Professor Bernhardi

Walking on one of our interminable hikes around Vienna (well, enjoyable for me, probably interminable for Toby), we passed the Burgtheater. This magnificent building, built after plans by the most important historicist architect in 19th century Europe, Gottfried Semper, the model for every late 19th century theater in the Austrian Empire (and a few beyond its boarders), was of course on the list of structures I felt obliged to visit.

Little did I expect that the play that was showing on its stage was going to be Professor Bernhardi by Arthur Schnitzler. It was kind of like walking past the Estate's Opera in Prague and seeing that a Mozart opera was playing. Or, l'havdil, seeing the Ring at Bayreuth. It was bashert. We had to go.

Explanation clearly in order. First off, who was Arthur Schnitzler and why does the production of one of his plays in Vienna obligate a cultural historian of late 19th century Austro-Hungarian Jewry to see it?

Schintzler, a product of Leopoldstadt, was a doctor by profession, but in mid-life turned his attention to his true passion: writing, especially for the theater. Through his body of work, usually deeply complex and starkly honest in its presentation of such issues as sex, psychological turmoil, and the hypocrisy of class, race and morality in fin-de-siecle Vienna, he is considered along with Freud, Otto Weininger , Gustav Mahler and Theodor Herzl to be among the definitive symbols of the turn-of-the-century in Vienna. His most famous play is most likely Reigen (or Le Ronde), which has seen several interpretations and reincarnations, most recently as The Blue Room on stage in London and New York, and the novella Traumnovelle (Dream Story), most famous to movie fans in its incarnation as Eyes Wide Shut, a sex-o-rama starring Tom Cruise and Nichole Kidman.

So while clearly there was a little bit of the dirty old man about him, Schnitzler is nevertheless rightfully considered a master of shading the subtleties of Viennese social structure -- the cuts, the hierarchies, the wounds -- and especially the simultaneously tragic, pathetic, and often noble attempts of middle and upper middle class Jews of his time to navigate the treacherous waters. Because he did it, he certainly knew of what he spoke.

I know him best through his novel, Der Weg ins Freie (The Road into the Open), which is to my mind about the best tableau of the interior life of Jews in fin-de-siecle Vienna every produced. Remarkably, the hero of the novel is a Gentile nobleman/would-be-composer, who spends most of the novel living a life of leisure and hanging out in the cafes with his Jewish friends. It is a fantastic book, and I can't do it justice here.

The play Toby and I saw, Professor Bernhardi, was a work from the middle of his career. Perhaps its greatest claim to fame was that, ironically, it was not allowed to premier at the Burgtheater when it was written. Considered obscene by the Imperial censors, it was banned when it was written in 1912, opening instead (surprisingly) in Berlin. The reason usually understood for its being banned was its mention of abortion, which in the Catholic Austrian Empire was a subject strictly verboten and taboo in public life. But I suspect that there was something else at work: the frank depiction of institutionalized and sensational anti-Semitism in the Vienna of Karl Lueger.

The play opens in Bernhardi's clinic, where the Professor is the chief physician and head of the practice (among other things, the play is rather enlightening as to the structure of Viennese medical institutions in the early 20th century). The scene is the office, with two doors, one on the right leading to the patient's ward, on the left leading out of the office. At the opening, a woman (off stage) is dying of sepsis brought on by a botched abortion. The doctor's various interns and a nurse are discussing the case (and also flirting -- gotta get the sex in somehow). The professor comes in, and is informed that the patient is dying, but is in a state of sepsis-induced euphoria, believing not only that she is well, but is the happiest she has ever been (the only sounds you hear from the woman is her singing childhood songs off stage). Shortly after, a priest enters. He'd been told that there was a woman who needed last rights, and he was here to administer them.

This is where the play becomes interesting. Not wanting the patient to be awakened from her euphoria (presumably a priest giving her last rights would make her realize the reality of her situation), Bernhardi (did I mention he is a Jew?) forbids the priest from entering.

