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!
vendredi 7 mai 2010
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
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