Apples of the Earth and Chicken of the Sea

Three times now here in Vienna I've been served dishes that combined potatoes and tuna and I must say they're pretty good, the tuna gnocchi being the best, kosher even if you leave off the parmesean (is that how it works?).  Also, the Esterhazytorte, hands down the best torte.  Leaves the Sachertorte in the dust, eating its hazelnut crumbs.  Am I considering leading the trend of elastic-waisted pants?  Why yes, yes I am.

Some other observations of Vienna:

1. At any given constructions site, at least three males though likely many more, ages varying from 3 yrs on up to 80, will be up against, even leaning over the fence to observe the work at hand.  Basically, construction sites draw crowds.  This happens in Germany too but the Germans are more demure, they stand back a ways and watch quietly.  Here though there is much more engagement.  It's like a team effort with the citizenry.  Yesterday I observed a mini lecture some man was giving his wife about the pavers being used on the Fussgangerzone refurbishment.  Granite is better because it is more magical?  Clearly my German vocabulary is limited by the fact that I've mostly only read documents on sensory perception theory and the Harry Potter books.

2. Fruit and bears I've never even heard of.

3. It's heartbreakingly hot here.  Like, right now, I'm in a crumpled heap on the floor, feeling sorry for myself.  At least Mississippi has air conditioning.

4. I've found that I can ward off the Haydns peddling concert tickets in the Altstadt with the same death-stare that I mastered and employed against the Lyndon LaRouche campaigners at UCLA.

5. Prater Park has trampoline cages!  I'm sure that's not what they're called, but, well they're hard to describe.  A bank of square trampolines separated by soft netting.  I'm guessing they're used for exercise but they look like a bouncy castle subdivision.  Ultimately, they're kind of creepy, each with a different 7 yr-old inside, shrieking as they jump up and down, a little too much like the lemur exhibit at the San Diego Zoo.

Okay!  Back to work!  I finished at the archives yesterday and now I am not allowed to leave my seat until I finish my abstract and my conference talk.  It's just me and the cracked Obama-Biden mug that I discovered with some delight in the cabinet of the apartment I'm subletting here against the world.

All Austro-Hungarian Empire All the Time!

If it wasn't built by the Hapsburgs, then it's not worth looking at.

It's not weird to have coffee with someone you met on the street that was dressed up like Haydn if he takes off his cravat first right?  He says he's also a professional violinist but maybe he says that to all the girls.

It's like The Blair Witch Project but in an 11th-century church, in a former DDR town, anytime between the year 2000 and 2639

John Cage's "As Slow As Possible" is being performed very very slowly in Halberstadt, Germany.

It is a rather strange little town (really cute medieval town center though).  When I first arrived I bought a piece of strawberry cake thing from a bakery.  When I asked the cashier for a fork she seemed insulted and waved me away.  Later, when I ordered a "turkish pizza" out of curiosity at a glum little kneipe I was handed what was essentially a burrito but longer and narrower, pretty much one of the most phallic things I've ever, um... paid for?  The woman instructed me to "eat it like a banana" and then added "See!  You don't need a fork!"

Halberstadt is, apparently, a town without forks.

So that was my outing for today.  Tomorrow I take a tram to a train to the S-bahn to a bus to a plane to a train to a different S-bahn and end up in Vienna.

Some general complaints about Leipzig:

1. The main reading room in the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek is surprisingly drafty.  My fingers turned blue yesterday!  Blue!  Though this may also have been because I was wound up into a tight little knot (stress causes cold hands right?) reading Richard Wagner's wife, Cosima's diary entries about her relationship with Friedrich Nietzsche.  Talk about vitriol.

2. The stupid trams.  They fly around the corner with no warning!  Especially that Number 2 line.  I suppose it doesn't help that I'm staring at the ground, concentrating on getting all the words right to The Decemberists songs.  Still.

3.  The buttons on the remote control at my hotel here are totally lacking in labels.  I was stuck watching a show about ladybugs at a very high volume for a while there.

Some begrudging admissions about Leipzig:

1. The honor system beer fridge at the hotel is pretty awesome.  Not least because it's stocked with some wonderful beer.

2. Free summer evening chamber music concerts on the front steps of the Thomaskirche (where J. S. Bach and Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdys were both kantors) also classy.

3. Some evidence to further inform the ongoing debate over whether Kant meant his use of "noumenon" to be synonymous with his use of "thing-in-itself", both distinguishable from the "phenomenon" of appearance only: Taye Diggs dubbed in German remains Taye Diggs!

Also, I've been thinking a lot lately about children, whether I want any, etc.  I've come to the conclusion that while I'm still generally ambivalent about the prospect, that if I can name my child Ned Nederlander, then I'm 100% on board.

If I close the balcony door, the entire apartment smells like the shag rug in the master bedroom.

If I open the balcony door, five flies come in and circle lazily under the chandelier.

It is a strange dilemma to be faced with but a dilemma nonetheless.

I kickbox for honor. I kickbox for glory.

Some time has passed, allowing me to really work through some of the choices I've made.  I think that I can now say with confidence, that I forgot to pack:

1. My c.phil. to give to Thomas.

2. My favorite pair of black pants.

3. My map of Berlin.  Or did I trade it with Kalil for The Brothers Karamazov?

4. Learn Hungarian in Ten Days or Less!

5. My dignity.

So, I moved across the neighborhood today.  My new sublet is further from the Staatsbibliothek but its cheaper and bigger.  My place last week had a spectacular view (Behold kickass nightview!) but was a bit of a mausoleum.  Like, big blocks of marble/concrete that both muffled all outside noise and amplified your every footstep.  The only sign of of human life (besides the one-man dance parties in my studio) was a short elevator ride I took with a very old man.  After he pressed the button for 11 and I pressed the button for 12 he said something like: "you live on the floor right above me!"  To which I could only truthfully reply: "yes."

I'm going out on a limb here, but if we were to treat Kreuzberg as the Brooklyn of Berlin.  And call my old neighborhood Carroll Gardens.  I am now in East Flatbush, though with more Turks.  I have no idea what the crap I'm talking about.  Anyway, the best part about the new place is that its another family's actual home (the other place was a perpetual short-term sublet) so there's all sorts of charming signs of life.  Like the little girl's paper crown with glued-on feathers sitting on top of the tv.  And the complete discography of Stevie Wonder.

So twice now I've nearly been run over by bicycles, and once by the gay pride parade, because I've stopped abruptly to look at concert fliers papering some wall.  Joe Satriani and Sammy Hagar are in town apparently.  But really, what I may make some extra time for, is the Queen cover band performing at the Planetarium.  The show is titled "Queen in Heaven."  

Awesome.  

Send me all my books and stuffed animals.  I'm not leaving.

shyly, she resumes

Meine Lieblings!  

I have returned.  Both to the blogosphere and Berlin.  

As has, apparently, the Empire.  

We will both try to behave better.