Wednesday, July 31, 2019

learning by drawing (111/365c)

i'm not very good at drawing (i'm supposed to say "yet") but i like to dabble at it. while theodore and henry were out for the morning, felix and i drew for hours.

he alternates between
"i can't draw really good"
and
"i don't reallylike drawing"
it reminded me that i still think i'm really bad at drawing. and i honestly know i know nearly nothing, and yet a few years ago i would have thought this was pretty good and even be a bit proud of it.
i cropped the hands out of the photograph so nobody could see how truly malformed they are.
now i'm proud to just say "here's to having fun learning, and being bad at stuff"

by the way, one of my favorite theodore jokes right now is "how does a kangaroo learn to jump?" "learning by doing doing doing" ... i think he found that joke somewhere in a magazine but he has pretty much made it his own over the last few weeks.

Tuesday, July 30, 2019

hanns holenia meets wikipedia (110/365c)

on the way home from dropping theodore off at fencing class i saw this little sign and photographed it:
a plaque commemorating hanns holenia
a styrian composer
that i've never heard of and the internet seems to have barely heard of either
i proceeded to make a (german) wikipedia page about him, just the very basics, and sussed out as much information as i could in a reasonable time. by the time i was done the kids were home.

in the evening, we went to sleep really late, as ronja was sleeping over (tomorrow last day of kindergarten for her, so we really shouldn't have been up so late)..... before i went to sleep i wanted to see if the page had been deleted (sometimes that happens) but instead it was a completely new looking one, i had written nearly none of it. i had a sinking feeling that i had somehow edited the wrong one, but NO! it was the one i had created, and in the last 12 hours it had been modified, edited, amended and added to, so that it looked totally legitimate. i was so excited.

Monday, July 29, 2019

city wide entertainment (109/365c)

today is the beginning of a week of summer programs offered through the city. theodore signed up for fencing and henry for soccer. i dropped theodore off, and everything seemed fine, but i guess they didn't do any fencing, and played dodge ball instead. tomorrow they will fence for sure, is what theodore said. henry was completely over the moon about his football when he got home. felix went with henry and brian and was very happy.

at home henry had a lesson with nadja downstairs and at the same time upstairs i played through a piece i just received in the mail, shostakovich's newly found interlude (written in 1931, found in 1918) ... it's a 2 minute work, and for nearly 20 euros comes with 6 pages of history and writing, and one page of viola music printed on half of one side of beautiful thick a3 paper. it's pretty cool but it also kind of feels a little silly.

after lunch we did more street festival things. there was a kids show about the wolf and the 7 kids with just terrific puppets. and a super weird clown who "talked" through a nose flute attached to his face. some of the things he did were not quite kid-friendly, and once he made felix cry by pulling his hair. he was pretty memorable though. he got the crowd to do all kinds of uncomfortable things.

the wolf on one side and the goat family on the other

murmuyo and his crazy speedy car that he arrived in (scaring me)
saw some acrobatics on the hauptplatz afterwards... first manuela and i jogged a bit around the city and then we watched some tumblers with the foersters, but manuela went home to do work. the show ended pretty late, and we walked home very slowly.

Sunday, July 28, 2019

hermitty but not crabby (108/365c)

the calendar is blissfully empty this weekend and i am so happy to socially be able to hermit myself a little.
theodore and henry in maribor
meanwhile in graz, i read frantically on herzogoenberg so that i can write a preface to his violin concerto, but then i receive an email that say, no, i don't have to write that, because actually, the publisher is having some kind of copyright problem with the 100 year old score, so naaah.
reading and walking and taking a photo
so no, i couldn't ALSO focus!
theodore and henry got home way late from slovenia because their train never decided to leave.... by never i mean, for several hours. from what i understand there were supposedly repairs going until today, but since today was sunday they hadn't actually resumed normal service yet, but also they weren't doing the replacement repair service. aaaah bureaucracy. regardless, it was great to see them, although they essentially fell directly into bed.

Saturday, July 27, 2019

la strada saturday with felix (107/365c)

first we took felix to la strada. i always love la strada, the big street festival, because it's free and participatory and interesting with really great artists, and also because it's really the first thing we ever did when we got to graz originally.
weird show, with a lot of strange sounds coming from speakers
and costumes made of old video film cut into decorative ribbons.
felix said it was scary in parts.
we stopped at the farmer's market on the way back. it's always way too crowded on saturday and i basically give up on picking things out.
it's tomato season!

