The Mustangs' mental mindset will be key as they host winless Misericordia this weekend. This should be win number four at long last, but who knows how long that Wilkes wilt will linger.
Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Wilkes 21, Stevenson 17
The Mustangs' mental mindset will be key as they host winless Misericordia this weekend. This should be win number four at long last, but who knows how long that Wilkes wilt will linger.
Thursday, July 4, 2013
History at the Junction of Two Rivers
With Nicky having taken some time off this week, we availed ourselves of the opportunity to take a long-planned day trip to Harpers Ferry, WV. It seemed a good time to do so, as the sesquicentennial of the Battle of Gettysburg was taking place right up the road, and that would surely draw away a good many of the tourists that would normally be visiting Harpers Ferry at this time of year. Sure enough, a number of the other people we saw on Monday morning and afternoon were wearing Gettysburg gear, suggesting that they were indulging in a kind of "swing around the Civil War circle." As an historical site, however, Harpers Ferry is rather more diverse than you might expect. There's plenty of "Blue-and-Gray" stuff on hand, of course, but also some interesting exhibits relating to industrial and social life in a town that has been repeatedly buffeted by war, insurrection, and the vagaries of nature but has bounced back to life again and again.
Harpers Ferry's Lower Town, situated at the point where the Shenandoah River meets the Potomac, is quite small but packs both historical and aesthetic punches. "The Point" affords a beautiful view that has remained relatively unchanged for centuries. It's considered to be the "psychological midpoint" of the Appalachian Trail, which wends its white-blazed way right through the center of town. Back in the 19th century, some enterprising but environmentally obtuse manufacturer emblazoned an advertisement for "powder" (of the blasting variety, I suppose) on the cliff side, and you can still see it. By now, however, it's sufficiently weathered that it almost looks like a natural part of the cliff, so you could say that nature won the ultimate battle with commercialism.
The famed fire-engine house in which John Brown, America's first-ever beneficiary of "Radical Chic," and his band of insurrectionists holed up before being overrun by Robert E. Lee's Marine detachment still stands, in a manner of speaking. Actually, the building has enjoyed a surprisingly mobile career, including stays at the 1893 Chicago Exposition (Kim, Ron, and Doctor Who, take note!) and on the campus of the defunct Storer College, a normal school founded after the Civil War to educate freed blacks. It's now located about 150 feet from its original site, which is marked by an obelisk. Pieces of the original door that was smashed in by the Marines are on display in a nearby museum devoted to Brown and his career. There's also a John Brown wax museum in the Upper Town, located (no surprise) up a hill from the Lower Town, but let's just say that it is a "non-sanctioned" memorial and let it go at that.
Well before Brown burst upon the scene, other noteworthy historical figures braved Harpers Ferry's hilly streets and marveled at the natural surroundings. Thomas Jefferson visited in 1783, and the rock on which he stood to get the proverbial "better view" is located northwest of the Lower Town off the Appalachian Trail. (You can't climb on the rock these days, because it's rather unstable, but that didn't prevent one guy from trying to do so before Nicky and I pointed out the warning sign to him.) Twenty years after Jefferson, Meriwether Lewis got supplies in Harpers Ferry prior to meeting up with William Clark and organizing the Corps of Discovery. Nicky's and my trudge up the winding, rocky path to Jefferson Rock marked our most daunting physical challenge of the day.
Harpers Ferry is a very small town now, but, in the antebellum and post-Civil War years, it enjoyed long and prosperous stretches as an industrial center. The National Armory that was the object of John Brown's raid was the most significant industry, but the Lower Town also has displays of machine shops and the like, and the railroad still runs through town, with Amtrak and MARC trains passing through every once in a while. The trains come from Washington, so the car trip from Baltimore (which takes about an hour) remains the most efficient option for getting to Harpers Ferry, but, if relatives or friends come to visit and we want to take them there, we might be willing to splurge a little and enjoy the scenery on the train.
The only negative thing about the Lower Town is the fact that historical guides and "reenactors," of the kind you'd see at Mount Vernon or Colonial Williamsburg, are rather thin on the ground. We saw a couple, but they were busily engaged in giving directions and information to several large swarms of kids, who were presumably on day trips from nearby camps. The kids traveled in groups behind streamer-bedecked bedsheet banners that would probably not cause the Junior Woodchucks to lose any sleep over the potential competition. We were left to guide ourselves through exhibits in reconstructed watch repair shops, bakeries, confectioneries, and dry-goods stores. We felt the lack of expert assistance at the dry-goods shop, where the shelves held large bins of, among other things, cinnamon, nutmeg, pepper, fennel, cloves, cornstarch, gunpowder (!), and... "twankey"?? What the heck? With the lack of local cell reception preventing us from engaging in immediate Googlage, we had quite a time speculating on the ID of that mysterious substance. Was it the past tense of Twinkie (which would have been appropriate until the survival of the venerable snack cake was assured not long ago)? A leftover word from a Dr. Seuss song chorus ("twink, twank, twunk")? A cheesy 50s sci-fi movie starring Hans Conreid? Actually, "twankey" turned out to be a cheap green tea from China with an interesting connection to the 19th century stage version of Aladdin. Is it really surprising that a beverage with a name like that would be positioned on the lower end of the quality scale?
Somewhat surprisingly, when it came time for us to have some lunch, we found it rather difficult to locate a first-rate sit-down place. The Upper Town has many eateries, but they're mostly of the "sandwich, soup 'n salad" variety -- that is, when they're not appendages to bars. We finally settled upon the Town's Inn, a lodging house with a small restaurant attached. Nicky had bratwurst and kraut, while I enjoyed some fairly decent macaroni and cheese and some "chunky" cole slaw (I was unaware that cabbage cut in flat squares qualified as "chunky"). We washed it down with water and an obscure brand of zero-calorie drink that I can most accurately describe as "cola-themed" and fortified ourselves against the increasing temperature with some frozen custard.
Relying as we did on the shuttle bus from the National Park visitor's center to the town -- there is very limited parking in the town itself, as you might imagine -- we were only able to take one semi-side trip, to Bolivar Heights, the site of a number of Civil War engagements. The most famous of these occurred in 1862, when almost 13,000 Union troops surrendered in the largest such capitulation endured by the U.S. Army until Bataan in World War II. Some of the views we obtained from the Heights were almost as good as those we got at The Point. Unfortunately, with the views came rather large swarms of gnats, so we didn't stay very long.
Along with the historical sites, Harpers Ferry is a popular jumping-off point for "wilderness adventures" of varying degrees of rigor: rafting, tubing, hiking, zip-lining, and so forth. These enterprises have helped keep the local economy afloat despite the town's relative isolation and the effects of periodic flooding. If you're visiting in the D.C. area, you might want to consider "helping out" by making a visit. It's doable in a day and literally has something for everyone.
Harpers Ferry's Lower Town, situated at the point where the Shenandoah River meets the Potomac, is quite small but packs both historical and aesthetic punches. "The Point" affords a beautiful view that has remained relatively unchanged for centuries. It's considered to be the "psychological midpoint" of the Appalachian Trail, which wends its white-blazed way right through the center of town. Back in the 19th century, some enterprising but environmentally obtuse manufacturer emblazoned an advertisement for "powder" (of the blasting variety, I suppose) on the cliff side, and you can still see it. By now, however, it's sufficiently weathered that it almost looks like a natural part of the cliff, so you could say that nature won the ultimate battle with commercialism.
The only negative thing about the Lower Town is the fact that historical guides and "reenactors," of the kind you'd see at Mount Vernon or Colonial Williamsburg, are rather thin on the ground. We saw a couple, but they were busily engaged in giving directions and information to several large swarms of kids, who were presumably on day trips from nearby camps. The kids traveled in groups behind streamer-bedecked bedsheet banners that would probably not cause the Junior Woodchucks to lose any sleep over the potential competition. We were left to guide ourselves through exhibits in reconstructed watch repair shops, bakeries, confectioneries, and dry-goods stores. We felt the lack of expert assistance at the dry-goods shop, where the shelves held large bins of, among other things, cinnamon, nutmeg, pepper, fennel, cloves, cornstarch, gunpowder (!), and... "twankey"?? What the heck? With the lack of local cell reception preventing us from engaging in immediate Googlage, we had quite a time speculating on the ID of that mysterious substance. Was it the past tense of Twinkie (which would have been appropriate until the survival of the venerable snack cake was assured not long ago)? A leftover word from a Dr. Seuss song chorus ("twink, twank, twunk")? A cheesy 50s sci-fi movie starring Hans Conreid? Actually, "twankey" turned out to be a cheap green tea from China with an interesting connection to the 19th century stage version of Aladdin. Is it really surprising that a beverage with a name like that would be positioned on the lower end of the quality scale?
Relying as we did on the shuttle bus from the National Park visitor's center to the town -- there is very limited parking in the town itself, as you might imagine -- we were only able to take one semi-side trip, to Bolivar Heights, the site of a number of Civil War engagements. The most famous of these occurred in 1862, when almost 13,000 Union troops surrendered in the largest such capitulation endured by the U.S. Army until Bataan in World War II. Some of the views we obtained from the Heights were almost as good as those we got at The Point. Unfortunately, with the views came rather large swarms of gnats, so we didn't stay very long.
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Movie Review: MONSTERS UNIVERSITY (Disney/Pixar, 2013)... plus Some "Get Off My Lawn" style grousing about Pop-Culture Predictability
Reactions to Disney/Pixar's prequel to the highly successful Monsters Inc. (2001) seem to be falling into three distinct categories:
1. "Another Pixar Triumph!!!" hosannas from those for whom Pixar has never, and can never, do wrong.
2. "A Cold-Blooded and Aesthetically Lame Attempt to Cash In!" from disillusioned Pixar fans who are still recovering from the disappointment of Cars 2 and are worried that the huge success Pixar enjoyed with the Toy Story trilogy is leading it in the wrong, overly derivative direction.
