Rocket Man

Ears absorbing: Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. There’s a sizable contingent of musicologists who would say that this is the greatest piece of music yet written. Like, we’re talking the entire Western musical tradition. Not wanting to incur the anger of any rabid musicologist by agreeing or disagreeing, I’ll simply say that the music’s beauty is making it difficult for me to concentrate on the writing. Not unlike when I drink Viennese coffee—sometimes I forget as I savor bitter perfection in my cup that I’m required to breathe in order to stay alive (and enjoy more coffee).

Today was spent in Café Prückel (perhaps my favorite café so far) and strolling through the Prater with my friend Jimmy. The Prater is a boardwalk-style amusement area, complete with Ferris wheel, pouty children, vomit-paved pathways stemming from the more heinous attractions, and shooting games that are about as honest as a Stalinist state-run newspaper. I laughed out loud when I saw the game named “Gangster Alley” and the American flag flying underneath its flashing letters. These were bootleggers, though, not Crips, and a poorly disguised Austrian-as-New-Yorker voice invited us to “pick up a [tommy] gun and get the varmints.” Not wanting to split hairs, I let go the fact that varmints aren’t native to 1920s Chicago.

At nearly 100 years old, the Ferris wheel (known as the “Riesenrad”) is the main attraction. Passengers are transported around the wheel by ancient boxes that are reminiscent of the San Francisco trolley cars, in that they’re outrageously expensive and don’t really take you anywhere.

Jimmy and I however, were not to be deterred. We wanted to treat ourselves to what we’ve been told is a magnificent view of Vienna and the entire Danube Valley: the best way to glimpse this jewel of Central Europe, so we’ve heard. It was one of those truly beautiful Autumnal afternoons, where the sunlight is magnified in brilliant colors as it passes through the frail leaves and is shot all over the city as beautifully nostalgic echoes of morning radiance. The breeze danced playfully with women’s scarves and tickled the cheeks of the children they carried. There seemed never to have been such a day for Ferris wheeling as this particularly breathtaking day. We wouldn’t have dreamed of abandoning this celestial beauty to the annals of Yesterday without a ride in the Riesenrad.

“Fuck this shit,” we said when we saw the price of €7.50, and we left.



After a lengthy courtship, my brother Ted finally married the lovely Amy Means (now Amy Sparks) in a touching ceremony in Malibu. [Amy has chosen not to hyphenate her name, because as Ted explains, she doesn’t want to become a sentence {Amy Means-Sparks}]. Yes, I came home for the wedding, but I consider it more than a fringe benefit that I was able to spend time on a Virgin Atlantic flight.

My flights on Virgin Atlantic are perhaps the closest I’ve come to feeling as though all the world is perfect and that strife is merely a word that applies to people who aren’t as deserving of the VIP treatment as my marvelous self. I mean, it just cannot be that everyone is entitled to being fed 5 times and watching 6 movies (started and stopped at one’s own discretion) in a single transatlantic flight. Nevermind that the upper class passengers have beds, massages, and free-flowing champagne served with foie gras and limitless caviar on diamond-encrusted plates of white gold to the live violinistic stylings of Jascha Heifetz. I got a bag with a sleeping mask and a portable toothbrush. The bag had tassels. Tassels!

The flight was not uneventful, however. As a British firm, Virgin Atlantic makes it a point of hiring British flight attendants. These gorgeous ladies (all of whom were under 35) cater to you as the pharaohs were once catered to, but they do so through the varied and immeasurably complex accents of the English Isles. I had a couple embarrassing episodes while trying to understand my comfort crew.

After meal #4, roast beef au jus with Caesar salad, an adorable biscuit (read: cookie) and two éclairs, I had a decent amount of trash. Never missing a step, the marvelous flight attendants knew exactly what I needed. As if on cue, down walked a petite British Pakistani, casually carrying her stunning beauty through the aircraft.

“Have you got any rubbish?” she asked. I was sitting over one of the engines, so I figured I just couldn’t hear her. “Excuse me?” I tried.

