Forget It

It is very educational working at the Big Blue Box Store, and not just in regard to tools and DIY supplies. It also affords me a course in contemporary music, thanks to the continuous feed that plays all day and probably all night over the PA system.

It's to my advantage that I'm hearing these songs with no clue to who the singers or songwriters are.  This way I can appreciate them without thinking, "Oh, yes.  That's that girl who was caught one night last week throwing her underwear to the seagulls at Venice Beach."   Or whatever.  No, it's just me and the music.

And a lot of it isn't half bad.  Pretty good, actually.  The songs are creative and varied, their singers using diverse vocal techniques (I recognize some from the exposure I got to Estill voice training in choir a couple years ago) to great effect.

Nevertheless, these songs as a group don't do a lot for me.  They run through my head when I'm not at work, but like a rat runs through cheese, mindlessly.  I have no urge to sing them, or identify with them, or in any way make them my own.

I've wondered why.  And it's seemed to me that it's because I'm just too old.  Not too old for the music, but too old for the subject of most popular songs:  romantic love.  I've lived without it for so long.  It's been the late '90s since there's been anyone I was interested in, seriously or not.  By now the whole thing seems foreign and irrelevant.  I've got my life course set, and guys and relationships have no part in it.  Even if I had time to date anyone, I doubt I could be bothered to gin up the requisite feelings for him.  I doubt I could if I tried.

At least, that's how I thought about it until recently.  Recently, however, I discovered the old nerve endings are not dead after all.  How I learned that is not important, since I also discovered that the situation was, shall we say, not eligible.  So much for that.

Nevertheless, here I am, having to admit that on my side, at least, the popular songs could provide a soundtrack for me, should an appropriate man come along.  Nice to know that part of me isn't dead after all.

Still, maybe I'm back where I started after all.   A few weeks ago I was waiting on a customer at the store.  He had a lot of explaining to do regarding his home improvement project, and as I stood patiently listening to him, it hit me:  This man, were he single, would be an example of someone of suitable age for me to date.  And I rebelled:  Impossible!  He's old enough to be my father!  He looks old enough to be my grandfather!

And me, I probably look old enough to be my grandmother, too.

So, forget it.  It's not happening.  So  for me the contemporary popular songs, while musically interesting, will have to remain emotionally opaque.

Christmas Carol

I didn't think I would be able to produce a Christmas carol this year; not enough energy and too much going on.  But this past Monday a rudimentary melody and the words started coming to me; by Tuesday the poem was pretty well finished and I had the notes of the soprano/unison line written down; on Wednesday (or was it Thursday-- my short term memory stinks) I downloaded the MuseScore free software and started in on the notation; and by Thursday and Friday I had the thing pretty well done.

And here it is:


O brothers, sisters, let us sing,
Alleluia, allelu,
How came the birth of Christ our King,
Allelu, alleluia.
Once Earth was new, and we were free,
But Adam sinned most dreadfully
And sold us all to slavery,
Allelu, alleluia.

In death's dark prison we were bound,
Alleluia, allelu,
And in ourselves no hope we found,
Hosanna, alleluia.
But God looked down on our distress,
His oath on Abram He did rest,
That through him, mankind would be bless'd,
Hosanna, alleluia.

The prophets bold foretold the day,
Alleluia, allelu,
When grace would sweep our guilt away,
Allelu, alleluia,
When to us, fearful and forlorn,
A holy Savior would be born
To dwell with us, that blessed morn,
Gloria, alleluia!

So, humble, in a manger laid,
Alleluia, allelu,
Jesus was born of mortal maid,
Gloria, alleluia!
The very Son of God was He,
But bent He to our frailty
And shared our doomed humanity,
Allelu, alleluia!

Beside Him, lamb and oxen stood,
Alleluia, allelu,
And He became the Lamb of God,
Hosanna, allelu!
Upon His cross He off'ring made
Of His own flesh, His might displayed,
Now sin and Satan are dismayed,
Allelu, alleluia!

Then Christ our Savior burst the grave,
Alleluia, allelu!
And to His faithful, life He gave,
Allelu, alleluia!
Before the angels now He names
Us brothers, sisters-- unashamed
Of us His holy blood reclaims,
Gloria, alleluia!

Now we from death have been set free,
Alleluia, allelu!
And sons in glory aye shall be,
Allelu, alleluia!
To God our Father, praises bring,
To Christ, our Brother and our King,
O brothers, sisters, let us sing!
Gloria, alleluia!


Maybe what got me off dead center with this was remembering how, a few months ago, the pastor of the church I attend when I'm not preaching somewhere challenged us to come up with hymns on the doctrine of Adoption.  I can't say this is that hymn, but thinking about the theme made me consider that something could be done with Hebrews, chapter 2.  And so I did.

I still have to publish it, meaning run off copies of the score and send them to my kinfolk and friends in lieu of Christmas cards or gifts.  I've already published it online, here.

A blessed Christmastide to all five of my readers.  Remember, it's all true.

Cold Turkey

I've been thinking of deleting the Games folder and all its contents off my computer.

Ever since my first computer, acquired in my second year of theological college in the autumn of 1993, I've given up computer games for Lent. I don't say this to brag on myself; rather, it shows how addictive I've found them. I needed to wrench myself away for a time each year, and I definitely needed Outside Help to do it.

Back then, it was Tetris. I'd get so engrossed in playing it (instead of working on my essays) that during chapel services, while kneeling for the Intercessions, I'd see tetraminos floating down the screen of my closed eyes.

Later, it was Freecell and Spider Solitaire. I came to understand that seven weeks of abstinance was not enough to give me mastery over my obsession, so four or five years ago I began to fast from playing computer games during the four weeks of Advent as well.

But I've been attending a very reformed Presbyterian church this past year (when I'm not preaching, myself), and they're very big on not being bound by purely man-made rules, like the idea one should give things up for Advent and Lent. So this Advent immediately past, I played Spider Solitaire all I jolly well pleased. And sometimes when I didn't really please. I'd get on and start dealing and redealing and keep going and going . . .

And I'm thinking, this has got to stop. I have too much to do to waste whole half hours two or three or four times a day placing one virtual card on another. Which means radical action: Delete!

But why don't I just make a New Year's resolution to control myself and just play a game a day? Or save the fun for Saturday evenings or whenever?

Because if I had any resolve I wouldn't be frying my brain with these toys the way I do now. I need to go cold turkey and get rid of them.

True, if I do that I would miss the enjoyment I get out of playing them. I'd lose the pleasure of knowing that here, at least, something is going where it belongs and staying there. And how else will I while away the minutes while waiting for files to download? And what will I do to allay the truly visceral desire that seizes me to click on the Spider Solitaire icon and play and play? I know that if I delete that file it's going to drive me crazy.

Which is why I gotta stop. That's physical addiction, and it just ain't right.

Then there's the weird state of mind I get into when I play computer games. Some psychologist should study the phenomenon. I could claim they put me into a very creative state, but nothing ever comes of it.

One part of my consciousness will be focussed on playing the game. But in another part of my mind, I often begin to see . . . scenes. Scenes from a play, or maybe a movie. Nothing I've ever seen or heard or read; something original and new. But always seeming to take place in the past, and always with the exchanges in some sort of dialect. Brooklynese or Yiddish or Irish. Trouble is, even though I can make out the drift of the dialog, I can never make out what the characters are actually saying.

A typical episode: Three people, two men and a woman, in the disorderly kitchen of a cheap apartment, probably somewhere in the Bronx. I see it in black and white. The men, both in shirtsleeves, one with a hat on, sit at the kitchen table, intently discussing something. The woman, a bleached blonde, hovers between the table and the stove, bringing coffee when demanded and putting in her 2 cents whether asked for it or no. She is the wife, I think, of the man without the hat. The men seem to be plotting something, I can't tell what. A bank robbery or a hijacking or whatever. At one point, they nearly come to blows. Not over whether to do the job; rather, over how to pull it off. The woman intervenes. She seems to be saying they're both wrong and should listen to her. She's as deep in it as they are, she simply has a more level head. Her advice may well guarantee the success of their plan. Will they listen to her? Do I want them to listen to her and be successful? Who is the hero of this little play? One of these guys, or a detective somewhere? How can I know? That's all I get!

But more often, the effect of a strong dose of computer games isn't so dramatic. More often, the unoccupied part of my brain sends up . . . old songs. I mean, really old songs. From the first part of the 20th century, or before. Songs I haven't thought of for months or years, songs I have no reason to think of.

Songs like "Hello, Ma Baby" (1899). Yesterday, it was "Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart" (1934). Today, I channelled "I'll Take Romance" (1937).

Where do they come from? Why do they come when I'm trying to decide whether to use the free space to free up that black four to move it to the five, or to shift that red king? Is this some wondrous facility I'll lose if I delete that file?

Yes, maybe. But what about all those other things I'm losing out on now, like balancing my accounts and writing my novel and stripping the hallway floor?

(I'm thinking . . . I'm thinking . . . )

(Excuse me a minute.)

I . . . I . . . did it. At least, I dumped the folder with the shortcuts in it. Which means those games may still be someplace on the machine, but I can't get to them.

Aaaaaagggghhhhhhh!!!!!!

My Cut-Rate Grand Tour, Day Twenty-nine

Tuesday, 3 January, 1989
Wien to Stuttgart to Karlsfelden*

WIEN-- Came down around 7:20 and asked the clerk at the desk if he could call me a cab. But it doesn’t work that way here. What you do, you leave your luggage in the lobby then walk up the street to the cabstand. You bring a cab back with you, or it brings you, rather, you pack in the luggage, and you’re off.

