A welcomed cold spell blessed the first day of the fall semester. I woke up at seven, ate an American box cereal breakfast and read a hundred lines of Homer. Last night on the phone with Caroline I expressed some dismay at getting through his 48 books by the end of the year. "Wait, 48?!!" she said. "What are the other 46?" I'm glad we are friends. No one makes me laugh so hard. That's not hyperbole.
I biked to the spectacle shop to drop off my prescription and order new lenses before going to school. Hopefully I will be able to read accent marks by Friday. The UVA campus wasn't at all as dreadful as promised. Maybe the cold turn in the weather had something to do with that, curbing the influx of orange cheerleading shorts and flipflops. The students seemed rather reserved. Many of them were talking about church and god. Some of them were speaking French.
I like that time period just after you have relocated. When you don't know anyone, and no one knows you, and you can just wander around wondering. That's more or less what I have been doing the past couple of weeks. Well, and reading. But that moment is passed. Now I feel fairly well acquainted with the students and faculty in my department and many in philosophy, with whom we share a building, and a long standing kickball rivalry.
Laura got into town a couple of days ago. She is writing a mystery novel and a will. I am to inherit 2.5 percent of the estate. I promised that if she died, I would use the money to jumpstart my own mystery series. I'm glad I have a friend here. It's so much more work to make friends than to have them.
mardi 24 août 2010
jeudi 19 août 2010
Summer, 2010
Wow, a lot has happened in the past few months. I went back to France and visited more prehistoric caves (in the Pyrennes this time). These were in general a bit younger than those in Dordogne. What was especially striking was how in these caves the artists had sought out rooms with the best acoustics (even when that meant a multi kilometer hike from the cave's entrance). These rooms transformed the weak voice of the archeologist giving the tour into a haunting cry. I can't imagine how a real singer would sound here.
I had trouble getting back to Vienna. Airport strikes in Paris. So I stayed with my friend Arnaud and his cousin in their charming little apartment not far from Place de la Republique. We made lots of dinners and to one of them came their aunt, who called me a dirty colonialist.
I found Vienna as I had left her, rather chilly, full of Italian ice-cream and Viennese. I saw the crown jewels and the imperial vault; I went to the clock museum with Richard and the opera house with Laura. My last night there I had drinks on the University campus with Michael, Mario, et al. Maybe it was exhaustion or anxiety but for no apparent reason tears started streaming down my face. My expression didn't change, just the tears. It might very well have gone unnoticed if I hadn't been directly engaging Mario in conversation (we were talking about his trip to the Alps, natürlich). So, he noticed, but wasn't sure because my expression hadn't changed. And I didn't want my expression to change because it's stupid to cry for no reason. He touched my shoulder, and I started really crying, so I got up quickly and said an embarrassed auf wiedersehen to those present and walked quickly back towards Michael's house, sobbing the entire way.
We stopped at a vernissage because the man in charge knew Michael and called out to us passing. Polish women, two sisters, had painted undefined female characters and superimposed them onto artificial backgrounds. The artists were there, laughing exclusively and drinking wine at a corner table, looking as disconnected as their subjects. Stress or anxiety must work in Memory's favor. After all those wunderschoen paintings and sculptures I saw during my time in Vienna, what I remember most vividly today are those rather unexceptional paintings in that tiny cafe off of Alserstraße rendered striking by the swollen globes through which I saw them.
I left Europe and moved to Virginia. I got here about a week ago. I'm glad to be here. I am really grateful to have this chance to continue studying. I took a bunch of exams yesterday. They were hard, but I think I did alright. I haven't formed my opinions yet on the place. But I will soon and when I do, I will tell you all about it.
vendredi 7 mai 2010
fledermaus
We read a lot of books here. Often, the books the kids ask for are the ones they have already memorized, so I listen to the story and try to throw in an English word or two when the opportunity presents itself.
-So, Henry, this here is a bat.
-Nein, Mary, es ist ein Fledermaus.
-Well, that’s true, but in English, we say bat.
-Nein.
-Yes we do.
-NEIN! Nein das ist ein Fledermaus. Looouuiis, was ist das??
-Das ist ein Fledermaus, Henry. Natürlich.
Case closed.
Last night Begona and I hung out at a comfortable local, loudly speaking German in our respective American and Spanish accents. We each drank four glasses of a rather weak Austrian red wine to sweeten the broken syntax and limited word choice of Europe’s economic problems.
