Ruth Klüger's first book about growing up in an antisemitic society

Who doesn’t want freebies? Most of all, free books?

In this time of high prices and recession one after another it is nice to know that the city of Vienna is going to distribute 100,000 free books for the masses. The program “Eine Stadt, Ein Buch” is on its seventh year, to coincide with the Lesefestwoche and the International Book Fair. I think this is Austria’s way to save one’s sanity during the darker months of November and December, read a book.

Starting today at noon Ruth Kluger’s “Weiter Leben” a story of her girlhood in the Nazi Austria, her deportation, the antisemitism that was the rage then, and the death of the family members falling as victims of the Holocaust. It is also the story of her survival, hence the phrase, “to live continually.”

November also marks the 70th anniversary of the horrible Reichskristallnacht. The actors of this era are slowly dying and a stunning 30 per cent of Austrians today, mostly young people, voted for the rightwing parties, it is time to learn something from the past and think of the future.

Or should I say that UN organization employees in the Vienna International Centre didn’t get to leave as early as they had planned on Friday because security services closed Gate 1 due to a protest.

But the mystery remains: who was out there and what were they protesting?

We’re curious.

October 18, 2008:
Meeting: 12 noon @ Brut Theater Karlsplatz for getting zombie make-up.
And 3 PM the zombies will hit the streets and walk/crawl over to Stefansplatz.

More info

I digress.

Automat by Edward Hopper, 1927

Do you know this painting? I bet you do. More than a decade ago I saw it on a page of a book. Then as a part of a film. It was from Cameron Crowe, “Singles,” which many people misconceived as his ode to Seattle and the music revolution that was grunge.

I searched and searched until I forgot that I was searching for the name of the painter and the title of the work.

Finally, and hopefully, this painting is included in the upcoming exhibition of works by Edward Hopper at the Kunsthalle Wien, Halle 1 in the 7th District starting on Oct. 3.

He is back!

Seen along the Margaretengürtel, Fifth District, the last of the series. The Jörgi is back. He has promised he would only go to Vienna if the Austrians made him their chancellor. Your choice.

Tomorrow is Election Day. So go out and vote my dear Austrian friends.

Somewhere in the 22nd District, the mustache touch on the Socialist Party.

Computer History, once a somewhat strange idea, has now taken the world by storm; a magazine or newsletter merely has to dip their ladle into the piles of nostalgia and older images of computing technology to guarantee readership, commentary and links. But what is it like to live in this just-past world of unusual keyboards, cartridge slots and 256 colors?
Jason Scott describes the process by which he became a collect of online artifacts, the strange twists and turns his journey has taken (both legal and financial) and the lessons he has learned towards the goal of “saving everything”.

Jason Scott is a digital historian and documentary filmmaker based out of the Northeastern US, focusing on bulletin board system culture of the 1970s and 1980s. He often finds himself well outside of that realm and has collected many archives of general computer and software history, which he makes available on various parts of his online archive, TEXTFILES.COM.

- When: Thursday, September 18 2008, 8:30 PM
- Where: Metalab, Rathausstrasse 6, 1010 Vienna

http://www.metalab.at
http://www.paraflows.at

Everything you could possibly want is out there, and soon it will all be digitized. The problem isn’t whether it exists, it’s how you find it. This is the challenge that has plagued the speaker and motivated her to pursue an ambiguous occupation called “Content Strategy.” Her idealized vision of the future of the Internet is the Semantic Web, with its promise of smarter sites that actually understand what content means. In an attempt to answer the question “How did you become interested in datameaningfulness?” Rachel will take a very personal look at the formation of that dream, exposing the cultural, environmental, and historic factors that put her on this path.

Rachel Lovinger works at Avenue A | Razorfish as a Senior Content Strategist, developing ways for global clients to help connect users to the quality content they want and need. She’s particularly interested in relevance, findability, signification, and inherently funny words.

- When: Thursday, September 18 2008, 7:30 PM
- Where: Metalab, Rathausstrasse 6, 1010 Vienna

http://www.metalab.at
http://www.paraflows.at

The world's stereotype view of Austria, along the Gürtel

The Mustache and the Freedom Party leader HC Strache

Once there was Hitler, an Austrian-born naturalised German who tried to rule the world, and his (in) famous mustache. That everything evil embodies him and his facial hair. That if they put this particular mustache on someone else’s face it is a way of offending that person. Little did the people know that it was a trend sometime in the 1920s. Or they might be aware of it but it doesn’t matter anyway. What is important is that they showed their anger or disagreement by allowing themselves to manipulate or vandalize the face.

++TAUGSHOW #16++

Divine Special (Paraflows 08 festival special)

Wednesday, September 17, 2008 / 8:00 PM @ Metalab, Vienna

We are not allowed to talk about the special guest hosts… yet!

But who are our guests?

/// TREVOR PAGLEN
Trevor Paglen is an artist, writer, and experimental geographer working out of the Department of Geography at the University of California, Berkeley. His work involves deliberately blurring the lines between social science, contemporary art, and a host of even more obscure disciplines to construct unfamiliar, yet meticulously researched ways to interpret the world around us.

/// JASON SCOTT
Jason Scott is a digital historian and documentary filmmaker based out of the Northeastern US, focusing on bulletin board system culture of the 1970s and 1980s. He often finds himself well outside of that realm and has collected many archives of general computer and software history, which he makes available on various parts of his online archive, TEXTFILES.COM.

/// RACHEL LOVINGER
Rachel Lovinger works at Avenue A | Razorfish as a Senior Content Strategist, developing ways for global clients to help connect users to the quality content they want and need. She’s particularly interested in relevance, findability, signification, and inherently funny words.

/// Regulars:
EVELYN FÜRLINGER, MA.
Evelyn presents “Wicked Wordz”, our regular column about lingustics.

/// Showband
THE INCOHERENT DEITIES
Oh yes.

Link