Conversation with an Italian

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As mentioned previously, I met Claudio my second afternoon in Venice, where he has worked in the hotel business for 20 years, with spurts of assignments and conferences around the continent. (Not at the hotel where I stayed, though, a bit nicer one along the waterfront near Piazza San Marco.) So the bearded Robin Williams doppelganger is used to the ebbs and flows of tourists, of whom he is very encouraging, even given his distaste for travelers who arrive without doing homework on where to go. It comes from a philosophy that reminds me of the shape of Venice, the shape of two hands grasping each other, because travel, in his mind, is about connecting with new people. He has connected with scores of new people, dined with them and shown them around the city, but I wonder if he gets everything out of this that he would like because (he has come to accept) few remain in contact after they leave.

And travel is about sharing cultures, which I see as a principle benefit of globalization, but Claudio took the opposite view. Rather, globalization forces people to merge into a common identity, in the process sacrificing their uniquely Italian or Malaysian or Uruguayan identity. Understandable, especially when a journalist calls the election of Obama proof of assimilation, not diversity, but I don't buy it. We had just passed the statue of Vittorio Emanuele II, who unified Italy 150 years ago, by the time I asked, "Isn't Italy a form of globalization, writ small?"

"Of course I'm not an anarchist," he said. "Of course Italy should stay unified." But some differences between the cities survived - for instance, time adjusts, because in one city you may arrive five minutes late to an appointment, in another, 25 (I believe the rules grow more lax as latitude decreases). I would say, though, that as a string of more than a hundred islands, Venice embodies globalization, too, writ even smaller.

Ironically, Claudio doesn't even like the noise and density of Venice. He commutes from Mestre to work 20 minutes by bus, and his mother and siblings live even farther, in the countryside where he grew up and which he prefers. "Chirp, chirp, chirp, you hear in the morning," he said. He did this often, saying "Cheap, cheap, cheap," of Americans and "Bluh, bluh, bluh," as filler.

He turned political at times, annoyed with Italian officials he said are so pampered and corrupt that they called it a victory when tax dollars no longer paid for their hair cuts, and so out of touch that their campaigns oversimplify and mean little more than rhetoric. I told him it seems to be true of most countries, but maybe more so now in Italy with PM Silvio Berlusconi's free pass on bribes and tax evasion. But most of the time, Claudio matched the simple life of his pastoral background, his humble ambition being to learn to swim so that he can eventually own a gondola in Venice.

Venice - three photo albums

1. Here is the Facebook album of scenic Venice,
2. Carnevale, and
3. Random but notable images

The sun, and other pleasures of Venice

How depressing, to return to a frozen Budapest after three days of not just Venetian sun, but warmth, too. It did not hit me immediately because, after a 13-hour train ride, we had arrived in Venice at 7 a.m. on Friday, dawdled cluelessly for an hour, and then embarked on a cold, hour-and-a-half trek to find our hotel. Yes, I sold out and stayed at a hotel because it was Carnevale and we were desperate, but at least we snuck three into a double. Given the size of Venice, I still can't believe how long it took to get from point A to point B (in fact, I'm relying on my roomie for the estimate). But by the time we stored our things, there were still three hours till check-in and we were all so tired from the hellish train ride (a story for another time) that a few of us just sat on church steps 10 meters from the Canale della Giudecca, listening to an accordionist and guitarist play "Strangers in the Night."

It was then that we began to notice the sun. There had been a reasonable number of bright days in Budapest, but none that came down on us like swords and blinded us happily and lulled us into a drowse. None that masked the chilly air and made jackets for once superfluous. We couldn't have asked for a better complement to the canals: I don't know why we, like raccoons, find shiny things so alluring, but in the water, sunlight danced from one small wave to the next, dulling when clouds passed over. I'd like to think of them as sprites or some other animate creations, but it's not true, even as analogy. There's not a set number of sparks that leap into view, they're not real, they just come and go with every bend of the waves, when the sun, water, and eye form the right angle.

