Francessa's Thinking

Bureaucratics

2012-01-08T17:08:00.000+01:00

Jan Banning made a photographic study of the culture, rituals and symbols of state civil administrations and its servants in eight countries on five continents, selected on the basis of political, historical and cultural considerations: Bolivia, China, France, India, Liberia, Russia, the United States, and Yemen.

Together with the writer Will Tinnemans he visited hundreds of offices, unannounced. By asking them lots of questions they kept the employees from clearing the office.

Take a look at the Bureaucratics - Gallery. It takes a little to load, but it's worth it.

My favorite is "India Bureau Prasad 17", but the "China bureau 10" is also interesting. What are the guys working on? The "usa bureau 04 b" looks a little like my own desk, sometimes. I hope Jan Banning and Will Tinnemans will never visit me unannounced. :-)

There's also a book by the same title.

Thomas Ruff - Stellar Landscapes

2012-01-05T14:06:00.000+01:00

Saw the impressing photo-exhbition "Stellar Landscapes" by one of Germany's best-known photographers, Thomas Ruff in Muenster, Germany, yesterday.

Link to a video: The Universe of Thomas Ruff, English language.

His star-photos are based on archived images, taken again by a telescopic lense. Details of these photos from photos are enlarged. He says you can't take photos of the starry sky in Central Europe because of the air and light pollution.

His ma.r.s - series originates in NASA-photos which are without copyright because they were taken by machines. He colored the photos and beveled the field of vision so you can see the martian landscape as you would from a plane in approach for landing. Needless to say, the photos are exquisite and striking and always a play between the real and the virtual, or our perceptions of those.

There's a jpeg-series where he enlargens small jpeg-photos into large scale photos and edits and manipulates them digitally. The farther you step away from those the better you perceive them.

The series "Nights" was taken by night vision equipment, the color of green phosphor and leads to associations with photos from the Golf War and the operation "Desert Storm". He transforms his city Duesseldorf into a theater of war and changes harmless locations and deserted streets into eerie places.

The video below is only available in German und French, but it's worth seeing nonetheless because of the photos.

The Shapes of Stories

2012-01-03T11:43:00.002+01:00

I blogged twice about Kurt Vonnegut, both times on the occasion of his death in 2007 (links below).

Today I came across a video in which he talks on the shapes of stories in a humorous way.

Here's the transcript of this talk.

So it goes.

Kurt Vonnegut (2).

Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst (HCB)

2011-11-19T18:15:00.002+01:00

"In a world that is buckling under the weight of profit-making, that is overrun by the destructive sirens of Techno-science and the power-hunger of globalization — that new brand of slavery — beyond all that, Friendship exists, Love exists". Henri Cartier-Bresson cited by IPHF.

I've blogged about Henri Cartier-Bresson, the father of photo-journalism before , the first time after having seen an HCB exhibition in Germany, the second time in connection with my friend Lydia from Writerquake as there was a connection to her hometown Reno .

Now, two days ago, an HCB-exhibition was opened in the Kunsthaus Vienna with 214 photographs covering a period of five decades in three countries – the USA, India and the Soviet Union – during important phases of their history.

I was overwhelmed by the abundance of photographs and the information behind. There was a video titled street photography which can only be seen in French wherein HCB was interviewed by a bunch of journalists and was filmed when taking photos in a small market. I sat there for more than an hour fascinated by his attitude towards capturing life and reality.

There's another short video in English.

Contacts Henri Cartier Bresson english subbed from Ricardo J. Martins on Vimeo.

I googled his obituary from 2004 in the Guardian which has some interesting facts about his meeting with Mahatma Gandhi just minutes before his assassination.

Two more quotes:

Think about the photo before and after, never during. The secret is to take your time. You mustn't go too fast. The subject must forget about you. Then, however, you must be very quick.

The photograph itself doesn't interest me. I want only to capture a minute part of reality.

The first woman to conquer 14 peaks without oxygen

2011-08-27T20:59:00.000+02:00

On August 23, 2011, the Austrian Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner reached the summit of K2 and thus became the first woman to summit all 14 of the world's tallest mountains without the use of supplementary oxygen.

K2, the second-highest mountain on earth, located on the Pakistan-China border, is 8,611 meters (28,251 feet) high and part of the Karakoram Range. It is also called the savage or killer mountain due to its steepness and the resulting technical-climbing challenges as well as unpredictable weather conditions. 80 climbers have died there. It's also called the holy grail of mountaineering.

National Geographic has some pictures and more detailed reports.

And here's Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner's blog .

Congratulations to Gerlinde and her team!

Mountains

2011-08-20T16:15:00.000+02:00

As a person who grew up having a panorama of at least three parts of the Alps (the Karavanke, the Julian Alps, and the Carnian Alps as an everyday view I'm keen to go into the mountains at least once a year, just for the views, the quietude, the smell of those little flowers. This year, there was just half a day left, so we had to find the mountain with the shortest distance to my home-village.

We choose the Oisternig (2050 m). It's part of the Carnic Alps set between the Dolomites and the Julian Alps. Geologically, the Carnic Alps were a central part in the ages when the Alps were formed initially. Also, they were the scene for battles between the Austro-Hungarian and the Italian troops in World War I.

You can find still trenches, barracks built into the rocks, collapsed forts and more.

There's an interesting report about those times, referring also to John Steinbecks book "Once there was a War", from his time as a war correspondent.

The car took us as high up as 1700 m, then we had to walk. The ascent was relatively steep, but relatively short, just one hour. We crossed the border to Italy several times, as it runs along the ridge. The view from the peak is just awesome!! And all those smells!

Herm

2011-08-19T12:06:00.039+02:00

In addition to Jersey, Guernsey and Alderney, the bigger Channel Islands, there are some smaller ones, Sark, as mentioned yesterday in connection with Mervyn Peake, Herm, Jethou, Brecqhou and Lihou. There are even more islands, but very small and uninhabited ones.

Brecqhou was bought by the Barcley Brothers (those who own the British Telegraph Media Group and several hotels in London, such as The Ritz, and more). They built a mock-Gothic castle with 3-foot granite walls, battlements, swimming-pools and a helicopter pad (photo below). They're having several legal disputes with the government of Sark.

A wonderfully idyllic island is Herm. We went there by boat from St. Peter Port. Prince Bluecher III, a grandson of the German Generalfeldmarschall resided on Herm from 1889 to 1915 and restored several houses, e.g. the St. Tugual Chapel, created a walled garden and even introduced a colony of wallabies to the island. It is said that the population was reduced by the prince's butler and chef during an absence of the prince...

Cars and bicycles are banned from the island, only tractors and quad bikes are allowed. We saw quite some of them there.

During our walk around the island my animal-loving companion, encouraged by two French ladies, saved a seagull trapped in a water tank.

Mervyn Peake

2011-08-18T16:29:00.012+02:00

I came into contact with the works of Mervyn Peake (1911-1968) in the Guernsey Museum and Art Gallery, almost exactly on his centenary.

There was a small but very attractive show of his paintings, sketches and novels.

There's a connection to Sark, one of the smaller Channel Islands. Peake lived there for several years and one of his novels, Mr Pye is set on Sark.
I bought Mr Pye in the shop, started reading it in the tea-room and couldn't stop, something that happens very seldom.

Mr Pye goes to the island of Sark to awaken the love for God in the islanders. However, there are some unexpected developments ....

And now I'm discovering all the other parts of Mervyn Peake, the illustrator of books like Alice in Wonderland, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Bleak House, or Treasure Island, the artist, the poet, the playwright, and, of course, the writer and novelist of Gormenghast.

At the moment I'm reading the Gormenghast Trilogy.

It's the story of Titus Groan, the Seventy Seventh Earl of Gormenghast, a dark, spacious and mysterious castle full of the most incredible people, rooms and artefacts. It's a work of fantasy, very strange and very humorous. Nothing is clear-cut, as happens so often in fantasy novels. The characters are complex and eccentric like real people. It's one of those books you can dive into and just enjoy the language, the ideas behind, the atmosphere.

There's a Gormenghast film, already in my possession (;-)), but it will be watched only after having finished the book.

A lot of information can be found on the official Mervyn Peake Website. There's also a Blog by Sebastian Peake, his son.

And here's the link to a Mini-Video of the first part of the Gormenghast film.

Toilers of the Sea

2011-08-17T21:06:00.010+02:00

Victor Hugo, the French poet, playwright and novelist, above all known for "Notre-Dame de Paris" (The Hunchback of Notre-Dame) and "Les Misérables", went into exile to Guernsey as a result of Napoleon III's Coup d'état and stayed there from 1855 to 1870.

In Hauteville House in St. Peter Port he wrote "Les Travailleurs de la Mer", in English "Toilers of the Sea". It is said that "The Hunchback" depicted religion, "Les Miserables" society and "The Toilers" nature.

It's the story of Gilliat, a fisherman and outcast who falls in love with Deruchette, the niece of Mess Lethierry, a shipowner. When Lethierry's steamship is wrecked on the Roches Douvre, an extremely dangerous reef, Gilliat volunteers and in an exhausting battle with the elements and superhuman efforts he manages above all through his willpower to save the ship's engine, the most valuable part. His trials, some of them underwater, and including a battle with an octopus, are described in great length and beauty.The ending is tragic, though.

After having finished the book, Victor Hugo wrote:

I DEDICATE THIS BOOK
TO THE
ROCK OF HOSPITALITY AND LIBERTY
TO THAT PORTION OF OLD NORMAN GROUND
INHABITED BY
THE NOBLE LITTLE NATION OF THE SEA
TO THE ISLAND OF GUERNSEY
SEVERE YET KIND, MY PRESENT ASYLUM
PERHAPS MY TOMB

I read somewhere that the novel flooded Paris with squids, there were squid-tasting parties, and people even wore sqid hats.

I enjoyed reading the story and having all the cited locations in the vicinity, either in St. Peter Port or along the coast.

The complete text of "Toilers" can be read or downloaded on the Project Gutenbergs site for free.

An extract:

SUB UMBRA

Sometimes in the night-time Gilliatt woke and peered into the darkness.

He felt a strange emotion.

His eyes were opened upon the black night; the situation was dismal;
full of disquietude.

There is such a thing as the pressure of darkness.

A strange roof of shadow; a deep obscurity, which no diver can explore;
a light mingled with that obscurity, of a strange, subdued, and sombre
kind; floating atoms of rays, like a dust of seeds or of ashes; millions
of lamps, but no illumining; a vast sprinkling of fire, of which no man
knows the secret; a diffusion of shining points, like a drift of sparks
arrested in their course; the disorder of the whirlwind, with the
fixedness of death; a mysterious and abyssmal depth; an enigma, at once
showing and concealing its face; the Infinite in its mask of
darkness--these are the synonyms of night. Its weight lies heavily on
the soul of man.

This union of all mysteries--the mystery of the Cosmos and the mystery
of Fate--oppresses human reason.

Holiday in Guernsey

2011-08-16T20:41:00.008+02:00

An island each year, that's what we do. Not too big, temperatures moderate, preferred language: English. Beautiful landscape, flowers, wild and stormy sea. History and literary background wanted.

We got all that, and more: Guernsey:

65000 inhabitants on 78km², mild climate. English breakfast and afternoon tea AND French lunch and dinner! Isn't that the most desirable combination?

I refreshed my acquaintance with Victor Hugo who was in exile there and got to know Mervyn Peake. It was love at first sight. You'll hear more of this relationship soon.

Ok, the traffic is horrendous for such a small island and to explore the island by bike is dangerous, but rewarding nonetheless.

I've never seen so many jeweller's stores in one place. And the big deal is, of course, wealth management, with 50 licensed banks, several hundred captive insurance entities, and financial services of all kinds imaginable.

