Lost in transit

Three things

1. Austrian President Thomas Klestil died last week, 36 hours before the end of his term of office. When I talked to Austrian friends about it the next day, the first thing all of them said was, "it's so sad, he never got to enjoy his retirement."
2. At a wine tavern last Saturday (they are called Heurigen and I like them because they are casual and in the summer you can sit outside and drink wine and eat while your children play nearby: they are one of the main reasons I moved to Austria) friends were talking. One is a farmer who now works for an insurance company doing inspections, the other makes gutters. They have blue-collar backgrounds is what I'm saying. The insurance inspector mentioned he'd been inspecting a hotel in Vienna that displayed a collection of original music manuscripts by some composer. He was trying to remember the composer's name. "Something with L," he said. "Liszt?" The gutter man asked. "No, later than that." "Lehar?" "Yeah, Lehar," the insurance man said. Only in Austria, I thought.
3. In my village, I went to a farmer yesterday to pick up some apricots and eggs my mother-in-law had ordered. The farmer's wife was digging out front and when I came she put away her shovel and kicked the mud off her rubber boots and we went into the house and she gave me the stuff. In another room, someone was practicing piano. They played quite well. "Your daughter is the harpist, right?" she asked me. I said yes. We talked about that for a while, whether my daughter was still playing, how expensive harps are, but how nice, etc. The Austrians have a special relationship to music, is what I'm saying. And to work. And to death.