wemo's views on Salzburg

Coming home?

2011-03-04T12:52:00.003+01:00

Picture in the picture:

Werner Otte (1922–2006): Salzburg-Nonntal im Winter, 1969

from the collection of Salzburg Museum

I was a designer lamp

2011-02-25T12:16:00.002+01:00

… and didn't I look good?

Found at republic café in Salzburg's old city.

At the crossroads (Robert Johnson)

2011-02-18T14:49:00.006+01:00

Legal or not, let's have another (Google) street view of the RR Xing at BG OH, thinking of slow trains coming (Bob Dylan), of the crossroads where Robert Johnson might or might not have met the Devil in the late 1920s, thinking of a great Austrian-Australian musician by the name of Chris Schermer, and of our mutual acquaintance, Czech-born fingerstyle guitarist Sammy Vomacka, thinking of Austrian fingerpicker Peter Ratzenbeck, and finally thinking of guitar genius Harri Stojka (they're all geniuses, but there's got to be some variation language-wise) – you might wonder, why have I heard of the one or the other but never of the rest?

Well, there's no business like show business: there might be people of equal artistic stature, but some never reach the fame (or fortune) of others …

Those life- and streetwise among us know, you won't need the Beatles or mother Mary to teach you: Let it be!

Posted with two special dedications:

Djedje – taxi-driving heavy metal paramedic of Palestine origins

and to

Martin – guitar pickin', foot-stompin', hyperactive waiter at republic café, who's had a beer with late jazzer Joe Zawinul at Finkenstein way back in another lifetime.

God (whoever that may be) bless them all!

wemo

An aside from the blogwart: wemo isn't ashamed to be purely & simply a fan at certain times of his life.

Take it or leave it, as you will.

Chris Schermer is God (?!)

2011-02-16T17:44:00.005+01:00

Taken from http://www.chrisschermer.com/photos.html

Oops, what a word to use for a great guitarist and singer-songwriter …

Well, after having heard the Austrian-Australian guy live twice I met the man and got to like him personally …

One of the most expert finger-picking guitarists I ever, ever heard, on his new studio album Diamonds from demons there is some of the finest songwriting, grrrreat arrangements and singing – so what can you do?

and do a recommendation for Salzburg locals:

Chris Schermer live at Afro Café, Salzburg, Thu Feb 17, and Thu Feb 24!!

Be there or be square!

ARGE reflections

2011-02-16T16:48:00.003+01:00

It is heaven for the 'reflective photographer': The ARGEkultur-Beisl in Salzburg-Nonntal, the bar and restaurant of the long-standing cultural cooperative.

It had to move from its old location due to the construction of big Unipark facilities, a campus-like new home for mostly the humanities of Salzburg University, into a hugely complex new concrete building, seemingly weird due to the tiny lot it had to be built on: a 'Restfläche' as we call it in German … residual space?

Winter and architecture

2011-02-15T17:26:00.003+01:00

We've had winter turned on and off recently; here it's the area heating plant next to river Salzach, in the background Gaisberg in biting frost …

Prize winning architecture, most locals hate it for all the raw concrete.

St. Blasius & Mönchsbergwand

2011-02-08T18:17:00.001+01:00

In the neighborhood, cont'd

2011-01-28T19:04:00.002+01:00

Flach?gau-Wanderung

2011-01-28T17:30:00.005+01:00

The Alpine foreland mostly north of Salzburg city has a traditional name: Flachgau.

The flat county. During that recent spring interlude in the middle of winter we hiked one of the highest peaks of those flat lands; Große Plaike, 1,033 meters above sea leave, from our starting point a relative altitude of some 500 meters. A beautiful hike in warm weather, only just that little bit of mud on the way …

Near the peak some of the spring storms of recent years seem to have devastated big stretches of forest; I guess clever foresters seem to be waiting for natural regrowth.

A room with a view

2011-01-28T09:36:00.006+01:00

The observation tower of prize winning Salzburg shopping mall Europark as seen from a friendly restaurant that will pass any Elk Test.

New job, more time for oneself; time to shop for new Billy shelves at Ikea.

Slowly by slowly wemo is recovering from his 'overwork' at the former limo service company and enjoying his new job as a 'simple' Funktaxi-driver in a one-car company with one of his best friends as his boss, and a connection with the biggest taxi switchboard in Salzburg city.

Funky taxi, funky town for the for the cabbie out of passion!

Hello to the funky ladies of Lipps Inc!

On the waterfront

2011-01-22T20:16:00.002+01:00

Theater & hotel

2011-01-22T20:11:00.000+01:00

There's a moon over St. Julien street

2011-01-21T16:19:00.002+01:00

Grinding sparks

2011-01-21T15:37:00.001+01:00

Hard work for Salzburg main train station.

Graffiti-Gate

2011-01-21T11:07:00.001+01:00

Winter returning

2011-01-21T10:08:00.006+01:00

Residenzplatz, before

... and after

John Tires disappearing

2011-01-18T14:11:00.001+01:00

Dairy Queen, 434 East Wooster Street, Bowling Green, OH (419) 352-8042 ‎

2011-01-16T12:46:00.005+01:00

Taken from Google Street View:

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=de&q=bowling+green+oh+317+1/2+north+main&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=317+N+Main+St,+Bowling+Green,+OH+43402&ei=YdUyTaOfC4qugQePxZTSCw&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=image&resnum=1&ved=0CBoQ8gEwAA&iwloc=undefined

"Best Dairy Queen ever. This is a family owned place and it really shows ..." (quote from a user review at Google)

Some things never change, it seems.

This was one of wemo's favorite hang-outs way back in the early 1980s … and boy, did he love to count the carriages of those endless freight trains on the tracks! –– What an eager student.

Ernst Jandl, 1925 – 2000

2011-01-16T09:44:00.011+01:00

Ernst Jandl at the Wholly Communion poetry slam at Royal Albert Hall, London, 1965

Images from: SILO Academie 23 Blog

Official Jandl website by Random House publishers

Ernst Jandl was not just a musician as a performer of his poetry, also his collaborations with mostly jazz musicians are countless. And he was a great collector of jazz records.

ORF Radio Ö1 presented me with a sleepless night last night – with their presentation of Jandl collection jazz tunes at Ö1 Jazznacht. What a great selection from Chico Hamilton to (Austrian) Spontan Musik Trio, with classics by Albert Ayler, Ghosts, or Michel Petrucciani.

Moving ancedotes by pianist Uli Scherer who frequently went on tour with Jandl: why wouldn't Jandl do more than 5 gigs per year with his 'band', even though they could have been sold out a lot more often? – Well, growing old, he wanted to make sure he would die in his home town Vienna …

A complete playlist of the program will be online later via the link above.

"You're so vain …"

2011-01-15T14:16:00.009+01:00

"… you probably think this blog is about you, don't you?"

Soundtrack by Carly Simon,

with background vocals by Mick Jagger

wemo & the blogwart have strictly refused to accept any association with this post,

image or text.

So be it!

Pha***c Mönchsberg

2011-01-15T13:41:00.002+01:00

Now, what the f*x!!

Mister Mister, blogwart

Künstlerhaus – Artists' Red

2011-01-15T13:34:00.014+01:00

"when it's dark, it ain't half bad really, but by day: what a horrible red of that 'artists' house'! Them oughta have learnt a decent job! – We gotta move those refrigerators, we gotta move them color TVs!"

Local lore from Salzburg city, Austria,

brought to you by foreign correspondent Mr. Dr. Hammerhead,

for World At Large News, worldwide

Soundtrack recommendation, by Dr. Mr. Hammerhead:

Dire Straits

Money for nothing, and the chicks for free

Once again, the blog team is split:

wemo's going for pt. I, the back office crew for pt. II, and the blogwart is apalled.