“Rubbish?” this time I distinctly heard English sounds. Almost there. “So sorry. One more time?” I begged.

She rolled her eyes and held up a handful of garbage. “Rubbish,” she said firmly. I had caused her to break the seal of nicety, and she was not happy about it.

Feeling sheepish at this point, I gathered all my rubbish together as quickly as I could onto my tray, and then—perhaps too quickly—thrust the tray at the poor Brit. She almost got away clean, but the éclair chocolate had other plans. She smiled broadly as she wiped the chocolate from her blouse, the kind of smile that’s reserved usually for vagrant relatives and people at the DMV, and continued on her way. She probably didn’t even hear my 15 apologies over the engine’s roar.

At this point I resolved to not so much as make eye contact with another flight attendant for the remainder of the journey, sure that I had been blacklisted and knowing they would probably spit in my food and give me Darjeeling when I asked for Earl Grey (I don’t know. I’d imagine that’s a serious offense in British culture).

I feel it is important to mention, though, that my fears of inviting the hatred of the flight attendants were not unfounded. I sat in the back of the first section of the plane, and during takeoff, landing, and high turbulence, the flight attendants sat right behind me. They can be brutal, unforgiving creatures.

“Did you see that horrid cow in 53J?” I was pretty sure I didn’t qualify as a cow, but to double check I looked at my row and seat. 72C. All clear.

“I certainly did! But she wasn’t much compared to that trotter in Premium Class.” I don’t know what a “trotter” is, but judging by the sound of her voice, I hope to God I’m not one.

There was also some confusion during afternoon tea. For one thing, there was some difficulty with my taking coffee instead of tea. I got a look that said, “There’s a reason it’s called afternoon tea.” The other hang-up was another problem with regional dialects.

While watching The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, I was interrupted by a small notice in the lower left-hand corner of the screen. “Afternoon tea in 10 minutes,” it explained, “choice of salad sandwich or cheese rocket.”

There’s something particularly electrifying about the prospect of new words in one’s own language: the possibility that a “rocket” was another name for something I’d already eaten in my life led to dramatically funny possibilities. “Oh, those English,” I would say, “calling a food item a ‘rocket.’ What will they think of next? [insert American condescension here]”

So when the flight attendant (not the éclair one… I had lost the privilege of her service) came by to ask which I preferred, salad sandwich or rocket, the answer was clear.

“Rocket, please,” I requested in a boisterously singsong voice, proud of my intercontinental savoir-faire and suavité.

She stared at me blankly. “… yes?” she asked, looking puzzled. It turns out that to just ask for a rocket is like just asking for a drink. One needs a bit more information to continue.

After the éclair incident, I was on edge with the flight attendants, and I panicked. She didn’t understand me, what’s wrong with me, oh God they’re all going to hate me and call me a trotter and there’ll be a much more horrid goddamn cow in 72C then there ever was in 53J! So I did what, in my frantic mind, made the most sense.

“Sorreh,” I tried with a devastatingly inauthentic English accent, “Ay’d layk a rock-it, if yoo’ve got wun.” Unfortunately the plane did not crash at this point.

Of course she was just lost. I’m sure she had no idea what this obvious American (I had spoken to her previously with my regular accent) was saying or if he was trying to be funny or if he was just odd. “Look,” she offered finally, “we’ve got cheese rockets and veggie rockets. Which would you like?” I held out my hand and quietly asked for cheese, politely clearing my throat as an excuse to look away--much as one does when being examined for a hernia. A rocket, to dispel the mystery, is something like a hot pocket. At this point she could have given me a refrigerated one, and the heat from my face would have nuked it in no time. The pain continued, “And coffee?” she asked. I nodded and gave her my mug. “No, on the tray,” she said firmly, and I at once understood the origin of the stern English nanny stereotype. She took my tray, filled my mug with coffee, and handed it back to me. I looked in my complimentary travel bag, and, not finding a razor with which to kill myself, munched shamefacedly on my rocket.



