Innovation and Relaunch

Good morning, everybody! I wonder if anybody has wondered what became of this blog, its obviously huge blog-team and this mysterious wemo? Well, some guys got hired away by huge major blogs, some got their masters in social studies and are playing guitar now in Salzburg's old city, and so forth. But now a relaunch is under way. A new blog, maybe with more German in it.

Vielleicht sind Sie ja irgendwann über diesen Blog gestolpert, wg. Salzburg und so? Und dann waren die Texte alle so ... englisch? Und wer sollte dieser Blogger überhaupt sein? 
Na ja, zur ersten Frage gibt es jetzt Hoffnung. Blogger wemo hat einen neuen Blog eröffnet – und der soll großteils in Deutsch, österreichischem Deutsch sein.

So, here's the header photo, here's the link, see you there!
Also, auf ein Neues, Header-Foto oben, Link hier, man sieht sich hoffentlich!

Coming home?

Picture in the picture:

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

from the collection of Salzburg Museum

I was a designer lamp

… and didn't I look good?

Found at republic café in Salzburg's old city.

At the crossroads (Robert Johnson)

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:

To

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.

ARGE reflections

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?

A room with a view

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!

There's a moon over St. Julien street

Grinding sparks

Hard work for Salzburg main train station.

Künstlerhaus – Artists' Red

"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.

Bike – arte povera

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?

Train station blues, remembered

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.

Remember bag-man

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!

For a better 2011

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.

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

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

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.

Kunst am Bau?

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

Train station blues

Telling a secret

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.

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!