David D. LevineScience Fiction Author

I had to draw this diagram for my own sanity, but I thought it might be interesting to you so I’m posting it as well (via the “entry” script).

Word count: 2884 | Since last entry: 557

To-do list management is always an issue around here, as I suspect it is for most people. Even the professional organizer we work with has admitted she has problems keeping up with her many things to do.

One of the biggest problems I have with to-do lists is that if you keep your list online, in any form, it tends to silt up with unloved items (things that you really want to have done, but just can’t be bothered to do). On the other hand, if you keep your list on paper, it becomes messy, or it isn’t there when you need it, or you have to recopy it, and things get lost.

I have used a variety of different techniques over the years. One of my favorites is to keep the list on paper and recopy it to a new sheet every day. This gives me a daily opportunity to reprioritize, including dropping items that I’m sick of copying over and over and realize I’m never going to do. But this technique becomes unweildly when the list gets too long.

The list of things I wanted to do right away when we got back from Germany was huge, and I spent much of January unsuccessfully battling it. It was so big that I was actually stymied sometimes — so unable to decide what to do that I did nothing.

In the last week of January I hit upon a way to break this list paralysis. I printed out the list and numbered each item, 0 to 68. These numbers were arbitrary, not in priority order. Then I rolled percentile dice to determine what to do next. There was no cheating allowed — once I had rolled an item, I couldn’t do anything else until I did it. If I rolled a number greater than 68, something I had already done, or something that was impossible at the moment, I rolled again.

Sometimes I rolled a number and, staring at the task, realized that the task simply wasn’t worth the effort it would take to do, and never would be, so I scratched it off. That counts. Sometimes I would notice other items that would dovetail well with the selected item (e.g. running several errands on the same side of town) and do those too.

This technique worked well. In a week I scratched off 41 of the 69 items, and made some kind of progress on several more. Some of the crossed-off items were perennials, like washing the dishes, but it still provided positive feedback to see the list getting shorter.

An important part of the technique was having one physical piece of paper that only ever got tasks crossed off, never added. New tasks that arose during the week were added to the online version of the list for future attention. Anything more urgent than that would be done immediately.

Well, between our trip to Chattanooga and the following trip to Radcon just a few days later, my list got huge again, so I’m going to use the same technique between now and Potlatch. The list has 93 items this time, and several of them have hard deadlines so I’m going to have to find some balance between “do something that’s urgent” and “roll dice to do something you might otherwise put off.” Wish me luck.

16. Blog about to-do list

Last weekend I attended Radcon, an SF convention in Pasco, WA. The name and theme of the convention are derived from the Hanford nuclear reservation that dominates the town, which sports plenty of cafes, drycleaners, and high school sports teams with “atomic” in their names.

Last year some of the attending pros got a tour of the nuclear waste clean-up project, including a nifty folding robot bulldozer. I was fortunate enough to get another tour this year, a visit to the “In Vivo Radiobioassay and Research Facility.” This is where Hanford workers are scanned for radioactive exposure. It includes several small rooms shielded with a foot or more of steel and concrete, in which the person under test sits quietly while sensitive radiation detectors listen for low levels of radiation in their lungs, bones, or other body parts. A rank of television monitors, each showing the quiet closed-eyes visage of an anonymous Hanford worker waiting for his test to be over, looked to me like an art installation. Also very cool were the plastic body parts they use to calibrate the equipment. Most of these are solid plastic, but a few include bones from people who suffered radioactive exposure during their lives. I took lots of pictures, but haven’t posted them yet; for now you can check out Jay Lake’s blog and Flickr set.

The convention was heavily populated with young people (mostly gamers, I think) who looked just like the fans at Orycon except that I didn’t know any of them. Most of them were in costume, a motley assortment of furry, steampunk, video game, and Insane Clown Posse. I felt terribly underdressed, and on several occasions I had to stop myself from running into one of the costume dealers who had set up shop in guest rooms and shouting “Give me sometihng that fits! Ears, goggles, faerie wings, I don’t care, I just need a costume!” But I stayed cool and professional and writer-like. Mostly.

