This morning we continued our intensive study of Don Giovanni, going more and more deeply into the opera without seeming to make any forward progress. We spent three hours studying La Ci Darem La Mano, and it was fascinating. We heard more from Marilyn Fischer and I found out that not only does she have the amazing talents I listed yesterday, she is also a violinist for the Dayton Philharmonic! Anyway, she related Don Giovanni to Dante, to Mary Wollstonecraft, and most of all to the 21st century consumerism and objectification that may have arisen (at least, in a Marxist reading) from our “Enlightenment” based free-market society.

The four bases, she claims, of stability in our post-feudal rational society are 1) contracts (as in the Social Contract); 2) enlightened self-interest (as in getting a good education like Maria Theresa wanted you to so you could learn to postpone your desire for self-gratification in service to the General Will which would, ultimately, lead to something better for you); 3) religion (either the rational deism of Jefferson or the more conventional superstition that many enlightenment philosophers believed was necessary for the masses); and 4) marriage. Don Giovanni clearly attacks and cuts down all of these. He is out of control. Pure id, we might say.

We then spent an hour looking at the music of La Ci Darem with this amazing music professor from Brandeis named Allan something (can’t remember his last name and don’t want to identify him on this blog in case someone googles him). Up until his lecture, some people had been referring to him as the “comb-over guy” for reasons you can guess. Now I would refer to him as the amazing brilliant music guy. I tried to get him to go to Café Demel with me and Laura but he had to go do some kind of serious and sophisticated music stuff.

So here we are at Demel, probably the most famous and most fancy among a dozen famous and fancy Vienna coffeehouses and confectionaries. I have never taken so many photos of food! But look, they had a giant marzipan Bill Clinton and a Nelson Mandela cake filled with a light meringue. Need I say more?

I was too tired to go see the fabulous jewels this afternoon, especially because we had a 6 am fire alarm where everyone had to exit the hotel after we had stayed up till midnight on the terrace. Jim and Alan (the one who lectured about comedy last week, not the comb-over guy, whose name is spelled differently) invited people to go to Melk with them tomorrow and I decided to go, even though I had originally planned on going to Schonnbrun with Mary, Pete, and Ed. But then we found out that Andre Rieu is going to be there, so we had to avoid it until he blew over, and they decided to go to Melk with me. It is supposed to be a magnificent abbey and church, and a lovely boat ride down the Danube on the way back.

After a little nap (which I needed after my late night and early morning) I went to the Prater with some of the gals. Mozart used to go there with Constanze when they were living here, and he has one letter to his dad where he says he went there while she was pregnant and he was “fat and happy.” (I can’t find the reference right now.) They had some good times there, and there’s an old ferris wheel from 1896 that was the one from The Third Man where they’re fighting at the end, and it’s supposed to have a great view. I think we’re going to see The Third Man at the movies here (they show it three times a week or something) before we go so for all those reasons I felt it was time to go up there. We rode the ferris wheel, I ate some greasy bratwurst and frites (the ones at that place in Seattle are actually better!) and we walked around looking at the cheesy souvenirs and buying a few. I got a Vienna Swatch, a Mozart Christmas ornament, and a really hot t-shirt. I came back here to show everything off, but everyone else went to sleep early after their late night and no nap.

My featured person of the day is Barb, a math teacher who also has a degree in German from Heidelberg, a Master’s in counseling, and went whale watching with Victor Frankl. The people here are amazing. Can you find Barb in this photo? She's taking our picture from the ground!