3. "Hey, It's Revenge of the Nerds With Monsters! Cool!" from casual moviegoers.
I consider myself a Pixar fan, though not a blindly supportive one (I disliked the highly illogical Cars and have no interest whatsoever in seeing either Cars 2 or the upcoming Planes). Despite the company's high batting average when it comes to the crafting of imaginative, "Heart"-filled movies, I must admit to initially being a little skeptical about the idea of Monsters Inc.'s Mike (Billy Crystal) and Sully (John Goodman) in a "college frat movie" setting, simply because the track record of such movies in the human world is so notoriously mixed (to put it charitably). I've never been a huge fan of such movies and worried that Monsters University, thanks to the "extreme non-humanness" of the cast, would try to be even more loud, obnoxious, and gross than the norm, perhaps in an attempt to compete with the cruder, more pop-culture-saturated tone of many other recent animated releases (more about those later). Thankfully, MU eschews cheap laughs for the most part and sticks staunchly to the basics -- character development, the maturation of relationships, and even some sly commentary about social class. The result is a highly enjoyable film that I found myself liking even more than Monsters Inc.
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The key to the movie's success, I think, lies in the decision to bring Mike and Sully to MU from two different social and psychological worlds. Mike, who's not really THAT scary on the surface, is the ambitious nerd who seeks to get through the School of Scaring by sheer force of effort and will. Sully, the shaggy scion of what appears to pass for "nobility" in the monster world, expects to glide through school on the strength of his family name alone -- and we learn rather late in the game that this is an elaborate cover to hide some legitimate insecurity about his own scare-abilities. The approach ensures that character will take precedence in this narrative, first and foremost, and that we will be full partners in the long, strange (even for a couple of monsters) journey that will end with Mike and Sully as best friends. All the frat gags and pranks in the world won't be able to obscure those simple facts. It goes without saying that the casting of Crystal and Sullivan, who clicked so well in the original movie, made the social-class aspects of MU much easier to believe.
Ultimately thrown together in an unwilling alliance with each other -- plus a friendly, much-put-upon fraternity of "geeks and feebs" who hold initiation ceremonies in a member's mother's basement -- Mike and Sully must prove their true mettle in the Scare Games, a fraternity event to determine which society is the scariest. I was a little nervous when the storyline narrowed down to this pursuit; it reminded me all too much of the contrived X-Games competition in An Extremely Goofy Movie (2000), in which Max and PJ's campus seemed to all but shut down academic activities to focus on extreme sports. We literally never saw Mike and Sully in class for the entire second half of the movie. In the case of the Scare Games, however, a version of official sanction was present in the forbidding form of the legendary Dean Hardscrabble (Helen Mirren), so I imagine that the monsters must have gotten co-curricular credit, or something similar, for participating. The Scare Games proceed as you might expect, and the finish seems eminently predictable, but then the narrative takes a clever swerve that carries us through to a somewhat unexpected, but emotionally satisfying, conclusion. Suffice it to say that Mike and Sully learn that you can achieve your lifelong ambition -- you just may have to take a different path than you originally anticipated.
The Blue Umbrella, the Pixar short that preceded MU, turned out to be a rarity -- a Pixar short that I found myself disliking intensely. The "animate inanimate objects fall in love, are separated, yet come back together in a contrived manner" plot has so been done, of course, but what made Umbrella particularly creepy was the fact that EVERYTHING in the city was alive -- drainpipes, walk signals, mailboxes, storefronts, you name it. Some might call this imaginative and whimsical; I call it something that might give an impressionable kid (the kind of kid who tiptoes past portraits at night because he or she is convinced that the eyes are moving) serious nightmares for weeks.
.
.
.
Monsters University was, of course, accompanied by a raft of "coming attractions" previews for various 3-D animated projects, some of which looked reasonably good (Despicable Me 2) and some of which... did not (The Smurfs 2, which is probably two too many). The thing that struck me about all of them was the utter SAMENESS of their approaches. No matter what sorts of creatures were involved, you saw the same kind of smart-ass humor, the same non-stop references to pop culture, the same wild physical action. Just as the immense success of The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast locked the "Hollywood Musical" template in place for a decade, the Shrek movies unquestionably inspired the aesthetic directions of many of the subsequent 3-D animated films. (One could argue that Aladdin anticipated the trend, but that was more of a "Hollywood Musical" with contemporary throw-ins, most of which were confined to the Genie and Iago.)
By my reckoning, the Shrek cycle should have just about run its course. The problem is that the movie industry is even more aesthetically reactionary now than it was in the late 1980s and 1990s, and so it will take an even bolder creator to buck the play-it-safe mentality. Even Disney's own 3-D division seems to have joined the herd (though Wreck-it Ralph was certainly a high-quality example of the genre), leaving Pixar as the one 3-D animation factory that seems to be making an effort to keep its output somewhat diverse. (This, I think, is why Pixar's increased reliance on sequels and prequels has elicited such a negative reaction, even from those who have tended to like the results.) Also tempering the drive for innovation is the fact that, thanks to the omnipresent use of CGI, many of today's "big" movies are, in essence, mixtures of live-action and animation. This leaves precious little wiggle room for an animated director to produce something truly different from either a bog-standard, Shrek-style smirkfest or an action/adventure film that simply mimics effects-filled live-action fare without the human element. Among recent releases, The Adventures of Tintin came the closest to splitting this difference, and that movie's disappointing American b.o. is a cause for concern.
The "predictability factor" in animated films is, if possible, even more pronounced in newspaper comic strips. Nicky and I don't get a daily paper, so I hadn't glanced through a daily comics page for quite some time before perusing the KANSAS CITY STAR at breakfast during the AP Statistics Reading. Remember the old gags about Ernie Bushmiller preparing his comic strip NANCY using a rubber stamp and a joke book? Well, reading all of those "badly drawn domestic sitcom strips featuring badly drawn humans and/or sentient animals performing more or less funny verbal gags" made me think that Bushmiller was ahead of his time. There wasn't a SINGLE truly innovative strip -- and by "innovative," I mean in the narrow sense of simply not BEING one of the aforementioned offerings -- in the bunch. I knew that newspaper strips were in trouble, but I was unaware as to just how rotten things had gotten. The vast chasm between these space-fillers and the old strips in the book collections I've been enjoying and blogging about would give even Nik Wallenda pause before he attempted a crossing.
Unlike animated films, newspaper strips are probably not making an aesthetic comeback. The inability of syndicates to even comprehend a different "universe" is probably inherent at this point. The newspaper industry is in parlous shape (it's hard not to be so when half of the country thinks you're biased against it and the other half is busy texting, tweeting, and so forth), and so the most likely location for outstanding strips in the future will probably be the Internet. (Indeed, I think so highly of KEVIN AND KELL and DAY BY DAY that I have links to them on my Web site.) We are more likely to see renewed innovation on the large screen, provided that the creators can negotiate the corporate boardrooms, ethical back alleys, and sociopolitical prejudices that have made it so difficult for modern Hollywood to produce anything truly lasting.
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
The key to the movie's success, I think, lies in the decision to bring Mike and Sully to MU from two different social and psychological worlds. Mike, who's not really THAT scary on the surface, is the ambitious nerd who seeks to get through the School of Scaring by sheer force of effort and will. Sully, the shaggy scion of what appears to pass for "nobility" in the monster world, expects to glide through school on the strength of his family name alone -- and we learn rather late in the game that this is an elaborate cover to hide some legitimate insecurity about his own scare-abilities. The approach ensures that character will take precedence in this narrative, first and foremost, and that we will be full partners in the long, strange (even for a couple of monsters) journey that will end with Mike and Sully as best friends. All the frat gags and pranks in the world won't be able to obscure those simple facts. It goes without saying that the casting of Crystal and Sullivan, who clicked so well in the original movie, made the social-class aspects of MU much easier to believe.
Ultimately thrown together in an unwilling alliance with each other -- plus a friendly, much-put-upon fraternity of "geeks and feebs" who hold initiation ceremonies in a member's mother's basement -- Mike and Sully must prove their true mettle in the Scare Games, a fraternity event to determine which society is the scariest. I was a little nervous when the storyline narrowed down to this pursuit; it reminded me all too much of the contrived X-Games competition in An Extremely Goofy Movie (2000), in which Max and PJ's campus seemed to all but shut down academic activities to focus on extreme sports. We literally never saw Mike and Sully in class for the entire second half of the movie. In the case of the Scare Games, however, a version of official sanction was present in the forbidding form of the legendary Dean Hardscrabble (Helen Mirren), so I imagine that the monsters must have gotten co-curricular credit, or something similar, for participating. The Scare Games proceed as you might expect, and the finish seems eminently predictable, but then the narrative takes a clever swerve that carries us through to a somewhat unexpected, but emotionally satisfying, conclusion. Suffice it to say that Mike and Sully learn that you can achieve your lifelong ambition -- you just may have to take a different path than you originally anticipated.
The Blue Umbrella, the Pixar short that preceded MU, turned out to be a rarity -- a Pixar short that I found myself disliking intensely. The "animate inanimate objects fall in love, are separated, yet come back together in a contrived manner" plot has so been done, of course, but what made Umbrella particularly creepy was the fact that EVERYTHING in the city was alive -- drainpipes, walk signals, mailboxes, storefronts, you name it. Some might call this imaginative and whimsical; I call it something that might give an impressionable kid (the kind of kid who tiptoes past portraits at night because he or she is convinced that the eyes are moving) serious nightmares for weeks.
.
.
.
Monsters University was, of course, accompanied by a raft of "coming attractions" previews for various 3-D animated projects, some of which looked reasonably good (Despicable Me 2) and some of which... did not (The Smurfs 2, which is probably two too many). The thing that struck me about all of them was the utter SAMENESS of their approaches. No matter what sorts of creatures were involved, you saw the same kind of smart-ass humor, the same non-stop references to pop culture, the same wild physical action. Just as the immense success of The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast locked the "Hollywood Musical" template in place for a decade, the Shrek movies unquestionably inspired the aesthetic directions of many of the subsequent 3-D animated films. (One could argue that Aladdin anticipated the trend, but that was more of a "Hollywood Musical" with contemporary throw-ins, most of which were confined to the Genie and Iago.)
