Vienna

Gustav Mahler was Jewish though not religious.  Yet he was superstitious.  When he began composing his ninth symphony, in 1908, he refused to name it by its number.  Many of his artistic heroes—Beethoven, Schubert, Bruckner—died before they could finish their ninth symphonies, so Mahler thought he would out-do fate and simply call it by another name.  He dubbed it “Das Lied von der Erde,” and its one of his best.

First, let’s get this important fact out of the way. Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Queens) and I are not related.

And while we both pronounce our somewhat discordant surnames WEEner, not WHYner, he spells it the wrong way. I mean, a different way.