Festival Halls

2011-01-15T13:24:00.006+01:00

"Back there you see them festival halls, no idea what's goin'on in there; is for all them rich folk …

and front it's the pedestrian zone – rilly dangerous every morning, a man might'a be run over by a delivery van there …"

Order, order!!!

This the blogwart speaking!

This is a blog by an academic from Salzburg city!

What's going on, and where's that language coming from?!

Fortress in the mist

2011-01-15T13:16:00.003+01:00

"Well, you know, in them days of old, there were those prince archbishops and them built that castle up there in the mist and it was meant to keep us humble town folks way down, kinda low-life, ya see?"

One more gripping statement from Salzburg town folk

Winter's Day in Salzburg

2011-01-15T13:06:00.006+01:00

Remember Frank Zappa? – "… but I got a crystal ball …!!"?

"Well, this is Salzburg city, and us locals we got golden balls. Some call it art, for us regular folks it's just basics: what's a man gonna stand on if a man's gonna do what a man's gotta do?"

Thanks for that deep insight into human nature!

This is Mr. Dr. Hammerhead coming to you live from Salzburg, Austria, Europe, on a warm, rainy day in January 2011

Bike – arte povera

2011-01-14T11:24:00.002+01:00

To me this weird, bronze cyclist always had one meaning only:

it was a symbol for the non-connectedness of the Salzburg city bike paths; the wheels not connected like the bike routes. By now Salzburg has one of the best bike path systems imaginable. – So, isn't it about time to remove this symbol of lack and maybe have a new work of art here to symbolize plenty?

Serbian kitty

2011-01-12T14:30:00.001+01:00

November sky

2011-01-12T14:26:00.002+01:00

Elvis, Elvis!

2011-01-09T17:06:00.007+01:00

As everybody on the blog team seems to just love Elvis Costello,

and wemo's getting sentimental about his academic year abroad in Bowling Green OH, USA,

1982, the very same year when 'Imperial Bedrooms' was released and available at Finders Records, B. G. where

'The Best' were burning down the house at the best-liked rock club in town

(many nice Harleys parked outside every night) …

so let there be an homage to great Elvis Costello and his unique glasses; here as a charming young man – and ain't he lovely … if anyone of us was, say, like … smashin' Dolly Parton, we'd just know what a woman's gotta do … well ever since, Elvis met a nice lady, and seems to have moved in with her, so even smashin' Dolly would've kept her fingas off.

Let them be happy ever after!

** xx !! – blogwart's just tryin' to get some 'Order!' into those crazy,

loveable weirdo fans

Bring on the night, once more

2011-01-09T16:14:00.003+01:00

By day it was labelled 'pink sun screens', by night it's colored 'concrete poetry'.

Train station blues, remembered

2011-01-09T15:56:00.003+01:00

Well, wemo's not been able to record the progress of Salzburg's biggest construction site, the main train station rebuilding. One view still looks just the same: the exterior of the main hall (while inside everything is changing), and the light column in front of it.

Still a beautiful sight.

Remembering summer

2011-01-09T15:44:00.002+01:00

… and one of my favorite hang-outs, with original pre-1989 East Berlin charms, and a garden bar that looks like a steel container but really is poly… poly… something synthetic, from a ship-builder's, anyway,

… which has reminded the sound technician of Elvis Costello's old song Shipbuilding, which everybody in the blog team seems to like and remember. Hello to old Elvis! Gotta send some sturdy spex round to his villa, some day …

Remember bag-man

2011-01-08T11:11:00.002+01:00

I was wrong when I thought I saw a bag lady's possessions under the bridge head of Staatsbrücke. It's a gentleman and he's fighting darkness in his unique way: he started gardening last summer saving the little donations of passers-by for new plants and seeds.

Hopefully he has a warm place to stay in cold winter nights!

Loop-di-doo

2011-01-07T12:53:00.015+01:00

"Infinity in a finite object" …?

Now, with the blog theorist gone on a sabbatical,

the blogwart still trying to link (Lacan's) jouissance to Candle in the wind,

while trying to disperse any far-fetched associations to "Life is hard and then you die" (see below on the blog),

while holding back the the tears 'cause for reasons unknown The Righteous Brothers' "You've lost that loving feeling" came to his inner ear,

with the sound technician working on a re-loop of some of Neil Young's greatest guitar feedback (Arc / Weld, and more) tracks – and somewhere, in the back of his head, someone in an unknown audience is screaming 'Tar Babies', strange, but true,

and the back office crew once again in a meeting or gone fishing (one in a synthetic fur coat, one took an ice-pick along to the frozen lake),

wemo practicing his tractor skills as a 4-year old,

gaffers, riggers a.s.f. applied, but were never called back,

sadly, there's no-one around to comment this incredible screen-shot except for the blogger's knee, but, alas once more, that never has been very outspoken …

The photograph on this post is best looped – correction: viewed! – on a Mac with Mac OS X 10.4

in brushed aluminum design.

As so very often, nobody will accept any responsibility for the external links on this post.

Letzte Meldung:

Während wir die Ausdünnung unseres Blogteams bedauern, hat sich ein junger, vorwiegend deutschsprachiger Praktikant bei uns gemeldet, dzt möchte er noch anonym bleiben.

Vom blogwart freundlichst begrüsst, sei er doch ein Student von Klaus Theweleit in Freiburg, mit einem interessanten Diss-Thema:

'Anti-Ödipus verlinkt. Der Blogger und das Internet als Wunschmaschine.' –

Hm, zumindest der blogwart findet das interessant und schickt dem blog theorist gerade ein SMS.

Die back-office-crew fand ihn 'vielversprechend, aber verwirrt', und hat zur Sicherheit eine Flasche Wein aufgemacht.

Der Sound technician wiederum legt etwas Albert Ayler auf, altes Vinyl, was weiß ein Fremder, und das mag er wieder, der Jungspund. Naja, mal sehen. Wir sind da nicht so!

Wer hat das jetzt hingeschrieben – wo doch außerm Knie keiner mehr da ist?

Hard surfaces

2011-01-07T12:28:00.004+01:00

"Life is hard and then you die."

Just a quote – from 1980s (?) band It's Immaterial. Nothing to do with anyone round here.

Says the blogwart.

Granter

2011-01-05T18:44:00.002+01:00

For a better 2011

2011-01-05T17:33:00.003+01:00

Went over my photo archive from last year, and it looks slightly barren, just 1177 photographs, not even a hundred per month? Not the wemo we used to know. And long, long intermissions on the blog. Just too much work on the job, and hardly any restful early mornings driving with time for a sunrise to be shot and enjoyed.

So, here's to a better 2011!

Thanks to a few friends who got worried and helped me get off that workaholic nightmare.

Happy new year, v.2

2011-01-05T16:19:00.003+01:00

After seeing those season's greetings below somebody in the blog team got the screaming fits: "What about winter as it used to be, what about my tractor and the little snow plough of the olden, golden days?!"

There we are. Happy new year!

Phew; that was close. It's heartbreaking to see a competent adult turn into a little kid that's so terribly in need, of something so easy to get. It just takes someone to do it. Luckily this is a big multiple personality blog team, there's always somebody helpful around.

Season's greetings once again, from wemo, from the nasty lads of the back office crew,

from the sound technician who's just piping in Over the rainbow,

from the blogwart who's trying to relate Candle in the wind to Lacan's jouissance,

and they're all not a big happy family, but humans in all their need and distress,

and a feel for the needy – and with just a few simple means to help

when it's needed, and the awareness to stand back

when it's due.

