Did You Know There's an Authentic German Restaurant Near Lake George?

Well, now you do:

Pumpernickel's Restaurant

"Welcome to Pumpernickel's Restaurant near Lake George..."

"...The area's only authentic German Restaurant, serving traditional German fare expertly prepared by our professional staff of classically-trained Chefs.

"Pumpernickel's Restaurant is located on Lakeshore Drive, Route 9N, Bolton Landing, and just 8 miles north of Lake George Village. Open daily at 5:00 mid June through Labor Day...."

That 'just 8 miles north of Lake George Village" caught the Lemming's attention. Lake George isn't a particularly big place - but we just call it "Lake George."

Some of the other place names weren't quite familiar - and I realized it wasn't Lake George, Minnesota, that Pumpernickel's Restaurant was near. It's Lake George Village, in New York state.

The address, by the way, is:

Pumpernickel's Restaurant
Lakeshore Dr.
Bolton Landing, NY 12814

Finally, it isn't phrases like "German cuisine" that, in the Lemming's opinion, mark this as a very American place, it's this discussion of a cuckoo clock:

"...Pumpernickel's is also the home of the largest cuckoo clock in the United States. Carved in the Black Forest of Germany in the early 1960's, the clock was displayed at the World’s Fair in New York and spent its first years outdoors at the Wiener Wald Restaurant in Times Square in the heart of Manhattan...."

Not just an impressive cuckoo clock: the largest cuckoo clock in the United States.

That reminded me of Chicago's Buckingham fountain: a replica of the one back in England, only lots bigger. Americans seem to think big: And that's another topic.

Almost-entirely-unrelated post:

• "Here's Looking At You: Chicago Gets the Eye"
  (July 4, 2010)

Some Zithers Don't Fret, it Seems

"Fretless Zithers"
Gregg Miner and Kelly Williams, www.minermusic.com

Premise

"The purpose of this page is to introduce, validate and establish the new standard term of fretless zither for the many hundreds of different American and European 'zithers' which do not conform to the traditional accepted form of modern zither. We also present below the first logical Family Tree for these instruments, which illustrates their evolution and relationship with other zithers.

"The traditional modern form of zither is that known as the 'concert zither,' 'Alpine zither,' 'Austrian zither,' or simply 'zither' (Fig. 1). The non-traditional form, which is now infinitely more common and familiar to the public, is based on a psaltery concept - i.e. non-fretted, open strings stretched over a box (Fig. 2). Previous, misleading terms include 'American zither,' 'guitar zither,' 'chord zither,' and again, simply 'zither.'..."

Who knew there was so much to know about zithers? Or, probably, so much controversy?

There's quite a bit more, about zithers, on that page. Including a sort of 'family tree:" The "Fretless Zither Family Tree." (2003) It starts with the Medieval Psaltery (many strings, no frets) and Medieval Monochord (one string, with frets): and tracing development of the instruments through more steps than I'd like to have a pop quiz on.

You can pretty much count on anything that starts with "premise" in big bold letters being somewhat less light reading than the Sunday funnies - and this page is no exception to the rule. I enjoyed reading how a quite nice Austrian/German instrument fell into the hands of Americans and changed. A lot. If there's nothing you enjoy doing more than reading about what griffbrettlose zithern means: this is the article for you.

A Tower-Climbing - Excavator?!

"Liebherr"

spbhooligan, YouTube (February 02, 2009)(video apparently dates from 1997)
video, 9:14

"экскаватор Liebherr" (Russian, "excavator Liebherr")

What Rupert did with that Liebherr excavator is of the 'kids, don't try this at home' variety. I particularly liked the way he spun the undercarriage after he got to the top and cantilevered the excavator out from the tower.

I probably need to say this: Trying to duplicate this stunt - cool as it is - is a really bad idea. Liebherr obviously went to a lot of trouble to make sure preparations were done the right way.

On a lighter note, we got a really good look at Rupert: there was an in-cab camera. I know that the video wasn't done in America, but Rupert and just about everybody else looked pretty much like a lot of my neighbors.

Oh, wait. Until recent years, people in Sauk Centre were either Irish - or German. That's changing, which is fine by me: it's nice to see a wider range of humanity around town.

By the way: The Liebherr company started in Germany - and has long since gone global. I think their website detects viewer language preferences - but it helps if you know German.

---

A tip of the hat to my father-in-law, for the heads-up on this video.

Uneducated, Culturally Illiterate,Lazy, Television-Addicted, Selfish Americans

"Waiter Rant: Sieg Heil!"

A table of slightly sozzled Germans and an American waiter collide: with unexpected results.

There's something to be learned here.

Caution: Some not-suitable-for-broadcast language. Understandable, in context.