I checked the route to the West Bahnhof on the map last night and it seems to me that the cabbie took the scenic route today . . . He didn’t take a single major street until the very last. It wasn’t only the money I was worried about, it was the time.

But maybe he was trying to avoid rush-hour congestion. Made it with fifteen minutes to spare, which with a EurailPass is plenty. I suppose if I’d missed the 8:00 AM train I could’ve got the next one, that left at 10:00 or so, and stopped in Munich after all. But I’d pretty much decided not to do that and to go straight through to Stuttgart.

ON THE TRAIN-- It’s a long ride; but happily the sun was out and it was a nice day to gape out the window at the Austrian and German countryside.

Listened to my music on the headphones . . . while I was listening to my tape of Bach’s Wachet auf it came to me that it’s rather odd, that here I am, what you’d call a visual artist, but visual art doesn’t move me the way music does.

STUTTGART-- I probably shouldn’t’ve been, but I was surprised to see how Stuttgart is all bulwarked with great high hills, almost mountains, all terraced for vineyards.

It’s also surprising to find how bloody tired you can get, just sitting on your can for eight hours or so. Having disembarked, I lugged the bags downstairs from where the trains come into the Hauptbahnhof to a kind of subterranean shopping mall. Got to where the info place was supposed to be, and it turned out to be only a bulletin board. The place with informative people and maps and things was farther on down.

Oh.

Stood in line and got my Stadtplan. But the Wechsel, the money changing place, was back up at the track level.

Oh.

Hauled myself and my bags back up there, cashed in the rest of the Schillings and got some Marks in exchange for a traveller’s cheque. Made it known I wanted some loose change for the phone but the man said, No, you get that up on a mezzanine, at the post office branch.

Oh, God.

I picked up my luggage again, found the stairs, and arrived at the Bahnhof post office. Up there I stood and waited my turn in a nice long line. When I got to the guichet I encountered a clerk who, between his deficient English and my next-to-nonexistent German, only managed to communicate to me that you have to buy a card to use the payphones.

Oh, God damn!!

I just about lost it. I couldn’t help it, I started crying. Happily, the postal worker recognised the problem and sent me over to speak with a man with a bit more English.

He clarified that it was the long distance service phones, there in the room, that required the cards. The local call phones were out in the hall, and here was the change I required.

Finally!

I called the number Friedhelm* gave me for his home and got his mother.

"Friedl is not here," she said in her charming accented English. "He is in town, at the Bahnhof. He will be back around 10:00. You call back then."

That seemed a little late to me, so I said, "Well, please tell him that Blogwen X--* called and that I am here in Stuttgart. He knows me from Coverdale*."

"Oh, Coverdale!" Friedl’s mother exclaimed. "He’s at the Bahnhof to pick up some people from Coverdale! They are from Canada, I think."

"Oh, Chrissie* and Pete*!"

"Yes, Chrissie and Pete. They are coming from Köln at 5:30 or 6:30, I don’t remember. They will come back here. You call in the evening."

I tried to make her understand that I was at the Bahnhof, too, but decided at last that it wasn’t important. For now I had a clear idea of what I could do. Signed off with Frau Schneider*, trotted the bags down to the lockers, stashed them, and headed for the nearest Arrivals chart to check for trains from Köln.

Ah, yes, here was one at 5:35. It was about 5:20 by now, so I remarked the Gleis number and went back to the trains.

I’d recognise that aqua and navy blue anorak anywhere. His back was turned to me and I came up behind and said brightly, "Guten Tag, Herr Schneider*!"

This is one of the smarter things I’ve done in awhile. He turned around, said, "Hello, Blogwen!" and gave me a hug. It was like a little homecoming.

Said Friedl, "Do you have a hotel yet?"

"Well, I was going to ask you if you know of any nice cheap ones."

"You come to us."

There it was, simple as that.

And guess what, not only were Chrissie and Pete expected any minute, but Theo Smyth* [a Coverdale student from South Africa] and his fianceé Phoebe* would be flying in from London this evening! Talk about Providence!

Chrissie and Pete were duly debouched from the Köln train and greetings exchanged all round. I collected my bags from the locker-- Friedl insisted on carrying the blue one-- and we went back down through the shopping mall thing and through to a parking garage, where Friedl packed us all into his car and we headed off to Karlsfelden*, where he lives.

KARLSFELDEN-- It was dark by now, if a very starry night, so I couldn’t tell you what the route looks like. But he lives with his parents in a garden-type apartment, very nice with a living room, kitchen and dinette, three bedrooms, and a bath.

His mother didn’t seem at all disconcerted to find she had an additional guest. She speaks much more English than his father, who basically just smiled and nodded and went back to his paper.

Their Christmas tree, standing in the living room, had both candles and electric lights on it. Kind of a compromise.

The plan was that Chrissie and Pete would stay over at Anni Breitbart’s*, Friedl’s girlfriend, and Theo and Phoebe, and now I, would sleep over at Friedl’s. So now we got back in the car and drove over to Anni’s, to talk and have supper until 9:00 PM and time for Friedl to fetch the South African contingent.

Anni’s mother had laid out the German version of charcuterie and once again, it was much better than in France. Anni, at my request, was helping me conjugate the German version of "to be" and pretty soon her father came and joined the festivities.

After supper we all sat in the living room and had a rather odd, but very effective conversation. Both Anni and Friedl have pretty good English, and her mother also. But Herr Breitbart’s English is next to nil. I have a smattering of literary German and Pete knows Dutch as well as English. So the talk was a kind of round robin of translating, with somehow or other everyone eventually coming to know what was being said.

Found out that Germans are as conscious of regional differences as Americans are (maybe more so!), and to humorous effect. Stuttgart, et al. is in Swabia, and you should have heard Friedl and Anni go after the Bavarians (Bayreusche [sp?] [Bayrische]) and the Hessians! I got the feeling that Bavarians are considered the hicks of the German people, and at any rate they have execrable accents. The controversy between the Hessians and the Swabians seems more to be over which of these groups, alone, speaks proper German.

Herr Breitbart is interested in music and showed me some sheet music pieces he’s working on (I’m not sure for what instrument). I told him I’m a Berlioz lover and that I’d visited the town where Hector was born. Somehow I knew the word for that was "geboren" and was very pleased when I discovered I was right and had got my idea across.

We stayed for awhile after Friedl left for the airport, then Anni took all of us back to Friedl’s place. To our surprise he was already there with Theo and Phoebe, sitting at the kitchen table eating a pizza. Their plane came in early.

I was too excited to do more than pick at a piece. We all sat up talking till nearly midnight.

Phoebe, I learned, flew up to England from the RSA just a week or so ago. Theo spent Christmas Day at Dunstan Oak’s* [one of the college tutors], where he and his family had assembled the Coverdale "orphans." Theo said the weather had been nice and sunny in England the past couple weeks. Very unlike France.

Anni, to whom Friedl is not engaged (at least not yet) took Chrissie and Pete away with her and we all eventually turned in. I shared a room with Phoebe but we didn’t really talk because it was so late and so much was planned for the morning.

My Cut-Rate Grand Tour, Day Twenty-eight

Monday, 2 January, 1989

WIEN-- Got up for the Kaiser rolls and jam. I asked for my tee "ohne Milch" but apparently my accent is really lousy-- the waitress brought the pitcher anyway.

Caught the streetcar that heads southeast from the central part of the city, to the Zentral Friedhof. It goes along the Simmeringer Hauptstraße. I don’t know why, but it felt very homely, in a good sort of way, to see this other part of Vienna, as well as the touristed places. The buildings and shops reminded me of places in Kansas City, like along Troost (though not so rundown) or up at 63rd and Brookside. One thinks of all these people going about their lives here, where Vienna isn’t important because it’s a world-famous city, but because it’s where they live.

The object of the morning was another musical pilgrimage . . . Not as easy to accomplish as at the Cimetiere au Montmartre. The Zentral Friedhof seems pretty orderly, in that there’s a monumental avenue leading from the entrance, to a great green-domed church. But as for finding anything . . . I asked a uniformed attendant, in my best fractured German, where Beethoven’s grave was located. He said, or at least I think he did, that it was along the first (or was it the second?) avenue "links" past where a white car was parked. All this in German, of course, so I wasn’t sure if I’d understood correctly.

The whole thing became moot, though, when the white car’s owner drove it away and I lost my point of reference before I got close enough to ascertain where it had been.

Went up and inspected the outside of the church and its flanking wings. There’s a kind of gallery along there, with memorial tablets along the wall. I wonder how one rates that, since I didn’t recognise any famous names.

One interesting feature near there is a plot set off for the graves of Red Army soldiers. It looked, from the dates, that these men hadn’t died in the war but rather were stationed here afterwards (as an army of occupation? Oops!) and it hadn’t been possible to ship their bodies back to Russia. The really sad thing was the near-certainty that most if not all of these men would’ve died as atheists. What a terrible thing, to have no hope!

I knew Beethoven’s grave was supposed to be east of the church, so I tried again to ask someone. Seems they should have section numbers or something. And I think they do, except my German isn’t anywhere close to being able to understand numbers (except for "zwanzig"-- 20-- on the streetcars when they call out the stops. I’ve gotten really good at that). And I could not make the man understand my request to write the number of the row and section down. So I was in for another hour or so of blind wandering.

