The Death of Imagination

Mayors of small Austrian towns still talk like they're in a Thomas Mann novel in my experience. The teaching job that I did, where you go to schools and do a special English Week, sent me to some tiny places, where the Mayor goes to all the school plays. In one town, I was phoographed and interviewed for the local paper, the mayor came to the pageant held in a Hof with dumplings the size of a small child and a karaoke stage for doing Schlägerkaraoake (where the children acted out their play) and then treated everyone to a round of dumplings and beer, and I had my photo taken once again, shaking hands with the Mayor over some dumplings. Slow news week in Burgenland.