Europe

Wow, that was fun.

We were a great quartet on the road through France (Alsace), Switzerland, Germany, Austria, and Cesky Krumlov in the Czech Republic. We majored in Munich and I think the other three are glad we did: had to major in something during the 12 days, might as well be Munich, thought I. Biggest hit there was the Viktualien Markt behind the Marienplatz: all manner of exotic food stalls and a biergarten. Well . . . Hofbraühaus was fun for all, too (I've managed to outgrow my innate snobbishness, but I did take them to a less well known beer hall first. Just to make sure . . . ). Only problem was that Erin and I seemed to be the only ones who knew words and tune to "Ein prosit . ." which the band played every twenty minutes--too damned many touring furrigners . . .

Biggest surprise to start with was an upgrade on the car from a Beemer 5 Series wagon to the Beemer X5 SUV with inline 6 turbo-diesel and an incredible navigation system. It held all of our luggage with even a little room to see out the back window and was very comfortable, even in the back seat. And did that sucker scoot: Gene got it up to 220 kph with pedal room left, but it seemed that every time I drove it there was either rain or a lot of construction so I only got to get it to 180. Sigh. Such travails.

Oh. And we did eat, drink and make merry, the highlight of which was a great Italian restaurant in Munich where we could watch the cook and sous chef work and listen to them holler at the waiters, the customers (all of whom seemed to be Italian) and each other. The chef/owner forced some very smooth grappa down my gullet for free during one of his smoke breaks at an outside table: he and his son-in-law thought I was the best American they'd ever met because I could speak both German and Italian. They may be right. The Colwitz's and I went through three bottles of wine and a dessert shot of grappa each. I had the worst hangover of the bunch the next morning. Groan. I'm back to asceticism, thank goodness.

So that's the important stuff to us guys: cars and food. Gene even liked the Munich beer and now he knows where Wisconsin got its brats. The unimportant lady piffle wasn't bad, either--city tours, quaint walled cities, experiencing the best social democracies outside of Scandinavia, museums, shopping for Bohemian crystal in CZ, and Munich's smooth, fast rapid transit. The highlight of the tour was High Mass on Pentecost Sunday at St. Stephens in Vienna. The resident Cardinal officiated, the chorus and professional orchestra did Haydn's Harmonie Messe (damned well, by the way), the air was suffused with smells and bells and the place was SRO (Pentecost is a big deal in Europe). All in all a real cultural thrill for the three Catholic Colwitz's and even for this lapsed Lutheran. Also in Vienna, it was great seeing USC Chamber Choir alums Melanie Heyn and Gabe Wyner, who have been there quite a while studying opera and voice; they showed us around the inner city and we had fun at dinner together talking about their studies and their lives as ex-pats in Deutscher Land.

For me, the most fun was using my German daily after over twenty years. It came back fairly quickly and I was never mistaken for American; if nothing else, my pronunciation is very good, guided as it is by my musician's ear. Gloat.

So cities, in order: Colmar, Bern, Geneva (with a short side trip to Montreux--Lord, what a beautiful location), Munich (including Dachau concentration camp), Salzburg, Vienna, Cesky Krumlov, Munich again, Dinkelsbühl (and Rothenburg), Frankfurt. Total of four nights in Munich, two each in Geneva and Vienna, one night each elsewhere, except Bern, which was just a morning stop-over from Colmar to Geneva. Hotels ranged from one 4-star (Vienna) to a cutesy B and B (Dinkelsbühl). The rest were great except for the second Munich one, which sucked despite the three stars it seemed to have earned somehow.

***

For more pics, see Viking Goddess's album at picasa.google.com. Since arriving home, Erin has been busy acquiring leadership of a fine community chorus here in town (three cheers for her), and running rehearsals for an opera and a musical most nights. I've been busy acquiring her birthday present: a new 2008 Wolfsburg Edition VW Jetta. Red. With the two-liter GTI turbo motor (200 bhp). Got ground effects all around, plus a lip spoiler on the trunk lid. Snakey little thing. Premium, 10-speaker sound system with Sirius radio, too. Only problem is some hail dimples on all horizontal surfaces from the last big winter storm, but that lowered the price mucho plenty. We'll leave them there for the time being, until we have enough money to get paintless dent removal. We donated Erin's nine-year-old Mitsubishi with 170k miles to our local NPR station for the tax deduction.

Bis nächstes Mal: wiedersehen.

