Gamma, reading the newspaper:
“Isn’t Gorbachev a vodka?”
Category Archives: Familie
Culture, II
We’ll park at the hotel, he said. It has a nice bar and we can have a drink and eat all their peanuts.
She was Meh about that.
You just have that black leather jacket, I’ll leave my coat in the car, he said. That way we don’t need to check our coats and we can escape faster when the concert is over.
They parked at the hotel. The bar was full of maids with vacuums, and no one else. There was a little sign saying it was closed for rennovations.
He looked at his watch. They had an hour and a half to kill. They walked around in the cold looking for a place to eat. They went all around the Konzerthaus. There was nothing anywhere. There was a restaurant actually in the Konzerthaus, but the menu had illustrations of modern gourmet lumps of foamy stuff so they both shook their heads. They ended up eating sausages at a Würstlstandl across the street from the hotel.
The entire walk, the eating the sausages, all that, apparently took only three minutes because they still had a lot of time to kill.
Time was being weird that evening.
Very weird.
They went into the Konzerthaus to warm up. We can watch people. But they were the first guests, of course, no one comes to a concert more than an hour early. But the bar was open. What would you like? he asked the girl.
Red Bull, she said.
No little sandwich thing, he asked.
I had a sausage, she said.
A beer and a Red Bull, please, he said to the man at the bar.
The man opened a small bottle of Ottakringer Pils for him, and put it on the counter with a glass. What was the second thing you wanted? A sandwich?
A Red Bull, he said.
A what? the bartender said.
See, it wasn’t the volume of the man’s speech. The concert hall lobby was full of that background hiss you get in large, nearly empty rooms when people are setting things up and doors are opening and closing, but it wasn’t loud. It was the man’s pronunciation. He had been saying “Red Bull” with an American English pronunciation.
Rrret Boool, the man said.
Ah, said the bartender, and gave him a can, and a glass.
He and the girl killed time with their beer and energy drink.
An old man entered and walked across the lobby extremely slowly.
See, he has to come early in order to get to his seat on time, the man said. Unlike us he has a good excuse.
They finished their drinks and hit the restroom.
Eventually it was time to take their seats. Like, the earliest possible time. Just for a change of scenery.
The ticket taker told them the hall wasn’t open yet. They could go to the other bar on the other side if they wanted. So they went over there and stood around for a while.
What is it we’re seeing, anyway, the girl asked.
Something modern I think, said the man. He normally bought a program, but this time he wanted to see how he responded with no preconceived notions of this thing.
More time passed, then they took their seats without any great mishap.
There was a lot of stuff on the stage. A grand piano, and note stands and chairs. A double bass and a harp and a bicycle wheel sans tire. A few balloons. A plate of glass, a turntable and some wires and some tubes with mouthpieces.
Musicians came out. A tall skinny conductor with thick red hair came out. They began to play. They played and played. The conductor conducted with extreme precision. The musicians played with great precision. The cellist pressed the balloon to the fingerboard while he bowed, instead of fingering the strings. Other musicians blew into the tubes, or swang them about their heads, or both. An arpeggio was played on the bicycle wheel. Sounds were made on the turntable, and scraping sounds on the plate of glass, and on the wires.
Time did more of its weird thing, slowing down and speeding up, but mostly slowing down.
The man and the girl changed position now and then, trying to get comfortable. The man drifted in and out of sleep. The music played the whole while, behind his dreams and his hypnopompic visions, there in the Mozartsaal of the Konzerthaus too.
Everybody clapped when the song was over. The composer took the stage and got applause, and the guys on the mixing board. The conductor and musicians left the stage and the roadies moved stuff around.
A second piece was played, then a third piece.
The best composition involved a unique instrument that looked like a busted up electric motor attached to the top of a kettledrum. The man found it quite enjoyable. The composer of that one was female. She got a lot of applause.
The lights came on and people got up.
Is it over, said the girl.
The man looked at his watch. About an hour had gone by since the concert started.
It may be over, or it may be intermission. Would you like to hang around and see, or shall we leave.
The girl gave him a neutral look.
I vote we leave, my ass hurts, said the man.
They got another Rret Bool on their way out.
Which one did you like the best, said the man.
Oh, my god, said the girl.
That first piece was neat, with the bicycle wheel, wasn’t it? asked the man.