Found Arnold Schönberg’s grave, though. It’s kind of a Cubist marble monument, very apt. And I came across Josef Hoffmann’s. He and his wife Karoline have a plain tall shaft with their names and dates inscribed in tall gothic lettering.

Finally, after more blundering about, I found what I was looking for. They have a kind of musicians’ Poets’ Corner there, with Brahms, a Strauss or two, little Franz Schubert, and Beethoven all interred in kind of a horseshoe arrangement, with a monument to poor Mozart in the center. Von Suppe had sneaked into the formation, too, though how I don’t know.

I’d been wondering if I should’ve brought Beethoven some flowers but I saw that plenty of other people had adequately supplied the gesture. And it really wasn’t the same as it was at Montmartre. Here, with Beethoven, I was paying my respects to a great man who lived a long time ago. But there, with Hector, it was like visiting the tomb of a dear and sorely-missed friend.

A gaggle of Japanese tourists were marshalled through as I stood in the little clearing. They disturbed my contemplations to a degree, but not to the extent they would’ve with Hector in Paris.

I sang "An die Musik" for Franz. But other than that, I hadn’t much time to tarry. Though I’d arrived at the Friedhof around 10:00 AM it was nearly 12:30 by now, and my Wien transport pass had expired at 12:00. And I still hadn’t figured out how or to whom pay paid your streetcar fare if you were using money.

So feeling rather guilty about it, I bootlegged the streetcar ride back to the Ring. Wasn’t made any more comfortable by the stickers in the windows that said, in German I could understand, that the transport inspectors would be around checking passes today and that yours had better be in order. I suppose I could’ve put some money in the little box, but I didn’t have the correct change and was feeling too straitened to overpay.

So I sat tight, deciding that those stickers probably are on the streetcar windows all the time-- I can’t see them sticking them on and scraping them all off just for one day’s worth of warning.

However it is, as soon as I got back to the Schwarzenberg Platz I walked down to the Stadtpark station and bought a fresh two-day transit pass. And the fact that I’ll only be able to use one day of it should amply make up for my contraband trip of the past half hour.

Went back to shoot a picture of the Konzert Haus where I heard the Beethoven last night, but returned to the Stadtpark U-Bahn station to catch the train for Heiligenstadt. One might suppose I was going to see the house where Beethoven wrote his Heiligenstadt Testament, and someday perhaps I shall. But the afternoon was to be devoted to Architecture, specifically Hoffmann’s Sonja Knips house.

Heiligenstadt is the end of the line. I made myself a satisfying and highly nutritious lunch of pastries there in the station, then set out to find Nußwaldgasse.

Very near the station is a housing project which interested me for a number of reasons, most all connected with its name. It’s called the Karl Marx-Hof (!) and has all these heroic Soviet-Realism-style statues over the major entrances. The amusing thing is that these figures are still enchained. The other irony was that, in the wide front garden of this memorial to the progenitor of Communism, two small boys, on this second day of January, were playing the good old American game of baseball. It was great.

To get to the Sonja Knips house you have a good long pull up the Barawitzka street before Nußwaldgasse veers off to the left. One can’t go into the house, of course, it being a private residence. But the gray exterior is all studded with a regular pattern of diamond-shaped castings, which look as if they should be structural, like the star-shaped tie rod heads on houses in Lawrence. Probably aren’t, though. These are set off by the diagonal mullions in the windows and the diamond coursing of the slates on the roof and the three chimneys. It’s deceptively simple but rife with subtle details like the scooped-in embrasures of the windows.

I managed to catch a bus back down to the station but had no intention of getting the train back just yet. Something important to do first. Made my way down the very warehousey-looking Mooslacken street to the Nußdorfer Lande, which runs along the Donau Kanal.

But canals don’t make it. I wanted the real river. And after awhile of getting mucked up in a small spaghetti-bowl of an interchange I found myself on the Nordbrücke, crossing the actual schöne blaue Donau.

There’s a lovely view of the church on the Kahlenberg from there. And I’ll have you know that in this afternoon’s bright sunny weather the Danube really was blue, if with a slight grayish tinge to it.

The river there splits into two parallel streams, with a long narrow island or something between. There’s a way down to it from the bridge, so you can stroll along the paths as many others were. It was so nice to see the people out enjoying their river on this bright January day: This taking, in the case of some young boys, the form of skateboarding (on their tails) down the smooth pavement.

I walked along the river awhile myself, admiring the fishing boats and the ducks and the views of the city far away to the south. I sometimes wonder what sort of travelling companion I’d be: I’m such a fiend for rivers and tops of towers and hills and things. Would anyone else understand? But it seems to me that if you’ve got a town on a famous river, you haven’t been there properly until you’ve visited the river as well.

Left there around 4:30 and caught the train back to the city. Changed at Schwedenplatz and ended up once more at the Stephensdom. You should see the absurdity that Hans Holler is putting up opposite it on the Platz. It’s called the Haas Haus (Rabbit Hotel?) and looks like a series of cans with their lids half off. Took a picture for Myron Davidman’s* [architectural employer back in the States] benefit.

Near there is a shop that sells some Wienerwerkstätte type things; I bought a deck of cards in that style as a Christmas present for Lynne* [my elder sister].

I saw a coffee mug at a shop along my route to Beethoven’s flat on the Mölkier Bastei the other day, one I thought might be fun to get for Daddy. Went back now but that shop was closed. But as long as I was along there, I stopped at one bakery-deli for something to do for supper, then went to Julius Meinl’s to stock up on bread and cheese and other provisions for the long train ride tomorrow. Stuck it on my Visa and probably spent a fortune.

Though I was cutting it close I tarried in the Opernpassage trying to find the shop where I saw those needlepoint-topped pill boxes. I thought it’d be a nice gift for Janie* [friend who was subleasing my Kansas City apartment]. But I couldn’t find the place again. Gave it up and dashed back to the hotel to change for the opera.

The Wiener Volksoper is the Viennese equivalent of Kansas City’s Lyric, meaning the works are done in the local vernacular; in this case, Deutsch. German, Italian-- in the case of Don Giovanni, it made no difference to me, especially as I’ve heard it in English at the Lyric and basically know the plot.

As I approached the theatre along with many others, I heard a boy of eight or nine a little way ahead of me notice the posters and cry out to his parents something like, "Oh, gut! Ist Don Giovanni!" I couldn’t tell if he was glad it was that opera in particular or if he was simply relieved to see the play was going on as advertised. Either way, it was charming to see the child’s enthusiasm.

I had been told day before yesterday that I’d been sold the last seat in the house. And now I could see why. It was a little stool in the corner of one of the stage right boxes. To see anything at all I had to balance on the very edge of my stool and crane my neck around the lefthand frame of the box. The other people there had real chairs.

But I noticed that there were plenty of empty seats in the balcony center and resolved to employ a little of my Folly Theatre ushering chutzpah during intermission and move.

It’s really hard not to compare this performance with the one I saw at the Lyric in ’79, so why try? In that one, Stanley Wexler played the Don as an overwhelmingly attractive cuss, the kind of man who wouldn’t need to seduce women, he’d have them lining up in the street of their own volition. The Giovanni tonight, a Boje Skovhus, played the role as a dark-minded cynic. You got the idea he seduced women not for the physical pleasure of it but for the vile sake of dehumanising them and messing up their lives. A valid approach, and I don’t think it was to blame for the fact that the performance of the ensemble as a whole never did catch fire. It all seemed rather secondhand.

There were some interesting pieces of business, though-- e.g., Giovanni and Leporello escaped from the avengers at the party by lowering a ladder into the orchestra pit, scrambling over the musicians, and out the other side. And they came back the same way, ladder and all, at the start of Act II. The backlit scene at the graveyard was very effective (and yes, I could see it decently since I did move between the acts). And Giovanni slid into Hell on his own supper table, which went into the depths with him.

I noticed that, as with last night, people were taking pictures all over. So I ventured to follow suit, not using a flash, of course, and waiting for loud portions of the music to cover the shutter noise.

Afterwards, it was truly a strange sensation, standing at the streetcar stop, waiting there at the Währinger Gurtel for the #40 streetcar to take me back to the U-Bahn at Schottentor . . . and over the street one could see signs directing drivers to the highways for Budapest, Prague (Praha), and Brno . . . my God, those cities are all in Warsaw Pact countries! Am I really that far east?† It seemed very mysterious and exotic, as if I were brushing shoulders with something I hadn’t quite believed in up to now. But those cities certainly exist and could be announced by something as straightforward and prosaic as blue and white highway signs!

Back at the hotel, the idea was to get packed up and in bed as soon as possible. 8:00 AM train out of the West Bahnhof tomorrow.
_______________________________
†Yes, I'm aware now that my geography was shaky and that Czechoslovakia (as it was called then) is just to the north of Austria. But the point is the same.

My Cut-Rate Grand Tour, Day Twenty-seven

Sunday, 1 January, 1989
New Year’s Day

WIEN, HOTEL DREI KÖNIGE-- I was rather surprised this morning that I was awake in good enough time to make it to church, and that I couldn’t get back to sleep, despite only having been in bed for four hours or so. So I got up and put on the dark gray dress I should’ve worn last night (thanks again, Rollo*) and beat it up towards the Stephensdom.

Turns out I could have saved time by taking the U-Bahn but I’d forgotten there was a stop close to the Stephensdom. So I hoofed it and got there a fuzz late and had to sit way back. But at least I could sit. Lots of people there.

