-- in der Wiener Innenstadt
Direct a symphony? Compose a song (using dice)?
I just learned about this interactive museum, which, in its authentic setting, seems extraordinary. The USA students I learned about who had visited it recently, just had to go back a second time.
Entry fee of 9 Euro seems like true bargain.
Showing posts with label Vienna. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vienna. Show all posts
Saturday, February 7, 2015
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
Herzlich willkommen nach Hause, Königin der Herzen, Conchita Wurst
Bei einem freien Konzert in Wien Ballhausplatz-
1. Do You Believe in Life After Love (No Matter How Hard I Try, There's No Talking To You..I really don't think I'm strong enough..)
2. That's My Destiny (Conchita's 2012 Eurovision Song attempt, in which she placed 2nd in Austria)
3. Rise Like a Phoenix (Europe's 2014 Eurovision's Top Song)
4. My Heart Will Go On (This song changed Conchita's life)
Der Sieg der Freiheit, der Offenheit, der Toleranz...was Tom Neuwirth vom Anfang an gekämpft hat.
Und ist Conchita plötzlich eine Politikerin?
1. Do You Believe in Life After Love (No Matter How Hard I Try, There's No Talking To You..I really don't think I'm strong enough..)
2. That's My Destiny (Conchita's 2012 Eurovision Song attempt, in which she placed 2nd in Austria)
3. Rise Like a Phoenix (Europe's 2014 Eurovision's Top Song)
4. My Heart Will Go On (This song changed Conchita's life)
Der Sieg der Freiheit, der Offenheit, der Toleranz...was Tom Neuwirth vom Anfang an gekämpft hat.
Und ist Conchita plötzlich eine Politikerin?
Eurovision’s Conchita brings out Russia’s worst and Europe’s best
The most complicated thing said over this past weekend by a public figure came from the perfectly rouged lips of the winner of the Eurovision song contest, Conchita Wurst. “I really dream,” she said, “of a world where we don’t have to talk of unnecessary things like sexuality.”
That’s silly on two levels and deeply idealistic on a third. It’s silly, first and most evidently, because sexuality won’t be unnecessary for a long while, and may last as long as this world does.
It’s silly, second and most personally, because Wurst (her second, adopted name means “sausage” but apparently is also Austrian German slang for “whatever…”) had just won the first prize in the world’s wackiest tournament – the Eurovision Song Contest held this year in the Danish capital Copenhagen. She was dressed in the slinkiest of gowns hugging a perfectly sexy figure, the perfectly rouged lips set off by a perfectly trimmed black beard. ‘Unnecessary’ had nothing to do with it.
The statement is deeply idealistic because what she was saying was: it’s time we stopped thinking that it’s necessary to make a fuss about a man who’s become a woman and grown a beard. I have my thing and you have yours and if we don’t hurt each other, who is to say who’s better? It’s like … whatever.
Conchita, born Thomas Neuwirth in a small Austrian town is a kind of mascot for the European Union, which takes pride in being neither one thing nor the other – it passes laws, but is most definitely not a single state.
Conchita is everything the EU aspires to be in the eyes of the world – open, tolerant, plural, wholly accepting of every kind of sexuality in every kind of expression, shorn of narrow, cramping, sexual assumptions. She sang, in her winning number “Rise like a Phoenix” that “once I’m transformed, once I’m reborn, (I will) Rise like a phoenix!” – like the mythical bird, rising from the ashes, in Conchita’s case, the ashes of sexual prejudice.
The Russians didn’t see things that way: Conchita was fully aware of that, telling reporters on Sunday that “This was of course directed against some politicians that we know…” “Putin?” “Among others.”
Maybe she also meant back home in Austria, where less than a quarter of one of the EU’s more conservative states had expressed themselves in polls as proud that she was representing their country.
But none expressed themselves publicly like leading Russian politicians felt it was necessary to do. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin employed sarcasm: he tweeted that the win “showed supporters of European integration their European future: a bearded girl.”
Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky preferred irony. Claiming he was distressed that his children had watched Eurovision, he tweeted — “how am I going to explain all this to them in a ‘politically correct’ and ‘tolerant’ way?”
More crudely, the never-to-be-outdone leader of the Liberal Democratic Party Vladimir Zhirinovsky spat that “Fifty years ago the Soviet Army occupied Austria. We should have stayed there.”
As Conchita celebrated the ballot results in Copenhagen, the organizers of a grimmer referendum in eastern Ukraine set up booths in schools, churches and the streets to tally support for a vaguely worded resolution that could lead Donetsk, Slavyansk and Luhansk to greater autonomy and, perhaps, a union with Russia. And what a Russia it has become.
European tolerance is seen by its leaders as degeneracy; a willingness to acquire territory by force and by guile; an attachment to race, so that ethnic Russians everywhere outside of Russia should be seen as “ours” and, where possible, brought back – along with the land they live on — to Mother Russia.
