Vienna
Writing

Vienna serves coffee with a glass of water and an implicit judgement.

Empire in decline · The great café tradition · Freud's city

Vienna is the city most aware of its own former greatness, which makes it melancholy in a grand, architectural way that other cities cannot match. The Ringstrasse was built by Franz Joseph to make Vienna look like the capital of an empire — it still does, though the empire has been gone for over a century. The coffee houses have been serving the same menu since the 1890s. Vienna is performing permanence. The performance is very good.

"The waiter at the café had been there for thirty years. He brought the coffee without being asked. He brought the bill without being asked. He made clear, without a word, that he considered this the correct way to live."

Tumbleweed Words — Vienna

Vienna writing in Tumbleweed Words engages with the literary tradition that came out of the city — Schnitzler, Zweig, Bernhard — without being about that tradition. The influence is formal: the long, accumulating sentence; the social observation precise enough to be cruel; the comedy that arrives via accumulation rather than punchline. Vienna teaches a specific kind of patience.

David — Tumbleweed Words Flash fiction and poetry written on trains, in hostels, and in city streets. Published in Litro, Adelaide Magazine, Cleaver Magazine, and The Dundee Anthology. Pushcart-nominated. Five years on Substack.