Thomas predicted all this, last week. And this past week that justified his sibylline strength was the best of his life, or so he claimed at breakfast. I imagine he is right. That our world will not be that of our parents.
When I am not studying German, I am reading 19th Century French literature in preparation for my soon approaching trip to Bordeaux. Now I am reading Le Père Goriot, the first of Balzac’s Comedie Humaine. There are many characters, Parisian types, all of them. The note on the deformed French of Madame Hanska provides the reader wih a passage from the author’s diary: “commencé une grande oeuvre...j’y ai placé tyeuillieus en riant comme un fou. And then later on after the first installment of the work: “Tieuilles a fait rire. Je vous renvoie ce success.” I like Balzac. His emphasis on orality especially. I wish I could hear the humor too. But I’m not even certain that the French themselves can. I have to ask Raphael.
Today promises nice weather. I will try out my bike for the first time, maybe bike down to the island in the Danube, or maybe just explore further parts of the city. Henry has a birthday in the afternoon and Eva has made a train cake in honor of it. Hooray for locomotion!
-So, Henry, this here is a bat.
-Nein, Mary, es ist ein Fledermaus.
-Well, that’s true, but in English, we say bat.
-Nein.
-Yes we do.
-NEIN! Nein das ist ein Fledermaus. Looouuiis, was ist das??
-Das ist ein Fledermaus, Henry. Natürlich.
Case closed.
Last night Begona and I hung out at a comfortable local, loudly speaking German in our respective American and Spanish accents. We each drank four glasses of a rather weak Austrian red wine to sweeten the broken syntax and limited word choice of Europe’s economic problems.
Thomas predicted all this, last week. And this past week that justified his sibylline strength was the best of his life, or so he claimed at breakfast. I imagine he is right. That our world will not be that of our parents.
When I am not studying German, I am reading 19th Century French literature in preparation for my soon approaching trip to Bordeaux. Now I am reading Le Père Goriot, the first of Balzac’s Comedie Humaine. There are many characters, Parisian types, all of them. The note on the deformed French of Madame Hanska provides the reader wih a passage from the author’s diary: “commencé une grande oeuvre...j’y ai placé tyeuillieus en riant comme un fou. And then later on after the first installment of the work: “Tieuilles a fait rire. Je vous renvoie ce success.” I like Balzac. His emphasis on orality especially. I wish I could hear the humor too. But I’m not even certain that the French themselves can. I have to ask Raphael.
Today promises nice weather. I will try out my bike for the first time, maybe bike down to the island in the Danube, or maybe just explore further parts of the city. Henry has a birthday in the afternoon and Eva has made a train cake in honor of it. Hooray for locomotion!
dimanche 2 mai 2010
Der erste Mai
Last night, in honor of Labor day, I visited Bratislava, capital of Slovakia. It is a city about a third of Vienna’s size and grandeur located about 50 kilometers east of chez moi. Between these two European capitals there is little. Grass and trees, maybe a bunny rabbit or two. Upon approaching Bratislava, you drive through three or four now abandoned check points, reminiscent of the cities not so distant communist past. The first buildings that appear are the big concrete Soviet block housing units, and then the castle dating from the 10th century comes into view, looking down regally from her elevated spot upon the graffiti and concrete at her feet.
The city center itself is quite pleasant. Open, pedestrian friendly squares display an architecture reminiscent of Viennese grandeur but somehow more welcoming. Young English and German tourists, seduced by the city’s cheap beer and spirits spill out of the cafes and bars that line every side street. Sculptures and fountains, modern and otherwise, fill the main squares and decorate the passage ways. Other, less familiar pieces of art hang from the third and forth floors of buildings, attached with a rather complicated system of ropes and wires. One of my favorite sculptures was a large post office box elaborated by a couple of iron clad maidens, naked, skinny, and rather bored.
After having a beer and comparing snitzel prices, we walked out of the center towards the castle, crossing ugly patches of mostly deserted highways. Finally beneath the castle hidden away into the base of a hill that has been inhabited since the stone age we found the club we were looking for. An ex bomb shelter dating from the cold war with short squat doors through which no more than one can go at a time. Just inside stand two men, large in every direction. They bark something in Slavic and let us pass through the long narrow concrete corridor into the wild dance scene happening underground.