They were nice enough to provide song sheets for the responses, so I was able to participate to a decent extent in that, even in German. Still, it would be nice . . .

Went and found some breakfast afterwards at the Aida Konditorei. Very crowded, but I got a sausage roll and a pastry and found a place at a stand up counter whereat to eat them.

After that it was back to the Schleifmühlgasse and the Hotel der Drei Könige.

Changed into my gray flannels, oxford shirt, and sweater; took my camera (Minolta) and headed back out. To be perfectly honest I would just as soon have gone back to bed-- the weather was pretty overcast and gray anyway-- but considering how little time I have here I whipped myself into action.

Paid my respects to Schiller at the Schillerplatz in front of the Kunstakademie, along the Elisabethstraße. But my object was the Kunsthistorische Museum a bit further to the west. Got there and yes, just as I’d feared, the place was closed for New Year’s, like everything else, practically. I didn’t feel quite as dumb as I could’ve, when I saw some other people, who looked like locals, going up and unsuccessfully trying the doors. I wasn’t the only over-optimistic idiot!

So I diddled back to the Opera, looking in store windows, including one of a lighting store (closed, of course) that had some really nice modern type fixtures. Myron’s* office would probably be interested to know if there’s anything there that can be had in the States.

Something that’s to be had here is Mozartkugeln and the shops selling that sort of thing were open. Shopped around and found a good deal on a box of eighteen on Tegetthoffgasse. I learned there’s more than one kind. Amazing. There’s the Salzburger kind and the Wiener kind. The Salzburger kind are cheaper. I shall have lots for tea parties at Coverdale*.

I’d shot out the rest of the film by then and hadn’t brought more with me. So it was as good a time as any to find something to eat, even though it was only around 4:00.

Ended up at a place that was nice in that it seemed aimed at the locals. Menu all in German and German language newspapers hanging on poles for people to read. The trouble is, I hadn’t brought my little German-English dictionary. I didn’t want it for the papers, no, but for the menu.

I should’ve been ok. Should’ve. I hate sauerkraut, can’t abide the stuff, and so I ordered a meal that didn’t include it, but rather Linsen, which I was pretty sure was lentils.

But when the meal came the waiter (who also seemed to be the proprietor) brought sauerkraut! And then pretty much disappeared. And without the dictionary to make sure, I didn’t feel confident in complaining. So the bowl of kraut just sat there untouched.

Had a bottle of beer with it all. Funny, but by the label it appeared to be the original Budweiser brand, from Budwar, Czechoslovakia. Similar logo and everything.

Didn’t say anything about the kraut when I paid. The cashier was different and didn’t seem to speak English.

Trotted back to the hotel and got back into my gray dress for the Beethoven concert. Decided this’d be a great time to inaugurate the burgundy red purse I bought in Florence a couple-three days ago.

Well, sort of. It started spitting rain as soon as I left the hotel and now the front of the bag has all these charming raised spots on it. Lovely.

The Ninth was being done at the Wiener Konzerthaus on the Lothringerstraße, and I took the U-Bahn the short hop from Karlsplatz to Stadtpark. Lots of other people were making their way to the concert hall, too, and I was glad I had my ticket already.

It seemed like the coat check facilities were just acres of tables in the main lobby. More than one piece was extra so I economised, so to speak, by stuffing my sweater and my scarf up the sleeves of my coat.

From the numbers on my ticket I was pretty sure I was in the balcony. And besides, that’s where I was directed by an usher. But when I got up there, I found there was no such seat. Finally I figured out that my seat was in the second row of a bank of chairs that ran parallel to the sides of the hall on the main floor, perpendicular to the orchestra seating. This meant my view of the stage was a little oblique, but not anything you could call bad.

The hall was packed for tonight’s performance, which featured the Wiener Symphoniker and the Wiener Singakademie under Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, with Brigette Pascher-Klebel, soprano, Margarita Lilowa, alto, Robert Schunk, tenor, and Robert Lloyd (a Brit!), bass.

De Burgos didn’t purport to do anything new or clever, as Whatsisname (Glenn Block?) did at UMKC a few years ago. The performance was great because it was Beethoven’s Ninth. Conversely, it could’ve used more heart or something . . .

Oh, well. Most of the people there thought it was standing ovation material.

The rain had stopped when the concert let out. And I was not hailed by any Egyptian newspaper vendors during my walk from Karlsplatz back to the Schleifmühlgasse.

My Cut-Rate Grand Tour, Day Twenty-six

Saturday, 31 December, 1988
New Year’s Eve/Silvesterabend
Wien

HOTEL DREI KÖNIGE-- Didn’t get up as early as I perhaps should’ve, but the body refused.

Had the included breakfast in the hotel Speisezimmer. Kaiser rolls with butter and jam. This is odd. I never would have thought of Kaiser rolls for breakfast.

Lost a good half hour at the hotel desk waiting for the clerk to get off the phone. I needed to recover my passport and ask a question or two. For my patience he gave me a piece of the chocolate New Year’s gelt he was playing with.

Up the street and bought a bottle of sparkling wine for tonight’s party, as Rollo* had requested. Had to be done now since the stores would be closing early today. Also got a little jar of my traditional pickled herring.

Dropped that back off at the room then went to the Opernpassage to see about music tickets. Came away with one for Beethoven’s Ninth at the Konzert Haus tomorrow (not cheap. Close to $30 maybe) and one to Mozart’s Don Giovanni for Monday. Got about the last tickets.

Even so, I’m sorry these necessary errands kept me from seeing the Lippizaner rehearsal this morning. It was the last one for the season.

It was funny dealing with the girl at the counter, though. She wanted to work on her English and I on my German, so she'd speak to me in English and I'd reply in German and somehow, it worked!

I didn’t like the exchange rate at the info office nor the fee so since I was going over there anyway for Otto Wagner’s sake, I rode to Schwedensplatz and walked to the main post office, which was the only one open today. Stood in a nice long line then had it turn out that their rate wasn’t much better. Too late now. Bought some stamps, too.

Not as fine a day as yesterday but the sun was trying to come out. Made a decent effort to shine a little as I photographed the Postsparkasse exterior.

Blundered my way over to the Stephensplatz. The area around the cathedral was pretty well populated. I was starting to get hungry but the Konditorei were so crowded you could hardly squeeze in. Anyway, I’d noticed a sign pointing the way to the house where Mozart wrote Marriage of Figaro and I thought I’d better check its opening hours, before I took the time to feed my face.

Good thing I checked. It was 3:15 by now and the house was only open till 4:30, and it wouldn’t be open tomorrow or Monday.

I suppose it can’t be helped, but the place is kept as a museum, alone. There isn’t even as much furniture as there is at Berlioz’s birth house, just display cases with artifacts and things hanging on the walls. Many of the latter were silhouettes, drawings, or paintings of people who I must assume had some influence on Mozart’s life and work. But not knowing that many details thereof I wasn’t particularly edified by these exhibits. There was one room that I really think must’ve been the kitchen . . . that came closest to helping me get a feeling of Mozart actually having lived there.

All the Vienna-based composers’ residences are administered by one authority, and I saw from a poster that Beethoven’s most frequent domicile, the Pasqualati House on the Mölker Bastei, was also open only today, till 4:30. So I bade Wolfgang farewell and hurried over there.

There’s more of Beethoven himself there, more of his furniture and possessions, and more paintings and sculptures of the man done in his lifetime. And I could see the good views he had to the west, though thankfully he never had to look at the modern monstrousity now standing across the street. But still, it was merely an intellectual exercise remembering that he wrote Fidelio and the Violin Concerto there.

It wasn’t till I was heading back down the stairs from the 4th floor† apartment that it hit me with a shock that he, Ludwig von Beethoven, actually had lived here, he had walked in this narrow space, on these winding steps, had seen and probably touched these plastered walls-- Gott in Himmel!

Retraced my steps to the Stephensdom, trying to find something to eat. On der Graben I bought a cone of roasted chestnuts, the first I’ve had, to shut my stomach up. They’re really more like a vegetable than a nut in taste, but I liked them well enough. And they were good and warm.

Finding dinner tonight was a bit difficult. Seemed as if all the places that looked appetizing or inexpensive enough (and also the ones that didn’t) were getting ready for the Silvester parties and not serving walk-ins. I finally settled for a wurst on a roll off a stand in the Kärtnerstrasse and then went and sat down in the Konditorei next door and had me a piece of Sachertorte mit Schlag.

You know what? It wasn’t as marvellous as I’d expected. It was rather dry, not tremendously flavorful, and left me yearning for another piece of that wonderful chocolate torte I had in Paris.

The Kärtnerstrasse and indeed the whole area south of the Stephensplatz was teeming with people. There were even some street evangelists. And down by the Staatsoper a couple of guys had a drag race off the stoplight. Some things know no boundaries . . .

Back at the hotel I read a bit of the Beethoven booklet I’d bought and ate pickled herring til time to dress and catch the U-Bahn to Rollo’s mother’s. Heading for the Karlsplatz I wondered what it’d be like coming back after midnight. The streets between there and the Schleifmühlgasse aren’t as lively as I’d like after dark; tonight would they be too lively?

When I got to Rollo’s mother’s place, I could’ve shot her elder son! He hadn’t told me what to wear and there I was in my gray flannels, silk blouse, green Shetland sweater, and red and black suede hiking boots, while everyone else, including Rollo, was in semi-formal party clothes. It was really a sight to see him in a smoking jacket. I didn’t mind so much what I had on; it’s just that I get so few chances to dress up and had a perfectly good dress with me.‡

Besides Rollo and Connie* [Rollo's wife] and his mother, there was Rollo’s brother, Marko* (who seems to have some slight mental or other functional handicap), and several of Frau Schipfner’s* middle aged to elderly friends. All or most of them spoke at least a little English, which made me feel better about trying out my German.

