I have been here in Nuremberg, Germany, for the past couple of months. 

It's a place where history has a way of following you around, especially if you have the kind of memory that catches hold of shapes. 

I walk across a market square, and feel intense deja vu.  And it dawns suddenly: Of course I know this market. I have seen it on a dozen news-reels, filled with buxom girls in dirndls and strong men in boots, who for some reason are pleased to see a small angry man with a mustache.  

And there is no way around this but through. I know there were eagles chiseled off the hotel across the street, and I know that the Fraunekirche is built on the foundations of a burned synagogue, and the Hauptmarkt lies over the ruins of the Ghetto. 

There is no pretending this city is a saint. There is a rough  history here, it has prior form for everything from animal cruelty to stealing Art. All I can say in the city's defense, is that there was a lot of peer pressure, and it was a pretty fucked up party, the early 20th century. Shit happens when highly organized people get high. 

So I have taken a month to look at Nuremberg. To relax into it. I DIG certain things about it. Transport planning, the Fascists actually rocked at that. And the buildings just work. There is something wholesome about orderly societies, that keep things in order. It provides the potential for serious endeavors to get into motion, like the Solar initiative: Germany as a first mover, provided the capital and the scale for the early solar industry to grow into a competitive business. No-one else was willing to do that. A+, Germans. 

So I'm loving on it, for what there is to love, dealing with the past as it comes up, without deliberately looking for something to take exception to, 'cos life's too short, right? 

And I do have a thing for the well-built girls in dirndls carrying beer. So un-subtle,  but so awesome, like the 4 story houses with sensibly located windows and large sections of timber as architectural highlights. 

No way is it surprising, but it works. I really just does. 

I think that is what this culture is all about. You find A way, not necessarily THE way, but you find something that works pretty well and then you just do it better, and better, until is it is as smooth as glass. 

Its all right. 

I do sincerely believe that German culture has a role to play in the world. The world needs it. Not just nice cars with angry headlights, and good power tools, the mercantile and civic culture that makes all this possible. It ain't bad.