It’s late when we decide to bid adieu to this lively city. We cross back over the highways and concrete to find our car and I think about the similar amputation feel of American city centers. Is it not strange that Bratislava, so long our enemy, so resembles the dirt and grime of our Baltimore, Saint Louis, and Atlanta?
The city center itself is quite pleasant. Open, pedestrian friendly squares display an architecture reminiscent of Viennese grandeur but somehow more welcoming. Young English and German tourists, seduced by the city’s cheap beer and spirits spill out of the cafes and bars that line every side street. Sculptures and fountains, modern and otherwise, fill the main squares and decorate the passage ways. Other, less familiar pieces of art hang from the third and forth floors of buildings, attached with a rather complicated system of ropes and wires. One of my favorite sculptures was a large post office box elaborated by a couple of iron clad maidens, naked, skinny, and rather bored.
After having a beer and comparing snitzel prices, we walked out of the center towards the castle, crossing ugly patches of mostly deserted highways. Finally beneath the castle hidden away into the base of a hill that has been inhabited since the stone age we found the club we were looking for. An ex bomb shelter dating from the cold war with short squat doors through which no more than one can go at a time. Just inside stand two men, large in every direction. They bark something in Slavic and let us pass through the long narrow concrete corridor into the wild dance scene happening underground.
It’s late when we decide to bid adieu to this lively city. We cross back over the highways and concrete to find our car and I think about the similar amputation feel of American city centers. Is it not strange that Bratislava, so long our enemy, so resembles the dirt and grime of our Baltimore, Saint Louis, and Atlanta?
Viennese Night
My apartment here is the most beautiful I have ever seen. A classy mixture of glass and concrete on the third floor of a museum styled house overlooking Vienna. Now its nearing midnight and a recently full moon is hovering over the city, casting its yellow eye into my living room. The reflections covering my glass walls are distorted by street lamps and city lights from below, and as I look out over this Viennese summer night my diaphanous belongings stare back at me. German books, notes about my days here, a half drunk bowl of tea, lots of space. All this space mixed with the concrete, the big city below, the glass walls, and the silence reminds me a little of that final fightclub scene.
I am not at home here. But there is no reason for me to be, really. There are many things charming about this life that I am leading here.
I really like learning spoken languages. Its strange when you come to from a reverie and realize that it was in another tongue. All too frequently for me these days, it is in some strange mélange between French, English, and German. After I come home from German class, I’m often tired and want a nap. If I lie down for a few minutes, and relax, my head starts Germanizing. I don’t know how to explain it really, but it feels like my head is downloading the things I have learned throughout the day. Its not thinking, certainly nothing linear, but its all in German syllables. I remember it happened with French too, after about the same amount of time (one month). But then by month three or so, this had stopped. French no longer exhausted me, nor did my head play frantically with French syllables when I lay down for a few seconds. This must be a result from learning a language so quickly, you know, moving to a new country with next to zero knowledge of the oral language. Do other people have similar experiences? I imagine they must. But its rare to meet someone in this transitional stage of language learning, maybe because it lasts such a short time. I don’t know.
This morning I spent my last euro on French books. After German class, I sought out la librarie Française, located in the ninth district, a stones throw away from Freud’s old digs. The delightful madame there helped me dig through old volumes, organized in that quintessentially French manner until finally we came upon something that resembled a social history of the 19th century. Et voila mademoiselle! I like the French so much. I don’t know what it is, their pleasantries perhaps. The quality of their voices as well. I bought two Balzacs, one Flaubert, and a history of France’s political crises from 1871 to 1968. Raphael and I are planning a 19th century conference of sorts for my June trip to Bordeaux via Paris. Ça me plait bien, evidemment. Et finalement, j’ai la lecture qu’il faut.
I wonder if in my rather short sejour in France I have unwittingly become French. I miss France much more than any other home I have ever had. Not that my thoughts don’t wander every once in a while to Athens or Saint Louis. Though somehow those places are different, because I didn’t choose them. Athens, Georgia was chosen for me, as the best free education I might have, growing up in the southern states. Saint Louis too, was not a choice of location, rather of education and money. With 24 years, I chose Bordeaux, never having been to France and barely having been to Europe. It was, however, my choice, and one based solely on place. Here in Vienna I feel like an expatriate. I go see French films, I listen to French music, and am ever excited to meet French people. It’s not some mania with fashion, or pastries, or snobbery, or I don’t know what. It’s because I feel comfortable there. At home, even. With the humor especially. Why should we think of our birthplace as somehow definitive of ourselves? Why shouldn’t this, like our wives and husbands, our careers, or our clothing be something we choose, once we have become an adult and acquired those distinguishing faculties.
