July 2025 Books

 Before the books--a week ago today, on July 24,  Josie and her friend Olivia were coming home from a movie (Superman) and barely made it to our driveway because one of Olivia's tires had hit something and the last few blocks home, they were rapidly losing air. So fortunate that it happened when it did.

Olivia's car did not come with a jack or a spare, but we have both, so we figured, we've got this. (And by we, I mean, I will loan the stuff from my car, and they would do the work!)

Josie totally figured out the jack, and got the car jacked up, but then I texted Clark across the street asking if he wanted to help rescue some damsels in distress, and he came right over. And that is when we discovered that my spare only had four lug nuts and Olivia's car required a spare with five lug nuts. Call me naive, but I thought that a spare was a spare. 

So I went to wake Bruce (who due to recent and future arm operations should not be doing the kind of work a tire change requires) to see if we could use the spare from the van instead.  That is when Josie got smart and counted lug nuts--before we went to the work of extracting the spare for the van, because that is not easy. The van uses six lug nuts. So many kinds of spares!

Clark got the idea to see if the Christensens had a five lug nut spare, and they did!! He brought it back, used his handy dandy tools to get the tire on there--and it was kind of flat. So Bruce started up our air compressor, and he and Clark pumped the tire, and (an hour later) sent Olivia on her way. Her apartment is not far away, and so she did not have far to go.

It was fun how the neighbors came together to help! Many hands make easier work! (It was still not "light" work!)

Books read: It was a light reading month, but not as light as I thought it might be, because I actually read three books on my trip. I got three paperbacks from the Sampler Collection in the library. One in the plane and in airports on the way, one that night I couldn't sleep for worry in Salzburg, and one in the plane and in airports on the way home, although I did not quite finish--I had a chapter or two left to finish at home.

1. I don't usually read paperbacks, so I was not sure I would like any, but the first one I chose of the three was Aunt Dimity Detetive (2001) by Nancy Atherton. Lori teams up with Nick Fox to solve a hometown murder--but is it a murder? Kind of cute story. 

2. Family Ties (2005) by Bonnie K. Winn was a formula romance, so obviously a super quick read, a good choice for middle of the night reading to distract myself from worrying. There were cute triplet children in it, too, for added fun.

3. The trouble with magic (2006) by Madelyn Alt. Maggie's new job puts her in close contact with a murder, which her boss Felicity is charged with. Not belieiving in her guilt, Maggie sets out to find out what really happened. (Felicity is a white magic kind of woman.)

4. Before I left on my trip, I had put an ILL request in for a book about Kay Swift--you remember I read her book last month? Our library had a biography about Kay Swift, but I was interested in learning more, and the biography we did not have is by her granddaughter and namesake, Katharine Swift Weber: The memory of all that: George Gershwin, Kay Swift, and my family's legacy of infidelities (2011) It was so good! (Says this memoir-loving reader.) The book came in while I was gone, so I was happy to pick it up and dive in. There are family trees, and stories from both sides, the Warburgs (Kay's first husband), the Swifts, and also Katharine's father's side. 

5. Maizy Chen's Last Chance (2022) by Lisa Yee. In this case, Last Chance is the fictional name of a town in Minnesota, where Maizy's grandparents are the only Chinese-Americans. Maizy, from California, doesn't super want to spend the entire summer there--but she learns to appreciate it, and to love her grandparents. The book explores issues of racism and also the "paper sons" who came from China to work in the railroad. I really liked this well-told story.

6. Guests of the Sheik: an ethnography of an Iraqi village (1965) by Elizabeth Warnock Fernea is an old book that is enjoying a resurgence in popularity. It is our book club book for August, and they are using a library set. I was the one who pointed out that this is an OLD book about Iraq, and not a look at today's Iraq. Which my book ladies thought it would be. However, it was super good, in my opinion. Also, the food I ate at the Persian restaurant? The walnut/pomegranate/chicken dish? That gets prepared in this book! I was like "I have eaten that!" 

The last three were my favorite books this month. Which only stands to reason, because the others were rapidly chosen paperbacks, chosen for their handy size for airplane reading!

Will's Wedding

 Janet did double duty, picking me up at the airport and dropping me at home at 11:50, and then picking me up again at 11:30 AM for our former student Will's wedding at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Orem. 

I have not been to a Catholic wedding before. We had a printed program to follow. There was beautiful prelude singing, readings of scripture, call and response singing by Allison's sister Carli (we the audience providing the response) which was wonderful--she has a fabulous voice. The officiating deacon was not a native English speaker, and he was difficult for me to hear and understand, but it was all very nice. When the "exchange of consent" happened, Allison spoke her vows, and then Will faced the audience and said "Some of us did not memorize the words!" with a goofy grin, and went and got a binder with the words so he could read them!