"Let's hope it's a good one!" – 2011, c_Human rights, human needs, & human awareness

for all the good-willing

Happy New Year! – and an announcement

2011-01-05T15:58:00.007+01:00

With the blog theorist currently on a sabbatical – for his ground-breaking study on Multiple Blog Personality Disorder Syndrome (wonder why he took so many notes round here recently?) – well, for the moment we'll have to miss out on his little lecture that would have been due right here & now: 'Auto-referentiality in post-modernism 2.0 and the doppelganger motif in German Black Romanticism in the light of Jacques Lacan's concept of the 'Real' as opposed to traditional symbolic theories and their concept of the Sublime'.

Once he's back, we'll love to get that slim 2 hour tour package to a theater near you!

Got a sneak preview of his manuscript: barely 200 footnotes there, easy stuff, yet enlightening, especially with his newly developed multi media presentation system.

As a little preparation work you might just brush up your Lacan: still familiar with the concepts of the Real, the Imaginary, and the Symbolic – jouissance?

As for the practical applications you might just want to re-read Slavoi Zizek's 5 volumes on Lacanian analysis of Hitchcock movies; then work out your questions for the discussion: it will be mostly on the implications of web 2.0 for the theory of the Imaginary, and why Schubert's 'Doppelgänger' was a predecessor of the discussion of identity and loss in The Matrix.

Sheet music will be available at the doors!

Come to think of it: it might just add that extra something to your enjoyment/jouissance, if you also read wemo's thesis on Matrix beforehand; it's based on an unreleased editor's cut that was destroyed by the production company's law firm shortly afterwards. wemo was slightly injured in the incident, and a doppelganger of the film editor has been haunting some 50.000 copies of Gibson's Neuromancer ever since. The effect is especially gruesome in the e-book versions; watch out before download!

wemo's thesis available at Salzburg University Press, Salzamt division, 500p., € 250.00 or $ 325.00 incl. VAT, postage and packaging not included.

I'll just take it for granted that you're familiar with Kant's three Critiques, those two compact volumes of Deleuze's theory on cinema, and Karl Sierek's theory of the visual paradigm as developed in passing in his analysis of Blade Runner, a lot of basics there in that little essay, not to be missed; – you're with me, aren't you?

There will be handouts in Sanskrit, for reasons to become clear during the lecture (it's got to be about Zen and the perception of 'reality', hasn't it? Just an educated guess there; let's see).

All set? Then: Happy New Year! Signed Mister Mister, blogwart

Jawoll, ein höflicher Browser

2010-12-21T12:30:00.003+01:00

Beim allgemeinen Verfall der guten Sitten, Höflichkeit, Scham on rapid decline, war es immer Punkt eins im Anforderungsprofil an meinen persönlichen Browser: Er muss sich entschuldigen können, wenn etwas passiert. Na also! Gerne verziehen.

Foreign? Alien? Stranger? Guest? Welcome? - Welcome!

2010-12-07T18:29:00.006+01:00

It's been quite a while that art asked a question in a comment to a post here:

hello dear
i am very happy to finally find a blog about salzburg. i've been there few years ago and i was amazed by the beauty of the place and i was wondering if its easy for a foreigner to settle there. I am french (african) and i was wondering how the local react when you have some outsider who want to come and live there for a little while.
hopefully you will be able to answer to my question.
thanks

March 5, 2010 1:29 AM

Hi Art, it took me a long time to really think about an answer.
I guess it might not exactly be easy for an African to settle down here, but obviously it's worked time and again for quite a few people, among them some (I suppose) asylum seekers from war zones in Africa, musicians who study music here, students at our university, artists, cabbies, u name it.

Sadly, racism is to be found in our beautiful town as much as in many other places, but you definitely will meet friendly people here, there are hangouts where it's easier to get in touch with locals or tourists; some of my favourite places, like republic café in the old city, Jazzit music club near the main train station, Fabiani Espresso right opposite the main train station ... that place has become a real meeting point for people from mostly northern Africa, thanks to a barman from Morocco, Azdin, whom I value as one of the friendliest and most open-minded persons I've ever met. ... and at all those places u might just see a 50ish curly red hair light-skinned guy with a little old iBook: don't hesitate to approach him!
Good luck, and who dares, wins (Wer wagt, gewinnt! as we say in German)!

As we've seen, blog editor wemo is quite secretive about his person, but a friend of his might help you connect, if you want to get in touch: Werner
Best wishes from the blog team!

Fly with the wind

2010-12-01T18:39:00.006+01:00

Werner Otte, Bau der kleinen Windfallen. Acrylic. Found at artnet.

Building the little wind-traps – not to stop the wind, but to fly high with it, like a kite.

Late painter Werner Otte put a dedication there to Austrian writer H. C. Artmann, a master of playful poetic imagination, a man who was well acquainted with the hardships of life, willing to face life's and politics' atrocities, and still let his imagination fly high.

wemo asks himself, why these online auctioneer's catalogues always seem to deliver their repros out of focus. If it's for copyright reasons, it's okay.

Serbian courtyard, revisited

2010-12-01T18:24:00.004+01:00

So, seeing the picture below you thought Serbian courtyards are just a mess?

Well, get a different view:

I prefer the mess ;–), especially the little piggies; just was too slow to get a picture of mother sow rolling around that huge pumpkin with her snout. What a pity!

Lost … and found

2010-12-01T09:37:00.006+01:00

It's disappeared from practical IT, yet I miss that icon of early Mac and Atari users, those pioneers of usability vs

"An Adresse 1.23444.xxxf…you ist der schwere Ausnahmefehler xmrfb.wrdlbrmbfd.0815 aufgetreten, wouldn't you rather like to kick that PC out the window?"

Source wikimedia.org/commons

Cool Mac or Atari users would just need something like the above to know whats happening: Something's crashed, and usually it wasn't the computer as a whole …

Maybe only a few among us may have experienced a serious 'kernel panic' on a more recent Mac, a gripping, virtually psychedelic visual experience that is privileged for the chosen few who would really manage to overload their system to the brink of total breakdown.

for some comic relief have a look here for the 'online T-shirt' on post Aug 12

still no-one knows where you've gone to

2010-12-01T09:24:00.004+01:00

source: Mozilla Firefox, screenshot Apple & wemo

I'd love to see that visualized: a request that is diverted in a way it never can be ended.
Would it look like that Moebius strip that you could walk along covering either side of that band without having to 'switch' sides ever … infinity in a finite object.

… and no-one knows where you've gone to

2010-11-25T08:45:00.006+01:00

in the pagan night.

Peter Hammill, Sign - lyrics taken from Sofa Sound

Wrong drink to order...

suspicion grows.

Strong situation....

Oh, no-one knows where you've gone to in the pagan night

and the neon reflections spread cadmium white.

You came here looking for something

but this wasn't it, quite.

Hey, take a Polaroid,

exit,

and well you might.

Sign the picture, get out of the frame;

sign the picture, and throw it away.

Sign the picture, sign the picture,

throw the picture away.

Now she turns her attention

and her camera on you:

this could be all of the moments

that you'll ever live through.

Oh, but your heart beats the rhythm of primeval tattoo...

I hear you make your excuses

as you usually do.

Sign the picture, get out of the frame;

sign the picture, and throw it away;

Sign the picture, sign the picture,

throw the picture away...

... although it's going to come back.

You've got a certain knack

of making of such things

auspicious signs.

The song should be heard in the live version mentioned below.

If one took the 'you' in the song as a 'me' it might enlighten why there needs to be silence and darkness in the blog at certain periods of time. Maybe not a 'pagan' night, just silence and black.