A fascinating moral dilemma emerges: is it preferable for a dying person to live out their last moments as painlessly as possible, or for them to be made aware of their immanent demise for the sake of a religious ritual? Bernhardi and the priest represent two poles: the priest an anti-humanist, religious certainty (of COURSE she should be administered the last rights, regardless of the outcome, as it is her eternal soul that is in peril), and Bernhardi, a Jew, a man of science and pragmatism, whose humanity places his care for the patient's state in the here-and-now first.

But in the course of their argument, the nurse (who has been tipped off by the priest when Bernhardi wasn't looking, and told she should inform the patient that the priest was here) has gone into the ward. You hear a shriek where there was pleasant singing, and then the nurse rushes in to tell the doctors and Bernhardi that the woman is dying. What Bernhardi fears would happen has taken place: knowledge of her dire condition has exacerbated it, destroyed her sense of euphoria, and with it her body collapses. The woman dies. Bernhardi, frustrated, angry, emerges, the priest, realizing what has happened, takes off his collar. Bernhardi walks over to the priest, and actually seems to try and offer cold comfort: it wasn't the priest's fault, as her death was unavoidable.

Rather than taking solace, the priest, far from feeling any responsibility, accosts Bernhardi angrily, and with anti-Jewish innuendo: it was not he, a priest who was doing his holy duty, who should feel in any way responsible; it was Bernhardi, a Jew with now knowledge of the True Faith, who bore the responsibility for endangering the woman's soul. The priest vows that this will not be the end, and storms out of the ward.

Fast forward, and the priest has gone to the newspapers (the depiction of Viennese public opinion and the role of newspapers, etc., is really first rate), and worked its way up to the important donors to the hospital, even to the Reichsrat itself. Bernhardi is attacked, accused in terms that resemble ritual murder accusations, his practice endangered.

Well, it was here that Toby and I had to leave. You see, we bought the 5 Euro tickets...which got us in the door, but also in the nosebleed seats far above the stage. The play, as captivating as it was to me (who actually understood what was going on), was unintelligible to Toby (his German, I'm afraid, isn't quite as good as his Hebrew). And the heat from the stage lights seemed to rise up right to our section. Although Toby was an INCREDIBLY good sport -- he was all for going -- and although he took everything in stride, including the bad view of the stage, the heat and the German, was clearly fading, and there was, for some ungodly reason, no intermission. We ended up sneaking out a door nearby -- luckily I had the foresight to buy tickets on an aisle.

So, hats off to Schnitzler, who wrote a great play -- I've downloaded the text to my ipad so that I can actually find out how it ends. Hats off to the actors, who were great. But most of all, hats off to my intrepid travel companion and research assistant, Toby, who was such a trooper. It was an experience I know I'll never forget, and I've probably finally succeeded in my real goal: making sure the LAST thing Toby wants to do for a living is become an academic :-).

A Hard Day

Last Monday was Yom Hazikaron, or Israeli Memorial Day. While like most American Jews I've always been vaguely aware of Yom Hazikaron, always exactly before Yom Ha-atzmaut (Israeli Independence Day), I admit I've never paid much attention to it. It is one of the trio of "modern" Jewish holidays (although considering the fact that two of these days commemorate tragedies for the Jewish people - Yom Hazikaron and Yom Ha-Shoah, "holidays" doesn't seem like the correct word) that we in America are accustomed to noting with some kind of programming if we're affiliated with a Jewish institution, but aside from that generally pass with only minor notice by more attentive and affiliated American Jews, and without much notice at all by many.

My experience here was, perhaps needless to day, entirely different. It was so different that it kind of sneaked up on me and I found myself unprepared not only for the patterns of observance here, but by the deep emotions the day brought up in me.

Let me start by saying that for the first time in my life, a day of remembrance for fallen victims of national conflict actually conveyed, on a collective level, the depth of pain that it is supposed to. Never have I been so pointedly aware of how far from showing actual respect and dignity for those we are supposed to be remembering in our corresponding American days of remembrance -- Memorial Day and Veteran's Day -- we have gone in American society. I'm not placing blame, I'm simply observing. For me, like I'd wager most Americans who have not lost any family members in conflict (which, today, is MOST Americans, period -- and the serious implications of that deserve far more space than I can devote here), aside from very basic and frequently unobserved pieties, Memorial Day is simply a day off to take advantage of sales.

