summer in vienna

I think I've figured out what (part of) the trip might be about. Several times in class last fall, Tate talked about Mau, whose Institute Without Boundaries produced the MASSIVE CHANGE exhibition, which, among many other things, talked about sustainable living environments. One of the texts he assigned was Cradle to Cradle , which I talked about in a previous entry. The book is about the impending need for sustainability. Just recently, I was on austriatoday.at (the online version of Austria Today, Austria's biggest English-speaking paper) and I found links to two PDFs, one on "Blue Austria" (about sustainable water resources) and one on "Green Austria" (obviously making Austria green, and how it's becoming a world leader in sustainability). Surely there is a connection. The days are dwindling. Tate e-mailed from Vienna today. He says to bring a swimsuit I'm setting things out to pack. I had passport photos taken (for some reason we have to have 6), ...

I'm starting to get things together to pack. As the departure date draws closer and closer, the reality of the trip begins to set in, along with a certain level of nervous excitement. I wouldn't necessarily call it anxiety, but along those lines. I am about 2/3 done with Café Europa . I just finished reading a chapter about toothpaste. The author brings up the point that Americans see dental hygiene as a status symbol; she refers to an American woman she met who just had her son fitted with braces. Indeed, the woman proudly discussed the cost of the braces, and although the son was in pain, he knew that it was just a rite of passage for him, like all the other boys at his private school. It seemed outlandish to her that someone would put such a torturous device in their child's mouth, if not a little vain and narcissistic. She goes on to explain that in Eastern Europe, the condition of one's teeth is a highly personal matter, and only after she returned from the States ...

This past weekend I went to the beach to unwind a little. I got the chance to catch up on some major reading, some good movies, and some face time with my favorite beach house. I cooked two incredible meals. I didn't talk to anyone. It was glorious. I'm finding that I'm becoming more comfortable with myself. After an adolescence replete with unfulfilling relationships, I'm currently forced to come to terms with an identity that has yet to be forged. Loneliness, somewhat ironically, is a constant companion. But every day, I learn and discover and disconnect and reconnect. I give a lot of thought to seemingly meaningless dribble. The more I think about it, the more I find it's just that—meaningless dribble—and I make room for more interesting and fruitful intellectual pursuits. Tonight I caught a special on TV about design. It featured two particularly fascinating studios, the Art Center College of Design and Yves Béhar’s fuseproject . Someday, I would like to at ...

19 days 23 hours 23 minutes The days are passing. Less than three weeks. I posted some new links in the Links bar. MAK is a museum in Vienna that we will be visiting. Here is a mission statement. Bruce Mau Design is a studio that Tate talked up a lot during class. I visited an exhibition his studio put on at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto while returning from Noel's wedding. The exhibition is called MASSIVE CHANGE . There was a lot to take in (I spent two and half hours there and didn't get to see the whole thing), but the ideas that were presented were spectacular, if not a bit idealistic. The exhibition is an extension of the MASSIVE CHANGE project, which presents the idea of sustainability and shelter for the entire human race as a realistic design goal. I find the idea of sustainability to be very interesting. When you put aside the baggage that's associated with "greenies" and "hippies" and "tree-huggers", sustainability is a very...

Countdown to departure: 26 days. Today I received the reading list for Vienna. There are three categories, in order of importance. The first one, STRONGLY REQUIRED, has three books: Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino Café Europa by Slavenka Drakulic It's Not About the Bike by Lance Armstrong The first book is translated from Italian. It is the fictional account of Marco Polo's travels to all the cities in the Tartar empire to Kublai Khan, and the dialogue that exists between them. Quite an interesting read so far. The next is about post-Communist Eastern Europe, and the last is the popular autobiography of the famed cyclist/human being. The last book was no doubt inspired somewhat by the bike trip to Horn the last weekend, but nonetheless I'm looking forward to reading about such a fascinating person. The next category is appropriately entitled NEXT DOWN: Journey to the East by Le Corbusier Death in Venice by Thomas Mann Disturbing the Peace by Vaclav Havel Signs of Jo...

Here are some items of interest in regards to this particular blog: The location of this blog is set in Vienna—Vienna time, Vienna date, everything. This is for added realism and hokiness. I will likely come across links to interesting things while I'm there. Feel free to check these out as I add them. There is an RSS feed. I don't know what the link is, but I'll post it so you can keep up with me through your RSS reader. That's about all for now.

Hello and welcome to my Vienna blog. Last fall, I took a class called History of Design . The professor was William Tate, or just "Tate", as he is affectionately known by his students. To be quite honest, this was my second go at this particular class, as I had attempted it the previous fall but with limited success. After speaking to Tate about my status in the class at that time, he suggested that I was "not ready" for the class and should try again the next fall. Come September of the next year, I was ready. Tate is known throughout the design programs at James Madison University to be somewhat esoteric, with his eccentric mannerisms, ambiguous queries, affinity for Army, and ability to make you squirm in your seat, wondering whether you should be meditating with him or laughing at what you aren't quite sure is a joke. However, whether you think the man is a genius, a phony, or a lunatic (or any combination thereof), one thing is for certain: he is fascinatin...