Tasty (or not so tasty) Books

For laughs: Bad Eating Makes for Good Reading

Why am I suddenly reminded of those elaborate feasts described in the Redwall novels that I read as a kid? (Always including deeper'n'ever pie, watershrimp, and elderberry wine of course!)

The Most Livable City in the World

Just this past week, Mercer officially granted Vienna the title of 2009 Best Quality of Living, passing Zurich from last year... in other words, Wien is *the* BEST city in the world in which to live! (More details of the study here).

Of course, anyone who has lived in this beautiful imperial city could tell you that. ^_^ To celebrate, here's a smattering of my photos of this "very livable" city:

A Proper Introductory Post

Returning from my month-long hiatus, I think it best to start afresh; namely, after more than a year of postings, it's about time that I properly introduce this blog.

Waltzing Matelda began in January 2008 as a standard study abroad journal. Initially, I simply chronicled life abroad in Vienna, Austria. But the writer in me enjoyed the process so much that I wanted to do more than chronicle my story--I wanted to share the Austrian culture, landscape, and history as I experienced it. I wanted to provide a fresh perspective but also share what I had learned with those around the globe.

Since then, Waltzing Matelda has grown from a mere travel journal to encompass a whole range of other topics, including commentary on books, recipes, germanic (pop) culture, current events, and more. Rather than focusing only on one specific topic, I prefer to explore all my interests, providing varied and diverse reading and sharing a myriad of fascinating information.

Disclaimer: Many of the images on this blog exist thanks to the talents of others photographers or artists. Posts tagged with "photos" highlight some of my personal photographs. The banner's background is a personal photograph of Ljubljana, Slovenia.


What's in a name? A number of people have asked me about this. Yes, it is Matelda with an "e". The name may originate from the Australian national folk song, but the different spelling and the subtitle pay tribute to the travels of one Dante Alighieri, arguably one of the greatest travel writers. Even if his travels were fiction (don't tell that to Italians in the 14th century!).

What comes next? At its heart, Waltzing Matelda remains a travel journal, in that I am constantly exploring new places, topics, languages, books, and ways to expand my world-view. Whenever I travel to a new place, I attempt to provide a clear, unbiased perspective and chronicle interesting facts or things to do. My recent journeys have included living in the following cities:

Spring 2008: Vienna, Austria
Summer 2008: New York, New York, USA
Summer 2009: Washington, D.C., USA
August 2010-2011: Poznań, Poland

And traveling everywhere in between. What comes next, I can't say for certain. But that's part of the adventure.

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” - Henry Miller

Cleaning out Bookmarks

April is the cruelest month, so I might be entering a hiatus in the near future. Apologies for infrequent updates, but I'll be back as soon as possible.

For now:

Will the Real Slumdog Please Stand Up? An interesting piece about the actual man who remains the only one to win the grand prize of India's who wants to be a millionaire.

If Bernie Met Dante... As a lover of the Divine Comedy (can't you tell from my blog subtitle?), I was highly amused by this article. After all, Dante's "Who's Who of Hell" consisted of his own contemporaries, so why not update with a few of our own? If you like this idea of modernizing the timeless masterpiece, also check out this interpretation.

The Greak Geek-Off: Suvudu is hosting this contest to celebrate the recent publication of Garth Sundem's The Geek's Guide to World Domination. Test your skills and see if you can win. New trivia will be posted daily, so check Suvudu for the updated link of the day.


Finally, xkcd posted this comic recently. The bibliophile/art lover/literary dork could not help sharing. :)

Tonight, Esta Noche

The bi-lingual revival of West Side Story opened tonight. The Jets will retain many of their famous songs, but the Sharks will now be singing their same songs in their native tongue--Spanish. The NYT offered this interesting review of the show.


"The gangs in “West Side Story” shocked in 1957. Brooks Atkinson in The New York Times called their conduct “neurotic and savage,” with a code “rooted in ignorance and evil.” While writing the original book, Mr. Laurents said, he at times feared they would be too unsympathetic. Now he worried about the opposite problem: that those “savages” seemed too much like benign, lovable misfits... Because “West Side Story” deals with social change, previous revivals have been burdened with a comparison between what was happening onstage and what was happening on the street, and critics have complained that revivals have seemed dated."

Yet this revival is daring, offering a fresh perspective by really allowing language to distance the gangs for the first time, unsettling or perhaps touching closer to home for the audience. I'm fascinated and I can't wait to see it.