To be continued.

Happy Birthday!

2011-01-08T21:30:00.007+01:00

If this isn't an occasion to start blogging again!

It's Lydia's birthday (on 9 Jan), and that's something very special to me (and a lot of other people, too, I think).

Happy Birthday, Lydia! And all the best!

Some alpine Edelweiss flowers, a birthday cake and a song from my universe to yours!

(viewed best with full screen).

Creative Icelanders

2010-10-02T17:02:00.006+02:00

Iceland’s banking collapse was the largest suffered by any country in economic history. The debts were 12 times bigger than the gross national product, the households are overindebted, thousands of people had to leave their homes and apartments. And the Icelanders are disgusted with the fact that none of the "oligarchs" who dominated the financial sector were hold responsible for their deeds.

In January, the actor, comedian and former punk rocker Jon Gnarr said, he'd had enough and founded, together with some friends, the "Best Party". They refused donations for the election and concentrated on singing, gaming and joking, and made one of the most creative election campaings in the history of democracy.

And the best thing is: Gnarr was elected mayor, Reykyavik is governed by the Best Party. His comment on the issue of foreigners: all of the Icelanders had immigrated there one time or the other and now there's an end to that daft topic.

Surprisingly (or maybe not so surprisingly) Gnarr and his friends turned out quite competent politicians with an approval rating of 75 %.

Some of this promises: to bring a polar bear in the zoo, and to offer free towels at public swimming pools. Funny? These are not so funny issues in Iceland. In 2008, the first polar bear to swim to Iceland in 15 years was shot by police.

The free towel message makes sense, too. If Reykjavik's public pools with their seawater and sulfur baths offer free towels, then they can reach accredited spa status under European Union rules. Spas equal more tourists. And more tourists - that's something the Icelandic economy needs badly at the moment.

Read more in the New York Times.

Here are some statements from the party platform. I especially like: Listen more to women and old people: This bunch gets listened to far too little. It's as if everyone thinks they are just complaining or something. We're going to change that.

Promises

2010-09-30T16:24:00.004+02:00

A promising young man indeed: Listen to James Hersey, US-American songwriter, raised biculturally in and around Vienna.

Ameland Revisited

2010-08-31T12:25:00.023+02:00

Back from the holidays on the beautiful Dutch island Ameland! It was our second time there, and we were curious if it had changed since 2005, but it hasn't.

Ameland is rather small, with about 3500 inhabitants and three villages. The island consists mostly of sanddunes. There are animals everywhere, wild and domesticated ones: About 60 different kinds of wild birds, horses, cows, sheep, dogs. Almost every house has cages with small animals like rabbits or carrier pigeons! The dunes are full of heather, sea buckthorn and sandwort.

Everybody explores the island by bike. The Dutch are famous for their bike "culture", and there are lots of rental outlets with a huge assortment of thousands of bikes. As you drive along the many cycling paths you come across kilometres of elder trees, wild blackberries and sea lavender.

In the 17 and 18 century, the speciality of the island was whaling. Reminders of this time still exist in the "commandeurs" (captains of whaling ships) houses, with tooth rows in stones at the upper front facade and their year of construction made out of iron anchors stuck into the facade.

To us, the language is a source of constant amusement. Dutch is a West Germanic language and closely related to both English and German. To a German speaking person a lot of words look like misspelt German words, such as Apfel, in Dutch appel, in English apple, Butter, boter, butter, or Fisch - vis - fish. Surely, the Dutch must experience the same fun.

The speed of life is very insular, that is, slow. You don't rush into the shop at 8 to get your morning paper. You go there at 9, maybe they will have unpacked it by then, maybe not. Once you've come to unwind from all the continental stress it's veeery relaxing.

The Year of the Flood

2010-08-21T17:11:00.028+02:00

My first encounter with Margaret Atwood's work was the "Handmaid's Tale". Since then I've been intrigued with her novels and read them all, for example Oryx and Crake five years ago. Several weeks ago I started with her latest novel The Year of the Flood and it has nothing to do with the novel itself that I haven't still finished it but with my sometimes annoying habit of reading several books at the same time.

In an apocalyptical setting caused by the "flood", a waterless plague, there are only few survivors. Among them: Adam One, the leader of the God's Gardeners, a religious group devoted to living under the command of the natural world. The ruling power is the shadowy police force CorpSeCorp, and the world is genetically altered in every imaginable way: a strange blend of lions and lambs are liobams, the Mo'hair sheep have human hair and the pigs come with human DNA and human brain tissue. Other survivors are two females: Toby, sheltering inside of AnooYoo, a health spa for the rich, trying to raise a small garden where she grows turnips and radishes and which keeps being raided by the pigs, and Ren, locked inside a safe room inside Scales and Tales, a high end sex club. The two women have met in the past and they are reunited eventually.

To grasp the aims of God's Gardeners (and in my opionion to show the dangerous impact a leader of a sect can have) every section of the novel begins with a speech from Adam One, and a song from The God's Gardeners Oral Hymnbook. There are countless Saints' Days, honoring for example Dian Fossey or Al Gore.

The hymns were set to music by Orville Stoeber and have now actually been recorded and are being performed during stops on Atwood’s book tour, which follows certain "green" principles: such as making events as local as possible, going by train when possible, choose sleeping places with environmental policies, eating vegetarian and more.

I haven't finished the novel so far, thus I can't tell anything about the ending. It's chilling, stimulating and entertaining at the same time, and it certainly touches on all kinds of current environmental issues including warnings of the dangers of pushing science to the limits.

The Year of the Flood tour of 2009 covered six countries - the U.K., the U.S., Canada, Holland, Germany, and Austria! Unfortunately, I learned of the reading too late. The 2010 tour will cover the U.K again, Sidney, Tokyo, Portland, Toronto, Vancouver and more.

There is also a documentary In the Wake of the Flood.

In the Wake of the Flood (Teaser) from filmswelike on Vimeo.

There's an interview with Margaret Atwood.

The good and the bad light

2010-08-20T11:36:00.012+02:00

Rather surprised I read in my daily newspaper a few days ago that Slovenia is the only country in the world that has a law against bad lighting and light pollution.

Therefore, I dug a little into the matter and found some illuminating facts, especially at the site of the British Astronomical Association.

Now, according to them light pollution is artificial light which shines where it is neither wanted, nor needed. It can be a problem due to distant bad lighting (also known as skyglow, the orange smog that hangs over towns and cities at night) or immediate, local lighting. So, bad lighting shines outwards into homes, and upwards into the sky, good lighting shines onto the ground.

Some of the problems of light pollution are: disappearing stars, health problems, sleeping problems, environmental costs, threat to wildlife (such as migratory birds circling around lighted oil rigs until exhaustion), and more. The British Astro Org has them all listed.

Watch an ant's view of light pollution:

There's a Starlight Declaration, in defence of the night sky and the right to starlight.

A village in Austria has applied for the first starlight oasis in Austria, in connection with UNESCO's Dark Skies Awareness Initiative.

Here you can see light emissions.

Solutions to the problem are relatively simple. See here.

According to my newspaper the measures in Slovenia are not very cost-intensive, for example they use light denseness measuring-devices and replace the street lamps' arched reflectors by flat ones that light the streets only.

For years, my mother complained about the street lights in front of her bedroom. Some days ago, I slept in this very room and had a restless night, even with the blinds down.

Microphilanthropy

2010-07-20T19:02:00.013+02:00

On Monday, Bill Clinton opened the XVIII International AIDS-Conference in Vienna.

See the webcast:
Bill Clinton keynote

He introduced the concept of micro-contributions. Citizen-based initiatives like MassiveGood complement traditional help with new forms of funding. UNITAID has raised over $1 billion for the purchase of treatment for HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, financed by a small tax on airlines tickets in several countries.

Lots of interesting videos andpodcasts here", e.g. "Paradigm Shift in Aids-Treatment".

Hans Rosling on Population Growth

2010-07-16T08:55:00.004+02:00

Hans Rosling discusses one of our big problems - population growth - in a colorful and convincing presentation at TED and comes up with a seemingly paradoxical answer.

Josef Frank

2010-07-15T17:51:00.015+02:00

Today's Google logo, at least in European countries, commemorates the 125 birthday of the Austrian-Swedish architect, interior designer and writer Josef Frank, (1885 - 1967).

He collaborated in the Viennese garden city movement and took a leading role in the construction of cooperatively run garden suburbs and several residential buildings for Vienna's communal housing scheme.

In 1933 he was forced to leave Vienna for Sweden where he soon started to define Scandinavian modern design. He became the chief designer for the Stockholm furnishings company Svenskt Tenn. He's best known for his colorful and vibrant patterns, fabrics and wallpapers.

Here you can see tables and seatings by Josef Frank.

Here's an interview with Christopher Long, Professor for Architectural History who wrote Frank's biography.

Walton Ford's Bestiary in Europe

2010-07-09T23:38:00.027+02:00

Walton Ford's paintings can be seen at Vienna's Albertina till October.

Walton Ford's paintings, mostly in watercolor, gouache, ink and pencil on paper are made in the style of classic natural history paintings. At first sight I thought these are real old paintings. The fake foxing and the penciled writings and comments are absolutely convincing.

Walton Ford has often been compared to John James Audubon . This is certainly true for the style and the accuracy. But there's more to Walton Ford than just meticulous depiction of animals. Upon closer inspection you find out that his paintings are full of allegories, hidden meanings, very often satirical and critical, sometimes with a touch of humor.

The paintings are beautiful, and they blend depictions of flora and fauna with political commentary, and make us think about the impact of former political oppression like slavery on today's society. The relationship between man and animal, very often accompanied by cruelty and violence, becomes a metaphor for how we deal with weaker - or different - cultures and peoples.

In the exhibit, each painting comes with a little story, a reference, a literary quote. Some of them are based on legends, some on true incidents.

The photo here shows one of his most popular paintings, "Der Pantherausbruch," (The escape of the Panther). It is based on the story of a black panther that escaped from the Zurich Zoo in 1934 and survived for more than two months in the Swiss winter before it was shot and eaten by a day laborer.

Here you can watch the three parts of an art-talk with Walton Ford. It took place a few weeks ago in Vienna and it's in English.

In an interview Walton Ford said:
"These paintings are about the cultural history of our interaction with the animals," Ford said. "And they often become a metaphor for how we treat other people."

Lots of his paintings can be seen here, as well as in Google Pics.

Weekly Ulysses Podcast

2010-06-16T19:23:00.003+02:00

Irish author, journalist and broadcaster Frank Delaney is launching a weekly five-minute mini-essay podcast on Ulysses on his website!

Bloomsday 2010

2010-06-15T22:46:00.004+02:00

It's Bloomsday again.
As usual I'll read a few pages before getting up, maybe the pages where Leopold Bloom prepares the breakfast and feeds the cat. "Mrkrgnao! the cat said loudly" (Quote Ulysses).

This is part 6 of 9 parts of the James Joyce's Ulysses Documentary, a series called "Great Modern Writers". Amongst those interviewed is author Anthony Burgess.

Lots of Bloomsday activities are going on tomorrow, as usual:

Radio Bloomsday.

Bloomsday in different countries and places.

Bloomsday in Vienna. There are also several other events, including lectures, readings and parties.

Maybe I'll be able to make it to one of those events.

"If I can get away in time". (Quote Ulysses)

Awaiting the Mice

2010-06-07T09:24:00.005+02:00

Having a heyday in the hayfield. Mouth-watering!

Riddle

2010-05-30T21:05:00.006+02:00

Discovered in Vienna's public transport yesterday. Which pictogram is the odd one out?

The Color of His Dreams

2010-05-24T21:45:00.008+02:00

Last weekend we went to the Picasso Museum in Muenster to see about 100 paintings, sculptures, ceramics and drawings by Joan Miró.

