Recently in Austria Category

I never liked The Sound of Music. Not exactly sure why. But the opening scene with Maria singing about live hills & twirling around in a dress certainly didn't help any. What sort of dramatic action was that? Now, if Evel Knievel was jumping across some of those hills on a motorcycle, especially if there were some school buses set ablaze to add suspense (in lieu of an errant bonnet that needed retrieving), that might have been worth watching! Also, I couldn't see its connection to Christmas despite the fact that every year TV networks reran this never-ending movie during time-precious school holidays. There was nothing sacred about it. After all, it wasn't the Peanuts' Christmas special. Probably the crux of it was simple resentment. No doubt it was preempting a favorite primetime show which I counted on for continuity and moral guidance. Like, for instance, The Dukes of Hazzard.

Sorry to say, but when Maria sang, froid was what it left me.

But then I gave birth. To two girls. And, apparently, to a previously undisclosed yet infinite capacity for schmaltz, as well. In the early years, I rebuffed Chris' annual suggestion that we enjoy this "Greatest All-Time Family Film" with our little ones (for their sake, ya know, to avoid recurring night mères). Eventually, however, I agreed. For the purpose of exposing the kids to cultural literacy, thereby satisfying that core academic component for the homeschooling year. I figured 15 minutes tops would suffice. We settled down. And 2 hours + 54 minutes later, we got up.

To clear more floor space for M&K. Who were singing. And twirling. And Austrian folk dancing. Well, after first sprinting to the bedroom to change into their most billowy dresses, thereby enhancing those mandatory fru fru effects.

What a ridiculous movie! How contrived! Quite blatantly, unapologetically hokey! Why, it's a veritable medley of mush. My Favorite Things: Corny. Edelweiss: Patriotic propaganda. The Puppet Show: Herd it got your goat. And what about the cute, chubby-cheeked five year old scooting up the stairs while bidding us So Long, Farewell: Say Goodnight, Gretl! You've got to be kidding, who would succumb to that von Trapp?
 

Yep, it became our family's new, all-time favorite movie! As I dabbed my weepy eyes for the twentieth or so time that evening, Chris & I watched our spinning daughters in a revelry of perfectly goofy contentment. And only had the heart to declare it bedtime when Katrianna, imitating a leaping Liesl, came up a little short on her 16^th going on 17^th  jump from the couch to the arm chair to the dining table....

The next morning found her still keyed up, kneeling at a mini electric piano playing the Do-Re-Mi-Me-Me scales by ear. M&K then spent the next several weeks in dual yodeling-guitar lessons with Dad, checking out every How To Waltz video from the library and performing elaborate puppet shows with several stuffed animals & one marionette that they'd previously ignored.

Compared to all that, our actual visit to Salzburg was pretty uneventful. In fact, I began to wonder if skipping the authentic Austrian Sound of Music guided tour, led & narrated by affable Australian expatriates, was a mistake. I'd seen the promotional videos, I knew what we were missing: It wasn't just the opportunity to enjoy an 8 hour bus ride in air-conditioned comfort. Nor the tourism superiority afforded by a tinted-glass advantage point 15 feet above the supposedly Smart cars. Neither was it the chance to chuckle at the Aussie's gentle comedic gibes aimed at tickling Midwestern American sensibilities. Fun! But what we were really missing most was the campy camaraderie of the sing-alongs. Where every single one of the fifty passengers broke into rounds of Climb Ev'ry Mountain, inhibitions be dammed, as they forded ev'ry stream to follow Maria's dream. (Not to be irReverent, but, oh Mother, that one really is irredeemable.)

We did our best to improvise on our own. Experiencing each sequential Sound of Musical setting elicited impromptu performances of How Do You Solve a Problem Like [Insert Choice of Family Member Name Here]? And, perhaps it's divulging too much, but Chris and I got a bit swoony beside Leopoldskroner Weiher, staring deeply into each other's eyes as we crooned, "And somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something wrong." Finally, when we longed to pay tribute to Dad by dedicating The Leder of the Band Hosen to him, accompanied by a suitable souvenir purchase on the Getreidegasse, he considered breaking up The Sarkar Family Singers in pursuit of a solo career.... It took an appeal to his greater sense of Schtoompah (Richard Scarry's "Funny Austrian") to suspender his indignant oompah. Will he never learn Das ist Jacke wie Lederhosen?

Lastly, one destination, though convent-ional, did prove especially memorable. Because we ended up trespassing (yes, again) while earnestly searching for a way to Get thee to a Nonnberg nunnery! Our first stop was the Maria Himmelfahrt Church, where we listened to the nuns chanting vespers. Honestly, they were out of sight, though their voices could be heard floating forth from the balcony on high. The chapel itself was empty, so M&K seized the wedding day, reenacting the marriage ceremony with Mikaela as the whistleblowing Captain and Katrianna playing a post-feminist Maria (sans wimple, yet demure).

