Nothing strictly to do with Slovenia, except the musing was prompted by a silly little news story from that land. They're proposing to close down the Ministry of Culture! Well suuuuummmmB-I better not say it. I'll just say you can sign a petition protesting this. It's on the Maribor website. Maribor is now, though it wasn't when I first saw it in February 2002, some kind of European Cultural Capital. In the great grammatical tradition of Slavic Languages North Of Bulgarian, there is no way to tell if it is "the" or merely "a" capital.

Well, whichever it is, it was my first landfall in this country, and there can be no question, the way to arrive in any Slavic land is on a snowy night. I was the only person in my compartment, on the train out of Graz. I may have been the only one who got off in this city just over the Slovene border. I walked dark empty icy streets, and found a hotel, and to the clerk spoke the first Slovene of my life. As with both Turkish and hitchhiking, I had no idea at all if it would work. Well, it did, here and in those other two situations: I had no reservation, but I got nice accommodations. In these I watched a beauty contest on TV, one where judges actually handed out 3's (wow, this country is mean!), and in the morning put on my tweed jacket, my idea of diplomatic formality, and ate a slow substantial breakfast in a great dining room. Only years later would I learn that Maribor used to have a resident plutocrat with my own name, one who'd built a Villa, and a workers' Block, both with the name still on them! He disappeared around WWII. Maybe someone denounced him as a Jew, though he was not and I am not. I do think the clerk should've betrayed a little more curiosity.

Excuse me, a lot more curiosity. But that's Europeans for you. Maybe that's what you get for Cultures that are Ministered to.

Anyway, a snow story. I may not have made it obvious, but the snow mattered. The ice mattered. As it did entering Poland from Germany on a train, and as it did re-entering Poland from Belarus by taxi. Just as sunshine, a saturating blaze, matters in Latin America, even the Andean parts. These particular cultures, and I think few others (north Africa?), have a weather, a dry noiseless meteorology the locals seem to need, and which enchants you. By it you know you have arrived, and by it you know you are animated.

Does anyone go to China and, upon sniffing the air and viewing the sky, get ready to tell a story? I don't think so.

(1/28/12)