Tuesday 31 May 2016
Can't Say It Too Often
Make love NOT war
Make love NOT woe
Beware the L O N G h a n d
Of history's clock
TICK TOCK - TICK TOCK - TICK TRICK - TICK TRICK - TOCK.
The Speaking Clock's
Epitaph to Humanity
Epitaph to Humanity
At the last stroke
The official time
Was three minutes to midnight
At the last stroke
The official time
Was three minutes to midnight
At the la st the midni
three min offffffi
shhhhhhh____________
At the last stroke
The official time
Was three minutes to midnight
At the la st the midni
three min offffffi
shhhhhhh____________
!END THE BLOODY WARS NOW!
Sunday 29 May 2016
Darkly Painted Bars
high
iron gate
iron gate
aside
this church
this church
leads to the end
of life
of life
upon
this gate
there floats
this gate
there floats
in air
a silver thread
a silver thread
that is a work
to snare
to snare
unseen
by some
who'd slip between
these dark
and slender bars
upon
their hurried way
by some
who'd slip between
these dark
and slender bars
upon
their hurried way
Schönberg |
More churches in Austria's Kamptal:
Hadersdorf |
Hadersdorf |
Hadersdorf |
Engabrunn |
Engabrunn |
Engabrunn |
This post is now LINKED
Doctor Wilhelm John
Caricature of Dr. Wilhelm John by Austrian War Artist: Carl Hollitzer (1874-1942) |
Vienna's Heeresgeschichtliches Museum (motto: War belongs in a Museum) is currently celebrating its 125th anniversary. One of the items on display is the above drawing by artist Carl Hollitzer. Also to be seen are a couple of interesting paintings by war artist Carl Pippich.
Infantry Summer Maneuvers 1914 by Carl Pippich (1862-1932) |
Thirsty Work by Carl Pippich |
The star of the show is naturally the Gräf & Stift convertible in which Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand and his wife Countess Sophie Chotek were shot dead by Black Hand gunman Gavrilo Princip on 28th June 1914.
Thunder at Twilight is the title of Frederic Morton's compelling account of the events in Serbia and Austria which led to the outbreak of the first world war. I have read it and can highly recommend it.
It concludes with an Afterword and the words written in pencil on Gavrilo Princip's cell wall where he died of tuberculosis in April 1918:
Our ghosts will walk through Vienna
And roam through the Palace
Frightening the Lords.
Saturday 28 May 2016
Friday 27 May 2016
MUMOK
Vienna's MUMOK is my favourite art museum, so much so that I have an annual membership card. On my last visit Pignon's Cock Fight and Dominguez's Motor Cyclist caught my eye. The photos show detail from each. The works, both from the 1950's are not dissimilar in style and final effect. The motorcyclist has become as he imagines himself, invisible and at one with the roar and violence of the machine. I was struck by the machine's unforgiving architecture; the whirr of steel discs and the bullish horns of the forks. The violence of the cock fight also has a quality that draws the viewer into the scene. You can sense the thrill of the kill, something that the owners of these fighting cocks greatly enjoy. Exhilaration, violence and risk are present in both of these excellent paintings.
Cock Fight - Edouard Pignon (1959) |
The Motorcyclist - Oscar Dominguez (1957) |
Wednesday 25 May 2016
Tuesday 24 May 2016
THIS IS NOT DEAD
Punch Cartoon no. 2 (from 1906)
Vicar's Wife: Now that you can't get about, and are not able to read, how do you manage to occupy the time? Old Man: Well, Mum, sometimes I sits and thinks; and
then again I just sits.
|
A 110 year old cartoon flags up the importance of literacy. The increasing number of illiterate and semi-illiterate children living in Austria today is causing much concern.
Sunday 22 May 2016
Japan-Russia 5th International Haiku Contest
Click HERE to find details and rules of the 5th Japan-Russia International Haiku Contest.
English language submissions from any country in the world are also being accepted.
Themes: mountain, sea, lake, river, or anything.
English language submissions from any country in the world are also being accepted.
Themes: mountain, sea, lake, river, or anything.
Closing date is 30th June 2016.
From the competition website:
we all try our best
in our busy, busy lives
to write poetry
Austrian Presidential Election
Polling day in Austria. And the polls are about to close.
It's a straight choice. No If's or But's. The center vote has collapsed. Now it's Green Left versus Blue Right. That's it. That's what all the ballyhoo and name calling has come down to. Which side will emerge with the lion's share of the poll? Ninety minutes and counting down . . .
VAN DER BELLEN (L) OR NORBERT HOFER (R) |
With 94% of votes counted it stands at 50.0% to 50.0%*. Postal votes will settle the issue.
Summary:
Election Day. Dawn about to break. A 27-year old neo-Nazi known to police opens fire with Kalashnikov at Austrian rock concert campsite.
It's a la Brevik. Thirteen victims. Two dead. Eleven serious.
Gunman turns weapon on himself. That makes three dead.
Final Election Result: Green Left candidate wins from Blue Right candidate by a hair's breadth. A a mere 30,000 votes seals it.
In the final analyses it's 50.3% to 49.7%.
Guess fate, or something like it, had the final say.
And so Austria elects a green head of state.
Maybe the first Green president in the world.
*prediction
Friday 20 May 2016
My Desire by Franz Kafka
We feel as if our lives are outside of our control. As if some monolithic beaurocracy is ruling over our every move. That a human being is the property of the state, is illustrated here by Franz Kafka.