Admittedly, I've never made much of an effort to get into Miró's work. Those colorful and somewhat folkloristic paintings didn't tell me much. After having seen "the real thing" I'm impressed. Some of the paintings are very powerful. Also, the sculptures are marvelous, inventive, fanciful, and sometimes crazy. I liked the sun woman very much.

Miró was influenced by Dadaism and Surrealism. André Breton, the founder of Surrealism, described him as "the most Surrealist of us all." For details see Wikipedia.

I think, the effect of his work lies in what he calls "simplification". He said: "My characters have undergone the same process of simplification as the colors. Now that they have been simplified, they appear more human and alive than if they had been represented in all their details". Besides, lots of the images in his paintings originated in his dreams. One can get lost looking at those night blue moons and moods and fall into a dreamlike trance...

Two quotes: "I try to apply colors like words that shape poems, like notes that shape music".

"Poetry and painting are done in the same way you make love; it's an exchange of blood, a total embrace - without caution, without any thought of protecting yourself".

Inherent Vice

2010-05-09T20:01:00.009+02:00

A lazy Sunday afternoon. Idly browsing in the English language department of a big bookstore. Suddenly electrified. A new Pynchon! Title: Inherent Vice! Oops, it isn't that new, published in 2009! Must have slipped under my radar. Anyway, it is bought in the blink of an eye, the first 40 pages read in the tube.

First impressions: The opening pages are rather untypical for Thomas Ruggles Pynchon who had his birthday yesterday. Congratulations, by the way!

It's a detective novel, set in Los Angeles in the 60's, the time of free love, psychedelic drugs and rock'n'roll. The protagonist Doc Sportello, a private eye, gets a visit from his former girlfriend Shasta who is worried that her new boyfriend, a rich real estate developer, may be the target of a kidnap plot by his wife and her lover.

That's how far I've come. It's relatively easy to read, very unlike "Gravity's Rainbow" or "Against the Day". But maybe this will change and the plot will become more complex? I've spotted a few very Pynchonesque names of characters: Sauncho Smilax, Amethyst, Petunia Leeway, Dr. Buddy Tubeside, Adrian Prussia, Jason Velveeta, Ensenada Slim to name but a few.

For those interested in the musical side of the novel: On Amazon, there's a Thomas Pynchon's Soundtrack list to "Inherent Vice" with links to more than 40 songs from the sixties like "Sugar, Sugar", "Help me Rhonda", "Can't Buy Me Love", or "Volare".

TP seems to open up a bit. First his appearance in "The Simpsons", now a promotional video (see below). Maybe he's starting to make himself familiar with a public appearance after all?

Thomas Pynchon narrates a 2.5 minute promotonial video for his latest novel "Inherent Vice".

I've googled a bit.

There's an interesting review in the New Yorker and a lot of information in the Thomas Pynchon Wiki.

I viewed the mist and missed the view

2010-04-25T08:48:00.016+02:00

That's what Mark Twain said when he reached the top of a mountain trail in the vicinity of Vienna.

Mark Twain spent most of the years 1897 and 1898 in Austria, and according to Carl Dolmetsch who wrote bis biography "Our Famous Guest", those 20 months were quite a prolific time.

Austria, especially Fin-de-siecle Vienna, had an impressive intellectual elite then, with Sigmund Freud, Gustav Klimt, Theodor Herzl, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Karl Kraus, Gustav Mahler, to name but a few outstanding names.

This week, on the occasion of the Mark Twain Centennial, a commemorative plaque was unveiled at the Hotel Ambassador, the former Hotel Krantz, where Twain spent most of his time in Austria.

There are some nice stories about Mark Twain's stay in Vienna here and here.

Some references in Twain's work to Vienna and Austria can be found in The Appetite Cure.

In 1897, Twain spoke to the Concordia Press Club in Vienna as a special guest about "The Horrors of the German Language", in German, to the amusement of the audience.

Here's the essay "The Awful German Language".

Notes and quotes on the German language:

A dog is "der Hund"; a woman is "die Frau"; a horse is "das Pferd"; now you put that dog in the genitive case, and is he the same dog he was before? No, sir; he is "des Hundes"; put him in the dative case and what is he? Why, he is "dem Hund." Now you snatch him into the accusative case and how is it with him? Why, he is "den Hunden." But suppose he happens to be twins and you have to pluralize him- what then? Why, they'll swat that twin dog around through the 4 cases until he'll think he's an entire international dog-show all in is own person. I don't like dogs, but I wouldn't treat a dog like that--I wouldn't even treat a borrowed dog that way. Well, it's just the same with a cat. They start her in at the nominative singular in good health and fair to look upon, and they sweat her through all the 4 cases and the 16 the's and when she limps out through the accusative plural you wouldn't recognize her for the same being. Yes, sir, once the German language gets hold of a cat, it's goodbye cat. That's about the amount of it.

The White Mountains

2010-04-11T14:25:00.015+02:00

Whenever I happen to be in my home village in Carinthia and look out of one of the windows I can see lots of peaks. On the left side of the photo you can see the Mittagskogel which is on the Carinthian/Slovene border, with a height of 2,139 m, and the Dobratsch, with a height of 2,139 m - some smaller formations in between them.

All of them belong to the Alps, stretching over 1,200 kilometres from Austria and Slovenia in the East through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany, to France in the West. The highest mountain is Mont Blanc, at 4,808 metres. The name "Alps" is said to come from the Latin "alba" meaning "white".

As a child, I would go hiking with my parents from May till August almost every second weekend (as my mother was a passionate hiker), setting off very early, at around 5 am and come home in the late afternoon.

What I enjoyed most about these outings was the flora and fauna, the pasque flowers, the buttercups, the Alpenrose which was my mother's favorite, the gentians, and the marmots, salamanders and chamois. It was fun to search for all those snail and shell fossils dating back 200 millions of years. I loved the silence, the humming of the bees in the rich meadows, the scent of the wild flowers, the packed meals consumed below the summit crosses, very often in rough weather, and the stops in some wooden huts where we would get a square meal or some of those sweet specialities like Kaiserschmarrn.

You can walk now almost all the way across the Alps via the Via Alpina. One of the trails leads to the location where "Oetzi" the Iceman, was found.

The white Alps were already described by William Wordsworth in his "Descriptive sketches taken during a pedestrian tour among the Alps":

But lo! the Alps ascending white in air,
Toy with the sun and glitter from afar.

There's a video from the Mittagskogel trail, interestingly in honor of Ted Kennedy. I don't find the music suitable for the area, but that's a matter of taste.

Happy Easter!

2010-04-04T23:53:00.014+02:00

This year I’ m having an Alpine Easter again (for a change), or at least some elements. Lots of family, blessing of the meat in the beautiful little old church, hunt for colored Easter eggs and small presents (hidden by the Easter bunny), the traditional meal with the smoked ham and sausages, horseradish and mustard, the Easter bread, the ring cakes. Well, I don’t eat meat, so I had a lot of eggs and cake .. During the meal the playful egg knocking competition, at around 9 p.m. the Easter fire. It's lovely and full of atmosphere to watch the other fires from the mountain peaks in the area. Next day: long Easter walk, playing games, eating, drinking, having fun, and so on. The weather is still relatively nice, with lots of sunny spells. Tomorrow might be the time to go to the lake.

April

2010-04-01T14:41:00.008+02:00

April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

These are the first lines of T.S. Eliot's famous poem The Waste Land.

The weather IS cruel at the moment, rainstorms blow over Germany. When I returned from shopping by bike my hands were almost frozen.

I wonder if the April Fools' jokes are some antidote for the cruelty (weather-wise) of this month.

I think, I've detected one.

Ah, and here's a site where you can find all those jokes planted on the web.

St. Patrick's Day Parade in Vienna

2010-03-20T15:57:00.015+01:00

Beautiful spring weather today for the St. Patrick's Day Parade in Vienna. Several hundred people joined the parade which went from the Schottenkirche (a parish church founded in the 12th century by Irish and Scottish monks) to a pavilion near the Burgtheater, accompanied by the Irish Ambassador in Vienna, the Vienna Energy Brass Band and the Vienna Pipes. Great atmosphere and costumes, lots of green beer, whiskey, salmon and more.

But see for yourself:

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

2010-03-16T21:33:00.004+01:00

St. Patrick's Day in Vienna in 1776, (I would never have thought that it went that far back) and in 2010, celebrated as a cultural festival with a parade.

Fortunately, I'm not ill any longer, so I just might watch the parade or go to the film night.

And then I found this video on Youtube:

Oscar for Christoph Waltz

2010-03-08T08:48:00.007+01:00

Oscar for the Austrian actor Christoph Waltz as best supporting actor in „Inglourious Basterds“ by Quentin Tarantino! Congratulations!!!!!

Here’s the trailer.

Here's a part of the acceptance speech, and here’s the transcript.

Flight of the Angels

2010-02-02T16:38:00.008+01:00

Imagine two small towns in the Southern Italian region of Basilica, in the Lucanian Dolomites, Castelmezzano and Pietrapertosa.

To stop locals from migrating and to attract tourists, and because it's relatively cumbersome to go from one town to the other (from Pietrapertosa you have to use a steep footpath down to the valley, over the old Roman bridge and to ascend on the other to Castelmezzano which takes about 90 minutes, by car through another route over the mountains about 30 minutes) - they had an idea.

Why not fly to the other town?

They created the Volo dell'Angelo, the flight of the angels, a mile-long metal cable suspended between two peaks. People hang from a harness connected to the steel rope and then jump off from a special platform to travel across the valley which is 500m below, at a speed of 120 kmph.

Those who've tried the Angel's flight - more than 6000 people since the opening in 2007 - describe the experience with words like exhilarating, incredible, or simply, beyond words.

But see for yourself!

Read more about the Lucanian Dolomites

Birthdays and Changes

2010-01-09T16:32:00.011+01:00

The most important things first. It's my friend Lydia's birthday today (yes, that's the smart and adorable lady from writerquake, just round the corner on blogspot) who happens to be a Tiger in the Chinese Horoscope as you can see on her blog. Happy Birthday, Lydia! The hippeastreae (I hope that plural is correct!) are for you!

And as birthdays and change have some connection I thought Mike Laurie's article on Mashable How Social Media Changed us would be a suitable post for today. He describes areas in which social media has had lasting effects on the ways we live.

These are Child Literacy, Ambient Intimacy, Knowledge and Power, The Reinvention of Politics, The Marketing Flux, and News as Cultural Currency.

But, read for yourself.

I won't get into some drawbacks of Social Media today, but I will soon. All things considered, I think the assets outweigh the drawbacks by far. They allow us to find like-minded people, to connect, to be creative, to make friends (like Lydia) and to congratulate them publicly on their birthdays! :-)

Snow in Muenster

2010-01-03T14:42:00.009+01:00

I'm still marveling at snow's ability to transform the landscape, the objects, the people, the air.

And it's funny to observe the different practices of handling snow. In Vienna, an armada of snowworkers, gritters, snowploughs, sandspreaders, saltspreaders marches out at the first sign of a few snowflakes - here in Muenster I've seen two small snowploughs so far, and I'm not even sure if the main thoroughfares are salted. The small streets most certainly are not.

And despite the fact that it so seldom snows here, all the families seem to possess sleds which are proudly used on the smallest of hills. Very nice.

Dust of Snow
by Robert Frost (1923)
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

And Muenster is the world capital of cyclists (500.000 bikes for 273.875 inhabitants). Ok, the picture below makes you believe all the bikes look like this, but I've actually seen quite a few people biking and gliding on the streets. That's the spirit!

