Oesterreich war supertoll! Austria was beautiful. The train rides were delightful. I actually rode the Orient Express last night (Marco.) and the elderly gentleman who shared our bunkroom on the train said that I looked like George Harrison, as he used to be. That comparison really only works in low light and when you don’t get a very good view of me face. However, I do have a brown mop for hair and a bit of facial hair, so perhaps he was a little right.

While in Vienna, I saw the Imperial Palaces at Hofburg and Schlossbrunn. Talk about historical. Mozart played his first concert in a room at the Hofburg, Kennedy and Kruschev met there, and the Hapsburgs influenced European (world?) politics for six hundred years. Their empire at the beginning of the twentieth century was huge, but not as large as it was when they were the Holy Roman Emperors. Amazing, simply amazing.

I went to church in the Imperial Chapel and heard the Wiener Saengerknaven sing Mass in C. All the Japanese and American tourists with their flash photography made it very difficult to focus. Surprisingly, it’s less difficult than one might think to stand for a two hour service, at least when one is as young as I.

After Vienna, I spent some time in Salzburg. Mozart was born and lived in Salzburg for most of his childhood. The Sound of Music was filmed in several locations in the city and surrounding hills. The gardens had statues of unicorns, at which I naturally had to strike the “Go ‘Corns” pose. I’ll have pictures of all this later, when Eric posts his and I develop mine. Last night, I sat in the Prinzenkammer in the Festung atop Moenchberg and listened to “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik,” “Klavierquartet,” and “Amerikanisch Quartet” by Mozart, Schumann, and Dvorak respectively. The players were excellent, though young. The cellist, a Hungarian man, especially played with such gusto that sometimes the noise of his bow thwapping was interspersed with the sonorous notes of his instrument, but such distractions were easily forgivable. I bet he could get a job with Apocalyptica for their next album.

Yesterday evening, while my roommate and I were walking along some train tracks by our apartment, she used the phrase: My first internet boyfriend. I could not help but shake my head and chuckle at the adjective. What strange times we live in. This Is the Modern World. I must be rather behind The Times; I’ve never even had an internet boyfriend.

American Literature I commenced last Monday on the third floor of an unairconditioned, poorly designed engineering building. It’s okay, I suppose. I took a mid/high medieval history course in the spring that ended around 1500, which is around exactly where American Lit I begins, so to that extent it is good. Not exactly my favourite sort of literature, or anything. Thus far mostly Columbus, Thoreau, Emerson, Jefferson, Franklin, Smith, Morton, some French farmer whose name starts with a C (sounds like Crevcur—cannot, for the life of me, remember how to spell it), etc. et al. Having gone kindergarten through twelfth in crazy Christian schools where they taught early American history at you every year, this period is, at the moment, I might say, something of which I am not exactly dying to study. However, it is nice to read these men themselves, instead of…well, let’s just say that in high school we were basically taught — by Christian Revisionists — that the Founding Fathers were infallible demigods—veritable saints, and that the Constitution must never be changed as it was basically God-breathed, etc. For some reason my teachers were more than willing to overlook the fact that the Founding Fathers were sinful men just like everyone else and did some abominable things as well as some good actions (and understand, I do hold quite a bit of respect for them). (I had one teacher who that wouldn’t even admit that Washington was a Mason.) They made us read horrible historical fiction like The Light and the Glory as actual historical accounts, and had us regard America as the New Jerusalem, the messianic saviour nation of the world. In their minds—by some strange logic—if they were able to successfully argue that America was a Christian Nation at its inception, well then it necessarily, self-evidentally, meant that we ought to still be now. I’m really not sure why the obvious rebuttal was never taken into account.

Mr. Non-Christian: Says who? So? Even if I concede that we were a ‘Christian nation’ then, it doesn’t mean that we need to be one now.
Mr. Christian: [Befuddled look.] Oh, well…um. [Thinks: So I just argued all that for…nothing?] [Implodes.]

It’s almost like they needed to convince themselves that we were a Christian nation then in order to justify their own American and Christian identity now. The way I see it: what we were then doesn’t have so much bearing on what we are now — it is past. (Of course, speaking in a reactive sense: it has everything to do with what we are now. History is, afterall, a linear series of reactions.) But rather, let us concentrate on reforming the present. Admit that the Founding Fathers did some atrocious things: it will make you stronger. not undermine you. Your Christianity isn’t based on eighteenth century men.

Maybe Dylan had the same Minnesotan education:

Oh my name it is nothin’
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I’s taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And that land that I live in
Has God on its side.

God is an American? What a boggling perception. I always was under the idea that God was no respecter-of-persons, or nations for that matter.

The strange think I’ve been thinking about lately…well, the Puritan v. Anglican rivalry in the colonies. Is it not strange, I ask some of you like-minded readers, that here we, some four hundred years later, find ourselves Calvinists drawn toward Anglican liturgy? I should like to see those early colonists’ reaction to the odd concoction of liturgical traditions we have become. They might undoubtedly deport us.