The wedding, however, was well worth the embarrassment. The ceremony was beautiful and very touching: Amy and Ted found out that for $50, the great State of California will award to anyone the title of Deputy Justice of the Peace for a period of 24 hours. So they asked their very good friend Brian to go get Deputied and officiate. The three friends stood before their friends and family and bonded in a way that was expressive and yet entirely intimate. Tears were cried, laughs were had, sand was poured, and all of a sudden Ted had a wife. It was short and sweet; a model of modern efficiency. We had a reception to get to, damnit.

I walked into the reception hall after the ceremony to warm up for my Josh Groban performance (on a white baby grand! I felt like Elton), and found the cake decorator poring over the many-tiered beauty, looking a little flustered. “Fastest ceremony in the West,” she muttered. She clearly was counting on a long drawn-out schmaltz fest. Not for T&A.
I’ll not linger my own Josh Groban stylings, except to say that Ted’s rewriting of the “When You Say You Love Me” lyrics were on my mind during the whole performance. Towards the end, I nearly slipped, but missed saying “When You Say You Cream Me” just in time.

Epilogue:
As we were walking through the adjoining park, Jimmy and I were talking about our families, and he said something interesting: “… your sister-in-law.” Saying “Ted’s wife” hadn’t seemed at all strange, but when applied to me I found things became different entirely, and I realized for the first time that I have indeed had an in-law for nearly a month. I didn’t say anything, but felt a little bit of a warm fuzzy inside. Amy is a fantastic candidate for the sister I never had, but have always wanted. Along with the title of "Most Feminine One in the House" comes a heavy tiara indeed. One which I'll no longer have to bear.

Congratulations, guys. I couldn’t be happier for you.

The music right now is decidedly not warm fuzzy, so to preserve the feeling I’ll say only that Bizet’s musical treatment of Carmen’s murder by a jealous lover with a long dagger is masterful.

Nightline Confessions

Now listening to: Sara Montiel, Quizas, quizas, quizas. (For those of you who know how I am about accent marks, you know that it kills me to leave out the accents on "quizas." But unfortunately I'm on a school computer, and these Germanic keyboards aren't too worried about none of that Iberian shit. Can we use our imaginations?) Some of you may know this excellent tune by virtue of Doris Day and her English version, entitled Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps. If you haven't seen Pedro Almodovar's (another missing accent. My god, I'm going to develop a nervous tic as a result of frustration) wonderful film Mala educacion (and another.*eye-twitch*) then do youself a favor and pick it up at your friendly neighborhood video store. You'll see Gael Garcia (tic) Bernal perform this song, complete with a Spanish (as in Spain) lisp. In drag. Class-A cinema.

The city of Vienna, among its many other great attributes, is possessed of a fantastic public transportation system. Five underground lines and countless bus, tram, and streetcar routes take a body all over the city for a song. A textbook example of German-style efficiency. Makes taking the 101 seem absolutely primitive in comparison.

Most Viennese institutions, public transportation included, do not recognize the existence of the hours between 22:00 and 06:00. However, for those of us nightcrawlers who prefer a post-midnight romp, we are catered to six ways to Sunday by the Nightline. The Nightline takes responsibility for the city's transportation needs beginning at 00:30 and lasting until 06:00. So, fret ye not, o partiers. Though the U-Bahn may close at 00:30, the Nightline will take you wherever you wish to go for a mere €1.50. Often, if one enters the bus at the rear, this fee can be avoided. SO! Point? This incredible system is used by a staggering number of Viennese and tourists alike, which makes for some enlightening Klatsch. The Nightline routes are fairly simple: starting from the outer districts, the bus weaves its way through the town, finally stopping at the Staatsoper in the center of the city. It then turns around and begins anew. Because of my proximity to the Oper, and because many of my preferred haunts dot the outer districts, I usually have a fairly long ride, and thus ample opportunity to meet-and-greet with my fellow riders. Since I often enjoy the Nightline services while inebriated, the following anecdotes will be titled by corresponding cocktail names. Hey--you want classy, you got classy.


