nerd’s eye view

Thanks for Nothing, Julie Andrews

 Thanks A Lot, Julie Andrews: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tech notes:I’m using the PodPress plug-in for audio, with troubleshooting from ExIT. It seems to work in iTunes when I use mp3 files. You can subscribe to Nerdio (NEV Audio) using the RSS feed. Give it a try.

This audio entry includes music by Julie Andrews, Outkast, Chris Isaak, and Death Cab for Cutie.

When the dog bites
When the bee stings
When I’m feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don’t feel so bad

Thanks to Tuckova, who thought I should join Lost in Transit, and Mig, who did not object.

podcasting, homesick, expatriate

Posted in Austria, Nerdio | 7 Comments »

Austria, 1923

“Hey, is there a time machine back there or something?”

Yes, I was being a smartass, as usual. But the people coming from that side of the alley had nothing modern about them. The hunter with the heavy wood-stocked rifle hanging over his shoulder. The woman in the elaborate headdress and shiny purple dirndl. The little girls in local costume, the teenage boys in lederhosen.

It was the harvest festival, the “erntedankfest.” It’s a lot like those exhibits at the county fair where you can see how things were done in pioneer days and then, compare them to how they’re done in modern times. Only instead of walking from booth to booth and display to display, the stuff comes to you in float form pulled by a tractor. Threshing hay and sorting leaves from the berries and yes, even distilling schnapps, all roll by you at a slow enough pace for the fresh faced lasses and laddies to hand you a plastic cup of local beer or to pour you a shot of something much, much, stronger.

Honestly, I was a little bored by the time the guy on the penny-farthing rolled through, but the participants seemed to be enjoying themselves more than enough for all of us. It could be the schnapps, though I have to question the wisdom of filling 17 year old boys with schnapps and then setting them at exhibition wood chopping.

It seems like the weather was waiting for this festival to pass. This morning it was raining and the sky is low. The clouds are draping the peaks and the cows are huddled close together under sheltering trees. Weather like this turns my thoughts to Seattle and the idea of eating soup with friends in various kitchens throughout the city. I woke up with the first pangs of homesickness this morning. l long not just for my place, but my time.

Pictures from the Erntedankfest in Schladming are here.

–

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention yesterday’s election here in Austria. I was surprised to learn this morning that the Social Party took the lead - shocking to me given their involvement in a massive banking scandal last spring. The far right Freedom Party took just over 10 percent of the vote. They ran an ugly, openly racist campaign that infuriated me whenever I saw the posters. The other right wing party was just as offensive, calling for a deportation of 30% of Austria’s immigrants as part of their platform - I loudly offered to be the first deportee in line whenever I heard the party leader on the news.

In my head it went something like this:

“Oh, we didn’t mean YOU,” they’d say at the BZOe HQ when I went down to volunteer to be deported.

“Then who, pray tell, DID you mean?” I would ask, pointedly, while the camera crew zoomed in on the hapless party employee’s face.

Given that the Social Party and the People’s Party took the lion’s share of the vote and that talk is of a grand coalition between those two, I hold hope that the new government will crush the far right’s participation in Austrian politics once and for all. But I also hope that the reason the Greens did so poorly is because green policy has become mainstream here in Austria. Hope springs eternal, and hey, in Schladming, little Indian girls dance to tuba music and hitch rides on hay covered floats, staining their brown hands with juice from wild blueberries.

If nothing else, now that the election is over, those awful posters will come down. I had to physically restrain myself from going on a propaganda remix campaign - though if you have pictures of “revised” posters, I’d love to see them.

Posted in Austria | 8 Comments »

Rocky Mountain. High.

Wilderness in Austria is sort of relative. It seems that at no matter what altitude you are standing or how far you have walked, there is a “hutte” somewhere very nearby where you can get anything from fresh baked bread spread thick with butter to a full meal with schnapps and a cup of coffee afterwards. It’s likely you can rent a room for the night, even. As a denizen of the western United States, I’m ambivalent about the inability one has in Austria to “get away from it all” - but I do enjoy the accessibility.

We beat the crowds to Stoderzinken this morning, but that doesn’t mean we were alone at all. A busload of Czech tourists were striding about the place though it appeared that most of them opted to stay at the gasthaus in the lower parking lot. There were several sturdy Austrians, the kind that always shame me on the trail by dragging twice my weight up the mountain at twice my speed.

We hiked up high enough so that we could look down on the birds and straight in to the clouds. I love to be above the tree line – it’s the one place I feel truth in astrology. I am a Capricorn and I enjoy being up in the rocky heights with my feet on the ground and my head in the sky – a true mountain goat. I am not fast or even that strong, but I feel quite secure on the steep edges and love the feeling of the earth spread out below me.

