To the club of non-human animals who make art – which includes elephants, various apes, and Tillie the Jack Russell Terrier who reminds me a lot of Arnulf Rainer we can now add the Greek tortoise (Testudo hermanni hermanni), or more specifically, my Greek tortoise, which after several years of small format Jackson Pollack homages graduated today in the kitchen to a new style which, on the one hand still showing a fascination with Pollack, now incorporates the ambition and grand dimensions of Christo and land artists such as Robert Smithson, taking an hour to mop up and making me glad I don’t have a Pinta Island tortoise.
Yearly Archives: 2011
The Austrian Nazi Cake scandal
After an endless series of scandals involving Austrian politicians and conflict of interest, due apparently to the fact that it seems to be legal for politicians to simultaneously work as lobbyists, or otherwise represent special interests at odds with their political activity, which is, apparently, endemic in the Austrian political culture, we finally have a new scandal here: the Austrian Nazi cake scandal.
Here is a brief article outlining the case, in English, if you don’t believe me.
Somehow, a Nazi cake scandal strikes me as the sort of thing that could only happen in Austria. Where else could you imagine a Nazi cake?
Nazi cake.
Who would have thought, and yet, how come it took so long?
On the one hand, some people apparently still just don’t Get It.
On the other hand, Nazi Cake.
So stupid, and so sad.
And now, of course, I have an earworm that is a mashup of “Salt Peanuts” and “Nazi Cake”
It goes like this:
“Salt peanuts, salt peanuts!”
(“Nazi cake!”)
Salt peanuts, salt peanuts!
(“Nazi cake!”)
Also, the voices in my head keep talking about Nazi cake now:
“Would you like another slice of Nazi cake?”
“Oh, no.” (Pats belly) “I’m trying to cut down on Nazi cake. Well, maybe a very thin slice.”
(and) “Honey, if you are good and finish your homework, you may have a slice of fine Nazi cake!”
“Yes, please save me a slice of Nazi cake, Mama!”
Concert report
Alpha and I went to a concert last night. We have a subscription to a series of concerts in the Konzerthaus in Vienna, performances of mostly modern works by the Klangforum, which is an ensemble founded in 1985 to perform modern music. As usual we went to the bar in the Intercontinental Hotel, which is near the Konzerthaus, for a drink and frankfurters, which we ate with our hands (the horseradish was freshly-grated and made me gasp) and joked about a group of British businesspeople, mostly men, and chatted and generally had a date. I also had a cup of coffee to make it harder to fall asleep in the concert, because it turns out dissonance makes me sleepy.
The first piece performed was by Debussy and involved harp so it was real pretty. We were reminded of Beta and her harp playing and missed her, and her harp music. Alpha noticed a lot of men with ponytails in the audience, so we steeled ourselves for something artistically significant to come. The next couple pieces were more dissonant, the third piece especially. It was interesting because the harpist was playing two harps at the same time. The composer was present, and took the stage to enthusiastic applause. A group of people near us also booed him, however, which was kind of cool. I had to wonder what that was all about.
The President of Austria was there. with his wife. He apparently has a subscription to the same series, we see him there almost every time, although his wife was there with a friend last time. He doesn’t just show up at the beginning and sneak out, either, he sits through the whole thing so apparently he has genuine cultural interests. How cool is that? It is things like this that make me appreciate living in Austria.
We went out during the intermission for some fresh air. Because we were both so tired, we decided to go home. My wife gets up at 4.30 most mornings, while I sleep in until 5, generally so by 9 pm or so we are both beat.
Posted in Das Gehirn, Familie, Metamorphosism
Tags: debussy, harp, klangforum, konzerthaus, music, president
This is like the lamest 1 April ever
I didn’t even remember what day it was until I fell for an online friend’s online hoax. No one at home tried to trick me. I’m so busy gazing at my navel I didn’t try to trick anyone else. This sucks.
And it came to pass, that rock and roll was born (the artist formerly known as the Smallest Man in the World, continued)
TAFKATSMITW comes home from his top-secret seminar and his wife says, your mother called.
He laughs and says, we were just talking about her.
He goes through the house with a bucket of fairy dust or something, maybe love, tossing it like confetti.