Time for some text: Zauberflöte / Magic Flute

2010-11-24T13:26:00.014+01:00

In der Zauberflöte gibt es früh eine kleine Liebesgeschichte: die zwischen Papageno und Pamina, vermittelt durch Papagenos Zauberglöckchen.
Als 'höhere Tochter' vertritt Pamina längst das bürgerliche 'Gesetz', als in Papageno der pure Wunsch durchbricht:

"P_a: Armer Mann! Du hast noch kein Weib?
P_o: Noch nicht einmal ein Mädchen, viel weniger ein Weib! – Ja, das ist betrübt! – Und unsereins hat auch manchmal seine lustigen Stunden, wo man gern ...
P_a: Papageno!
P_o: ... gesellschaftliche Unterhaltung haben möchte."

Aber wie vertritt Pamina den Anstand? Sie unterbricht so, dass man sieht, dass sie sich genau auskennt ...
Das ist nicht gesungen, da hat im Theater auf der Wieden jede/r jedes Wort verstanden – ich kann mir vorstellen, dass der Saal getobt hat. Nun mussten die Standespersonen im Publikum aber rasch versöhnt werden; ich spreche da weniger vom Adel, der sowieso 'unmoralisch' war (war das eigentlich in Wien auch so? Sicher, sonst gäbe es nicht die Verquickung von Adelswillkür mit ‚Unmoral‘ im Don Giovanni), sondern vom gezügelten Großbürgertum.
Zu diesem Zweck folgt nun das wunderbare Duett Pamina – Papageno, "Bei Männern welche Liebe fühlen", ein Hohelied auf die bürgerliche Zweierbeziehung in glückender Version:
"Mann und Weib, und Weib und Mann, reichen an die Gottheit an."

Später, als unsere zwei HeldInnen von Monostatos geschnappt werden, bringen die Zauberglöckchen den bösen Wunsch des Mohren zum Tanzen: "Das klinget so herrlich ...", der Wunsch ist/wird in der Musik sublimiert, so dass es nichts wird mit der Verwirklichung von Monostatos' Vergewaltigungsphantasie.

Letztlich ist Monostatos ein armes Schwein: "Alles fühlt der Liebe Freuden ... und ich soll die Liebe meiden, weil ein Schwarzer hässlich ist." Es ist kein Zufall, dass Mozart ihn als Tenor anlegt, der ist kein per se 'Böser', der ist dazu gemacht worden.

Sarastro hingegen ist ein prototypischer Arsch. Er faselt ('tschuldigung: singt 'erhaben') etwas von "… kennt man die Rache nicht" und endet mit "... verdienet nicht ein Mensch zu sein".

Er lässt Monostatos auspeitschen; naja, der Schwarze ist ja auch aus der Dritten Welt, wozu also sollten wir mit dem edel umgehen?

Und doch vertritt Sarastro ein, vielleicht gar das Gesetz.

Vorerst vertritt er allerdings ein ganz bestimmtes, eher trauriges Gesetz:
Nämlich, wie man sich "vor Weibertücken" bewahre: "manch weiser Mann ließ sich berücken ... Tod und Verzweiflung war sein Los". Was Mozart von dieser 'Weisheit' hält, sagt die Musik sehr deutlich. – Mozart hat übrigens dieses 'Tod und Verzweiflung war sein Los' gelegentlich ganz spielerisch privat verwendet; als Blödelei, und dies zu einer Zeit, wo es ihm ganz und gar nicht mehr gut ging.

Papageno ist später der einzige, der versteht, wie die 'Prüfung' Taminos zum sadistischen Spiel mit/gegen Pamina wird – Tamino 'muss' ja schweigen und winkt die erwartungsvoll-verliebte Pamina fort; was soll sie denken, als: "...fühlst du [Tamino] nicht der Liebe Sehnen, so wird Ruhe im Tode sein."
Darauf Papageno, der sich scheinbar nicht beim Essen hat stören lassen:
"Nicht wahr, Tamino, ich kann auch schweigen. – Ja, bei so einem Unternehmen, da bin ich ein Mann." Auch er unternimmt nichts gegen das böse Spiel, er begreift jedoch zumindest, worauf es bei dieser Art 'Männlichkeit' ankommt.
Und mancher denkt an Alice Miller, die meinte, dem gequält-missbrauchten Kind könnte ein teilnehmender Blick das Leben retten, ein Blick der ihm sagt, dass die Qual nicht das ganze Leben ist.

In der diesem Text zugrunde liegenden Aufnahme (Salzburger Festspiele 1980, Dirigent James Levine, Wr. Philharmoniker, Regie Jean-Pierre Ponnelle) kommt das unheimlich gut raus, auch das schlechte Gewissen Papagenos hinterher. Christian Boesch als Papageno ist ein ganz toller 'Sprechspieler'.

'Tod und Verzweiflung' sind in Wahrheit das Los der Frau, wenn es nach den Regeln der Eingeweihten geht. – Den ganz Ophelia-mäßigen Selbstmord der Pamina (Schikaneder hat Hamlet gespielt – und Papageno; er musste also wissen, was für Anspielungen er da einsetzte) können die Drei Knaben verhindern; diese drei sympathischen Burschen, von denen man wirklich nicht weiß, wohin sie eigentlich gehören; zur Königin der Nacht, zu Sarastro?
Sicher aber stehen sie auf der Seite des Lebens – und sie können fliegen …

Wo ist eigentlich der in der Kritik so oft beschworene Bruch in der Oper? Am Anfang ist die Königin der Nacht die 'Gute', das relativiert sich, sobald wir in Sarastros Kreise eintreten. Pamina hat es sicher nicht geschadet, einmal von der overprotective allein erziehenden Mutter wegzukommen; von der Mutter, die ja noch dazu ihre Tochter dazu missbrauchen will, ihr eigenes Machtsüppchen zu kochen.
Pamina lernt nach der Entführung durch Sarastro etwas Neues kennen, ihren eigenen Wunsch, bedrohliche Sexualität in der Begegnung mit Monostatos – und sie lernt, dass Männer ganz schöne Ärsche sein können, selbst wenn sie 'eigentlich' liebenswert sind, wie Tamino.

Eins ist klar, das haben die männerbündlerischen Freimaurer im Publikum sicher übel vermerkt: die letzte Prüfung müssen Pamina und Tamino miteinander bestehen; damit ist die Regel der Eingeweihten gebrochen – und die Möglichkeit zu Gemeinsamkeit zwischen Mann und Frau geschaffen.
Ist Pamina damit auch eine Eingeweihte? Kann uns eigentlich egal sein; ich vermute, das war es Mozart auch.

Aber noch hat das mobile suicide prevention unit Drei Knaben zu tun: Papageno, der einzige, der unter den Männern sich selbst treu geblieben ist – fressen, saufen, Sehnsucht und dabei noch etwas/jemanden wahrnehmen, statt sich an 'eingeweihtes' Regelwerk zu halten – zuckt aus: Strick und Baum sind schon bereit, "Gute Nacht, du falsche Welt! Weil du böse an mir handelst, mir kein schönes Weib zubandelst, so ists aus, so sterbe ich." Vor lauter Verzweiflung hat er dazu auf seiner Hirtenflöte gespielt und seine Zauberglöckchen vergessen, an die ihn die Drei Knaben nun erinnern. Schon klappt's mit Papagena.
Manchmal kann es so einfach sein, aber etwas dafür tun muss man doch.

