Chris sounding off… I had to point this out to -everyone within earshot- because it’s way too cool.
So I was checking out books.google.com for some work-related inspiration (they scan in all the pages of old books and put them online for free – a treasure trove of information as compared to the practically useless “internet”) when I came across somethjng about Munich that reminded me of our recent trip. I read it and realized, I’m really not as bright as some neanderthal barbarian back in 1834.
Really books.google.com is amazing. You have to get creative with the searches to pull up the good stuff. Set the date range to pre-1910 if you want to read the “old stuff”.
Excerpt from Mrs. Jameson’s “travel book”: (ps I don’t have a clue what a “Memobanda” is, but I think it’s antiquity for “blog post”):
“MEMOBANDA AT MUNICH.
Sept. 28th.—A week at Munich ! and nothing done ! nothing seen ! My first excursions I made- to-day—from my bed to the sofa—from the sofa to the window. Every one told me to be prepared against the caprices of the climate, but I did not imagine that it would take a week or a fortnight to be acclimatee.
What could induce the princes of Bavaria to plant their capital in the midst of these wide, marshy, bleak, barren plains, and upon this rough unmanageable torrent,—” the Isar ‘ rolling rapidly,”—when they might have seated themselves by the majestic Danube ?[…] I never saw such fogs: they are as dense and as white as a fleece, and look, and feel too, like rarefied snow;—but as no one else complains, I think it must be indisposition which makes me so peevish and so chilly. Sitting at the window being my best amusement, I do not like to find the only objects which are to give me a foretaste of the splendour of Munich, quite veiled from sight, and shrouded in mist, even for a few morning hours.
I am lodged in the Max^Joseph ‘s-Platz, opposite to the theatre : a situation at once airy, quiet, and cheerful.
The theatre is in itself a beautiful object; the portico, of the Corinthian order, is supported by eight pillars; the ascent is by a noble flight of steps, with four gigantic…”
In that spirit all future blog posts, or rather memobanda will be writtin in the same prose. ps – I realize the google reader probably misinterpreted the “r” in memoranda for a “b” and it really shouldn’t read “memobanda”.
