Walking / Endnotes (550 m. on Löwengasse1 / 245 m. on Untere Donaustrasse)
[1]
As i write, my feet are resting on the cooling pipes in the library. From the window i see the sharp Toronto skyline across Lake Ontario. A bit of dirt has accumulated on the glass panels. On the desk is Bachmann’s Malina. I feel the same as in my first years in Vienna, years ago, as i was learning German and immersing myself in the city – long daily walks to places i had never been to.
[2]
... there is now a direct flight to Canada twice a week.
„... es gibt jetzt zweimal in der Woche einen Direktflug nach Kanada.“ (265)
Malina will never move away from the Third District. A single tear, just in the corner of one eye, appears, but doesn’t roll; it crystallizes in the cold air, grows bigger and bigger, a second huge tear that doesn’t want to circle around with the world, but detaches itself from the world and falls into infinite space.
„ [Malina] wird aber niemals aus dem III. Bezirk wegziehen. Eine einzige Träne, nur im Winkel des einen Augs, entsteht, kommt aber nicht ins Rollen, kristallisiert sich in der kalten Luft, wird immer grösser, eine zweite riesige Kugel, die nicht mit der Welt herum kreisen möchte, sondern sich von der Welt löst und in den unendlichen Raum stürzt.“ (331)
... Post office on Rasumofskygasse.
„... Postamt in der Rasumofskygasse.“ (26)
When one sees the world from the Third District – such a limited perspective –, one is naturally inclined to single out Ungargasse, find out about it, praise and give it a certain meaning.
„Wen man den Welt vom III. Bezirk aus sieht, einen so beschränkten Blickwinkel hat, ist man natürlich geneigt, die Ungargasse herauszustreichen, über sie etwas herauszufinden, sie zu loben und ihr eine gewisse Bedeutung zu verleihen.“ (10)
From: Bachmann, Ingeborg. Malina. Roman. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkampf, 1971. 456 pages.
I.
From Radetzkyplatz, under the train line, onto Löwengasse – the lion’s street: i enter the Third District[2] in the direction of the Palais des beaux-arts.[3,4,5]
Zebra crossings over the curves of tramway tracks welcome me – an almost symmetrical pattern and a shrine of absorption. Layers of footprints, oil stains, an attentive look left and right regulated by traffic lights. When there is no one, it is nice to walk to the middle of the pattern on the street – the most remarkable equilibrium as one leaves Radetzkyplatz.
[5]
The palaces of the Third District are old, darkly ochre; they have oversized entrance doors. A few no longer exist; others are still standing but are barely perceived as being palaces. Their gardens have been parcelled out, divided among heirs. Today they are neighbourhoods – houses, buildings, public parks, subway stations seamlessly aligned along the streets.
To forget history and powerful families; forgetting the names of those who worked at the Palais des beaux-arts – itself neither a palace nor a fine-art institution. The names of the palaces of the Third District form a brief moment – a string of poetry.
Starting with those sounding full -a world of their own: Palais Rasumofsky P. Nassau P. Sternberg P. Althan P. Arenberg
Then moving to the more raucous, rawer names: P. Schwarzenberg P. Rothschild P. Bratman-Torsch P. Redlich P. Schlesinger-Ferstel P. Windisch-Graetz P. Abensberg-Traun P. Dietrichstein-Pranddau P. Hartenberg-Bechard P. Lanckorónski P. Reiter P. Schnapper-Weisweiler
Those that can be whispered: P. Fanto P. Bourgoing P. Hohenberg P. Hoyos P. Metternich P. Max von Hannover P. Oekkl P. Polluck-Parnau P. Widter
And those with a whistling sound: P. Salm P. Seybel P. Sigray St-Marsan P. Sylva-Tarouca P. Mesmer P. Modena-Este P. Metternich-Sandor P. Salm-Vetsera
Finally, the unmistakable names of the two palaces – one at the top, one below – solidly looking at us until we no longer know how to look at them: Obere Belvedere Untere Belvedere
[6]
10 August 2023
Maui is burning. My sister, on a neighbouring island, drives to the airport and waits in line to change her plane ticket and leave Hawaii. This incandescence. She spends one night in a hotel room in Honolulu. This leaves me wondering about Vienna maybe collapsing one day. It did in the not-so-distant past. I like the verticality of the Palais des beaux-arts. The unclear idea that Vienna could be washed away – a flood, a fire – sometimes fleets, barely perceptible, through my mind.