I’ve been reading a lot of Donne during class, because, well, I’m afraid American Lit I becomes a bit dry at times, and well, with a certain professor, I think I may have gone in over my head regarding Donne and Truth, Beauty & Goodness. I need to be thoroughly educated on just about everything he’s written by some time in August. And of course, as soon as I’m done with him, I need to read authors on him. And probably, at some point, better read a whole lot of Derrida on the Sign & The Signified so that I might solidify my understanding. I mean, what if my youthful idealism concerning the Sign & The Signified were single-handedly wrecked by an older and wiser professor? I’m not very bright. I do not begin to imagine that it wouldn’t be a fairly easy task for her.

Aside from his killer Holy Sonnets, Divine Poems, etc., Donne has some absolutely beautiful love poetry—of course, he seems to ridiculously undermine himself at one point in his Paradoxes and Problems, namely in: Problem 7: Why Hath the Common Opinion Afforded Women Souls? And Paradox 10: That it is Possible to Find Some Virtue in Some Women.

I’d really like to think this is satire. Who knows. In the event that it is not, Mr. Donne—and I do realise you are long dead—please, as a man, do take some responsibility for your actions, and stop referring to us women as ‘the ocassioners of most sins’. Rest assured, you are more than capable of sinning without our assistance. Furthermore, what did Mrs. John Donne think of such nonsense?

Yesterday my roommate and I went to the Como Zoo and then went to happy hour at a restaurant as we had an hour and some to kill before seeing Gangs of New York. I had taken my book of Donne’s poems out of my purse while searching for my wallet and had set it on the edge of the table. All of a sudden a bartender—half a level below us—was passing to me, under the railing, the Cosmopolitan I had ordered. He flashed a toothy smile, and his silver front tooth simultaneously sparkled (ding!) with his eye-glasses and he, glancing at my book, said, with a British accent:

“Donne. As in John Donne?”
“Why, yes”, I said.
“Excellent!”, he said, winking, and quickly disappeared into barland.

It all happened so fast—he reminded me of a pirate: must have been the silver tooth. That was probably one of the stranger four-second encounters I’ve ever had. Perhaps I shall make a habit of placing books on tables in restaurant. It appears, if yesterday was any indication, to ocassion great conversation.

Realisation while watching Gangs of New York for the second time: I find it rather hard to believe that Priest Vallons would ally with demonic-looking, monstrous, flesh-eating, pale, goth women from the underworld and allow them to fight in his gang. Surely succumbing to English Protestants would be better than forging an alliance with demonic-looking, monstrous, flesh-eating, pale, goth women from the underworld? Hmm. Maybe Donne was right. And secondly, I find it hard to believe that such women existed in New York in the 1860s. I suppose it is possible…however, it seems to be a bit anachronistic and modern to me. Perhaps New Orleans…or Mos Eisley or somewhere…

Harry Potter night was absolutely crazy. Did you know that J.K. Rowling is now wealthier than the Queen of England? The store I work at had over 1,200 reservations. When the books were rolled out at 12 a.m. the entire crowd gasped and looked wide-eyed at the stacks of blueish books. Little children began to jump up and down. It was, I seem to remember, at this point when I started to entertain creepy apocalyptic premonitions due to the absurd historical significance of the event. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is (or soon will be, it had, I’ve been told the most successful release night in history) the best–selling novel in the history of man. Harry bloody Potter! It just doesn’t seem fair. Oh, dear readers…the list of novels I could recite that deserve to the Best Selling Novel in the History of Man…

Not that I mean to disparage Mrs. Rowling or her genius [which is not to say that I’ve read any of the series, either]…but I’m sure you see what I mean.

Currently reading:
The Ambassadors, Henry James
Life of Pi, Yann Martel

Chase what makes your heart flutter

I just finished a paper on thermal depolymerization this morning. While I wrote it, I kept a file of rejected sentences and such, just in case I wanted to put them back in later. Here’s a couple that sadly couldn’t find a way into the report:

• From the section about pure carbon being on of the outputs of the process: When you’re nothing but a boyfriend dangling by a thread, keep in mind the bottom line, diamonds are a girl’s best friend.
• Alternative to the first sentence of the product analysis section: When one considers the TDP in all its gory glory…
• from the conclusion of the paper when I said what a brilliant product this was: Sorrow is knowledge: they who know the most must mourn the deepest o’er the fatal truth, the Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life.

By saying that Bazan is Wilson, I mean to say that he looks and sounds just like him. He has the same beard and the same belly. He scratches his head, and says, “Um,” just like him. He plays the guitar a little better, but that’s beside the point. I was prepared to see a possibly vulgar, uncouth young man rock out the German youth, and instead I saw a middle-aged, mild pastor-type who asked if people had any questions and said, “Thanks a lot” often and humbly.