By my reckoning, the Shrek cycle should have just about run its course. The problem is that the movie industry is even more aesthetically reactionary now than it was in the late 1980s and 1990s, and so it will take an even bolder creator to buck the play-it-safe mentality. Even Disney's own 3-D division seems to have joined the herd (though Wreck-it Ralph was certainly a high-quality example of the genre), leaving Pixar as the one 3-D animation factory that seems to be making an effort to keep its output somewhat diverse. (This, I think, is why Pixar's increased reliance on sequels and prequels has elicited such a negative reaction, even from those who have tended to like the results.) Also tempering the drive for innovation is the fact that, thanks to the omnipresent use of CGI, many of today's "big" movies are, in essence, mixtures of live-action and animation. This leaves precious little wiggle room for an animated director to produce something truly different from either a bog-standard, Shrek-style smirkfest or an action/adventure film that simply mimics effects-filled live-action fare without the human element. Among recent releases, The Adventures of Tintin came the closest to splitting this difference, and that movie's disappointing American b.o. is a cause for concern.
The "predictability factor" in animated films is, if possible, even more pronounced in newspaper comic strips. Nicky and I don't get a daily paper, so I hadn't glanced through a daily comics page for quite some time before perusing the KANSAS CITY STAR at breakfast during the AP Statistics Reading. Remember the old gags about Ernie Bushmiller preparing his comic strip NANCY using a rubber stamp and a joke book? Well, reading all of those "badly drawn domestic sitcom strips featuring badly drawn humans and/or sentient animals performing more or less funny verbal gags" made me think that Bushmiller was ahead of his time. There wasn't a SINGLE truly innovative strip -- and by "innovative," I mean in the narrow sense of simply not BEING one of the aforementioned offerings -- in the bunch. I knew that newspaper strips were in trouble, but I was unaware as to just how rotten things had gotten. The vast chasm between these space-fillers and the old strips in the book collections I've been enjoying and blogging about would give even Nik Wallenda pause before he attempted a crossing.
Unlike animated films, newspaper strips are probably not making an aesthetic comeback. The inability of syndicates to even comprehend a different "universe" is probably inherent at this point. The newspaper industry is in parlous shape (it's hard not to be so when half of the country thinks you're biased against it and the other half is busy texting, tweeting, and so forth), and so the most likely location for outstanding strips in the future will probably be the Internet. (Indeed, I think so highly of KEVIN AND KELL and DAY BY DAY that I have links to them on my Web site.) We are more likely to see renewed innovation on the large screen, provided that the creators can negotiate the corporate boardrooms, ethical back alleys, and sociopolitical prejudices that have made it so difficult for modern Hollywood to produce anything truly lasting.
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Meeting the Million Question Challenge
On Tuesday, I returned home from yet another AP Statistics Reading. Hard to believe that I've been doing this for nine years and at four different venues. After previous stops in Lincoln, NE, Louisville, and Daytona Beach, the AP Stats caravan moved to Kansas City last year, but I was unable to attend. This year was a different story.
I've never written much about my AP experiences on this blog, or anywhere else for that matter, so I've decided to write a little bit regarding what this operation is all about. The AP Stats exam was first offered in 1997, and 57 good folk and true (true Stats junkies, that is) from high schools, prep schools, and colleges across the land graded about 8000 test booklets that first year. To give you an idea of how the enterprise has grown, there were many more first-time AP Readers ("Acorns," as we call them, based on the College Board logo) in K.C. this June than there were readers at that first go-round. For the first time, we were faced with the Million Question Challenge: with 640 Readers and about 170,000 students taking the exam this past May, our task was quite literally to grade over 1,000,000 questions. No, I didn't have to grade each and every one of the six free-response questions. A Reader typically is assigned two questions, cycling back to finish grading the first once the second is done. The Reading day runs from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. with two breaks for... well, a break, and one hour for lunch.
Gone are the days when Readings could be held on college campuses such as the University of Nebraska (actually, we stayed in NU dorms and graded on the neighboring former site of the Nebraska State Fair). Not even Daytona is big enough to hold us now. Instead, it's large cities, chain hotels, and large convention centers all the way. We worked at the Kansas City Convention Center (at right in above picture) along with the Readers for AP Calculus, AP Biology, and AP Government and Politics. Did I mention that the KCCC was large? Actually, we Stats folks stayed pretty much to ourselves, even when we joined the huddled masses in the dining hall (aka the Grand Ballroom) at lunchtime. The food service at past Readings has ranged from delectable (Lincoln) to dubious (Louisville and Daytona), and I'd rate the KC experience somewhere between those two poles. We definitely got mass-catered food, but it was good mass-catered food, and I made it a point to tell one of the caterers as much on the last day. The logistics were definitely better than they were in either Louisville or Daytona, with 10 serving lines and plenty of seating space.
At lunchtime, I typically found it the better part of valor to head outside and eat on a patio adjacent to the Grand Ballroom. Not because I'm claustrophobic, but because I needed the chance to thaw out. The Reading rooms (actually, open spaces separated by curtain partitions) are COLD, especially late in the day when they crank down the thermostat to help keep us awake (at least, such is my entirely reasonable theory). I was obliged to wear long pants and my "Kit Cloudkicker Collection" green sweatshirt most of the time.
Cold temps aside, the KCCC was fairly comfortable apart from one somewhat scary moment on Saturday the 15th. An afternoon thunderstorm blew through town and knocked out the lights. Luckily, the auxiliary lights quickly came on, so we could continue grading. The rain got heavy enough that a literal cataract of water could be seen leaking down one of the walls of the hall. Kansas City is known as a "City of Fountains," but it didn't have to arrange an extra display for my benefit. No real damage done, thank goodness.
We didn't have many opportunities to see the local sights (and, yes, KC does have sights) so I contented myself with the next best thing: visiting local restaurants. I was already planning to get breakfast outside the convention center and was lucky enough to hit upon a branch of a local supermarket chain, Cosentino's, that appears to be the KC-area version of the East Coast's Wegmans and the Richmond area's late, lamented Ukrop's. This self-billed "Unique Food Experience" (not strictly true, but I'm not complaining) offered a wide variety of prepared foods in addition to the standard supermarket items. The chain was founded by an Italian immigrant, and the wall behind the customer service desk featured a picture of him next to a (gasp!) crucifix. What would Al Khan of 4Kids make of that, Greg?
Of course, I simply had to try some of that legendary KC barbecue while in town. Unfortunately, most of the really legendary places were too far away to be easily accessible without taking a long and expensive cab ride. I "settled" for the somewhat less famous Jack Stack BBQ, which was within walking distance. I had been given a tip that this was a good place to go, and the food was good, but eating there wasn't... well, momentous. To be perfectly honest, Extra Billy's, my favorite BBQ place in the Richmond area, was just as good. Perhaps I failed to appreciate the piquancy and finish of the sauce, or something.
I had a better dining experience at Grunauer, a German-Austrian place next to Jack Stack in what is called the Freight House District. I suppose that I was swayed by memories of all that great eating in Vienna and Budapest during our trip to Europe several years ago. If so, then I should let such memories be my guide more often, for the food was excellent. I had Hungarian beef goulash mit spaetzle und kraut, and, though the portions didn't seem all that large, they filled me up right quick. I had a good table at the bar to watch Phil Mickelson let it get away in the final round of the US Open. And, yes, beer was present, as well. In fact, I had more beer during this KC sojourn than I've probably had in any such concentrated time period in my life. Only after Reading hours, naturally...
As long as they'll have me, I intend to continue active participation in the AP Readings. It's a tiring but fun experience.
I've never written much about my AP experiences on this blog, or anywhere else for that matter, so I've decided to write a little bit regarding what this operation is all about. The AP Stats exam was first offered in 1997, and 57 good folk and true (true Stats junkies, that is) from high schools, prep schools, and colleges across the land graded about 8000 test booklets that first year. To give you an idea of how the enterprise has grown, there were many more first-time AP Readers ("Acorns," as we call them, based on the College Board logo) in K.C. this June than there were readers at that first go-round. For the first time, we were faced with the Million Question Challenge: with 640 Readers and about 170,000 students taking the exam this past May, our task was quite literally to grade over 1,000,000 questions. No, I didn't have to grade each and every one of the six free-response questions. A Reader typically is assigned two questions, cycling back to finish grading the first once the second is done. The Reading day runs from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. with two breaks for... well, a break, and one hour for lunch.
Cold temps aside, the KCCC was fairly comfortable apart from one somewhat scary moment on Saturday the 15th. An afternoon thunderstorm blew through town and knocked out the lights. Luckily, the auxiliary lights quickly came on, so we could continue grading. The rain got heavy enough that a literal cataract of water could be seen leaking down one of the walls of the hall. Kansas City is known as a "City of Fountains," but it didn't have to arrange an extra display for my benefit. No real damage done, thank goodness.
We didn't have many opportunities to see the local sights (and, yes, KC does have sights) so I contented myself with the next best thing: visiting local restaurants. I was already planning to get breakfast outside the convention center and was lucky enough to hit upon a branch of a local supermarket chain, Cosentino's, that appears to be the KC-area version of the East Coast's Wegmans and the Richmond area's late, lamented Ukrop's. This self-billed "Unique Food Experience" (not strictly true, but I'm not complaining) offered a wide variety of prepared foods in addition to the standard supermarket items. The chain was founded by an Italian immigrant, and the wall behind the customer service desk featured a picture of him next to a (gasp!) crucifix. What would Al Khan of 4Kids make of that, Greg?