There’s a tiny chapel stuck to the edge of the cliffs and then, the trail continues up a sort of “staircase” to the peak. The only downside? The cigarette butts littering the area around the marker at the high point. We’re surrounded by terrible tobacco addicts. It would be marginally less aggravating if they would clean up after themselves. J. complained out loud and the woman behind him agreed. “Up here in the fresh air, no less!” she replied.

We snacked a little and watched the wind blow the clouds east. Slightly north of us, there was a wide streak of rain falling from high up – maybe too high to even hit the ground. The clouds boiled upwards in the distance and there was a cold bite in the air that I haven’t felt for months now. My ears were cold. Fall is coming.
It was beautiful. Here are a few more pics.

Posted in Austria | 4 Comments »

Doctor My Eyes

 Listen to this story instead. [6:14m]: Download

We were sitting with the parents in the lovely garden of the Stift’s Cafe at Klosterneuburg. The place was fairly empty - it was Monday and the museum was closed. The wind was swirling the first brown leaves across the plaza but we were protected by the garden’s walls. The waiter was kind and spoke excellent English and the food wasn’t bad either. We were talking about travel fatigue which right now, I have in spades. (more…)

Posted in Austria, Nerdio | 7 Comments »

How It Happened

1. I was lying on the balcony, listening to Morning Stories on my iPod. There were cowbells ringing in the background.The story - about a German woman who had Nazi parents and was really angry with them and all Germans - was sort of resonating with me.
2. I went inside to look up the WGBH site to drop them a line to thank them for the story and to tell them about our recent conversation with the farmer who was a POW in Texas during WWII. I included a link to my story.
3. I got email back almost immediately from Tony Kahn, the show’s producer. He said they loved my story and when could they call so I could read it for them.
4. I mailed them back saying, “Oh, we’re off to the city and I will only have my cell phone and we’re running around and blah blah blah and, um, uh, gee, how about, um… does now work? Now would be okay. I guess.”
5. The phone rang. It was Gary, the production guy. He said “I just have to get Tony in the studio. I’ll call you back in five minutes.” He did.
6. We talked for maybe half an hour about things, Austria and history and podcasting and oh, stuff, and then, Tony asked me to read the story. I did.

It was really cool. And the production guy was sort of amused by the whole insta-technology-connectivity-ness of the thing - as was I. And Tony Kahn is funny and charming and if I were a cat, I’d have curled up on his lap and let him rub my belly.

I hope I didn’t say anything stupid because I’m going to be on WGBH Boston’s Morning Stories. I’ll post the link when it’s available, of course. It should be up in about two weeks.

Tell ten thousand of your closest friends, okay?

NPR, WGBH, Morning Stories, Tony Kahn

Posted in Austria, Nerdio | 5 Comments »

Still Life with Crabby Rabbi

Flea markets are depressing places but I can’t stay away. I’m a sucker for the random still life tableaus that you find when wandering the stalls. The Vienna flea market combines the possibility of still life with the stench of cigars and sweat and history and desperation. If that sounds like I’m being dramatic, then watch a skinny guy in a tattered jacket with the stained mustache trying to sell his pewter topped beer mug to another just as tired looking man behind a table of hinges and old street signs and cigarette tins.

Every now and then you stumble across a piece of Judaica – something “recovered” from a temple or attic or the barn is some eastern European village where Jews used to live. The guy behind the table, snaggle toothed and with a big belly, a cigarette pinched in his fingers will tell you that “it’s Jewish” and ask you for a lot of money. But if you pay careful attention, you will notice that the same exact artifact shows up over and over and over again, tempting you to turn the object over in your hands until you find the “Made in India” stamp.

The market is full of people on the take. You’ll hear that the vase is Jugendstil from someone you swear could not possibly know Jugendstil from Art Deco from Modern. If they did, would they also be selling a plastic Ronald McDonald doll? I realize this is unfair, perhaps they are all art history students fallen on hard times, left with only the option of collecting the detritus of society and moving it around.

We squeezed up and down the makeshift aisles until I’d had enough. I couldn’t take the feeling of one more pushy lady barreling past me to get at – at what? A pile of tattered lace? A mountain of used shoes? A cardboard box full of magazines from 1972? All over the place there were people holding up objects they did not need. I believe there are random treasures, accidental gems that found there way to the hands of these brokers. There must be, because you see the hunters there, well turned out and almost sniffing out antique books or picture frames or prints.

But in general, you should just put that thing right back down again. It may be novel to turn it over in your hand but honestly, you really don’t need it. You don’t. Trust me. It’s already been rejected and ended up here at the flea market.

More photos from the Vienna Flea Market are here.

flea market, shopping, Vienna

Posted in Austria | 2 Comments »