EDIT: The Times also now has this front-page review up. Enjoy!

Asparagus Soup

One of my favorite things about Austrian cuisine is the focus on foods that are in season and using this produce for as many seasonal dishes as possible. In the early spring, we are now in asparagus season, and asparagus dishes will be all over Wien. I was craving some good Spargelsuppe, so I googled some recipes to make my own. Unfortunately, as a student lacking some key ingredients (cream), it did not turn out like the Viennese creamy version, but it was very tasty in its own right!

I modified this recipe and added/eliminated ingredients based on what I had available. I also chose not to puree my final product, so it was a very tasty chowder rather than a cream of asparagus soup.

INGREDIENTS
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2-3 cloves of garlic
(opt) 3 stalks celery, chopped
1/2 cup fresh mushrooms, diced
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 (14 ounce) can condensed chicken broth
1 chicken bouillon cube
2 cans full of water (about 2 cups)
(opt) 1 potato, peeled and diced
1 pound fresh asparagus, trimmed and coarsely chopped
3/4 cup half-and-half (or milk)
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
(opt) 1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper
approx. 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
dash of ginger

1. Melt butter or margarine in a heavy cooking pot. Add olive oil. Add onions and chopped celery; after a few minutes, add diced mushrooms. Saute until tender. Press or thinly dice the garlic, as you prefer, and add to pot.

2. Stir in flour, mixing well. Cook for about 1 minute, stirring constantly. Do not burn, or let it go lumpy.

3. Add water, chicken broth, and chicken soup base; stir until smooth. Bring to a boil. Add diced potatoes and chopped asparagus. Reduce heat, and simmer for about 20 minutes. Drop a piece of old bread on the top of the soup to soak up any excess oils. Remove bread before next step.

4. (Ignore this step if you prefer a chowder-like soup rather than cream of asparagus). Puree soup in a food processor or blender in batches. Return to pot.

5. Stir in half and half (or milk for a thinner soup) and soy sauce. Add peppers, cloves, and ginger. Bring soup just to boil. Adjust seasonings to taste. Serve hot.



Though this was very tasty, I'm still looking for an authentic Austrian-style recipe. Might try this one next time: White Asparagus Soup.

One Bizarre Advertising Campaign

No words for this one. Just go to the site, and click all the way through. Introducing the Pomegranate Phone

The Pomegranate phone is the ultimate all-in-one device. It puts more things in the palm of your hand than you ever thought possible: phone, email, full internet browsing, camera, video, MP3 player, GPS navigation.

March Madness

In the spirit of March Madness, the fifth annual Tournament of Books is underway. The Morning News and Powell's sponsor this "tournament", with two books that were published in the past year facing off each day. So far, the winners from the first round are 2666, Netherland, and The White Tiger. Check out the standings (on the right) and check back daily to see who's winning. May the best book win!

In basketball news, a Brooklyn indie bookstore is starting a literary summer basketball league. However, only bibliophiles can join. Rather than trying out by shooting hoops, you try out by answering a set of questions, such as "Who wrote Ulysses?" and "What is J. D. Salinger’s most well-known book?". Be ready to analyze literature while dribbling.

Finally, if you know Philadelphia, check out Philly Lush's Philadelphia March Madness. Vote for your favorite places in the city and see if Mayor Nutter or the Philly Phanatic takes home the trophy.

A Writer's Haven in Paris

This writer and bibliophile is thrilled by the offer: writers in Paris can sleep at this historic bookshop for only one small cost--they must read a book a day.

During the 1920s, the famous patroness Sylvia Beach supported many aspiring writers in Paris by setting up cots between the shelves of her bookstore, Shakespeare and Company, and offering these penniless poets a place to sleep. Many great names frequented this shop, including Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, Thornton Wilder, Gertrude Stein, and James Joyce (Beach helped publish Ulysses, widely regarded as one of the greatest works in the world, when no one else would).

The current Shakespeare & Company (since 1962) continues Beach's tradition. Food and a bed are offered to writers, and their only rule or cost is that they must read one book every day. The Guardian recently visited the shop and wrote a great article about the unique bookstore. Down and Out in Paris: Revisiting Shakespeare and Company

Sounds like my kind of place. Definitely worth a visit when I finally make it to Paris.


A writer's cot among the shelves of Shakespeare & Co.

Check out the full list of some of the Most Interesting Bookstores of the World.

