My Bedside Table at the End of the Last Bennington Semester

Celebrating the Sun at Hardenburg Castle

What a glorious Sunday this was! I love our weekend getaways. I've actually visited Hardenburg castle many times before. When Phil was deployed to Afghanistan in 2006 and the kids were in school, I would come here by myself and walk the trails and have picnic lunches and take little naps and just think and dream...


Hardenburg Castle, near the spa town of Bad Dürkheim, is one of the largest castle ruins in the region. From the time of its foundation at the beginning of the 13th century until its destruction in 1794 during the French Revolutionary wars, the castle served as the residence of counts and princes. It's magnificent here: the lovely, formal garden, the cannon balls embedded in the thick stone walls, the dungeon, the small church, the spiral staircase leading to the turrets...


Inside, it's dank and dark. More of a fortress than a castle. In medieval times, there would have been hay and herbs insulating dirt floors, animals would have often lived in the building with people, to provide heat and sustenance, and inhabitants would live in constant fear of attack from the many neighboring villages. Not exactly the stuff of fairy tales (at least not the Americanized versions).


I often think of Grimm's Fairy Tales when I visit places like this (the brothers lived not too far from here, along the Romantic Road, where they collected their stories from old-timers). Earlier incarnations of the fairy tales were being circulated orally about the same time this old castle was lived in. Amazing!

Pages from the Gutenberg Bible

Before this old fortress was built, Gutenberg was already revolutionizing the printing process (and arguably changing the course of history) just 45 minutes away in Mainz! The dukes and princes who lived within these walls might have owned a Gutenberg book or two.

Speaking of old books, I love the idea of early medieval libraries (before Gutenberg came along). They chained books to the shelves for fear of thieves. Books were painstakingly handmade, every page an individual work of art. Most people were illiterate at the time, but even those who could read could rarely afford to own a book of their own.

Feast your eyes on these exquisite examples of medieval book arts:


I just want to crack these lovely books apart and breathe the smell of dust, glue, leather, and ink. I want to run my hands along the pronounced vertebra of their age-worn spines. Reading them would come later, after I had completely explored their bodies. No wonder they were fastened to chains!

Speaking of medieval books, check this out...reproduction medieval books for doll houses...oh my goodness...as a lover of books, miniatures, and especially since I often create my own miniature books, I am just delighted by these:

Paris' Left Bank: the Legendary Shakespeare & Company Bookstore

In every corner, dilapidated couches and cupboards in the walls serve as beds for any down-on-their-luck bohemians in Paris lacking accommodation. In exchange for a couple of hours of work in the store, travelers can crash at "Tumbleweeds," snuggling up in beds and couches in the bookstore (above).


This was our first visit to Shakespeare and Company bookstore, the old haunt of Anais Nin and Henry Miller (a couple of my favorite lovebirds and writers). It's a fusion of living room and bookstore, of 1950's and 2007, of bohemian hedonism and commercialism (it was surprisingly expensive). I had to remind myself that we're not just paying for books. We're paying for history, ambience, and, some would say most importantly, we're paying an institution that provides free shelter to writers from all walks of life.

One of the owner's good friends stopped Phil to tell him how happy he was that he had brought his young daughters to the store. He said that they are very lucky to experience a place like this so young. I'm not entirely sure that the girls saw it that way, though; they couldn't wait for the poetry reading to be over! They curled up on couches and quietly read and played with a dog who seemed to live there along with a group of transient writers.

Funny side note: I had the most uncomfortable conversation with a resident writer there, who was striking a magnificently introspective pose while seated at a little desk with pen in hand (remember Burroughs in Naked Lunch getting pulled over by the cops? When asked to prove that he's a writer, he holds up a pen and says something like, 'Of course. I have a writing tool'). After about a minute of conversation, during which he made it very clear that he is a writer who is "pondering the next great American novel" he cut me off and said, "do you mind? I have writing to do." I'll bet that Henry Miller would be as amused by this as I was.

Here are a couple of pictures of the bulletin board upstairs (it's interesting if you click on them to enlarge):


As I was taking these pictures, a curtain above the bulletin board rustled, and I nearly jumped to see a woman lying down in a little bed behind it! Anything that can conceivably be used as a bed, is. After that little surprise, I made sure to act really cool just in case there were other people similarly curled up in hidden nooks throughout the store, watching me. God forbid someone catch me photographing Shakespeare and Co. like it's some sort of tourist attraction.

And...the treasure. There is always a treasure at a used bookstore, and it is different for each of us. This treasure is pretty self-explanatory (besides just looking like a hell of a good read):


It's missing the "I" but that's OK; "I" wouldn't exactly want to be in this novel, anyway. Judging completely by the cover.