We started out with aperatifs; I had Rollo pour me a Campari and soda because I was curious to taste what it was like. But it’s rather bitter and I didn’t drink much of it.

When I saw the dining room table I realized it had been silly of me to go looking for something to eat earlier. As seems customary in this part of the world, the fare was sliced meats and various sorts of pasta salad, and a great deal of it.

On each plate was a little good luck token. I was informed by the woman on my left that I must immediately take and put it in my purse and thus assure I’d have plenty of money all year. Can’t hurt, I guess . . .

On the table were little figures of chimney sweeps and pigs, and the napkins were printed with these and with four-leafed clovers, all symbols of luck and prosperity. I’d wondered what all those stalls were, downtown, but now I saw the Viennese wouldn’t consider a Silvesterabendtafel complete without these favors.

A toast was drunk before the meal, the woman on my left looking at me and pledging, "To your honeymoon." Does she know something I don’t? I thought for a moment she was really addressing Rollo, on my right, but that’s impossible: he and Connie have been married three years.

In the table talk I learned that the obnoxious newspaper vendor is probably Egyptian, since most are and the Turks aren’t advanced enough socially to take such jobs. And that Sachertorte generally is dry, which is why you need the whipped cream.

Unlike in Switzerland, I could at least tell what the German conversation was about, even if I couldn’t discern the tenor of the comments. I commented on this to the lady on my left, she laughed, and that started a general raillery against what these Hoch Deutsch speakers called "Sweetzer Dootsh," or some such teasing appellation. Still being angry at Lukas’s* uncalled-for extension of his performance in that dialect last week, I took a rather unChristian pleasure in hearing it mocked.

When it came time for dessert everyone got up from the table and adjourned back to the living room. Rollo and Connie and Marko shut themselves into the kitchen for a smoke and to get things ready, while Frau Schipfner cleared away. When dessert was put on, she started herding people back into the dining room, and I said, "Ja, wir kommen! Wir kommen augenblicklich!"

"Oh, you speak German very well!" she exclaimed.

(Thank you, Ludwig von Beethoven.††)

By the time dessert was finished, it was about fifteen till midnight. Back in the living room, the champagne (or rather, Austrian Halb-süß) was broken open and glasses filled. They turned the TV on; it was an ice show being broadcast from here in Vienna, but when the skaters did a routine to the song "One" from A Chorus Line, it was sung in English. I thought of Nigel*-- it was inevitable.

Then the time came and the great dial on the screen ticked off the seconds: "Zehn, neun, acht, sieben, sechs, fünf, vier, drei, zwei, eins-- Prosit Neue Jahr!"

At least, that’s what was being shouted by all and sundry as the wine glasses clinked and the sparkling drunk down. As for me, I was praying blessings on a certain Englishman, who despite his very taken (if not engaged) state, still can make any new year worth entering.

Meanwhile, on the screen was a little animation number of champagne corks dancing to a Strauss waltz. Cute.

Rollo and Marko got out the fireworks and went out on the balcony to shoot them off. The skies had cleared and all over this suburb of Vienna the heavens were blazing with the trails of rockets and shooting stars making merry war with their repeated noise. The neighbors downstairs came out to shoot theirs and shouted up, "Prosit Neue Jahr!"

We came back in and drank some more ersazt champagne (I’m glad I tasted the real thing on Christmas. It is better) and conversed. I asked Connie if women in the Midwest were wearing big shawls, as they do in England. She said yes, they were.

Around 2:00 AM we ate again, going back to the dining room for soup. I think I ate more tonight than I have in entire weeks on this trip.

About 3:00 everyone decided it was time to shove off home. Rollo’s mother earlier had said it was best I go home in a taxi and not risk the Viennese lager louts at the Karlsplatz U-Bahn station. But one of the ladies said they could cram me into her car, despite the fact they already had six full-grown adults booked to ride in it-- "We’ll pretend you’re a baby. It’s not legal to have more than six adults, but a baby is all right."

So everyone said their goodbyes and final New Year’s wishes to Frau Schipfner. But before I went I asked Rollo to please tell me, quickly, about the office. . . .

[Here ensued some architectural shop talk interesting to me at the time but not relevant to the occasion.]
It was jolly crowded in that car, which was only a mid-sized VW. Never mind me, I think one of the old men had regressed in age. I can see that he might be more comfortable with his arm stretched across the back of the seat, but squeezing my shoulder while he was at it really was not required. Nothing threatening, but I was glad when we dropped him and his wife (yes!) off at their flat near the Schönbrunn Palace.

It was nearly 4:00 AM when I was dropped off at the hotel. I didn’t go to sleep immediately. I’ve decided to revive my Song for the Year custom; for 1989 it’s to be "An die Müsik"; and while I was running my Schubert tape back to listen to it, I thought about the Waldstein Sonata and how I couldn’t recall the Rondo theme at the Beethoven house, getting it mixed up with that of that Opus Posthumous piano trio movement. I listened to the Waldstein Rondo, too, therefore, and see that recall is all in the opening intervals-- the OP starts in an ascending minor second, the Waldstein on a melodic unison. I tried it a few times and it works like a charm.

Anyway, that’s only more or less relevant to what I’ve chosen for 1989, and no unattainable men are in it:

Du holde Kunst, in wieviel grauen Studen,
wo mich des Lebens wilder Kreis umstrickt,
hast du mein Herz zu warmer Lieb entzunden,
hast mich in eine beßre Welt entrückt,
in eine beßre Welt entrückt!

Oft hat ein Seufzer, deiner Harpf entflossen,
ein süßer, heiliger Akkord von dir,
den Himmel beßre Zeiten mir erschlossen,
du holde Kunst, ich danke dir dafür,
du holde Kunst, ich danke dir!

________________________________
†By European reckoning; 5th floor by American.
‡As I'd known him in the States, Rollo did the European casual look straight down the line. I'd never seen him in anything other than a long ponytail, an open-necked shirt, and Birkenstock sandals with heavy socks. He wouldn't condescend to wear a suit and tie, not even for a client meeting at our architecture office. So I'd figured it'd be the same here in Vienna!
††"We're coming! Yes, we're coming in the blink of an eye!"-- a handy phrase I'd memorized from the spoken dialogue of Beethoven's opera Fidelio.

My Cut-Rate Grand Tour: Day Twenty-four

Thursday, 29 December, 1988
From Florence to Ravenna and on to Austria

Got up to catch the 6:40 train to Ravenna. I should do so well at home.

We got above the fog for a time on the way there but plunged in again as the train approached the sea. There’s a parable there . . . the clouds can be so oppressive and all encompassing, but if one can find a way of rising higher, one can find the sun still shining there above . . . and once the sun is seen the clouds no longer matter.

Definitely cold and cloudy in Ravenna. Consulted the maps posted in the train station and blundered my way to the tourist office. There they gave me a city map of my own (in French, I discover) and I walked the short distance over to the basilica of San Vitale.

The mosaics there are definitely worth the trip even with the inevitable scaffolding. They’re all in the chancel and the apse (barring those on the floor). The clever Ravennese have installed a coin operated box where you can drop in 200 lire and so turn the spotlights on. A definite improvement over the Uffizi.

The iconography of the ensemble places its emphases on the Old Testament forerunners of Christ, like Abel and Melchezedek (the first sacerdotal figures), and Abraham with the three "angelic" visitors, and the sacrifice of Isaac. There were prophets, too, in the covered up portion, but the theme seemed to be that of the Lamb of God, slain for the sins of the world. And then in the half-dome of the apse you see Christ triumphant with angels. It’s thoroughly glorious.

I noticed something interesting in the basilica. There is a baptistery pool opposite and to one side of the apse. It has water in it and people had thrown in coins. Two Italian girls there did the same. Now, Americans do that, too, throw coins in fountains (though this was not the place for me to do so), but the French do not. So do we follow the Italian tradition in the States?

The tomb of Galla Placidia is in the same compound. There, too, you feed in coins for illumination but here I could take advantage of the presence of a group of Japanese visitors (I wonder what they thought of it all?) whose guide provided the money.

The mosaics here, too, continue the Agnus Dei theme, with the evangelists and the martyrdom of St. Laurence. The pattern work is magnificent. Keble Chapel is nothing to it.

After Galla Placidia (where I had to make myself remember there’re people buried there) I went out the gate and across to what I’m sure was a tourist trap shop for some postcards. I was after all limited on time. Bought an art guide to the Byzantine churches of Ravenna and several postcards. Going through the rack, I noticed that the Sant'Apollinare with the mosaics is the new one,† in town, not the other one in Classae.‡ Well, good thing I didn’t go out there the minute I got into town, even if it is more architecturally significant. Would have run out of time for anything else.

In my spastic Italian I clarified which Sant'Apollinare was which with the non-English speaking proprietress. She seemed to be telling me I’d better hurry, because the church closed at noon (11:45 then). As I was hurriedly getting my cameras and purse slung back over my shoulder, she raised her hands to heaven and exclaimed, "Inghlesi! Mama mia!" Hilarious!

I’m not sure what she was trying to tell me would be closed, but it wasn’t Sant'Apollinare Nuovo. The apse has the usual scaffolding but the rest of it, the nave at least, was open to be seen.