[7]
LL Cool J’s “Going back to Cali” is in my ears. In my ears. Not wanting to go.
[8]
Decades ago, before the grocery store, the Lion Cinema was here – Löwen Kino – a continent away from peaceful Leo at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio. Another world. The cinema on Löwengasse, the Palais des beaux-arts – two figurative neighbors whose owners fled or were forced out.
II.
i walk past a red-brick church in front of which kids play ball on a basketball court surrounded by a protective net. We don’t want the ball to roll on the street. Along the church: the hardest grass of all – couch grass, Elymus repens. Here on Löwengasse, the invasive plant is contained in a few planter boxes.[6]
Dense dull green blades, stout yet keeled.
An invasion tamed, kept behind limits – the planter boxes by the church are the opposite of Lois Weinberger’s ruderals at another end of the Third District, in his Wild Cube of free-growing plants behind bars at the 21er Haus. The imprisoned grass by the church on Löwengasse is the most noticeable green on a long corridor of ochre and grey houses – cropped, creeping – a valiant green. An unobtrusive real.
III.
To go to Billa[7] – Da Billa in my ear – the Billa on Löwengasse[8] is like no other; it is labile, consumed by sheer forces from the wilderness. It boasts a yellow lion carved on the wall above the store entrance. We hear it roaring. The emblematic Billa – as in seventeenth-century books of emblems across Europe – here a modern version to illustrate the Billa sign – a modern book.
An all-Austrian grocery store with discounts, regional products, red and yellow neon lights over the city; they make me think of Rodchenko.
[9]
Joe-Zawinul-Park
i spent many early summers in the Hainburgstrasse, taking the children to school, then waiting for them later in the afternoon. On the last day of school in July: eating ice cream with clouds/chars of children at Bortolotti on Baumgasse, breathing under the atomizer.
[10]
Transparent nights, fluid/nerveless memories.
The ones who remain silent.
What is silence? Waiting.
Walking on the street. In opposition to the now slightly fading expressionist building Hundertwasserhaus, the Palais des beaux-arts is crystal clear.
There is something that doesn’t work on this street – displaced, borderline, uncertain, something empty, someone one cannot understand; there needs to be a storyline, a continuity. What happens after the Palais des beaux-arts if one continues to walk down the street? Bachmann, about the Third District, who thought that the Linke-Bahnstrasse was already too different from Beatrixgasse. A mix of international, cultural elite, high literature and local population, including working class, gray buildings, and embassies.
[11]
i look at a photo that Josh Müller sent me when i said i would write about Radetzkyplatz and the Palais des beaux-arts. It shows a “brouillard” – some fragile fog exploding over a construction site, a broken parking lot maybe, lined by white and grey apartment buildings. The photo does not show Löwengasse, but it is in my mind as i walk there. It is also not a grisaille, but it makes me think of one; i find it restful.
IV.
At the glass door.[9]
How transparent the glass door to the Palais des beaux-arts is. Inside it’s dark and wooden – there are stairs. The glass panels are beveled. They reflect doubly the cars parked on the street, the tall facades across the Palais des beaux-arts, the few trees on Rudolf-von-Alt-Platz. They structure vision and rationalize an illusion; they form a symmetrical trompe-l’oeil – the two white cars on the glass door are an immobile fata morgana, a nothing – what my eyes see.[10,11]
The glass door frame and the entrance room of the Palais des beaux-arts are dark; the white cars outside make a splash of colour on the window panes, placating contemporaneity to a secretive interior. We stand at the verge of intimacy.[12]
[12]
Walking between Radetzkyplatz and the Palais des beaux-arts, what i find difficult to describe – when exact words fail me:
Regularly spaced metallic rectangles to anker the slabs maintaining the tram’s track in the asphalt: what is the name for these tiny rectangles?
The blotchy reflections on the zebra crossings.
The flat-looking, but certainly not flat front tire of the bicycle in front of me: could it be a fata morgana?
How many grass blades could one count in front of the church, and how to proceed with counting if anyone cared?
The few grains of earth visible under the grass: is there a word for this? They look like larva.
So much enmeshed green shines almost yellow: almost.
The wooden door frame at the Palais des beaux-arts, as old as an old tree that would have lost its bark – a polished look. How can I call something that looks polished yet is not?
What a palette of greys in front of the Palais des beaux-arts: sand on the facades, shiny car lack, dirt grey pavement, the wondrous greys of the sky. Words.
Trembling fingers behind two window panes. They reach out to a staircase inside a house.