Friday, July 26, 2019

changing of the guards (106/365c)

i hurry home from greifenburg
a perfect spiderweb has formed in klaus and irmtraud's car
we two are way in the back together.
and get home just in time to see henry and theodore off to take a train to maribor to spend the weekend with the abenteuerspielplatz.
just part of the bustling train station
1 minute after this photo a sudden cats-and-dogs thunderstorm rain drenched everyone else
i went on a long walk with isabella, hoping it wouldn't rain. i got to say goodbye to her too, since she's also essentially leaving. then brian and i spent a quiet evening alone with felix, which was quite nice too although i miss my big kids dreadfully!

Thursday, July 25, 2019

straight back to the castle (105/365c)

little notes for centa
who wrote late at night that whoever wrote her the "coolest note" could have a special prize
i think they are all three pretty cool notes - i would not be able to decide
one more concert at schloss greifenburg. again i left early in the morning, and i was really looking forward to our terrific dinner, and then after the car ride i seriously had a terrible headache and took some ibu-profane, and swore off alcohol and sugar.

i truly felt like a medieval princess... after having my hair and makeup done at the castle window, i sat there with some nearly 100% dark chocolate, and watched as down in the village a man chopped wood.
this is really far away from my window.
yay for optical zoom

i could not resist the beauty of these little flowers turning towards the light through the fence
concert and dinner was exquisite. i didn't try the wines unfortunately, but i stayed up bravely for a while, and then sunk into my delightful bed to sleep.

Wednesday, July 24, 2019

goodbye to kris for now (104/365c)

so after a quintet rehearsal that went as long as possible and henry's cello lesson and all kinds of other things i found time to put together a kind of buffet and nina and kris and manuela were here to help celebrate.
phil is behind the camera in this photo

kris shows felix some fun ways to play with fire - until the lighter is out of fuel
a whole range of emotions
things didn't run so very late. nina headed out for a film and manuela has work tomorrow, but overall it was a nice time, and i'm glad we got one more chance to hang out in graz.

Tuesday, July 23, 2019

contemplative at rosenhain (103/365c)

quintet rehearsal today which was awesome, and then olena dropped me off at rosenhain so i could go for a nice long walk (and ok, really just sit and drink coffee (except i didn't want coffee, i wanted ice cream, it's booze chocolate scream day)) with pauli.

at the bus stop, realized i could take a photo through a window
i think it looked (also still looks) better in my mind
i asked kris if he wanted me to host a goodbye party for him, and he said sure, if i want to, so i said sure, let's do it, so tomorrow it's the last possible moment for that.

Monday, July 22, 2019

even a free monday sometimes feels overwhelming(102/365c)

too many little things to do, too much cleaning up and organizing and planning.
exhausted at the end of the day

Sunday, July 21, 2019

lurgrotten caves and the fairytale woods (101/365c)

really wonderful tour of the deep caverns of lurgrotte with all of us and nina and kris.
giant stalactite
then just we went on a hike around peggau with seriously cranky kids to something called the "maerchenweg" - we bought a book where the illustrations were from exactly those locations. we found waterfalls, beautiful big trees, and a gorgeous meadow, and it seemed nobody else knew about it. 
reading aloud about the path we're on
cellphone camera colors just don't do it justice

Saturday, July 20, 2019

social detoxification (100/365c)

i needed some space so on this gorgeous perfect day where i was finally back with nothing to do i hid at home and brian took the kids on a bike ride and gathered kriecherl, and i didn't try very hard to capture a photo of a red headed woodpecker on the apple tree. in fact, i tried so little that it turned out very bad, and i didn't try again.
the fruit of labor

taking the road more traveled

Friday, July 19, 2019

i'm back but the kids aren't (99/365c)

theodore and henry didn't get back until late from summer camp, so brian and i were here with just felix.
color coordinated
cut the melon for everyone
when they got back i painted all our toenails blue - that is all of us, 100 toenails all together. 
i guess so we don't lose ourselves if we're looking down.