Not so here. Yom Hazikaron started, startlingly for me, with a minute-long siren at 8 pm sharp. For those who have not heard these sirens, the sound is hard to describe. It is sharp, scary, loud, and dissonant due to the fact that there are several sirens sounding at once at slightly different pitches. It is an uncomfortable experience -- and even if it isn't by design, the effect is appropriate for the sentiment of the day. Normal life is disrupted in small but obvious ways. Take television: at the siren, all normal Israeli programming went off the air, including on the cable stations (we have Hot, and all of the Hot stations -- that is, the cable company's stations that are not part of the Israeli networks). On many of the stations, a message screen that read "יום הזיכרון לחללי מערכות ישראל" literally "Day of remembrance for Israel's Fallen Soldiers," usually with an image of a Yizkor candle and an Israeli flag in some form. The only "active" broadcasting was a combination of coverage of the various official tekesim (assemblies) in honor of the day. The last, and to me most poignant broadcasts were of "sartei zikaron," memorial films. These were videos made in honor of a specific soldier, including long interviews with the families and loved ones.

One of them I watched at length, and it was about 20 minutes long. It described a bicycle ride throughout the entire country that was done by the brother of a fallen soldier, an avid cyclist. The whole film was moving, but there was one moment that hit me powerfully. The cyclist spoke for a moment about his feelings about his brother's death, and the raw emotion of the comments, coupled with the simple poetry that Hebrew, unlike any other language I know, can convey even in the most basic statements. One sentence struck me. "כעסתי -- כעסתי על הארץ הזות, שאוכלת יושביה". "I was angry -- angry at this land that consumes its inhabitants." The source of this sentence -- or the last clause rather -- is Bemidbar (Numbers) 13:32, and are among the words used by the spies sent by Moses to scout out the land of Israel to denigrate the land. These words and the rest of the report doom all of the generation to wander for forty more years in the desert.

Here, they are the anguished words of a grieving brother. Although I've read them countless times in their original context, never have they hit me so powerfully.

My regularly-scheduled Hebrew session with my friend and Hebrew instructor Shira was supposed to start at 10, which would have meant that it ended at 11, the time of the second jarring siren that sounds for a minute of silence. This is what most Americans who have any sense of what happens in Israel on Yom Hazikaron know about -- it is during this siren that all activities in the country stop, all stand -- even those who happen to be driving a car at the sounding pull of the road and step out of their cars, which are among the more familiar images one sees in the newspapers.

As it turned out, we didn't get started at 10:30, and the siren went off just as we were beginning to go over the talk about Birnbaum I've been translating into Hebrew. Two sentences in, and the sirens sounded. We stopped, obviously, stood up. The siren went on for what seemed like a very long time...it's amazing how long a minute can seem.

It is strange and moving for me to be in a place where a day like this affects everyone, on every side of the political spectrum, so deeply. In Toby's case, the school had (as all, I believe, do) a tekes, an elaborate assembly which included, apparently, in addition to the more somber remembrances, re-enactments of battles. This I found deeply disturbing. Although I am generally quite happy with Toby's experiences at Yehudah ha-Levi, there are moments that I realize the distance between myself and the da'ati community here and at home. One of those moments came when I asked Toby what he thought about the tekes; his response? "The battles were really cool...the kids looked really realistic when they died" [then brief demonstration of the facial expression of one of the dying "soldiers"] "and the Arabs looked really realistic." Yikes. Disturbing doesn't quite begin to describe my feeling at this response; still, he is seven, and it provided a good moment to discuss why this whole setup was a bit problematic.

Let us look forward to the day when Yom Hazikaron is a day that we are able to remember the dead -- all the dead [המבין יבין] -- with sadness at the losses, but with a reasonable expectation that more will not be added to their numbers. Utopian, I know, but if we can't hope, what is this day for in the end?

The Beethoven Frieze

One of the highlights of our trip to Vienna for me was the opportunity to visit a place deeply important to me personally and professionally as a cultural historian, the Secession museum. Situated between the Opera and the Naschmarkt (Vienna's answer to the shuk), the Secession has loomed large in my imagination of the city, yet I had never seen it in person before now.