Truth be told, those two - the water and sunlight - were the reasons I went to Venice. Carnevale had something to do with it, only in that I had been meaning to visit the city, and this festival gave my friends more incentive to go, so I joined them. Why not enjoy the masks and costumes? And I did, but they get old, fast. I met Claudio, who lives 20 minutes outside Venice and has worked there for two decades. Without sounding jaded or disenchanted, he said Carnevale used to be about making costumes, participation, but now 90 percent of the people don't dress up and most who do, buy their outfits. It's more of a fashion show now - both literally, as grand and colorful dresses stroll across platforms in Piazza San Marco, and practically, as strangers ask strangers to stop for a photo.

"But you don't dress up," I pointed out.

"Yes, but I'm not participating. I don't come here for Carnevale," Claudio said. "Other people say, 'I'm going to Carnevale.' You ask, 'What will you wear?' And they say, 'Nothing.'"

What surprised me more was that Elizabethan dress was only the beginning; people came out as Mario and Luigi, bears, clowns, and my personal favorite, mummies with "third legs." I was afraid the weekend would be too New Orleans, or Times Square during New Year's, but it was also another Halloween.

I said Claudio was not jaded or disenchanted, though, because he reasoned that this might not be his ideal Carnevale, but it was in the spirit of Carnevale nonetheless: it was a time for people to do as they would and not to follow rules, so however the holiday changed was natural because it reflects always the desire of the people.

Vienna - photo albums

[Click on the headline for the Facebook album]

And here are more photos from Vienna's torture museum and amusement park.

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Listening to: Green Day, "Emenius Sleepus"

Art in Vienna

[Click on the headline for the Facebook album]

Three hours away by train, Vienna makes for a popular weekend trip, so I took one with my study abroad program. Going into these things, I'm never armed with enough background knowledge, but with a general understanding of the Habsburgs, the World Wars, and Kurt Waldheim, I could appreciate the time there - at least more so than the people who inspire the "There are no kangaroos in Austria" postcards. Seriously. I don't forgive the ignoramus I encountered at Columbia who believed Schwarzenegger is from Australia.

I will grant, though, that there is some benefit to not doing your homework, namely, the pleasant surprise in discovering just how much art the Habsburgs amassed. Bruegel! Rembrandt! Even Raphael! It almost made up for all the art I missed in Rome (I forgot most museums close Mondays). There is something magical about standing a foot away from Madonna of the Meadow or Napoleon of the Saint-Bernard Pass, remembering not just the hands that painted them, but the shared experience with admirers from a century ago or half a millenium ago as they interpreted the work in their respective contexts.

"I can't believe I'm looking at THE Napoleon," said at least one member of the study abroad group. But I find this initial awe meaningless if you don't get to stop and experience the process that the artist went through, imagine Jacques-Louis David (who also did my favorite, The Death of Socrates) moving from one color to the next, question why he placed the break in the clouds where he did, wonder whether it was he who created the change in texture from cloth to leather or us who imagined so. That's hard to do when a guide is rushing you from one room to another.

But even that is not enough. I sometimes like a painting or sculpture for its aesthetic appeal, but I can only look at so many Madonnas (there was just one in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, but I mean in general) and have realized I favor paintings that depict the ancient or historical over the religious or vain (read: portraits). That may be my atheist bias, but also I'm not enough of a connoisseur to value a piece just for the style, form, and decisions of the creator. It's the same with literature, except that the latter doesn't have as much leeway to offer a legacy based chiefly on the author's technical abilities. We are more likely I think to venerate the books whose meanings transcend plot and prose; hence my preference for literature over art. So it is with ancient/historical paintings.

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Listening to: Feist, "My Moon, My Man"

Day trip: Bratislava

[Click on headline for the Facebook album]

With Anna Karenina's suicide fresh in my mind, I got on a train to Bratislava, though I was only spending Friday there en route to Vienna for the weekend. It seems few visit the Slovakian capital except while passing through, and the winter cold made it even less appealing to visitors than other seasons, so I almost felt that we had the quiet city to ourselves.