Answer

OK, so:

It's from a psychological profile of Adolf Hitler done by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during WWII. The OSS (Wild Bill Donovan's Boys and Girls--Julia Childs was one of them) is the wartime forerunner of the CIA. The quote I used is drawn directly from a page of Mein Kampf, almost verbatim. I was struck dumb by the similarity to the tactics used for eight years by the Axis of Evil: Bush-Cheney-Rove. When I read it to Erin and asked her who it was, that was her first guess. (Actually, Bush is not bright enough to qualify as evil; he was a failed college twit easily lead astray by the other two, but you get my point).

I think that they learned a lot from Paul Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda minister and the founder of modern mass propaganda. It was from him that George Orwell and Aldous Huxley got their main ideas for 1984 and Brave New World, respectively. I found the quote in the blog whilst googling Goebbels and ran across The Big Lie, Hitler's idea that people will question and forgive small lies but will most probably believe the Big One, especially if repeated often enough, which is what Goebbels did (as did Bush: Iraq, yellow cake; Cheney: WMD, 9/11 = Al Qaeda; Rove: the Kerry smears, and as do Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, Tantaros/Malkin, Fixed News, Ingraham, et.al.: anything about Obama and the Democrats and their work-- 'never concede that there may be some good in your enemy'.

I mean, hell, even Hitler had two good ideas: the freeway and the Volkswagen. Is that what the TeaBaggers mean when they compare Obama to Hitler? Must be. 'Twould be laughable were it not so pathetic ('Note his elegant use of the subjunctive! Isn't he something, though?!').

One of my favorite lines from Huxley: 1,720,426 repetitions = One Truth. Sad but, I fear, true.

I came across the quote during my reading of The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell. Almost all of the characters in it are real Nazis from the period with major roles in the Holocaust, so I spent a long time with Wikipedia looking them up. The novel's protaganist is 'one sick puppy' who is with the SD/SS involved with killing squads in the Ukraine and is later involved with Auschwitz and Mauthausen. He is unrepentant.

I stayed with the book (almost 1000 pages) because of my interest in WWII, not because of style or plot, both of which are turgid (one paragraph ran four pages) and/or ridiculous. The French (original language) loved the book, naturally, while the Brits and Yanks gave it either an A or an F. For me it was fascinating as history (and very accurate), but as literature it sucked. Jonathan's daddy, Robert, is a far better writer (in the spy/espionage genre) and I have read all of his books. So in this case, as one reviewer put it, 'the apple falls galaxies from the tree.'

My recommendation: unless you are retired and interested in WWII history, give this one a pass.

Thanks to the three who responded, even though two cheated and got the answer through
Google! Tsk, tsk.

Hope spring is being good to y'all wherever you are.

Quiz

"His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it."


^{Hey, gang. Anyone have an idea who the above refers to? I'll give you the Answer and the source only if you either email me or make a guess in the comment section of the blog. You gonna be amazed. Then again, maybe not.}

April . . .

. . . may be the cruelest month around here: tornado sirens again yesterday, followed by a 5-minute gully washer that included marble-sized hail. Knocked the phone out and it's still not back on. On the other hand, finally had two days in a row of warm, dry weather to finish the media unit for the bedroom. Never used gel stain before and it is marvelous stuff: you can use a disposable foam brush, second coat goes on with rags, not necessary to sand between coats; just used #250 sandpaper before I began. Results above. Beauty, eh? Gene Colwitz and I made the doors, I mounted the hardware (perfectly, of course). You can see how it matches the corner shelf (in mirror), the lamp wood and my silent butler. What you can't see is the bedspread and shams, which is where Erin got the accent color (called Java by the stain company, Espresso by designers after three Cosmos). We have the most beautiful bedroom in creation. And only Louis XIV had a bigger one. Oh, and that's the 26-incher LCD I bought for my Torrance apartment. Talk about perfect fit!

***

Take a look at my elder daughter's blogpage (www.loadedword.blogspot.com): great pic of me during my last visit instructing the boys on the finer points of hoops during that first weekend of March Madness. They actually listened. For ten minutes. Long enough to get the pic, anyway. Poor guys: it would be like me trying to keep track of the puck during televised hockey. Never could.

***

Milestone today: my 100th workout at the local YMCA since 1 July, when I joined. Have gone from 30,000 lbs./week to 41,500. I guess that's progress. Wish the Fitlinxx system could transfer; I had a year's worth of workouts in San Pedro and two year's worth in Torrance. But it doesn't matter: they don't give away T-shirts here for achieving the levels, anyway. I'm working on brown: already have white, yellow and red that I got from Peedro and Torrance. I need to bitch to the Bama manager about that.

