Leonad Cohen has been on my mind lately, not sure why, but I find myself keeping Time with his songs in my head and phrases have been brought to the fore, whether as snippets of memories or as expressions in the Present.
Once such memory is a trip I took to Buda-Pest some twenty years ago, almost to the day. I was traveling with my friend Max, who deserves a book all in itself, and we took a journey to the East of sorts while we were both students in a European Studies program here in Antwerp, the first time I lived here.
Eastern Europe was just opening its doors, as the Wall had just come down some years before, and I had been "lucky" enough to be in East Germany before that had happened, so I was able to see the dramatic difference of the before and after some years later.
Max and I headed out to Prague per overnight bus, which was nothing short of an ashtray on wheels. This was a time when there was no such thing as non-smoking, and between the Czechs going home and the Western Europeans going to visit, it was a nine-hour chain smoke. For someone who has never smoked, let's just say it was less than pleasant.
After a brief stint in Prague, we jumped on a musty, old railcar that was part of the Orient Express, and headed to Budapest, the former sister city of Vienna of the formidable Austro-Hungarian empire that supplied the world with so much art and architecture, and of course, music. The waltzes along the Danube are legendary in Classical music, and in thinking of Budapest, I then must have Cohen's "Take this Waltz" on the brain.
One of the most vivid memories I have of that trip was an old-fashioned coffee house on the Pest side of the river. There, the waiters wore iron-pressed long, white aprons. The ceilings held numerous large chandeliers, which had these yellowish globular lights that barely gave off more than a spectral aura, much less light. The walls were covered in large, Baroque mirrors and there was a long wooden bar, finished out in brass. Max and I were the only patrons having coffee, with a staff of 15 or so waiters, waiting for the masses to come. It was out of Time, and somewhat surreal.
That memory, for me, fits perfectly with Cohen's surreal waltz....
Once such memory is a trip I took to Buda-Pest some twenty years ago, almost to the day. I was traveling with my friend Max, who deserves a book all in itself, and we took a journey to the East of sorts while we were both students in a European Studies program here in Antwerp, the first time I lived here.
Eastern Europe was just opening its doors, as the Wall had just come down some years before, and I had been "lucky" enough to be in East Germany before that had happened, so I was able to see the dramatic difference of the before and after some years later.
Max and I headed out to Prague per overnight bus, which was nothing short of an ashtray on wheels. This was a time when there was no such thing as non-smoking, and between the Czechs going home and the Western Europeans going to visit, it was a nine-hour chain smoke. For someone who has never smoked, let's just say it was less than pleasant.
After a brief stint in Prague, we jumped on a musty, old railcar that was part of the Orient Express, and headed to Budapest, the former sister city of Vienna of the formidable Austro-Hungarian empire that supplied the world with so much art and architecture, and of course, music. The waltzes along the Danube are legendary in Classical music, and in thinking of Budapest, I then must have Cohen's "Take this Waltz" on the brain.
One of the most vivid memories I have of that trip was an old-fashioned coffee house on the Pest side of the river. There, the waiters wore iron-pressed long, white aprons. The ceilings held numerous large chandeliers, which had these yellowish globular lights that barely gave off more than a spectral aura, much less light. The walls were covered in large, Baroque mirrors and there was a long wooden bar, finished out in brass. Max and I were the only patrons having coffee, with a staff of 15 or so waiters, waiting for the masses to come. It was out of Time, and somewhat surreal.
That memory, for me, fits perfectly with Cohen's surreal waltz....