Extreme Group Bridge Jumping?

There's a new extreme sport in town, taking bungee jumping to the next level by adding a bridge, a solid river of ice, an oncoming train, and 20 of your closest friends:

English Russia >> Group Rope Jumping

More bridge photos at their source (here), but the site's in Russian.
(Credit for this find to kottke)

It's all Chinese to me!

Language Log has put together this very interesting chart of incomprehensible languages. In English, our idiom references Greek as the stereotypical incomprehensible language, but many other languages might say it sounds like Hebrew, like Chinese, or even like Spanish.

Check it out: The directed graph of stereotypical incomprehensibility

(Thanks, Steve!)

Neubau

The NY Times takes on Wien's hip and trendy seventh district: Vienna's Neu-Wave Corner

Happy Rosenmontag!

Hope you had a wonderfully bawdy Rosenmontag. Happy Mardi Gras tomorrow!

The Musical is Back!

One last note on the Oscars 2009. As a bit of a theater geek myself, I was thrilled to hear about Hugh Jackman and Beyonce Knowles musical performance last night at the Oscars. If you have not seen it, definitely check out this Broadway tribute/montage below:



Also, here's Hugh Jackman's opening song as host. (Compare with Billy Crystal's popular opening video in 2004). Congratulations to all the winners!

Sunday procrastinations

Thought this was appropriate for a Sunday afternoon, as students around the country struggle through piles of assignments, papers, and homework for the upcoming week. A friend provided this link, and the tune is so catchy that I couldn't help sharing.

I don't want to work either.

The Obligatory Oscars Post

The Academy Awards Ceremony is this Sunday (ironically this year only a few days after Wien's own red-carpet ceremony, the Opernball). Everyone has been blogging about the nominations, their favorites, and their speculations. See A.O. Scott or David Carr "The Carpetbagger" for more details. In regards to the top award, the nominees are as follows:

Best Motion Picture:
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.)
“Frost/Nixon” (Universal)
“Milk” (Focus Features)

“The Reader” (The Weinstein Company)
“Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight)

I have not yet seen "Frost/Nixon" or "The Reader", though I have heard great reactions to both. "Milk" was phenomenal, and I would be content if they snagged the top prize. Sean Penn's performance certainly deserves an Oscar for Best Actor.

But I admit, I was rather surprised to see "Benjamin Button" receiving a top nod. Don't get me wrong, it was a very nice movie, but I left the theater with the feeling that it had all been done before. Funny or Die captures my sentiments best: The Curious Case of Forrest Gump (Thanks for this link, Kodachrome Quixote!). Also, I was not very impressed with Brad Pitt. And it was a bit too long and not at all related to the Fitzgerald short story. All in all, it wasn't a bad movie, but Best Picture caliber? Really?! And with 13 nods, being offered the most nominations?!

I admit, along with most of the Hollywood community, I am enamored with Slumdog Millionaire. There's been a decent amount of controversy in India surrounding this film (here, here, and here for example), especially because of its use of the derogatory "slumdog" in the title and its portrayal of slum life. Today's NYT featured opinion piece provide fascinating insights into Dharavi, the "slum" near Mumbai that was used in the filming. According to their editorial, Dharavi is a safe, resourceful, and incredibly industrious city. Others are offended by the slang of "dog", but as Chitra Divakaruni points out, most of those employing this critique have probably not seen the movie. "Slumdog" is never a term used to refer to all the slum dwellers, but instead only spoken in specific instances by characters who play an antagonistic role opposite our hero, Jamal. Others feel that the movie heaped on too much of the extremes, including everything possibly bad and horrific to be solved by a material goal--in the words of Jamie Rhein, piling "on bad news in huge helpings with only one solution to address the mess--win gobs of money and get the girl."

These are all valid critiques, and yet I still strongly support "Slumdog Millionaire" for Best Picture. Unlike every other film on the list as far as I am aware, "Slumdog Millionaire" takes us to a world that would be unfamiliar to most everyday American viewers. There are no big-name American stars or faces that we recognize, yet we are drawn into this story and relate with the characters. This is not a documentary, and of course it is not entirely factual--the extremes must be taken with a grain of salt. Yet it is a beautifully painted fairy tale and might serve in a small way to push everyday viewers beyond their comfort zone, to gain a glimpse of a beautiful and unfamiliar culture that is different from their own, and yet the same so many ways.

New Layout?