9-year-olds on the last decade

2010-01-02T10:09:00.006+01:00

Journalist Allison Louie-Garcia spoke to fourth graders in Orange County, Calif., obviously to get another perspective on the '00s. The kids comment on celebrities, computer habits, 9/11, Barack Obama, global warming and more.

It always fascinates me how children perceive the world and how familiar they are with all those topics.

The decade according to 9-year-olds from allison louie-garcia on Vimeo.

Happy 2010!

2009-12-31T15:35:00.011+01:00

A Happy New Year to all readers of this blog!

May your pockets be heavy and your heart be light.
May good luck pursue you each morning and night.
May joy and peace surround you,
Contentment latch your door,
And happiness be with you now,
And bless you evermore. (Irish Blessing)

The picture was taken this morning in snow-covered Muenster, Germany.

In case you're one for New Year's Resolutions, but didn't have any time to think of one, go to the New Year's Resolutions Generator.

And have you decided yet how to pronounce 2010? Here's a suggestion.

A Great Loss: Vic Chesnutt is dead

2009-12-29T11:50:00.011+01:00

I'm still shocked.

My last post about singer and songwriter Vic Chesnutt dates from November 2007 when we saw him at a concert in Vienna. Vic who was confined to a wheelchair after a car crash at age 18, was frail then, but intense and energetic. We enjoyed the concert very much.

A few days ago, on 25 December, he died after an overdose on muscle relaxants.

It's not clear whether the overdose was accidental or intentional, fact is there had been suicide attempts before.

Vic was a critic of the American health care system. In an interview earlier this year he said that he was $35,000 in debt to a hospital despite the fact that he was insured.

The Rolling Stone has more.

In the video below, from the last album "At The Cut", "Flirted With You All My Life" he sings about suicide like a lover he must break up with.

One of my personal favorites was "Supernatural":

Vic Chesnutt - Supernatural Lyrics @ LyricsTime.com

"Everything I say":

You'll be missed, Vic.

Climate Summit - Obama's Speech

2009-12-18T13:05:00.005+01:00

Here's the link to President Obama's long awaited speech at the Climate Summit in Copenhagen.

Still waiting for a final agreement that will bring about real change.

Here's the link to the Guardian's live blog.

The Guardian obtained a draft document showing a very weak level of agreement.

All of this would be real exciting if it was a soccer match or some downhill racing contest and not something to do with our future. I'm certainly not a person prone to panic, and I've got a lot of confidence in the self-healing powers of nature, but on the other hand I've seen photos of our Alpine glaciers, our most important water reservoirs, and they gave me the creeps.

Here's more on the declining of glaciers and the resulting effects.

Fossil of the Day

2009-12-11T12:45:00.002+01:00

Now, this is embarassing!

Austria, along with Nordic countries was "Fossil of the Day",on the first day of the climate summit in Copenhagen for seeking an emissions loophole for its forests.

Watch out for the fossil, or the ray of the day!

World Leaders in 2020

2009-12-09T21:02:00.003+01:00

Copenhagen airport ads. Let's hope they predict the wrong future.

The Copenhagen Editorial or The Twelve Days before X-Mas

2009-12-07T08:17:00.004+01:00

56 newspapers in 44 countries share a common editorial to show that common and global steps in climate issues are decisive and necessary.

Here's the offical website of the summit.

Annie Leibovitz in Vienna

2009-11-16T10:18:00.016+01:00

It’s almost two weeks that we visited the Annie Leibovitz exhibit: A Photographer's Life 1990 – 2005 at the Kunsthaus in Vienna, but work and illness kept me from blogging earlier.

There are lots of portraits of famous people like Robert de Niro, William S. Burroughs, Demi Moore, Mick Jagger and others and a huge bunch of family photos, including some rather touching ones of the mortally ill Susan Sontag, Leibovitz’ companion in life.

My favorite is the photo of Leonardo DiCaprio with a white swan snuggling affectionately around his neck. Very impressing the last photo of John Lennon (taken a few hours before his death), the Sarajewo Cycle, photos of the Bush administration (caused some giggles among visitors), the photo of Queen Elizabeth, and the Obama Family.

And many more,of course.

Berlin Wall on Twitter

2009-11-09T18:42:00.003+01:00

Berlin Wall

Happy Halloween...

2009-10-31T17:41:00.002+01:00

...to all of you! Hanging around with a "frozen shoulder" is not what I had planned tonight. Or, as John Lennon put it: Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.

Peace Prize for Claudio Magris

2009-10-18T22:34:00.006+02:00

Italian writer Claudio Magris received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, one of the most prestigious prizes for literature worldwide.

I’ve mentioned his fantastic book „Danube – A sentimental journey from the source to the Black Sea a few months ago.

In his acceptance speech Magris cautioned against a new populism and new boundaries in Europe which would create „democraties without democracy“. He also observed the sometimes invisible borders between natives and immigrants in the big European cities. „Europe awaits the big and difficult task to keep open towards the new cultures of the new Europeans from all over the world, which could enrich the continent’s diversity“.

He lamened the present weakness and disruption of Europe in addition to complacency and ignorance. “We cradle ourselves in the illusion that we live without war" because Europe's borders are now peaceful and largely open.

The Third War has already happened: about 20 million people dead. after 1945. „War is not only the the massacre in Biafra or 9/11 in New York. War is also murder by the Mafia or the trading with children’s organs.

Cladio Magris also critized the „curtailing of justice“ in his own country.

Here’s more.

Here you can read his essay "The Fair of Tolerance" for which he received the Erasmus Prize in 2001.

Ireland Vote

2009-10-03T17:45:00.002+02:00

And now the results:

Yes to Lisbon Treaty: 1214,268 (67,1 %)
No to Lisbon Treaty: 594,606 (32,9 %).

More on RTE.IE.

Looking to Ireland

2009-10-03T11:31:00.004+02:00

EuropeWorkers
Originally uploaded by ciarancuffe

Lots of Europeans are awaiting the results of the (second) Irish referendum on the EU’s Lisbon Treaty which took place yesterday.
The treaty can only take effect if all of the 27 EU member states ratify it - and so far, 24 member states have done so. Apart from Ireland only Poland and the Czech Republic could stop the treaty.
An Irish „No“ would damage the EU’s credibility internationally and within the EU, would impede decision-making processes and delay long due institutional reforms.

The „Yes“ Camp in Ireland consists of all the main political parties (apart from Sinn Fein), the governing Fianna Fail and their allies the Greens, Fine Gael (the main opposition party) and the Labour Party. Most of the industry and business associations and trade unions also support the treaty.

The „No“ Camp consists of Sinn Fein, one of the largest unions, Unite, and various citizens’ groups, a lobby group „Farmers for No“, and more.

The official figures for the result of the referendum are expected at approximately 5.30 pm this evening.

The Irish Times has more.

A less Western World

2009-09-26T15:42:00.010+02:00

There are two reports made by the European Union's Foresight Expert Group "The World in 2025", and "Rising Asia and Socio-ecological Transition". The experts assessed and measured global trends over recent decades and then developed forward projections and alternative scenarios.

I cannot relate to the research methods of futurology. But I'm sure the findings and opinions of the experts deserve attention, especially as most of their predictions are based on the here and now and could well be influenced by today's policies.

I'm in the middle of the report now.

Some findings:

The center of global activity will be in Asia, especially China. The population of India will approach China's, which will have started to decrease. Europe will place third, the United States fourth. Russia will be knocked out of the top ten because of growing population in Africa and South America. The European population will be older than that of any other country.

If everybody in the world follows the habits of the US population, which has the highest per capita energy, food and water consumption, a dearth of commodities could create a severe world crisis.

The poorest nations would be the main victims. Extending cheap energy, food and clean water supply therefore is a number one priority.

Ageing will challenge intergenerational solidarity due to changes in family patterns (more unmarried cohabitation, later marriage, more divorce, more repartnering, smaller family sizes, later childbearing).

There will be massive migration to the cities (most of the migrants will be "climate refugees") 60 % of the population will live there. This may lead to tensions with the existing population.

Further chapters are on economy, trade, employment (very interesting the chapter on "communicative sharing" - that's what do we here on the blogs, don't we?)

Then there's a chapter on environment and health, climate change and energy. I didn't find anything substantial on renewable energy, especially solar energy!

There are chapters on technology, innovation, research, education, information, entrepreneurship, international financial systems.

Very drastic are the parts on "the transversal threats and challenges".
"All the areas producing energy goods vital for defence and security (including uranium) are becoming major crisis areas: Russia, Middle East, Africa. The challenge for Europe is rather clear: except a genuine energy or technological revolution, Europe will be indeed increasingly dependent on more and more unstable areas (Africa, Middle East, Russia)".

The experts also name "main drivers that could impact the future", those being people and their cognitive abilities, and wildcards that may change the situation radically, such as wars, the first collapse of a third-world big city, and more.

Seal the Deal

2009-09-22T19:17:00.006+02:00

It's Global Climate Week. Today is "Green Day" (yes, I wore something green ;-)), tomorrow will be "Go Climate Neutral Day".

Here are some key quotes from the UN Climate Summit.

More information:

The New Scientist on climate change

Galactic

2009-09-14T22:18:00.002+02:00

Two French photographers, Serge Brunier and Frédéric Tapissier spent months in the Chilean desert to create this beautiful panorama of the Milky Way.

There's more in WiredScience.

The Father of Bloggers: Michel de Montaigne

2009-09-13T18:26:00.008+02:00

I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind - and to work some of those contradictions out for myself.

That's a quote by the French nobleman and writer Michel de Montaigne who died on September 13, 1592.

On February 28, 1571, his 38th birthday, he retired from all public duties, retreated into the tower of his family's castle und began to write. His intention was to spend the second half of his life looking at himself.

The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.

Within the next twenty years he produced his famous "essais", and thus inventend a new literary form. The essays cover a wide range of topics, from theological and philosophical questions to very trivial ones. Titles are "of Age, of Custom, of Vanity, of Glory, of Thumbs, of Repentence", and more.

He left his tower only for a year of traveling to Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy, mainly to seek a cure for his kidney disease. He kept a detailed journal recording various episodes and regional differences, which was interesting to read, as I know a lot of the areas he writes about.

Michel de Montaigne died at the age of 59.

I've always found great pleasure in reading Montaignes essays. After more than 400 years, so many of his observations still sound true and timeless.

Montaigne links:

link1.

Youtube-Video on Montaigne.

You can read more than 50 of his essays at the Quotidiana and at the Project Gutenberg.

Montaigne seems to have been well acquainted with cats, too:

When I play with my cat, who knows whether she isn't amusing herself with me more than I am with her?

The Internet Manifesto

2009-09-09T18:40:00.001+02:00

15 German journalists and bloggers wrote an Internet Manifesto" on how journalism works today. The reaction was overwhelming: the 17 declarations were discussed worldwide.

Source and more here.

Happy Birthday, Maria Lassnig!

2009-09-08T21:29:00.002+02:00

Maria_Lassnig’s_“Iron_Virgin_and_Fleshy_Virgin”
Originally uploaded by KevinB0309

In May I wrote a post about the famous Austrian painter Maria Lassnig.

Today, Maria Lassnig celebrates her 90th birthday.

In an interview with the Austrian daily, derStandard, she said: "The age! In Austria you're labelled by the age as a woman and as an artist. But I've never counted the years. I was never young, and I'm not old now."

Here's an interview by Frieze Magazine from 2006.

Impressions from an Island

2009-09-04T20:16:00.011+02:00

We spent 1 day and 1 night on the island of Norderney in Germany, one of the seven East Frisian islands off the North Sea coast of Germany.

It was cold, windy, rainy and sunny all in one and the entire trip was only made to just see and smell the sea.

Smiling or grinning?