Outside, as we wandered around the grounds trying to identify more Sound of Music-significant details, we found the gates open, the cloistered welcome mat seemingly beckoning us onwards. We were merely looking for the refectory, not being refractory. But just try telling that to the Head Nun, who rushed out to chastise us and replace the ORDAINED PERSONNEL ONLY sign to its rightful front & center order (it had been pushed aside... Nope, not by us - couldn't divine its meaning anyhow).

Yet what intrigued us most was that she'd been on the phone when we inadvertently glanced into her office. Surprisingly, it wasn't a cell phone, as one might expect at an abbey. But, a rotary dial, clunky receiver, crimson telephone with those lit up buttons. Similar to the Cold War red one at the White House -- and, rumor has it, at the Batcave? -- with its singular, blinking push-of-a-button omnipotence.



And then it occurred to me, who could she be talking to?



Whoa, did she have a direct connection, or what? But before I could ask for a turn, just to say a quick hello (can you imagine those long distance charges? then again, she must have the unlimited calling plan... think that includes free texting?), she sensibly shooed the barbarians back outside the gate (making short Stift of us). Truly, we hadn't meant to in-nun-date or upset her. And it really wasn't our fault, it's just a bad habit we'd gotten into.

So, anybody up for another showing of The Sound of Music? Albeit, I still contend it's not really a Christmas movie. Now that we have the dvd, we tend to watch it on Thanksgiving & Easter, too.
 

And just in case you're not one of the original 13.5 million world viewers, here's Belgium's take on The Sound of Music. Of course, we Americans aren't expected to have any discriminating taste... But what's their excuse?

My first encounter with fin de siècle Vienna was in a wonderful college freshman Humanities course which explored the connections in art, literature, music, architecture & politics at the turn of the 19th century. We debated the merits of Gustav Klimt and Oscar Kokoschka and their artistic license or licentiousness. We played with Arthur (Weiner) Schnitzler and learned what makes the world go La Ronde. We listened to the atonality of Arnold Schoenberg which, to my untrained ear, sounded like he kept losing his composer. We admired architect Otto Wagner who stated "Something impractical cannot be beautiful" and was the Ringstrasse's biggest proponent (until he was awarded the city's post office as his only commission and became its biggest detractor). Finally, our studies culminated in a field trip to see an opera in Cleveland, Ohio, the reputed home of the world's second best opera company and a cosmopolitan mecca where the more flamboyant professors could whip their scarves about in urbane fashion. But as much as I enjoyed learning about it, I never thought I'd visit Vienna.

A few years later, I taught a Viennese thinkers course to high school students. To buttress my weakness in architecture, on the fly I invited the math teacher's architect husband to lend us his expertise on the construction of the Ringstrasse. He also brought along his apprentice, who just happened to be from Austria and could provide invaluable verification, primarily through head nods, that indeed a particular building existed and was significant because he had seen it himself. Apparently it meant so much to him that we were studying his homeland, he "borrowed" my text and nostalgic sentimentality must have prevented him from ever returning it (even though he invited himself to all of our subsequent meetings). After such broadening cultural experiences, it crossed my mind that some of my students might one day visit Vienna in person, but I still never thought I would. 

Then I had kids. And repressed thoughts, or at least those which related to Sigmund Freud, Vienna secession or intelligentsia of any kind. Even after finding out we'd get to spend a few months in Europe, my focus was solely on Salzburg, Mozart & the Sound of Music. A typical protective mother, I was more than willing - when it came to my own little girls - to put Modernity on hold indefinitely.
 
But then 9 year old Mikaela read a Marie Antoinette biography, and then another, and then another. Schönbrunn Palace became, in her mind, the equivalent of visiting Disneyland. Above all other places in Europe, she wanted to go to Vienna on her birthday and eat cake with Maria Theresa, Maria Antonia & Franz Josef. (I know - because Mikaela told me - Marie Antoinette didn't really say "Let them eat cake." Sorry, I guess I just lost my head. . .) But still (Bastille?), it got me out of preparations for a usual kids' birthday party - you know, making those tiny guillotine-topped cupcakes or a homemade papier-mâché Marie Antoinette head piñata (which I'm sure would have been a bust). So I agreed. We would celebrate her fin-de-décennie in ten year old decade-ends.

Inside Schönbrunn Palace (which Marie Antoinette claimed was far superior to her shabby digs at Versailles), we took the Grand Tour and saw 40 of the 1,441 rooms, including countless trompe l'oeils that were absolutely necessary to give an illusion of spaciousness to the place, blue porcelain and silk tapestries aplenty, the Mirrors Room where 6 year old Mozart gave his first concert before plunking himself down on the Empress' lap to smooch, and all else that glitters and is gilded. But, mostly, we saw the backs of the other 1,441 tourists who were also let in during our 15-minute assigned entry time slot.
 
