Why pelicans? I don't know, except that they are symbolic of Louisiana and compassion, since they feed their young by drawing blood from their own breast. The set of books Ragnar finds in the basement of the guest house are a set that I found in the guest house of Florida State University's department of Music, where I stayed when I was giving a talk in 2001.
Now: the trek from Dessau to Görlitz. Why Dessau? It was the home to the Bauhaus. All things international being loathed by fascists, they were forced to leave and ended up in Chicago, building the campus of my alma mater IIT. First, though, they had a jazz band:
Notice the
Dessau-Görlitz vector: 1100 furlongs east by southeast---in the direction of Sumatra:
A direct, purposeful walk would have taken about 45 hours easily spread over a week, but Ragnar has been meandering about the countryside (while remaining always indoors) for twice that. Why Görlitz/Zgorzelec? It's a double town that is not only a double German/Polish town, but a triple or quadruple Sorbian/Czech town, a Zgórjelc/Zhořelec poised between upper and lower Lusatia. Where cultures intersect, there you will find our hero.
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