The program said when to sit and when to stand, but sometimes those were a bit topsy-turvy, so we just followed the example of others.

It was a lovely wedding! Janet and I sat with Steve and Megan Nordstrom. Here are some photos:

Our retired library colleague Gail, Will's mom, who is holding Nathaniel, her oldest grandchild. His parents, David and Libby, and baby Lucy, Steve and Megan and me. David and I were friends while he is at BYU, and we already knew Libby, who was a musicology student at the University of Denver and attended and presented at MPMLA. So when he married her, we were like--we already know her!

Same group, only with Janet in my place while I took the picture:

I did not notice how many people I caught with their eyes closed!! Oops! And I only took one photo because it looked good to me.

When we went to the reception in the evening, I drove. About time I took a turn!

Here are some photos from the reception:

Me, Will, Allison, Janet with Allison's niece Evalyn in front. She was one of the flower girls, with her younger sister Claire. Her shoes were too big, and it was fun to watch her maneuver in them! She was full of joie de vivre, that's for certain!

Same group in portrait, with Will going zany, which he was in many pictures with other people that I saw (or took for him on other people's phones!):

And one of the cutting of the cake:

To gather everyone for the cake cutting, they didn't announce it; they had a cellist start to play the Bach cello suites (it was one of the Bridesmen--who is actually Allison's brother! I just realized!) and people all gravitated to it, and were encouraged to bring chairs. Will and Allison danced (which they did really well! She is a good dancer, and Will is a ham for sure!) Then the other thing they did was that Allison told us about her dad being a small business owner, and when he would make good money, their family would do the money dance. I want to be rich was the song they would dance to. So we all danced to it there. 

That was cool, because Allison's parents (from Georgia) have both passed away in the past few years, so they could not be there of course. It was a nice way to include them. 

Allison is a financial analyst, and Will is the researcher for a history podcast and works on film sets. She is common sense, and he is zany, so they balance each other well!

Home Again

 After 24 hours of traveling I arrived home. Actually 24 +. I left Patrick's apartment, hopping into the taxi, at exactly 6:30 AM in Vienna, which is exactly 10:30 PM here. Janet picked me up from the airport just after 11, and I was in the door at about 11:50 PM, which is 7:50 AM in Vienna. 

I had a long layover in Toronto, and got some Canadian money so I could buy Bruce an Oh Henry and Josie a Wunderbar, and go to a sit down restaurant and have some poutine and a tall glass of water! (In Austria, water comes in a small bottle and costs a couple of euros. So lovely to just be given a nice glass of water!) Near my gate, there was a Tim Horton's and a Wahlburgers. I opted for the latter because they had poutine, and I figured that one serving of poutine would about do it for me. And it was the perfect amount of food, and the water was the perfect amount of water.

I wanted to also talk about Patrick's apartment, which I like very much. It is small and some things are strange about it, but it has European windows, and I LOVE European windows. They just make so much sense, because you can open them a little bit, and in a way that it is impossible for anyone to break in, or you can open them ALL THE WAY. Cleaning them is so easy because you have access to both sides of the glass. I think it is crazy that everyone in the world hasn't latched on to European windows. There are places in America where you can get them, but they have not caught on to the point of becoming anything close to standard.

Patrick's apartment building is interesting because the elevator is between floors. So there is no elevator on the floor where the apartments are. Here is the elevator control to show you. (I forgot I wanted a picture of this, so thanks to Patrick for taking a picture to send to me.)

Patrick lives on the 3rd floor, so you either push 2-3 or 3-4, and then either walk up a half a flight of stairs, or down a half a flight of stairs, your choice. This is really interesting when you consider that there is a man in a wheelchair who lives in Patrick's building. He is very independent, but he has to get up or down six steps to get to the elevator, which he does do. 

And Patrick's toilet -- is something you have to get used to. It is a toilet with a poop shelf. So, when you poop, there it is in all its glory! This worked out well for Patrick during his medical tests to diagnose his illness, because he needed to take a stool sample to the doctor. But it is definitely something that I am not used to. You can read more about it and see examples here. 

So, I have not encountered one before because when I was in Germany years ago, I stayed at modern hotels, and they had still European style toilets, but absent a poop shelf. But Patrick's apartment is older, so it has a poop shelf toilet. And in Klosterneuberg, there are poop shelf toilets. And in Patrick's university there are poop shelf toilets. If a building is old, and the toilets are old, then they will be poop shelf toilets. 

Another thing that is unusual in comparison with American apartments is that you walk in to the utilitarian part of the apartment, where the water heater is, and the freezer--we over here tend to tuck those things out of public areas, but in his apartment, that is what you see straight away.

