Day 057: Hot cold, Ying Yang
36yearsago.com
Vienna 1971—A Student Journal
A year of music, study, travel, sightseeing &
friends.
Day 57
— Hot cold, Ying Yang
28-September-1971
(Tues.)
TRANSCRIPT
Good and bad day.
Went to [a] room and found out it was taken—really
mad. Had no enjoyable time at the housing bureau
either. However, we went to another address and it
turned out that it was a pretty nice place; rented
out by 2 very nice “youngish-oldish” ladies. I had a
very pleasant conversation in German with them, and I
even made them laugh with my jokes—I guess my weird
personality. So in the end, things seemed to work out
just right. (Someone up there is routing for
me—sometimes.)
Some practice.
Went to the opera. Saw
Cavalleria rusticano [by Pietro Mascagni]
and
Der Bajazzo [also known as
Pagliacci, by Ruggiero Leoncavallo].
Another great evening. Extremely enjoyable,
especially [the] music.
REFLECTIONS
Hot
cold, Ying Yang. See? You
can be angry and frustrated for a bit of time, and
then things work out for the better and then you’re
happy. Hot cold, Ying Yang, up down, left right, wet
dry, night day, salt pepper, thin fat, good bad,
pretty ugly (ha, ha), rich poor, and ad
infinitum—“life
is full of opposites.” (If any of
these made-up quotes are original, please attribute
them to me in future writings. Thanks.) 
The advice is always the same for
all types of problems and frustrations—just put
one foot in front of the other, take a step at a
time, keep moving forward, don’t give up,
persevere—that’s when things work out. Again,
never giving up is the key. Of course, if you
were on
American Idol and didn’t
make the finals, you might give up after a while.
Got a room. Although
housing bureaus don’t sound like fun, they obviously
steered us to an apartment. After winning over the
two women of the house [hausfrau’s] with my charm and
German humor, we got the room. More on the room, in a
future post.
Light
opera at night. I end the
day with two light Italian operas, which most
certainly were probably at the Volksoper. Always
enjoyable. Just so you know, I am not an expert in
opera. I would go to the opera not knowing much about
the plot, learn a bit, and simply enjoy the music,
singing, and stage production for itself. Knowing the
plot of operas will help you to follow the general
action, and is highly recommended. You can experience
opera on many levels.
Forgetting,
learning. These many
years later, I have forgotten a great deal of my
musical knowledge (the detail of specific works), but
retain my general musical skills that I use
regularly. When I retire, perhaps I’ll crack the
books and again learn the specific detail. If it’s a
topic or subject area that you like, you will enjoy
learning. You’ll never enjoy the pressure of exams
and papers, but that goes away once you are out of
school. Enjoy lifetime learning.
For these transcripts, I look up the correct spelling
of the titles and composers on Wikipedia. Here’s some
of that missing detail in Wikipedia.
•
Cavalleria
rusticano
•
Pagliacci
(Clowns)
(also known
as
Der
Bazzo)
John
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