Part 7
An artist's booth at the Christmas Art Fair in Munich. The booths themselves were works of art, and obviously disassembled and re-assembled each year for the Christmas Festival season in Munich. The booths were functional, too, equipped with sparkling lights and small radiant heaters for the vendors, so they could tolerate a cold winter's day.
A strikingly beautiful craftsman's puppet at the Christmas Art Fair in Munich. In Zurich and Munich we saw handmade crafts, reflecting ancient traditions, and very much alive and well.
Europe, and especially the middle-European Germanic countries, have a technological spirit that grows out of musical and artistic craftsmanship, unlike the English-speaking countries, where technology seems to have grown more out of the mass-production industrial-age factories of the early Nineteenth century. There is a distinct flavor - romantic, audacious, and technologically bold - to the Middle European traditions of musicianship, craftsmanship, art, science, and technology.
Inside what I think was the Frauenkirche cathedral in the center of Munich - a peaceful respite from a bitterly cold December evening. Quiet, hushed, and much appreciated by this half-frozen photographer. A truly peaceful spot, some of which comes through in the photographs.
Two women lighting candles in the cathedral while the priest is at the altar. The silence of a cathedral in the center of a city - a quiet murmur and hush, the street sounds randomized into white noise by the very long reverb times of the vast stone space.
A few minutes later, and we're at the Christmas Fair in the Town Hall, or Rathaus, in the center of Munich. Gary Pimm and Allen Wright are on the lower right part of the picture - we were starting to get really cold when this picture was taken - I think the temperature was something like -5C, or 21F. Cold by Northwest standards. Allen joked that thanks to the winter weather, there were probably only two American tourists in the city - us!
Allen then guided us down the block to a nice warm upscale department store that had an outstanding selection of jazz and classical Super Audio CD's - the best I'd seen in some time. European, American, and Japanese SACD's, take your pick - and we did, scooping up some Christmas souvenirs of our own. Next morning, Munich airport, change planes in Amsterdam, and off to the Pacific Northwest.