My desire was for the old days,
my desire was for the present,
my desire was for the future,
and in spite of all this I die in a sentry box
at the roadside,
a vertical coffin since the beginning
the property of the state.
I have spent my life in it,
holding myself back from destroying it.
Meine Sehnsucht
- a poem by Franz Kafka (1883-1924)
Any translation errors are mine.
Sunday 15 May 2016
Punch Cartoon for Sunday (pub. 1906)
Thursday 12 May 2016
Cat Communication
Cats on a wall in Rovinj, Croatia |
Cats.
What can they tell us?
There was an interesting story in the newspaper a couple of weeks ago. I think it proves that cats can tell us much.
It went something like this:
In the garden of a house in Salzburg there lived a cat. It was pretty well wild. It would let no person come near it.
And it never entered the house.
On the 29th of April 1986 that all changed.
On that day it rained in Salzburg.
Rain fell from the infamous Chernobyl cloud.
The cat carried her three kittens by the scruff of their necks into the house and placed them in a corner of the living room. From this day on she was a house cat.
She would not let her kittens go out of the house. Not even onto the terrace.
Two days later the people who lived in the house discovered the reason the cat had fetched the kittens into the house.
The outside world was contaminated with Chernobyl radiation.
The children of the house had been playing outside in the rain. One of them was taken ill. The doctor at the hospital found no sign of an infection.
Nobody knew what the strange illness was.
But the cat knew.
After the rain the cat refused to drink local farm milk.
Some pieces of the meat that people in the house were eating were given to the cat before being cooked. If the cat refused the meat the people in the house would also not eat it.
The cat was their first Geiger counter.
The people in the house then rented an actual Geiger counter.
The Geiger counter confirmed what the cat knew all along.
Whenever the cat refused to eat the meat, the people tested the meat with the Geiger counter and it invariably clicked loudly and rapidly.
Saturday 7 May 2016
Paleodictyon Problematicum
The rock is 65 to 90 million years old |
The Palaedictyon
Is not a recognized verse form
Perhaps it is an imprint
Note: clicking on highlighted text will take you to appropriate Wikipedia page.
Wednesday 4 May 2016
Tuesday 3 May 2016
What is TTIP?
I have created a link to the TTIP page on the 'War on Want' website. It is in the Greenpeace post immediately below. Look under the official police photograph of the writer Franz Kafka.
Monday 2 May 2016
Thank you Greenpeace
Today with the release of the Greenpeace papers the cat is out of the bag.
What we already knew about the talks now in their 13th round was nothing except that we the people who would be affected were not to be told anything.
Why?
Because
Why?
Because
"the European Commission slapped a 30-year ban on public access to the TTIP negotiating texts at the beginning of talks in 2013 . . . "
But now
But now
"the door has been flung open . . ." and as a result
"EU negotiators will never be able to crawl back into the shadows . . ."
Another Castle
See how this plenum
This opulent summit
Of European EU-nity
Engaged in sub rosa talks
Was exposed to the light
Closed doors were flung open
To let the light in
To fortress EU -
A fanciful castle
To let the light in
To fortress EU -
A fanciful castle
Haunted by Kafka.
For the TTIP details click HERE
Sunday 1 May 2016
The Frogs
The boys have their teachers to educate them. The adults on the other hand have their poets.
The Frogs - Aristophanes.
Crash, Bang, Wallop. EU's abysmal driving standards.
In 2015 very few EU countries had what one might term an 'acceptable' number of road deaths per million of population.
Okay, I know that even one death is one too many, but one has to be realistic.
The lower the score (in my traffic light league table below) the safer the roads, and the less chance you have of becoming an unfortunate statistic.
Be careful out there.
Road Safety First
1. Malta 26
2. Sweden 27
3. Holland 28
4. Great Britain 29
Middle of the Road
5. Denmark 30
6. Spain 36
6= Ireland 36
8. Germany 43
9. Finland 48
Highways to Hell
10. Estonia 50
11. Slovakia 51
12. France 54
13. Italy 56
13= Austria 56
15. Luxembourg 58
15= Slovenia 58
17. Portugal 60
18. Hungary 66
18= Cyprus 66
20. Belgium 67
21. Czech Rep. 70
22. Greece 74
23. Poland 77
24. Croatia 82
24= Lithuania 82
26. Latvia 94
27. Bulgaria 95
27= Rumania 95
Temple of Thesus
Vienna's neo-classical Temple of Thesus (1823) |
Visitors admire the 2016 exhibit |
Australian artist Ron Mueck's 'Man in a Boat' |
'Thesus Slaying the Centaur ' was moved out in 1890 |
Josef Müllner's 'Young Athlete' (1921) |
The neo-classical temple was built between 1811 and 1823. It is situated in the centre of the Volksgarten in Vienna.
Thesus Slaying the Centaur, the original work housed in the temple, was removed to Vienna's Kunsthistoriches Museum in 1890 and is to be seen there.
The bronze athlete guarding the temple door dates from 1921 and is a work by Josef Müller.
Every year a single exhibit is chosen to be displayed in the temple. This year's selection is Australian artist Ron Mueck's Man in a Boat.
Admission to the temple is free, although there is a plastic box where a voluntary donation can be left if desired.
The Volksgarten is situated on the Ring near to the Burgtheater and opposite the Rathaus (City Hall).
The garden with treelined paths and benches is planted with roses, and at the end near the Burgtheater there is a monument to Kaiserin Elisabeth - the Empress Sissi - who was killed in 1898 by a knifeman at a train station in Geneva.
This post will be linked.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)