Tomorrow is Der erste Mai, and I wonder how this socialist holiday will be feted here in Austria. Eva and Thomas have already voiced their disdain for the whole affair. But I’m looking forward to it, naturally. I like the community spirit that comes with communism, her strikes and manifestations. And with these thoughts, gentle reader, I bid you a good night, condemning myself to a fitful moonbright night.
Fait à Vienne, le 30 Avril
I am not at home here. But there is no reason for me to be, really. There are many things charming about this life that I am leading here.
I really like learning spoken languages. Its strange when you come to from a reverie and realize that it was in another tongue. All too frequently for me these days, it is in some strange mélange between French, English, and German. After I come home from German class, I’m often tired and want a nap. If I lie down for a few minutes, and relax, my head starts Germanizing. I don’t know how to explain it really, but it feels like my head is downloading the things I have learned throughout the day. Its not thinking, certainly nothing linear, but its all in German syllables. I remember it happened with French too, after about the same amount of time (one month). But then by month three or so, this had stopped. French no longer exhausted me, nor did my head play frantically with French syllables when I lay down for a few seconds. This must be a result from learning a language so quickly, you know, moving to a new country with next to zero knowledge of the oral language. Do other people have similar experiences? I imagine they must. But its rare to meet someone in this transitional stage of language learning, maybe because it lasts such a short time. I don’t know.
This morning I spent my last euro on French books. After German class, I sought out la librarie Française, located in the ninth district, a stones throw away from Freud’s old digs. The delightful madame there helped me dig through old volumes, organized in that quintessentially French manner until finally we came upon something that resembled a social history of the 19th century. Et voila mademoiselle! I like the French so much. I don’t know what it is, their pleasantries perhaps. The quality of their voices as well. I bought two Balzacs, one Flaubert, and a history of France’s political crises from 1871 to 1968. Raphael and I are planning a 19th century conference of sorts for my June trip to Bordeaux via Paris. Ça me plait bien, evidemment. Et finalement, j’ai la lecture qu’il faut.
I wonder if in my rather short sejour in France I have unwittingly become French. I miss France much more than any other home I have ever had. Not that my thoughts don’t wander every once in a while to Athens or Saint Louis. Though somehow those places are different, because I didn’t choose them. Athens, Georgia was chosen for me, as the best free education I might have, growing up in the southern states. Saint Louis too, was not a choice of location, rather of education and money. With 24 years, I chose Bordeaux, never having been to France and barely having been to Europe. It was, however, my choice, and one based solely on place. Here in Vienna I feel like an expatriate. I go see French films, I listen to French music, and am ever excited to meet French people. It’s not some mania with fashion, or pastries, or snobbery, or I don’t know what. It’s because I feel comfortable there. At home, even. With the humor especially. Why should we think of our birthplace as somehow definitive of ourselves? Why shouldn’t this, like our wives and husbands, our careers, or our clothing be something we choose, once we have become an adult and acquired those distinguishing faculties.
Tomorrow is Der erste Mai, and I wonder how this socialist holiday will be feted here in Austria. Eva and Thomas have already voiced their disdain for the whole affair. But I’m looking forward to it, naturally. I like the community spirit that comes with communism, her strikes and manifestations. And with these thoughts, gentle reader, I bid you a good night, condemning myself to a fitful moonbright night.
Fait à Vienne, le 30 Avril
lundi 12 avril 2010
Daily life
Another rainy April day in Vienna sinks in after breakfast. Galoshes and raincoats come out of the closet and accompany us to school and play. To wile away the minutes before kindergarten, Louis became a tiger, Eva a bear, and me a wildcat.
Henry, the youngest, became a scary backpack.
Tonight I am going for the second time to a German Sprachclub, organized by a Hungarian who recently moved to the seat of Austrian power. Last Tuesday night was really nicht schleckt. Often its hard to understand the smorgasbord of accents arriving from all corners of the globe. And Its always a bit embarrassing when you can’t understand human speech. But I’m getting used to that sensation, and am less bothered. Everyone should experience this feeling in my opinion. A little dose of hubris reduction.
