unsatisfied, unnaturally suppressed need to know and to communicate; and above all, too, a kind of strained respect. For man loves and respects his fellow man for ...

Decided to get a bit more ambitious. I have an accordion-like postcard (bought it in Marienkirche years ago), consisting of eight panels, showing the whole dance, from  Pabst (Pope) to Wiegenkind (infant). Comparing the 8th card here with the original (see below), it's obvious re details that these are not exact duplicates. Still . . .

Lubeck totentanz window , a photo by Tryppyhead on Flickr. The person who took this photograph informs me that this window is in Marienkirche (he says it was meant to replace the original Der Totentanz paintings). Either it wasn't a sunny day and it didn't catch my attention, or I just plain missed it. Will certainly look for it the next time I'm in Lubeck's Marienkirche.

Apparently the Death and the Maiden motif is rooted in the more encompassing Der Totentanz (Dance of Death), and probably (reaching further back) the Greek myth of Hades and Persephone. One of my favorite cities is Lubeck, Germany so I'll post just a fraction of Lubeck's Der Totentanz (I believe this is the Juengling and Jungfrau --and at the far right a somewhat distorted Wiegenkind ). [From Wikimedia Commons]

Of course Lubeck means marzipan and Buddenbrooks, but today it means the Holsten Tor, the Gunter Grass Museum, and Ernst Barlach's statues at St. Catherine's.  So, get something hot at Balzac's Coffee and let's go... Holsten Tor Barlach's Statues outside St. Catherine's   Two shots in the courtyard of Gunter Grass's Museum