I spent most of the time hanging out with writers and editors, including C.S. Cole and Kamila Miller (who gave me a ride to and from the con, thanks!), Janna Silverstein, Jay Lake, Julie McGalliard, Alma Alexander, Ken and Jen Scholes, Beth Meacham, Patrick Swenson, John A. Pitts, Miki Garrison, Elizabeth Coleman, Keffy Kehrli, Joyce Reynolds-Ward, Tina Connolly, Sara Mueller, Camille Alexa, Anthony Pryor, Beth Peters, and no doubt many others whose names I’ve neglected to remember.

I was on a lot of programming. My favorite was the “Who’s Line Is It Any Way” [sic] hour right after opening ceremonies, which was actually a series of theatre games ring-led by GoH Joe Kucan. I’d never done most of those games before and it was a real hoot. I also participated in Pictionary and Charades. Pictionary was, as usual, highly biased by MC Radcon Bob. The writers had to sketch words such as “smiley face” and “dog,” while the artists were stuck with “the Louvre” and “the Pythagorean Theorem.” Mind you, I could have done either of those in thirty seconds myself, but the artists were handicapped by a desire to draw properly rather than executing a quick sketch. The order in which the lines are laid down on the page is also key. Charades was cut short after two rounds due to lack of participants. The first round was a movie, which we quickly guessed was Star Wars. The second was announced to be a TV show; I said “Star Trek” and got it before the first gesture. I can name that song in no notes.

There was some kind of bug going around. I caught it, but never had any symptoms worse than sniffles and a slight sore throat. I’m almost completely better already.

Bottom line: Radcon is not very organized, but really knows how to show its guests a good time.

Word count: 2327 | Since last entry: 2880

The word count figures above make no sense, I know. The “word count” is the count for the current story in process (“the vampires-in-suburbia story,” sequel to the previous witches-in-suburbia and werewolves-in-suburbia stories). The “since last entry” figure above is the total words generated on this story and the previous one (“the pupa story”) since my last post with a wordcount, which was 2/7. It doesn’t count 2719 words of notes and outline on the vampire story.

I’ve been maintaining my streak of 500 words a day since January 1, though that includes notes and outline and on a couple of those days I’ve had to state that 350 words is close enough to 500 for my purposes.

Apart from the daily grind of generating new words, I have a couple of pieces of writing news to report: there’s a great review of Space Magic in the upcoming (and final, alas) issue of Realms of Fantasy; and the online anthology Diamonds in the Sky has been released, including my story “Galactic Stress.” The anthology is free to read online, so go check it out. The hope is that this anthology will be used as a text by astronomy teachers looking for engaging SF stories to help their students understand astronomy concepts.

This is the first post with a new back-end script that should make it easier for me to post more than once a day. I know I don’t usually, but that’s been partly because it’s a pain. I hope that this will encourage me to do more brief posts rather than the big catch-up posts I usually do.

And with that… I’m going to post it! I hope to have another small post soon.

You may recall that last year I attended the Launch Pad astronomy workshop. Well, applications are now open for this year’s workshop. It will be held July 14-21, 2009.

Launch Pad is a week-long crash course for modern astronomy held annually in Laramie, Wyoming, and combines traditional lecture, experiment, activities, discussion, and telescope visits that include a trip to the 2.3 meter telescope at WIRO.

Launch Pad is NASA-funded, and the workshop pays for lodging, travel, and some additional expenses (most but not all meals, textbooks). Attendence is limited to about a dozen participants, who are selected based on audience size and audience diversity. That’s a fancy way of saying they don’t just admit a dozen white male hard sf novelists who write for pretty much the same audience. They would love to see more applications from writers of all genres, non-fiction writers, screen writers, playwrights, editors and anyone with the ability to put more and better quality astronomy in front of interested eyes, although they expect many participants to continue to be science fiction novelists as they have dominated the applicant pool.

The special guest instructor this year is Joe Haldeman, science fiction novelist, who has a degree in physics and astronomy and is an avid amateur astronomer. Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy is also scheduled to present. Regular presenters Mike Brotherton and Jim Verley will do their thing as usual, and there will be other astronomers guest-lecturing in their specialties.