Papageno ist schon einmal 'geholfen' worden: in der 'Halbzeit' der Prüfungen, in einem "Saal mit vielen Türen" ruft er nur noch panisch nach Tamino; er will sich davonmachen, da sind aber Regisseur Ponnelle (ruft "Zurück!", Feuer schlägt zur Tür heraus) und Dirigent Levine (ebenfalls "Zurück!", ohne Feuer vom Pult) vor (hätte ich das gerne gesehen: dieser Bruch der Vierten Wand!); drücken gilt nicht, für Papageno ist das eine echte, mythische Prüfung, ganz ausserhalb 'eingeweihten' Regelwerks.
Ich find's schön an der Inszenierung, dass dieser sympathische Charakter, der hier berechtigterweise am meisten punktet, auch Hilfe von denen bekommt, die ihn 'gemacht haben'. Er hat ja zumindest eine 'männliche' Qualität; er steht zu sich, mit all seinen Schwächen. Tamino ruft einmal "Sei ein Mann!", und Papageno darauf, schlicht und ergreifend: "Ich wollt, ich wär ein Mädchen!"
Nur reicht dies allein eben nicht. Er muss noch was tun, damit's klappt mit Papagena und dem guten, erwachsenen Leben.

Hier sind drei Liebesgeschichten abgeschlossen, ja drei, wir haben mit der von Papageno und Pamina angefangen, die unproblematisch war, weil die beiden nichts voneinander wollten.
Sie wollten und konnten miteinander und mit den Zauberglöckchen die Liebe in Erwartung feiern und einmal einen wirklichen Schrecken bannen, ohne damit die Liebe oder Monostatos und seine Gehilfen zu denunzieren. Hier entfalten die Zauberglöckchen eine freundlich-mythische Kraft; haben sie anfangs die Tiere des Waldes angelockt, so bringen sie jetzt die destruktiv gewordene Liebe des Mohren zum Tanzen; was für ein Gegensatz zur faden Zauberflöte des selbst auch etwas faden Tamino, die nur die Löwen des Sarastro vertreiben kann ...

Und dann gibt's noch ein 'politisches' Finale der Oper: den Putschversuch von Monostatos und Königin der Nacht gegen Sarastro, der mit Isis' und Osiris' Hilfe abgewehrt wird.
Nur, wenn man diese politische Geschichte völlig mit der der Beziehungen identifiziert, wird man glauben, die ganze Oper hätte einen Bruch in der Logik.
Die Tochter muss sich von der Mutter lösen, der Sohn das non / den nom du père akzeptieren, sonst wird das nichts.
Kein generelles Problem – für Pamina jedoch ein lebensbedrohliches –, wenn dieses Gesetz von Arschlöchern vertreten wird, die auf edle Lichtgestalten machen.

Da oben steht Bloggers ‚Vatergeschichte‘: das Gesetz ist desavouiert durch den, der es zu vertreten hat – und dies eigentlich gar nicht will, weil er selber ‚Kind‘ sein möchte: das hat er in seiner Kunst dann sein dürfen (Bloggers Vater nämlich, von Sarastros weiterem Lebensweg brauchen wir nicht wirklich etwas zu wissen), nach unendlich viel Arbeit und Akzeptieren des Gesetzes.

Nun ist dieser bürgerlichen Geschichte noch ein mythischer Anklang an die Ablösung des Matriarchats durch das Patriarchat aufgesetzt. Umso bühnenwirksamer zu realisieren, das Ganze, mit all dem Zauber, Flug, Blitz und Donner, und das wollen wir ja schließlich – ich jedenfalls; die Zauberflöte war nicht umsonst die erste Oper meines Lebens, und das im besonders zauberhaften Salzburger Marionettentheater.

Schikaneder brauchte den Zauber auch für's Geschäft; wozu hätte er sonst die tolle barocke Theatermaschinerie im Freihaustheater gehabt, die sich ja auch rentieren musste.

Wenn ich mich recht erinnere, war mein Schreibanstoß damals, im Mozartjahr 2006, dass ich rausarbeiten wollte, wie die Königin der Nacht musikalisch ‚gewinnt‘, im Gegensatz zum Verlauf der Handlung; dann hab' ich die Oper noch einmal konzentriert gehört und mitgelesen – und es ist etwas ganz anderes rausgekommen, sehr zu meiner Überraschung.

With gratitude for Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Klaus Theweleit (once again), Michael Lederer, and U.S. who might know if she ever reads this.

This is copyrighted material; the author's rights have been asserted by
Isis & Osiris LLC, attorneys at law; whoever makes unlawful use of this text will be

read his rights, made shut up and smashed by

the aria
Der Hölle Rache brennt in meinem Herzen

wemo

It's too darn hot

2010-07-14T15:40:00.003+02:00

so let it rain …

Where have all the flowers gone?

2010-06-11T22:53:00.002+02:00

Somewhere along the way, wemo went missing.

A rainy spring turned into a bloody hot premature summer, 35°C / 95F the last few days, wemo nowhere around, no permission to upload anything for the rest of the Blog-team.

On strike?

He's been around somewhere, photographs where found around his desktop.

Any problems with practical life?

Kunst am Bau?

2010-05-26T08:13:00.006+02:00

Elegance, a certain purity …

our new railway bridge across Salzach river … check Halle 1 architects for more of this and other works; they are currently the most 'present' exponents of modern building in Salzburg.

But if you look at all this, isn't there something missing? Something extra, something one would like to glue to that pure concrete?

You got it: Kunst am Bau!

It does not necessarily have to look like a combination of Nazi and bad socialist art, but all too often it does. Here it's been slightly smoothed over …

Allegories of the railway system, the Austrian state, Salzburg province, and Salzburg city, all those who paid for it; I'm not giving details of this esthetic shame ;–).

Spring rain

2010-04-14T21:52:00.001+02:00

One more statement

2010-04-14T21:32:00.004+02:00

on the historic as well as contemporary issue: the swastika (see below) not made invisible but crossed out with a fat black line.

It ain't over when it's over

2010-02-26T04:10:00.003+01:00

I started this blog with a few posts on a Nazi eagle on a motorway bridge near Salzburg, with just the swastika taken out after the end of the Nazi regime, and its late disappearance.

A comment by mistereggz followed, likening the disappearance of remains to the dying of witnesses and survivors, and to the fading away of memory as a whole.

Here we go … It may have been one of those people who wants the Nazis back, or the formerly oft-cited 'strong man to bring back some order to those degenerate democracies' in Europe. It won't go away as it seems; bringing back the hurt to the sensible and sensitive ones. And it reminds us that dark history has not ended with the liberation from the Nazis.

Winter road

2010-02-24T07:42:00.003+01:00

Lucky moment: an unusually empty Pinzgauer Bundesstraße on the way to a pickup in Saalbach-Hinterglemm, and a dramatic sky, time for a photograph while driving …

Train station blues

2010-02-04T06:14:00.003+01:00

What the f***?!

2010-01-25T09:52:00.003+01:00

There we are: yet another picture with date and time. "Es kann ja doch nicht sein, dass ..." a member of the blog team was quoted. He might qualify for politics, but the date is still there. No, not another discussion about photoshop elements! In an emergency meeting of the team a decision was found: rather than kicking out the fictitious camera assistant who would have fiddled with the settings wemo will learn to check and adjust his camera settings, if needed consulting the hand-book. – Omygawd! wemo

Winter out of focus

2010-01-25T09:10:00.003+01:00

It's become rare to really have a lot of fresh snow in Salzburg city over night, so for once date and time in the photograph may be acceptable.

At the moment it is -5° C / 23° F, and people start complaining about the cold. Well it is winter after all, isn't it? We've just gotten out of practice.

2010-01-12T08:29:00.001+01:00

2010-01-07T03:27:00.002+01:00

Happy New Year!