That double row of saints is amazing. All of them (except for St. Laurence, whose robe is gold) are dressed in nearly identical white garments for the men and purple and gold for the women and there are no iconographic identifications. Very considerately, then, the artist worked each saint’s name in mosaic above his or her head. On one side of the nave they carry their palms and their crowns to offer Christ in majesty and, on the other, to the Baby Jesus with the Virgin Mary. The interesting thing is that the female saints all seem to be processing out of the old church in Classae.

Above them and up to the wooden coffered ceiling is more marvellous mosaic work with scenes from the lives of Christ and the saints. I don’t care what Renaissance chauvinists say. The Byzantine artists knew exactly what they were doing.

Visited Dante’s tomb after that . . . funny, but Lukas’s* father was sure that was in Florence. As I contemplated it I noted a sight typical in this country-- a stunningly-groomed, high-class Italian woman in a blonde fur coat buzzing past on a tiny little Vespa scooter. It doesn't fit, but it does, if you know what I mean.

Then I wandered around trying to find something to eat. Odd, that in this perfectly good Italian town I couldn’t find anything that didn’t look like it came out of the vending machines at [the office building where I worked in Kansas City]. Finally located some by-the-slice pizza with some guts to it at a place near the station; bought some and a can of Italian orange soda and hustled over to retrieve my bags and catch the train for Ferrara.

Needn’t have bothered. Stupid train from Rimini was forty minutes late. The Italians are almost as efficient as the Americans where it comes to trains. Then when it came it wasn’t marked, so I had to take it on faith that it was going where I wanted.


FERRARA-- I’ll say this for the Italian railways: At least originating trains start out on time-- regardless. The train from Ferrara to Venice had pulled out ten minutes before the one from Ravenna got in, and that was that till 5:17 PM. So there.

So I used the time seeing if I could get a berth reservation for Vienna tomorrow night from Venice. No, booked full. So I asked about sleeping cars. They were full, too, and it wouldn’t’ve mattered if they hadn’t been because they run to the ghastly sum of 123,000 lire, or around $100. You have got to be kidding. Just wondering, I asked about tonight, too. Same conditions. There was 2nd class seating but they’d make no reservations for that.

Well. Damn.

Found the WC (this one had paper, unlike that in Ravenna), then had a very good cup of hot chocolate at the station bar. Then returned to the waiting room to consider the options. If I'd caught the connection I wanted I would've been in Venice by 4:00. But now, I won't get there till after 7:00.

I'll decide what I want to do when I get there.


VENICE--Was able to sit in 1st class to Venice, thank God. The train from Ferrara was only ten minutes late.

Once I got here, just in case I checked to see if anyone had cancelled their berth. No such luck. But, the man told me, I could get on the train to Vienna an hour before departure (half hour from then) and reserve myself a seat.

I needed to make a decision. Do I stay or do I go? I marched to the front door of the station and stepped outside to peer into the darkness. The fog was so thick you couldn’t even see the sidewalk, let alone the street.†† I made up my mind: If I was going to sleep sitting up all night and come into Wien exhausted, better I should do it now and have another day to recover. I know San Marco has wonderful mosaics of its own but I’d rather see them under better conditions.

So I spent the last change I had on postcards and the time till 7:35 writing them. Then I found myself a seat in a second class compartment and then, hoping nothing would happen to my luggage, went back to the station for some water at least.

In the wonderfully intricate Italian system you have to decide what you want and pay for it at the cashier’s before you approach the counter. I realized it was such a place and got my ticket, then stood at the counter for ages being ignored before I was finally served. Then they have the cheek to tell me the little plastic cup is extra and I have to pay for it at the cashier’s and come back. At that point I could’ve made a famous Italian gesture but it wouldn’t’ve been Christian and it would’ve gotten me into a lot of trouble besides. So I decided to be a barbarian like everyone else here and drink my water out of the bottle.


ON THE VENICE TO VIENNA TRAIN-- I made it back to the train, ten minutes to spare. Thing started up and it came to me to see if the vestigal 1st class car had anything unreserved, now that the lights were on and I could see.

Oh, good, there was room. I settled into one compartment with an Italian family, but moved when a couple came along and asked if I’d change to a single two compartments down and let them have the two seats where I was.

The people in the other 1st class compartment were all young Americans, with one Canadian. Like me, they were all travelling on Eurail passes. We didn’t converse but still shared a mild laugh when the Italian customs man came in at the border. Only two of us had just started to hand him our American passports, but he said in Italian, "Oh, you’re all Australian," and left. One girl hadn’t even gotten hers out yet! It was the same with the passes.

The Austrians, a few minutes later, were a little more efficient. They saw and inspected everybody’s.

Worked on the journal and listened to Beethoven, Berlioz, and Schubert till after the border crossing. I seem to have lost my Extra Fine Straight Osmiroid pen. I had it with me when I went to the WC just after I changed compartments. So someone either pinched it from the car-- or it went to the Bad Place.

Skies clear and starry in Austria. Ist gut.
______________________
†"New" to refer to its rededication to Saint Apollinare in A.D. 856. It was originally dedicated in A.D. 504 to "Christ the Redeemer"-- if an Arian Christ can be said to be a Redeemer at all . . .
‡About four miles southeast of Ravenna.
††The fact that I couldn't see that the Santa Lucia train station in Venice fronts on a canal shows you just how blindingly foggy it was.

My Cut-Rate Grand Tour: Day Sixteen

Wednesday, 21 December 1988
Dijon to Autun and back to Dijon

Last night as I was getting ready for bed a scene from Hector’s L’Enfance du Christ kept running through my head. It’s the part in the Flight into Egypt section where Joseph is trying to find lodging for the Holy Family in the town of Sais.

"Ouvrez, ouvrez, secourez-nous!
Laissez-nous reposer chez vous!
Que l’hospitalité sainte soit accordée
À la mère, à l’enfant!
Hélas! De la Judée, nous arrivons à pied!"†

Mon Dieu! did that fit! I about felt like I had come all the way from Paris on foot!

Train to Autun this morning. Was onboard and rolling before it occurred to me to see when I’d have to return.

Oh, great. I had just under two hours there, total, or else not be back in Dijon till 10:00 PM. Not quite.

Day was acting rather like the one when I went to Conques, but the fog settled into Autun and stayed. Meaning I couldn’t follow the steeple to St. Lazare because I couldn’t see it. And the signage wasn’t as good as in some other towns I’ve visited. I knew where the cathedral was supposed to be, generally, and kept walking up and up through the fog. I soon knew I was in trouble--I was exhausted and it was not my arms or back, it was my legs. First sign of rebellion there.

Finally made it and thought I’d come to the wrong church. Hadn’t realized how Gothicized the exterior is, especially the east end. But I proceeded around and down to the west front and, fanfare, please! there it was: Gislebertus hoc fecit. Good.

I was able to spend seventy minutes or so, only, with Maitre Gislebertus’ work, and of course there was no way I could absorb or commit to memory all of it. It must be fun sitting there on Sunday mornings, contemplating those capitals during Mass. Though of course the best ones are towards the side aisles.

Climbed up the tower stairs to the Salle Capitulaires to see the originals of many downstairs. I love that Adoration of the Magi, with the Baby Jesus reaching out to touch the one gift. It’s sweet in all the best ways.

And of course there is the wonderful tympanum, with the otherworldly Christ disposing all and the angels sheltering and aiding the little saved souls, who hide in their skirts like children.

What must it be like to live in a town that has such things in it?!

Milk run back to Dijon. Beaucoup des estudiants again. So odd looking at them. Miniskirts on the girls, long hair on the boys; they could be my crowd sixteen years ago. I feel as if I were caught in a time warp.

Back in Dijon, I found that the train I wanted to take Friday to Bern is booked solid. And that the only possibility of my getting there before 11:00 PM is to get up for one that leaves at 5:58 AM. Ouch.

And that the train and bus connections to Cluny are impossible, considering how eartly I’ll have to get to bed tomorrow night. Never mind the way to Vezelay. It’s only by bus and I could never discover which ones.

So regrettable as it may be, I think tomorrow we are going to punt. We do not want to be the world’s worst bitch with Lukas’s* family.

Took myself to dinner this evening. First time I’d sat down for a meal since Toulouse; about time I did. After wandering around a bit, I came back and ate at the restaurant across the street from the hotel, the St. Jean.‡

75F menu. Had escargot for the first time ever; I recalled Miss Manners says you order escargot for the sake of the garlic butter, but the butter for these had parsley. Oh well. I learned it is expected that one will dip bits of bread into the melted butter and thus get it all.

As for the little boogers themselves, in that juice they’re just another mollusk. I prefer oysters but they’re good enough.

The entree was trout in a wine sauce with whole mustard grains. Waitress did a decent job of deboning the fish, though of course eating trout is always an ossic adventure-- which I always forget.

Service was attentive, almost too much so. Server kept wanting to talk but I disliked feeling that my eating habits were being inspected.

Ordered a demi bottle of white wine with the meal, of the same sort as was in the fish sauce. An aligote, I think it was called. I probably didn’t need 35cl of wine but I drank it anyway. I can’t say I was drunk thereafter but I was glad I only had to cross the street to return to my hotel.

Dessert was pears in cassis juice, aka the omnipresent blackcurrent. Pretty and nice.

So. There, I have Dined.

Back to the room and wrote postcards, including one to Prof. Kay [my Medieval history professor] at KU.

