say with me: burning sun - half a million people every day for three days - free concerts - cheap alcohol - unhealthy food - what’s that spell? Exactly: Donauinselfest.

From the 22nd to the 24th the whole recreational area of the Donauinsel will be converted once again into the biggest open air festivity area in Austria. About 20 so called isles will stage a variety of programmes broad enough to suit anybodys fancy. From the mainstream pop on the BACA-Insel to alternative rock at the FM4-stage, from the Country & Western isles of the Wr. Städtische to the Lego Bionicle Tour. The newspaper Österreich has four stages all in all: the BP Ultimate / Viva, Trendsport, ATV and the Playstation 3 / MTV isles. You get the picture.

But remember two things before complaining about the massive onslought of advertising: first, all of this wouldn’t be possible if these advertiseser did not pay for it. Whatever they don’t pay has to be paid by the city and the Socialist party, and you rather want your spending money go here and not your taxes, right? Second, the massive onslought of drunken people will be much worse.

So, if you are adventurously inclined why not hop U1 or U6 or one of the tramways going to the Donauinsel to explore the 21 stages, 250 boxes that sell food, drinks and other merchandise. 260 mobile toilets will be available as well. Public transport will have extra long night time shifts and extra lines available as well.

More infos at: www.donauinselfest.at

Me, I will be about 120 kilometers away from all of this craziness because I don’t like places with a lot of people on them. It is called agoramisantropiphily and thank you, green tea does not help.

“Fascinating Predators in the Volksbank Vienna”

A bank presents an exhibition about dinosaurs (”fascinating predators”) in one of their outlets.
The really, really fascinating predator — I guess — is the bank itself.

Summer is coming and people like to go outside. They also like to watch movies. That’s why there are so many places with open air movies in Austria in the summer.

And the best thing: at some of them entry is free, like these:

VOLXKino: on diverse places in Vienna. info at: Volxkino-Website
Prater Filmfestival: in the vicinity of the Riesenrad on the Kaiserwiese, the Austrian Filmarchiv shows old sci-fi-movies
Margeretener Filmnächte: the 5th district, Margareten, will also have its own movie-nights with old sci-fi, but I only read about that and haven’t found any more info. Other districts might stage their own things as well.
St. Pölten, Innsbruck, Krems, and Wr. Neustadt also show movies for free on the main places if the weater is okay, but since neither of them are Vienna…

Of those open air cinemas with entrance fees the one in the Augarten and the one in the Krieau are probably the nicest ones. Don’t forget to reserve some tickets and to show up early.

If yes, please follow this link to my Metroblogging Graz entry about “Graz Apocalypses”…

Reading the articles written by Washington Post and The New York Times raise a few questions concerning their coverage of Dr. Kurt Waldheim. And if you aren’t a careful reader, you would end up believing what you read.

Like any soldier of war, if you desert your troop, you are ordered to be sentenced. And if you disagree to the ruling government or ideology, you better hide or else you are dead. This is more or less the scenario during this era.

Despite the negative mood that the US mainstream media create about him, this memorial tablet goes to show that if you were a non-Jew/non-gypsy/non-gay Austrian and not a pro-Nazi but a communist/socialist that time you would be dead.

Just like the Viennese Viktor Christ, an ordinary citizen who was murdered in 1941 by the Nazis.
(more…)

Browsing the internet some months ago I happened upon this little tag-pic on a blog used as a header for some trite yakking. There is something instantly recognizable on there, so I saved it. Today I stumbled over it again. Take a look:

Yes, it is the most honourable and endurable Stefansdom of Vienna in the back. I am 100 % sure.

I didn’t research the origins of this pic, though, for obvious reasons. Sure, I am completely in favor of young women getting their clothes off, in public or otherwise, the main reason is still why they do it.

Is it porn? I don’t like the porno-industry all too much, even though the “real” industry seems to be the better side of all the things in this world going on pornography-wise. But you’d better ask somebody better informed on this issue than me.

Or is it just some private shot? I know about the trend of self-exposing themselves on the rides in Disney Land where the cameras are and I guess anybody with a television set or internet access has heard about springbreak or Mardi Gras. I just didn’t think this would be a trend in Austria as well. Or is it an American tourist?