First, a little personal background and historical context. The Secession building was the culmination of a bold project undertaken by the Vienna avant-garde at the end of the 19th century. Like the French artists of preceding decades who broke away from the "academic" schools of art that dominated in the middle of the 19th century, the Secessionists made their reputation in their break from the artistic establishment in Vienna -- Gesellschaft bildender Künstler Österreichs, Künstlerhaus [The Society of Austrian Visual Artists, Kunstlerhaus] -- in 1897. The dominant style of the Kunstlerhaus, as with most establishment visual arts in the 19th century, was Historicism, which also happened to define other forms of design (especially architecture). In 1897, revolting against this dominant mode, artists including Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser, Joseph Olbrich and others demanded a turn to the modern style of the time, which we usually associate with the various labels including Art Nouveau ("New Art"), Beaux Arts, Jugenstil, and, of course, Secession. Each of these titles more or less describes elaboration on similar themes in different places, especially France, the United States, Germany, and Austria-Hungary, all of which developed their own expression of the style.

The figure most celebrated as central to the Secession movement and its style is, of course, Gustav Klimt. We are all familiar, I imagine, with his classic style, and especially his use of detailed human faces surrounded by elaborate patterns of color and gold leaf -- probably most famous in the (often reproduced) image "The Kiss." Of course the style represented by Klimt's work extended far beyond painting; in fact, the greatest impact of the Secession was probably on design, including shapes and patterns of all sorts of objects from household items, to building details, to buildings themselves, examples of which one my find all over Vienna, Prague and Budapest (each of which had their own form of Secession). One of the most prominent architects and builders in Vienna, Otto Wagner, turned himself from late historicism in his buildings to become a member of the Secession, and his mark on the urban landscape of Vienna is profound and unmistakable.

The building most associated with the Secession, however, is not Wagner's work, but is the work of founding member Joseph Maria Olbrich, a hall designed as the gallery for the work of Secession artists, the Secession Museum. The building was, to say the least, unique for its time: a massive, temple-like structure topped by an effervescent dome of golden leafs, it is surrounded by decorations with classical motifs re-imagined in Secession style. Above the main doors are a trio of gorgons (snake-haired women from Greek myth) whose snake-hair intertwines the words "Mahlerei -- Architektur -- Plastik" (painting, architecture, sculpture). Above them, in huge letters, the motto "Die Zeit Ihre Kunst -- Der Kunst Ihre Freiheit" (To each age its art, to art its freedom) -- which I regard one of the most succinct and magnificent statements about art of all time. Walking around the building one encounters other wonderful little design elements -- a trio of owls on the sides, and of course the delightful little turtles (see post "Wien noch einmal" for a pic) that support massive planters in front. All in all, the building is just wonderful.

But for all its beauty, the building was only part of what I wanted to see. Aside from the building, there is only one other permanent display at the Secession, a series of friezes (really murals, I would say, as they are painted and not in relief) that surround the walls of a lower gallery, the Beethoven Friezes by Klimt. These images were part of the fourteenth Secession exhibition in 1902, devoted to Beethoven and the most famous of all Secession exhibitions, and used to be in the main, upstairs gallery space. They were part of a larger display that originally included a massive, seated sculpture of Beethoven by Max Klinger (not to be confused with Maxwell Klinger, Jamie Farr's crossdressing clerk in MASH). The statue itself is now in Leipzig (I believe), but the Klimt murals were preserved and eventually moved to a lower gallery.

Now before this trip, my main exposure to the Beethoven Frieze was in Karl Schorske's famous book on turn-of-the-century Viennese culture, Fin-de-Siecle Vienna, to this day the most important text on the cultural and intellectual history of that period. And while the book has been a consistent inspiration to me since I was an undergraduate -- in fact, it is probably the book, more than any other one, that made me want to do what I do for a living -- the images of the Beethoven Frieze that it contains are anything BUT compelling. They are included as part of a larger chapter on Klimt, and for reasons that I assume have to do with publishing constraints, the only images of the Beethoven Friezes are these pretty shabby black-and-white images (there may have also been a color plate, but I don't remember just now). They never blew me away, that's for sure, and although I appreciated their importance as part of Klimt's ouevre, I was always much more interested in his other work, especially his portraits and landscapes.

