Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Wire @ Fluc
About thirty years ago, Wire changed my life. I suppose they started as an English punk band, but the first record by them that I heard was their third and artiest, 154. It was the the strangest music I had ever heard. After their amazing first three records, they entered into a long period of mannered suckieness, before finally returning several years ago as pissed-off old punks. I saw them last night at my favorite club here in Wienertown, and it was great but weird. Their new songs all sound like the very first songs they wrote and recorded. And most of the old songs they played were from that first fully shredding masterpiece, Pink Flag. It's like they've decided, after thirty years, that they were right the first time. Sort of inspiring.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
couple of photos from the weekend
Who do we want our children to become? Brain surgeons? Presidents? DJs?
What do we hope and pray they will avoid? Drugs? Scientology? A deep-seated fascination with trains, and train schedules?
I have two snapshots in my head from last Sunday:
One: After a pretty but very windy hike, we ended up (again!) in the Austrian-Slovakian border town of Hainburg, with two hours to kill before our train back to Vienna. So we went to the town Cultural Museum and—whoa!—the exhibition was all old synthesizers, Theremins and “Klang Maschine”! I was in heaven, looking at all these scuffed up, ridiculous boxes, from an Ondes Martinet to a Mellotron, which have enlivened the musical stylings of everyone from Emerson, Lake and Palmer to Daft Punk. But I felt a stir of pleasure when Adinah and her friend Teresa grabbed a set of headphones and started twiddling the knobs of a homemade LFO oscillator. ‘She’s making a beat!’ I thought, beaming with pride.
How cool would it be if my daughter became the kind of musician that I love (and wanted to be myself?)
Two: Once we were back in Vienna, Anette, Adinah, V., and I clambered aboard the last streetcar home. But we had to step around three inebriated punks and their gigantic, dirty dogs. One of the pink Mohicans was sprawled across the floor of the train. Then, with much drunken bellowing and stumbling, they all got off. I don’t know if the girls even noticed them, but Anette and I did.
Once we were back home, in the kitchen and making dinner, she mentioned it, and said she hopes neither of our girls ends up like those punks.
I flashed back on my own dyed blue-black, occasionally inebriated days, and thought, ‘Gee, there’s a lot worse things that could happen to our daughters.’ But I took her point.
Mind you, these are just snapshots. And all I have is more questions.
How can you really steer your kids the right way? Can you steer them at all?
I distrust parents who push their kids, and project their own ambitions onto their children. (But I do the same thing.) I’m skeptical that we can groom them to be model citizens, or prevent them from becoming doctors or lawyers.
-
Look, here’s what I want:
1) I want my girls to like themselves.
2) I want them to be okay with being alone (sometimes.)
3) I want them to feel like they can do (almost) anything.
4) I hope they can laugh (at themselves, too.)
5) I hope they will try to do the right thing. Maybe I can teach them something about this, though I may come up short on offering Standard Operating Procedures.
6) I hope they will learn to be kind, be kind, be kind.
Other than that, I have no expectations. Honest.
What do we hope and pray they will avoid? Drugs? Scientology? A deep-seated fascination with trains, and train schedules?
I have two snapshots in my head from last Sunday:
One: After a pretty but very windy hike, we ended up (again!) in the Austrian-Slovakian border town of Hainburg, with two hours to kill before our train back to Vienna. So we went to the town Cultural Museum and—whoa!—the exhibition was all old synthesizers, Theremins and “Klang Maschine”! I was in heaven, looking at all these scuffed up, ridiculous boxes, from an Ondes Martinet to a Mellotron, which have enlivened the musical stylings of everyone from Emerson, Lake and Palmer to Daft Punk. But I felt a stir of pleasure when Adinah and her friend Teresa grabbed a set of headphones and started twiddling the knobs of a homemade LFO oscillator. ‘She’s making a beat!’ I thought, beaming with pride.
How cool would it be if my daughter became the kind of musician that I love (and wanted to be myself?)
Two: Once we were back in Vienna, Anette, Adinah, V., and I clambered aboard the last streetcar home. But we had to step around three inebriated punks and their gigantic, dirty dogs. One of the pink Mohicans was sprawled across the floor of the train. Then, with much drunken bellowing and stumbling, they all got off. I don’t know if the girls even noticed them, but Anette and I did.
Once we were back home, in the kitchen and making dinner, she mentioned it, and said she hopes neither of our girls ends up like those punks.
I flashed back on my own dyed blue-black, occasionally inebriated days, and thought, ‘Gee, there’s a lot worse things that could happen to our daughters.’ But I took her point.
Mind you, these are just snapshots. And all I have is more questions.
How can you really steer your kids the right way? Can you steer them at all?
I distrust parents who push their kids, and project their own ambitions onto their children. (But I do the same thing.) I’m skeptical that we can groom them to be model citizens, or prevent them from becoming doctors or lawyers.
-
Look, here’s what I want:
1) I want my girls to like themselves.
2) I want them to be okay with being alone (sometimes.)
3) I want them to feel like they can do (almost) anything.
4) I hope they can laugh (at themselves, too.)
5) I hope they will try to do the right thing. Maybe I can teach them something about this, though I may come up short on offering Standard Operating Procedures.
6) I hope they will learn to be kind, be kind, be kind.
Other than that, I have no expectations. Honest.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Late Night, Feeling Spooky Top Ten
1) "Mockingbird" by Barclay James Harvest
2) "Wandering Star" by Portishead
3) "I'll take Care of You" by Bobby 'Blue' Bland
4) Consumed by Plastikman
5) "Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima" by Krzysztof Penderecki
6) "(Sittin' on the) Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding
7) "Forgiveness" by Patty Griffin
8) "Last Harbour" by American Music Club
9) "Same" by Smith and Mighty featuring Tammy Payne
10) "Tubular Bells" (single edit) by Michael Oldfield
11) "Space Oddity" by David Bowie
12) "My Autumn's Done Come" by Lee Hazlewood
Friday, March 20, 2009
Top Ten Reasons I Didn't Blog Last Night, er, Week
1) I was too tired.
2) I was uncertain about my qualifications to comment upon the human condition.
3) I was in the kitchen, sweeping up peas, bits of rice and small scraps of construction paper.
4) I was exhausted.
5) I had nothing more to add.
6) I'd had enough of staring into computer screens for the day.
7) I needed to watch an educational film on television.
8) I was playing pinball.
9) I was photographing Vienna junkspace.
10) I was beat.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
(The Last Part of this) Police Story (I Promise)
My friend J. brought this to my attention the other day. It appeared in the conservative, schlocky free subway paper Heute, and is clearly a response to the treatment J.'s friend Mike Brennan received at the hands of the Vienna Police. The repro's terrible here in my blog, but the cartoon shows Obama on a world tour, and ends with what he could probably expect in Vienna. Maybe there's more self-reflection (and criticism) in the Austrian soul than I had thought....
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