As long as they'll have me, I intend to continue active participation in the AP Readings. It's a tiring but fun experience.
Friday, December 9, 2011
THE BEST (AND REST) OF KIMBA: Episode 42, "The Balloon That Blows Up"
A cute, charming, somewhat rickety, and generally sweet-natured episode that doesn't pretend to peddle any sort of grand, overarching theme of civilization-building, "The Balloon That Blows Up" delivers Kimba's most consistently realized portrait of "our hero as a youth." Kimba's more of a playmate to his pals Dot, Dash, and Dinky here than any sort of authority figure, and many of his actions are inherently childlike; he reacts in exaggerated fashion to outside events and suffers "endearingly cute" lapses in his logical circuitry. Kimba does get to initiate what passes for an "action scene" at story's end, but he gets considerable assistance from D-cubed in the process. For those of you who remember the Disney TV Animation series Jungle Cubs, "Balloon" has that exact same sort of breezy, carefree feel. Why the Tezuka organization insisted that this episode actually was meant to FOLLOW "Destroyers from the Desert" in time order, I couldn't begin to tell you. Perhaps "Balloon" exists in some sort of temporal wormhole in which the adult Kimba's son Rune, who appeared in the Kimba sequel series that didn't get to North America until the 80s, was allowed to stand-in for his too-busy-with-ruling Dad?
UPDATE (6/23/12): The AnimeCrazy English video of "Balloon" was taken down a while back, and my other source of the English dub isn't working any more, so I'm linking to AnimeCrazy's Japanese dub of the episode.
And Tom and Tab continue to insist on their relevance. They're showing some initiative in snooping around a human camp, I'll grant them that much. Tab isn't even repeating Tom's words anymore. But what is Kimba doing in that tree in the first place? I assume he's "patrolling the perimeter" and keeping tabs on the humans (who, as we'll learn later, are nogoodniks, though Kimba doesn't have that "inside infor"). But, if so, then why bring Dot, Dash, and Dinky along?
Having thrown his weight around in more-or-less standard fashion in order to scare T&T away, Kimba quickly goes all "widdle kid" on us once he hops inside the balloon basket. Remarkably, HE'S THE FIRST ONE to make with the "bouncy-bouncies." So what was that about not wanting to damage other people's property? Dinky may strike the fatal blow by jumping on the control panel, but let it be noted here that D-cubed were just basically standing there until Kimba began to roll around. So what follows is, at its heart, Kimba's fault.
Mother Nature is soon doing her worst to (1) scuttle the aerial trip and (2) scare the kids out of their wits. This leads us into what, for Kimba, is a remarkably good singing sequence. The words to "Fly High" are very clever (though whoever wrote the words apparently ran out of workable "eye-rhymes," as indicated by the rather desperate use of "ball on a jai-a-lai"), and the Titan crew's singing performance is very good. (It's the exception, though, Billie Lou, the exception.) The African scenic eye-candy is icing on the cake (mixed metaphor alert!). It's impossible to tell in which direction the balloon is going, however. I'm guessing north, for reasons which will become clearer in just a second.
UPDATE (6/23/12): The AnimeCrazy English video of "Balloon" was taken down a while back, and my other source of the English dub isn't working any more, so I'm linking to AnimeCrazy's Japanese dub of the episode.
And Tom and Tab continue to insist on their relevance. They're showing some initiative in snooping around a human camp, I'll grant them that much. Tab isn't even repeating Tom's words anymore. But what is Kimba doing in that tree in the first place? I assume he's "patrolling the perimeter" and keeping tabs on the humans (who, as we'll learn later, are nogoodniks, though Kimba doesn't have that "inside infor"). But, if so, then why bring Dot, Dash, and Dinky along?
Having thrown his weight around in more-or-less standard fashion in order to scare T&T away, Kimba quickly goes all "widdle kid" on us once he hops inside the balloon basket. Remarkably, HE'S THE FIRST ONE to make with the "bouncy-bouncies." So what was that about not wanting to damage other people's property? Dinky may strike the fatal blow by jumping on the control panel, but let it be noted here that D-cubed were just basically standing there until Kimba began to roll around. So what follows is, at its heart, Kimba's fault.
Mother Nature is soon doing her worst to (1) scuttle the aerial trip and (2) scare the kids out of their wits. This leads us into what, for Kimba, is a remarkably good singing sequence. The words to "Fly High" are very clever (though whoever wrote the words apparently ran out of workable "eye-rhymes," as indicated by the rather desperate use of "ball on a jai-a-lai"), and the Titan crew's singing performance is very good. (It's the exception, though, Billie Lou, the exception.) The African scenic eye-candy is icing on the cake (mixed metaphor alert!). It's impossible to tell in which direction the balloon is going, however. I'm guessing north, for reasons which will become clearer in just a second.
Even KIMBA wasn't above some product placement (though the
location details are a bit inaccurate).
location details are a bit inaccurate).
Following the crash landing, we meet Old Jeroboam (Gilbert Mack), who would probably be less "shortsighted" if he opened his eyes. Seriously, though, I think that the old farmer is supposed to be blind, or close to it. From his appearance, and the generally desert-y look of the surrounding fields, I gather that we are north of the equator and getting into some territory that is more Muslim than black-African, though still south of the Sahara Desert.
Out of what dusty recess of his childhood did Gilbert Mack pull Dinky's wildly anachronistic reference to "1, 2, 3 O'Leary"?! He couldn't have been inspired by this contemporary single, could he? The next thing you know, the jungle animals will be playing mumblety-peg and "keepsies." The "extreme home re-make-over" sequence is all of a tumbledown piece with the light, childish nature of most of the episode; the moles' busywork below the surface is to no apparent purpose, since all of the structural damage was to Jeroboam's house, and they wind up making things even worse before everything is finally fixed up.
The episode suddenly takes on a rather wistful tone when Jeroboam tells the youngsters about his absent son Half-Pint (a clever gag for the vinologists among the viewership -- which, given the intended target audience of 1966, probably numbered exactly zero). I think that the old man may be keeping an unpleasant secret from us here. If Half-Pint is such "a good boy," then why would he think of joining "a bad bunch" like The Flying Horsemen? I have a sudden vision of a very nasty father-son parting, with Half-Pint so desperate to get away from the dead-end life on the farm that he'd be willing to throw in his lot with a rebel army.
So when did Roger Ranger teach Kimba to WRITE?! That feat goes well beyond any ability to speak the human language, especially when you consider that Kimba (1) doesn't really have the physical equipment to take pen in hand and (2) probably doesn't get many chances to practice writing due to a lack of raw materials. I don't know about you, but I'm doggoned impressed with this.
Ah, now I see why Half-Pint (Mack) found the Flying Horsemen's offer so tempting -- he must have qualified for some sort of affirmative-action bounty. How strange it is for an African rebel army to apparently have one person of color in it. The blustering General Horsefly (Ray Owens) should really have told the Horsemen who were guarding the balloon that it had a bomb in it, else they might have gotten a terrible surprise when they shot at it after Kimba and friends took off. It's not at all clear what the Horsemen and the balloon were doing in Kimba's jungle in the first place. If the Goonies are the Horsemen's "neighbors," then what good would the balloon be so far afield?
Yes, Kimba, you have every reason to feel chagrined at that logical goof. No permanent damage done, though... for, almost immediately thereafter, all of the kids have suddenly dropped the excess weight. I do NOT want to know the details of that operation, thank you. Perhaps Kimba literally burned off the calories when he turned bright red in rage after the Horsemen attacked. This is yet another indication that Kimba is in full-fledged "kid mode" here; in no other episode apart from "The Nightmare Narcissus" does Kimba react in such a cartoonily exaggerated fashion to an outside threat, and he adds a lot more theatrics this time around.
We now get a mad-dash sequence that seems to be trying to make the episode a "serious adventure" in one frantic, final sprint. Dot, Dash, and Dinky actually get to do the heavy labor for once, delivering their finest team fighting form of the series; it even tops their rescue-charge at the start of "Jungle Fun." Seeing as how D-cubed are the series' most consistent representatives of the jungle's younger generation -- the group whom Kimba most needs to persuade of the importance of helping to preserve the civilization that he has begun to build -- I almost wish that they had had more opportunities to show their support for Kimba in this manner. Not that Kimba doesn't display considerable courage as well in his "drag and drop" operation, which predictably leads to the complete destruction of ALL of Camp Bongo (were those huts all filled with plastic explosives?!).
After the obligatory "our work here is done" scene, the gang... begin to walk back to the jungle. Given the unquestionable reality of that long balloon trip, I can imagine this taking quite a while. Say, maybe that's the secret to this episode: it took so long for the kids to return that, by the time they got home, Kimba had matured into an adolescent and put aside many of his childish ways! No? Well... perhaps they were able to hitch a ride with the crop-duster once his plane landed. A naive solution, to be sure, but a fitting one for one of Kimba's most naive -- and most good-natured -- episodes.
Up next: Episode 43, "The Monster of the Mountain."
Out of what dusty recess of his childhood did Gilbert Mack pull Dinky's wildly anachronistic reference to "1, 2, 3 O'Leary"?! He couldn't have been inspired by this contemporary single, could he? The next thing you know, the jungle animals will be playing mumblety-peg and "keepsies." The "extreme home re-make-over" sequence is all of a tumbledown piece with the light, childish nature of most of the episode; the moles' busywork below the surface is to no apparent purpose, since all of the structural damage was to Jeroboam's house, and they wind up making things even worse before everything is finally fixed up.
The episode suddenly takes on a rather wistful tone when Jeroboam tells the youngsters about his absent son Half-Pint (a clever gag for the vinologists among the viewership -- which, given the intended target audience of 1966, probably numbered exactly zero). I think that the old man may be keeping an unpleasant secret from us here. If Half-Pint is such "a good boy," then why would he think of joining "a bad bunch" like The Flying Horsemen? I have a sudden vision of a very nasty father-son parting, with Half-Pint so desperate to get away from the dead-end life on the farm that he'd be willing to throw in his lot with a rebel army.