2009-09-01T18:03:00.007+02:00

Keihin Electric Railway in Japan has introduced a "Smile Scan" system at 14 of its railway stations. The machine takes a picture of their employee's smiles and analyzes it for lip movements, lip curves, wrinkles, and so on, rating it on a 0 to 100 scale. The machine also gives feedbacks, such as "Your smile is getting better" or "Smile like you're happy!"

The system is designed to improve staff's customer response by giving them a more natural smile.

Read the full article here.

I have friends who visited Japan this summer, and they told me the most incredible things about this country. What they found especially remarkable was the politeness and friendliness of employees in public places, such as sales assistants or railway employees. It is, for example, standard for them to greet and take a bow when a entering or leaving a train.

And all this respectful behavior doesn't do? The smiles are not natural enough?

My students who train for sales assistants will laugh about this, when I tell them. Very heartily and naturally. No smiles to the customers if they don't feel like it. Natural smiles very seldom. One of them told me once: I wouldn't insult a customer by smiling artificially.

That's the other extreme.

No chance of implementing those scans in Austria, I'm sure.

God Help The Girl

2009-08-01T17:37:00.018+02:00

As is probably known to readers of this blog, I'm a fan of the Scottish indie band Belle & Sebastian. Band founder and leader, lead singer and song-writer Stuart Lee Murdoch of Belle & Sebastian has worked for several years on the soundtrack of a rock musical/movie which might be produced next year.

However, the soundtrack for the musical is ready and the album titled God help the Girl is available.

It consists of 14 pieces, a collection of new songs and old ones of Belle & Sebastian. There are lots of string and brass arrangements (actually a 45-piece orchestra).

Murdoch wanted to craft a set of songs sung by women framed in an orchestral context, and he found real good ones, Catherine Ireton of the Go Away Birds, Brittany Stallings, Anna Miles, and Asya of Smoosh. There's also Neil Hannon of the Divine Comedy.

The arrangements are all rather charming, and very Belle & Sebastian-ish, but a little modified and alienated (not in a bad sense) by those new voices, especially Catherine Ireton's very strong and warm one.

There's an interview with Stuart Lee Murdoch.

Rob Spence of Topsyturvydom alerted me to an interview Stuart had given on BBC, but unfortunately, that's no longer available online.

I only wonder what people, especially those who are not familiar with Belle & Sebastian will make of a soundtrack to a musical without the musical.

My favorites: a) Come Monday Night

and b) Pretty Eve in The Tub, as it's sung by Stuart Murdoch and I like his voice a lot. It has been said it sounds like Chamber Music and I think, that's true. But listen for yourself.

There's a review by Liam McIllvanney in the Guardian "A Story Set to Music".

More links1 (God help the girl - site)
More links2.

The Danube

2009-07-31T19:24:00.020+02:00

I strolled along the Danube, the longest river in the European Union (2850 km) today. Well, not all of those kilometres ... It was very hot, the heat softened by a light breeze. Pleasant.

The river originates in Germany's Black Forest, passes through ten countries (Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova and Ukraine).

The Danube basin was the site of some of the earliest human cultures such as the Linear Pottery Culture (5500–4500 BC). The river was part of the Roman empire's Limes Germanicus. The Romans often used the river Danube as a border for their empire.

Here's more on the river.

My favorite Danube books are Claudio Magris'" Danube - A sentimental journey from the source to the Black Sea, a fascinating mixture of history, literature, philosophy and travelogue, and Inge Morath's photo book Danube.

Everybody knows the Waltz The Blue Danube by Johann Strauss II. The Danube is seldom blue, more often greyish or even brownish, by the way.

Here's an interpretation by Faryl Smith, called "The River of Light".

The German poet Friedrich Hoelderlin called the Danube "a refreshing, melodious river, sometimes foaming with high spirits, at other times dreaming serenely.”

In Memory of Frank McCourt

2009-07-29T18:23:00.023+02:00

The Irish-American writer and retired teacher Frank McCourt died on 19 July, 2009 at the age of 78.

His first book, Angela's Ashes, published at the age of 66, dealt with his upbringing in an alcoholic household in Limerick, Ireland. It became a best-seller almost immediately and won a Pulitzer.

Mc Court's second memoir, 'Tis, took up the story of his life when he moved to the United States at the age of 19.

In his third book, Teacher Man, he describes his years as a teacher in New York City.

As a teacher, I enjoyed this book even more than the other ones, with its accurate and vivid descriptions of the occupation, often accompanied by irony and a smile between the lines.

A small excerpt from "Teacher Man".

"Somebody should have told me, Hey, Mac, your life, Mac, thirty years of it, Mac, is gonna be school, school, school, kids, kids, kids, papers, papers, read und correct, read and correct, mountains of papers piling up at school, at home, days, nights, reading stories, poems, diaries, suicide notes, diatribes, excuses, plays, essays, even novels - the works of thousands - thousands - of New York teenagers over the years, a few hundred working men and women, and you get no time for reading Graham Greene or Dashiell Hammett, F. Scott Fitzgerald oder old P.G. Wodehouse, or your main man, Mr. Jonathan Swift.

You'll go blind reading Joey and Sandra, Tony and Michelle, little agonies and passions and ecstasies. Mountains of kid stuff, Mac. If they opened your head they'd find a thousand teenagers clambering all over your brain ....."

.."Remember, if this is your world, you're one of them, a teenager. You live in two worlds. You're with them, day in, day out, and you'll never know, Mac, what that does to your mind. June will come, and it's bye-bye, teacher, nice knowin' you, my sister's gonna be in your class in September. But there's something else, Mac. In any classrom, something is always happening. They keep you on your toes. They keep you fresh. You'll never grow old, but the danger is you might have the mind of an adolescent forever. That's a real problem, Mac. You get used to talking to those kids on their level. Then when you go to a bar for a beer, you forget how to talk to your friends and they look at you. They look at you like you just arrived from another planet and they're right".

I know that look, too.

On the video there's a rather humorous talk by Frank McCourt at NYS Writers Institute 2006.

There's an article written by Frank McCourt in 2002, titled: REFLECTIONS ON CREATIVE WRITING CLASS: THE TEACHER; How to confront 30,000 words a week of teenage angst and ecstasy.

Here's an obituary from the New York Times.

Frank McCourt kept his humour till the end. A few weeks before his death he said: "I don't want funeral services or memorials. Let them scatter my ashes over the Shannon and pollute the river."

Thank you, Frank McCourt. You'll be missed.

United Breaks Guitars

2009-07-24T23:06:00.003+02:00

A true story, told by the Sons of Maxwell, and worth listening.

Here's more.

2009-07-18T09:44:00.004+02:00

I seldom watch TV and even more seldom go to the cinema, so I don't know much about the current advertisements. Don't like most advertisements anyway - but who does? Okay, there were some in the past some that were different, caught the attention, made me smile, but very few. Most of them are annoying and boring, have bad timing, are endlessly repeated and make me want to throw things at the TV.

One that stands out from the mass of mediocre or bad adverts is Louis Vuitton's journeys, featuring Sally Ride (America's first woman in space), Jim Lovell (Commander of Apollo XIII), and Buzz Aldrin (the second man to set foot on the moon) - made by star photographer Annie Leibowitz.

Twitter and Teens

2009-07-15T12:45:00.017+02:00

Perhaps some of you will have heard about Matthew Robson's research note on the media habits of teens. Hobson, 15, is an intern at Morgan Stanley's in London.

The Financial Times writes that the note by (a) 'teenage scribbler' caused sensation and the response was enormous. “We’ve had dozens and dozens of fund managers, and several CEOs, e-mailing and calling all day,” said Mr Hill-Wood, executive director of Morgan Stanley’s European media team, estimating that the note had generated five or six times more feedback than the team’s usual reports.

So, in short what did he tell? (You can read the full report here and here).

Teens don't watch TV on a regular basis, they seldom listen to radio and prefer advert-free websites like Last.fm instead. They find advertising "extremely annoying and pointless". They like the cinema, concerts and video games, especially the Wii, the Xbox 360 and the PS3.

They don't read newspapers, and prefer TV or online news summaries. They only read tabloids and freesheets.

Most teenagers are very active in social networking sites such as Facebook because one can interact with friends on a wide scale. They do not use twitter, because of the costs and because nobody views their profiles, they consider it "pointless".

Lots of people are now comforting themselves that Mr Robson's research is not representative. This is correct but no cause for comfort.

I think, Mr Robson's research notes read like a very coherent summary of most of the major studies published in the field of media and teens within the last years. Many of them representative. (Maybe with the exception of twitter, which was not included in most of them).

By the way, I conducted a very small poll among my students a few weeks ago (only 200 people) asking: "Do you know Twitter?" and "Do you use Twitter?"

90 percent hadn't even heard of it. About 8 percent had heard about it, but were not sure what it was. Two percent knew roughly what it was but had never tried it out.

Maybe, Austria is a bit backward here. However, a Nielsen report says that Twitter is most popular among working adults.

And Harvard Business Publishing tells us that among Twitter users, the median number of lifetime tweets per user is one. But there's a small contingent of users who are very active. Specifically, the top 10% of prolific Twitter users accounted for over 90% of tweets.

I'm interested in your opinions and thoughts about microblogging on Twitter.

And: Do you use it?

Feel free to comment!

In Bavaria

2009-07-13T20:50:00.013+02:00

I spent some days (reflection days, to be precise) with a few colleagues in Zwiesel, a small town in the Bavarian Forest which is an extensive wooded low-mountain area in the south of Germany, Bavaria, very close to the Czech border.

The forest is magically beautiful and fascinating, with streams, rivers, glacial lakes and mystic moors. There are animals, by now extinct elsewhere, such as the capercaillie, the white backed woodpecker, and the lynx.

In addition to this, the area is known for its glassworks and the steam beer.

Here are some beautiful pictures.

Here's more on the Bavarian Nature Park, in English as well.

Here's the site of the Bavarian Forest National Park.

Shouting won't help

2009-07-12T11:19:00.005+02:00

Something remarkable happened in Austria this week.

The Greens' Helene Jarmer was sworn in on Friday as the first deaf member of the Austrian Parliament. She is the second deaf person in world history to be elected to a national parliament (after Wilma Newhoudt-Druchen of South Africa).

Jarmer became deaf at the age of two, as the result of an accident. She graduated from the Technical High School and taught at the National Institute for the Deaf and at the University of Vienna. She is now the authority on teaching and learning in this field.

In the past she accomplished the constitutional acceptance of sign language, but she also stands up for bilingual instruction (sign language and written language).

Helene Jarmer made her first address in sign language, which an interpreter put into German. Jarmer gave a report on disability issues and an orientation lesson in sign language.

From now on six sign language interpreters will in turns translate every parliamentary session. Additionally, an interpreter will make her speech audible for the audience via microphone.

A short excerpt from her first address:

You might be thinking about how you might be able to work together
with me. I am deaf. I hear nothing. I really hear nothing at all, so
shouting won't help. I won't be able to hear it. Please go ahead and
speak clearly, not in an exaggerated way, but slowly. Please maintain
eye contact with me. That's very important for me. How can you get
in contact with me?--By text messaging, by e-mail or instant
messaging, and you can also call me on the telephone. I have an
interpreter for that, just as we are doing here. It's simple. [All this so
that we can be in contact with each other.] [Applause.] I know that I
always tend to sign too quickly and I have to learn how to pause
occasionally.

On Youtube you can see her speech, but it's in German, of course, and the quality is very poor.

The Graffiti Artist: Cy Twombly

2009-06-28T20:22:00.011+02:00

The American artist Edwin Parker (Cy) Twombly Jr (born April 25, 1928) has an exhibit in Vienna's Mumok.