For anyone who's been paying attention, any thoughts on the new layout? My HTML skills are limited, so I couldn't be too fancy, but I wanted to add a personalized banner. I'm picky, so it took me a while to decide on a new template. Like it? Hate it?

The picture is mine, taken from the castle in Ljubljana, Slovenia in February 2008.

Kindle 2: Not Yet the New iPod

As anyone who has recently visited the Amazon home page can tell you, the second generation Amazon Kindle has been announced. For the most part, this e-book reader seems pretty similar to the first, with tweaks to the software, a sleeker design, and text-to-speech capabilities.

But as the Economist points out, the Kindle is not yet the "new iPod" as Amazon hopes. Instead, it is a device for passionate readers (it can hold up to 1,500 books) and those who want the convenience of being able to purchase and read a new title in a matter of seconds. I've seen a few of these devices on the subways on New York City, held by professionals on their long commutes rather than carrying multiple (heavier) printed books. Publishing professionals long for the day when the Kindle or a similar e-book reader could be a manuscript reader (or is it already?), to make it easier to wade through the hundreds of heavy pages of solicited submissions. (Forget the slush pile).

However, in the end, I really don't see the Kindle having mass appeal just yet. Amazon has been very closed about their sales figures, so no one really knows how popular the Kindle really is. But they have been promoting their device like crazy, calling it a "revolutionary wireless reading device". I don't know about revolutionary, just maybe the most well-known and well-funded. There have been many e-book readers before, so it was bound to happen that a stronger company would undertake the challenge. All in all, it seems to be a rather conservative device and pretty much what one would expect from an e-book reader.

What comes next? I really don't see any e-book reader replacing the comfort of curling up with a printed book any time soon, but it is a convenience if you need to read (and carry) a lot of books around. Perhaps if the Kindle is able to add highlighting capabilities, it will make great strides in the arena of scholarly books, appealing to students who are tried to purchasing hundreds of dollars worth of textbooks that they rarely use. Or perhaps I'm wrong, and with all this publicity and the huge push behind the device, consumers will decide that it really is popular and buy it for themselves.

Personally, I'm waiting to see if Apple will have a rebuttal for this new leap in technology. They've already enabled the iPhones to download and read public domain books for free. Will they unveil a separate device, the iRead perhaps, to really revolutionize the field?

Alles Gute zum Geburtstag, Jakov Lind

We have a special birthday to celebrate today. Jakov Lind, lauded as one of the greatest contemporary German writers during his day, would be 82 today. In German-speaking lands he's right up there with Günther Grass and Thomas Bernhard as one of the best of the best. However, nowadays this great writer has drifted to become an international unknown, as his German pieces are virtually unavailable in English-speaking countries. (Thank goodness for Open Letter! They will be publishing a paperback translation of his Landscape in Concrete next month).

Jakov Lind, the name inscribed below these great works of fiction, lived a fascinating life of many names and languages. He was born to an Austrian-Jewish family as Heinz Landwirth, but escaped to the Netherlands in 1938 and took on the name Jan Gerrit Overbeek. He actually spent most of the war in Germany, hiding in full view as a Dutch laborer. After the war, he became Jakov Chaklan and lived briefly in Palestine. Returning to Vienna and finding his birth-city still overrun with Nazis, the man instead went to London and there began to write at last. Though many of his works are in German, he struggled greatly with his mother tongue, considering it a murderer's language. Later he mastered English and published works in this his fourth language; thus he is sometimes considered a British writer.

His writing style reflects his tumultuous, wandering life. Often compared to Kafka, Lind successfully pulls the reader into a wild and crazy adventure, but you can never quite trust his narration, his characters' biased perspectives, or know what is truly going on. In Landscape in Concrete, there is a sense that the end comes full circle with the beginning--Bachmann is still wandering, still alone, and still looking for his regiment. So much has happened in the pages in between, but readers feel a sense of symmetry and frustration, completeness and fragmentation, insufficiency and clarity. Definitely worth the read.

There are many treasures that have fallen through the cracks thanks to the ruthless advance of time, but Jakov Lind is one of the gems glittering between the floorboards.

The Day the Music Died

In memoriam: Fifty years ago today , the small plane that was carrying Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson crashed in rural Iowa. Don McLean later immortalized this loss of some of rock 'n' roll's brightest stars as "The Day the Music Died".



And the three men I admire most:
The father, son, and the holy ghost,
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died.