Archive | October, 2025

Some Wiener Grant of my own

25 Oct

Why am I grumpy? Because that, ladies and gentlemen, is a photo of a Christmas market to be. When I arrived in Vienna, many years ago, granted, there wasn’t a Christmas market in every corner of the city and, if I remember correctly, they didn’t open until the First Sunday in Advent. At last, I thought, I’ve found a land unmoved by the consumerism of free-market capitalism.

Well, it was too good to be true. For a number of years, the Christmas markets have opened the middle of November. This year they seem almost to be striving for a pre-Halloween date.

Grant (a.k.a. grumpiness).

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Morning walk

14 Oct

I took my walk this morning through a Klimt painting.

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Vienna has been named the friendliest city in Europe(!)

8 Oct

https://orf.at/av/video/onDemandVideoNews53058

The magazine Condé Nast Traveller has released the results of their survey on the friendliest city in Europe. (We beat out Lisbon!?!) I hardly know what to say. Friendliness is fine, but the famous “Grant” (grumpiness) in Vienna also had something.

Makes me think of the Boston Globe (New York Times?) headline when the Red Sox finally won the World Series after well over 70 years of not winning it: Now just a team like any other?

Maybe the Russians were involved?

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NYTimes: No Woman Could Have Painted This, They Said. They Were Wrong.

1 Oct

No Woman Could Have Painted This, They Said. They Were Wrong. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/29/arts/michaelina-wautier-kunsthistorisches-museum.html?unlocked_article_code=1.qE8.pgi-.lpf6oiJmjsKM&smid=nytcore-android-share

As women’s rights are once again endangered, it is encouraging to me to see that some long-past wrongs are being righted. (The painting that led to this re-assessment was discovered in the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum [museum of fine arts] in Vienna.)

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