2010-01-01T06:11:00.004+01:00

May there be light at the end of whatever tunnel, a clear view of the road ahead, and not too many traffic jams.

I've calmed down now, found the conditions at the Zen monastery not all too inviting – no headsets or earphones while raking the Zen garden, no admission for Macs older than OS X 10.5, no photographs while meditating … So here's for a new year of practical life in the everyday world! wemo

True blue, v. 3

2009-12-31T04:21:00.003+01:00

Blue_Obertauern, in color-corrected version by hannsotte.blogspot.com

wemo has announced his retreat to a Zen monastery, but made sure there would be wireless internet around and renewed his Apple Care support lease.

The rest of the blog team will stay in lieu and meditate on the color blue.

Soundtrack: Fine Young Cannibals Blue

Chorus:
Good god, all my tears
There’s no denying life
Would be better if I never ever had to live with you,
Blue - it’s a colour so cruel

From Lyrics.Time

True blue, the crisis, or DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE

2009-12-30T06:56:00.003+01:00

This is the blog administration speaking; wemo's been taken to a protected shooting range by the back office crew, to confine him to a safe place in order to get to grips with his anger at a supposedly unlawful intrusion from an otherwise friendly blog.

Now he has uncovered under his long desert-colored coat: 1 Winchester rifle, 1 AK47, 2 .45 Colts, 1 Glock, and a few knives, and is firing at various distances at: Swastikas, portraits of late actor John Wayne, printouts of the unlicensed 'color-corrected' version of his Blue_Obertauern photograph. We know, this will calm him.

Meanwhile a third version of the photograph has been submitted, that is in serious discussion by the rest of the blog-team. There could be a way to even interest stubborn wemo in a re-thinking of his views on photography. Let's see.

Signed Mister Mister, a.k.a. blogwart

True blue?

2009-12-28T07:55:00.004+01:00

The blogwart would have said, hey, you gotta take some of that blue out of this picture. Well, Photoshop Elements are somewhere ready to be used. But: this is snow under a blue sky just before sunrise on the shady slopes of the valley. It is so blue, only what our brain does when we're there, is to correct the snow into what we think should be white. Does a photographer need to do so? I don't think so.

Photoshop Elements still unused.

Season's greetings

2009-12-27T05:46:00.003+01:00

Once again, it was not a white Christmas in Salzburg city, but it was not as bad as this: heavy rain on New Year's Eve 2007. Today it's slightly freezing, and sunshine to be expected during daytime.

Off season

2009-12-21T06:21:00.002+01:00

Maybe there's something wrong with that photograph selector? Outside I hear people shoveling snow, it's the shortest day of the year – and what comes up here? An August sunset, shot at 19:42:47, just for the record.

Fog and freezing

2009-12-19T03:44:00.005+01:00

The fog at Intercont Berchtesgaden was in June, now it's freezing cold down here, -8.3° C, and probably -15° up there (1,000m or 3,000ft. above sea level), around one foot of snow, and a bright blue sky to be expected once sun comes up.

Beautiful place to have a hotel built, yet if it were not for the dark past, see below, this is just in the middle of nowhere. Just mountains around and great views, plus the documentation centre at Obersalzberg, and – from May through October – the bus departure to the Eagle's Nest on top of Kehlstein mountain.

Obersalzberg documentation (reportedly the largest permanent exhibition on the Nazi period, and a very good one), in the background Untersberg.

In 1928, when Hitler first rented a chalet not far from here, one of his reasons was the view of Untersberg, a myth-laden mountain. Legend has it that in one of the huge caves of this limestone mountain there is eather emperor Charlemagne or Frederick I, Hohenstaufen emperor in the 12th century, sitting at a stone table in a death-like sleep. Only when the ravens quit circling the mountain and his beard has grown seven times around the stone table the emperor will awake, gather his army and in a huge battle at Walserfeld (a plain in the area around Salzburg airport) will erect a realm of Christ on earth.

A myth that goes back to the late middle ages when Christians were still awaiting a return of Christ and a 1000 year empire on earth before doomsday. It was not a dangerous one before the Nazis grabbed hold of it to legitimate their own "Thousand year empire".

In the neighborhood

2009-12-16T04:54:00.000+01:00

In hiding

2009-12-14T08:32:00.002+01:00

Intercontinental Resort Berchtesgaden, the hotel built on a location that was called "Göring Hill" in dark ages: Göring had his chalet there, not far from Hitler's Obersalzberg house; the whole structure grew over the years with additions to the houses of Nazi greats, SS-barracks, a parade ground, and a tunnel system inside the rock, used as bomb shelters and as dungeons for convicts.

Hiding in the clouds above the building: The "Eagle's Nest", high outpost of this mountain retreat for the Nazis. Not far behind the location where the mountain escape of the Trapp family was filmed. Not a good way into Switzerland, then.

Leaping back

2009-12-13T06:22:00.003+01:00

in time to when it was still 'old' Residence fountain, the marble a dark yellow + all the gray & black from withering – and a strange fall sunset sky.

Telling a secret

2009-12-10T05:01:00.005+01:00

Hallstatt, Unesco World Heritage Site for its nature as well as its cultural history.

There is a good chance that getting there you see quite a few buildings wrapped for renovation.

Well, nowhere in those tourism hot spots you will find terms of trade that would guarantee a right to see all the buildings uncovered and in a state of best repair – so a flight through the covered gate in a delivery van might be appropriate.

This is in memory of Jeanne-Claude, partner in life and arts of Christo.

Jeanne-Claude died aged 74 on November 18, 2009. May she be sketching and planning to wrap clouds or stars in heaven with friendly support by St. Peter by now.

2009-12-07T03:41:00.006+01:00

Soundtrack: Schubert, String quintet c-major, D 956, currently on Radio Ö1 with Acies Quartet and David Geringas.

Why?

"Woher kommen wir? Wohin gehen wir? Und wo geht's hier zum Bahnhof?"

Schubert could not have answered the last of those three basic questions; there were no train stations around in his lifetime. And he did not answer a lot of questions in words anyway, it is his music that is about life and death, creation and destruction, about dancing when things seem to be petrified. So it seems there is a direction home somewhere.

Hello to Hanns Otte and his current blog series "Man soll den Tag nicht vor dem Abend loben......" from Vienna and Teheran; and hello to all good-willing people who think that tolerance and constitutional rights are a higher value than "clipping other people's minarets, because we don't like to have those dark-skinned muslims in our tidy country" – as the Swiss just did; and a lot of my fellow Austrians found this a great and respectable decision.

A second soundtrack is to be credited: a blackbird "singing in the dead of night"; hello there!

Saint-Julien-Straße gen Westen

2009-12-03T05:16:00.001+01:00

NaNo-Update

2009-11-29T06:07:00.003+01:00

National Novel Writing Month November 2009 is coming to a close. Yours truly has called it a writing day already a week ago, not minding the fact that he did not reach 50k. Around 30k I realized: what had started out as a collection of 'fragments & anecdotes' had taken on a subliminal logic that reached a peak just then – and suddenly I found myself tying in some loose ends, finding a conclusion, and smoothly shifting into edit mode.

What NaNo can do for you it surely did; helping along by daily word counts on your profile, encouragement by pep talk emails, and forums for the outcries and ideas you would like to share during the writing effort – still safely withholding most of your actual 'novel' to decide later, during the editing process, what is to become of those writings you did while your inner editor was on a vacation, hopefully.

Great project!

Tom Cruise, anywhere?