***

Speaking of bitching: did I tell you that they tax food in this state? Unbelievable: that's the most regressive tax imaginable. On the other hand, property and income taxes are nothing around here, which of course helps the rich. Welcome to the Red-State South. Damned Republicans.

***

So this has evolved from ThreeDot journalism to ThreeAsterisk journalism. Thanks for the read, Buddy: that makes three. 'Preeshate it, as the coaches and car salesman say. Off to the Y and the dog park now; Erin off to an extra rehearsal. It's a long time until college football season; baseball is boring and golf is for tastelessly dressed Republicans. Sigh. How they must hate that the best in the game is buff, handsome, Stanford-educated, and half-black. Snicker. Neither is a sport, by they way, they're both games. And I'm not as hard-ass as Hemingway, who said that there were only three sports: bullfighting, boxing and rugby; all the rest are games.

Convening

Went to the ACDA National Convention in Oklahoma City last week. The event itself? OK: best choral performance I heard in my opinion was a small British group, VOCES8--fantastic and artistic. I got chills for the first time in a long time. Truly. But did not hear UT or Hak-Won Yoon's Incheon City group from Korea. Heard they were stunning, especially the pros from Incheon.

New people: Debra Cairns, U. Alberta, Canada; Alec Harris, GIA Publishing; Mia Can't-Remember-Last-Name from Portland.

Was also great to see Hugh Davies (plus Tony and Christina), Kirke Mechem, Polly and Burt, Ginger and Rich, Mary Breden, Paul Salamunivich, Allan Petker, Jo from Daegu, Korean Deutsche Sprecher from Pusan, Patricia Corbin, and too many Korean acquaintances to remember much less pronounce. And of course waved and hollered at too many other folks to remember.

Wonderful to see former students In-Gi Min (Korea), Chung-Uk Lee, Soon-Jung Kim, Dominic Gregorio, Shawna Stewart, Charles Jurgensmeier, Bill Bausano, David Hughes, Aya Ueda (UOP), Michelle Jensen. The former students named here and below span three institutions and my entire 37-year collegiate career, starting with Bill B. (1970) and ending with Dominic (2007).

Great to have meals and martinis with former students Rob Istad, Ariel Quintana and TJ Harper. The latter two, Erin and I had an especially wonderful time together until 2:30 AM at the funkiest cowboy bar I've ever seen, the Wormy Dog Saloon (bar stools were saddles). Unfortunately, I lost my Louis Vuitton tie there that was a gift from the Chamber Choir and that cost a small car payment. Sob . . . Also had a meal with current Bama colleague, Ian Loeppky. (Still owe y'all $35, friend. Getcha back soon down here in Dixie).

The picture you see above is 32 years worth of all former conductors of the USC Chamber Choir except its founder, Charles Hirt. From left to right: Jo-Michael Scheibe (current), Paul Salamunivich (one-year interim following me), Rod Eichenberger (15 years--'76-91), James Vail (two-year interim following Eichenberger), Me (15 years--92-07). A lot of people commented on how good I look, all thanks to my own cooking plus 39,000 pounds and 225 hoop shots/week. Oh, and, uh, being personally happy doesn't hurt either, I suppose.

I don't really go much for the conventions themselves anymore but for the people. And what a great time it was, including a chance at the end to chat quite a while with former fan and current blog reader, Lori Marie Rios. She loves my derriere, I love her frontiere--actually, love all of ya, darlin'. Comment now, y'hear? Don't just read.

That goes for all of you: Comment so I know someone's out there. Sniff.

Married

Erin and I got married a week ago today. It was a short civil event at the county courthouse here in Huntsville. Our witnesses were two great men who are partners in life: Wilson and Ron. They both work for the library at the university and both are musicians--Wilson an organist and Ron a very accomplished, fine tenor who is in demand as a soloist hereabouts. The reason we chose them is that they were part of Erin's selection committee and it was love at first sight: they loved her and vice versa. They really lobbied her to take the job and move here. We are glad they did. You see above the wedding party at the courthouse, the pre-dinner bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape I bought (yum), and below, us at the wedding dinner. (Note the custom made, double breasted, double vented blazer that was built for my bod at the tailor shop in the expensive hotel where I stayed last time I was in Korea. Spiffy, eh. The tailor was a prizewinner in a Swiss international competition).