The picture is too small to say for sure. I can’t even judge which decade this was made in.

If I asked for a full set in higher definition, would anybody believe me it is for research reasons only?

As an expatriate/immigrant, I barely know Mr. Kurt Waldheim except for the political history/current events I learned from school. And the small fuss in the ’80s: the Waldheim controversy. Consequently, the government of United States barred him from entering the country. (Small, as it doesn’t strike as a big deal when you live in Asia by that time.)

Truth is my personal opinion concerning the Nazi and the German-speaking people has changed throughout the years. It was from being a negative-bigoted to positive-understanding. Not veering towards a favourable view on the fascists but the people who participated in it.

Maybe having an Austrian connection aside from being interested in your history helped my full understanding of the subject by having heard both sides of the story/coin.

So what is the connection of all these statements to Mr. Waldheim? Simple. The reason the US government put him on the watchlist is because of his Nazi past.

Mr. Waldheim, the former Austrian president, an ex-diplomat and former UN secretary general, was a former Nazi officer who joined the Nazi machinery to kill Jews and millions of others during the World War II. It was a controversy in the ’80s in and outside of Austria, the country, which according to BBC, is too small to matter in international terms.

I have known old people who were soldiers that time, even their children. There’s this one person who told us that he was not forced by the Nazis but he himself volunteered. He was young, only 17. He wanted to be part of it and he believed in the ideology and that they would succeed. Though like the others it was all too late before he realised that everything they, he and his comrades and the Nazi hangers on, had done was wrong. So wrong they even lost their loved ones because of that. Because of his deep disappointment and depression he has refused to be part of any political party/creed.

It would be stupid and lame to hear Mr. Waldheim say, “I was just doing my job,” in the eyes of the victims. But the name of the game was self-preservation. He was only human after all. Like the others he might have gone to believe that they were doing the right thing. He was told to do it like the US soldiers or the Muslim extremists today who are ordered to maim or exterminate their enemies.

So should Mr. Waldheim, after all these years, be forgiven after all these years? The answer is yes, we can forgive but we shouldn’t forget.

Source

Boris are four musicians from Japan.

They play a heavy sludge of doom rock, sometimes slow and melancholic folk, sometimes very melodic if in their own vein and sometimes plain noise. Sometimes they play one song that lasts 70 minutes. They have collaborated with Lori (Melvins), Masami Akita (Merzbow), Keiji Haino and others. They shout amplifier whorship and Fangs Anal Satan.

They will play in the Szene Wien on Monday 18th of June.

I hope they are a blast.

Boris Website
Szene Wien

Mid-April the Austrian broadcasting company ORF made a huge program reform. Central point of the new program was a daily comedy-soap (the first one ever to be produced in Austria) about people living in a house in the 8th district of Vienna. Therefore it was called “Mitten im Achten” (in the middle of the 8th).

The viewership figures went down continually until they hit rock bottom the last week - so the show was cancelled.

Rock bottom - that is also the intellectual level of that show, which doesn’t mean that nobody would watch it. Probably the contrary. Anyway, the ORF blew 6.5 million Euros on two and a half month of portraying the lives, dreams and talking of people living in Vienna.

I have been living in Vienna for quite a while now and though I know types that the producers tried to portray I never heard anybody speak the way they did in the show or talk about issues the way they did. (The show will be replaced by “Malcolm” with beginning of July, which is a lot closer to my teenage years by the way.) “Altagsgeschichten” give a way better introduction to the way (some) people in this city are than this show.

In a few years DVD-boxes with all shows will be traded as “cult” and people will miss the times when the show was on, like they always do. Maybe one of the local stations (PulsTV or Okto) should pick up on the show (probably too expensive) an re-start it on a smaller level (probably still too expensive).

The last days we heard several reports of somebody shooting from a window in the Quellenstrasse, 10th district. Now the police have arrested one Gerald W. who allegedly has shot three people with his air-rifle, a little boy, a little girl and one of his friends over a dispute over who has to catch some beers.

The man is described, quite as had to be expected, as an asocial drug addict with a history of petty crime, mainly drug-connected and property. The man has confessed and as a motive he declared “Weil ich an Pascher hab” (because I am a fucking nitwit / halfbrain / dumb as a doornail - if you have a better translation, please step forward.)