So when did Roger Ranger teach Kimba to WRITE?! That feat goes well beyond any ability to speak the human language, especially when you consider that Kimba (1) doesn't really have the physical equipment to take pen in hand and (2) probably doesn't get many chances to practice writing due to a lack of raw materials. I don't know about you, but I'm doggoned impressed with this.
Ah, now I see why Half-Pint (Mack) found the Flying Horsemen's offer so tempting -- he must have qualified for some sort of affirmative-action bounty. How strange it is for an African rebel army to apparently have one person of color in it. The blustering General Horsefly (Ray Owens) should really have told the Horsemen who were guarding the balloon that it had a bomb in it, else they might have gotten a terrible surprise when they shot at it after Kimba and friends took off. It's not at all clear what the Horsemen and the balloon were doing in Kimba's jungle in the first place. If the Goonies are the Horsemen's "neighbors," then what good would the balloon be so far afield?
Yes, Kimba, you have every reason to feel chagrined at that logical goof. No permanent damage done, though... for, almost immediately thereafter, all of the kids have suddenly dropped the excess weight. I do NOT want to know the details of that operation, thank you. Perhaps Kimba literally burned off the calories when he turned bright red in rage after the Horsemen attacked. This is yet another indication that Kimba is in full-fledged "kid mode" here; in no other episode apart from "The Nightmare Narcissus" does Kimba react in such a cartoonily exaggerated fashion to an outside threat, and he adds a lot more theatrics this time around.
What's black, and white, and red all over? No, it's not a newspaper.
We now get a mad-dash sequence that seems to be trying to make the episode a "serious adventure" in one frantic, final sprint. Dot, Dash, and Dinky actually get to do the heavy labor for once, delivering their finest team fighting form of the series; it even tops their rescue-charge at the start of "Jungle Fun." Seeing as how D-cubed are the series' most consistent representatives of the jungle's younger generation -- the group whom Kimba most needs to persuade of the importance of helping to preserve the civilization that he has begun to build -- I almost wish that they had had more opportunities to show their support for Kimba in this manner. Not that Kimba doesn't display considerable courage as well in his "drag and drop" operation, which predictably leads to the complete destruction of ALL of Camp Bongo (were those huts all filled with plastic explosives?!).
After the obligatory "our work here is done" scene, the gang... begin to walk back to the jungle. Given the unquestionable reality of that long balloon trip, I can imagine this taking quite a while. Say, maybe that's the secret to this episode: it took so long for the kids to return that, by the time they got home, Kimba had matured into an adolescent and put aside many of his childish ways! No? Well... perhaps they were able to hitch a ride with the crop-duster once his plane landed. A naive solution, to be sure, but a fitting one for one of Kimba's most naive -- and most good-natured -- episodes.
Up next: Episode 43, "The Monster of the Mountain."Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Book Review: THE BIG ROADS by Earl Swift (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011)
You may have noticed that I have links to Web pages on the histories of the U.S. and Interstate Highway systems in my "Miscellaneous" section. It won't come as a surprise, therefore, that this well-written, even-handed book tracing the development of the modern American roadway grid was an easy sell for me. Swift gives space to both the architects and the critics of the Interstate network and clears up some misconceptions concerning the development of the Interstate system along the way. One such mistaken belief is the idea that the Interstates were originally supposed to be rural highways and were only diverted into and through big cities -- often to the cities' detriment -- because of greed and political maneuvering. Swift makes it clear that, from the time the Interstates were conceived, urban routes were part of the plan, on the theory that the highways would make it easier to ship goods to and from population centers and could be used as an excuse to wipe out unsightly "slums." Only gradually did local activists begin to push back against the incursion of the I-behemoth. One of the bitterest battles, which Swift discusses in detail, took place here in Baltimore, where a diverse group of neighborhood residents resisted plans to send I-70 through the downtown area, within a stone's throw of what is now the Inner Harbor. The challenges lasted well over a decade before the would-be highway-builders finally conceded defeat. Swift concludes with a review of the challenges faced by the Interstate system today, the largest of which is a rapidly deteriorating infrastructure under the pressure of ever-increasing traffic. We can debate all we want to about the proper role of government in our lives, but I think we can all agree that the maintenance of the transportation grid is something on which we don't want to skimp.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
All Tripped Out
Now that my trip to Vancouver for the Joint Statistical Meetings is over, I'm willing -- nay, eager -- to play homebody for the foreseeable future. Three sizable Summer journeys will do that to a fellow. Not that I didn't enjoy my stay in Vancouver, of course. The weather was pleasant, and I took advantage by concluding my stay with a trolley tour of different parts of the city, including beautiful Stanley Park. My talk went well (I've already gotten a request for my Power Point slides from an attendee) and maybe, just maybe, it can be turned into a paper.
The dinner visit to William Van Horn and his wife Elaine in "North Van" on the 3rd was great, apart from the $65 I had to shell out for cab fare. (The guy taking me there could at least have known where he was going. As it was, he had to drive with a city map on his lap.) Bill and I talked about everything from Duck comics (bien sur) to roofing during the 4 1/2 hours I was there. In Bill's studio, a partially finished Duck story lay on the drawing board (yes, he's still producing them, though at a much slower pace and with absolutely no idea as to whether they will ever be printed in the U.S.) and the walls were adorned with comic-art originals by George Herriman, Walt Kelly, and Chester Gould, among others. (I was unaware that Bill is a big DICK TRACY fan.) Bill's son Noel is prospering and has now turned his hand to Duck stories. Wouldn't I love to see both VH's represented in a reformatted DONALD DUCK AND FRIENDS?
The dinner visit to William Van Horn and his wife Elaine in "North Van" on the 3rd was great, apart from the $65 I had to shell out for cab fare. (The guy taking me there could at least have known where he was going. As it was, he had to drive with a city map on his lap.) Bill and I talked about everything from Duck comics (bien sur) to roofing during the 4 1/2 hours I was there. In Bill's studio, a partially finished Duck story lay on the drawing board (yes, he's still producing them, though at a much slower pace and with absolutely no idea as to whether they will ever be printed in the U.S.) and the walls were adorned with comic-art originals by George Herriman, Walt Kelly, and Chester Gould, among others. (I was unaware that Bill is a big DICK TRACY fan.) Bill's son Noel is prospering and has now turned his hand to Duck stories. Wouldn't I love to see both VH's represented in a reformatted DONALD DUCK AND FRIENDS?
Saturday, July 24, 2010
European Trip Diary, Part 7: Airship of Fools? (July 14)
No pictures to illustrate this final installment, I'm sorry to say... though, in hindsight, I wish that we had snapped some. Our straight-shot, 8 1/2-hour flight from Vienna to JFK on Austrian Airlines turned out to be a lot more interesting -- in the dubious Chinese sense -- than the lay-back-and-snoozefest that we had been expecting. Due to the late arrival of the plane from New York, our flight was delayed for over an hour and a half, allowing us ample opportunity to carefully survey our fellow passengers. The effect was not unlike that of being chucked headfirst into the steerage scenes in Titanic, if not the cantina scene in Star Wars. Among other things, we encountered:
(1) A young woman from Belarus, dressed in vaguely gypsy-ish garb, who cornered us at the security checkpoint (which was right at the gate itself) and asked us to tell her "the name of a street in New York City." Nicky's critical antennae, honed in NYC and further sharpened by her military intelligence background, went up, and she pointed the girl out to the security people. The woman must have been "clean," for they let her into the waiting area, but I couldn't help but wonder the fate that was in store for her on the "other side."
(2) Numerous Orthodox Jewish and Hasidic families with extremely loud kids.
(3) A woman who was reading a newspaper in which "k" was used as a vowel.
(4) Several smelly guys of indeterminate origin who surreptitiously swiped stuff from the first-class section when we boarded the plane.
(5) A crate containing a bomb-sniffing dog.
The "foreign-bazaar" mood was heightened by the large number of "standees" after the seating area had already been filled to capacity. The gate personnel finally relented and opened up the "restricted" seating area, as well as commandeering the empty seating area in the neighboring gate. Apparently, Vienna has become the major transfer point for travelers from Eastern Europe and the Balkans on their way to America. It's as if the Hapsburg Empire never went away...
The interior of our plane was like something out of a bad 70's dream: Flight attendants dressed all in shocking red! Seat upholstery in "pea/Astroturf green"! At least we got two decent meals and a "snackypoo" or two... though some individuals in our economy section were apparently more "equal" than we were. These youngish folks were the recipients of a steady stream of goodies -- cheese, alcohol, and other first-class amenities -- from a complaisant stewardess. Nicky and I finally deduced from their general appearance and luggage that these were other Austrian Airlines personnel getting a lift to their next assignment. If that's the case, then I understand the special treatment, but did they have to advertise their good fortune with all that raucous laughter? At least they didn't make with the Gladstone-style bragging.
We finally landed at JFK about an hour and 45 minutes late after seemingly being over Canada's Maritime Provinces for about 19 days. I gather that the pilot was trying to dodge some bad weather; the cloud cover never lifted once for the whole of our journey. At the "Border Control" inside JFK, we gasped at the immense crowd of visitors who were already there waiting to enter the U.S. (The line for U.S. citizens was considerably shorter, thank goodness.) The monitors at the baggage-claim area streamed an endless sequence of pictures of multi-hued, preternaturally cheerful folks "welcoming" newcomers. The immigrants who came through Ellis Island didn't receive such treatment, but didn't they integrate more eagerly into American society, for the most part? What's the "lesson" here?
The 19 1/2-hour travel day to remember (no matter how hard we try to forget) comes to a close when we reach Mom's condo in Wilmington around 7:30 pm. Nicky and I are already discussing a possible return trip... but, for the time being, we're glad to be home.