As if as testament, my friends and I had trouble thinking of famous Slovaks, unless you count those who made Czechoslovakian history, and most of those associated themselves with the Czech Republic after the split. Jeff, our tour guide in Vienna and Budapest, said it was a shame but due in large part to the ambiguity of the Slovakian identity, a tool mainly of the rural nationalists who struggled for an independent state. It's true that Slovakia probably had/has relatively less bearing on international history, but I think it also seems less significiant because of a superficial, self-perpetuating cycle in which we're taught little about the country, so we teach little about the country.

Understand our irritation, then, that such an unvisited city should newly be on the Euro and relatively expensive, while the more popular Budapest is still on the Forint and more affordable. We should probably shed Hungarian attachments when crossing the border, but the difficulty is apparent when we keep trying to speak Hungarian (what little we know) to Slovaks. Then again, that probably has more to do with foreign languages in general, as people often confuse them when learning more than one, no matter how different.

An effect of my limited knowledge of Bratislava was to wander the day away, surprised by the Gingerbread-house-like designs of some buildings and amused by statues that didn't take themselves too seriously. At some point I always end up roaming the streets alone, or actually, allowing myself to get lost, like taking apart a car to see if you can put it back together. I took that time to see the requisite castle, New Bridge (main photo), and Danube River, where I would have snuck on to a deserted boat if a gate hadn't cut if off. But most of the time I didn't know where I was, walking east when I thought I was walking north.

As much as I love navigating and as much as my navigational skills improve with each trip, maps can be less simple than you expect. There can be a Vorosmarty Ter as well as a Vorosmarty Utca, or an Antelope Road as well as a North Antelope Road. My most recent epiphany is that I expect to look at a map and follow simple directions, only to immediately lose the correspondence between the paper and the street, i.e., reading the one and walking down the other. I expect something more like a GPS, as if I had a broader perspective and were to go outside myself to watch and guide from above.

I rely instead on instinct (successful much of the time) and strangers, and never worry because things always work out. While lost in Bratislava, I was lucky enough, as the dark descended and compounded the cold, that the next bus I saw would take me to the train station. I was one of the first to arrive, but the last to board because, succumbing to the negative temperatures, I bought a glass of wine just so I could sit next to a radiator at a restaurant and lose track of time in Sartre.

A possible high point of the day, I'm almost sorry to report, might have had little to do with Bratislava itself: from inside the evening bus, I watched a light snow fall unlike any I'd seen. Not sleet, not flakes, not powder; I can only liken it to sand that reflected the city lights the way clouds do, sand that the wind effortlessly twirled into a Flamenco dancer or dragged along the road as if by magnets.

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Reading: Sartre, "Nausea"
Listening to: John Legend, "PDA"

Anna Karenina, the ballet

Full disclosure: for lack of time, not interest, I only got halfway through Anna Karenina three years ago, so my generally flawed memory of literature is, in this case, an understatement. Please don't tell my Mr. Case. For his book report assignment, I stayed up all night making a 3-D puzzle of a house with pictures from the Greta Garbo film. It was supposed to symbolize the unstable home, in honor of the opening lines: "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

Ethics notwithstanding, I've been looking forward to seeing the Anna Karenina ballet at the Hungarian Opera House, partly because I've respected Tolstoy since reading How Much Land Does a Man Need?, partly because Russian authors baffle me. (And Tolstoy baffles others; at intermission a guy read the program and mused to his friend, "This Tolstoy's kind of famous.")

Right away I spotted Anna, stunning in black, and I don't know if that's an image left over from the book or Greta. Aside from her elegance, the rest of the wardrobe made little sense together, ranging from airy dresses to Mariachi-like uniforms to suits (some with real shoes). I've wondered if designers mean to exaggerate a look or if they actually try to match the era they aim to portray. But to throw one of these ballerinas into czarist Russia would for so many reasons make for a funny anachronism.

