Sturm und Drang

Listening to Gus Mahler’s sixth symphony, the Tragic. Whoever coined the name Tragic (it wasn’t Mahler) wasn’t kidding—this bitch tears at the heart. The last movement begins with a soaring theme of Hope that fights against its enemies throughout the piece. At the last statement of the theme, it seems to be pulling away from the evil it’s been fighting—it grows and pulsates with life, and at the last moment, the theme turns to minor, as the opposition grabs hold of its ankles and violently pulls it down into the dregs… an hour and a half of struggle, and Hope loses. Not the feel-good symphony of the summer.

The blog gets happier, I swear. My little musical things at the beginning of each entry are in no way to be interpreted as “thematic” or related in any way to the blog. I just gotsta feel the passion sometimes. I’m also near the end of Atlas Shrugged, and Ayn, that big freaky capitalist, is totally making a nerdy recluse of me.


Oh, that’s right so I was spending this semester in VIENNA! No more talk of boring things.

Speaking of talk, my freshman physics class, which once could claim the title of “Carl’s Time of Greatest Stupidity and Helplessness,” has been dethroned by a single night of partying. I shall explain:

The three weeks of the German Intensive now over, we IES kids have a weeklong break before normal classes begin. Most, including my roomie, decided to go on the so-called Three City Tour—nine days of touring Krakow, Budapest, and Prague. Others chose to travel independently, and went in small groups to Italy, Switzerland, the UK, and Croatia (site of what are supposed to be some incredible beaches—the tricky thing is getting through Bosnia and Herzegovina, which Americans aren’t really supposed to do, seeing as how Americans and Balkan unrest go together about as well as Palestinians at seder).

Long story short, I’m the only one I know currently in Vienna, or even Austria. Don’t misunderstand—I love this situation. I’m going to spend this week getting to really know this amazing town: its museums, cafés, musical offerings, parks, architecture, history, and its people. Which brings me to my story (I didn’t forget it in my tangenting) and why a party made physics look like a cakewalk. Since there wasn’t going to be anyone here, my Austrian friend Sally (she’s not the only one, naysayers) invited me to a “small” party she was throwing at her flat. Great, I thought, what a fantastic way to get to know some natives and practice some Deutsch. Ha.
Sally: Carl! So glad you could make it!
Carl: Totally, Sally. Hey, I brought some wine.
Sally: Oh, cool! Come in, we’re on the balcony.

[on the balcony, where there are 30-40 people].
Sally: [to her guests] OINF DOIBR BS LK Carl JNBW!
Guests: sSDFGLOLB cool eigonq 124 RT FLOKJ!
Sally: You speak German, right Carl? Yes, I’ve heard you, you’re pretty good.
Carl: Well, a little. [ever optimistic and confident] But this is the best way to learn.
Sally: Definitely. I’m gonna go get some more food, I’ll be right back.

Guest 1: [to Carl] sO Sally told us you're from tje USA USA?
Carl: [hoping his answer works, and with great effort] Ja, ich komme aus Kalifornien. Ich studiere hier bis Dezember.
Guest 1: Und was studierst du?
Carl: [spurred on by his understanding the question, answers loudly and over-excitedly] MUSIK!
Guest 1: [weirded out] Ah, ok. [points to Guest 2] GVLIUBRG FND45 Musik.
Guest 2: dfvoihskkkkk ndogvoasgflj ;p jsnwu8572 djs.
Carl: ………………… er, langsammer, bitte? [slower, please?]

And so progressed the evening. It was like talking to the Sims.

I’m probably exaggerating a little, in that I did understand a good amount. They were also very kind, and were not above translating a word or two for me if I had the face I used to make after my mom would ask, “CJ, did you take the cookies?”

I‘ll not place blame on the American educational system, seeing as how my ability with a language is entirely up to me, but I will say that it pretty much sucks balls in comparison to the Austrian system, whose products were completely bilingual, if not tri- or quad lingual.

Bottom line, I did ok, but not great. I mean, I would have felt less helpless and idiotic had I no motor skills, but was in an English-speaking city. Because of my German diction classes, everyone said I had a wonderful accent. “You speak more clearly than I do,” said a sprightly little psych major from Innsbruck. Fantastic. Now all I need are some words to speak and the knowledge of how to put them together correctly. Back in a flash….

