Geschichten aus der Toilette

I would like to talk for a moment about Viennese high culture, and in particular the fine arts. There are many nice aspects of Viennese high culture. Classical music is among them. We have a nice classical music museum and two weeks ago we went to a wonderful concert in an incredibly amazing room and with some incredibly amazing music. This is all very good.

And then there is the play Geschichten aus dem Wiener Wald (Stories from the Viennese Forest [that surrounds the city]). This was organized by our Georgetown den-mother Helga and one of our tutors, Robert. Now, we are required (sort of) to come to one theater piece and one opera. The opera is "The Magic Flute" by Mozart, a staple of classical opera, so I assumed that the play GADWW was a staple of some classical canon of theater that I was hitherto unaware of.

This was false.

Of the nine Hoyas - Hoyae? nescio. - in Vienna, five of us showed up. The others either had legitimate reasons for not coming, like a project due the next day, or illegitimate ones, like preregistration for Georgetown (lame). But I didn't want to disappoint Helga, who is very nice and puts a lot of effort into these things despite being a dolt. Interestingly she did not come because she had to put her eight month old baby to sleep because he can't fall asleep without her, and because she will probably nurse him until he's at least twelve if she keeps up her present attitude.

No matter. I came, and I think I deserve some credit for that. The tutors were jackasses though and took names of the people who didn't, because they have the impression they have some power over us. This is an impression that many Vienna Hoyae have, but I'm getting off topic.

The plot

Marion is a young girl in "the dark time" (i.e. Nazi time). She is bethrothed to a butcher by her insensitive father. Also running around on stage is a fifty-five year old woman with platinum blond hair and hot pink pants. She attempts to sleep with various male characters. There is also a young Nazi on stage, though I didn't determine his relationship to everyone else. I believe he was the token Nazi because he shot his gun into the air and complained about race problems. Everyone in the audience was appropriately guilt-stricken for about five minutes before blondie throws her leg over his arm and makes out with him passionately. Alfred is another young man, who makes his living in questionable ways. He and Marion fall in love despite Marion's betrothal to said butcher. Butcher practices Jujitsu on his fiancee, displaying dolthood. Marion and Alfred sleep together, move in together, debate the existence of God. Insensitive Father walks on to stage and sits down. Blondie lies down next to him with her head in his lap. He rubs her boobs and then goes down on her. Alfred walks onto stage inquiring if they have the time of day. Blondie's head pokes out from under Insensitive Father's ass and they have a conversation. Marion and Alfred have a baby. A fat old man chases a little girl around stage with a knife.

Intermission.

So I left at this point, because I do not believe this qualifies as art, only a waste of my time. I would like to say that at least I was not smoking marijuana like the youngsters in front of me. I believe my decision was right, because the rest of the play consisted of Marion becoming a whore, covering herself in Nutella (which Europeans love) and being licked, yes, in that area, by her father, who doesn't realize who this Nutella-drenched woman of the night really is.

Perhaps the one thing this play did achieve (other than teaching me the German word for lap) is make me think about what qualifies as art. I have decided that it must be a work that either has some insight into the human condition, conveys some perception of the world, or elevates the spirit (so we can count music). GADWW strikes out on all three counts. Thank you, Vienna.

Also, bad plays are so awkward. I think they are the most awkward thing ever.

O Canada

So here's some background: last year my peer Elizabeth told me that she went to the Cornell linguistics colloquium for undergraduate students and presented a paper she had done. I was impressed. She told me there was one at McGill, too; alas, we had both missed the abstract deadline. I resolved to submit my paper for 2008, which I did in February, and which was accepted to present at the poster session of the 2nd annual McGill Canadian Conference for Linguistic Undergraduates (McCCLU). So, having found a relatively cheap flight via studentuniverse, I confirmed my participation and booked the flight to Montreal (Montréal).

This was the first time I had been to Canada since... well, since before passports were required to cross the border. 1998, in fact, was when my family and I drove up to Québec City for a summer road trip -- my first time out of the country. I remember that we were confused because there were two signs announcing our arrival in Canada, spaced out by about ten feet, so we didn't actually know when we had arrived in Canada. We took pictures at both signs. By the way, I think "road trip" should be one word, but spell check disagrees. I also think "spell check" should be one word, but spell check disagrees. I shall bring this up in Morphology class on Monday to delay talking any further about ergative case marking in the Hanis Coo language.

As you know, I hope, Québec is what we would call a social oddity in that it has an dominant language different from that of its country. French, that is. This led to many difficult situations wherein I had no clue which language to use, and also to quite a bit of linguistic tongue-twisting. It is not uncommon to answer someone's French question in English, or to have someone say things to you in both languages. I talked to one woman in the train station on my way back to the airport, and it went something like this:

Alison: Pardon, vous attendez l'Aérobus?
Lady: Sorry? The, ah...?
Alison: Oh, the Aerobus. For the airport.
Lady: Ah, non. Vous allez où?
Alison: A Washington.
Lady: Vous y demeurez?
Alison: J'y étudie.
Lady: Oh. Ben, si vous demandez à the information bureau...
Alison: J'ai... I already asked. He said Door 17, I just don't know what time it's coming.
Lady: Oh okay.
Alison: *smiles blankly, then two minutes later finds an excuse to change seats because of awkward silence*

I didn't really meet any Canadians, to be honest. Every student I met at McGill was an American. Surprisingly, McGill is located a stone's throw from downtown. I walked out of the front gates and all of a sudden I was surrounded by tall buildings. The campus is very charming, as is the city, from the few walks I took around the area. Everything was covered in snow, however -- SNOW. In LATE MARCH. And not just a dusting, but it was piled up several feet along the sidewalks. Temperatures were also hovering just below freezing during my visit there. Crazy French fur-traders.