The application form, more information about the workshop, a history, and detailed reports from previous Launch Pad participants Alma Alexander and me are available online. Applications will be open until March 15 and final decisions should be made by March 31.

I had a blast last year, and I encourage any SF writer with an interest in astronomy to apply.

Word count: 7203 | Since last entry: 561

All the writing I did today, I did first thing this morning.

Around lunchtime we went to the Tennessee Aquarium, which is a very fine aquarium. Highlights included seahorses, penguins, turtles, alligators, a caiman, cuttlefish, jellyfish, nautiluses, and otters.

The rest of the day was spent planning, shopping for, preparing, eating, and judging the Iron Chef Pear Battle. Steven Gould selected the theme ingredient, pears, and picked the names for the teams out of a hat. As it happens, all the couples present were split across the two teams. Mary, whose family home this is, handicapped herself by taking the smaller, less-well-equipped kitchen. Her sous-chefs were Steve, Kate, and Sean. I was on Althea’s team along with Laurel and Beth.

We had a lot of fun playing with food, cooking things we’d never even heard of before (Beth’s dad is a chef and told us how to prepare a gastrique), and both meals came out fabulous. Eight courses all told: soup, salad, entree, and dessert from each team, judged by Mary’s parents and a couple of her cousins. The competition was close — our team won the soup and salad courses, but Mary’s won entree and dessert, and her entree was Best in Show so her team took the overall competition.

Our team’s menu:

1. Pear and brie soup (served with thinly sliced pears and croutons on top)
2. Campari-poached pear and spinach salad with goat cheese, with house-roasted macadamia nuts and a pear reduction vinaigrette
3. Duck breast with pear-basalmic gastrique (aka Awesome Sauce), served over couscous with chopped pears
4. Oven-roasted Anjou pears with frozen pear-cognac mush

All served with kiwi-pear tea.

Some photos from the battle are available on Steve’s Flickr photostream, with more to come.

Word count: 6642 | Since last entry: 2390

Still in Chattanooga, at Mary Robinette Kowal’s writing retreat. In addition to Mary, Kate, and myself we are Steve Gould, Beth Wodzinski (editor of Shimmer), Sean Markey, Alethea Kontis, Laurel Amberdine, Chris Boros (Laurel’s husband), and Mary’s parents. A few more people may yet appear before Monday.

I talked with Mary and some others about the issues I raised in my last post and now feel somewhat better about the situation. Also, several people have popped up with suggestions for markets, though I still don’t know where I’m going to send that story next. Thanks to everyone who’s tried to help.

It’s been a good several days’ writing. I wrote 1700 words yesterday on what I’m calling for now “the pupa story”, and 600 words today. I’m not sure how good it is — I tried a bit of stunt writing which may or may not have worked — but it’s in the home stretch and should be a finished first draft, probably around 7500 words, before we go home. I thought I was getting better at making them shorter, and I guess I need to concentrate on that again.

We’ve been eating very well here. We went to Couch’s for barbecue last night, and otherwise have been dining well at Mary’s home: trout, curry, strata, various soups, and fabulous homemade baked goods including baklava, dark chocolate cookies, and two pecan pies. I got a Twitter account so that I would not miss out on the announcements of what new goodies had been laid out for our delectation. (We are divided among several rooms in two houses here, and Twitter is the method of choice for communication among the group. I am now daviddlevine (note the extra “d” in the middle) on Twitter. Can anyone suggest a good Twitter client for a PalmOS Treo?)

Today, many of us took in a matinee of Coraline, in 3-D (see photo below of the polarized-shades Mafia). The consensus of the group seems to be that it is visually very impressive (though a couple of us got sick from the 3-D), but the changes that were made to the original book’s plot were not improvements.

More writing tomorrow, and perhaps a little Chattanooga-area touristing.

Word count: 4252 | Since last entry: 2949

We’re in Chattanooga, at the home of Mary Robinette Kowal’s parents, for Mary’s birthday writing retreat. The countryside is beautiful, the house is elegant and hospitable, and I’m surrounded by delightful and talented writers who are selling all over the place. Mary herself just got namechecked in the Guardian (the Guardian!) as one of the glittering stars in the SF firmament.

