Archive for October, 2008
“The Heartland”
A Night on the Town
The streets of Vienna were awash with footsteps and cosmopolitan echos. We entered a wine store – make that a wine bar. Hoighty-Toighty. Blazers and ascots. Connoisseurs in their realm.
Blair handed me a bottle of red for five euro off the shelf. I approached the counter.
“Can you open this?” I handed the bottle to [...]
The Demagogue
Three days ago, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin made the following remarks in reference to her attacks on Obama’s charity work with William Ayers.
“We just want to make sure that in this campaign, that we uphold the standards of tolerance and truth-telling,” Sarah Palin said. “There have been things said, of course, that have allowed [...]
Grace and Austria
Swiftly now, gracefully we slide upon rails of iron and rust. The train trembles lightly and Blair shakes his postcard, coaxing the ink to dry. Massive windmills twist softly, perched upon the undulating grasslands. Songs from the past and fields of umber and raw sienna are smeared across a hundred kilometers. The stalks of crops [...]
Three (3) Righteous Melodies
Finding musical gems is time consuming, and I often content myself by listening to my library of familiar recordings rather than delving into the vast collection of music available on iTunes. Here are a few fresh tracks which I have discovered lately and added to my playlist. “Fresh”, in this instance, is relative to my [...]
Kaparot
This image and caption is from the BBC:
The City Vienna
The City…my God! With towers as grand and boulevards as wide as the majestic Danube River. The City sings! Glory!
Each footstep, every glance, each revealing frames like sonnets. The garden of Austria. The garden of the civilized.
I saw Schiele and Klimt, and Christian Schad with volume and vibrant clashing hues and the feast [...]
The Metrics of the Metric System
I ran across this map that highlights ALL the countries of the world that do not use the metric system of measurement. The winners are: The United States, Myanmar, and Liberia. An exclusive group by any measure.
Auf Wiedersehen
I washed my clothes and hung them on the line to dry above the bathtub. I neatly folded my t-shirts using the method I learned on the internet last Wednesday.
Then I carefully added items to my suitcase, a small plaid number with rollers and a compass in the handle that I purchased at the [...]
