her city Munich (V 237)

[Heikki Raudaskoski]

In Vera Meroving's city, there was this anti-Fopplian after-party
in an apartment at the Southeastern side of the Englischer Garten,
not far from Isar (charming neighborhood; if you have seen "Heimat
2", you know what I mean). It was past 5 AM already, and I thought
I better start heading to our hotel by the Oktoberfest area on the
other side of Munich, as the bus to the airport was leaving at 7:30
[we had participated in the Bavarian State Opera's quite engrossing
version of Purcell's "Dido&Aeneas" at the Prinzregententheater on
the other side of Isar the night before; like the Jamaican singer's
choral in the Kentian church, where Purcell gets mentioned (GR 129),
and unlike the original Purcell opera, the production was macaronic
to say the least, performed in English, German, Dutch, French, and
Finnish]. As I was walking south toward the Lehel subway station, I
suddenly found myself crossing the Liebigstrasse; "Liebig, the great
professor of chemistry [and Kekule's mentor] on whose name-street in
Munich Pokler lived" (GR 411) "Depression stalked the Liebigstrasse,
where Mondaugen had had an attic room in a mansarde: a figure with
an old woman's face, bent against the wind off the Isar and wrapped
tightly in a frayed black coat; who might, like some angel of death,
mark in pink spittle the doorsteps of those who'd starve tomorrow."
(V 243) If Munich was in the grip of depression 83 years later too,
it was depression of a much more invisible sort.


Heikki