History Listen, to be exact. Senfedge has posted a nice mp3-entry to a small slice of Austrian music that definitely won’t be shown on the Austropop-documentaries, but that is dear to my personal history as well, so I’d like to share it:
Und keiner weint uns nach (nobody will share a tear after we are gone) is the title of a compilation of four incredible hardcore/punk-bands from Vienna, who were around around 1995/6. Incredible as in incredibly good as well as in incredibly awful, but hey, that is what it all was about. And veganism, feminism, anarchism, friendship, DIY and basically fucking shit up.

The release of this seven inch single is exactly ten years gone by now. The label was run by a friend of mine who also played in one of the bands on the compilation and who produced a fanzine. Daniel, who does Senfedge, played in Manface. The covers were done by all the bands themselves. Such were the times back then.

The “Wiener Zeitung” (Viennese newspaper) is a paper founded in 1703 under the name Wiennerisches Diarium. The first issue appeared on August 8, 1703 which makes the Wiener Zeitung one of the oldest, still published newspapers in the world.

The “Wiener Zeitung” is also the official publication used by the Government of the Republic of Austria for formal announcements. Such announcements, for example, of newly passed laws, civil service vacancies and changes in the commercial register, are printed in the Official Journal insert of the Wiener Zeitung.

Round and round, up and down, through the streets of your town… Every day I make my way through the streets of your town…–The (late great) Go-Betweens

I miss Metroblogging. Anyway, not so much to share but this.
Have you ever wondered where does your street come from? I do. I often wonder why this sort of alley got a name like this or that. Last weekend someone told me this address. Any information, historical facts and what have you, about your street can be found on this site.
Marvellous!

(Links only in German)

Update: There is a webpage dedicated to new streets in Vienna.

Vienna has retained only a limited number of Renaissance buildings.

Quote: “The cradle of the medieval town is located around Stephansdom, its Romanic/Gothic cathedral, and by walking in the nearby net of narrow streets it is possible to find elements of Renaissance architecture, which, in the case of the courtyard of Backerstrasse clearly show an Italian influence (for a similar courtyard in Rome see Palazzo di Giacomo Mattei, a family who had close links with the Habsburgs).”

Source

He was a court preacher. The people flocked to hear him, attracted by the force and homeliness of his language, the grotesqueness of his humour, and the impartial severity with which he lashed the follies of all classes of society and of the court in particular. But he was violently anti-Jewish and ultra-nationalist. He wrote, “Outside of the Devil, humanity has no greater enemy than the Jews…For their beliefs, they deserve not only the gallows but the funeral pyre.” He accused them of ritual murder, desecration of the host, poisoning wells and spreading the plague.

What’s the name of the guy?
And what’s the location of the statue?

Collection of great hi-res pictures for press use.

Befreites Wien
(about Soviet forces in Vienna, 1945-1955)

Off limits
(about the US forces in postwar Vienna)

Link

Source

Brothas and sistas!

Do you remember the time when Vienna had the telephone area code 0222?

The Postal Services — there wasn’t a “Telecom” back then — changed 0222 to the international standard 01 in the mid-90ies.

Just five minutes ago Thomas Thurner told me that the area code 0222 still works. Couldn’t believe it, but it’s true.

(Image: Viennese phone book from 1965)

I loooove fleamarkets. I always get excited looking at the dinghy, used items. It is one of the things I like about Vienna, that is, the familiarity and the smell of old things–from old furniture to secondhand CDs–being sold again to those people who are interested.

I love the idea of “trash to others but treasure to some” instead of just throwing the things away.

Today, Schwedenplatz was once again crowded due to this usual, almost monthly, one-day fleamarket.

The last time I was there I found a wooden figure of a Japanese geisha and a funny-looking candle-holder sold one euro each. It sounds so kitschy but I still find myself adoring them.

So browsing the stalls I found one that sold books and newspapers that dated from 1920s till 1950s. Yep, you guess it right the owners were selling reading materials propagating Nazi ideology.
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The four “Vienna gasometers” or “Vienna gas-holders” used to be a large container where gas was stored near normal pressure and temperature. The four gas holders were built in 1896 as part of the gaswerks at Simmering. The gasometer was used for balancing purposes (making sure gas pipes operate within a safe range of pressures) rather than for actually storing gas for later use.

Gas is nowadays stored in large underground reservoirs. The term ‘gasometer’, was originally coined by William Murdoch, the inventor of gas lighting, in the early 1800s.

Here’s a picture of the Vienna gasometer, taken in 1915.

(Picture source)

After the gasworks were closed down, the four historic towers were renovated and reopened in 2001.

Link