36 Years Ago

36 Years Ago, Vienna 1971—A Student Journal

Day 057: Hot cold, Ying Yang

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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.) Happy 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. Happy

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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