Thursday, July 18, 2019

gone again (98/365c)

and early the next morning we are back again. brian had dropped my bow off early this week to get rehaired. i picked it up at 8am this morning, and nearly directly after that we went back to carinthia to play our second dinner and music at the castle. i wasn't feeling that great. sleep deprivation does that. but the dinner aftewards was heavenly (again)
barbara's husband jure took the photo
he complained that the camera couldn't take good photos
i think it just takes practice
plus nearly any photo can be saved by good editing
(a skill i should probably learn properly)

dessert... chocolate and raspberries.

Wednesday, July 17, 2019

home again home again (97/365c)

mostly a travel day today, we took our time with our awesome airbnb breakfast and packing (although we didn't have much) i took my now-traditional sleeping in a hotel selfportrait.

morning light in amsterdam
and we took our now-trusted path (definitely not the shortest distance but the least number of turns) to the train to the airport.
these guys didn't do so well on their trip to amsterdam
the plane left early, arrived early, we got our stuff, and then waited hours and hours for a flix bus, which turned out to arrive in graz at the same time as one we could have reserved for a few hours later. the delay unfortunately wasn't displayed as such. we got updates every ten minutes that there would be an additional ten minute delay, so we kept going in and out of the airport. by the time we got home it was very much later than we had hoped. my kids were already all asleep. too bad.

Tuesday, July 16, 2019

no van gogh (96/365c)

if you ever go to amsterdam, and want to see the van gogh museum, reserve tickets in advance, since they are usually sold out. it doesn't tell you that anywhere. not even at the place you buy tickets.

so we changed our plans to include a boat tour of the canals, and the tulip museum

a lot of water under the bridge
pretty much the tulip museum in a nutshell
and when we finally were out walking the sun came out for the first time.
the only sunny moment
we spent our last evening here in a seedy bar with the most relaxed atmosphere, and saw a band with the shtick of inviting random people from the audience to sing songs (anything, totally random) with them. kind of open-mic-karaoke.


Monday, July 15, 2019

rijksmuseum (95/365c)

spent pretty much all day at the rjieksmuseum: as long as possible. we weren't the only ones who had that idea. so many amazing works and there were even proper descriptions on the wall.
i loved all their expressions here
better than the kids (early twenties?) who got here and said,
"i hate portraits, it's just pictures of people
they're so boring!"
father and son with bacchus
we had sushi from a grocery store for lunch and sat on a park bench trying not to share a crumb with the pigeons. originally we would have gone to another museum after lunch, but that was optimistic. there was plenty to see in the rjieksmuseum, and besides, we had just figured out the floorplan (we had gotten lost here too!). on the walk home we got lost too. every single canal and bridge looks the same and you swear you are walking in circles. we finally oriented ourselves by remembering seeing a flamingo decoration in a window on the train in the morning, and seeing a local underwear shop that we were sure of the side of the street it was on. in the evening we were too tired for anything else. we tried to watch a movie but we didn't even make it to the end.

some bonus photos, just things i liked extra much at the museum:

Chandelier woman (Leuchterweibchen) with a coat of arms, anonymous, c. 1525
"The meaning of the curious combination of a woman with a coat of arms and a suspended deer antler are not clear. Such objects were found in town halls and thus must have had an official significance. They owe their German name Leuchterweibchen (chandelier woman) to the custom of sticking candles onto the antler points."
"Anna Roemers Visscher engraved one of her own poems on a wine glass as a gift for Constantijn Huygens. The verses contain both a lament and a request: her pen has run dry, and her mind has turned to rust. She asks Huygens to fetch her some water from Helicon – home of the Muses – so that her ink will flow freely and she can write poems once again."
a flamingo in the shadows of a tapestry
Self-portrait, Johan Gregor van der Schardt, c. 1573 terracotta (clay material)
"To make this small bust – it is half life-size – the sculptor had to resort to all kinds of tricks with a mirror. Van der Schardt did not portray himself frontally, but with his head turned sideways, as if to avoid looking at the viewer. "
small detail of an enormous painting
David Leeuw with his Family, Abraham van den Tempel, 1671

