Essay on Xi Jinping's Cult Tomorrow; Greetings from Munich
And the amazing seashell dining room of the historic Augustiner Beer Hall
Welcome back to Lucid, and hello to all new subscribers. I am traveling many Fridays this month and so there will be no Q&A this week. Our next Q&A will be Sunday, November 6, 8-9pmET. It will be just days before the US midterm elections and we’ll have a lot to discuss!
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This week’s essay, on the inflation of the personality cult of Xi Jinping, the challenges China faces, and what authoritarian history tells us about such moments, will appear tomorrow. This gives me an extra day to take in the proceedings of the ongoing 20th Communist Party Congress.
In the meantime, I am enjoying Munich. I am here to give a talk on strongmen and how they fall at Amerikahaus. Last night my hosts treated me to a delicious meal at the historic Augustiner Beer Hall. We sat in a dining room decorated with seashells in the Art Nouveau style, with elements that call to the style of many churches here. I found the mix of classical, Baroque, rustic and fin-de-siècle modern quite magical.
And of course the beer was fantastic.
Thank you for the terrific photos! And if you are able try to take in some of the Baroque period music especially from Bach's time! As part of an exchange seminar in Marburg, I was able to travel to Leipzig for a late Baroque period organ concert involving an organ that Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) would have used when he was employed as a cantor in Leipzig composing organ music for Lutheran churches!
On another note: a helmsman is a person who generally directs a ship and I read somewhere that Xi Jinging is called the "Great Helmsman" which seems to me doesn't leave much room for more than one helmsman and that probably can never be a good thing I'm thinking......
Sounds like a great trip. Germany is famous for beer but their wines are world class as well.