(1) A young woman from Belarus, dressed in vaguely gypsy-ish garb, who cornered us at the security checkpoint (which was right at the gate itself) and asked us to tell her "the name of a street in New York City." Nicky's critical antennae, honed in NYC and further sharpened by her military intelligence background, went up, and she pointed the girl out to the security people. The woman must have been "clean," for they let her into the waiting area, but I couldn't help but wonder the fate that was in store for her on the "other side."
(2) Numerous Orthodox Jewish and Hasidic families with extremely loud kids.
(3) A woman who was reading a newspaper in which "k" was used as a vowel.
(4) Several smelly guys of indeterminate origin who surreptitiously swiped stuff from the first-class section when we boarded the plane.
(5) A crate containing a bomb-sniffing dog.
The "foreign-bazaar" mood was heightened by the large number of "standees" after the seating area had already been filled to capacity. The gate personnel finally relented and opened up the "restricted" seating area, as well as commandeering the empty seating area in the neighboring gate. Apparently, Vienna has become the major transfer point for travelers from Eastern Europe and the Balkans on their way to America. It's as if the Hapsburg Empire never went away...
The interior of our plane was like something out of a bad 70's dream: Flight attendants dressed all in shocking red! Seat upholstery in "pea/Astroturf green"! At least we got two decent meals and a "snackypoo" or two... though some individuals in our economy section were apparently more "equal" than we were. These youngish folks were the recipients of a steady stream of goodies -- cheese, alcohol, and other first-class amenities -- from a complaisant stewardess. Nicky and I finally deduced from their general appearance and luggage that these were other Austrian Airlines personnel getting a lift to their next assignment. If that's the case, then I understand the special treatment, but did they have to advertise their good fortune with all that raucous laughter? At least they didn't make with the Gladstone-style bragging.
We finally landed at JFK about an hour and 45 minutes late after seemingly being over Canada's Maritime Provinces for about 19 days. I gather that the pilot was trying to dodge some bad weather; the cloud cover never lifted once for the whole of our journey. At the "Border Control" inside JFK, we gasped at the immense crowd of visitors who were already there waiting to enter the U.S. (The line for U.S. citizens was considerably shorter, thank goodness.) The monitors at the baggage-claim area streamed an endless sequence of pictures of multi-hued, preternaturally cheerful folks "welcoming" newcomers. The immigrants who came through Ellis Island didn't receive such treatment, but didn't they integrate more eagerly into American society, for the most part? What's the "lesson" here?
The 19 1/2-hour travel day to remember (no matter how hard we try to forget) comes to a close when we reach Mom's condo in Wilmington around 7:30 pm. Nicky and I are already discussing a possible return trip... but, for the time being, we're glad to be home.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
European Trip Diary, Part 6: Salzburg (July 13)
Part 6 of our Central European odyssey nearly turns into a scene from Leonard, Part 6 before normalcy is restored. After arising at 5 a.m., securing a "to-go" breakfast, and drinking some coffee in the humid, mosquito-infested Hilton lobby -- thank some standing water in a nearby fountain for the latter annoyance -- we wait past the appointed hour for the bus to Salzburg to pick us up. Since other participants are supposed to board at the nearby Hotel de France, Mom goes there to see what the problem is and learns that the bus driver did indeed admit the HDF guests but forgot to stop at the Hilton. The phone number provided by the tour agency handling the trip turns out to be for a cell phone and isn't answered. Luckily, the bus has a couple more scheduled pickup stops to make -- one at the Opera House -- and the Hilton desk clerk calls a taxi for us. We get to Opernring with time to spare, thank goodness. (We also get a thoughtful letter of apology from the agency later in the day.)
Our group includes American, Italian, and Japanese tourists, providing our on-board guide -- a native Austrian named Hans -- with something of a challenge. The Japanese do speak English, so Hans gives his spiels in both English and Italian and does a pretty efficient job of it. (His lauding of the "green," animal-friendly aspects of his country is spread on just a bit thick, IMHO, but its sincerity certainly can't be questioned.) After crawling through a dozen or so suburban Vienna streets, we finally pick up speed as we hit the A1 Autobahn and head into the Vienna Woods on a westerly course for Salzburg. We have a 3 1/2-hour drive ahead of us all told, including a 30-minute rest stop at a Landzeit, one link in a national chain of rest stations and motels. To our surprise and amazement, the Landzeit looks more like a Whole Foods than any roadside nosh-pit we could name. All manner of food and drink is available for our delectation, including self-service wine (!), and there's even a gift shop with yet another rack stuffed to the gills with Disney comics. To top it all off, the view of the Alpine foothills from the back of the establishment is beautiful. The New Jersey Turnpike rest stops that we passed on the way up to JFK simply can't compete.
Notable sights on the way to Salzburg include several massive wind farms and the 900-plus-year-old Benedictine monastery at Melk. Once we get off the A1 at Mondzee, we also get a leisurely glimpse of various small towns in the Salzkammergut lakes region. Nicky and I immediately start thinking about a return visit to this lovely area, to which a whirlwind drive-by can't really do justice. We finally pull into Salzburg at about noon and are dropped off at the Mirabell Gardens, prominently featured in The Sound of Music... as the available tourist propaganda is quick to remind us. And therein lies one of the major problems with the much-loved "Home of Mozart": a decided uptick in the "tackiness index" that was noteworthy by its absence in both Budapest and Vienna.
Due to the large number of people in our party, we join a different guide for our walk through the Mirabell and into the "Old Town" district, nestled beneath the looming Hohensalzburg Castle. The guide has to pull triple duty, giving information in English, French, and Spanish. The resulting awkwardness (combined with the guide's noticeable b.o.) finally convince us to break off and do our own exploring. The charming narrow streets of "Old Town" are filled with the expected high-end stores, each with its own unique descriptive street sign. Even the local McDonald's has its own "personalized" marker (though, apparently, it took some arm-twisting by the city to convince Mickey D's to cooperate). A water fountain consisting of a stream of water from one of the oldest surviving Roman aqueducts serves as a trickling token of the immense age of the city. Unfortunately, side by side with these historical delights are such sobering sights as an ice-cream parlor (complete with giant plastic cone) on the ground floor of Mozart's birth house, cardboard cutouts (but, thank God, no bobbleheads) of "Moze" being used to sell a certain brand of candy, and a kiosk with refrigerator magnets meant to represent... oh, the pain... big hunks of Wiener Schnitzel. The effect of the latter is not unlike that of those rubber pools of fake vomit that used to be sold in novelty stores and comic-book ads. For a city regarded as a cultural touchstone, these features are disconcerting, to say the least. I wonder how much of the "tourist-ification" of Salzburg post-dates The Sound of Music, which must have motivated a much wider assortment of visitors to come to the city. We'd certainly like to visit more historically congenial sights, such as the Hohensalzburg and some of the local churches, but we simply don't have the time to do so.
The weather, though a bit cooler, remains warm, so we spend a lengthy lunch period at the Sternhaus, an open-air, but blessedly shaded, beer garden that dates back to the 16th century. (One of the charms of "Old Town" is that virtually all of the buildings, no matter how mundane their present use, date back anywhere from 200 to 600 years.) Here, we finally "do our wurst" and get some authentic sausage (no offense intended to the good-in-a-pinch stuff we had during the Railjet trip), potatoes, and sauerkraut. For dessert, Nicky finally gets to enjoy her much-prized apple strudel. I take a slightly more practical approach and have some ice cream in an attempt to cool down.
All too soon, following one final stroll through the Mirabell (and not a single singing or dancing nun in sight), we're back on the road and headed for Vienna. On the way, we make another rest stop, this one at a branch of Rosenberger, yet another travel-trade chain (this one, a combination of a buffet and a sit-down place, rather like a Shoney's) that turns out to have much more going for it than expected. My dish of goulash has far more kick to it than the Dinty Moore-esque "edible and no more" stuff to which I had been resigned. As for the service, imagine a Friendly's where the waitstaff really is friendly!
Back at the hotel by 8:45 pm, Nicky and I have just enough time for a relaxing dip in the hotel whirlpool before retiring. Now the question before the house is: Will the bus snafu be repeated tomorrow, our day of departure?
Up next: We have our own "Titanic" experience aboard Austrian Airlines... and no, that doesn't mean our plane hits an iceberg.
Our group includes American, Italian, and Japanese tourists, providing our on-board guide -- a native Austrian named Hans -- with something of a challenge. The Japanese do speak English, so Hans gives his spiels in both English and Italian and does a pretty efficient job of it. (His lauding of the "green," animal-friendly aspects of his country is spread on just a bit thick, IMHO, but its sincerity certainly can't be questioned.) After crawling through a dozen or so suburban Vienna streets, we finally pick up speed as we hit the A1 Autobahn and head into the Vienna Woods on a westerly course for Salzburg. We have a 3 1/2-hour drive ahead of us all told, including a 30-minute rest stop at a Landzeit, one link in a national chain of rest stations and motels. To our surprise and amazement, the Landzeit looks more like a Whole Foods than any roadside nosh-pit we could name. All manner of food and drink is available for our delectation, including self-service wine (!), and there's even a gift shop with yet another rack stuffed to the gills with Disney comics. To top it all off, the view of the Alpine foothills from the back of the establishment is beautiful. The New Jersey Turnpike rest stops that we passed on the way up to JFK simply can't compete.
Nicky and I at Landzeit
Notable sights on the way to Salzburg include several massive wind farms and the 900-plus-year-old Benedictine monastery at Melk. Once we get off the A1 at Mondzee, we also get a leisurely glimpse of various small towns in the Salzkammergut lakes region. Nicky and I immediately start thinking about a return visit to this lovely area, to which a whirlwind drive-by can't really do justice. We finally pull into Salzburg at about noon and are dropped off at the Mirabell Gardens, prominently featured in The Sound of Music... as the available tourist propaganda is quick to remind us. And therein lies one of the major problems with the much-loved "Home of Mozart": a decided uptick in the "tackiness index" that was noteworthy by its absence in both Budapest and Vienna.