So when Toby and I couldn't get in to the Secession on Sunday as planned, I really didn't give much thought to going back. I figured that I had seen what I came for, as the current exhibitions were not of much interest to me. But on Tuesday, we found ourselves once again in the neighborhood of the Secession, the doors were open this time, and I once again wondered whether perhaps it might be worthwhile to go see the Beethoven friezes. After walking past the building to the Naschmarkt, then back, I decided that it would be a mistake not to go.

And I was right. For the most part, the current Secession is used for exhibitions of contemporary artists, and the friezes have been removed (in rather bad taste, if you ask me) to a dedicated space downstairs. (Interestingly, the museum directors seem to know what the actual draw is -- there are two admissions charges, one for the upstairs exhibits and one for the Beethoven friezes -- and the second one is more expensive!)

Paying our entry fee (8.50 Euro! Yikes!), Toby and I went in, and wandered downstairs. The building is quite spare in the interior design department. Walking down the stairs, we found a large-scale cutaway model of the museum, which was quite interesting. But it was upon walking through the doorway to the room that held the friezes that I realized it was worth every Euro cent.

I've heard many times that one can't really appreciate major artworks without seeing them in an unmediated setting. Books and posters and other reproductions just don't cut it. And while I'd generally agree that this is true in a technical sense -- you can't have a very good sense of Monet's "Waterlilies" without seeing how big it is, for instance. Yet I'd never really had the sense of an emotional difference -- that is, that I was somehow moved more deeply by encountering an actual piece of art. Well, maybe once, when I saw a Van Gogh "Sunflowers" for the first time in the British Museum when I was 17.

This was different. The friezes -- really four distinct tableaus which progress in a narrative around the room -- were magnificent in person. Although I can't really convey the power of the entire work here, I'll post here the images in order. The basic idea of the friezes is to graphically represent the music of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 (here is a sample -- Lenny Bernstein and the Vienna Philharmonic -- skip to about minute 3.37 for the music -- for those who aren't familiar), known most widely for its setting to music Schiller's chillingly beautiful poem, "An der Freude," "Ode to Joy" (here is the text in German and English of the Schiller poem -- it's worth reading and savoring). Klimt imagines the progress of the symphony as an existential description of both the be conflict tween despair and joy in the individual psyche and of on the scale of the human experience writ large. The first image is of a knight being urged forward by frail human forms, weak and pleading for a champion in the struggle against despair. The second image, actually the largest and most elaborate of the four, is a panel depicting all of the sources of pain and despair in the human experience, represented by a large hairy beast, Typhoeus, a winged gorilla surrounded by gorgons on the one hand representing sickness, madness and death, and on the other by female forms representing lasciviousness, wantonness, intemperance. Moving on to the third image, after this monstrous tableau, one finds a solitary female figure, carrying a lyre, representing the glimmer of hope for the triumph of joy through art. Finally, in the last and, in my opinion, most magnificent tableau (see image at top of post), a choir of Klimt-ian angels sing in ecstasy as a couple embrace, having realized the transcendent joy of love.

Even as I write these words, I'm getting choked up. It was this last image that really hit me most profoundly -- the perfect balance of the angels and the embracing couple, the complete resolution of pain and suffering through universal love. Not love tied to any ideology, not some hackneyed religious or political ideal or what have you, but simple beauty, the beauty of a private moment of unmediated love between a couple, so profound as if to shape the cosmos and the angels themselves.

I can easily say it was the first time I have really felt so alive in seeing a work of art in person. It was a welcome change of feeling, a ray of hope even in a city of so much heavy history and sadness. I've never been a tremendous Klimt fan (I've always found the commercialization of his work to be a bit much), but I have to admit that at that moment, I felt he had gotten it right in a way few are ever able to do.

Wien: WIR gedenken (wenn Sie gedenken nicht)

I can't say there has been a day that I have walked around in Central Europe that hasn't felt like Yom Ha-shoah, so while it was a coincidence that I happen to actually BE in Central Europe on Yom ha-Shoah, I thought I'd take a moment to reflect on it.

