Sounds like a corner of my tool shed.
Is that your new pet nickname for me, littlek?
And please don't act so excited everytime you see me.
People will notice.
I'm sorry Gus, were you feeling jealous?
Hi there Littlek.
Sorry for the confusion Gus.
So.... where the hell have you been?
It's been a hectic summer, longer work hours, helping my friend redo his second floor, a few small vacations, streetfests and concerts I barely have enough time to sleep.
Now that summer is winding down I should be around more often.
Heeey Dag great description and sounds like a great bar too ... ok, now i AM coming to vienna
yes, come. Fredi will still be there. Went there last night for a glass of wine again. Then we asked some locals what is still open. They led us to this underground bar, where they knocked on a metal gate real loud to let us in. stayed until 4am, managed to drink almost 2 liters of wine over the course of the night... oooof. shady place. kinda like U Club in Bratislava, but more bar-like... Not sure if I would ever find it again though... I can try.
You seem to refer to the disco U4 in the 12th district, it seems to me:
U4 homepage
no walter, the place we went to was basically an almost bare cellar. i don't think it would make it online, plus it didn't seem to be a real bar in the first place. probably someone is running on the side, under hand, for friends and friends of friends. it had no name, no sign, nothing.
Dasha in Boxerland and Tough Body Mass
You have to accept a thing or two when you are a female and you decide, for whatever strange reasons, to start boxing. I got used to all the winks and smacking sounds as I pass through the gym real quick. After all, I'm trapped in a room where testosterone is oozing out of the walls, and that in Central Europe, where menfolk has not quite yet been subjected to the PC drill. Today I had an interesting exchange with a Bosniak - that's not a pastry (actually it is that, too, but this particular one was not. It was a young Bosnian male, aka a Bosniak. Or he, rather.). About my students' age - must have been 18, 19, who knows. He was on a stationary bike in front of me, until I punched the display out of my bike. I really don't know how. He picked it off the floor and helped me punch it back in (it is a boxing gym, you know. We punch everything.) He was very chatty, this one was. First there was some Bosnian-Slovak-English small-talk about who's from where, yada yada yada, what am i doing in Vienna, blablabla, do I like boxing, yakedy yak. Then with his broken English he asks: "are you here alone?" I, confused (I'm a polite girl and I believe in the best in people) say:"Well, yes, but I have family and friends in Bratislava.: Bosniak won't have it. No time wasting: "No boyfriend?" I don't even know the bloody kid's name, and he may well be half my age, but hey. I'm a well-brought up and dainty lady. "Yes, I have one in Boston." Too much English for him, "No?" he asks. "Yes!" says I. "Boston." "No boyfriend Vienna" he concludes. Well, no, eeerrrrh, no I guess, he's not in Vienna. That seemed to have jumpstarted some thought process in him as he proceeded to ask in now perfect English: "Will you party with me?" (probably practiced that one in front of a mirror for awhile). Now this is a moment that we all know so well. The moment in a story that's frozen and that one keeps coming back to, mulling over millions of smart and funny things one could have said, in an ideal world. Instead I looked around, my brain drew a blank and I said :"...<cough>, ehm, ummmm, we'll see." He asked immediately and confidently when shall we see, the smegging little bugger. I caught myself somewhat and asked him just what did he mean precisely by 'will you party with me", although I did have a pretty good idea. He smirked the slimiest smirk the Universe ever witnessed and said in a deep voice (and coming from a teenager to me, an old hag, that seemed funny): "Weeeeell, what do YOU mean by partying?..." Eerrrrr, blank, blank, scratch my head, shuffle my feet, ummmm. I did manage to cough up something to the effect that I don't think so, and thank him for his kind help. But I can safely say I failed the test of assertiveness and coolness 100%.