Anyway, I am resolved to return to Québec and do more of a tour around than my brief foray into Montréal, however pleasant it was. Who's with me?

On Wales and horses

Friends,

I owe you many comments. But first. Alison, your post on CR is amazing. You climbed a volcano! You took public transport! You saw monkies! I also highly doubt that Shelly will ever get to her post. Is she even alive? Please say yes. On an ADD note, I had a dream that she had cut her hair in a bob and was now engaged to a man that looked like Vic Jao (Zhoa?!&) fro F4. It was kind of amazing. She also had him meet me and basically asked if I approved of him, which I did. Seconldy, congrats to Jeff's sister!

Ok. Wales...Is really pretty. As Ali has been there, I will just refresh her memory. It is far more wild than England. There are far more tress than in England. Anyway, it has a wild sort of look and feel, as if it hasn't been tamed by their eastern neighbors.

We left London early in the morning on Saturday and took a bus. Apparently we passed pretty countryside but I passed out on the bus as I was exausted. We arrived in Cheapstow at about 11 am. This is the first village in Wales and has an old castle and not much else. The castle is from around 1067 and was built right after the Conquest by whoever William 1 put in charge. I would have had to pay like 6 GBP to go it, and I was like...um, no. So Sarah Holcome from Gtown and my friend Anita and I walked around with a few other people and explored the town, which is like two streets. We then went to the local pub and had lunch. Now this is very important. IT TAKES AN HOUR TO GET FOOD IN WELSH PUBS. EVEN IF THERE IS NO ONE IN THEM. So as we were waiting for our food, Sarah and I ran out and went over to their very old church. It was rather different from the other churches i have seen in GB, I happen to have a thing for churches...I think it is the catholic guilt. Anyway, this one had side aisles and had unusually tall ceilings and a wooden roof. This, i feel was a giant fire hazard, but apparently there had been no fires, in like 800 years. Awkward.

We then went pack to the pub, where our food had still not arrived. As we were supposed to be leaving at 1pm, we were getting a little upset as it was 12:55 and still no food. Finally at 12:57, we got our food, eat it in 10 minutes and ran out. If you go to Wales, but a sandwich from a grocery store and walk around unless you have hours to spend. So we left Wales and headed to Tinturn Abbey...

We arrived and the weather had turned rainy slightly. The abbey is, like the poems indicate, in ruins and is very pretty. Again, we would have had to pay admission, and it looks the same inside, so we decided against it and instead climbed a large hill near it to go look at this other church which is in ruins from a fire that was performed during a Black Mass here during the 70s. Aside from that spooky connection, the church even in ruins is quite pretty. The bell tower is still intact but inside there is grass growing through the floor tiles and vines climb up the walls and through the latice work of the windows. We then walked down the hill and got some icecream, which was freaking amazing. It was creamy and very good. Yum yum yum. I also bought a mug with a welsh dragon on it. This is the only souvenir that i have bought by the way.

We then went to Hay upon Wye which is my favorite town ever. Why. Because they have 42 bookstores. I bought a book called 'Zoli' which was about a Romi girl and the importance of song and oral history. I liked it a great deal because I am a nerd.

After this we left and drove for freaking ever to get to your hotel in Bristol, because apparenly there are no hotels in Wales. this is not true, but our tour company probably got a good rate. and as we didn't end up in the 'wilderness hostel' (i think this means barn) that we were supposed to be in but rather a holiday inn express, I was like, ok whatevs.

We ordered Chinese food for dinner and watched rugby on TV in the lobby. Apparently there was free wine from a box that came will our food. I thought I would go blind if I had some, so I refrained and instead had a coke that I had bought at the grocery store on a expadition during which we also purchased carrots to give to the horses the next day.

Early the next morning, we awoke eat as much of the free buffet breakfast as possible and boarded the bus and headed for Breakon Beakons, Wales' really big pretty park. We dropped off half the group to go riding and then we went to a local pub and had lunch, I believe there was lamb served. It was good, also, coliflower (which is not spelled that way) with cheese, yum.

Then we went riding. I got a surly big horse named oberon. He pulled himself together, or sorted himself out as we say across the pond, and was fine for most of our 2 hour ride. Most of the ride was more of a walk through fields and near a lake and it was cold as hell. I had tights and jeans and a coat on and gloves and it was more than nippy. The we wound our way to the base of a freaking mountain and then slowly ascended on our horses. The trail got freightenly narrow at points. You all know that I am freaked out by heights right. So imagine how happy I was when I was on a trail maybe a foot wide running along the side of a hill with a good 500 foot steep slope. NOT COOL. There was however an amazing view from the mountain and ruined houses along this random trail just stainding out in the middle of nowhere. Oh, and there was a sheep, just chilling there eating some grass not paying any attention to the 20 horses that walked by him/her. Our ride concluded, we returnd to the pub where we had lunch, picked up the rest of the group and headed back to london. My fingers are tired. More later....