He sees the cracks in his daughter’s evil adolescent facade, he convinces himself. This too shall pass, he thinks, in a good way.
He gets along with his wife.
His mother calls and tries to negate him for an hour with her negativity and he shuts that down too. All the right buttons were pressed, but the dancing chicken didn’t dance and his energy is not depleted when he hangs up.
All sorts of things.
He prays to Nikola Tesla he’ll figure out how to channel this energy.
Different group with the seminar this time, bunch of guys. He wondered if it was because he always ended up with a woman on his lap in the other group, in the constellations they did. Or hugging. But it turns out that’s the way these things work – he ended up with a guy on his lap this time. And his arm around another.
TAFKATSMITW is more surprised than you or I, believe me.
He laughed all the way home.
You know what his dream home used to be? A zombie-proof bunker.
They did this guided meditation, among a million other things. Blah-blah spiral staircase blah breathing. There’s a house, what’s it look like? Smell? Who’s in there? The punchline is it’s your heart. Does the door open easily? Added bonus: you can kick people out who don’t belong there.
His is made of cedar and glass and looks like a cathedral and the doors are huge and swing open easily. His family’s in there and favorite people and when he sees his grandmother and her husband, whom he never knew, he has to cry.
It looks like a church, only with a Tesla coil on top instead of a cross, crackling.
The zombies were all in his imagination.
Posted in Das Gehirn, Familie, Metamorphosism
Tags: nikola tesla, self-improvement, the smallest man in the world, zombies
The man formerly known as the Smallest Man in the World
The man formerly known as the Smallest Man in the World half expected to be overwhelmed with a rush of joy the moment he shrank to nothing, but he didn’t. Maybe he was too tired; he hadn’t had much sleep around that time, for the usual reasons.
One day he embarked, experimentally-like, on an expensive course of the sort of therapy and non-self-improvement (as opposed to self-improvement and self-non-improvement) that he more typically enjoyed making fun of. Complete with various inner children.
The shadow, though, was the central item, and he was fascinated with that concept (cause the shadow, you know, knows) so he figured, you only live once, and it’s only money, right?
He was the only guy at the first seminar. He was okay with that, although he suspected that since being a guy was one of his issues, it might not have been bad were there a couple other guys around.
It went fine, though.
He was a new person afterwards.
Here was his rush of joy, baby.
Everyone told him the bags under his eyes were gone, he looked energetic, ten pounds lighter and five years younger.
Or five pounds lighter and ten years younger. Or twice as young.
Various people said different things. One said he looked as if he’d just been to the barber.
He knew this condition wouldn’t last but hoped to preserve at least some of it. During the course, he realized he would be unable to draw cartoons in the future since his cartoons were rooted in self-deprecation, sarcasm, cynicism, that kind of thing.
You can laugh or you can feel, someone said.
And the condition did fade, but not entirely and he had learned things and had food for thought and met delightful people.
Thing is, no matter how much it costs, or how little, you have to do the work.
You have to go through the shit, someone said. Someone else said the same thing, except they said pain.
He came to realize the therapist had his number.
She had his fucking number, baby. She saw through him.
Three things, in fact: she had his number, she knew she had his number, and she thought she had his number.
Thinking you have someone’s number is an unlikeable thing. It’s a form of unlikeable cockiness and presumption and a little patronizing. Unfortunately for the person whose number is being had, them actually having your number cancels that out. And knowing you have someone’s number is simply a value-free knowledge of fact.
The MFKATSMITW was used to therapists who kept you coming back for more talking, not therapists who gave you fucking homework. Not therapists who said, ok, look, this is your problem, now do this, and it works.
He was not used to that at all.
Time goes by
Once she was sweet, and liked you.
And laughed at your jokes. It was like you were a team.
Now she’s grounded for whatever.
And you’re in your room feeling sad and ashamed, scratches on your hands from confiscating her mobile over a “fuck you” and a couple other expressions, and all the keys that fit in your pockets because she threatened suicide. And her mobile phone.
And she’s in her room, unlocked door closed, bruises on her arms from the wrestling, hating you.
This too shall pass, maybe.