A very Viennese cartoon

10 Oct
From Wienzig

The man in the cartoon is on his way to a new course at the Volkshochschule (VHS). There you have the first point. Almost every district in Vienna has its own VHS, a school that offers all kinds of courses for a very reasonable fee so that “das Volk” (the people) can go on learning and developing themselves. The course is “Raunzen wie ein Wiener” or poorly translated “Complaining like a Viennese”. “Raunzen” is one of those words that is almost intranslatable. It is a particular kind of ongoing complaining about little things and the Viennese like to engage in it. The final straw for me was one of the comments on Facebook. One Wienzig follower had written “Des kannst net lernen”–Viennese dialect for “That’s not something you can learn.” 🙂

Tags: ,

And speaking of politics …

30 Sep

… I just saw the Chancellor of Austria walking down my street. He’s not my choice and for years I’ve thought he was overrated, but I am impressed that he was walking down a normal street, apparently alone (no security), wearing a mask. It seemed so unlikely to me that I asked a woman who was also watching him go by if that was “der Kurz” and she said, “leider” (“unfortunately yes”).

Tags:

The Color of Politics in Vienna

24 Sep

I can’t help thinking that the choice of color here is not random. Vienna is voting on October 11 and I can imagine that many of the people who work for the parks and gardens department are at least originally Social Democrats. (As I have observed before, it’s not called Red Vienna for nothing. ;-))

Tags: , ,

Politics (with a dash of humor)

21 Sep

The guy on the left: This is a stick-up. Hands up and gimme your money. Dalli, dalli! [Viennese dialect for “fast”]

The guy on the right: Lucky for me, not a foreigner!

Caption: The priorities of the right-wing voters

(Vienna is voting on 11 October 2020.)

Tags: ,

An expression of the Viennese sense of humor :-)

14 Sep

It seems the public transportation authority in Vienna is pretty happy about Dominic Thiem’s win in the U.S. Open. 😉 The 1 tram usually travels between Prater and Stefan-Fadinger-Platz. There is not (yet), as far as I know a place in Vienna called “Thiem”.

Congratulations to Mr. Thiem! 🙂

Tags:

Measures of drink in Viennese German

30 Aug

My comment: For my German (Viennese)-speaking readers. Just a quick note for the others: the “erl” at the end of a word forms the diminutive thereby making each amount sound harmless or at least more harmless than it otherwise would. You’ll notice there is no “erl” on the last one. That’s because it’s “a double”–in other words a two-liter bottle of (usually very acidic and unpleasant) wine.

Tags: ,

Vineyards

23 Aug

Vacation? Nope, just an ordinary Sunday afternoon walk in the 17th district of Vienna. 🙂

Tags: ,

Lehar recording from 1901 discovered

22 Jul

A nice change from the dire news coming in from around the world – someone has found what is believed to be the oldest recording of a Lehar piece, a march recorded by the Imperial Infantry in 1901. We won’t be able to hear it, though, until the end of the month.

https://ooe.orf.at/stories/3058905/

Tags: , ,

Georg Kapsch: The departing head of the Federation of Austrian Industries

13 Jun

This is something that really struck me when I moved to Austria – how the relationship between management and labor was more collaborative than in the U.S.A. There was a sense that Austria as a whole could only do well if everyone was doing all right, that economic success could not happen on the backs of one group.

In this interview, it becomes clear that Georg Kapsch is of the old school. A departing president of the body representing (big) business talking about how to close the gap between rich and poor and how to make sure everyone gets the education they need to be a contributing member of society? Seems pretty radical these days. I hope his successor is on the same page!

A link to the interview is below. Unfortunately, you do have to subscribe to the digital edition to read the whole thing.

https://kurier.at/wirtschaft/georg-kapsch-diese-sommerschule-ist-zu-wenig/400938857

Tags:

Schau dir “Winterreise, D. 911: No. 5, Der Lindenbaum “Am Brunnen vor dem Tore” (Mässig)” auf YouTube an

10 Jun

It’s that time of year again. The linden (or lime) trees are in blossom and seducing all with their powerful and sweet fragrance. In their honor, here is Schubert’s song “Der Lindenbaum” sung by my favorite Lieder singer, Olaf Bär, accompanied by the inimitable Geoffrey Parsons. Ah.

Tags: , ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →