B. had been telling me on the phone for about a week: "It's hot in Vienna."
Yep. It's been in the 90s here for several days. Unusually hot. Add to that the fact that air conditioning in vehicles and buildings isn't too common, and you get a sticky situation.
Add to that fact the fact that there were some big rains before the big heat and you get Vienna, Louisiana. Complete with hungry mosquitoes, as I found out when we strolled down to the Mayer for a drink and a couple of bottles of wine to take home. We sat outside in the beautiful patio with a hundred or so other people. The wine was fantastic (it wins lots of awards) and the food looked great (we didn't eat) but the air was dead and the mosquitoes weren't. I took a kind of delight in swatting them, insulting them as I did: "Motherfucker!" SWAT! "Asshole!" SWAT! "Taste death!" SWAT!
I told a woman friend once: "Only the female mosquito bites."
She said: "While the male mosquito stays at home watching the game and ignoring the kids."
Well, possibly.
We walked back home, me toting the four bottles of white. We poured a couple of glasses and B. turned on the TV to watch an opera, broadcast live on an elaborate outdoor stage on the shores of a big lake near the Hungarian border. Pretty impressive. A big production.
While I wrote the previous blog post and B watched the opera, a storm brewed up. Pretty soon the rain came and it was magical. The air cooled off immediately and the wine tasted even better. I joined B in the living room, stepped out on the balcony to feel the rain. We watched the rest of the opera and finished the first bottle of wine.
A good first evening back "home."
Friday, July 16, 2010
Thursday, July 15, 2010
S. Plots His Next Move
I got here about 3 hours late. The plane from Houston to Frankfurt was delayed, which delayed my connection from Frankfurt to Vienna.
You know how it goes.
But pity my poor seatmate, who was on his way from Houston to India. The delay REALLY put him in Fucked Up Position #1, but that didn't stop him from being an interesting person and a delightful seatmate. Which is what you want when your ass is glued to the middle seat on a 9.5 hour flight.
S. works as a trader for a major international oil company. He lives and works in Houston. He came to the US just after college in India to pursue his post-graduate studies. He stayed and married and now has two kids, and he and his wife are US citizens now.
And he likes the US. The family visits India every so often, to connect with the grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, etc. but S.'s kids are AMERICANS and the idea of ever going back to India to live is pretty much unthinkable....
But as we talked, I saw obvious conflicts. It wasn't so much that India was pulling S., but he does miss his parents and feels a kind of guilt for leaving them behind---though they have no interest in leaving India. He feels bad that he can't see them as often as he'd like.
Mostly it seems that S. feels the conflicts that anyone in his position feels----the corporate culture giveth, but it also threatens to taketh away if you don't "perform." That means working weekends, and being tethered to your fucking Blackberry 24-7. And, hey----even though you've got six weeks of vacation saved up, how DARE you take 2.5 weeks of it to travel to INDIA when we need you HERE!?
That kind of bullshit.
We talked about modern life, how people are more and more expected to perform like machines. How the things that make us human seem less and less important to more and more people. I told him about my idea of hosting small dinners at my house every two weeks. I've done this five times so far and it's been fun.
"See, that's another thing," he said. "My family hardly ever gets together with our friends anymore. Everyone is so busy! And when we do see each other we complain about this, because being together reminds us that we're hardly EVER together." The feeling in our section of the plane was: Something has gone wrong with modern life. Seriously fucking wrong.
Bruce Lee was an innovator of martial arts training methodology. His big idea was to replace traditional outdated training methods and concepts of unarmed combat with modern, workable concepts. HIs observation was, the traditional methods try to turn you into a robot when what you need to be is a free-flowing thinker and mover. More like a dancer.
Bruce had a fake tombstone constructed and he displayed it in his school for his students to think about.
It said: "In memory of a once-fluid man, crammed and distorted by the classical mess."
I thought of that tombstone as I listened to S.
But I also had the idea he was planning his escape.
You know how it goes.
But pity my poor seatmate, who was on his way from Houston to India. The delay REALLY put him in Fucked Up Position #1, but that didn't stop him from being an interesting person and a delightful seatmate. Which is what you want when your ass is glued to the middle seat on a 9.5 hour flight.
S. works as a trader for a major international oil company. He lives and works in Houston. He came to the US just after college in India to pursue his post-graduate studies. He stayed and married and now has two kids, and he and his wife are US citizens now.
And he likes the US. The family visits India every so often, to connect with the grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, etc. but S.'s kids are AMERICANS and the idea of ever going back to India to live is pretty much unthinkable....
