Bookbinding Begins / Off To Italy

The great TV network ARTE is doing a lot of rock and roll retrospective this month, and a lot of that is about Elvis. I was watching a bit of it this afternoon but then it was time to run an errand.

Walking down the sidewalk, I heard an Elvis tune coming from an open window. I thought: It's a long time since your last day on Earth, Elvis...an even longer time since those days at Sun Records, and an even longer time since that day in Tupelo when you and your [soon-to-die] twin were born.

Well, hell. Everyone's atoms disperse sooner or later; there's no escaping that fact.

Yet here's your song, 35 years after you died, coming out of a window in Vienna.

Well, long live The King.

-----

I dropped off the paper to Thomas The Bookbinder this afternoon...told him basically what kind of book I want then said: "As for the rest, why don't you feel free to experiment and put your own artistic touches to the book? How about if I give you 20 Euro extra and you just do what you want?"

"Yah, great! I'll make a good book for you."

We talked about "art." I put the word in quotes because I don't know what "art" "is", and I don't think anybody else does, either. I know what a painting or a photo or a sculpture or a movie "is", but when do these things go from there to "art?" There's no hard and fast rule and therefore, to me, the entire thing is a bullshit construct. But to save time in conversation, I use the word when I mean "stuff you think up, then produce." Which, if you think about it, could be, literally, a turd. And most often is, at least figuratively.

I told him I posted his BUTTERBROT video appearance on this blog, and my paisan Mod, after seeing the video, talked about books and how cool they are and how beautiful they can be when thoughtfully produced. (I love the Bukowski books done by Black Sparrow Press, for example---cover design, printing, the whole shit.) Thomas said: "Ummmm, yah, there are bookbinders and I do that sort of work but I also sometimes creatively modify books in an artistic way. My mother is a painter and my father is a writer so yes, it is natural I should do this. For thirty years I have done this."

 I did something for thirty years once, but I only achieved an average level of competence and I haven't done it at all for five years or more. I sometimes wish I could be really good at something but it looks like I'll have to settle for average. That's how it goes---you won't hear John X songs coming out of a window in Vienna 35 years after I'm dead, that's for sure. And that's for the best, because there are way too many turds floating in the pool as it is.

I gave Thomas some money up front, he gave me a receipt, and I told him I'll call him when we return from Italy.

----

B and I are going to Italy until Sunday after next. So the blog is suspended until our return, when I'll do my best to catch up.

My buddy Will wants lots of pictures of Italian women. It's an inexpensive gift and won't crowd my suitcase, so I'll do what I can for him.

In The Rain

Went to the 1st District in a light rain. Had a beer at Cafe Alt Wien. A outlaw motorcycle club biker came in, with his wife or girlfriend, and three kids----one about 4, the other two infants. They sat with another guy. The biker held one of the infants on his lap and seemed quite the contented daddy. You never know.

Left the coffee house and saw my very first midget of the visit, an elderly woman crossing the street. I figure I had the drop on her, because I was approaching from behind, but then I realized it might be a trap so I spun around several times, checking my 6. She pretended she didn't notice my little dance. Midgets can be tricky---if you spot one, be on your guard.

Had a slice of pizza at Schwedenplatz, standing under the roof of the snack stand. A guy approached me twice, once asking for money, then later for a cigarette. I noticed he kept a big bottle of cheap wine in a nearby fountain, the running water presumably keeping the wine cool. He'd beg a bit, then return to the bottle for a hit, then beg again. He wore shorts, no shirt, and an overcoat. I wanted to take his picture but by the time I finished shoving the pizza into my mouth, he'd vanished. The guy running the pizza stand was, as usual, a Turk. He'd jabbered at the guy in Turkish and maybe scared him off, I don't know.

Roamed around. Twice people asked me for directions, as if I know WTF I'm doing here, myself. I could only help the second person, an elderly German woman who asked me, in the Stadtpark,where the famous gilded statue of Johann Strauss is. I'd just passed it so I walked her back to it. "Herr Strauss," I said. Then I vanished.

