7/31/2009

"Wie


einen Buckel trag ich mein schweres Gehirn zweiter Clown im kommunistischen Frühling"

Heiner Müller: Hamletmaschine

Thanks to Sunnyi Melles for remembering him and reminding us on the occasion of the Salzburg Festival opening 2009.

Sign





May all our roads be signposted as nicely as these hiking-paths on Gaisberg near Salzburg city. And may always be crossed knives and forks be as close by as here.

Sign: "Sign the picture, sign the picture, sign the picture and throw it away!" For those music-diggers and gold-miners among you:
Peter Hammill & the K-Group live: The Margin. Hamburg, Line Records 1985.

Peter Hammill has a new album out, good to hear from him after so many years!

7/29/2009

Gone





It was a well known inn-type restaurant, a solid old house, sitting there as if it were built to stay forever. Well.
"Aber nach 500 Jahren werd ich desselbigen Weges fahren."

Dark clouds







'Me' - artist unknown, Salzburg 2009




Remember





On the way to Bad Dürrnberg and the salt mines high above Salzach river valley near Hallein; traffic has been halted, rescue workers, representatives of Salzburg province and the British Embassy meet with the relatives of the victims of a terrible traffic accident. Time to mourn and remember.
A local driver, obviously very 'pressed', had overtaken a slow tourist coach from the U. K. Oncoming traffic, the coach driver's attempt to avoid the danger failed and the bus crashed after a 100 meters' fall down a steep slope.
No pictures there of the traces of the impact after the coach had been removed; years later, I carry them with me.
To all you drivers who may feel hurried at times or just enjoy the rush of the adrenaline when overtaking: is it worth these consequences?

7/28/2009

A different view





Hanns Otte - Grossglockner Hochalpenstrasse 2002 - C-Print, 50 x 62 cm,
Auflage 5 (+1) - Preis 1.400 Euro
Well, maybe you don't want to buy the regular print; let's enjoy that great photography by a friendly photographer here in the small version. Thanks, Hanns Otte!

This photograph also was printed in Hanns Otte's book "Grossglockner Hochalpenstrasse" fotohof edition 2007.

7/27/2009

Graffiti-Bridge



7/26/2009

Sentimental journey





Queen Sirikit ready for take-off after a low key private visit to Schloss Fuschl in Summer 2007; the curtsies at the Red Carpet have been made; now it's time for a respectful wait until the Royal Aircraft is reaching the horizon.
Now, is your hard-boiled 'security driver' getting sentimental? A little badge, given to him by Thai securities on the second day of the visit is nearby at the bookshelve right now. They hardly spoke English, but the gesture and the words "for security driver" stay in memory.
Being on a protocol motorcade is an honor; it's about reliability, it's about those high speed convoys – you must never let a car get between yours and the one ahead of you, no matter what. Often this driving is only just minutes after hours and hours of waiting. It's about those few minutes that most colleagues love to do the job.
And there is something else: it is a strange and moving experience to see how the local Thai community found ways to get near their Queen who always was protected from summer sun by a black silk umbrella (what a picture). Without understanding the language it was clear that this was not an organized thing for the media; they just wanted to be near their Queen ...
Hum, what do you do in such a case as a sturdy democrat with a left indent?
You'd just look in awe and bewilderment, if you'd happen to be me ;–).

7/25/2009

2008/4/11





Well, 'I don't know what it is, but I like it'! Last year, late in skiing season, maybe Obertauern?

7/24/2009

Chinese Envoy





August 2004: an endless motorcade of dark limousines and silver and black minibuses is jamming picturesque Sankt Wolfgang im Salzkammergut. Yours truly was not among the lead car drivers, so you miss out on those limousines; sorry.
The head of state of the People's Republic of China on a modest sightseeing tour around Salzburg city. All those cars were waiting for him to disembark a tourist boat on Wolfgangsee.
This weekend it will be a visit of the president of Portugal.
It will not be as bad as that; promised!


7/23/2009

Finally hot again





Hills still are alive with the water from those weeks of rain, stay on the hiking paths!
Today it's supposed to become as hot as 38C / 100F. If you haven't found a cool spot by a lake, have a seat in a shady old city café garden, and wait: not long and the Salzburgers will start complaining about the weather again; the Arab tourists will stop asking themselves if maybe they booked the wrong climate zone and happily head for the Krimml Waterfalls or the Kaprun hydro power lakes.
The rest of us is getting ready for the opening of Salzburg Festival this weekend; some restaurants have the last closing days before the rush starts; limo service guys get their suits from the cleaners; the ushers at the festival halls have their uniforms ironed; and passing by Haus für Mozart you might hear an opera singer rehearsing.


7/21/2009

Uncovered again!





Good morning Salzburg lovers! It's uncovered again, the white marble shiny and new, around it still a desert of gravel ... except just around the fountain. Have a look!
And when you're tired of the rain, check out what to do in Salzburg summer at derStandard.at > Schwerpunkt: Sommer trifft Stadt!

7/20/2009

"Sometimes it snows in April"





That was Prince's wonderful ballad in the 1980s, with harmonies that still let my spine tingle.
Salzburg is different: sometimes it snows in July. Altitudes of above 2,400m / 7,200ft above sea level; loads of snow in the morning on Grossglockner High Alpine Road. Yet by mid-afternoon a 'touring' colleague sent photos from his mobile from right there; all blue from the ultraviolet, road clear, sunshine and almost like midwinter at the sides of the road.
You'd love to go there right now? Have a look at the webcams first! Kind regards to Grossglockner Hochalpenstrassen AG, the company that operates the road as well as the webcams.


7/19/2009

Sunset at Hagenau





No, I am not getting paid for this; I just love those views from the gas station I stop by most often.

7/18/2009

"A darkness at the edge of town"





Baroque palace Schloss Klessheim, guarded by impressive eagle sculptures. But these are not baroque, they were placed here by the Nazis, when Klessheim was adapted for the 'Führer's' use as a conference center. Meetings with Mussolini and the likes took place here. The eagles hold the world ball firmly in their grip as Hitler would have liked to do it.
As a driver-guide I have developed a sightseeing tour on Salzburg and the Nazi past. It's called "A darkness at the edge of town" – with a warm hello to The Boss, Bruce Springsteen: 60 years and going strong on his current European tour.



Gone in spring 2009,





a blank spot of local conglomerate rock, where the eagle had been.
Earlier this year a book was published, "Im Schatten der Mozartkugel", something like a tour guide to locations of Salzburg Nazi past, with a web site to go with it, imschatten.org. And there, one of the chapters is on the building of motorways during the Nazi period, with a striking photograph of this very site. So somebody had reacted.


... a Nazi eagle





with just the swastika removed at the old foundations of a new bridge. More than 60 years after the end of the war? Didn't anybody realize? Would somebody do something about it? Would I?

In the beginning





there was this motorway bridge. I passed it early in the morning on my way to work, and didn't see quite clearly. Yet the 50th time I saw it, I realized, there is ...