At the Mirabell: a familiar setting for "Sound of Music" fans
Due to the large number of people in our party, we join a different guide for our walk through the Mirabell and into the "Old Town" district, nestled beneath the looming Hohensalzburg Castle. The guide has to pull triple duty, giving information in English, French, and Spanish. The resulting awkwardness (combined with the guide's noticeable b.o.) finally convince us to break off and do our own exploring. The charming narrow streets of "Old Town" are filled with the expected high-end stores, each with its own unique descriptive street sign. Even the local McDonald's has its own "personalized" marker (though, apparently, it took some arm-twisting by the city to convince Mickey D's to cooperate). A water fountain consisting of a stream of water from one of the oldest surviving Roman aqueducts serves as a trickling token of the immense age of the city. Unfortunately, side by side with these historical delights are such sobering sights as an ice-cream parlor (complete with giant plastic cone) on the ground floor of Mozart's birth house, cardboard cutouts (but, thank God, no bobbleheads) of "Moze" being used to sell a certain brand of candy, and a kiosk with refrigerator magnets meant to represent... oh, the pain... big hunks of Wiener Schnitzel. The effect of the latter is not unlike that of those rubber pools of fake vomit that used to be sold in novelty stores and comic-book ads. For a city regarded as a cultural touchstone, these features are disconcerting, to say the least. I wonder how much of the "tourist-ification" of Salzburg post-dates The Sound of Music, which must have motivated a much wider assortment of visitors to come to the city. We'd certainly like to visit more historically congenial sights, such as the Hohensalzburg and some of the local churches, but we simply don't have the time to do so.
The weather, though a bit cooler, remains warm, so we spend a lengthy lunch period at the Sternhaus, an open-air, but blessedly shaded, beer garden that dates back to the 16th century. (One of the charms of "Old Town" is that virtually all of the buildings, no matter how mundane their present use, date back anywhere from 200 to 600 years.) Here, we finally "do our wurst" and get some authentic sausage (no offense intended to the good-in-a-pinch stuff we had during the Railjet trip), potatoes, and sauerkraut. For dessert, Nicky finally gets to enjoy her much-prized apple strudel. I take a slightly more practical approach and have some ice cream in an attempt to cool down.
Into the shadow of "tack" rode... er, walked... the six hundred... er, three...
All too soon, following one final stroll through the Mirabell (and not a single singing or dancing nun in sight), we're back on the road and headed for Vienna. On the way, we make another rest stop, this one at a branch of Rosenberger, yet another travel-trade chain (this one, a combination of a buffet and a sit-down place, rather like a Shoney's) that turns out to have much more going for it than expected. My dish of goulash has far more kick to it than the Dinty Moore-esque "edible and no more" stuff to which I had been resigned. As for the service, imagine a Friendly's where the waitstaff really is friendly!
Back at the hotel by 8:45 pm, Nicky and I have just enough time for a relaxing dip in the hotel whirlpool before retiring. Now the question before the house is: Will the bus snafu be repeated tomorrow, our day of departure?
Up next: We have our own "Titanic" experience aboard Austrian Airlines... and no, that doesn't mean our plane hits an iceberg.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
European Trip Diary, Part 5: A Day in Vienna (July 12)
Since tomorrow will be taken up by our excursion to Salzburg, it's time to switch to "A Duck's Eye View of Europe" mode and try to pick off as many Viennese landmarks as we can before the heat gets to us. We decide to make our lives a little easier by joining one of the voluntary "introductory excursions" that Monogram Travel, the sponsor of our trip, offers for its customers. A chartered bus takes us around the Ringstrasse, the fabled chain of streets that encircle the heart of the city, and then across the Danube to what might be considered the "international" portion of town, with its numerous U.N. installations. It's easy to see that Vienna never has incorporated the river into its cityscape as successfully as has Budapest, though the city fathers have tried, even spreading sand at various locations along the bank to create pseudo-beaches. Then we enter the "old city," centered on massive St. Stephen's Cathedral. Extensive renovation and cleaning work is being done on the exterior of the structure -- with whole sections being covered over by canvas with replicas of the "true" exterior superimposed on them -- while the interior puts me in mind of the constantly chaotic interior of St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York, with even more secular activity, if that's possible. "Stephansdom" is still a fully functioning church, for all of that.
Stretching in all directions away from "Stephansdom" are cobblestoned shopping streets lined by the types of stores one patronizes if one doesn't have to worry about money. One such street leads us to Michaelsplatz and the entrance to the Hofburg Palace, the nerve-center of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire. One small portion of the Hofburg is still used by the Federal President of Austria (you can gauge how important this position is by the fact that the office is watched over by a single guard!), other portions by the Vienna Boys' Choir and the Spanish Riding School, while the rest has been given over to hoi-polloi prying. Splitting off from the Monogram group at Josefsplatz, we prepare to join the pryers. But first, a drink -- several, in fact! -- at a nearby cafe. The sky remains stubbornly cloudless, the sun merciless.
The wing of the Hofburg facing Michaelsplatz is partially disfigured by a huge advertising banner featuring the smug mug of George Clooney. The real aristocrats -- or their leavings, anyway -- lurk inside in a series of museums and displays. Most heavily represented, not surprisingly, are artifacts from the era of Emperor Franz Josef I (reigned 1848-1916) and his ill-fated wife Elisabeth or "Sisi." "Sisi" was sort of the Princess Diana of her day, and, if a full-scale, all-stops-out "Diana Museum" ever gets built, it will probably bear a heavy resemblance to the interesting, but rather over-the-top, "Sisi" Museum. Dramatic lighting highlights "Sisi"'s personal artifacts, both significant and trivial, while snatches of the Empress' bad introspective poetry appear on just about every wall. When I see a case holding the VERY SAME sharpened nail file that was used to assassinate "Sisi" in 1898, I can't help but think of "The Bullet!" in that old "Got Milk?" commercial. A little more to my liking are the Imperial Apartments, where Franz Josef and "Sisi" worked and lived. Recent reading gave me a new-found respect for the old Emperor, who worked 15- to 18-hour days until the end of his life but endured more than his share of unhappiness, culminating with the disaster of World War I. He wasn't a particularly likable person, but one must admire the dogged dedication with which he approached the thankless task of holding together that messy, multi-lingual melange of an Empire. The Imperial Silver Collection -- room after room after room of knives, forks, spoons, plates, bowls, table decorations, candelabras, egg scrapers, asparagus bleeders, artichoke raspers, and all and sundry "sillyware" -- leaves me wondering: (1) How did all of these valuables survive the fall of the Hapsburgs in such good condition? (2) If you've seen one pickle fork, have you really seen them all? (3) I wonder what sort of a life "The Master of the Bread" (yes, there really was such a person in the Hapsburgs' household) had?
All three Hofburg exhibits have one unpleasant thing in common -- no air conditioning or ventilation! A crowd of hygienically questionable tourists who funk up part of our route at the "Sisi" Museum make matters even worse. We emerge in serious need of refreshment of various kinds. We find them at Augustinerkeller, a basement snuggery (it was formerly a monastery cellar) attached to the nearby Augustinian church where Franz Josef and "Sisi" were married. A hearty meal and a draught of Franziskaner wheat beer later, we're back in fine fettle.
Following a 1 1/2-hour rest back at the Hilton, we venture forth at around 5 pm in search of the Sachertorte. This most famous of all Viennese desserts -- no small feat, given Vienna's world-wide reputation for gooey goodies -- is available in only three cities in the world; two of them are Vienna and Salzburg. We hone in on the Ur-source: the cafe at the original Hotel Sacher itself, across the street from the Vienna Opera House. Three pieces of Torte, drinks, and iced chocolate total a whopping $40 -- and, to be perfectly honest, I've had better chocolate cake in my life (though, to be fair, the method of preparation of the Sachertorte is a bit different than what most Americans are used to).
The "Look what I found!" moments of the day come when we go into the Unterbahn's subterranean Opernring station for the journey back to our hotel. Granted, the environs of the Opera House are a classy part of town, but the public pay toilet in the station goes above and beyond "nature's call" of duty:
They're not kidding about the "mit Musik" part, either: all guests are greeted with The Blue Danube when they "drop" that fateful 0.60-euro piece. A more anticipated, but nonetheless welcome, "culture shock" comes when I spot this rack in the window of a newspaper, magazine, and tobacco shop:
Right up there where all the commuters, young and old, can see it. Now there's a store with "all its Ducks in a row."
Up next: Sights of Salzburg and the Lakes Region; tacky magnets taken to a new level/depth; and rest stops that an American motorist would kill for!
The spire of St. Stephen's, mid-morning
Stretching in all directions away from "Stephansdom" are cobblestoned shopping streets lined by the types of stores one patronizes if one doesn't have to worry about money. One such street leads us to Michaelsplatz and the entrance to the Hofburg Palace, the nerve-center of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire. One small portion of the Hofburg is still used by the Federal President of Austria (you can gauge how important this position is by the fact that the office is watched over by a single guard!), other portions by the Vienna Boys' Choir and the Spanish Riding School, while the rest has been given over to hoi-polloi prying. Splitting off from the Monogram group at Josefsplatz, we prepare to join the pryers. But first, a drink -- several, in fact! -- at a nearby cafe. The sky remains stubbornly cloudless, the sun merciless.