Twombly is known for his gestural, calligraphic-style graffiti paintings with letter-like signs, his scribbling and doodling, his symbols of ancient mythology on monumental canvases.

I have the feeling it will need some time to get closer to Twombly's work, some of the pictures have impressed me very much, because of their radiant colours, their vibrancy and irony. For example, I was very attracted by the "Wilder Shores of Love"(see above).

Here's an interview with the artist and below a video from the Tate where the Tate's Director Nicholas Serota gives a behind the scenes tour of the Cy Twombly exhibition as he makes the final adjustments to the hang just before opening. Serota talks about Twombly's technique, his relationship to Turner, and how the artist, now in his eighties, is still producing some of the most vital work of his career.

Was Leopold Bloom Austrian?

2009-06-17T23:43:00.008+02:00

I promised to blog about Bloomsday 2009 in Vienna.

It was a hot Bloomsday, and the small art lounge in the basement of the Café Korb which takes pride in a lot of famous former guests like Arthur Miller or Andy Warhol was like a sauna. The readings were transmitted to the bigger room on the first floor where it was much cooler – but I wanted authenticity, and this meant sweating and drinking lots of water and some wine. Additionally, more than half of the audience of about 40 people smoked as if there was no tomorrow, which meant a slight feeling of anoxia and poor visibility.

The reading was non-stop. One advertising canvasser (or of a similar occupation) after the other was called by name and company, got the text and started reading, each one about 10 minutes. I have never read the German translation of Ulysses, although I own one, and was astonished how different some passages come across in another language. I hadn’t been at a reading for a long time, but found it very stimulating to listen for once and concentrate on the voices and the puns. And it was fun, too. By 11.30 we had seen and heard 32 people from newspapers, radios and TV-stations.

There was one contribution in English, read by Dardis McNamee from the Vienna Review, an English-language newspaper in Vienna. It was great to hear at least several pages of the original.

The readings were framed by the talks of three Joyce connoisseurs: Kurt Palm, director and author (of, amongst others, a James Joyce-ABC), Meinhard Rauchensteiner, advisor to the Federal President and Otto Brusatti, radio presenter and musicologist.

The people over here like connections to their own country, so Kurt Palm recounted that the first lines of „Ulysses“ were written in Trieste, which, at that time was Austrian.

Mr Rauchensteiner asked „Was Leopold Bloom Austrian?“ and presented references to Austria found in Ulysses. There are quite a few. For example the following passage from episode 7, Aeolus: „Emperor’s horses. Habsburg. An Irishman saved his life on the ramparts of Vienna. Don’t you forget! Maximilian Karl O’Donnell, graf von Tirconnell in Ireland. Sent his heir over to make the king an Austrian fieldmarshal now. Going to be trouble there one day. Wild geese. O yes, every time. Don’t you forget that!“

The background to this: Maximilian Karl Lamoral Count O’Donnell, Austrian born son of an Irish expatriate served as aide-de-camp to Emperor Francis Joseph. One day, he attended the emperor on his daily walk around Vienna.When the Emperor was attacked and wounded by a Hungarian tailor, O’Donnell knocked the man down. The Emperor subsequently asserted that he owed his life to O’Donnell.

The „Wild Geese“ refers to the large groups of people who left Ireland between 1600 and 1789, most of them to serve in the huge continental armies of Russia, Spain, Poland, France and Austria. One of them was the Irishman Maximilian Ulysses Browne, but we can’t be sure if his second name had any influence on the title of the book.

The question „Was Leopold Bloom Austrian“? was finally answered with „Yes, but only in his nightmares“.

I did not stay for the talk „Joyce and Music“ which is a pity but it was around midnight and I had to get up at 5. I’m sure the readings went on till the wee hours of the morning.

An evening well spent.

Bloomsday 2009 in Vienna

2009-06-15T19:38:00.008+02:00

There are several events to celebrate Bloomsday here in Vienna, but one of them sounds very interesting and promising.

Staged by a town magazine (Wien live) lots of people will read non-stop from James Joyce's "Ulysses" in one of Vienna's most famous coffeehouses, the "Café Korb" - "until exhaustion". And very special people, too: advertising canvassers, people who have the same job as the fictitious Leopold Bloom, protagonist and anti-hero in "Ulysses". They will do so with the express permission of James Joyce's grandson, Stephen James Joyce.

The canvassers will be coming from all of Vienna's daily newspapers, and they will additionally be boosted by editors and publishers who have been forced to ask companies for support in exchange for an - advert.

Gorgonzola sandwiches with mustard and burgundy will be served, the snack Leopold Bloom ate in Davy Byrne's on Grafton Street in Dublin.

Election Day in Europe!

2009-06-07T09:43:00.008+02:00

It's the final day of the Elections for the European Parliament.

Final results will be found here as well as in Wikipedia, by 22:00 CET, the estimates will be available by 21:00.

According to CNN a "Euro barometer" poll conducted last month found that only a third of potential voters intended to use their mandate, suggesting that participation could be even lower than the 45 percent turnout in 2004.

European Parliament President Hans-Gert Pottering considers urged all citizens to use their vote to "support those parties that are in favour of European integration and that are committed to our European values."

For a better understanding, the names of the parties are:

- the EPP, the European People's Party (conservative)
- PES, the Party of European Socialists
- ALDE, Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe
- the GREENS-EFA, (European Free Alliance)
- EUL-NGL, European United Left–Nordic Green Left
- ID, the Indepence Democracy Group
- the UEN, the Union for a Europe of Nations
- a range of smaller parties.

There's a time-machine covering the years from 1979 to 2009.

27 Views of Europe

2009-05-30T09:52:00.005+02:00

The European Parliamentary Elections will be held in the 27 member states of the European Union between 4 and 7 June 2009. 736 Members of the European Parliament will be elected to represent some 500,000,000 Europeans, making these the biggest trans-national elections in history.

Reporters at the magazine Spiegel online in Germany, NRC Handelsblad in the Netherlands and Politiken in Denmark have worked together on profiling attitudes about the election and the EU in each of the member states. You can read them by clicking on the respective country.

View 27 Views of Europe in a larger map

Meme-Tagged

2009-05-29T23:10:00.005+02:00

I was meme-tagged by Lydia.

Ok, the rules are:

- respond and rework
- answer questions on your blog
- replace one question
- and, on Lydia’s suggestion, tag three other blogs,

which are:

Elligreat
Friko
Stevie

1. If one song were to describe your life, what song would it be?

I Feel A Change Coming On.

2. Which item of clothing do you wear most?

Blue track pants.

3. When did you get up today?

5.20, as usual.

4. Last thing you bought?

A mobile phone – the old one was coming apart.

5. What are you listening to?

The rhythm of the rain. It’s actually raining outside, therefore I remembered the old Cascades song.

6. If you were a God or a Goddess, who would you be?

Concordia, the goddess of harmony. But I’m not the goddess type, I’d be a pixie.

7. Favourite holiday spots?

Belle & Sebastian will tell you:

8.Reading right now?

A thriller, The Carnival Master, by Craig Russell.

9.Favourite film?

Wings of Desire by Wim Wenders.

11. First spring thing?

Put away the winter coat (only to fetch it again a few days later). This happens from February till April.

12. Funniest thing you saw in your life?

A photo of myself, sitting on a tree surrounded by bulls.

13. Who's your hero/heroine?

Yitzhak Frankenthal, an Israeli and Orthodox Jew, whose 19-year old son, Arik, was killed by the Hamas. He established the Arik Institute and is still working for peace and mutual understanding.

14. Share some wisdom?

Just do it.

15. If you were a tree, what tree would you be and why?

A larch. They love it cool and mountainous.

16. Fictitious characters who made a lasting impression on you?

Leopold Bloom in „Ulysses“

17. 4 words to describe you?

This woman is crazy.

Big Night for Austria in Cannes

2009-05-25T20:35:00.005+02:00

Michael Haneke, Austrian director, won the top prize, the Palme d'Or, at the Cannes Film Festival with his film, The White Ribbon, a drama about a children's choir in a village in northern Germany just before World War I.

According to Haneke, the film is about "the origin of every type of terrorism, be it of political or religious nature."

Austrian actor Christoph Waltz received the Best Actor Award for portraying Colonel Hans Landa, the "Jew Hunter" in Quentin Tarantino's World War II epic "Inglourious Basterds."

Here's a list of all the awards.

In memory of Paul Parin

2009-05-23T16:26:00.009+02:00

Paul Parin, Begründer der Ethno-Psychoanalyse
Originally uploaded by krusensternfoto

Paul Parin, Swiss born psychoanalyst, author, writer of critical essays in politics and culture, and one of the founders of Ethnopsychoanalysis died in Zurich on May, 18 at the age of 92.

He was a truly remarkable man. I had the privilege to meet him several times in person. He was a lively man, affectionate and sincere, and, above all, a gifted story-teller.

Born in 1916, Paul Parin grew up in a Slovenian manor as the son of a Jewish bourgeois family. He finished medical school in Zurich. During World War II he was a committed anti-fascist, actively involved in refugee-aid and a doctor with the Yugoslavian Liberation army. From 1946 until 1952, he specialized in neurology and trained in psychoanalysis in Zurich. In 1958, he was a founding member of the Psychoanalytical Seminary in Zurich.

I loved his memories "Untruegliche Zeichen von Veränderungen" (Unmistakable signs of change) where he - among other things - describes the emotional narrowness of his childhood and contrasts it with the vastness of the forests and the landscape. One of the pedagodical benefits he concedes to his rather despotic father is that he allowed the 13-year-old to set up a real library in one of the 40 rooms of the estate.

Together with his wife Goldy he undertook several scientific journeys to West-Africa, where they explored the question: Is psychoanalysis possible in societies different from the Western-European ones? Together with the psychoanalyst Fritz Morgenthaler, they combined psychoanalysis and anthropology, and applied the Freudian method and technique to ethnological research. As a result, several books were published.

One of the books from this era that impressed me most was "Die Weißen denken zu viel", (together with Fritz Morgenthaler and Goldy Parin-Matthey, in 1963) "White people think too much", which is, in essence the first documentation of a scientific method which has influenced the thinking and the research of a generation of psychoanalysts and ethnologists.

The title of this meanwhile legendary book stems from a quote by Dommo, a chief from Mali. He says: "The white people think too much, and then they do a lot of things; and the more they do, the more they think. And then they earn a lot of money, and when they have a lot of money, they are worried that the money might get lost. Then they think even more and make more money and they never have enough money. Then they're not settled any longer. That's why they're not happy".

Paul Parin was awarded the "Erich-Fried-Preis" in 1992; in 1997 he claimed the "Sigmund-Freud-Preis" for scientific prose of the "Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung", and in 1999 he received the "Sigmund Freud-Award of the City of Vienna". Paul Parin is an honorary doctor of Klagenfurt University in Austria.

Paul's wife (of 58 years) Goldy, died 12 years ago. They called each other fox and cat.

His notice of death says:
The fox has followed the cat for the big journey.

Thanks to krusenstern for the photo.

Oh My Deer!

2009-05-22T18:02:00.006+02:00

In one of Austria's largest public outdoor swimming pools with access to a branch of the Danube (capacity 30,000 visitors) a group of Canada geese have settled down (which is not without conflicts). Ironically, the name of the lido is "Gaensehaeufel" which means a hoard of geese and a small pile ...

In the same area, one pair of beavers felled 40 trees within one year.

A Viennese school often has to cancel Physical Education because of about 40 wild hamsters living on their sports field and making so many holes that there's acute danger for the kids of wrenching their ankles.

We have hundreds of foxes, kestrels, badgers, bats in hospitals or office towers, boars and wild sows, ring-necked parakeets from Africa, Chinese mandarin ducks and many more within city borders.

