Leopoldstadt, Vienna
Coordinates: 48 13 N 16 22 E
Area: 7.5 sq mi (19.3 sq km)
Having seriously played the sport for ten years in my youth, part of this time with a close friend from Belgium, I reached adulthood as a rarefied type of American: a soccer fan. By which I mean that I still haven’t figured out what all of those baseball statistics mean. But I am looking forward to June 29th when two teams will meet in Ernst Happel Stadium to decide the 2008 European Football Championship. Located in Leopoldstadt, one of 23 districts in Vienna, the stadium sits on an island created by the Danube Canal and the river of the same name. Historically this part of Austria’s capital contained a large Jewish population (Freud lived here), and because of this, gained the nickname “Matzoh Island.” A number of tourist attractions occupy the island today, including Wurstelprater, an amusement park, as well as the Republic of Kugelmugel, a micronation founded in 1984.
Ben Keene is the editor of Oxford Atlas of the World. Check out some of his previous places of the week.
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Jennifer Thermes, an artist who blogs at Art, Words, Life, posed this question:
"How do you know when you're done with a piece of art? Or writing? Or are they really ever "finished" at all?"
Here's my answer:
Writers struggle with this, too. I find that I want both clarity and mystery in my poems, and if I overwork them, I get neither. For novels, it's tougher, because there are so many places you could polish and polish, but I think I'm still looking for the same two things: the story line runs clearly through the book, but it has a layer of mysterious otherness---beauty, if you want to call it that.
I also think of it like music---a clear theme with enough overtones to make it full and rich.
And yes, a deadline helps. So does an editor/agent combing over it until you're both sick to death of it.
And one more thing---a feeling of detachment, as if I didn't really write the work at all. My words look slightly alien, independent, as if I've let them go and they've become something true and alive.
Go leave a comment over at her blog, if you want to. She's going to round up all the answers on Friday.
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