The White Russian
After a Trink-filled night of dance and song, I hopped on the bus at my favorite stop, Meidlingerhaupstrasse. (As this name is a mine field while sober, one can easily understand how, when I am not as sober, it becomes my favorite stop). Only three of us riding at the moment. Two stops further, on steps perhaps the most unfortunately ugly Russian woman I've ever seen. I'm being very serious... stand back Janet Reno (or Rip Torn, for that matter) because here comes the product of a couple of Petersburg cousins and too much Stolichnaya. I noticed her climbing on because she was about 4’5” yet managed to test the limits of Austrian bus tires as she negotiated her 300 pounds through the double doors. Her outfit might have been titled Easter Basket Explosion! as she sported a large baby blue blouse (which enabled her to boast some generous cleavage), and purple Nikes. The theme continued as I saw that the ensemble was held together by a suit (i.e. pants and sportcoat) of matching forest green corduroy. Forest green isn’t accurate. It was more like the Spinaci alla caprese© crayons that we used to put on the tables at Macaroni Grill. Her costume jewelry from Claire’s nicely finished off the Easter basket theme. They were like the little foil-wrapped chocolates in sea of green grass and two large robin’s eggs. She wore orange eye shadow. The other two passengers were, in typical Nightline fashion, passed out at the front of the bus. Seeing that I was awake, she smiled at me (unwittingly letting me in on the secret that, based on the state of her tooth, she hadn’t enjoyed solid foods for some time) and sat down to my right. Now, up to this point she had not given me cause for the physical diatribe you’ve just read. Here’s where I feel justified:

[Let’s call her Oksana]
Oksana: я иду к магазину?
Me: Oh, um, entschuldigung. Ich spreche kein russisch. Sprechen Sie deutsch?
Oksana: [Pointing out the window] я иду к магазину??
Me: [wondering where to go from here] Um, do you speak English? I don’t speak Russian, I’m sorry.
Oksana: [Rolling her eyes, speaking slowly and deliberately, at great volume] я иду к магазину!
Me: I’m sorry, but I don’t understand you.
At this point, Oksana furrows her brow. Not a good idea cosmetically speaking, seeing as her former unibrow has now become an oval of angry fur on her forehead. She stares me down for about 20 seconds. She then rises and moves to another part of the bus, which is giving a real college try to supporting her migration.
Oksana: [Frustrated, under her breath] я буду… большой… собакой.
She approaches one of the formerly sleeping passengers, and sits at his side. Once seated, she turns to her new victim, and points to me.
Oksana: [Loudly and with righteous indignation] он. Будет. Малым. Котом.

She proceeded to harass that poor soul until, worn out, she fell asleep, her heavily made-up forehead resting against the seat in front of her. As we approached my stop, she awoke to find me alighting. She scowled as I left, and, slightly tipsy as I was, I returned the scowl as the bus pulled away. Now I know how everyone feels when Americans shout English at them. There's not much you can do when someone feels really strongly that if they speak a language you don't understand, you'll be ok as long as they treat you as a deaf person.


Cosmopolitan
02:45. A man boards the Nightline at Kettenbrückengasse, not more than 4-5 stops from my own. He is impossibly drunk. Like, right up there with Bugs Bunny or Elmer Fudd in their best moments. A once-ironed dress shirt was draped over his sickly-thin body, partly untucked, and his rooster gobble was cradled by an abused collar, half-up and half-down. One hand held breakfast in a small brown paper bag [I’ve never understood that one, by the way… we all know it’s not fruit juice you have in that bag. Really, embrace the alcoholism, you’ll feel better]. The other hand was buried in his pants (not his pockets, I mean. Both hands held a bag of sorts). As if he thought he’d pulled a fast one with the paper bag, he thought he’d be as swift by hiding the fondling hand with a dirty blazer hanging on his shoulder. Swinging lazily at his side, this failed to do the trick. He hiccoughed after each word (or at a rate of about 25/min, during those times when he chose to reflect silently). These were high pitched and powerful, violently shaking his frail body. After each hiccough came a satisfied sigh, and one worried whether these were due to the release of gas orally or anally. Originally he sat down a comfortable distance away (about 4 rows), but decided that after 2 stops he couldn’t hold it in any longer. This man needed some nicotine, and something had convinced him that I would be the one to supply it for him.