The other remarkable costume, another anachronism, came out during the strangest quasi-interlude I've ever seen: an anonymous dancer in silver from head to toe, body paint beginning where spandex ends. The strange part was his dance, a mix of modern, sexual, interpretive, and urban influences. If I hadn't been so sleepy I could have understood its symbolic significance as a prelude to Anna's final act. Instead I was in and out, my attention awakened by a near-nude scene (not as bad as Spring Awakening or Equus, as it turned out) and by a disturbing dream scene that was too meta for me.

This page won't turn into my soapbox or Sunday review (or is it too late?), but foremost in my expectations was curiosity over how one could turn such a stark, realist sequence of events into a ballet. Still I don't know. Snow White seemed more fitting for a ballet. Probably much of Tolstoy's storyline goes over one's head, even reading half the book didn't give me much advantage. All roads led to Anna's death beneath the tracks, of course, which I also wondered about. It would be too tacky to bring a train of any sort onstage, so I couldn't imagine at all how they would do it, but the answer was brilliant: a pair of gradually intensifying lights at the back of the stage suggested an oncoming train, while Anna left her shroud on the path before it and disappeared into the light. Mist filled the stage, and soon after, other characters surrounded the shroud in mourning, the curtains closing on the snowy still life.

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Listening to: Julieta Venegas, "Limon Y Sal"

Hungary - photo album

[Click on headline for the Facebook album]

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Reading: The Budapest Sun
Watching: Simpsons, "Lisa the Drama Queen"
Listening to: Foo Fighters, "Best of You"

Fries with that goulash?

Probably, the surfeit of McDonald's (McDonald's's?) and UPS's in Budapest shouldn't surprise me because, I've come to realize, I don't think twice about the Ikea's and Toyotas and other foreign brands in the United States. I might get used to it, but the cognitive dissonance (if that's what it is) comes from a number of reasons. In the first place, I thought only those in the United States were foolish enough to buy U.S. cars. A similar line of thinking follows for Pizza Hut's and Burger King's.

But there's a difference between foreign companies operating in the United States and U.S. companies operating abroad. If the United States is a melting pot, then it makes sense that outside companies would want to tap into that market and that the different cultures bring their different cuisines, clothes, and customs. On the other hand, when I see Sean John in Budapest or KFC in Vietnam, it seems to have less to do with diversity and more to do with: 1) a desire to Westernize, and 2) the intrusion of U.S. businesses.

What I like in all this, though, is the forward motion of globalization; I admit, I fancy the idea of a world government. There will be some casualties, as the famous Mediterranean diet proves. But there's some credence to the notion that as the United States (or any country) exports its culture via films, food, fashion, or what have you, other countries will better understand it. And vice versa. It doesn't seem that much different than the democratic peace theory (liberalist belief that we should spread democracy because democracies don't go to war with each other). But I don't know what potential this has. As a friend told me, and as I saw in Vietnam, globalization or Westernization may not mean democracy or civil rights; they may not get further than Britney Spears and Indiana Jones.

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Reading: Chistopher Duggan, "A Concise History of Italy" (slow but worthwhile read)
Watching: The Royal Tenenbaums (why didn't anyone make me watch this sooner?)
Listening to: Kelly Clarkson, "How I Feel"

Alice in ... Central Europe?

That I should end up studying at Central European University and that it should turn out so well resembles my fate at Columbia: each is a result of negligible research and lots of luck (not that I believe in luck, whatever that is). Basic facts about CEU I should have known, I didn't.