Walked around, caught the subway, ended up again at Cafe Rudigerhof. My second beer---or, as I think of it, my "rent" for sitting at the coffeehouse, writing----and then again to the subway for home. Waiting for the train, I noticed a junkie was being tended to by three ambulance workers, who were trying to convince him to go with them, but when the train arrived he shrugged them off and got aboard instead.

At the end stop, where everyone has to get off, the junkie was still sitting there, on the nod. The guy sitting across from him nudged him. "Last stop," he probably said. "Time to get off." But I guess the guy had already "gotten off" and was too high to know WTF.

I noticed two train drivers standing outside, one of them making a call on a cell phone. For the cops or an ambulance, I don't know. I felt sorry for the junkie. Thin, long hair, beard---he looked for all the world like pictures purporting to be of Jesus.

And, hell----maybe he was, testing us.

I bet we got an F.

Neusiedlersee

Monday afternoon we took off with our friend Margit for Neusiedlersee, about 50 kilometers from Vienna.

It's the second-largest steppe lake in central Europe and straddles the Austria-Hungary border, with most of the lake inside Austria.

Lots of grape vines in this part of Austria, and therefore lots of wineries...in fact, there's a TV show called Der Winzerkönig (The Vintner King) set in the town of Rust (pronounced "roost") and while in Rust walking around, we saw a lot of plaques on the walls of various establishments showing that such-and-such scene of such-and-such episode of Der Winzerkönig was shot at this location.

Lots of stork nests in Rust, usually built on top of chimneys (not sure how that works out for the storks when somebody lights a fire, but OK) and I saw a couple of storks in the nests.

I'd love to watch a stork build one of these giant nests.

We stopped at a place for a drink and a bowl of soup, then B sprung a little surprise on me: we were going to cross the lake on one of the big boats that ferry people back and forth, then catch a bus back to Rust.

Our boat was a double-decker. There was a bar on the main level if you wanted to drink during the 90 minutes or so it takes to cross the lake, but we spent all our time on the top of the boat, feeling the wind and sun. It was a nice day, temps in the high 70s I'd guess, but the wind was kind of strong and the waves were choppy----lots of sailboats and windsurfers out on the lake.

Through one of the many channels leading to the main body of the lake.

The lake is shallow and full of reeds along the shore. There are many channels leading out to the main lake and I assume they're kept clear by occasional mowing of the reeds---there are boats that do that kind of thing. 

Conditions on the lake make for challenging sailing; they occasionally have world championship events here...don't be fooled by the calm in the port. Enlarge pic and notice the head of a swimmer in the middle by the stern of one of the boats. A nude swimmer, as I saw when we cruised past his shiny white ass.

Relatively calm here, but out in the open the waves were choppy and it looked like some of these guys were hitting speeds of about 25 MPH or so.

There were several islands in the lake on the way to the opposite shore, near the Hungarian side.

Seagulls followed the boat but nobody threw them anything to eat, until I finally had mercy and broke up one of my Granola bars and tossed pieces into the air. The gulls didn't catch the pieces in mid-air but they had sharp eyes, diving for each piece as soon as they saw it hit the water.

This pic gives a better idea of the actual conditions on the lake.

My mind works in strange ways. Cruising along I wondered: How do they get these huge boats into the lake? They're too big to transport intact via the highway. I guess they transport the parts and build the boats right on the lake, is all I can figure out.

We docked on the Hungarian side of the lake then took another brief ferry ride back the same direction, but just to a nearby town (back in Austria) where we disembarked and then caught a bus back to Rust. The towns are close together and you can drive the perimeter of the lake, coming to a new town every few minutes or so but if you cross the lake by boat, it's a long trip. 

We found a heurige in a small town near Rust and had a couple of glasses of wine and some sandwiches (at a fraction of the price you'd pay in Vienna.) 

It started getting cloudy on the way home; Margit stopped the car so I could shoot this vista, with the Alps in the background.

A great place for a road trip, or biking, or hiking.
Suck factor: extremely low.

We got back about 8 PM. It was raining slightly. I walked to the heurige in the rain and brought back a couple of bottles of white wine. Good end to a great day.