He stumbled over to me, receiving a boost from the jerky bus. While approaching, he looked me over carefully, as though he were shopping sofas. Apparently, I didn’t seem threatening, as he eventually sat himself across from me and leaned in as if to tell me a penetrating secret. One eye was half-closed and the other was horribly bloodshot. The one pupil I could see wouldn’t be focusing on anything for at least another 6-8 hours. Without warning, his body was ravaged by another hiccough, and in that moment I was given a thorough run-down of all that had passed through his mouth that evening. He sighed contentedly.
Now I know where elephants go to die.

I would have moved at that point, acquiescing to my human need for oxygen, but his sad eye narrowed, and with great effort he expressed to me his greatest desire.
“Hast du eine Zigarette?” I didn’t, and I shook my head.
“Nein, tut mir leid,” I apologized politely. He showed no expression for about 10 seconds, and then slowly leaned back into his chair, as if succumbing to the harsh reality of a smokeless bus ride. He leaned his neck back, rolling his head back and forth. Eventually settling on his left shoulder, his gaping mouth told me that we were well past his bedtime.
“Great,” I thought, “he’s passed out.” And indeed he had. Another hiccough jolted him, but he merely switched shoulders. Two more stops to go, and I couldn’t wait to get off the bus—the man himself was fine, but I just couldn’t reconcile my need to breathe with the rancid smell which was the product of his liver’s battle with half a bottle of Jack Daniels.

Suddenly, he shook awake. Not from a hiccough this time, and now both eyes were wide open. His mouth still hung wide, but not from the drunkenness. It was total shock I saw on his face—total shock or some kind of dramatic moment of great knowledge. Before I could decide if he’d found Jesus or the meaning of life, he ripped his hand from his pants and drove it into his blazer pocket. He searched for a few seconds, and emerged victorious, as if he’d won the rigged crane game they have at arcades. His wrinkled and sweaty hand clutched at a package of Gauloises, a favorite Viennese cigarette brand. It seems that in his stupor he had forgotten the 8 or so cigs he still had left. He greedily tore one from the package and drove it into his mouth. The hand went spelunking once again in the bottomless pocket of his blazer, and this time its prize was a small plastic lighter. In his excitement, he was overcome with a fit of hiccoughs. He fumbled furiously with his lighter, but couldn’t force his hand to remain still for enough time to ignite the Stick of Life that hung between his lips. Feeling badly, I reached out a hand to take the lighter and give him his light.
“Oh, um, ich kann…” I said, beginning one of those sentences that one doesn’t intend to finish. He wasn’t having it.
“Nein! As isss ei, u has keine Zigare’e!” he cried, although none too succinctly—the liquor had given his speech the consistency of warm peanut butter. Vowels were manageable, but only to a point, and consonants just weren’t within the realm of possibility.
“Ok,” I said with more than a hint of righteous indignation. I had tolerated his emissions, I would not tolerate his rudeness—especially when I had tried to help. He continued to struggle with his lighter. One stop to go. After a short while, he stopped flicking the starter; he seemed to have given up his quest. He looked at me, not pleadingly, but as if I were just out of his reach. My help was so close, yet so far away. He got an idea.