The girl looked at him. With her new darker hair, and all the mascara, and that leather jacket, he imagined a certain resemblance to how the scary-looking hacker woman in those Swedish movies, you know, The Girl Who Burned The Concert Hall and so on, may have looked at the age of 13.
That second piece, Hallo Tinitus, said the girl.
The man agreed it would be a fitting title.
I did like the third one a lot, with that invention thing they played with electric fans and stuff, though, he said.
Seriously.
I spent the first song trying to decide if the conductor was a man or a woman, said the girl.
I spent the first song trying to decide if he had a hunchback or not, said the man.
They drove home.
Later the man checked the program online, out of curiosity. They had left in the intermission after all.
But it was okay. His tailbone had really hurt.
Posted in Das Gehirn, Familie, Metamorphosism
Tags: culture, konzerthaus, red bull
Culture
Why do I even have to go? she said.
We have a subscription, he said. So we have two tickets to tonight’s concert and your mother is out of town. So you get to go. Yay!
She looked out the window.
We can get a drink at the hotel bar first, or go get something to eat or something, he said.
Have you ever been to the Konzerthaus already, he asked. It’s pretty awesome. Last time we went, we saw the president of Austria. He sat through the whole concert, too. Didn’t just show up and escape in the intermission or something.
Yeah, remember, that’s where I fell asleep, she said.
Oh, he said. I was going to ask you to keep me awake.
We can lean on each other, he said.
Norway
Beta moved to Norway for a while to study international law.
Yesterday she was at a bonfire on a frozen lake. I guess lakes really freeze in Norway, or they are more careful with their bonfires.
I was talking to Gamma about her sister. Man, I said. She has cojones, I said. No way would I have had the guts to move to another country when I was 21. Except, hang on, that’s when I moved to Austria the first time.
Well, no way would I have had the guts to move to France when I was 15. Or go to Scotland for a week by myself for a harp festival when I was 13.
No way.
Life on the edge
I stepped outside my comfort zone this morning and tied a different knot in my tie.
It’s asymmetrical, so I’m guessing it’s either a four-in-hand or a close relative thereof, but I can’t be sure because I have forgotten how one ties a four-in-hand and just improvised. I just googled diagrams but I have a problem reading knot diagrams.
My uncle used to come over to our house when he needed a tie tied and my father would tie it for him. When he got married, my father tied his tie.
I had to tie his tie for my father’s funeral. And my brother’s tie.
Except I can’t remember if my brother wore a tie to our father’s funeral. He might have worn a polo shirt and cowboy boots.
And pants.
But I tied his tie a couple times. Maybe for weddings.
Anyway here I sit with an asymmetrical knot.
I feel like a dog sticking his head out the window on the freeway.
Secret New Year’s Resolutions
Somebody asked me whether I had made any New Year’s resolutions and if so what one of them was.
I made up some bullshit thing. I don’t remember what. Probably “quit smoking.”
I started smoking in the last week of December, in order to have a bad habit to resolve to give up, and also Christmas had been stressful. All that family, all that disappointment to deal with because you misheard what people wanted. Or because you got them what they said they wanted, precisely, and not what they implied they really wanted.
So, officially, “quit smoking”. Nothing like starting the year with a big success.
Secretly, I resolved to take the advice I give other people.
It’s all about Jung, and the Shadow, and projection. If somebody is doing something that doesn’t wind you up, you generally don’t feel compelled to give them advice. If something they do really bugs you, then maybe it’s an issue you need to deal with yourself, on one level or another.
To date, I have taken the following advice:
- Stay in the right lane if you’re not going to go the speed limit, moron.
- Park between the lines, it’s not that hard.
- In on the gas, out on the clutch.
- If you can’t find ‘em, grind ‘em.
- Don’t be an asshole.
- Clean up after yourself.
- Complaining about being fat doesn’t burn many calories. If you want to lose weight, you have to exercise more and eat less.
- Don’t sharpen your claws on the goddamned furniture.
- Stay out of the Christmas tree.
- Throw out the old clothes you no longer wear.
- Don’t talk to me in that tone of voice.
- Try to read more.
- Clean up after yourself.
- The time will come when invisibility is no longer the best response.
More to come.
(What are your New Year’s resolutions?)
Posted in Das Gehirn, Familie, Metamorphosism
Tags: happy new year, new year, resolutions
Before death takes a holiday, he fills his tank
Death still has half a tank, but he’s doing something after work tomorrow so he swings into the filling station on his way home from work.