And listened to French radio. They played a new cut of The Band’s "The Weight," which I’ve been singing in my head, among other songs, since Moissac:

"I pulled into Nazareth,
I was feelin’ 'bout half past dead.
Just needed a place where I could lay my head.
‘Hey, mister, can you tell me
Where a man might find a bed?’
He just grinned, shook my hand,
‘No’ was all he said."

Sounds familiar!
____________________________
†Roughly translated, "Please open the door! Help us! Let us come in and rest in your house! For holy hospitality's sake, be kind to a mother and her infant child! Alas! all the way from Judea we have come on foot!"
‡This establishment continued with a good reputation presumably till sometime after the turn of the millenium, and was reopened in 2007 as "Pourquoi Pas?"

My Cut-Rate Grand Tour: Day Fifteen

Tuesday, 20 December, 1988
Paris to Reims to Paris to Dijon

PARIS-- Was supposed to get the 8:30 for Reims from the Gare d’Est this morning. But due to not figuring in Paris rush hour on the Métro and having to figure out a strange railway station, I just missed it. First time I’ve missed a train so far. Funny, as I discovered later, I might’ve made it if I’d remembered to look for the train on the board for "Grands Lignes" instead of trying to find it on the one for "Banlieu." The difficulty was that there was an 8:30 to the suburbs, too.

Nothing to do at that point but use the time I had. So I reserved a place on the TGV for Dijon tonight.

Then I boarded the Métro and almost went out to see the abbey church of St. Denis. But the word was that the Métro there was running at 50% only and I had two more transfers to make. And if I was going to Reims today I needed to make the 11:05 train and it was heading towards 10:00 as it was.

So I stayed on the subway to the Invalides stop and walked over in the Paris sunshine to the chapel of St. Louis des Invalides.

This church witnessed the first performance of my Requiem. They were about to hold a funeral service so I couldn’t linger, but it was good to see the place and wonder exactly where Berlioz had placed his four brass choirs.

I could see the Eiffel Tower’s top over some buildings near there. Closest I’ll get this trip . . .

Shocking, isn’t it? But this trip to Paris has primarily been a Berlioz pilgrimage for me. And even though I couldn’t find the Conservatoire day before yesterday and didn’t get the chance to visit his old street in Montmartre to see where he lived or go and "eat bread and salt on the Pont Neuf" as he did in his poor student days, I found he was more present here than he was in La Côte St. Andre. It’s given me real perspective on why I felt so empty about things there.

Paris was the city he flew to, to do and dare and struggle and use the talent God had given him. Even when Paris put him down and refused to rightly estimate his brilliance and talent, it was still the crucible where his musical skill was refined, the fertile field where his mind was sown with the strong seed of Gluck and Spontini and Beethoven and von Weber, the arena where he fought his battles for his music and for the music of the great ones who rose with him.

Whereas La Côte was the place he had to escape from, the place he feared being stifled by.

You know what it reminds me of? La Côte, I mean? Especially seeing the substantial, upper middle class house where Hector was raised, it reminds me of Mission Hills, with all those respectable and prosperous doctors and lawyers and stockbrokers, all proudly expecting their firstborn sons to grow up and become doctors and lawyers and stockbrokers just like them. That’s what Dr. Berlioz wanted Hector to do. He wasn’t a hick country practitioner. Dr. Louis Berlioz was a scholar and a scientist of note. He published esteemed medical papers and had a name among his colleagues. He always thought his eldest would follow in his footsteps, that playing the flute and scribbling music for local string and wind ensembles as Hector did was just a civilized pastime for after hours. For his son to throw over medical school and tell his parents to hell with it, he was going to the Conservatory of Music and become an opera composer, was like a kid from Mission Hills informing his folks he was abandoning Harvard to play in a rock and roll band.

There was so much inertia pulling Hector to accede to his father’s wishes! It was always expected that he'd get his medical degree and return to La Côte and join the family practice and become as respectable and prosperous as his father. It went without saying that he'd inherit that fine house and live out the rest of his days as the esteemed physician of the Isere region! The only thing that could break that inertia was the musical fire within him and his conviction that he had to let it blaze forth and Paris was the only place he could begin to do that.

And that is why I couldn’t find or feel mon cher Hector in La Côte St. Andre. He wasn’t there. He left. He came to Paris and got away.


REIMS-- Made the 11:05. Contrarily, the weather clouded up again as the train travelled east. Of course.

The sculpture on both the west front and the north transept portals of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Reims was being restored. Scaffolding everywhere. So for this one I spent the most time circling the flanks and the chevet. I do like the angels up in the buttress piers. And of course anyone who’s anybody is featured up on the west front.

They don’t have much of the medieval glass left at Reims. What they do have is the axial chapel windows by Marc Chagall (interesting place for a nice Jewish boy) and some very harmonious but quirky windows by Jacques Simon. The latter included one dedicated to the making of champagne.

It’s a pity so much of the cathedral sculpture has been destroyed. It’s very effective the way it continues around to the screen on the interior of the west wall. One of my favorite scenes there was of Abraham offering a tithe of the spoils to the priest-king Melchizedek after the battle of Sodom. Abraham is dressed in full chain mail like a medieval knight!

It looked as if the weather might-- just might-- break enough for me to get some sunlight on the west front sculpture this afternoon. So I decided to go get something to eat while I waited for it to do it. As I wandered through the streets of the town, I found a shop that actually had little busts of mon cher Hector, in alabaster on a marble base. The one on display had the sculpture and the base a little out of kilter . . . In a good cause I can be pretty bold, so I asked the clerk in my best fractured French if they had any more to choose from. He got a ladder and reached down a couple more from high off the shelf above. Examined them . . . ah, yes, one of these was definitely better.

This set me back 72F but I’ve done so little souvenir acquiring so far (books don’t count). Had the store pack it in a box so it won’t get hurt in transit.

The skies did clear up so I returned to the cathedral and took some more photos of the statuary, with the west front all golden. It was a fun getting angles where the scaffolding was least in the way. Thanks to the telephoto lens on the Olympus I think I was able to get some good shots of the kings on the archivolts. Then I popped back inside and admired the sunlight streaming through the medieval glass, especially the west end rose window. What a blessing the sunlight can be!

I thought I’d read that the tomb of Hughes Libergier, a medieval architect, was in Reims Cathedral. But I couldn’t find it. And I didn’t ask the man at the bookstall. This is dumb, because on the train back to Paris I read in the guidebook I bought that it is there somewhere . . . and now it’s too late to see it.

Before I left Reims, since I was in one of the major cities of the genuine Champagne region, I decided to do something gracious for a change. I bought a bottle of champagne for a hostess gift for Lukas’s* family. I think I can carry that bit more . . . Have no idea if the vintner is any good. It’s just what they had on Christmas special at the Monoprix. Really wanted one of those pretty Art Nouveau bottles from Perrier but at upwards of 220F there was no way.


PARIS AGAIN-- After the return from Reims got off the subway at the Bastille stop to admire Duc’s column and see the place where the Funeral and Triumphal Symphony was first performed. There were a lot of other places here I wished I had time to see but there was no way-- I had to find something to eat and pick up my bags from the hotel and make that train for Dijon.

Around that area, though, I found something else I was interested in-- one of the famous Art Nouveau Métro stops, by another Hector, M. Guimard. Glad I caught that.


DIJON, THE HÔTEL MONGE-- Not a good time getting here. First of all, I cut it a little short on time in Paris. Second, with the bust and the bottle and the books and all, and with me being in general fatigued, the bags were miserably heavy to carry. And then the lady at the hotel, who’s known nothing about it so far, so why did I take her advice now? told me (in English, since she had no patience with my French), oh, the slowdown strike is still on, don’t take the Métro, take the #63 bus to the gare de Lyon.

So instead of schlepping one and a half blocks to the Métro stop I lugged everything, feeling like the Ride to the Abyss, four long blocks to the corner where, according to the concierge’s sage advice, I could get the right bus. But when sweating and panting I arrived there, I found that no one on that corner had any idea where any such #63 bus stopped.

So I took the Métro anyway. And yes, it was a bit slow, not being full service, but at least I did get to the station and onto the train with ten or so minutes to spare.

I feel like I spent most of the short time on the TGV catching my breath. I pulled into Dijon, feeling about half-past dead. Blessedly, a man, a fellow-passenger from the train, carried my blue and heavy bag for me from the platform to the outside of the station.

Well, it seemed that since I had to use my Visa, being short of cash, and not liking to check into hotels sight unseen anymore, I thought I could just walk into town and check a couple of possibilities. The distance didn’t seem far on the Michelin Guide map.

It was excruciatingly far. It was 10:00 PM and Dijon isn’t as well populated at night as Paris or Toulouse. The streets were dark and empty and I thought, wonderful, someone could come right now and bang me over the head and steal me blind. But I was so close to the end of my rope, only able to stagger a few more steps before I had to set the bag down and rest, that I didn’t care. I couldn’t hurt worse than I already did. I almost wished someone would come along and run off with my luggage. I’d be free of it then.

Fortunately, one of the Let’s Go hotels , the Hôtel Monge, did take Visa. And they did have a room. And it’s actually not decorated too badly. Usual chenille bedspread but the wall paper is good. And it overlooks a charming courtyard and has a view of the steeples of two churches.

Also has a view of the apartment opposite, whose occupants were engaging in something I’m sure was its own absorbing reason for their forgetting to pull the shades or extinguish the lights. That’s all right, we’ll assume they’re married and leave our own curtains closed. MYOB.