“Öch’ess’ du [hiccough] ei’e Zigare’e?” he asked, offering me the package of smokes. I moved to decline, but then he offered me the lighter as well. “Ja, ja!” he said, and pushed the box just under my nose. Suddenly I understood his motives: his inebriated logic dictated that I couldn’t very well light his cigarette unless I had one of my own. Far and away the most polite drunken Viennese smoker I’d ever encountered. I shrugged, accepted the stick with its flashing red Gauloise insignia, and put it between my lips. He pushed the lighter closer to me, altogether forgetting his own uncontrollable craving for nicotine. Never having lit a cigarette, I held the flame awkwardly until satisfied that the paper was indeed on fire, and took a short drag. I didn’t swallow the smoke, knowing it would make me cough, and blew it out of my mouth slowly. Satisfied, he repositioned his own smoke and leaned his face in toward mine. I lit his cigarette, and held out his lighter. Wanting first to enjoy the wonderful lubrication of tar in his throat, he ignored my hand. He sighed again as he blew the smoke out of his mouth and nose, and took his lighter.

“Ringstrasse, Staatsoper,” the automated and smoothly pleasant voice of the Vienna Transportation Lines announced. My stop. I moved to get off, and my drunken smoker friend smiled. “Danke!” he yelled, although I was no more than 2 feet from him. “Bitte,” I said, and got off the bus. As the bus pulled away, I went to put out the cigarette, but he smiled and waved at me, holding up his own cigarette. I smiled back and waited until the bus was gone to put the thing out. I felt slightly odd walking back to my apartment—I suppose I’d done a nice thing, even if it was to light his cancer stick and accept (and waste) another of his precious bounty. The most prevalent feeling, however, was confusion at his wonderfully intricate logic. Drunk people are a hoot.


Vodka & Red Bull
A word re: the title of this passage: Red Bull© is a uniquely Austrian creation. It was invented in Austria and the Red Bull manufacturing and shipping plant for the whole of Europe is in Vienna. This drink is wildly popular…usually, if one isn’t drinking a beer, one is pulling down a Vodka & Red Bull. It’s also the drink of choice for people in the 18-25 demographic. Since Red Bull has an orange-red color, Vodka & Red Bull has the look of extremely weak iced tea or the urine of a geriatric connoisseur of V8 Juice.

As you may have guessed, the combination of a strong depressant and an equally strong stimulant makes for an interesting effect.

Another ride on the Nightbus, this time from fairly far away, an area of town called Floridsdorf. This ride takes close to 30 minutes. Because it passes by a number of hot nighttime locales and follows a route whose stops are sparsely used, this bus can get very full indeed.

When I got on the bus it was fairly empty, but after about 3 stops there was hardly a seat left, save for the ones in the back where I like to sit. The bus stopped for a fourth time, and on came 15 or so thoroughly boozed Americans. A few of them, including this segment’s subject, sat in the seats near me. She was in her mid twenties, awfully pretty and pissed out of her gourd. She wore a miniskirt and a camisole decorated with rhinestones, which read, “Will Fuck for Coke.” I don’t believe she meant the refreshing beverage. She was introduced to me as Tanya [well, her friend clued me in when she jostled our subject and said, “Tanya, holy shit you’re fucking cheezing out.”].

Tanya was friendly. She turned to me and said, “Oh my God are you Austrian?” I took this as a compliment, but had to deny it. “No, I’m from California.” Fifteen Americans notwithstanding, Tanya was ecstatic to have met one of her countrymen. She screamed joyfully:
“I’m from Wisconsin and the men here are hot!” I nodded in agreement, and began to ask her about her visit to Vienna.
“Are you studying here?” I asked. She proceeded to tell me about the incredible vacation that she and her friends were having: touring all of Spain, southern France, Italy, and Austria. She talked animatedly for a good 5 minutes, and then asked me the same question.
“So, like, are you studying here? Cuzseriouslyohmygodthatwouldbesocool!” she perried.
“Yes,” I said, “I’m studying here until December. I’m studying music and German.” I turned to her, so as to better hear her answer. She had fallen asleep, and was out enough to have small bit of drool forming in the corners of her mouth.

Not particularly entranced by our conversation, and fairly worn out myself, I accepted her passing out rather gratefully. I looked out of the windows and watched as we came closer to the center of the city. Three minutes passed.