Me? I managed to force out 750 words yesterday and they were crap.

I also just received a rejection on a 7200-word fantasy that I’m really proud of. It has bounced off of F&SF, Asimov’s, and Strange Horizons and I’m having a hard time finding anywhere else to send it. Realms of Fantasy just died; it’s too long for Clarkesworld; it’s not SF enough for Interzone or horrific enough for Apex; Black Gate and Aberrant Dreams are “temporarily closed”… I’ve got a query out at a market that it’s a bit too long for, hoping they’ll make an exception, but the state of the market is depressing.

I’ll get over this. But for right now, color my mood black.

Word count: 1303 | Since last entry: 1303

Wow, it’s been a while since my last progress report. Sorry about that. Here’s what’s happened since January 15…

I wrote at least 500 words every single day since January 1 (this is not a new year’s resolution for me, but it is a goal). However, I’ve been a terrible procrastinator, putting off the writing until the end of the day every day, and often don’t finish until well after midnight. This habit is costing me sleep and I want to change it. However, that’s not going to happen today. Maybe tomorrow.

I completed the story I was working on in my last post. The first draft was8588 words, which I immediately whacked back to 7199 words. I sent it to my critique group and the reactions were quite positive, though I do have some changes to make before I submit it. To be honest, though, between changes in my writing and changes in the critique group, I wonder how much they can do to help my stories any more. They’re great at spotting big problems, but I’m not sure they can make the difference between “publishable” and “no editor worth her salt would possibly pass this one up,” which is what I’m shooting for these days.

I started another story immediately after completing that one (that’s the 1303 words above). Because I was unsatisfied about the lack of brainstorming and outlining I’d done on the previous story, I decided that notes and outline count toward my 500 words per day goal. This may have been a mistake, as I spent 11 days writing 6000 words of notes and outline, which feels like too much. I need to find some kind of middle ground. (This particular story may have suffered from some other things going on that made me reluctant to commit to the story and begin drafting. I think I have overcome that now.)

We spent MLK Day Weekend in Seattle, doing a belated Christmas present exchange with Kate’s family. We also had a delightful brunch with Janna Silverstein and visited the exhibit about Lucy at the Science Center. The compressed history of Ethiopia that made up the first part of the exhibit felt tacked on (“okay, we’ll let you take this unique artifact on the road, but you have to tell something about our country”), the hands-on section in the middle on the practice of paleoanthropology and the structure of Lucy’s skeleton was fascinating, and the final room, where Lucy’s actual skeleton was accompanied by a standing reconstruction of the same bones and a full-size sculpture of what she might have looked like, was excellent. I think the sculpture was the best part… somehow the artist managed to give Lucy chimp-like features but put a human soul in the eyes.

I spent Inauguration Day in the hospital. Don’t worry, it was just a minor medical procedure for Kate. She came home the same day and has had no problems since.

We saw three plays, Apollo (a kind of collage of a performance piece, combining multimedia, dance, and words in a story of Nazi scientists, African-American civil rights, and the race to the moon), The Seafarer (a bunch of messed-up drunk Irishmen beat the Devil at his own game), and Vitriol and Violets (a “play with music” about the Algonquin Round Table, with a superb local cast). We also attended a performance by musician Jonathan Coulton, who was great fun as always (though the opening act, Paul and Storm, were good, they did an awful lot of the same material we’ve seen before).

And our neighborhood book group met to discuss Podkayne of Mars. Oh my god, the sexism! And the plot, practically nonexistent! And the supposed lesson of the book comes out of nowhere! What an awful, awful book. How far we’ve come since it was written.

I’ll try not to let so much time pass before my next update.

In December of 2008 we traveled to Europe for a Danube river cruise featuring Christmas markets. Kate spent a year in Munich in college and has long wanted to return to Germany for the holiday traditions, including Glühwein (hot mulled wine) and gebrannte Mandeln (sugar-coated roasted almonds). We had a great time on the trip, although traveling in winter weather has its downsides.

