About fictional headlines

As they might say in the newspapering business, “Every headline tells a story”. I can’t say for sure, not being a legitimate member of the newspapering business, but it seems like something someone might have once said. Likewise, some of you, as you read this, might be asking questions like “what does that have to do with anything?” and “why has this jackhole been incommunicado for four days” and “will I ever find true happiness?”. I can’t say for sure, being several thousand miles away from the source of these hypothetical queries, but they seem like the kind of questions people such as yourself might as ask. To address them briefly: 1) you’ll see, 2) I’ve been busy doing Amazing Things, and 3) perhaps, but the smart money’s on “no”.

As to fictional headlines, they’ve become the backdrop against which the above Amazing Things stand out and gain legend status, the motif of countless adventures real and imagined, the spark point of a hundred tiny illiads. Having long since lost the tenuous link which connects punctuality and real-world consequence (in Vienna, at least), I no longer feel compelled to invent excuses for my tardiness, freeing my mind to consider far more outlandish eventualities which could befall me on the European continent. I imagine these tragedies in letters two inches high on the front page of Le Monde or Die Presse, and somehow I feel protected from their ever occurring. See for yourself.

Naked, oiled American pulled from modern artwork; sculpture irreparably damaged
Between my house and the Hofburg, a route I traverse once or twice a day on average, lies a metal sculpture called “The Fisherman”. It resembles a horribly convoluted Klein bottle with many more protusions and twisting shapes. Like the Klein bottle, it has no real outside or inside, but it does have a large cavity, roughly person-sized, in its middle. You can see where this is going. To boot, the metal is regularly perforated with holes the size of your fist, so that if one were to crawl inside, a second party outside the sculpture could capture the event on film. The cavity itself is quite roomy, but the entrance to it is a little on the narrow side: smaller than my shoulder width in diameter. Kelly, John Paul and I saw the sculpture and immediately had the above thoughts. I was elected to go inside, being the slimmest member of the group, but we aborted the mission after preliminary tests because 1) there were people everywhere, and 2) even with my arms over my head, making my body as sleek as possible, it was a tight fit. We discussed how we could best return and get the photo opportunity of a lifetime and retrieve me from the inside of the sculpture aftwerwards, as well as what might transpire should the plan go awry. You can infer from the fictional headline what this plan, and the complications, entailed. Weeks later, after growing bolder around teeming foreigners, I happened past the sculpture with Jennifer and Amelia, and just went for the gold, fully dressed, unoiled. Jennifer snapped a couple snapshots as largely unconcerned passersby looked on, then I struggled out again with only one terrifying moment where I thought I was stuck. The camera was of the non-digital persuasion, though, so you’ll have to wait a bit for the pictures.

Five die in tragic waterslide accident; bloated American students clog pipe for days
A few days ago we paid a visit to a water park on the outskirts of the city, Halenbad I believe, and were very glad we did. For only €3 we got a whole afternoon’s swimming and splashing in, and it was even a little sunny. The compound resembles Wild Waves on a much smaller scale; they have only a single slide, 9m high according to their handy information placard, placed at the top of the grounds above the various pools and play structures. Sadly, the slide was closed off, with steel gates blocking both the staircase and the end of the pipe. I figured it was because the place was deserted so early in the season; the five of us – Kelly, Big Mike, Lisa, Nelly, and I – comprised nearly half of the attendance. On a whim, I asked one of the bored lifeguards, “Wann öffnet die Rausch?” I can’t quite remember what the word for “slide” is, but the above is no more incorrect than what I actually asked. He knew what I meant, though. “Ist zu kalt.” It was a little chilly out. “Nein, nein! Ist sehr warm!” Apparently I convinced him, because a second guard fetched the keys, removed the barricades, and led us up the spiral staircase to the top of the chute. The slide was, in a word, amazing. It was Space Mountain: Part Slide. On the darkened, completely covered part of the run, the ceiling of the slide was lit with a multi-colored starscape; later on, a rainbow-lighted waterfall dumped suddenly from above. The five of us, together with around five kids who had run over when they saw us using the slide, rushed to the bottom and then sprinted back to the top quite a few times without getting the least bit tired of the activity. Finally, though, we were ready for a bit more excitement and danger, the kind that only a five-person simultaneous run could grant. I voiced my worst fears about this enterprise, summarized with the above fictional headline, as we wondered aloud whether the lifeguards would let us attempt such a stunt. The Austrians, however, weren’t nearly as concerned. At the top, I asked the attendee, “Können wir fünf zusammen gehen?” gesturing at the lot of us Americans. “Ja,” he replied, with an air that said “of course, why are you even bothering to ask?” It was kind of slow going for a while, but we only got stuck in the chute once, and only Kelly sustained any real injury – a foot to the back of the head – as the five of us spilled haphazardously out the bottom. Then Big Mike and I raced down the tube for a while, also A-OK by the attendee, and neither of us got hurt despite the breakneck speeds we attained – the secret is to arch your back so that only your shoulderblades and heels contact the slide. Actually, there wasn’t anything we could think of – going backwards, going head first, me riding Big Mike like a toboggan – that the attendee wouldn’t allow us to attempt. It’s nice to be in a place that still believes in personal responsibility. Also, I’m proud to note that I was rocking a blue speedo for the duration of the visit, just like in high school. I expected the Europeans to be non-plussed, but surprisingly I didn’t get any shit from the Americans either.