First, to explain. I am not, nor have I ever been, a big fan of the approach, well-established among some Jewish groups who approach Europe by presenting it as a great big graveyard whose value is solely as a prelude to a trip to Israel. Obviously, I chose to make it my life's work to engage with Europe and its Jewish life as a living, breathing thing rather than a prelude to its own destruction.

That said, for the same reason it is impossible for me to walk around places like Prague and Vienna and not, at just about every moment, be reminded of the devastation that has taken place, of the fact that an integral, rich, and organic part of this world was viciously cut out, for the most part with gratuitous cruelty only a few decades ago -- just thirty years before my birth. Part of the reason is I know in intricate detail the richness of this world; it is what drew me to the life and career I have chosen. You can't sit for hours of the day in archives sifting through the living documents of people who lived in and walked on the very streets Toby and I have wandered every day without feeling an unresolvable sense of loss.

I find it hard to understand how people really "enjoy" traveling around here. I benefit deeply from coming here, but, try as I might, I just can't wrap my head around this being a place for a pleasure holiday. I think that may be why, after about three days in any of these cities, I become more and more irritable, wading through groups of people for whom strolling these beautiful streets is a laugh, a great place to party, or whatever. I've watched things like Rick Steve's shows on Central Europe, how he talks in such blithe tones about the good shopping, the neat sites and wonderful cuisine not to be missed, and I honestly can't relate to this approach.

This is not to say that I fault or blame people who DO enjoy visiting Central Europe this way, just that I can't really share that feeling.

Alright. Toby and I took one of our tiulim this evening, and although it was a day late, I cannot think of a more fitting observance of Yom Ha-Shoah. Part of the reason we came here was to document the sense of urban space as lived in Jewish history, to gain access to the places about which I write as a "walker in the city," as a person seeing the world as it was seen by my subjects.

And, in a place like Vienna, a major part of this, the sacred life of Jewish Vienna -- the life of the synagogue -- is all but impossible. That is because on one evening (ONE evening), November 9-10, 1938, every synagogue in Vienna (with the exception of the Seittenstettengasse synagogue) was destroyed.

To say this as a fact is not new. But what it means, what it REALLY means in terms of space, plaster, bricks, wood, sacred objects, Torah scrolls -- to say nothing of the lives of those who came to the places week after week, who celebrated the major events of their lives in them, or even the most mundane acts of piety (or lack thereof) -- is hard to conceptualize.

So here is my feeble attempt: by photographing the space where some of these buildings -- among them the most impressive and ornate synagogues not just of Vienna but of Central Europe and beyond -- once stood.

What is in their place? Where once stood buildings renowned for their architectural daring, innovation, beauty -- what is there now?

Below are three synagogues then, and now.

1. The Pazmanitentempel. Designed by Ignaz Reiser, built 1910, it was intended to be the modern masterpiece, the jewel among Vienna's many synagogues. The plans are here, and now what stands in its place: a functional, 1950s era block of apartments (the one in the middle is the actual spot where the shul stood). A small plaque marks the site's former occupant, at 6 Pazmanitenstrasse.






2. The Polnische Shul. Built 1892, designed by Wilhelm Stiassny, a renowned Central European architect who also designed Prague's Jerusalemska Synagogue. A period picture, and what now stands in its place: a functional, 1950s era block of apartments. A small plaque marks the sites former occupant at 29 Leopoldgasse.









3. The Leopoldstadt Temple. The crown jewel of the Vienna Cultusgemeine synagogues, this building, designed by noted architect Ludwig Foerster and built in 1858, while not the "first" synagogue of Vienna in terms of importance, was certainly the first in terms of design, modernity and fashion. It was situated near Praterstrasse on Templegasse, a stone's throw from the canal, and literally dominated the blocks surrounding it. Although one may see traces of this building in Foerster's other synagogues, such as the Central Synagogue in New York and the Dohany Synagogue in Budapest, the Leopoldstadt Temple was unique and, to me, its absence speaks volumes. Now there are modern buildings situated there, including a schoolyard for a heder -- thus I had to take my pictures somewhat on the sly, so as not to alarm the teachers and guards. The empty space and part of the glass building next to it, 3-5 Templegasse, are on the site where this magnificent building once stood.