In my German class at the university, I am the minority because, alas, I am not an opera singer. Out of the twelve students, we have six opera singers, a cello player, a violinist, and a pianist. The city of music, Wien. I like the teacher. She is rather self-deprecating in that quintessential eastern European fashion. And works hard to move along our awkward forays into the German grammatical system.
In the evening, Eva and I practice yoga together. And sometimes Eva’s friends come over to practice with us. Last night we did a lot of spinal twisting and back-bending and today my back is thanking me.
And now I bid you aufwidersehen to go enjoy my tea with honey set to the rain outside our glass house.
tschüss!
Henry, the youngest, became a scary backpack.
Tonight I am going for the second time to a German Sprachclub, organized by a Hungarian who recently moved to the seat of Austrian power. Last Tuesday night was really nicht schleckt. Often its hard to understand the smorgasbord of accents arriving from all corners of the globe. And Its always a bit embarrassing when you can’t understand human speech. But I’m getting used to that sensation, and am less bothered. Everyone should experience this feeling in my opinion. A little dose of hubris reduction.
In my German class at the university, I am the minority because, alas, I am not an opera singer. Out of the twelve students, we have six opera singers, a cello player, a violinist, and a pianist. The city of music, Wien. I like the teacher. She is rather self-deprecating in that quintessential eastern European fashion. And works hard to move along our awkward forays into the German grammatical system.
In the evening, Eva and I practice yoga together. And sometimes Eva’s friends come over to practice with us. Last night we did a lot of spinal twisting and back-bending and today my back is thanking me.
And now I bid you aufwidersehen to go enjoy my tea with honey set to the rain outside our glass house.
tschüss!
lundi 5 avril 2010
To Each Time its Art, to Art its Freedom
Der Zeit ihre Kunst, der Kunst ihre Freiheit
Declares the golden letters adorning the entrance of the Secession, a building conceived in April of 1898 and realized only a few months later to house the second exhibition of the Secessionists in November of that same year.
To visit Gustav Klimt’s Beethovenfries, still housed inside, I walked through a swingers club. Flashing lights, poles, American hip-hop, hot tubs, beds, champagne, ladies, gentlemen. The french highschool class, coming in behind me, was into it. C’est bien le meilleur expo que j’ai jamais vu, I heard one ado exclaim.
But before you arrive to the club scene, you first walk through a large open room with nothing in it. A big hollow echoing cement act, left purposely blank. Off to one side you see a stack of a single image, a picture from Barcelona of a concrete race track, reproduced on 20,000 posters, representing “nothing less than the world itself,” if I don’t misquote my German speaking guide. Then it is sex, sex, sex until you finally find your way all the way down into a corner of the basement where sits Gustav Klimt’s portion of the Gesamtkunstwerk that was the 1902 exhibition of the Vienna Secession, a group of fin de siècle Viennese artists protesting against the old aesthetic expressions.
The Frieze itself was spectacular. Created as part of a larger project that combined sculpture, architecture, music, and painting to honor Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the frieze depicts mankind’s search. Or rather the poet’s, as it seemed to me. Maybe there is no difference? There are lady-like mystical genies floating calmly along, then a scene of a naked woman and a naked couple entreating a golden knight. The knight, spurred on by this human suffering and by his muses who hover stoically above him recalling the poetic genius of Rodin’s Hugo, rushes to face the monster, the gorgonic daughters, Gnawing Grief, and other animalistic or female dangers. Finally the floating spirits lead to a lady with a lyre, and then, after a blank sheet of concrete where originally stood Klinger’s Beethoven sculpture, the frieze finishes with a choir that forms the back ground for a couple, naked and kissing, transcendental. 
Heaven.
After I couldn’t take in any more, I exited, back through the swingers club, then through the concrete room out into the sunshine. It all reminded me a bit of a dream I used to have. I headed off in search of one of the renowned Viennese Cafes, to drink some pancake soup and a coffee, and to read Frederic Mortin’s account of Vienna 1888/1889. It’s so nice to be able to be here, in the spot where it all took place. This art and individuality, these internal, personal movements that would bring the modern world into an apocalyptical crisis.
I came home, refreshed, and found Henry and Louis playing on the new hammock, singing and laughing. We learned some songs and made some dinner and went to sleep early, exhausted from all that Easter candy. Anton the cat and I stayed up a bit later, learning German and purring on my sofa that overlooks the city. One day I will know this language! And I hope that day will come soon.
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