The architecture of the filling station is like this: building on the right, with the cash register, snacks and drinks and magazines, a couple poker machines, tobacco products, office in back. Next to that, restrooms and a garage bay.
There are three rows of pumps – one on the left, and then two rows on the right, back to back. So in theory two vehicles could be filling up on the left line, two more next to them and on the right side two more.
That is, beneath the roof extending out leftward (from death’s current position) from the building, there are two open spaces. The wider space, on the left, has a row of two pumps on its left side and a row of two more on its right side. The backs of those pumps abut another row of pumps which are along the left side of the right open space. The right side of the right space is the face of the building.
Death’s car’s gas cap is on the driver’s (left) side.
When he arrives at the gas station, there are two cars. One is a large, white delivery van parked diagonally in the wider left space, effectively blocking both left and right pumps. The other is a small, blue compact blocking the right space.
Both owners are in the building. Death waits for one of them to come out before committing himself to a row.
The large white delivery van reminds him of when he used to drive a large, white delivery van in college. You drove it standing up. He very nearly rear-ended a car in Vancouver, Washington once, down near the I-5 bridge, because he was watching a girl. Imagine that! What is it with death and maidens? He slammed on his brakes at the last possible second. It was summer, he was young and strong, and the tires screeched on the asphalt.
Two women with long, frizzy, light blonde hair and dark blue coats exit the building and climb into the blue car. Death leaves his motor idling, moves his car up behind theirs and waits for them to drive off, but they don’t. They don’t appear to be doing anything. They don’t seem to be having a discussion, or looking for the key (the driver had that in her hand already while exiting the building) or arguing or talking on a mobile phone or programming the navigation device or finding a station on the radio.
They are just sitting there.
Okay, death thinks. Whatever. They will eventually notice a car behind them and drive away.
Meanwhile the driver of the van exits the building in a hurry. He looks over at the van, but then turns left and tries the door of the men’s room. Finding it locked, he goes back inside for the key. He dashes back out, unlocks the door and disappears inside.
The blue car now has death curious. What are they doing? Why are they not moving? Are they rude? Distracted by some emergency or crisis? Having a quiet argument? Blind with grief? Laughing over a joke? Are they just stupid morons?
Cause, seriously, death is two meters behind their car, in his own car, motor idling, lights on.
Death waits a little longer, then gets out of the car and walks over to the driver’s side window of the blue car. The two women are sitting inside, looking straight ahead.
Weird, death thinks.
He bends over and taps on the glass.
The driver looks over at him and her entire body jerks such that she is airborne a couple inches before bouncing back down into the seat. Her facial expression is one of panic, briefly.
Am I so scary looking, wonders death. Maybe so. He is about six feet tall, after all, and male, and wearing a long black coat. Death wonders how she would react if he popped up from the back seat, wearing scary fake teeth, on some dark road. It would be the end of her story, he thinks.
The woman recovers and vacillates briefly between rolling down her window and opening her door. Death would roll down his window, but she opens her door a crack.
Excuse me, says death. Would you mind moving your car a few meters forward so I can put gas in my tank?
The woman nods and drives forward a few meters, then stops. Death moves his car and begins filling his tank. While he does so, the woman moves her car again, further forward and to the right, over by the high-pressure water washer things and the coin-operated vacuums. Then she loops around to the left, making a U, until she is in front of the diagonally-parked delivery van, blocking its easy exit.
The delivery truck driver exits the men’s room, returns the key, and jockeys the van back and forth until it can get around the blue car, and drives off.
Death goes inside and pays. He has a bad taste in his mouth and wants to get chewing gum, but the cashier rings up his gas so fast he doesn’t have a chance to tell her he wants gum and doesn’t want to make her change what she’s rung up so he just lives with it. He pays and returns to his car.
The blue car has turned around again so it is in front of him. It drives off, slowly, death behind it. Out of town plates, notices death. Maybe they’re just lost and trying to figure things out. He gives them plenty of space.
At home, death’s wife is working in her office.
Sorry, death says, I don’t want to bother you for long. I just wanted to give you a kiss. He kisses his wife.
That’s okay, she says. People bug me all the time at work. For hours on end.
Oh do they? says death. Anyone at work do this? He reaches around and squeezes his wife’s breasts.
Is that a trick question? says his wife.
They laugh and laugh.
That death. What a joker.