Mikaela served as our very informed tour guide, correctly identifying Maria Theresa's 16 kids in the Children's Portraits Room and explaining the advantageous political marriage-alliances engineered by their empressive mama. We saw Franz Josef's historically important billiard and walnut rooms where he held minutes-long audiences with hundreds of dignitaries in a day. In his Spartan study, we couldn't help but wonder at his incongruous, dedicated work ethic - he awoke to splashes of cold water in his face at 4 am each morning, knelt on a stool next to his iron cot-bed for lengthy prayers and denied himself all extravagance with the one exception of a built-in ashtray in the otherwise austere wooden toilet bench in his bathroom (installed only after he realized he could devote the saved time to state affairs - yes, both kinds).

Outdoors in the "back 400," the girls were thrilled to run through two hedge mazes & puzzle out the giant Labyrinth, which proved nearly as challenging as the game of constantly jumping out of the way of poorly skilled carriage drivers and their galloping horses on the crisscrossing walking paths. Adding to the drama, police cars, ambulances and firetrucks kept roaring by, sirens blaring, across the groomed grounds to places undiscovered. We never figured that one out, but eventually realized no one else found it extraordinary, so we went to the zoo.



We also climbed to the viewing terrace of Maria Theresa's home office (aka The Gloriette) and staggered kilometers and kilometers to "hit the wall" at the Roman ruins (rebuilt for the sake of tourism). When M&K realized the Privy Garden was aptly named, more for its smell than its secrecy, we were ready to call it a very long day.
Back in the van, a cranky Katrianna serenaded us with "The Blue Danube" on her souvenir Johann Strauss mini music box and we felt inspired to look for a romantic spot to spend the night waltzing (ok, camping) along the river outside of the city. We gave up after finding only industrial-lined tributaries in all directions within 50 kilometers of Vienna. Well, sometimes it hapsburgs and you just have to rococo with the punches. 

The next morning was spent cruising in dizzying circles around the Ringstrasse. Finally, we just decided to ditch the van and go on a fortifying walk. We strolled through the Heldenplatz gardens to Hofburg Palace, the royals' winter residence, and checked out the books at the Nationalbibliothek. We even saw the exercise field for the famed Spanish Riding School, but not the Lipizzaner stallions since they were literally put out to pasture at the time of our visit and no doubt had gone on holiday to horse around at the Cannes film festival. It was a let down after our rigorous preparation for seeing a live performance - we'd watched a whole Disney movie.

Of course, every museum along the Ring had must-see exhibits featuring Klimt, Kokoschka and Egon Schiele. We skipped in concentric circles around them all. Long ago M&K had seen works by these Austrian greats in a traveling 20th Century Art Masterpieces show at Houston's MFA and it had been a limited success in terms of enhancing their art appreciation. After five minutes of observing Jackson Pollock's Number 1 amid complete silence in a room full of art elites striking poses of profundity, a two year old Katrianna loudly proclaimed, "Mom, if he was gonna just scribble anyway, how come he only used black and white?" Even if those impressions had faded, I figured revisiting Gustav so I could deliver a more sophisticated explanation that his little black rectangles were phallic symbols of potent sexuality wasn't going to prove any more edifying for M&K this time around. So, we Kissed the chance goodbye, despite it leaving me feeling noticeably ver-Klimt.

Similarly, outside at 19 Bergasse, my Id dreamed of going in and seeking the famed analytical-psycho Freud (hysterical, isn't it?). But my Super Ego said no. Sigmund is unacceptably Beyond the Pleasure Principle, especially when in the company of minors, so I talked myself out of it and was cured. (Or maybe I just couched it in the unconscious, I can't remember.) Anyway, the Anchor Clock chimed that our session was over and I knew my time with the good doctor was up.

Along the murky brown Blue Danube, the road out of Vienna was a mess of torn up asphalt, construction cranes and traffic jams. However, it did allow plenty of time to observe the city's ubiquitous contemporary art: graffiti tags spray painted on every railroad trestle, bridge overpass and roadside wall. After not "being moved" by the fine art or the bumper-to-bumper bouchon as the thermometer hovered at 35 Celsius, we took a 90 degree turn into the fast (food) lane.

We pulled into a McDonald's to wait it out, get some drinks with ice cubes (unheard of anywhere in Europe except McDonald's, Pizza Hut or KFC - yes, they are all there) and appreciate the "architectural realism" of 21st century Austria which had fully embraced the structural form of golden arches. McD's was more crowded than any spot in Vienna, but this time it was not fellow tourists but locals who jammed in to criticize, and all the while enjoy, the restaurant's fine ambiance where they could listen to the American top 40 tunes - played nonstop there, without the interspersing of Austrian heritage music required of state radio stations. There were no seats to be had in the red & yellow booths below the hanging works of iconic portraiture, exquisite renditions of Elvis, Marilyn Monroe and James Dean. So, we sat out in the parking lot beside the Blue Danube and watched a stream of guys in business suits who came after work to rakishly lean across their little cars and eat big macs. Along with fries and soft serve ice creams, M&K got a "biggie size" order of Vienna's modern realism.