Saftige Bavarian Kitsch II

Pop Art bunnies in Munich

A branch of my family lived in a mysterious house on a deeply shaded hill in northwest Portland. The house was towering, cavernous- the ground floor a series of enormous rooms that had once been perhaps white but now had the warm, rich patina of tobacco. More notably, the walls were covered with robust murals of larger than life-size Germans playing cards. The murals had a wholesome imagery, but the rooms had once housed public gaming and illicit drink and retained an aura of their dark naughtiness. My family, although not German, is fond of cards (and drink). When last in Munich, I found a set of playing cards with old Bavarian imagery- different dress of the face cards, the suits recognizable but of a slightly different shape. Alas, the cards were for an ancient game and so had not the number of cards we now use. I determined to start my morning in Munich to find us a 52 card deck of old-fashioned cards, and did. En route back, a black coffee to go and a walnuss croissant. Munich has wonderful pastry, a thing I first discovered when I visited from Paris when I was sixteen. There was more variety, more butter rich-doughs, and less frou-frou.

I then went to the textile shop to get their card and ogle the cloth printed with continents up close. The shop smelled wonderful- clean fresh linen and orange flower water and steam from irons. I showed (scalding!) and checked out, taking a circuitous route to stop by the chic glass food stall warehouse flanking the Viktuellenmarkt. Oh my there was every kind of liqueur and clever pizza and cake and wine by the glass but all just too tasteful for my taste (I could have been at Pike street market in Seattle, or the Ferry building in SF). But some absolute genius had made chocolates in the shape of items we find at hardware stores- I had seen these in print once but never up close- faucets, washers, bolts, pliers, all looking so rusted, so dry. The luscious suppleness of chocolate rendered so brittle- it was like looking at the inverse of Bernini's Persephone- the indentation on her lush, yielding thigh:

Steel? No- Chocolate!

Flesh? No- Marble!

The Viktuellenmarkt itself- just outside- was filled with ready foods, some flowers, and very expensive produce including spears of the prized white asparagus the width of a bricklayer's thumb. 12 euros a kilo(!), 14 for the tips. I got a Flusskrebs Broetchen- that is a roll stuffed with shelled river crayfish and I'm sorry i didn't take a picture of it but it was as perfect as one can imagine. I went then straight for the tourist office in the Marienplatz- I had been the previous year to get a map and find the best Konditorei (photo of the original note) . Now, with just two hours free before taking the S-Bahn back to the airport, I wanted a quick fix of Baroque. The Church of the Theatines (Theatinerkirche), from 1675, was overwhelming in scale. The rather sober (but huge) ocher exterior doesn't give a hint of the pastry-tube opulence inside- a luscious wedding cake of Titans tuned inside out:

I confess: I prefer my Baroque technicolor, but this was really fine. 

The church was on a grand plaza, a corner of which housed a shop of such lovely porcelain (which truly I usually detest as dreadful kitsch) I only dared admire it from the windows, armed as I was with a large carry-on crammed with chocolate bars. There were Easter themed figures- lambs, rabbits, and memento mori- not only the crucified Christ but little perfect ghastly skulls as well, sized slightly smaller than a walnut. I took no card, as the most charming of the rabbits was 879 euro:

It seemed indecent to photograph the memto mori, but I wish I had. I turned to make my way back along the Rezidenzstrasse, this time to find the charming Cafe Rottenhoefer, where I had taken a Schnecke to go last year before visiting the Rezidenz (home to some delightful and outrageous kitsch by Meissen and Frankentahaller!) and vowed to return for a coffee inside with all the charming alte Damen in day suits. It had a beautiful Biedermeier interior. I walked back and forth over the same stretch of the street I had remembered it being on, and realized it was hidden behind the wooden fence of a construction crew. I was actually quite sad- it was a thing of beauty, an unchanged thing from a different era:

http://www.rottenhoefer.de/

It seems silly to regret not having drunk a cup of coffee over a year ago. But really, I do. A woman saw me looking at the boarded up corner and said it was missed by many.

How sweet it was then to again see the glove shop on the next corner! The inside is entirely round like an ornamental box, a rounded counter echoing the room's shape, and three ladies greeting Gruss Gott, and behind the perfect ladies rows and rows of narrow drawers reaching up to the curve of the ceiling:

The drawers had size numbers on them, and colored handles code to their contents. They have, or strive to have as they modestly say, gloves of every color and size that ever could be. So, you can have anything you want, and the best part- you can have it in 1967. You might well ask if I regret not buying the pair of powder pink driving gloves from the Schaufenster as I regretted the coffee, but I hope the 68 euros I saved by my restraint will buy me more memories, and I drive so very rarely.

With not so much time to spare, I seek out the chocolate shop I had seen the night before, passing Louis Vuitton whose clever window display called to mind a 

different kind of Chocolate shop. This one had a darkish type of whimsy- kind of like you would see in Hogsmead. Speaking of hogs, here I saw the best piece of whimsy of the day- a chocolate pig, the size of a full-grown pug! 

Was that enough impressions for the morning? To be sure, but the S-Bahn was still a block away- plenty of time for quick hit of Bavarian smut:

(I'm pretty sure that's a real cookie on the wall behind her)

a fresh example of facism's uncanny knack for promoting very unsavory ideas with very appealing graphics:

some unassailable wisdom from Wim Wenders:

and this pleasingly Hamiltonesque ad for a real estate agent:

("Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?)

The last image before the airport, glimpsed from the window of the speeding S-Bahn: Three yummy Hausfrauen in corseted Dirndl advertising some convenience food I could not make out, with this caption: "Suess und Scharf- so isst Bayern! (Sweet and spicy- that's how Bavaria eats!) 

Well, that pretty much sums it up.