I am so glad that I could go and visit him, and be able to imagine him sitting at his table or lounging on his couch! And think about his wonderful windows. I loved to have them wide open, and the birds would wake me in this lovely back yard with their beautiful songs!

July 15 - Last day in Vienna

 Today we had a lazy day. Probably overdid it yesterday! This morning we just lay around, but then I thought that I should probably get out and use my 24 hour transportation pass!

So Patrick and I went to Das Schloss Schönbrunn, once the summer residence of the Hapsburgs. Well, we went to the grounds. We walked about, but it was a very hot day, so we found a bench in the shade and just enjoyed the ambience, Then we walked to where we could see the Gloriette, but Patrick's feet were worse today (probably from overdoing yesterday!) so we didn't try to walk up the hill.

Then we went to do a bit of grocery shopping, and then just lazed about his apartment, until Hadis came over, and then we worked together to prepare dinner, to eat it, and now I have to do my final packing to leave tomorrow morning at 6:30 AM. I booked a taxi, but never received a confirmation from them. Hadis, who doesn't mind calling on the phone, called to confirm with a person, and indeed, they are planning to pick me up. The person told Hadis they will send a message, but they still have not. Maybe they have some of my information wrong? (But they do have the address right; that we know.)

Vienna Last Night

 Last night, Patrick and I met up with Hadis for Persian food. It was really tasty. It was nice to spend time with Hadis and try to get to know her. It was a bit difficult because the restaurant was a bit noisy, and I had trouble hearing. Also I am not super great at meeting people. I am a bit awkward.

The food was good! I got the Shirazi salad, which I actually have a recipe for in a cookbook that I have had for close to 50 years, though I do not use it very often. Like, never in recent years! But that was a recipe from this book that I really liked, only I did not cut the vegetables into the tiny pieces that this dish really needs--I diced them, but I did not understand that they meant to DICE them.

It is so pretty, and so tasty! For my main dish, I got a pomegranate/walnut sauce with chicken to eat with my rice. I was expecting chunks of walnut and visible pomegranate but it is actually all blended together. It was also very tasty!

I also tried the olives, but gave them to Hadis who would enjoy them more than I would. Her food was also chicken based, and she gave me a little taste, and it was also good.

Patrick also got a chicken entree, which you can see in this picture of the other side of the table.

We went for a little walk in the area of the restaurant. I took a picture of this random building because of all the flowers, which I thought was interesting. At least you can easily identify this building, right?

We walked Hadis to the station for her bus or train or tram or whatever it was. There are so many transportation choices in Vienna, and I can't keep them all straight!

Patrick and I walked a bit more. He wanted to show me his favorite church, Karl's Kirche, which was not open, and apparently there is a cost to enter it, but for us, we could only see the outside anyway.

And last of all, this is Patrick's university, with its strange naming convention A...kademie.

July 14 Stift Klosterneuburg 3

 Alright! So on to the third part of the morning! My planned "date" with Ulrike and the materials in the music archive at Klosterneuburg. She walked us through some of the same spaces that Patrick had shown me earlier, but had things to add to the story. Like that anything that the canons leave to the archive HAS to be accepted and kept. They recently received a large bequest because a canon died unexpectedly in a car accident. 

Also they recently (well--in 2023. Fairly recently) had to get a new provost, and they were very worried that the one selected might not be a good supporter of libraries and archives, but fortunately, the one they hoped for was selected, and they are relieved because their jobs are safe, and they can keep rescuing/caring for materials. 

Ulrike had chosen some items to show us, and had them laid out in the library ahead of time. Like this music book, one of a set of many like it with illuminations. She was so happy and animated as she talked about them. More pictures follow.

 

These next images are from a book of compositions by various canons who were a part of Klosterneuburg, and their manuscripts were collected. Many of them are signed, and have scribbles or doodles on them.

These next images are in the wrong order, but I don't think I can manage to place them where I want them a second time. They are a Schubert autograph score. I wanted the box with the label first, and work my way through the last page, which lists dates and performances. The thing I wanted first is last, and what I wanted last is first! Other information is to know that the part--the one full page of notes--is in Schubert's hand.

Earlier, I took a picture of one globe, but I didn't take a picture of the other one, which I thought was just another globe, but I think it is a globe of the solar system? I am not really sure how that works, but again, it is made in an earlier era, which I can't remember exactly when!

Ulrike wanted to show us this register from about 1830? (I am guessing the date.) It was in the conservation lab, which is very close through a low door in the library. The conservator let her take it back to the library to show us. Here is the small conservation lab and the conservator.