2009-11-27T03:14:00.003+01:00

Somewhere round here, maybe right on the rusty tin roof front right, there was filming with Tom Cruise this week, for an action comedy with Cameron Diaz. Local media played it big; on the spot things weren't quite as excited. Driving by I mostly noticed the thick power cables for lighting, generators, camera equipment, lots of trucks, and a lot of security. The two stars aren't among my favorite actors, but to be near filming is something fascinating knowing a little about the complicated process. Now people are wondering how much of Salzburg there might to be seen in the final production. A few seconds? With a panoramic view, or just very realistic rusty tin roofs?

Coming up soon in a theater near your: buggers, I forgot the title ...

In memoriam Dieter Feichtner 1943–1999

2009-11-23T05:58:00.006+01:00

This is in memory of Dieter Feichtner, Salzburg pianist and pioneer of synthesizers. The bass-speaker underneath the designer lamp is dedicated to him, a great musician who went to the borders of the bearable even for good-willing listeners time and again.
Just discovered that beyond the wonderful ECM-Album by Barre Philips, Mountainscapes with Dieter Feichtner as co-composer and player of synthesizers, there is a whole musical legacy to be found at the small label canto crudo. Check it out!

Hoping for a 'live' performance of those direct recordings by Günther Rabl in Salzburg soon.

Doctor in the house?

2009-11-17T05:15:00.003+01:00

Good to know there are always doctors around, in this neighbourhood with so many small businesses, many of them run by families of Turkish origin. The parents or grandparents started out as construction or industrial workers – they were called into the country by the government in the 1960s and 1970s when there was actually a lack of workforce in Austria. Now these families are here to stay; they have their own shops, there is Sunday shopping for groceries around, and quiet, peaceful streets on weekend nights: never seen drunk, rowdy Turkish fellas in the streets here.

Greetings from NaNo-Land, Web

2009-11-13T06:34:00.001+01:00

Oops,

while I’m getting carried away with a lot of philosophy our NaNo regional manager for Germany & Austria has asked us to do a little writing exercise; to introduce a new figure in our story: Den Weisen aus der Küche. – Thank you! In my story this wise man from the kitchen has been there all along, only hardly noticed yet. It is our novel hero, my father. You have not seen him yet by the big cook-pot where there is something strange simmering; it could be bone glue for making your own paper or binding your own sketchbook, it could be dog food cooked from a butcher’s ‘wastes’, it could be lard that will get transformed into some very fine breadspread: Grammelschmalz.

The raw material is always something that is regarded as useless waste nowadays. Yet as the Wise Man from the Kitchen has maintained there is no such thing as waste if you know what to do with it. The little philosopher in your NaNo here in Salzburg, Austria will immediately elaborate about Newton and the second law of thermodynamics.

Oh my goodness! Couldn’t anyone knock that guy out for a while? And much rather try to remember father's very own and highly unique recipe for Grammelschmalz? Short intermission – please stay tuned for the recipe after a word from our sponsor, Life & Death Thermodynamics®, based in Universe. Thank you.

An excerpt from a piece of bio-fiction currently under costruction here.

NaNo craze

2009-11-10T05:33:00.003+01:00

Hey there, this is wemo, blog editor and current NaNo writer speaking. Just reached 14k. This is 14,064 words, and 78,688 chars in my word processor's count. Back in my daily goal, but contented: as I'm writing as I go along in my biographic fiction I need time to remember as well as to transform my memories. It takes time, it takes 'emotional' energy, so what?

Gone writing

2009-11-09T06:08:00.003+01:00

Blog editor gone writing; so somebody has got to upload a stock photo, while that guy is taking his note-book everywhere and leaving his camera at home. Best regards from the back office crew – having an eye on him; slightely back back on his NaNo word count, that fella! Keep going!

Ehrenplatz für Ines

2009-11-04T09:36:00.003+01:00

It is a small acrylic on paper, quite an expressive abstract study for a painter whose work at those times combined constructive elements with nature study in her larger paintings. A work she presented to me many years ago; I valued it highly, but never had it framed or displayed in any way. I came back to it recently, had it framed and put it on a shelf with some memorabilia; and managed to have an email with a Thank you & best regards forwarded to her by her gallerist. Thanks again.

"It's all over my head …

2009-11-04T09:08:00.003+01:00

… and everything's alive with moths". – Werner Otte, Gouache 1990.

Es wächst mir über den Kopf - Die Motten wimmeln
Medium		Gouache
Size		13.4 x 18.1 in. / 34 x 46 cm.
Year		1990
Misc.		Signed, Inscribed
Sale Of		Dorotheum Salzburg: Wednesday, June 12, 2002 [was not sold at that auction]

found at artnet.com. Hoping for kind permission to use the reproduction.

Phew, just googled for picture results of that late, great artist that one of the blog crew is writing biographic fiction on currently – and isn't that something: it is a piece of painted autobiography that I came across first. No matter, if the repro is out of focus; the picture is alive with Otte's colours of this period; it may be 'a mess' at first sight, and the title is a shoutout – yet it is form, it is work, and it is not despair or giving in to what seems to be all over your head. And that is what art is about, at times, isn't it?

Father and a stag

2009-11-03T06:52:00.002+01:00

1982 father and I did one last hike together; in Rauris in the central range of the Salzburg province alps. Both of us did not have any serious hiking gear, so we just followed a side valley uphill, not even trying to climb a peak. Yes, it was fall, the days of Rauriser Malertage, a painters’ annual ‘convention’ – artists of all styles willing to react to sublime mountain nature, draw, sketch, or paint with an exchange of results in the evenings.

For a nature loving person that my father never ceased to be this was also the time to hear stags belling; no, no, he never was a hunter; his was not to listen to the creatures of mountains & forests in order to shoot them. His was just to listen, and maybe to see – if you managed to be so quiet and peaceful as not to shy those animals away. And I had never heard a stag belling, so my father wanted to present me with this experience, and we had found a pretext to stay off one of those informal evening meetings at the local Kirchenwirt. Well, it’s been 27 years now, and I can’t seem to remember if we actually heard a stag belling; I do remember a feeling of connectedness with my father that strikes me as a rare gift in hindsight; it took me a long time to realize just how much the two of us have in common, for better or worse; and this little story is definitely part of the better.

This is an excerpt from a piece of biographic fiction currently under construction as a part of the international network of National Novel Writing Month, NaNoWriMo.

In case you're among those who always wanted to write that certain piece of prose, maybe an outright novel – come on in and join fun, excitement and the suspense if you manage to finish November as a 'winner' with 50,000 words written, no matter what.

If your Inner Editor is just getting the screaming fits – send him/her on a four weeks' vacation!

This is a blog here; there are editors and theorists: so there's a disclaimer to the excerpt above: 'sublime' would never ever have been used as a term for mountain landscapes by that fictional father.

Nonnberg Abbey & "Bürgermeister"

2009-11-01T05:17:00.003+01:00

One of the best known views of Salzburg, Nonnberg Abbey with its red spire roof left of the fortress. To be seen as a detail of the fortress: "Bürgermeister", the mighty tower that was used in 1511 to imprison the Salzburg mayor and most of his council for alleged conspiracy against the prince archbishop. The real reason: old privileges of the city council granted by the emperor to the annoyance of the local ruler.

Nie sollst du mich befragen

2009-10-30T04:22:00.003+01:00

... why on earth I shot this photograph; anyway, Salzburg cathedral being re-roofed, taxis regaining access to upper Festungsgasse and Mönchsberg … progress happens.

The ice-cold winds of roll-back

2009-10-27T10:52:00.003+01:00

'Profil', the Austrian weekly news magazine, founded in the early 1970s and moulded after the model of German Der Spiegel and U.S. Newsweek, has chosen to take a tougher stance in the discussion on the Austrian social security system.