According to experts, cities are very attractive for wild animals, because there's plenty of food. Additionally, the design of the parks is more and more near-natural with lots of hiding places and scrubs.

The fellow in the picture above doesn't live in Vienna, but in my home-village. He seems to like the vicinity of houses as he's sitting about 1 metre from my backdoor.

Maria Lassnig - The Ninth Decade

2009-05-17T07:10:00.008+02:00

Today is the last day of the Maria Lassnig exhibit "The Ninth Decade" in Vienna's Mumok.

Throughout her life she has made it clear that the only thing she knows for sure are the feelings that evolve inside the shell of her body. She coined the term "body-awareness painting" in the 1940s.

"Once I wearied of depicting nature analytically, I began looking for a reality which would be more quintessentially mine than what the outside world, and found the body that I inhibit to be by far the most real of all realities; I had only to become aware of it to be able to project its impression in fixed centres of gravity onto the image plane".

She developed a "color perception" all her own which she called "vertical or absolute color perception"."I would fix my gaze at a point of color till the 'local color' disappeared and the entire frightening relativity of color gave way to a larger range of options". This enabled her to differentiate between "bodily sensation colors, thought colors, stretching and pressing colors, smell colors, flesh colors, death and decomposition colors" and so on.

I'm thrilled with the colors that emerge - bright green, deep violet, turquoise, and with the playfulness and irony in her pictures.

At almost ninety, Maria Lassnig is still alert, full of life, spirit and creative power.

Here's an interview and some of her pictures.

Together Through Life

2009-04-30T17:42:00.014+02:00

"He not busy being born is busy dying", the master says in "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)". And the master is busy and produces album after album, makes tour after tour.

I’m always happy when I can make connections. Of any kind.

In Bob Dylan’s latest album Together Through Life it’s the reference to James Joyce. (For those who don't know: this blog was created long ago in honour of James Joyce) “I’m listening to Billy Joe Shaver/And I’m reading James Joyce … Some people they tell me I got the blood of the land in my voice” he sings in “ I Feel a Change Comin’ On".

The blood of the land, indeed. For a European person this album is soo American. The texts written by BD himself and none other than the lyricist Robert Hunter as a co-writer cover universal themes like hardship, struggle, love, murder, death in decidedly American settings. The texts are strange, wise, funny, apocalyptic, sentimental, psychedelic, ironic, and sometimes they sound as if they have been sung with a smile on the face of the singer.

But the best is still to come. The music. It has been described as blues pop with Tex/Mex, Latin-American and Creole elements. Very prominent: David Hidalgo on the accordion and Mike Campbell on the guitar. Beautiful arrangements.

Willi Winkler, a renowned German author (of, amongst other books, a Dylan biography), critic and translator (he translated books by Updike, Burgess and Bellow) and who writes for the German daily “The Sueddeutsche” sees “Together Trough Life” as the best, most beautiful and greatest the master has ever delivered to his audience.

Well, let’s listen for ourselves.

The album sure is impressive. Very different from Modern Times.

My favourites? I’ve not decided yet. Maybe” I Feel A Change Comin’ On”, “This Dream of You” (a hell of an almost Viennese type of waltz), or “Beyond Here Lies Nothing”.

There’s a website where you can create an interactive lyrical portrait based on the song “Beyond Here Lies Nothing”.

The video below gives a good overview. It has 30 seconds from each song. The playlist:
1) Beyond Here Lies Nothin 2. Life Is Hard 3. My Wife's Home Town 4. If You Ever Go To Houston 5. Forgetful Heart 6. Jolene 7. This Dream Of You 8. Shake Shake Mama 9. I Feel A Change Comin On 10. Its All Good

"This Dream of You"

Travel and trade have reshaped our world

2009-04-26T09:10:00.008+02:00

The European Commission (together with the World Bank) has developed a map of accessibility which shows the concentration of economic activity and the few areas left that can be called wilderness.

Only 10 percent of the land area is remote - more than 48 hours from a large city.

Read more here ..

Copyright EC

Earth Day 2009

2009-04-22T07:44:00.006+02:00

I take this test every year: How many planets does it take to support your lifestyle?

I still need 4.6 planets! Not good at all, although it was much higher last year. It's the flying that causes the bad results. And the garbage. And all these electrical gadgets. Food is okay (vegetarian), transport, too (mostly public).

Night Mail

2009-04-16T20:43:00.003+02:00

Every now and then (2005 and 2007 I blog about W. H. Auden.

Today I came across "Night Mail", a 1936 documentary film about a London, Midland and Scottish Railway mail train from London to Scotland. For this film W.H. Auden wrote a poem, Benjamin Britten made the music.

There's a Nightmail Video on Youtube that is worth watching and listening as the poem's rhythm imitates that of the train wheels and starts picking up and gaining speed.

The opening starts like this:

This is the Night Mail crossing the border,
Bringing the cheque and the postal order,
Letters for the rich, letters for the poor,
The shop at the corner and the girl next door....

The poem's full text is here.

Britain's Got Talent

2009-04-15T19:11:00.003+02:00

This video of Susan Boyle's performance circulated all over Austria today.

It cannot be embedded, so you have to follow the link:

Susan Boyle

Read more here:

Britain's got talent ...

Isn't she incredible?

William Wordsworth Today

2009-04-11T18:17:00.003+02:00

daffodils2
Originally uploaded by francessa_Rich

"I wandered lonely as a cloud" as a rap (but only for one minute). The rest is beautiful landscape.

Happy Easter everyone!

Guest blog by Stevie: A Visit in the Volksgarten

2009-03-15T18:45:00.001+01:00

roses in bags (4)
Originally uploaded by francessa_Rich

Today, we saw a new installation in the Viennese Volksgarten. The artist is unknown, but the title is "Roses in bags".

Let's learn!

2009-03-07T23:59:00.004+01:00

On Academic Earth there are thousands of video lectures from top scholars. The lectures were recorded in Berkeley, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford and Yale.

I immersed myself in Paul Bloom’s lectures, the American Novel since 1945 by Amy Hungerford and the Introduction to Ancient Greek History by Donald Kagan.

I love "The Human Brain and Muscular System" by Marian Diamond!

I might even get interested in Physics, Astronomy or Anatomy. ☺

The Women (T. C. Boyle)

2009-02-28T19:26:00.011+01:00

spheres, Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West, Scottsdale, Arizona
Originally uploaded by lumierefl

"Writing a novel is like building a house", said T. C. Boyle in an interview about his latest novel, "The Women".

There's an excerpt from "The Women" on Boyle's site.

"The Women" is a fictional portrait of the architect Frank Lloyd Wright's life, as seen through the prism of four women significant to him: Kitty Tobin, his first wife, mother of his six children, Mamah Borthwick Cheney, a scholar of the women's movement (who is brutally murdered with her children by a butler while Wright is at work in Chicago),the morphine addicted artist Maud Miriam Noel, and the Montenegrin dancer Olgivanna Milanoff. Parts of the novel are told by a fictional Japanese apprentice, Tadashi Sato.

The book gripped me from start to finish. I read the (about 420 pages) in one day and a few nightly hours. In English. Boyle shows Wright in great complexity, self-centered, egotistic, as a genius, overwhelmingly creative and versatile, charming and despotic, in a chaotic, restless life.

Of course, I've looked at all those beautiful houses on the internet. T.C.Boyle himself lives in one of Wright's houses in California. The prairie houses must be extraordinary to live in. Wright must have been far ahead of his time, with his ideas of natural, organic living, his democratic ideas on building houses. I never had the slightest interest for architecture - but now I do.

At least I was in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York a few years ago.

There's a talk given by T.C.Boyle, quite amusing. Lydia, if you listen to this, don't take the part about Oregon personal. :-)

Gerhard Richter again

2009-02-18T08:00:00.005+01:00

Gerhard Richter : Family in the Snow, 1966
Originally uploaded by Marc Wathieu

After having seen the beautiful glass windows of the Cologne Cathedral created by Gerhard Richter we went to the Albertina retrospective in Vienna.

“I pursue no objectives, no system, no tendency; I have no program, no style, no direction…. I steer clear of definitions. I don’t know what I want. I am inconsistent, non-committal, passive; I like the indefinite, the boundless; I like continual uncertainty", says Richter who leads the list of the most sought-after painters in the world, followed by Bruce Nauman, Sigmar Polke and Georg Baselitz.

He may not pursue anything, but the effects are pretty strong. His versatility impressed me most. The Albertina shows about 150 photorealistic paintings, abstract oil paintings, watercolours and drawings and covers many different phases of a painter's life.

I might go there for a second time.

Thomas Bernhard Anniversaries

2009-02-09T22:25:00.005+01:00

(Almost double) anniversaries:

Thomas Bernhard, one of the most famous and influentual Austrian novelists, poets and playwrights of the twentieth century lived from February 9, 1931 to February 12, 1989.

During his lifetime, the author and his works were often the centre of heated debate and arguments. One of his novels was confiscated, his last play "Heldenplatz" (Heroe's place) in which he attacked the Nazi past of his country caused outrage and scandal. Thomas Bernhard had a love-hate relationship with the Austrian state and its institutions. He called Austria once "a common hell in which the intellect is incessantly defamed and art and science are destroyed."

He was called the "great stubborn loner," the "humorous tragedian," the "macabre humorist," the "suffering rebel" (Reich-Ranicki), the "state-qualified misanthrope" (Ulrich Weinzierl), the "virtuoso of desperation and mannered moroseness" (Eberhard Falcke), the "comedian infatuated with gloom" (Franz Josef Görtz) or the "misanthropic word mill".

(Source: Interview with Asta Scheib 1986 - From One Catastrophe to the Next). (This is one of the few interviews with T.B.)

Bernhard suffered from a lung disease for the greater part of his life.

His style was called iconoclastic and relentlessly repetitive, the last sounding a big towards the boring which he's certainly not.

Bernhard's plays show the influence of the theatre of the absurd, especially Ionesco and Beckett. From the 1970s he started to gain fame as one of the most successful modern playwrights and dramatists with a total of eighteen plays.

I have only recently (re-)discovered Bernhard. Obviously I was not ready for him before although there had been several attempts. Now I'm reading almost breathlessly one work after the other. My favourites at the moment are the autobiographical narratives "Die Ursache" (The Cause), "Der Keller" (The Cellar), "Ein Kind" (A Child). The five autobiographical volumes are a single volume in English titled “Gathering Evidence".

Jessica Ferri writes about her Thomas Bernhard Obsession.

Enjoy the Five Stories from the Voice Imitator

Thomas Bernhard in English

A quote: "Everyone, he went on, speaks a language he does not understand, but which now and then is understood by others. That is enough to permit one to exist and at least to be misunderstood."
— Thomas Bernhard (Gargoyles: A Novel)

The Amazing Lindsey Vonn

2009-02-07T20:00:00.002+01:00

The FIS Alpine World Ski Championship Val d’Isère (France) 2009, from 2 to 15 February:

Read about the amazing American wonderchild Lindsey Vonn, who won the goldmedal in the women's Super-G on Tuesday. She spends most of her time in Austria and owns two cows ...

Cologne Cathedral

2009-02-05T11:08:00.004+01:00

Richter Window in Cologne Cathedral
Originally uploaded by francessa_Rich

We went to Cologne yesterday, to see several exhibitions, but mainly to see the Richter Windows in the Cologne Cathedral. The Cathedral is Cologne’s most famous landmark, a World Heritage Site, one of the world’s largest and oldest churches. Very, very impressive, if you stand before it and have a look upwards is almost overwhelming.

In August 2007 the cathedral received a new stained glass window to replace the original window destroyed in World War II. The window was created by one of the most famous German painters, Gerhard Richter. He’s also among the 10 most expensive living artists. In February 2008, for example, the „Candle“ which was used for the cover of the album „Daydream Nation“ (Sonic Youth) was sold for £7.1m at Sotheby’s.