And here is Ulrike ready to show us this item. It is having issues because the iron gall ink is eating through the paper. So this ink is made from a place in an oak tree where an insect's damage is dealt with by the tree by making a protective coating, which is then taken and ground, and ink is added, and it turns a lovely black color. However, over time, it becomes caustic and eats through the paper, which is what is happening to this book. 

This book is the second register of the kloster--the first one is from 1790, which is really early for this kind of register. (I will show this one later.) So, it is full of incipits of music that is owned by the archive, and descriptions of the first performance, composer, and notes about the performance. Very cool! You can see that it has been repaired and rebound before--they actually made extensions so that the actual original paper has no stress on it when pages are turned. 

Here are some of the pages. This one shows some scribbled out--so they once owned these, but maybe they got lost or destroyed, or the composer asked for them back because they decided they didn't want the music used anymore. 

The books are divided into genres (masses, motettes, cantatas, etc.) and then are in alphabetical order within the sections. A history of what has been performed at the abbey!

I took this picture of Patrick because I wanted to illustrate the impossibility of reaching some of the books in the library. On the edges, there are some books that are above stairs, so there isn't a way to put a ladder to reach them. So they have been sitting in the library for 200 years maybe, and nobody can get to them. Well, no easy or even mediocre way of getting to them--only difficult ways!

And Patrick took a picture of me in the library, to prove that I actually was there!

Then we went down one floor (and down another floor) to the old library and the new library of music materials. Edited to add this door, which is curved like the walls. I did not take a picture of it, but Patrick did. Actually, that whole curvy staircase was really interesting because of how the entrances and exits on it were!

They are still acquiring things--buying or receiving gifts--so this is not a static collection. Some of the organization is by size -- that is not so unusual. We have miniscores, quarto, quarto-w, and folio sections. Theirs are given letters - A, B, C, D.

Sheet music: They have so much!!! These old storage units that are important historically are being used for sheet music storage. Ulrike and Patrick are showing what is under the home-made blinds--boxes and boxes of sheet music. There is another unit the same size, floor to ceiling, and another that is a bit smaller. So much sheet music!

These are all materials that are relevant to Ulrike's master's thesis and now her PhD dissertation. I will put all the pictures and hope that I remember some things. 

So this! is from the 1790 register. Same idea, incipits and descriptions of music performed in the abbey, and held in the music archives. 

This is the beginning of the 1790 register--it is the organist who started it. He must have been ready to have some organization, so he could find the pieces he wanted to play.

This catalog that Martin found mixed in with some sheet music has been super important to Ulrike's research! It is just a thin book with really small writing, but gives so much detail about musical performances. She is particularly looking into one man, AR, who is confusing to follow because his father and brother have the same initials and also signed music with those initials. She has had to learn his handwriting. At first she thought he was only a peformer, but she has found pieces by him, using an anigram of his name for the composer, but with his identifiable initials in his hand, AR, so that he is identified. 

These next few pictures show how these part books, used by choir members, have been so very used over decades, people leaving their doodles and names and so forth in the music they used. 

This user (below) even afixed a stamp of a famous actress in the book. 

I know that these next two items have to do with AR. I keep calling him by initials because I can't remember his name! I will have to read her dissertation when it is available so that I can be reminded!

See! I knew the answer was in the photos somewhere! Anton Roesner!

Then Ulrike took us upstairs and into the dome that is the part we saw at the very beginning when we first got to the kloster. It is very beautiful!

This picture is at the doorway to the dome room, looking back at the other dome that is the library. 

The dome in this dome room. (There is probably a better and more accurate name for this room.) This is all done in fresco, and the colours remain so vibrant though they are centuries old.

What some of the walls in the room look like.

There are two large mirrors in the room, so that you can look down into the mirrors to see the dome, instead of looking up. You can see my phone/camera as I took a photo of the reflection of the actual dome.

And then there was this:

It has something to do with artists, but I am sure that I do not remember anything about why it was in the dome room, and Google Images was not particularly helpful!

I took a picture looking south towards Vienna from inside this dome room. It looks a lot like the same picture I took outside, only from behind a window.

There are opera performances outdoors somewhere in the Klosterneuburg compound, and I am not sure where--like, I couldn't find it if I tried, but I could see the set and seats from inside.

And last of all, a peak into the church on the grounds. The picture of the sanctuary was taken by putting my cell phone into an opening into a barrier, because something was going on in the church, and so we could not actually go in.

Well, I can tell it is late, and that I had too much in my brain from so much that I learned, so I did not give the best explanations. However, going to Klosterneuburg was a fantastic experience, and I am so grateful to Patrick for arranging a behind-the-scenes tour, and to Ulrike for preparing to amaze and astound me. It was wonderful!