This week's cover, strategically placed in the week of the Austrian National Holiday, Oct. 26, makes a very clear statement: "So ungerecht ist Österreich. ... Hausfrauen, Erben und Untätige werden belohnt." Yours truly has a built-in linguist who reacts very strongly to sentences like this one. There is an equation made; people who do not work because they inherited property (for which they were not taxed properly, thanks to the Austrian taxation system) are put on one level with humans who supposedly are neither working nor willing to work, namely housewives, and, hm, who is an "Untätiger"? Maybe a bum who dropped out of the system of employment and in consequence is no longer even willing to take up regular work. This is the equation; so far so bad.

But the verb 'belohnt' implies that action should be taken; if an unjust system is giving rewards to the 'undeserving' then the implication is that these people should rather be punished. The title also mentions "Leistungswillige"; obviously those should be rewarded. So, money should be taken from the poor, like from mothers who dropped out of employment for lack of child care and decent part time jobs, and be given to the needy WASPs? Well, some of the money for the needy slick urban professionals, like Profil journalists could be coming from wealthy heirs, that's understood. It might not be enough, so some definitely should be taken from workless, maybe homeless people?

Ich glaube, es erübrigt sich jeder weitere Kommentar. Ich habe der Profil-Redaktion in einem Mail, das nicht für die Öffentlichkeit bestimmt ist, meine Meinung zur Kenntnis gebracht; als nächstes werde ich mein Abonnement kündigen.

Was bleibt, sind Wut und Enttäuschung, dass ein Medium, das meinen geistigen und politischen Werdegang begleitet hat, nun nicht mehr Zeitgeschehen kommentiert oder Missstände aufdeckt, sondern neoliberale Propaganda betreibt, zur Spaltung der Bevölkerung und zum Hass auf andere, in zwei von drei Fällen auf solche die weniger haben, beiträgt.

Once again, the soundtrack is Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young: Don't let it bring you down, it's only castles burning. – Sadly so. But there still is 'Heimat' around; und der Geist weht wo er will.

Bags & concrete

2009-10-26T04:52:00.003+01:00

We've seen the light come shining with Marina Abramovich's vision of Mozart; now it might be time to look a bit further down to the right, where there's a depot for a bag lady's possessions. Just to remind us that there is a darkness not just at the edge of town but right here in the middle.

In Salzburg there are quite a few homeless people; some of them actually found themselves a home – in small turrets of the historic fortifications on Kapuzinerberg; now they are to be dislocated from these lodgings, with no alternative anywhere near. Salzburg Bürgerliste, the local Green party asks for support against this measure; please sign up here!

Schafe können sicher weiden

2009-10-24T06:55:00.003+02:00

The sheep have long been brought to their stables at Gersbergalm; there's been too much rain and snow recently.

Correction, 24 hours later: on a transfer to Schladming – early ski season opening! – I saw, at 7° C, cows grazing outside while skiers lined up at the cable cars.

The title is from an aria in J. S. Bach's wonderful 'Hunt' cantata.

Steingasse & Gaisberg

2009-10-22T06:41:00.001+02:00

Evening rain & sun

2009-10-21T03:55:00.000+02:00

Pretty lenient day with the refusenik

2009-10-20T15:41:00.002+02:00

From the diaries of a refusenik

2009-10-20T15:22:00.008+02:00

Way back, when yours truly was only just starting his career as a driver guide, he felt offended by a tour to the Bavarian king's castles; an insult to his education and his good taste to take anyone to this kitsch-haven. His photos came out accordingly, following a few rules: towers that are not cut by the frame are a symptom of fascist esthetics. No photographs when there are blue skies. Every weird edgy detail in the foreground is preferred to having a maypole completely in the picture. A maypole to be seen completely is an indication for phallogocentricism. For further information consult the Handbook of Poststructuralist, Deconstructive, Feminist Linguistics, Philosophy & Esthetics.

Thank you.

Got corrected here by the blog theorist; the actual term was phallogocentrism. Its been a while.

Remembering some of the discussions at the university that used terms like 'phallogocentric' I get struck by a huge irony: using those terms was a means of getting discoursive power over those who were not quite as well-read in fields of recent theory – not an indication of 'deconstructive' use of language, then.

republic reverse-shot

2009-10-18T02:37:00.001+02:00

Standstill

2009-10-17T05:40:00.003+02:00

It's a huge construction project for small Salzburg; a former brewery and inn, right next to a quarry, that our prince archbishops used for their major baroque projects.

What you see here is a very nicely designed information tower on what is planned. Yet the project was started in 2008, and so far no progress has been made in 2009. Crisis.

"Übern Tauern tuats schauern"

2009-10-14T06:24:00.003+02:00

It's not just snowfall in Obertauern; even Salzburg city is just around freezing this very morning, a crisp and clear snow wind blowing.

Let's go back five weeks in time and a few hundred kilometers south across Brenner, when one still could enjoy a warm afternoon outside, with a nice ice cream cone.

Another Salzburg province folk song, preferably sung by three female voices in close harmony to warm the listener's heart in cold winter nights.

"Inseln der Unordnung"

2009-10-12T04:59:00.002+02:00

Heiner Müller

Doesn't Salzburg seem so … orderly in the layout of its old city? Maybe not regular, but, say, organic? Here's for something different.

"da summa is uma"

2009-10-11T04:27:00.003+02:00

Salzburg province folk song, available in various recordings.

Buildings I love to hate, 1

2009-10-11T02:23:00.001+02:00

Bronze?

2009-10-09T04:54:00.004+02:00

Is it bronze, how did they fix it to the wall? Is it by Erwin Wurm, whose exhibition "Desperate Philosophers" was on at that time? Then it could have been some synthetic material and not quite as heavy.

Multi-cultural?

2009-10-07T16:42:00.010+02:00

Spent an afternoon off in a café next to the main train station.

First I had eye contact with an Arab family, meaning We / I know, you're different and that's okay. Then I got a light from three young ladies who I thought were Muslim. The young bar lady, of Bosnian origin, told me they were really Serbian Orthodox.

Then I got a light from 4 young people of Turkish origin.

Finally the friendly bar lady and I gave some Londoners directions to the major beer hall of town, Augustinerbräu. I had mistaken them for Scottish.

Well? Well, the Austrian chancellor suggests the Social Democrats should be taking a tougher stance towards foreigners (in der Ausländerpolitik "kantiger werden"). What foreigners? What stance? A gentler, kinder, a machine gun hand? – Yours truly is neither in favour of any kind of violence, nor is he suggesting that the Austrian chancellor could be in favour of any such action. Yet to see how Austrian social democrats with their great tradition are giving in to racist and xenophobic populists makes me wish to build up some amps and huge speakers in front of the Austrian chancellery and blast it away with some feedback from Neil Young's guitar.

I don't really appreciate noise in public space, so the soundtrack is private and danceful:

The World of Arthur Russell, Go Bang. Soul Jazz Records, CD83

There are times, when it's really hard to find the right words, e.g. when yours truly is just fed up to the brim with the political situation in this lovely and peaceful country (yes, it really is, no matter what some 'real' Austrians are thinking when they're afraid of all those dark-skinned people). Then, at times the blogwart interferes to remind me I shouldn't post any comments that I might by sued for or registered by Staatspolizei or even military intelligence (don't think I'm that important …). Or the backoffice-crew stops by to administer some beer as a sedative while they invent some absolutely nasty puns that will never be published here.

Thanks anyway, lads, next round's on me!

Graffiti-Bridge revisited

2009-10-07T08:04:00.003+02:00

For a detail see below.

Soundtrack: Prince Graffiti Bridge