found in the back of a Baedecker

These two images were found tucked into the back of my copy of Baedecker's Switzerland. They are two unsent, clean postcards, presumably mementos of a trip accompanied by the said Baedecker Guide when Rudolf Beer - the original owner of the book - toured the Swiss Alps.

the solitude trilogy : part 1

I've been listening to one of Glenn Gould's CBC radio broadcasts that he made in in the 1967 entitled "the idea of North". It's a collage of various people who live in or have a relationship with the North, and in this instance, the North of  Gould's native Canada. It can be quite difficult to follow or hear as he's layered some of the voices of the 5 people interviewed over one another so that there's a fading ebb and flow of text - presumably the creativity of Glenn Gould "the pianist" was something that he wasn't willing to sacrifice for the sake of documentary clarity, and here too Gould was trying to create an audio work, rather than simply a piece of public broadcasting. Radio as art as it were. In fact, he often described his radio works as contrapuntal, borrowing the term from music and characteristic of the Bach repertoire he's most widely known for. He made these radio broadcasts after his retirement from the international recital/concert citcuit.

The piece concentrates on how people view and interact with the North as both a space and an idea, and crucially, isn't simply a romantic treatise on solitude, although of course, it acknowledges romanticism as a spur to movements Northwards. Gould says the work "sought to examine the effects of solitude and isolation upon those who have lived in the Arctic or sub-Arctic".

I still have the other two pieces to listen to, but have transcribed some of the quotes from the piece I found most interesting.

I've long been intrigued by that incredible tapestry of tundra and taiga which constitutes the Arctic and Subarctic of our country. I've read about it, written about it and even pulled up my parka once and gone there; yet, like all but a very few Canadians, I've had no real experience of the North. I've remained, of necessity, an outsider. And the North has remained for me a convenient place to dream about, spin tall tales about, and in the end, avoid. – Glenn Gould during the introduction to the idea of North.

..three of the various voices from the piece:

You're excluding the rest of the world that will never understand, and you've made your own world with these other people, and probably you'll never know, and what nobody else will know is whether you're kidding yourself or not. Have you really made your peace with these other people or, or have you made a peace because the only alternative is a kind of crack-up?

I was in many repsects solitary, but in a strange way the North has made me more, sort of, gregarious, 'cos the North does show you exactly how much you rely on your fellow man, what the sense of community means. The sense of community in the North, unlike in the South, is a matter of life and death. The thing about the North of course, in personal terms is that in the North you feel that ..it's so big, it's so vast, it's so immense, it cares so little and, and this sort of diminishes you, and then you think "my god,  I am here, I've got here, I live here, I live, I breathe, I walk, I laugh, I have companions."

I found that the wide open spaces concept isn't quite what it's cracked up to be. I felt cooped-in in the wide open spaces because I was so afraid to get lost, that the environment around me, while being vast in the physical sense - one could see theoretically for a thousand miles, it was as nothing was in the way to break your view - it was surrounded on each side by dangers, dangers for instance of getting lost, that this was, to me, the biggest danger of all.

room-travel

“The sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.

Pascal, Pensées

From around 1799 to 1804, Alexander von Humboldt undertook a journey around South America, later entitling the account of what he had seen Journey to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent.

Nine years earlier, in the spring of 1790, a twenty-seven-year-old Frenchman, Xavier de Maistre, undertook a journey around his bedroom, later entitling the account of what he had seen Journey around My Bedroom. Gratified by his experiences, in 1798, De Maistre undertook a second journey. This time he traveled by night and ventured out as far as the window ledge, later entitling his account Nocturnal Expedition around My Bedroom.

Two approaches to travel: Journey to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent, Journey around My Bedroom. The first required ten mules, thirty pieces of luggage, four interpreters, a chronomoter, a sextant, two telescopes, a Borda theodolite, a barometer, a compass, a hygrometer, letters of introduction from the King of Spain and a gun. The second, a pair of pink and blue cotton pyjamas.

…it was not Xavier’s intentions to cast aspersions on the heroic deeds of the great travelers of the past: Magellan, Drake, Anson and Cook. …it was just that (de Maestre) had discovered a way of traveling that might be infinitely more practical for those neither as brave or as wealthy as they. ‘The most indolent beings won’t have any reason to hesitate before setting off to find pleasures that will cost them neither money nor effort’. He particularly recommended room-travel to the poor and to those afraid of storms, robberies, and high cliffs.”

Alain de Botton – The Art of Travel p243-245

Baedecker's Switzerland.

Switzerland with a Baedecker

I've not been out in the hills as much as normal lately (see previous post..) so have been looking through some of my books on mountains for my only fix. The fold out images from my Baedecker's guide to Switzerland are quite fantastic, so I scanned them a couple of weeks ago with a plan to do something with them. Still in progress, but here are two panoramas.

There are a good deal more in this fabulous book, and the one with the Mer de Glace is particularly fine. Having travelled to Chamonix, France a few summers ago, the mental travel of the Baedecker is proving really very enjoyable.