Charred American girl fished out of Adriatic with only minor injuries
Yes, Kelly brought her fire-spinning equipment to Europe, as I think I’ve mentioned in the past. Being Ausländers, we’re always a little hesitant to just light up the poi any old place, but we’ve found the laws, or at least their enforcement, to be pretty lax. In Vienna, parks are alright, private property is alright, and even Kärtnerstraße, the city center’s glimmering commercial drag, is alright with the appropriate two-minute paperwork. In Slovenia, a few weeks ago, Kelly went to the trouble to fill an empty Nutella jar with gas for spinning at a then-unknown exchange rate and was desperate for a place to perform. On the last day of April, one day before Slovenia entered the EU for good and all, the residents of the quaint sea-side town of Piran had a celebration in the town square a few hours before midnight – premature, if you ask me. Word on the street had it that as the clock struck twelve there would be untold revelry in the form of bonfires up and down the beach, so we weren’t that worried about missing whatever purpose the makeshift stage served. As luck had it, Kelly and I, as well as the Barbies, were in our pension a few minutes away, vitally occupied with the concoction and consumption of a drink we called “Vitadrunk” copmrising carrot-orange juice and cheap, evil-smelling Slovenian vodka. By the time we’d tossed back enough of the drink to take the sting off the chill rain which fell still (it had poured all day), we had completely missed whatever celebration / announcement / ritual execution had occured in the square. The stage was empty. Worse, not a single bonfire was in sight anywhere, which is where Kelly had planned to spin. We did have, however, a large, empty space no one seemed to be using, so Kelly asked one of the cops standing by if she could perform. His response was the same as the lifeguards’ above: “Of course you can. Why wouldn’t you be able to?” A couple drinks helps her loosen up for the act, but I wasn’t sure how many couples she’d had, and imagined her running screaming, on fire, to the end of the pier and hurling herself off. Of course nothing that dire happened; Kelly’s not all that flammable. Well, at least not in the literal sense; metaphorically, she’s a wad of packing foam, dryer lint, and small, dry sticks doused with white gas. Everyone loved the act. Actually, the only casuality was my green pants, which I smacked with the poi after Kelly had finished and thereby stained with soot. I guess that means I’m not quite ready to try it with them lit.

That’s right, I’m now inserting random German phrases into my stories about Austria. Nevermind that I only know two people who can speak German and neither of them read the site with regularity. For the rest of you, there’s always babble fish.

This is also a good time to note that, if you haven’t already mailed it, your letter will not reach me before I leave the country a week from today. This means that I’m seriously disappointed in a few of you – you know who you are. You could always send it to my apartment in Seattle and we’ll just pretend you actually mailed it abroad, but hopefully you’re licking stamps as we speak.