Nicky and I in front of a fountain at Michaelsplatz
The wing of the Hofburg facing Michaelsplatz is partially disfigured by a huge advertising banner featuring the smug mug of George Clooney. The real aristocrats -- or their leavings, anyway -- lurk inside in a series of museums and displays. Most heavily represented, not surprisingly, are artifacts from the era of Emperor Franz Josef I (reigned 1848-1916) and his ill-fated wife Elisabeth or "Sisi." "Sisi" was sort of the Princess Diana of her day, and, if a full-scale, all-stops-out "Diana Museum" ever gets built, it will probably bear a heavy resemblance to the interesting, but rather over-the-top, "Sisi" Museum. Dramatic lighting highlights "Sisi"'s personal artifacts, both significant and trivial, while snatches of the Empress' bad introspective poetry appear on just about every wall. When I see a case holding the VERY SAME sharpened nail file that was used to assassinate "Sisi" in 1898, I can't help but think of "The Bullet!" in that old "Got Milk?" commercial. A little more to my liking are the Imperial Apartments, where Franz Josef and "Sisi" worked and lived. Recent reading gave me a new-found respect for the old Emperor, who worked 15- to 18-hour days until the end of his life but endured more than his share of unhappiness, culminating with the disaster of World War I. He wasn't a particularly likable person, but one must admire the dogged dedication with which he approached the thankless task of holding together that messy, multi-lingual melange of an Empire. The Imperial Silver Collection -- room after room after room of knives, forks, spoons, plates, bowls, table decorations, candelabras, egg scrapers, asparagus bleeders, artichoke raspers, and all and sundry "sillyware" -- leaves me wondering: (1) How did all of these valuables survive the fall of the Hapsburgs in such good condition? (2) If you've seen one pickle fork, have you really seen them all? (3) I wonder what sort of a life "The Master of the Bread" (yes, there really was such a person in the Hapsburgs' household) had?
All three Hofburg exhibits have one unpleasant thing in common -- no air conditioning or ventilation! A crowd of hygienically questionable tourists who funk up part of our route at the "Sisi" Museum make matters even worse. We emerge in serious need of refreshment of various kinds. We find them at Augustinerkeller, a basement snuggery (it was formerly a monastery cellar) attached to the nearby Augustinian church where Franz Josef and "Sisi" were married. A hearty meal and a draught of Franziskaner wheat beer later, we're back in fine fettle.
Following a 1 1/2-hour rest back at the Hilton, we venture forth at around 5 pm in search of the Sachertorte. This most famous of all Viennese desserts -- no small feat, given Vienna's world-wide reputation for gooey goodies -- is available in only three cities in the world; two of them are Vienna and Salzburg. We hone in on the Ur-source: the cafe at the original Hotel Sacher itself, across the street from the Vienna Opera House. Three pieces of Torte, drinks, and iced chocolate total a whopping $40 -- and, to be perfectly honest, I've had better chocolate cake in my life (though, to be fair, the method of preparation of the Sachertorte is a bit different than what most Americans are used to).
The "Look what I found!" moments of the day come when we go into the Unterbahn's subterranean Opernring station for the journey back to our hotel. Granted, the environs of the Opera House are a classy part of town, but the public pay toilet in the station goes above and beyond "nature's call" of duty:
They're not kidding about the "mit Musik" part, either: all guests are greeted with The Blue Danube when they "drop" that fateful 0.60-euro piece. A more anticipated, but nonetheless welcome, "culture shock" comes when I spot this rack in the window of a newspaper, magazine, and tobacco shop:
Right up there where all the commuters, young and old, can see it. Now there's a store with "all its Ducks in a row."
Up next: Sights of Salzburg and the Lakes Region; tacky magnets taken to a new level/depth; and rest stops that an American motorist would kill for!
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
European Trip Diary, Part 4: From Budapest to Vienna (July 11)
It's time to leave Budapest, and, in truth, we've already "hit" most of the things we really wanted to see in the Hungarian capital. We did miss out on a visit to one of Budapest's famous thermal baths, but the peculiar hotel pool that Nicky and I used yesterday made up for that, in a way. By 8 a.m., following one final circuit 'round the groaning breakfast buffet table, we're on our way to Budapest's Keleti (East) railroad station. There, we take our first-class seats aboard Austrian Railways' "Railjet" and are soon heading for Wien (Vienna) Westbanhof station.
First-class isn't the highest class of train travel available on the "Railjet," but you could have fooled us: we get seat-side snack service (trying some wurst on for size) and have plenty of leg room. It is definitely a strange feeling traveling in such comfort over approximately the same route that my Dad took when he escaped the country in 1949. We don't have to show our passports at the final Hungarian station; indeed, were it not for the electronic map in the train car, we wouldn't have known when we crossed the border. We travel through farmland that becomes noticeably tidier and more organized once we're in Austria. Austria's commitment to alternative sources of energy is also very evident as we zoom by several sizable wind farms, all with turbines pin-wheeling away.
We arrive at our hotel -- the Hilton Vienna Plaza -- just in time to witness the concluding stages of a bike race on the famed Ringstrasse. Granted, these fellows can't be among the best bikers in Europe, since the latter are presently struggling up hill and coasting down dale in the Tour de France. But our bus driver tells us that the competitors have pretty much crossed Austria, and the temperature remains in the 90s, so who are we to flyspeck their game efforts?
First-class isn't the highest class of train travel available on the "Railjet," but you could have fooled us: we get seat-side snack service (trying some wurst on for size) and have plenty of leg room. It is definitely a strange feeling traveling in such comfort over approximately the same route that my Dad took when he escaped the country in 1949. We don't have to show our passports at the final Hungarian station; indeed, were it not for the electronic map in the train car, we wouldn't have known when we crossed the border. We travel through farmland that becomes noticeably tidier and more organized once we're in Austria. Austria's commitment to alternative sources of energy is also very evident as we zoom by several sizable wind farms, all with turbines pin-wheeling away.
We arrive at our hotel -- the Hilton Vienna Plaza -- just in time to witness the concluding stages of a bike race on the famed Ringstrasse. Granted, these fellows can't be among the best bikers in Europe, since the latter are presently struggling up hill and coasting down dale in the Tour de France. But our bus driver tells us that the competitors have pretty much crossed Austria, and the temperature remains in the 90s, so who are we to flyspeck their game efforts?
(Sorry, but we snapped only the peloton, not the lead group, which I believe consisted of only three or four racers.)
The Plaza tries hard not to seem like a chain hotel -- adding such little touches as a child-sized set of stairs at the front desk to allow its "little guests" to sign in alongside the big'uns -- but Nicky's and my room definitely looks more like what we're used to in America. The water from the tap is clear and ice-cold, no surprise given that Vienna gets its water directly from the Alps. The air conditioning, however, is certainly not up to U.S. standards. (I just saw on the news where over 500 Belgians have died during the recent heat wave; maybe we should have made a health-based argument to the hotel staff to turn up the A/C.)
After a brief rest, we strike out for the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna's (somewhat louder) answer to Budapest's Fine Arts Museum. The KHM is closed on Mondays and we won't be in town on Tuesday due to our planned trip to Salzburg, so this is our one chance to sample one of the world's better museums (though it will only be open for another hour or two). It's boiling hot, so we make use of Vienna's extensive Unterbahn system to get to Museumsquartier -- learning along the way that one must always push the button to open the car doors. (Don't worry, we only went one stop too far and were quickly able to double back.) Unfortunately, we find the KHM to be only slightly less warm than the outside. At least the lighting is more appropriate than it was in the Budapest museum.
Mom and I eyeball Rembrandt's self-portraits
Fortified by a brief drink-and-snack break at the KHM's ornate public dining area, we manage to make it through the museum's immense and world-famous collection of "Dutch Masters" before the heat and the close atmosphere take most of the "virtue" out of us and compel a retreat. Most of Pieter Bruegel the Elder's most famous canvases are here, including three of his "Seasons" cycle. Paul Johnson's fine art history text had given me a heads-up that Bruegel was well represented here, and I am glad to see the artist's remarkably detailed and intricate originals. Think Where's Waldo?, only quainter and with greater cultural import. Also on hand are some of Rembrandt's best-known self-portraits, several massive religious works by Rubens (which are so huge that I defy The Beagle Boys, nay, even Negaduck, to steal them!), and various portraits by Van Dyck. No sooner have we started on the Spanish, Italian, and French section, however, when the three of us run out of steam all at once. Before leaving, I buy a couple of Bruegel prints at the gift shop, including the celebrated Hunters in the Snow.
Curling, 16th-century style! (Detail from "Hunters in the Snow")
We have Frommer's guide to thank for our choice of dinner destination -- but the trick is to get there before we wilt completely. On the map, "Alt-Wiener Beisl zu den 2 Lieserln" is only a short walk away from Museumsquartier, but we encounter a few anxious moments before finally tracking it down. The place is described by Frommer's as a "well-kept secret" that serves some of the biggest and best Schnitzel in town. They aren't kidding about that "biggest" part. We all order the "small" Schnitzel-and-potato-salad plate, and the slabs of breaded pork with which we are gifted are roughly the size of Frisbees. When I ask how big the "large" portion is, the friendly manager (who also seems to be the only waiter on duty) points to his belly and makes a large circle. We also get an excellent bread basket that includes a soft pretzel. To wash all this down, some potent potables are needed. Mom and I each sink a half-liter of Ottakringer beer, and I must admit that beer has rarely tasted so good to me in my life. We decide to "cab it" back to the hotel, and the manager caps off a near-perfect gastronomic experience by calling the cab for us.
If the streets of normally night-life-oriented Vienna seem a bit quiet, there's a good reason -- the World Cup final between Spain and the Netherlands is tonight. The rest of our evening is spent switching between Austrian and German TV and wincing at Holland's manifestly crude attempts to keep the technically superior Spaniards from playing their game. The result is a steady stream of yellow cards and very few chances (though Spain clearly takes the initiative in the second half). After a Dutch player is sent off in extra time, the question becomes, Can Holland somehow get the thing to penalty kicks? They fall four minutes shy as Spain finally scores the decisive goal to win its first World Cup. The better team clearly won, though I feel badly for the Dutch fans watching their team lose in the final for the third time in three tries. Winning the Cup has got to mean more to a small country like that than to a large one.
Up next: We finally join Monogram in motion; the crib of the Hapsburgs; entirely too much kitchenware; in search of the Sachertorte; plus, a major-league Duck-comics sighting!
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