A performance with consequences

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I normally don’t take photos during performances – it is too distracting – for me, for the audience and often for the actors on stage. However, I tried out my new cell phone to capture this picture (this is a few years back, it was my first mobile capable of photos and I was stunned what I could do without a flash). It was a performance by our local folklore society, usually a combination of mostly authentic costumes, a great painted backdrop (merely 50 years old), mediocre writing, bad acting, and worse singing. As you can probably tell, I myself am often a part of these proceedings (which makes it even more difficult to take photos).

I picked this photo because I really wanted to feature the young maiden standing left of the tall guy in the middle. She was the reason I came to this performance, laughed a lot, and joined the group a couple of years later. I blame her!

Linked to the Ragtag Daily Prompt: Stage.

Rewriting history

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From 16th century until 1885 this square in Frankfurt am Main was known as the “Judenmarkt” (the Jewish market). In 1885 it was named officially as “Börneplatz” to honour Julius Börne, an early 19th century journalist born in the Jewish Ghetto of Frankfurt. In 1935 it was changed to “Dominikanerplatz” as names of Jewish people were eradicated by the Nazi government. In 1978 this injustice was rectified by the Frankfurt town council and the square was once again known as “Börneplatz”. While excavating the ground around the square for planned new buildings, the foundations of several antique Jewish buildings, two mikwehs amongst them, were found. After long discussions, the square was remodelled as the “Neuer Börneplatz” (new Börnesquare) which now includes a memorial with the almost 12,000 names of the known Jewish Frankfurt citizens who were victims of the Nazi annihilation policy.

Linked to One Word Sunday: History.

The successor of Kater Murr

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The writer in the family, Henry, prefers writing by paw although he can also use the keyboard of the computer.

Sometimes finding the right words is agony.

But once the work is done he can sleep the sleep of the just.

Kater Murr is the feline fictional writer of the autobiography The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr. Murr, who is a proper fuddy-duddy of his time (early 19th century), writes his thoughts about his life and life in general on scrap paper he finds. On the flipsides of the papers are the fragments of a biography of the musician Kreisler, where ETA Hoffmann, the German Romantic-era author, set down his thoughts on art. The whole novel contrasts these two lives on opposite sides of the scale, it offers deep intellectual insights on Hoffmann’s ideas about art and aesthetics on the one hand, and humourous and wild anecdotes of the life of a tomcat.

Linked to the Ragtag Daily Prompt: Write.

Stern

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This sculpture of a man, presumably a church minister, sits in front of a bank in Lindenfels. I couldn’t find out anything else about him.

#1 The original had a lot of things going on in the background.

#2 I edited out the background.

#3 I flipped to negative and tweaked the contrast.

#4 I maxed out saturation.

#5 I overlaid artifical depth of field

Linked to One to Three Challenge in December.