Interesting seatmate on the Vienna flight.
Shahin was a tall, friendly American who spoke with a hint of an East Coast accent---New York? He lives in Switzerland and was returning after a visit to his wife, who is an American doctor teaching in one of Johns Hopkins satellite institutions.
“I don't guess she'll be moving to Switzerland; her license isn't transferable without a lot of retraining,“ I said.
“Plus, she doesn't speak German.“ Which can be a handicap if you're trying to doctor German speakers.
Shahin goes back and forth from Switzerland to Baltimore every three weeks or so. He owns an e-learning company specializing in training executives. I told him I've been to Vienna 13 times in 6.5 years and he said: “I do that every six months or so...“
Shahin mentioned he follows the Baha'i faith. This religion was started in Iran and its adherents have been prosecuted to one degree or another since, including members of Shahin's family, who emigrated to America when things started getting really hot for the Baha'i.
He told me that several members of his family had been killed and his parents couldn't return to Iran because they too were on the hit list. So they began immigration proceedings. They were living in New York but moved to Pennsylvania to be near a lawyer there who'd taken on their case---only to remove himself from the case when the Iranian hostage crisis happened. PLUS, the asshole took all their money and wouldn't give it back.
So they moved to Maryland where they heard people were having luck getting green cards as political refugees. Shahin's father blew his life savings on the previous asshole lawyer so decided to defend himself before the judge, after extensive study of their case (the lawyer had retured their paperwork, if not their money.) His father told about the asshole lawyer, their struggles since coming to the US, but mostly showed documentation about family members in Iran who had been killed.
The judge awarded the family their green cards on the spot.
It took several years before the family was able to finally attend their citizenship ceremony, but by then the father was very sick with terminal cancer. Nevertheless he insisted on attending, because after his long struggle he wanted “to die an American.“ The family got their citizenship and the father died a few months later, having become, sure enough, an American.
I enjoyed meeting Shahin. We talked about a lot of other things, things of note, but somehow or another the story of his family's long struggle to escape persecution made the biggest impact.
----
Very overcast in Vienna, with light rain. A bit chilly.
For The Gary----results of today's data-gathering: P = 7 S = 1
Monday, December 7, 2009
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Sunday
I'm leaving here tomorrow morning, very early.
Vienna to Frankfurt. Frankfurt to DC. DC to the Other Dimension.
There's a lot going on in the Other Dimension and my brain will be busy with it for a few months.
But with any luck, next time I come back here (lucky visit #13?) I can stay for months at a time if I want, instead of just a few weeks.
ABOVE: I took this photo from the balcony yesterday morning during a gentle rain.The picture itself isn't much...but for me it's a great reminder of home, because that's what this place has been to me, off and on, for six years now.
ABOVE: I took this picture last week in Vienna's Central Cemetery. Sooner or later we all end up in a place like this, or some equivilent thereof. That much is certain. The question for me isn't what to do after I'm dead, but what to do before I'm dead, and to keep from being dead while I'm still alive.
See you next time, from Vienna.
Vienna to Frankfurt. Frankfurt to DC. DC to the Other Dimension.
There's a lot going on in the Other Dimension and my brain will be busy with it for a few months.
But with any luck, next time I come back here (lucky visit #13?) I can stay for months at a time if I want, instead of just a few weeks.
ABOVE: I took this photo from the balcony yesterday morning during a gentle rain.The picture itself isn't much...but for me it's a great reminder of home, because that's what this place has been to me, off and on, for six years now.
ABOVE: I took this picture last week in Vienna's Central Cemetery. Sooner or later we all end up in a place like this, or some equivilent thereof. That much is certain. The question for me isn't what to do after I'm dead, but what to do before I'm dead, and to keep from being dead while I'm still alive.
See you next time, from Vienna.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Saturday
We went here and saw this:
Now then: I am a former Catholic schoolboy (and briefly, a goddamned altar boy!) who in his adult years giveth not a shiteth for anything religious. But I have to give credit, these dudes can chant.
We didn't witness this exact kind of chant, but instead a more pedestrian type of chanted prayer. I wish I could have gotten a pic of my favorite monk, an old guy with a ZZ TOP-length beard. Coolest. Monk. EVER.
This monastery claims to have a piece of the actual cross Jesus spent time hanging around on, but I dunno. Most of these claims you have to take with a grain of salt. On ANTIQUES ROADSHOW they tell you it pays to have documentation to back up your claims of having a famous bit of junk, and if you ain't got the paperwork, then the default assumption is: BOGUS. Still. Neat place to see on a rainy Austrian afternoon.
LEFT: If you're a monk and you die in this monastery, this is where you lie in state.
Check out the cool skeleton candelabras! Every punk-rocker and metal-head's dream bedroom.