We flew Lufthansa direct from PDX to Frankfurt, then took a train to Nuremberg where the cruise started. After we’d booked the cruise, Kate was rather startled to look at a map and realize that Nuremberg is not actually on the Danube; however, it is on the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal. Arriving in Nuremberg and transferring to the U-Bahn (subway), we found that unlike NYC or London, where you have to pay or show payment to get in every time, in Germany and Austria there are no turnstiles in the subway station — just a small validator and a sign saying that you must have a valid ticket past this point. We hardly ever saw anyone buying or validating tickets (probably most locals have passes) and never saw a fare inspector. It was incredibly civilized.

We had booked one night in the Hotel Luga before the cruise, and found it pleasant and welcoming but slightly shabby. But there were Oblaten-Lebkuchen (gingerbread cookies) on the pillows, a Nuremberg specialty that turned out to be a bit of a theme for the trip. We napped a couple hours, on top of sleeping most of the way on the train… I’d forgotten how enervating and disorienting jet lag is.

After we’d napped and eaten our Lebkuchen, we bundled up and went out to see some sights. I hate the cold, but I had my down jacket, polar fleece scarf, Keen boots, and Tilley Winter Hat and was comfortable enough. (I love my fabulous Tilley Winter Hat. I bought it especially for this trip, and Kate was so impressed by it she bought one too.) “So this is what 7° C feels like,” we said to each other, and spent most of the rest of the trip using Celsius to plan our wardrobe for the day (even though much of the available information was in Fahrenheit as well). Even though my only German lessons had been a few night classes in about 1987 (when I worked for an Intel-Siemens joint venture), and I’d barely used the language since, I found that it all came back when I needed it. I wasn’t nearly as fluent as Kate, but I had enough of the language for basic touristing.

We took the Strassenbahn (tram) to the Museum Industrielkultur, where we saw lots of keen vehicles and machines including some very strange early bicycles, a miniature steam engine with little railings so your imaginary engineers don’t fall off, and two cars with front- and rear-facing bench seats and large doors in front and back (not on the sides). I kept thinking that Jay Lake would love this place.

From the museum we took another tram downtown and walked to the Christmas Market, finding it energetic and very crowded. Nuremberg’s Christkindelsmarkt fills the square in front of the cathedral, with neat rows of booths selling gingerbread, mulled wine, hot citrus punch, bratwurst, Christmas ornaments, handcrafts, and quite a bit of cheap manufactured tat. It was more commercial and uniform than many of the others we saw later, but a good introduction to the phenomenon. All of the mulled wine vendors used a system where you paid a deposit of 2 euros for the mug (a “souvenir” mug for this specific market and year, pink and incredibly ugly) and could refill it as many times, at as many different vendors, as you liked before returning it to any vendor for the deposit. The same system was used at all the other Christmas markets we visited.

We had dinner at Bratwurst Röslein, “the biggest bratwurst restaurant in the world,” sharing a table with a family who’d come into town to visit the market and do some shopping. Every town in Germany has its own characteristic sausage, which locals insist is the finest sausage in the world. The Nuremberger bratwurst is about the size of my index finger, and is generally served three in a bun (“drei in Weckla”), or six or eight or ten on a plate. I had a plate of six, with warm potato salad and Christkindelsuppe (a special Christmas soup with little strips of pancake in it). Yum. After dinner we stopped at the International Market, another Christmas market just around the corner from the main one, for mulled wine and gingerbread for dessert. Back at the hotel, I sat on the radiator for a while to warm up before going to bed.

The next day, after a very nice breakfast in the hotel, we visited the Dokumentationszentrum Reichsparteitagsgelände, a fascinating museum built inside the Nazi Congress Hall (an enormous arena and conference center built by the Nazis, incomplete at the war’s end but still standing in its unfinished state). Exhibits in the hall cover the period from the Beer Hall Putsch to the Nuremberg Trials, with an emphasis on the Party’s and Hitler’s rise to power and the huge annual Party rallies held here in Nuremberg. It’s appalling how quickly Hitler came to power, and interesting that the cult of personality was so consciously crafted. And I have to say that, bad as Bush and the Republicans were, they weren’t nearly as bad as the Nazis.