NOT a marble relief - it's an OIL painting!
Allegory of the Sciences by Gerard de Liaresse (1641-1711)
"The merchant Philips de Flines was a true connoisseur. He commissioned Gerard de Lairesse to decorate his canal house on the Amsterdam Herengracht. The artist made paintings in black and white, in imitation of marble reliefs. They depicted the virtues of a cultured society whose obligations included the promotion of the sciences."
small detail of a dolls house, including miniature plates wicker basket, and even scissors on the table

Sunday, July 14, 2019

lost in amsterdam part 1 (94/365c)


we arrived full of energy and looked up what we could do. near our airbnb was a salsa evening that even started at 6pm so that woud give us plenty of time to dance and get an early sleep.

but that would involve finding our airbnb first
which, with locals sending us in the wrong direction and everything being a bit larger than we thought ended up taking a while.
that cupcake looks tiny but we split it
it was heavy enough that it was plenty
which was fine, the bill came to something exorbitant, amsterdam really is expensive.
from the sky you see about the types of places we were looking.
.....waterways, and bridges and no streetsigns
we finally arrived, hours later, changed our clothes and went to salsa... which we couldn't find either. well, we got to the place but there was no sign of a festival.

looking for the festival, right before giving up.
the beer was really really really good
(and we're not beer people)
got lost going back home too.

Saturday, July 13, 2019

home again for today only (93/365c)

frantic packing and breakfast with quintet this morning, so much stuff to put away and we were so tired from last night. we didn't officially have anywhere to be, but today is my only day home before my trip to amsterdam, so it's the only day i can see family, and that's extra special because edward is here on his trip to salzburg, and mary's been staying there for a while, and of course centa and brian and my kids.
full house when i got home
we walked up the schlossberg together and saw some funny signs for the schlossberg signs. i was too tired to photograph them, and too tired to get ice-cream, so i left edward with centa, and tried to take a quick nap... brian went out somewhere (i don't remember where :/ ) and i was asleep before 9pm.

Friday, July 12, 2019

i'm such a hippie (92/365c)

we are pretty silly!
my peace-sign necklace is mama's original peace sign newly strung on beads.
so that mozart costume? we need it for the video we shot today. everything always starts a bit late with olena (it seems we have a different "in-five-minutes" meaning) and so we were pushing the very limit of our energy when we were finishing the shoot. klaus and i took turns with the video camera, and we hope against hope that we got all the footage we need. we should have been packing, but instead we took a much needed evening of chatting and relaxing and junky sandwiches with fancy wine. we listened to sad relationship stories and cried and laughed and beat yesterday's 3am record for bed time.

Thursday, July 11, 2019

a concert in castle (91/365c)

all day we got ready for our concert. that is not-too-much rehearsal, dinner, dressing, driving, etc.

since we were there early, we did a photo session together, and played happy birthday (well rehearsed and memorized from yesterday!) to barbara's mother.

to take photos and also stand in it i had to put my viola down, and not in that damp mountain grass.
what's the difference between a violin and viola?
the concert went so well that 8 of the 20 people who were there reserved new spots for the next few weeks. they also stayed up drunk and late until 3am, and we helped (we were not inebriated!) close the night out. impressive!

Wednesday, July 10, 2019

a secret video (90/365c)

i copied an arrangement of a song (i tried it invent something myself, but eh, my heart was just not in it) and we learned it by heart. 
i ordered a cake for the video, a custom one, it should be the size of a big cake but look like a single slice. 
i set up all the cameras, the tripods, the sun was shining and hot
irmtraud picked up the cake

testing testing ....
so that it wouldn't get too warm i did test shots with a book that should be the right size.

i was so nervous that everything would go ok, but in the end, i think it did turn out fine. it's only 20seconds of video....

then since we were all dressed up we did a quick photo shoot and then met claudia for a quick glass of prosecco. one of the boats moored near by escaped somehow, and klaus and irmtraud dashed in to rescue it.
sunny side up


Tuesday, July 9, 2019

we meet the castle (89/365c)

inside looking out
the view from where we will be playing
after an intense day of playing we got to meet the castle we will be performing in. claudia showed even showed us rooms that are not otherwise accessible, but photos were not allowed. the most interesting part of the location is that one looks down at the church tower. normally the church steeple is the highest thing in the area, but in this case the castle is oldest, and also on the highest spot.