These are just the few we photographed. The list is much more extensive. Dozens of established synagogues, even more private Bethaeuser, all now gone, their memory, almost gone.

When one tries to grasp the fact that these monumental buildings were destroyed entirely on one night, the sheer awfulness of the history of the last seventy years starts to sink in. The amount of human effort that had to go in to burning these buildings, tearing them down brick by brick, is simply staggering.

Now there is a real hollowness about this place.

Wien, noch einmal

A day of mixed success. Toby and I had debated what to do today; whether we should jump on to the "Baden Bahn," a train that runs directly from the Vienna opera to Baden bei Wien, the closest spa resort about 26 km south of Vienna, or to stay around the town. The deal breaker was the fact that the Secession museum, one of our must-see sights, is normally open on Sunday and closed on Monday. Better, we thought, to stick around town today and go south Monday.

Well, the best laid plans...

I had noticed yesterday afternoon while we were strolling around town that there were a number of posters put up by, among other groups, the KPO (Kommunistische Partei Oesterreichs), announcing a large march and rally in honor of May Day. When I first saw them, I laughed out loud. Toby asked my why. "Well, I'd just forgotten that Communism is still taken seriously by a lot of people here" I replied, and then tried to answer Toby's next obvious question ("what's Communism?") with my dialectic-materialism-for-seven-year-olds lecture (patent pending). The results were mixed. Nevertheless I didn't give it another thought, save to take note of the fact that there were an unusual number of portable toilets surrounding the Rathaus which seemed to be the destination of the marchers the next day.

Fast forward to this morning. As we alighted from the U-Bahn at the Opera, we noticed a proliferation of red banner-bearing folks gathering at the Operaplatz. I didn't really pay it much mind until we crossed the street, and then I saw even more, as well as a several-meter-long banner, compliments of the KPO, which featured portraits of Communist heroes. And it was wild. Are you ready for this? In left-to-right order, the portraits were: Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao. Yes. STALIN and MAO. I actually could not believe it. There they all were, tons of folks, young and old (mostly, I'd say, college-aged), from all different groups (including, quite prominently, the Turkish communist party -- I guess of Austria), marching behind banners of two of the biggest mass murderers of the twentieth century.

Now, those who know me well know that I'm a lefty. But it's days like today that I realize just how moderate I am, because I was just disgusted by this display. I mean, exactly what kind of person do you have to be to believe that Stalin represents your interests?

I was actually surprised by how angry this made me.

And that was just the beginning. Walking away from this little display, Toby and I made our way south to the Secession, only to find out that it was...closed. AARGH! We walked around the building, hoping that perhaps the main entrance in front wasn't the, well, main entrance, but it was futile. I found a couple that looked like locals who were also trying to get in and asked them, "Wissen Sie, warum das Museum geschlossen ist?" They were as bewildered as me. "Vielleicht der erste Mai," said the woman with a resigned shrug. "Walla," I replied, in what has by habit become my catch-all Arabic response to just about any news.

Leave it to the commies to spoil the day.

Well, in the spirit of making lemonade out of lemons, I used the opportunity and our location to spot and photograph several of the buildings south of the city center for my collection of fin-de-siecle Viennese architecture pics. And there were some beauties -- remarkably almost ALL by Otto Wagner.

I had never realized just how much Otto Wagner has come to define exactly what Vienna is in terms of its sense of self through buildings. So many of the major building projects of the 1880-1910 period are either his own designs (several of them also contracted and overseen in their construction by him) or by his students. It is amazing. Some of the examples we saw today were the Wienzeile apartments, with their incredible art nouveau details (see image), the U-bahn station at Karlsplatz, and of course the Postparkasse building. We stumbled, surprisingly, upon one of the most (in its time) shocking buildings of Adolph Loos (see pic), the apartment house on Michaelerplatz, and I actually appreciated why it was such a dramatic and controversial structure, even today, surrounded by Baroque grandiosity.

Well, anyhow, enough for tonight. I think I'm becoming a little obsessed by architecture...I'll have to stop by the Sigmund Freud museum and see if they dispense free psychoanalysis...maybe through one of those little penny-souvernier dispenser thingies.