B, who knows all the differences between architecture of various eras, says that this is the "grotesque baroque" style.
Grotesque, sure enough.
BELOW: After monks are through lying around in the grotesque baroque room, they lie around here.
We drove home, hung out a while, then drove into town to watch INGLORIOUS BASTERDS.
I don't know what to think of Quentin Tarantino, really. Every time I've seen him interviewed on TV, I wanted to jump through the screen and kick him as hard as I can in the nuts. The guy seems wired at all times, excited (or coked up out of his skull) about the latest turd he shit out, but on the other hand I have to give him credit for writing some pretty good stuff.
Like a lot of people who have never had their asses kicked really hard, Tarantino seems a bit too enamored of violence. He just goes over the top with it.
Still. B says nobody ever portrayed the Germans more accurately than Tarantino, and I give him a lot of credit for using real-life German (and Austrian!) actors who really know their stuff both as actors and bi- or even tri-lingual speakers. Very nicely done.
There were some Italians in the theater and they laughed hard when Brad Pitt's character, who claimed to "speak some I-talian" "spoke" it in the most atrocious Tennessee accent. I give Brad credit---he plays the comic scenes pretty well.
The Austrian who played the SS colonel, Christoph Waltz, said Tarantino revived his career, and Waltz deserves an Oscar if anyone does. He really did well, speaking not only excellent German (as you'd expect) but also English and French. B (who speaks French also) says his French was pretty good. The fucking guy even spoke some Italian in the film. He ought to win an Oscar just for knowing how to speak more than one language!
All in all, I give it an 8.5 out of 10.
BTW, it was strange sitting directly behind an elderly couple who surely were old enough to remember WWII----the lady cringed at the violent parts, but that was about it. If they spent the war in Vienna (or anywhere else in Europe) then I give them credit for being able to sit through the film. A Tarantino romp through Hitler's exploits is one thing, but actually living through it is another. Wish I could have talked to them about it...
Now then: I am a former Catholic schoolboy (and briefly, a goddamned altar boy!) who in his adult years giveth not a shiteth for anything religious. But I have to give credit, these dudes can chant.
We didn't witness this exact kind of chant, but instead a more pedestrian type of chanted prayer. I wish I could have gotten a pic of my favorite monk, an old guy with a ZZ TOP-length beard. Coolest. Monk. EVER.
This monastery claims to have a piece of the actual cross Jesus spent time hanging around on, but I dunno. Most of these claims you have to take with a grain of salt. On ANTIQUES ROADSHOW they tell you it pays to have documentation to back up your claims of having a famous bit of junk, and if you ain't got the paperwork, then the default assumption is: BOGUS. Still. Neat place to see on a rainy Austrian afternoon.
LEFT: If you're a monk and you die in this monastery, this is where you lie in state.Check out the cool skeleton candelabras! Every punk-rocker and metal-head's dream bedroom.
B, who knows all the differences between architecture of various eras, says that this is the "grotesque baroque" style.
Grotesque, sure enough.
BELOW: After monks are through lying around in the grotesque baroque room, they lie around here.
We drove home, hung out a while, then drove into town to watch INGLORIOUS BASTERDS.
I don't know what to think of Quentin Tarantino, really. Every time I've seen him interviewed on TV, I wanted to jump through the screen and kick him as hard as I can in the nuts. The guy seems wired at all times, excited (or coked up out of his skull) about the latest turd he shit out, but on the other hand I have to give him credit for writing some pretty good stuff.
Like a lot of people who have never had their asses kicked really hard, Tarantino seems a bit too enamored of violence. He just goes over the top with it.
Still. B says nobody ever portrayed the Germans more accurately than Tarantino, and I give him a lot of credit for using real-life German (and Austrian!) actors who really know their stuff both as actors and bi- or even tri-lingual speakers. Very nicely done.
There were some Italians in the theater and they laughed hard when Brad Pitt's character, who claimed to "speak some I-talian" "spoke" it in the most atrocious Tennessee accent. I give Brad credit---he plays the comic scenes pretty well.
The Austrian who played the SS colonel, Christoph Waltz, said Tarantino revived his career, and Waltz deserves an Oscar if anyone does. He really did well, speaking not only excellent German (as you'd expect) but also English and French. B (who speaks French also) says his French was pretty good. The fucking guy even spoke some Italian in the film. He ought to win an Oscar just for knowing how to speak more than one language!
All in all, I give it an 8.5 out of 10.
BTW, it was strange sitting directly behind an elderly couple who surely were old enough to remember WWII----the lady cringed at the violent parts, but that was about it. If they spent the war in Vienna (or anywhere else in Europe) then I give them credit for being able to sit through the film. A Tarantino romp through Hitler's exploits is one thing, but actually living through it is another. Wish I could have talked to them about it...
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