My Cut-Rate Grand Tour: Day Thirteen

Sunday, 18 December, 1988
Paris

Woke up around 7:00 AM with a stomachache. It was either food poisoning, indigestion, the flu that’s going around, or the approach of the wrong time of month. I chose to believe the last, having pills on hand to throw at that condition. So I took them then went back to sleep.

Nevertheless I did not feel too wonderful all day. Considered not getting up for Mass (à la Mexico City, 1970†) but decided I’d regret it if I didn’t.

So I put on my gray dress and went to Mass at Notre Dame. It’s rather odd-- the organ plays and they have readings and so forth between services. Meanwhile people are walking around taking pictures-- with flash-- and it’s a real zoo. Fortunately things calmed down for the service itself.

There was a copy in French and in three other languages of the readings. What I need is that and the actual eucharistic liturgy, in French. A copy of the sermon wouldn’t hurt, either. The priest spoke, I believe, on not making Christmas a surface thing. Very edifying, I’m sure, if I could’ve understood it.

I still did not feel at all well and hoped to gracious I would not have one of my famous Raging Hormonal Imbalances right in the middle of the service. But I survived to go up and take Communion (one kind only), and to come back to my seat and lose it.

Emotionally, I mean. It wasn’t being there, per se, that did it. It was more the feeling of oh, God, what am I supposed to be doing with my life, and if You don’t let me know, who will? I asked Him to give me some kind of sign as to what He wants me to do . . . somebody bringing something up in a conversation, maybe. I don’t know. What did He give Jim Leffel*‡ when he was struggling over accepting the call to Wilkes-Barre*?

Outside afterwards there was a rather ragtag group in front of the cathedral singing Christmas carols-- in English-- for the Armenian earthquake relief (and that’s what happened there, on top of the delicate political situation).

I headed north and had a bottle of Perrier at the first café I found open. I needed the bubbles. Stomach lousy. Between the Pompidou Center and Les Halles I made myself buy a crepe and eat it, but I wasn’t too happy about it.

Still, there were things I had to do today so I pushed myself. Had to find a florist to sell me some real flowers, for one. And as long as I was fairly close, I thought I’d go up to the Boulevards and see where Berlioz went to music school.

Found the fleurs first, near the rue Montmartre. I had to decide what he would like. I settled on a bunch of those small tulips, yellow and white and dark pink and variegated, with their green stems and leaves. Freesias would’ve done well, too, but the only ones they had were all yellow and looked like cheese popcorn. Definitely wrong.

Walked on over to where the Conservatoire is supposed to be, but unless there is another place in Paris with streets named rue Bergère and rue Faubourg de Montmartre, they’ve demolished the building that was there in the early 19th century and moved the school elsewhere.§ Still, to think that he walked there once, on that pavement, and passed through that air!

Took the Métro to Havre-Canmartin, where I encountered a check. The #13 line, which I needed for both la Cimetière Montmartre and for St. Denis [to see the famous abbey church] was closed. Went on to Villiers to at least reach the former and discovered the #6 line wasn’t going today, either. Transit strike on. So I went back to the Place Europe stop and walked it from there.

The cemetery is under the Rue Calincourt overpass, unlike what is shown on my map. Found the entrance down below, though, and inquired of the uniformed porter where to find it . . . Hector’s got a lane named after him there. And he’s not under the viaduct, thank God.

French urban cemeteries aren’t like American ones. They don’t go in for green grass and well-tended plots. They tend to be little necropoles of miniature chapels and temples all jumbled in cheek by jowl with only drear, sandy soil between.

But thank God, somebody has done something about that ghastly Beaux Arts horror of a tomb that Hector originally had, the picture of which I saw in a book in the Philadelphia Free Library. It was all redone in 1970 in black Andes granite (or something similar) with gold in the incised lettering. The portrait on the medallion isn’t as beautiful as it should be, it doesn’t properly convey his character, but everything is very well tended, there are cyclamens, the pretty dark pink kind, and healthy-looking shrubbery growing in pots that are an integral part of the monument, not like the desiccated chrysanthemums on some nearly tombs, and-- oh, God, Berlioz! Berlioz! I can’t-- I wish-- Oh, Lord, I-- and he’s-- I can’t express it!

One doesn’t go to pieces totally. One mustn’t. There are other people around every so often. And it’s not like he died recently or anything . . . let us be sensible.

I could take refuge in activity. I could at least give him what I brought him. Someone who came earlier had left him a bunch of white chrysanthemums (I was glad to see that); I unbound my tulips and laid them across the other flowers. And I knew I’d chosen the right thing. They’re like him, in a way. Straightforward, unpretentious, colorful in their way, but still sensitive to the rigors of the mundane.

There’s a tree there . . . its roots probably grow down into his grave. It’s very handy when you have no other shoulder to cry on . . . Though I’ve cried on his shoulder often enough, figuratively, singing his songs and reading his memoirs and his letters, taking comfort in knowing there was one who has been through it himself, who could express it all so as to draw it up into ineffable poetry and beauty, one who despite his sins and failings took the gift that God gave him and used it, sublimely . . . I couldn’t help it, I prayed again the prayer I’ve said for the past eleven years, that please, God, in Jesus’ Name, if he can’t actually be saved-- and if there’s any proper way he could be, please effect it!-- please allow his faithfulness to his gift and all the good he’s done through its fulfillment speak grace and amelioration for him in the judgement! Please!

There’s a cross engraved above his name on his monument. I hope it is not there for naught. I wish I could believe the Roman Catholic doctrine that you can be saved by being baptised as an infant. I cannot, but it would be a comfort.

I tried to sing the Te Decet Hymnus for him but my voice broke-- "Ad Te caro omnis veniet!" Yes, but how-- and in what spirit?

There were some fuzzy cats roaming around (none of them black) and one approached now and sat a little ways off, preening herself. I went over and patted her, and, unusually for a French cat, she responded to it. If she’d been [my own cat] Didon I’d’ve picked her up, but she was not.

Then I went back and stood once more before la noire tombe-- mon pauvre Hector! Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine!-- kissed my hand to him, and departed.

Hélas!

Found la Square Berlioz after that, not far from la Place Clichy. The statue there is of him as a younger man than on the medallion of the tomb. It was not carved out of very high quality stone-- it has deteriorated badly. I dislike seeing that. And somehow, though I’m glad he is honored in public sculptures like that, somehow seeing them makes him seem more distant, unlike the portraits. I’ve read that his portrait by Courbet is said to be the only one by that artist that has a spark of life. If so, I’m glad it was Hector’s. Nothing can portray him that does not give you those piercing, wonderful eyes.

The square is largely given over to a large sandbox where children play, and sandy paths where the kids were kicking around a soccer ball. I wonder what he’d think of having his statue placed in a playground. He wasn’t much good at children, except for his son Louis.

Since going to see the abbey church of St. Denis was a bust and it was getting on towards 4:00 anyway, I took the Métro back downtown and got off at the Opéra stop. Had to look at the building which, while not the one that Hector knew, yet houses the institution that only opened its doors to him once.

Ironically, they did the Damnation de Faust, as I saw on a poster in the lobby, on the 8th. If I’d known that I could’ve come in from Chartres, no problem. Damnation, indeed.

They had tours but I just didn’t feel up to it. Browsed the gift shop; they had enamelled composer pins, even one of Hector. But they were just too expensive: 70F.

Over then to les Galeries Lafayette to see if maybe they were running the same sale on slips their branch in Toulouse was.

They weren’t; moreover the only suitable kind of slip they did have was running 225F each and was made in the good old USA. I think I’ll wait till I get back to Oxford.

Close one on the escalator there. It was full of people and as we rode upwards, a fairly good-sized man in his 60's lost his balance just ahead of me. Only my never-that-strong and presently very fatigued left arm and hand desperately clutching the rail kept him and me and everyone else from falling like dominoes. I don’t even think I was holding the righthand rail. I just stiffened up and hoped he’d get his balance before I gave way, too. When he made a grab for the rail he pushed into me worse and I had to step back, crunching the toes of the guy behind me (who wasn’t being any help, I might add). Fortunately the older man regained his footing at that point and aside from a little soreness, I was ok.

Still can’t figure out how I did that. I was feeling extremely yucky. Thank God I was able to, though.

The store was packed with Christmas shoppers and decorated to the hilt. (It’s the same all over, isn’t it?) And then it has that immense stained glass dome over the central court.

Back towards the hotel on the Métro (I might use the busses if I had a bus map. But I don’t, so I don’t). Really dragging by now. Figured I’d better find some food though so I got some junk at a croissanterie on Boul. St. Michel.

Got it and me up to the room-- and just couldn’t face it. Changed my clothes and climbed under the bedspread. Was not going to make it to the organ concert at Notre-Dame at 5:45. No. Listened to the radio, BBC World Service. They were airing their worldwide request program, and played the Hallelujah Chorus. And for the third time today I broke down and cried. Oh, Lord Jesus, come quickly!

Made myself work at train schedules for the next two days but other than that accomplished nothing but sleep all evening.
__________________________
†I was part of a high school group that took an Easter weekend trip to Mexico that year. On the Saturday, I, like an idiot, Drank the Water, and woke up the next morning too sick to go to the American church for Easter service. Happily, it was a mild case of MR and passed off by late that afternoon.
‡The immediate past pastor of my home church in Kansas City.
§Turns out I'd come up with the wrong address. The old Conservatoire building was and is still there, three or four blocks away from where I was looking for it.