Returning downtown by tram, we had some difficulty getting past the old city wall even on foot. We had lunch at the Heilig Geist Spital Restaurant, all dark wood and animal heads on the wall, 600 years old… though it was competely destroyed in WWII and rebuilt in 1951. Lots of Germany is like that. It’s almost impossible to tell which buildings are really old and which are 50-year-old reconstructions. After lunch we returned to the Christkindlesmarkt, where we met the Christ Child herself.

Um, that may require some explanation. The Nuremberg Christmas Market is overseen by the Christ Child, who is for some reason portrayed by a young woman in a long blonde wig and a golden angel gown — kind of like the Dairy Princesses at the Wisconsin State Fair. She is selected for a two-year term and must be Nuremberger born, of good character, and free of vertigo. This last is necessary because one of her official duties is to proclaim the opening of the Christmas Market each year… from the cathedral’s balcony… standing on on a box that raises her up where everyone can see her… above the railing. Two strong guys are holding onto her belt when she does this, but I’ve stood on that balcony and I wouldn’t take the job even if I were eligible. Anyway, we saw her greeting the crowd and handing out autographed postcards.

Then we shifted our bags from the hotel to our cruise ship. The Viking Spirit is a long, narrow ship, small by ocean cruise standards –150 passengers on three decks — but as big as it can be and still fit through the canal’s locks. In fact, for the first part of the cruise, where there were some low bridges, the boat folded itself up like a Transformer, with the smokestacks, the radar mast, the railings on the top deck, and even the wheelhouse retracting to make a tidy little rectangular package. Our cabin was comfortable and well-equipped, and not the smallest hotel room we’ve ever had by any means. The one aggravation was the incessant Christmas muzak, which we could at least turn off in our own cabin.

That night we had a welcome and safety lecture, which was mostly about fire alarms and how to avoid plugging the toilets. There was no need for a lifeboat drill, as the ship is 6 meters tall and the river’s only 4 meters deep. This was followed by dinner, where both the food and our table companions were… well, perfectly nice, if a bit mundane. Our fellow travelers were generally only a little older than us, and tended to be very well traveled. They were almost all from the United States, and for some reason most of them were Southerners. (Kate speculated “Who else would choose to take a cruise in the snow?”) The crew, most of whom hailed from Eastern Europe, all spoke English.

Breakfast on the boat was a buffet with a nice variety of American-style and European- style foods. Then we all piled onto three buses for a bus tour of Nuremberg, with stops at the Zeppelin Field (Nazi rally grounds, named for a zeppelin that landed there during WWI), Nuremberg Trials courthouse, and of course the Christmas Market, where we were released on our own recognizance. Having already seen the market itself, we hit a local handicrafts market, cathedral, and bookstore before returning to the market to catch the bus back to the boat. Some of the other passengers were already getting into the Jaegermeister.

Between ongoing jet lag and a hard afternoon of touristing I fell asleep immediately, and when I awoke we’d already set sail. “Hey, our hotel’s moving!” But not all that fast… I noticed bicycles passing us on the canal-side bike trail. It was weird to be sleeping with the landscape going by outside, and the occasional BOOMP in the night as we lightly bumped the wall of a lock. (The ship fit in the locks with inches to spare, but was equipped with rubber baby buggy bumpers.)

We awoke as the boat was docking in Regensburg. We walked out on deck to watch the operation and — BRR! — immediately returned to our cabin for long underwear. I wore those damn long undies every remaining day of the trip. I’m glad I had them but I really got sick of them.

In the smaller towns we had walking tours rather than bus tours, using little radio gizmos so the guide (the boat hired enough local guides in each town that each walking group was only 10-15 people) could speak directly into each passenger’s ear without raising his or her voice. This meant that the tour group wasn’t obnoxious to other people nearby, and you could hear even if you weren’t right next to the guide; in fact, you could even wander off quite a ways. But I found the earpiece very uncomfortable, and many of the guides didn’t understand that the microphone was voice-activated… if they didn’t speak directly into the mike they couldn’t be heard at all.