So Sam is no longer a bastard dog and has real parents, which is a genuine relief to him, poor thing; he was embarrassed at the city dog park when asked about his current situation by other dogs. They pointed at him and laughed.

No longer. And Erin can now refer to me as her husband instead of her partner--which sounded like she was a lesbian, or as her man--which sounded like she was trailer trash. As for me, I was accustomed to being referred to occasionally as Mr. Colwitz and I once referred to myself early on as her live-in lover to a couple of delivery men who just spluttered and went about their work without ever looking me directly in the eye.

Now we have all the certificates that make it legal, one of which has Holy Matrimony on it (this is Alabama, after all) even though God was not mentioned by the judge, who by the way signs his name as Tommy instead of Thomas, even though middle-aged and an official of the court (this is Alabama, after all). Only his mom should call him Tommy, for Pete's sake.

Oh, and we didn't have to get an AIDS test (Alabama . . . )

"Holy Matrimony, Batman!!" This has become our new expletive.

We are both very pleased with our new status, though it hasn't affected (NOT impacted!) our relationship a bit: it remains the happy, affectionate, easy, contented, and occasionally erotic one that it was before Tommy's sanction of it. We are both very grateful for that. Holy Matrimony!

Erin's family is very happy for us, as is what remains of mine. Not everyone knows about it yet, even though Erin blabbed it all over Facebook (we were supposed to wait until the printed announcements arrived and were mailed, which happened yesterday. But no, Colwitz has to put it up on to the Cyber Gossip Page. Jeez).

But now it is official, and you can go on-line to Target and/or Williams-Sonoma, where we are registered for a period of time yet, and buy something for us from our wish list. Don't do this for me, do it for Erin, who hasn't had this experience yet and who didn't have a big white dress that cost four figures nor a gaggle of bridesmaids. A few items from these places would sure help make up for that (you can tell which things she tagged (candle paraphenalia, for God's sake) and which are mine (Pig Stuff: tools and knives and cookpots and other things for aging far-sighted hunter-gatherers). Only a few are really expensive, but nothing is over $200.

Sorry it's Christmas, too, but we didn't really want to wait.

*****

Up to Packerland in a week or so we go. And Rob and Brandon will be here from Cali for New Years Eve.

All in all: a very happy time, especially for me.

Even in Alabama, where we are having a sub-tropical monsoon at the moment, so I think I'll cook sauerkraut and porkchops tonight to remind me of my Nordic roots.

Bird

Here you see the Thanksgiving Extravaganza hosted by L and L. I was responsible for the bird, and I did a MagazineCover job, as you can see (click on the pic for a better view; I especially recommend this for a view of The Bird, to heck with DaBoys and their parents). Cooked it on the grill, as I have done since 1976--never have I shoved a bird in the oven. Imagine that. Most people east of the Rockies have no idea what I'm talking about. You want the recipe, give me a holler. Also note the supercool shirt I bought at CNN headquarters in Atlanta: my pro name is Petersen Hunter and I'm stationed in Kuala Lumpur.

Was great to be in Davis even though I got a cold and felt like hell much of the time. It was fun anyway. I already had met L and L's friends before, with some exceptions, but it was nice to see them all in one place and break bird with them.

You can see the spread set-up L and L laid on for the gang (who all brought side dishes--the German woman brought dressing and gravy, saints preserve us). They did a beautiful job and everyone loved everything, including the six kids at the Kid Table, where K is the blond Prince Valiant and B is the one looking right at you. Wonderful, smart kids (sometimes too smart) who are now 4.5 and 2.5, respectively. Took them shopping for a couple of hours one day and bribed good behavior with smoothies; they were great, despite the delay at Long's Drugs.

I am thankful for such a family and love them dearly. DaBoys love me, too, and squeal with delight when they see me at the airport. K dubbed me 'Bumpah' when he was two and the appellation has stuck, thank goodness--none of that 'Grandpa' stuff for me, nossir.

And now am back in my Sweet Home Alabama, where it is cold and trying to snow. In a couple of weeks we go to Packerland for Christmas with Erin's huge family. I will cook Coq au Vin, we will see the last Packer game of the season against the worst team in the league, we will exchange gifts, we will go to Doot's for breakfast one morning, we will watch bowl games until numb, Sam will play in the snow for the first time (not looking forward to the 12-hour drive with a 60-lb. retriever 'puppy').

All in all: I couldn't be either luckier or happier. Sam could, though: he lost his nuts last Tuesday.

(Groan).