The window is 20 m tall and consists of 11,500 handblown glass squares resembling pixels in 72 different colours which were chosen to match the colours in the other stained glass windows in the cathedral.

It’s a modern window, of course, but it blends in beautifully with the old windows and the surroundings. The effects of the light coming in through the pixels was beautiful even if there was a rainy day outside. Just magic.

Here you ou can take a a virtual tour in the cathedral.

Here’s Gerhard Richter’s official page.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

2009-02-03T18:19:00.005+01:00

We saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button yesterday, the film that got 13 Oscar nominations.

It’s the tale of a man who begins his life as a senior and, living his life in reverse, slowly becomes younger.

It’s a fairy-tale, a love-story, a film about time and mortality. It’s melancholy, with wonderful images and it differs considerably from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s orginal which you can read here.

I liked the old-age-part, the first half of the film best, when Benjamin Button discovers himself in an old people’s home in New Orleans in the 1920s, growing up with residents from all walks of life, talented ones, difficult ones, funny ones, talking with them, learning from them, and finally taking up a job on a ship.

The second parts centres around the love story and the small window of time the couple will have together. Inevitably, she will become older as he becomes younger by the day. The clock is ticking, and it doesn’t matter if death meets us in old age or, as in Benjamin’s case, in physically young age with all the symptoms of an old man.

There were two strong, and contradictory, messages in „Benjamin Button“:

a) nothing lasts forever
b) it’s never too late.

The second can be seen in Benjamin Button’s writings to his daughter: “I hope you’re proud of who you’ve become, and if not, I hope you have the strength to start all over.”
This is also expressed in Elizabeth’s (that’s the woman Benjamin has a short affair with, played by Tilda Swinton) repeated efforts to cross the British Channel by swimming, and finally suceeding, at age 68.

Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt were great, but I thought Tilda Swinton was just marvelous!

The special effects for the rejuvenating of Brad Pitt were amazing.

Here’s the trailer (but it isn’t very good, just to get a glimpse..)

Scots of Note - Tilda Swinton

2009-02-02T10:07:00.007+01:00

Tilda SWINTON
Originally uploaded by VEGAFI

When I started this little sequence of posts on Scots of note, I already knew: Tilda Swinton is a must!

I was prepared to do the Swinton post today. And guess what I came across in my favourite German newspaper, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, this morning? A feature on Tilda Swinton on occasion of her nomination as President of the International Jury at the Berlinale 2009.

Tilda Swinton was born in Durnfermline in Scotland. She has taken part in more than 40 films, and acted in a wide range of roles, female as well as male, in arthouse productions as well as blockbusters.

She has received numerous awards for her work, including an Oscar for Best Supporting Acress in „Michael Clayton“. Swinton started out in 1986 in Derek Jarman’s „Caravaggio“. The real breakthrough came with „Orlando“, where she played an Elizabethan courtier who lives for 400 years while changing sex from man to woman.

I’m fascinated by her versatileness, her radical and quick change of expression and looks, her androgyny and her overall intensity.

I've only seen Orlando, The Chronicles of Narnia, and Broken Flowers. Her latest appearance is in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button which I hope to see this week.

There’s an Interview with Tilda Swinton where she talks about her films and about her unusual private relationships.

Here’s a star interview on Youtube with Swinton.

Excerpt from Orlando

Trailer of Michael Clayton

Scots of Note - Dame Muriel Spark

2009-02-01T09:44:00.004+01:00

Muriel Spark (1 February 1918 – 13 April 2006) was born in Edinburgh, later moving to Africa, London, New York, and Italy, places which all provided material for her novels. In her opionion, her conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1954 had a crucial influence on her further writing.

She won lots of literary awards, among them the TS Eliot prize in 1992 and the British Literature Prize in 1997.

I read only five of her novels, „The Comforters“,, „Memento Mori“, „The Ballad of Peckham Rye“, The Girld of Slender Means“, „The Prime of Miss Brodie“, and her autobiography, "Curriculum Vitae". What intrigues me is her sketching of characters, her observations of the dark and inexplicable sides of human beings, her sharp sense of humour. She’s always a challenge to the reader and fun to read.

As a teacher, I was and still am enamoured by “The Prime of Miss Brodie“ which is probably one of the best English novels ever. Miss Brodie is an Edinburgh spinster living in the 1930s and teaching at Marcia Blaine school. Her teaching methods can be called „progressive“, as she provides „her girls“, the „crème de la crème“, a chosen set of outstanding talents with details of the real life, such as skin care, the ‚fascisti’, her own love life, and more.

Quote Miss Brodie: One's prime is elusive. You little girls, when you grow up, must be on the alert to recognize your prime at whatever time of your life it may occur. You must live it to the full.

Below you can see a part of the film made by Ronald Neame, starring Maggie Smith.

Scots of Note

2009-01-28T21:10:00.004+01:00

I'm turning my last post about Robert Burns and Stuart Lee Murdoch into the first of a series of Scots who make a difference (to me).

Today's person of interest is the Scottish singer Amy MacDonald.

Isn't that an impressive voice?

There's some info here.

That's her website.

Three Bards

2009-01-24T17:37:00.005+01:00

Robert Burns, Poet
Originally uploaded by pfraterdeus

When asked about his greatest creative inspiration, Bob Dylan named the Scottish 18th-century poet Robert "Rabbie" Burns.

Tomorrow is the 250th anniversary of Robert Burns' birthday, and I'm sure, there'll be lots of the so-called
Burns Suppers (the Scottish way to commemorate their bard).

Want to hear Burns' Auld Lang Syne in real Scottish?

Here you find all the poems and songs.

And, who's the third bard? It's one of my favourite singers Stuart Lee Murdoch, leadsinger of the Scottish indie band Belle and Sebastian. He grew up in the same village as Robert Burns, in Ayr.

Here's Stuart and the band:

I think, it would be nice going to Scotland in summer...

Change reflected in a website

2009-01-21T06:44:00.002+01:00

Have a look at the new website of the White House: Great design and layout, well arranged and very informative, especially the Briefing Room with a weekly video address, a slideshow, a blog. There's also a contact form which makes the administration more accessible. The president's team knows very well what the internet is for.

All the best, President Obama!

2009-01-20T18:31:00.005+01:00

What a speech!

"This moment .. will define a generation". (Barack Obama)

This is a transcript of the inaugural address of President Obama via CNN

"My fellow citizens:

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often, the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forebearers, and true to our founding documents.

So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.

That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land -- a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America: They will be met.

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the fainthearted -- for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things -- some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor -- who have carried us up the long, rugged path toward prosperity and freedom.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.

For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.

For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.

Time and again, these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.

This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions -- that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act -- not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions -- who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them -- that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works -- whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account -- to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day -- because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control -- and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart -- not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: Know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort -- even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West: Know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.

As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us today, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment -- a moment that will define a generation -- it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends -- hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism -- these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility -- a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world; duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

This is the source of our confidence -- the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.

This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed -- why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent Mall, and why a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.

So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

"Let it be told to the future world ... that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive... that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it]."

America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested, we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back, nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations."

Still no gas

2009-01-14T22:22:00.004+01:00

In the current "gas-row" between Russia and Ukraine the European Commission's President Manuel Barroso is threatening legal action.

“I would like to convey a very clear message to Moscow and Kiev,” he said. "If the agreement sponsored by the EU is not honoured as a matter of urgency, the Commission will advise EU companies to take this matter to the courts, and call on member states to engage in a concerted action to find alternative ways of energy supply and transit".

Ok, let's sue them, but suing alone won't help much in the long run.
I think, the EU with all their countries should adopt drastic and far-reaching programmes for a joint energy policy with a strong focus on neighborly help and mutual aid and the expansion of renewable energy sources as well as the efficent use of the existent energy sources. And everything should be done to decrease the dependency from just one country.

Gas deal null and void

2009-01-11T22:32:00.009+01:00

Russian President Medvedev says Russia considers the EU-mediated deal to monitor gas flow across Ukraine void because of changes made by Ukraine.

The President urged that Ukraine should withdraw its declaration that accompanies the agreement. They will not restart the gas supplies to Europe until it has a valid deal.

Gas news

As Bohdan Sokolovsky, an energy adviser to the Ukrainian president, told the Associated Press the declaration was only a statement explaining the Ukrainian position. He accused Moscow of exerting political and economic pressure on Ukraine.

"Russia has turned the gas war into a gas circus where bears have already forgotten that they can be tamed," Sokolovsky told The Associated Press. "The Kremlin is consciously creating conflict."

FoxNews

Now that's cold. And the madness continues.

As a result Slovakia has decided to restart a totally out-of-date Soviet-era nuclear reactor in Bohunice (that was shut down in December at the request of the European Union for safety reasons) because it faces a lack of energy due to the gas dispute between Ukraine and Russia.

This makes me shiver, and not because of the cold. The ancient Bohunice reactor is only 100 kilometres off Vienna.

Cold Europe

2009-01-11T09:27:00.005+01:00

It's cold over here. Fortunately, yesterday Ukraine signed an accord with Russia and the European Union to resume European gas supplies after several days of disruption amid freezing temperatures.

There was no problem here in Austria as we have some reserve, but more than 15 countries across central and eastern Europe have been hit by the shutdown of Russian gas supplies. Tens of thousands of homes in central Europe have been left without heating, and schools and businesses had to close.

The arrival of the gas will take some time, three days at least.

I really hope, European politicians will have a reality check due to this crisis and will concentrate more determinedly on renewable energy sources.

Read more:

Ukraine signs accord on transit-gas with EU and Russia.

Gas Supply to EU threatened

Animals, humans suffer from gas cuts in Europe

Some photos from Europe's Winter Fairy Tale"

Happy Birthday, Lydia!

2009-01-09T09:28:00.009+01:00

red roses
Originally uploaded by francessa_Rich

When Lydia from Writerquake
entered the blogosphere less than a year ago one could observe what a
vertical take-off looks like!

Within an incredibly short time she attracted a lot of readers by her
interesting, funny, moving, sometimes personal and always
thoroughly-researched blogposts, enriched by beautiful photos and videos.
And she writes so well! No wonder, she got several awards for this
outstanding work!

I've learned so much! About life in Oregon, Nevada, Reno, American ways of living and culture, about animals, books, National parks, politics, people. I even know what "ISH" means! And Wednesdays will never be the same old plain weekdays again, they've become and will continue to be Old-Postcard Wednesdays!

In addition to that she's always helpful, kind, thoughtful, considerate and
empathic in her comments and replies.

As I'm a person with a relatively tight schedule I cannot always read her
posts online. To stay on the ball I print them out and read them in the tube
on my way to work. In the meantime, more than 420 pages have accumulated! That's a BOOK, and not a small one! The collected works of Lydia! Hey, even my English might improve by this steady influence!

For all this, and because it's her birthday I thank Lydia now with some
virtual roses from my home village and an old Irish saying:

"May the road rise up to meet you
May the wind be always at your back
May the warm rays of sun fall upon your home
And may the hand of a friend always be near.

May green be the grass you walk on,
May blue be the skies above you,
May pure be the joys that surround you,
May true be the hearts that love you."

And as birthdays need some music, there's a little piece provided by A Fine Frenzy, The Minnow and the Trout (from the album "One Cell in the Sea"):

Frozen Lake

2009-01-04T17:52:00.002+01:00

lake aasee
Originally uploaded by francessa_Rich

Muenster's lake, the Aasee (yes, the one were the lovely black swan Petra likes to swim during the warmer seasons) had frozen and a joyful crowd populated the snow-covered surface. Nice atmosphere, good, clean air!