Binär plays a breathtaking experimental hardcore gig on 23th March 2007 at Vienna’s Ernst-Kirchweger-Haus. Click here for more picts

Thanks to Online City Plan of Vienna

Us Viennese have been so much proud about our famous city walls, constructed in 1200, that Vienna has become one of the last cities in Europe that teared down their city walls in the middle of 19th century!

According to the story, this building was funded by the enormous ransom of 50,000 Silver Marks (about 10 to 12 tons of silver) for Richard I. of England a.k.a. The Lionheart, who was kidnapped during the Third Crusade by Leopold V. the Virtous and arrested in Dürnstein - therefore Leopold has been excommunicated by Pope Celestine III. At the Subway station Stubentor (near the University of Applied Arts) still some residuals of the city walls can be seen today.

The novelist Neal Stephenson also refers to this story and describes our city walls’ historical function especially during the Second Turkish Siege in Quicksilver, Vol. 1 of the Baroque Cycles: In 1529, Vienna was unsucesssfully besieged by the Ottoman Turks and could only barely withstood the attacks - this has showed that new fortrifications were needed. Vienna was expanded to a fortress in 1548 following plans by Hermes Schallauzer. The city was furnished with eleven bastions and surrounded by a moat. A glacis was created around Vienna, a broad strip without any buildings, which allowed defenders to fire freely.

These fortifications proved decisive in the Second Turkish Siege of 1683, as they allowed the city to maintain itself for two months, until the Turkish army was defeated by the army led by the Polish King Jan Sobieski. This was the turning point in the Turkish Wars, as the Ottoman Empire was pushed back more and more during the following decades. In 1858, the fortifications were demolished, and the broad Ringstraße boulevard was built in their place. The Ringstraße Style characterises the architecture of Vienna to this day. (Source)

Hallo ladies & gentlemen!
I’m back on metroblog. You didnt here quite a long time anything from me here on metroblog, because I prepared a huge & crazy project. I’m proud to present you now the “Karl Kilian Festspiele 2007″. This project deals with the idea of some politicians - that artists shoud act like an Ich-AG. That means, that the artist has to take care himself of his provisions for old age, his health-insurrance, promote himself etcetc.I dont think so. I think an artist should make good art. It’s not the job of an artist to promote or sell himself!
& here is it now, the MAXIMUM PROMOTION BABY :-)

& it uses everything that is not allowed: an nearly unknown artist celebrates himself 4 weeks with a Retrospektive, A Tribute-exhibition, concerts, dj-lines, screenings… & it’s the first time that all the different pseudonyms (fm zombiemaus, Pornobone, Kosmoprolet, trashterrier…) & arts of Karl Kilian are united in one big thing:

The Karl Kilian Festspiele 2007 on myspace: http://www.myspace.com/fkk2007
The Karl Kilian Festspiele 2007 Homepage: http://www.rasprechs.com/kkf2007/fkk2007.html

Music-links:
Mayr: http://mayr.cccp.at/
Al Bird Dirt: http://www.myspace.com/dirtbob
dj Kosmoprolet: http://www.myspace.com/djkosmoprolet

PornoBone: http://www.myspace.com/pornobone
fm zombiemaus: http://www.myspace.com/fmzombiemaus

Artproject Artstudies part III: “myprof” (sorry, only german): myprof

I know I have mentioned my dilemma with not ever being able to buy a roll with Butterkäse in an Austrian supermarket before (“Butterkäse or Gouda?”) but today the story has reachead a new level. To get the history on this, please read the old entry. Here is the new addition:
(more…)

Okay, I know it’s a stretch, but could Britneys bald head be a result of a deep emotional loss due to her not being able to attend this years Opera Ball alongside the queen of steam?

After the gimp mask, and his response to the ex-communication, it would just be one more feather in Mr. Lugners hat (if he were to wear one).

In what I hope is the first wave in a trend that continues, a handful of Vienna’s restaurants are following the law and creating designated non-smoking sections.

I was thinking about it the other day, and smoking in restaurants is bad for Vienna’s economy. Due to finally being annoyed enough with so many meals being ruined by smoking in the room, my family has almost entirely ceased going out.

We were spending somewhere between 20-50 EUR per visit (plus we tip better than most — although we’re stupid because it certainly never helped the service). I figure we went out 5-6 times per week. So Vienna’s (especially Neubau’s) restaurants are now missing out on somewhere between 100-300 EUR in sales.

Here’s the flip side: if smoking is diminished or even outright banned in restaurants, all economic data from cities that have done so indicates that businesses suffer no negative effect. In short, smokers will still go out to eat, and just save their cigarettes for outside or in designated smoking areas. So really, the hospitality industry lobby against smoking bans is really not economic in its basis, but rather a complete unwillingness to “see past one’s own plate” as the expression goes.

Anyway, places like Jalisco in 1040, my hat is off to you. You will get my business going forward.

As for laggard places, you’ll continue to miss my Euros.

This makes me wonder if I should start a series on all my personal restaurant boycotts. While I don’t know if it would be in the interest of Metro Blogging, it would certainly be interesting to me. Some of the stories I can tell…

Every 3rd questioner will be gunned down.

Mr. Franz-Joseph Mercedes-Mercedes is known as the founder of Vienna’s most violent 2nd-hand-computerstore Computer Börse. Customers must not ask questions, otherwise they immediately will be thrown out of the store brutally. Best of all, he threatens to “gun down every 3rd questioner” - but: this strange man is also the author of The Last Testament (German only). If this folk wouldn’t exist IRL, somebody would have to invent him. Check him out, but REMAIN SILENT!

Brunching with the new chancellor

“Today the squatter’s scene came here”, Austria’s new chancellor Dr. Alfred Gusenbauer stated yesterday after some friendly young people came to join their idol for brunch in the early morning hours. He definitly was wrong, because the squatter’s scene already had to defend the squatted Social Democrats headquarter (see also Johannes Grenzfurther’s report).

LIAR

After dening access to their party youth for the Austrian Social Democrats’ (SPÖ) prestigious New Years Meeting held in Vienna’s biggest Museum Complex, tonight police brutally injured two of est. 200 demonstrators who where protesting against the most controversial student fees, invented by the currently resigning far-right government under Cancellor Wolfgang Schüssel (2000-2006) in 2001. New Cancellor Alfred Gusenbauer (Social Democrats), who has finally won the elections in October 2006, had promised free access to Universities during his election campain. After completing his coalition talks with Schüssel’s Peoples Party (ÖVP), he declared to keep the fees only with minor changes in a press conference yesterday: students would now be able to get extempted from payment by doing social work for 6 Euro/hour instead. This was the first time (and hopefully only time) in Austrian history, a political party had to be protected by police from their youth organizations. The young demonstrators kept on singing Die Arbeiter von Wien (The Workers from Vienna) all night, a most famous song which was composed during the armed riots against the fascist regime in Feburary 1934.

There will be a lot to explore in 2007. Have a perfect step into the new year!

© photo by Daniel K. Gebhart

PS: And don’t forget to add the 1 to the 2006.