Regensburg is a spiffy medieval town, featuring the first permanent bridge over the Danube (which, of course, has a story about it involving the Devil… every bridge, cathedral, and other major structure built during the Middle Ages has a story involving the Devil). We had lunch at the Historiches Wurstküche right next to the bridge… there’s been a fast-food joint on this spot ever since the first lunch break of the workmen who built the bridge in the 1100s. We also stopped for an afternoon snack and warm-up at a restaurant specializing in Dampfnudel (steamed dumplings, served with vanilla sauce) located in a tiny medieval chapel. In German, delicious is a verb.

Regensburg, despite its small size, has three Christmas Markets, the most interesting of which was the Romanticher Weinachtsmarket at the Schloss Thurn und Taxis (readers of Pynchon will recognize that name). This one was on the grounds of an actual castle, had strolling medieval musicians, the greatest quality and variety of handcrafts of any of the markets on our trip, and a huge variety of wonderful-smelling foods for sale (unfortunately we’d just had lunch). There were also campfires burning here and there around the grounds for the warming of hands and feet, which was very welcome because it was freaking cold! The only Christmas Market we visited with an admission charge, but well worth it.

When we went back into town after dinner to see the town’s third Christmas Market, we found that all of the booths had just closed except for those selling Glühwein, which were doing a brisk business. All of the town’s hip young people were standing around shoulder-to-shoulder in the cold, drinking mulled wine and “punsch” and having a grand time. It was a happenin’ outdoor singles bar, is what it was. Who knew?

The next day found us in the town of Passau, smaller and steeper than Regensburg. Passau is located at the intersection of three rivers, and many buildings had high-water marks on them. They have serious floods even today, and our guide (who reminded me of my mother) said that when the floods hit you just stay in your house for a few days. Our walking tour included an interesting demo of gingerbread making (three generations of gingerbread bakers) with samples of gingerbread and punsch. We also stopped into the local art museum (the castle on the hill and its museum were closed for the season, alas), which had a very nice exhibition of Toulouse-Lautrec posters and Edo-period Japanese prints. It hurt my head to read about the Japanese “floating world” and how its posters influenced a French artist… all in German.

That night at dinner (on the boat en route from Passau to Linz), one of our female table companions reminded me of Lois Carmen d’Nominator. And if you don’t catch that reference, believe me, you’re happier that way.

Our first stop in Austria was the bustling town of Linz, which is very excited (and very much under construction) about being the European Capital of Culture for 2009, and as the boat was not departing until midnight we decided to take in an operetta. After obtaining tickets, and sampling Linzer Torte, Kate and I went our separate ways for the day. I was the only person in the Linz Genesis museum, and found it eerie that the display cases of skeletons and swords would illuminate themselves as I entered each room, and darken as I departed (an energy-saving measure, but disturbing). I was also the only one at the tiny, and rather scary, museum of dentistry. And then I went to the Schlossmuseum, the city’s main historical site, where I was not alone but the collection was even weirder. Mary Magdalene Bigfoot. A Victorian breast pump. Frightening “updated” loden outfits from the 50s. Disturbing saints. And one room, deep in the stone roots of the ancient castle, containing nothing but a skeleton in a glass case (unlabeled) in one corner. Brr.

Kate and I met up for a quick dinner of döner kebap (typical local fast food) before the operetta. Der Vögelhandler was basically Gilbert & Sullivan in German. I could hardly understand the singing at all, and Kate not much better, but through diligent perusal of the program book we managed to follow the plot, what there was of it. It was definitely extremely silly and lightweight. The weird thing was that, although the audience laughed a lot, we were the only ones laughing at the broadest physical comedy bits.

The next day at 10am we arrived at Melk, a tiny town with a famous abbey, notable for its library and amazing trompe l’oeil ceiling paintings. What would Jesus think of this opulence? The abbey also had an intriguing little modernistic museum about St. Benedict and the Benedictine monks, as well as the Tomb of the Unknown Saint. (“We don’t know who this saint is; we call him Fred.”) The actual town of Melk was so small that its one tiny Christmas Market wasn’t even open on a weekday; we sailed for Vienna at 4pm.

Vienna was amazing, like Paris only unfamiliar. This city was the capital of the civilized world for the better part of a century, and was the highlight of the trip for me. And as this was where we departed the boat and took off on our own, I think I will stop this entry here. To be continued in part 2: Vienna and Munich.