“Oh holy fuck oh my god I’m sorry what were you saying? Did I like totally pass out just now?” She stirreth. A little shocked but never one to be made to feel awkward, I began again. She listened intently and had at least one or two questions for every one of my sentences. We were having, in short, a really nice conversation. I asked her if she’d been having a fun night.
“Oh holy shit you wouldn’t believe how much VodkaRedBull I drank.” I told her I probably could, because I’ve seen lots of people get very drunk on that stuff. I laughed, and looked at her. He head was hanging in her lap and she was very nearly falling out of her chair. If it weren’t for all of the people on the bus blocking her way, there would have been some seriously wasted Tanya to pick up off the floor.

And so went the rest of the trip—Tanya waking to apologize and ask me questions, Tanya falling asleep… one big cycle of excess. I hope she got home ok. If not, I hope she got her wish and found some nose candy.


Listening to: Césaria Évora, Sodade. She’s an Angolan singer, and you’ve probably heard her on a number of movie soundtracks. A rich, burnished sound and all the romance of the Portuguese language make for some sexy music. The song title, Sodade, is an untranslatable Portuguese word which basically means “the blues.” Here’s a slight difference I’ve noticed in cultures… When Werther or a Wagner hero get the blues, they off themselves. When Césaria Évora gets ‘em, she turns it into passion. I mean, intellectualism is hot, but sometimes a body just needs unbridled coital energy.

By the by, here’s a link to some of the pics my friends and I have been taking here in Österreich. Hopes you likes ‘em.

http://ckanowsky.photosite.com/viennadventures

No, but seriously folks...

*ACHTUNG* This entry includes my being serious about something. I've not experimented much with this state of mind, and the results may be disturbing. Or utterly boring. But you got an *ACHTUNG* so no bitching.

Music (and this time it relates to some of the post. I know... frightening. Lock up your women): Listening to Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen, one of Gus Mahler's 5 songs set to texts by Friedrich Rückert. Both the text and the music speak to the listener of transcendence and separation from the world at large, of a state in which one has reached complete restfulness and peace. Now, prompted by a number of my fellow bloggers who decided that last week was Philosophical Life Outlook Explanation Week, I'm devoting part of this post to my inner self. I'm sure you all think that I expose myself quite enough, thank-you-very-much, but this time it may come out differently. Call me shallow for doing this only because everyone else was, but it could also be an intense snobbery which prevents me from consciously ignoring the current online literary trends. Um, in which case I guess I'm still shallow. Fuck.

So yeah, this piece of music. I'm listening to it for the Mahler class. This last week has been mostly a discussion of Mahler's philosophical background and influences (he certainly considered himself to be as much a "thinker" as a "composer." At least in the sense that he was all-consumed with trying to figure out life's little conundrums). In order to better understand our subject, we've been reading treatises by a number of clever German-speaking Herren, namely (in the order in which they lived) Kant, Schopenhauer, Wagner, and Nietzsche. In their respective nutshells, Kant says, "Life sucks and then you die," Schopenhauer retorts with "Maybe so, but there are loopholes around the dying part," Wagner does his own thing with, "Jews suck and then you die. Oh, don't eat meat," and finally Nietzsche with his Übermensch or Superman, who sounds like he'd actually be pretty hot and would he like to go to the opera tomorrow night around 7:30?

So it goes like this for me: the more I read Schopenhauer, the more I'm like, "Wow, how did he know how to explain what's happening in my brain better than I did?" Now I'm not some kind of Schopenhauer disciple, and you wont see me with pamphlets at the airport, but many of his ideas are pretty interesting to me, particularly his ideas of artistic transcendence. There's this thing called the "Will," you see, and this Willy is the essence of all beings. It is sentient, and ruthlessly driven to a single purpose: survival. The ultimate goal of man is to find Will's address, go hang out and shoot the shit with him, and then beat him senseless. To know the Will, in a sense, is to defeat it. Still with me? Good. There are two ways to defeat Will and reach this kind of pinnacle of existence (sound Eastern? He was heavily influenced by Buddhism):
1. Accept the Kantian notion of a sucky life. Yes, life blows chunks. Poor people die of starvation while rich people grow fat, and in our struggle, we are ultimately crude beings. Accept this, and be cool with it, and you've figured life out, so says Schopy.
2. Create artistically. It is only in the creative mind where one can glimpse this Will and be influenced by it. Inspiration is a direct result of contact with the Will, and a true artist is simply a vessel for said inspiration. (There are heirarchical levels of art, by the way, but let's not go there for right now).