Boxing trainers are also a funny bunch. Johann sent me from machine to machine, told me what to do for how long. Every now and then he'd come to me and poke at my quads or my biceps. He'd return and make strange grimaces at me, as if to encourage me to push harder. They were interesting in a rather odd way, not very motivating, however. He is still trying to talk me into training for the ring. Eh, might as well, if he will devise a mechanism how to get me from work to the gym on days like today, when my office is cozy and warm and lit, and the outside world is gray, drizzly, nasty, brutish, solitary, and short, like human life. He also wants me to spar with his wife, the beastly Frau Klaudia! He is quite clearly out of his mind. When my ex-trainer Kostas put me against his wife Alicia (whatsit with trainers making me spar against their wives?), she punched the lights out of me and gave me a nice juicy nose bleed. But that's the darned nose ring that I have. Must suffer for fashion. Well, Frau Klaudia is also into biking. So I concede to a bike race to begin with. Perhaps 50 kilometers. That sounds a little better. If I win, I get free boxing gloves, hooray. Frau Klaudia may be a mean boxer, but she ain't, NOBODY is, beating ME on a bicycle. Hell no. That means I have to get up earlier and pack in a ride before work every day now. As if I had any time left to pack new things in. But girl's gotta have priorities. No to Frau Klaudia. Dissertation can wait.
Ehmm... arent you supposed to take the nosering out before a boxing match?
(I read that in the boxing noseringee manual)
yes, you are. but i will not. i like it. there.
Youre a tough cookie, dag.
nah, i'm a fragile girl and a proper lady at heart. really.
Yep, and deep inside, I'm one macho stud, baby... oooh yeah, can you feel it?
Mihaly Dresch quartet
I forgot how I love concerts. I avoid going, because there are people there (shocking, truly shocking), it's loud and energy draining, one has to get there, which requires dressing up and makeup.... I also forgot how I love saxophone. I even wanted to play sax when I was fifteen, until I found out how much they cost...
Well, last night I remembered both. Mihaly Dresch, the Hungarian John Coltrane, played up a storm at Porgy & Bess, a jazz club in Vienna. It was truly a complete sensual and emotional experience.
His saxophone had a beatiful velvety, sometimes almost hoarse 'shellack' to its sound. The deepest tones make your feet melt and become one with the earth underneath. The low tones resonate in your underbelly and spread warmth throughout. The alt wraps around your heart and the high pitched notes run through your hair like your lover's fingers. Truly amazing.
The Dresch quartet mixes traditional Hungarian tunes - nostalgic ballads that Hungarian officers used to shoot themselves to in the pubs when a woman left them (they are known for this, it's part of the culture. Szomoru Vasarnap, or Sad Sunday is among such ballads), through the pesky csardas that makes you want to jump out of your seat and twirl around with the nearest Hungarian - with jazz. The fusion is effortless. Dresch picked up a solid hand carved Transylvanian flute with a husky, abrasive sound to it. You could almost hear the shepherds calling across the valleys hundreds of centuries ago. In half a second he picked up the melody with his sax, bringing you right home, with that lingering memory still on your tongue - reminding you who you are, where you come from and where is your place in this world.
Now I'm not a jazz connoisseur, so naturally I focus on other things. Dresch is, for example, a perfect Robert de Niro look-alike. The drummer looks like that Irish American actor, whathisname, Patric MacSomething, and the cimbalist like that British actor that played in a movie about slave trade in Britain. Basist is a true copy of Kickycan, a member from an online forum I frequent. Now, we all know what faces drummers make. This one did not put the other drummers to shame. He flapped his jaw in the wind, stuck his tongue out, fiercely closed eyes. But do you know what faces a cimbalist makes? He hits the cimbalom strings with malettes as if his child's life depended on it, contorting his face not unlike a heavy weight weight lifter, other times looking surprised as a ten year old boy who just spilt a gallon of milk. On mother's brand new laptop. Unfortunately that's the extent of expertise I can offer, but if you have a chance, buy their latest CD, or even better, go see them. It's worth it. Here's a teaser, hope the link works:
http://video.tvnet.hu:8080/ramgen/c2/bmc/bmccd093/track03.rm
As far as I've read the Austrian news, the Mihaly Dresch quartet already had had some phantistic critics when they played at the openeing of the "
Jeunesse Festival" on October 1 in the Semper-Depot.
(Unfortunately, I don't have access any more to Monday's papers.)
they were truly phenomenal. i fully enjoyed myself.
