Free Postcards

Some free postcards I picked up at a restaurant...

Avatar

Went to see AVATAR last night with our friends Peter and Vivian.

Short take: I suggest you see it.

I am not big on special-effects films. When I hear someone say: "The special effects were fantastic!" I take that to mean: "They tried desperately to cover the stink of a shitty story with less-smelly special effects."

But with Avatar, I give a hearty thumbs-up...not only because the effects were so spectacular, and the world they created so beautiful, but also because the 3-D was a nice touch. Unlike 3-D films of the past that I've seen, where you get cheap-ass cardboard glasses with different colored lenses, with Avatar we got what looked like regular sunglasses. I looked them over, trying to figure out what was different about them, but couldn't. But they worked, and worked well.

The story was decent, though a few of the characters (particularly the military leader) were absolute caricatures. Also, though the film is set in the year 2154, there were way too many early-21st Century verbalizations, like "Bring it!" and "Is that all you got, bitch?" An obvious concession to the youngsters in the audience.

Also, the sappy Hollywood-esque romantic part of the story line might make more mature viewers say, sarcastically: "Yeah, right---that's EXACTLY how love works," though I suspect the teenage girls in the audience might swoon a bit. Give 'em a few weeks of a "dream man" who sits on the sofa all night farting while playing his video games, and who never cleans up around the house, and they'll get over that shit soon enough.

Also, the final battle scene was way over the top and I found myself thinking: "I'm not buying this crap for a second," followed immediately by: "On the other hand, here's a movie where blue cat-people are flying around on dinosaur birds, so who can expect a realistic battle sequence?" It's like opera: you go for the music and the singing, but forget anything approaching a believable story.

Lots of interesting modern-day parallels in the story line that provide food for thought. And, the producers used a lot of imagination in designing the world the blue cat-like people inhabit.

I also thought it might be a great film to see while higher than a kite, for those of you who enjoy a good smoke now and then.

Sitting Bull.Then--Sitting On Our Asses at Lux

Visited the Museum of Ethnology this afternoon to check out the Sitting Bull exhibit.

We were impressed with the scope of the exhibit. There were numerous photos, copies of drawings Sitting Bull made showing his many adventures (and which looked like a child's crayon drawings), artifacts from his time such as clothing, weapons, and everyday items, and many explanations in German and English about Sitting Bull's history and life.

The exhibit had a lot of visitors besides us. Generations of Europeans have grown up reading the books of Karl May, who is one of the bestselling German-language authors of all time---his books have sold more than 200 million copies worldwide. May counted among his fans such guys as Einstein and Hermann Hesse.

May wrote a series of books about Native Americans. He got a lot of the details wrong but the books were very popular and showed Indians in a positive light---unlike, say, the TV shows I watched as a kid on American TV.

The entrance to the Sitting Bull exhibit at Vienna's Museum of Ethnology

There's the myth of the noble savage, and there's the myth of the "no-good Indian." My take on it is that the Indians reacted pretty much as any of us would---as most of us do---when we're suddenly swamped with hordes of outsiders...especially when those outsiders are stealing our land and fucking up our way of life. They fought. In the end they lost, and lost big. Ironically enough, I've heard that some of the Indian casinos are using their earnings to buy back a lot of land that originally belonged to them in the first place, using the white man's gambling losses. What goes around...
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After the exhibit we met some friends for dinner. Tried all the trendazoidal places attached to the museums in the MuseumsQuartier but they were jam-packed; couldn't get a table. Plus, they were noisy as hell.

So we ended up at Lux, a restaurant I really like.

Had a couple of beers and a bowl of soup, and good conversation with our friends.

Interior of Lux

But the most interesting talk came at the end, when I was paying the waiter. Somehow it came out that this young man was from Iran, and had come to Austria in 2003. His English seemed pretty good so I asked him: "Tell me---what's your impression of what's going on in Iran right now? How do you think it will turn out?"

This got the guy started. He asked me if he could switch to German to explain things. Having a world-class simultaneous interpreter with me (my girlfriend) I said: "Sure, German is fine."

So while the guy talked, B interpreted simultaneously. What he told us was:

1) As long as Iran has oil and gas, nothing much will change for the better for the Iranian people
2) There are two kinds of cops in Iran. The normal cops, and the elite cops. The elite cops have no problems gunning ordinary people down.
3) His brother was thrown into prison in Iran, so the kid had to leave when he was 16 or so...I guess because, once someone in your family gets persecuted, YOU get persecuted.
4) He has no intention of, or interest in, ever returning to Iran.
5) Compared to life in Iran, life in Austria as an immigrant is easy.

The young man went on for about ten minutes. I like talking to ordinary people about their lives and insights about things I know nothing about. B seemed to enjoy talking to him, as well. When it was over I said to him, in my rudimentary German: "I hope everything works out OK for the Iranian people." And I thanked him for sharing his ideas with us. He seemed happy that someone cared enough to ask. He shook my hand when we left.