But as we talked, I saw obvious conflicts. It wasn't so much that India was pulling S., but he does miss his parents and feels a kind of guilt for leaving them behind---though they have no interest in leaving India. He feels bad that he can't see them as often as he'd like.
Mostly it seems that S. feels the conflicts that anyone in his position feels----the corporate culture giveth, but it also threatens to taketh away if you don't "perform." That means working weekends, and being tethered to your fucking Blackberry 24-7. And, hey----even though you've got six weeks of vacation saved up, how DARE you take 2.5 weeks of it to travel to INDIA when we need you HERE!?
That kind of bullshit.
We talked about modern life, how people are more and more expected to perform like machines. How the things that make us human seem less and less important to more and more people. I told him about my idea of hosting small dinners at my house every two weeks. I've done this five times so far and it's been fun.
"See, that's another thing," he said. "My family hardly ever gets together with our friends anymore. Everyone is so busy! And when we do see each other we complain about this, because being together reminds us that we're hardly EVER together." The feeling in our section of the plane was: Something has gone wrong with modern life. Seriously fucking wrong.
Bruce Lee was an innovator of martial arts training methodology. His big idea was to replace traditional outdated training methods and concepts of unarmed combat with modern, workable concepts. HIs observation was, the traditional methods try to turn you into a robot when what you need to be is a free-flowing thinker and mover. More like a dancer.
Bruce had a fake tombstone constructed and he displayed it in his school for his students to think about.
It said: "In memory of a once-fluid man, crammed and distorted by the classical mess."
I thought of that tombstone as I listened to S.
But I also had the idea he was planning his escape.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Last Day In Vienna
I leave tomorrow morning after five weeks here.
It's been a dark winter, not much sun, but nevertheless I've had a great time. The sun shines in my heart, thanks to B, her family, and her friends.
----
It's odd, living in two dreams. Two lives: one here, one in America. Now that I'm retired, I can spend more time in Europe when I come here. It feels strange---strangely good---not to have to turn around after two weeks and go back home. Talk about a dream; the feeling always was, "Was I really there? Did it really happen?"
----
B found an article in the New York Review of Books called "What Is Living and What Is Dead in Social Democracy?" It's adapted from a speech and is a little bit of a read, but an interesting read. And though it's not the main point of the article, one can't help but noting how present-day US thinking was shaped in some part by the theories and ideas of a small group of Austrians...
You have to step outside your ordinary thoughts and experiences once in a while, even if it's uncomfortable to do so. Maybe especially because it's uncomfortable. What tends to happen, otherwise, is that certain crucial questions never even get asked, and certain ideas are never even discussed. I've noticed a closing of the American mind in recent decades. A greater polarization.
If 1968 was tumultuous, what is 2018 going to look like?
-----
Read a book called "Three Cups Of Tea" by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. Subtitle: "One man's mission to promote peace...one school at a time."
Maybe 2018 will look a lot better than we might imagine it, thanks to people like Mortenson.
B and I have been reading this book aloud to each other. Buy a copy and read it to someone you love, then give the book away as a gift.
-----
So, I'm flying home. As in previous times, this blog is now dormant. Until my next visit abroad.
Cheers,
The Bicontinental Bastard
It's been a dark winter, not much sun, but nevertheless I've had a great time. The sun shines in my heart, thanks to B, her family, and her friends.
----
It's odd, living in two dreams. Two lives: one here, one in America. Now that I'm retired, I can spend more time in Europe when I come here. It feels strange---strangely good---not to have to turn around after two weeks and go back home. Talk about a dream; the feeling always was, "Was I really there? Did it really happen?"
----
B found an article in the New York Review of Books called "What Is Living and What Is Dead in Social Democracy?" It's adapted from a speech and is a little bit of a read, but an interesting read. And though it's not the main point of the article, one can't help but noting how present-day US thinking was shaped in some part by the theories and ideas of a small group of Austrians...
You have to step outside your ordinary thoughts and experiences once in a while, even if it's uncomfortable to do so. Maybe especially because it's uncomfortable. What tends to happen, otherwise, is that certain crucial questions never even get asked, and certain ideas are never even discussed. I've noticed a closing of the American mind in recent decades. A greater polarization.
If 1968 was tumultuous, what is 2018 going to look like?
-----
Read a book called "Three Cups Of Tea" by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. Subtitle: "One man's mission to promote peace...one school at a time."
Maybe 2018 will look a lot better than we might imagine it, thanks to people like Mortenson.
B and I have been reading this book aloud to each other. Buy a copy and read it to someone you love, then give the book away as a gift.
-----
So, I'm flying home. As in previous times, this blog is now dormant. Until my next visit abroad.
Cheers,
The Bicontinental Bastard
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