I did make one awful mistake, but to my credit, this one was due to a regional dialect kinda thing, not just plain ignorance and stupidity. Someone asked me how I liked Vienna’s weather. “Das Wetter hier ist so schön,” I exclaimed, “es ist nimmer feucht.” My new friend had to sit down after spilling his beer from laughing. I thought I had said, “The weather here is so beautiful. It is never humid.” Well, I had—but this was Berliner Deutsch I was using. In Viennese German, “feucht” is the adjective applied to a human female’s sexual organs when she is in heat. “It’s never a wet vagina,” is basically how I described the weather. But I can’t win for losing—it turns out the Viennese word for “humid” is “schwül.” The Viennese word for “gay” is “schwul.” A small difference in vowel sounds is all it will take for me to screw up again. And it will happen, I’m almost positive.

But all in all the night was a success. I felt like I learned quite a bit, and could do passably well on a one-to-one basis. Parties, I feel, are as of yet a little beyond my reach.

* *

Ok, so you saw my little pause stars and probably thought, “My God, how much more of this is there and should I get up and pee before continuing?” Pee if you must, but I won’t go on too much longer.

As foolish as I felt at Sally’s party, I’ve caught myself being viciously happy at the fact that I haven’t made some of the cross-cultural faux pas that some of the other Americans have made. I consider myself lucky that my only flaw is to have no understanding of these people’s language—I've no international incidents under my belt.

Friday night, I ran into Sally and her friend Sam on the U-Bahn (that happens here… a city of 2 million and yet it feels quite small). I was with a couple of my American friends, and we were coming home from a party. Sally, ever the heavyweight, suggested that we accompany her and Sam to a bar on the Danube. I’m still not quite over the incredible romanticism of this city, and sipping Sturm by the Danube seemed like a phenomenal idea.

[Sturm, by the way, is the second of three stages in wine making here in Austria. The first is just the crushed grapes (Weintraubensaft), then it begins to ferment, but is still sweet like grape juice (Sturm) and finally it becomes wine. Oh my, Sturm. It goes down smooth, like 3-year-old-drinking-apple-juice smooth, and although it has a lower alcohol content than wine, 7-10 glasses will do the job nicely.]

So there we were at the Strandbar, (literally Beach Bar—there’s a man-made beach along the river in the center of the city) sitting in cabana chairs, sipping Sturm and sangria, and listening to (of course) Bob Marley. We even met some random Wieners and invited them over to our little beach spot. Generally having a pretty damn incredible time. The Austrians asked us where we had gone and what sites we had seen. Our German classes included some interesting excursions, and so we told them about our trip to the Rathaus (city hall).

Now, because one didn’t need any prior German knowledge to come to Austria, there are a number of German classes and different levels of instruction. Intermediate I, the class into which I was placed, and Beginner 2 usually went on these excursions together. For the Rathaus trip, however, all of the German classes went along. We were regaling the Austrians with hilarious tales of American naiveté when Sally asked, “Wow, how many of there were you?” Whereby my somewhat bitter friend John replied, “Well, they put all the classes together, so there were about 150 of us. It was totally a German Anschulss.”

I choked on my Sturm. Sally made no motion whatsoever, and Sam kind of gaped. The other Austrians looked as though they’d been slapped. Hard. Cricket, cricket. Sally glanced at John with a horribly pathetic look of pity on her face, and she turned to our new friends and changed the subject to the weather.

Coming home that night, John was beside himself. He had no idea what he had said to so utterly and completely kill the conversation. He thought he’d made a pretty good joke, involving Austrian history with some vocab from class (anschluss means “annexation”). What he was unaware of, however, was the fact that the Anschluss in the late 1930s was perhaps the worst period in Austria’s history—when Hitler not only entered the country, but was greeted by a ticker tape parade. It’s as if John had made a Japanese internment joke in San Francisco. But much worse. The Austrians are still fairly touchy about this subject, and it is, as John discovered, not for joking. Ouch.

But back to gaiety… classes start the 26th! I’m a big fan of my schedule:

Monday-
10:20-11:30—Gustav Mahler and Turn of the Century Vienna
11:55-1:10—German
3:15-6:20—Music History

Tuesday-
10:30-11:45—German

Wednesday-
10:35-12:05—Mahler
3:00-4:30—Music History
6:10-7:40—Vocal Performance Workshop

Thursday-
10:30-11:45—German
4:35-6:05—Vocal Performance Workshop

Friday-
Free as a child molesting pop star.

Listening to: Mozart’s 40th symphony. I saw the house where he wrote this. No words, no words at all.