So maybe right now you're thinking about what a psycho I am for buying into this. Here's (finally) where I'm getting, though: No, I don't agree with Kant. Life can't altogether suck some hairy ones. But I'm not convinced with Ayn Rand, either, in thinking that life is INCREDIBLE and so let's selfishly milk it for all it's worth, environment and human life be damned. (And no, in case you're wondering, I wasn't waiting for some books to come along and tell me how I'm feeling... they just have been helpful in the illumination process). I feel as though I'm in a position between the two, in that:
a) I believe we are selfish beings, in the sense that our "will" to survive takes precedent over all else. That selfishness, I believe, also often motivates our "good deeds." I believe that what one does for others is motivated primarily for how it makes one feel about one's self. I strive to be my best because it makes me feel good, and I'm attracted to others who feel the same way because these people, like myself, tend to be generally happy. Everything they do is done for them... life can be whatever we make it to be if we employ ourselves and this "selfishness" to its utmost. That's the "Ayn" side talking.
b) Ok, so a) is a bit of wishful thinking, perhaps. Sure, if everyone had the capacity and good fortune to be able to pursue this selfishness, we'd all be in some heaven of technological and personal advancement. However, the "Schopenhauer" side of me doesn't want to leave the rest (meaning those unable to persue only their own desires) behind. If life is suffering, I believe that the overall quality of life for the masses (call me a Commie) should be placed in the foreground. I'd rather fight the "Life sucks and then you die" principle with my fellows, to try and be a match for the will (or God or whatever) and it's ruthlessness, than ignore it in the pursuit of happiness. I'm selfishly motivated to fight, perhaps, but so what? It is action, not motivation, which is the end goal. I fight for (and with) these masses because they are my friends, my family, my fellows, becuase Humanity, the marvel that is the pairing of the human heart and the mind, is my religion. If the end goal is the end of this suffering and the transcendence over the Will, then I want it to be our goal together--if this means it takes longer to get there, at least I'll have company when we do. I believe in first getting to the point where we are all free to try for "a)," and I don't believe that "a)," despite its merits, has a monopoly on happiness. Art is the overcoming, the lasting, and the ultimate triumph of man. There's the transcendence, right here on Earth: through art, we discover ourselves, the process by which our own unique selves mix with the whole of humanity. There is no mass v. individual, there is no struggle there: the struggle is with the ancient suffering and its casting off. I will do the best I can for my own benefit and for the benefit of this race which I love. This is not trickle-down theory or diluted Ayn. Their arguments are dependent upon the idea that one must choose to be an individualist or a socialist. I'm suggesting that there should be no difference between the two.


ALRIGHT, so now that you've waded through that one... heilige Scheisse that was a crazy bit of abstractness that I got lost in a number of times, and that I'm sure you did too, and I apologize. DISCLAIMER: Go ahead and find loopholes. Hell, I found some of my own. But this is a work in progress, this whole figuring out life thing, one with which I hope I am never done. I think one can always do to have a open mind.

Well, now this blog has gone on far too long for me to continue on to fun Vienna stories, so I'll go ahead and publish those in another entry. My intention was to merely dally with the philosophy stuff, but it got away from me.

Music: Ancient French troubadour tunes from the 12th and 13th centuries--the beginnings of polyphony (using more than one melodic line). I'm listening for homework, but I also felt like my brain was too fried to listen to anything more complex than 2 singers.