For instance: George Soros funded the university, which is part of the reason Russia in all seriousness believes it to be a haven for conspirators who want to overthrow the Kremlin. My Russian foreign policy professor mentioned so in class today, and considering Soros' contributions to the 1989 revolutions, it's not so crazy (he deems himself "responsible for the 'Americanization' of eastern Europe" according to the New Statesman). The professor went on to tell us about a former student who applied for a job at the Russian foreign ministry, which turned her away after seeing CEU on her CV. The general recommendation if you want to work for the Russian government: downplay your Western education. How ironic, after Russia invited so many Westerners (including Jeff Sachs, Columbia celebrity economist extraodinaire) to help with rebuilding directly after the Cold War.

Other, more relevant facts I should have known: CEU is a graduate school on a strange quarter system, so I'll be done here in March. Also, the only really Hungarian thing about the school is its location, as students, teachers, curriculum, etc. are generally international. So although I'm "immersed" by taking courses like any grad student here, it was not what I had expected immersion to mean. A bubble indeed.

The role of Lady Luck, then, is to prove that none of that really matters. Although my conditions have been a sign of poor planning, they also signify to me what Camus has said, that you can find pleasure in nearly anything. I don't think it is a contradiction to reject the nonsense of fate or luck but believe that everything ultimately works out. I get to finish the term with months to travel. I study refugee law with people from the countries we discuss or Russian foreign policy with people who remember Yeltsin's election. I constantly run into other students I recognize, the school is so small (population: 1,500).

And I find other ways to meet Hungarians. One such recent friend asked me last night, "How do you like Budapest?"

"Well, if I didn't like it, I wouldn't be very happy here," I said.

When he asked what makes me unhappy, I said nothing, that happiness is a choice and I'm always happy. I didn't notice the potential incongruity, but he tried to work it out: "So if you didn't like Budapest you would be unhappy, but you are always happy... So you are happy everywhere?"

That seems about right.

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Reading: Melanie A. Sully, "A Contemporary History of Austria"
Listening to: Josh Groban, "Vincent (Starry, Starry Night)"

For the love of Buda

Two days passed before I realized how laughable my Friday afternoon was: I walked to Buda castle after exploring the gray and quiet streets of that western half of the city, and stopped at a ledge overlooking the Danube to read Kafka's The Castle. Granted, the book's castle is more metaphorical than physical, but it exists nevertheless. My intention was only to navigate through Buda because people (myself included) tend to spend more time on the Pest side of the river, but the day was such a welcome break from the rain and snow, I wanted to take a Czechoslovakian break.

The next day I returned with friends to meander through the castle's underground labyrinth, which is not as cool as it sounds, my friends decided. And they were just obtuse, I decided. It was, after all, a simple chain of subterranean, naturally sculpted tunnels, which can make for an excursion with the right expectations. I read the description at the entrance, so I was excited by the prehistoric age of the labyrinth and its history of sheltering the war-trodden. It also prepared me for the "cave drawings" and stone carvings that were not prehistoric so much as entertainment. Probably my dismay over the manufactured attractions in Rome also softened the blow, so the "artifacts" were not as odious as the clammy musk of the low-hanging passageways.

But what I couldn't have expected amid the dripping ceilings and ominous music was the exhibit of the "Other World." First we came upon a cordoned fossil of a footprint, and I waited as my friend read the description. "They're just laughing at us," he concluded, walking away in disgust. The footprint turned out to be a shoeprint from the specimen "homo consumerus," and other relics followed, stone impressions of a laptop, cell phone, and Coke bottle (see photo), among others. I found it hilarious that those who ran the labyrinth would ever have thought to produce something like that. At the same time, as with the music, the drawings, and the dining area, the "remnants" really said something about the desperation to please tourists and the dearth of better alternatives.

But as I said, I enjoyed my first maze, as you can find enjoyment in nearly anything, and after crossing out my friend's overblown sarcasm, I wrote something to that effect in the guestbook: "Thank you for the labyrinth. I appreciated it for its history. People who come here expecting fireworks and can-can dancers prove the joke of homo consumerus."

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Listening to: Janet Jackson, "Together Again"