In case there’s any question about how all of this is playing in the rest of Europe, the Eurovision contest offers another insight.
Russia’s contestants, two sweet-faced sisters named Tolmachevy, suffered boos when they qualified for the finals. A long way from its 2012 entry, the Buranovskiye Babushki, a group of grannies whose sprightly number — “Party for everybody” — got a standing ovation and nearly won the whole competition.
What a difference intolerance, and an invasion, makes.
PHOTO: Conchita Wurst representing Austria performs the song “Rise Like a Phoenix” after winning the grand final of the 59th Eurovision Song Contest at the B&W Hallerne in Copenhagen May 10, 2014. REUTERS/Tobias Schwarz
The most complicated thing said over this past weekend by a public figure came from the perfectly rouged lips of the winner of the Eurovision song contest, Conchita Wurst. “I really dream,” she said, “of a world where we don’t have to talk of unnecessary things like sexuality.”
That’s silly on two levels and deeply idealistic on a third. It’s silly, first and most evidently, because sexuality won’t be unnecessary for a long while, and may last as long as this world does.
It’s silly, second and most personally, because Wurst (her second, adopted name means “sausage” but apparently is also Austrian German slang for “whatever…”) had just won the first prize in the world’s wackiest tournament – the Eurovision Song Contest held this year in the Danish capital Copenhagen. She was dressed in the slinkiest of gowns hugging a perfectly sexy figure, the perfectly rouged lips set off by a perfectly trimmed black beard. ‘Unnecessary’ had nothing to do with it.
The statement is deeply idealistic because what she was saying was: it’s time we stopped thinking that it’s necessary to make a fuss about a man who’s become a woman and grown a beard. I have my thing and you have yours and if we don’t hurt each other, who is to say who’s better? It’s like … whatever.
Conchita, born Thomas Neuwirth in a small Austrian town is a kind of mascot for the European Union, which takes pride in being neither one thing nor the other – it passes laws, but is most definitely not a single state.
Conchita is everything the EU aspires to be in the eyes of the world – open, tolerant, plural, wholly accepting of every kind of sexuality in every kind of expression, shorn of narrow, cramping, sexual assumptions. She sang, in her winning number “Rise like a Phoenix” that “once I’m transformed, once I’m reborn, (I will) Rise like a phoenix!” – like the mythical bird, rising from the ashes, in Conchita’s case, the ashes of sexual prejudice.
The Russians didn’t see things that way: Conchita was fully aware of that, telling reporters on Sunday that “This was of course directed against some politicians that we know…” “Putin?” “Among others.”
Maybe she also meant back home in Austria, where less than a quarter of one of the EU’s more conservative states had expressed themselves in polls as proud that she was representing their country.
But none expressed themselves publicly like leading Russian politicians felt it was necessary to do. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin employed sarcasm: he tweeted that the win “showed supporters of European integration their European future: a bearded girl.”
Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky preferred irony. Claiming he was distressed that his children had watched Eurovision, he tweeted — “how am I going to explain all this to them in a ‘politically correct’ and ‘tolerant’ way?”
More crudely, the never-to-be-outdone leader of the Liberal Democratic Party Vladimir Zhirinovsky spat that “Fifty years ago the Soviet Army occupied Austria. We should have stayed there.”
As Conchita celebrated the ballot results in Copenhagen, the organizers of a grimmer referendum in eastern Ukraine set up booths in schools, churches and the streets to tally support for a vaguely worded resolution that could lead Donetsk, Slavyansk and Luhansk to greater autonomy and, perhaps, a union with Russia. And what a Russia it has become.
European tolerance is seen by its leaders as degeneracy; a willingness to acquire territory by force and by guile; an attachment to race, so that ethnic Russians everywhere outside of Russia should be seen as “ours” and, where possible, brought back – along with the land they live on — to Mother Russia.
In case there’s any question about how all of this is playing in the rest of Europe, the Eurovision contest offers another insight.
Russia’s contestants, two sweet-faced sisters named Tolmachevy, suffered boos when they qualified for the finals. A long way from its 2012 entry, the Buranovskiye Babushki, a group of grannies whose sprightly number — “Party for everybody” — got a standing ovation and nearly won the whole competition.
What a difference intolerance, and an invasion, makes.
PHOTO: Conchita Wurst representing Austria performs the song “Rise Like a Phoenix” after winning the grand final of the 59th Eurovision Song Contest at the B&W Hallerne in Copenhagen May 10, 2014. REUTERS/Tobias Schwarz
Sunday, June 29, 2014
The rise and fall of the shopping mall
Yahoo Online
Finance
Finance
One of the most iconic pieces of
Americana, the shopping mall, isn’t really American at all. In fact,
the first mall was created by an Austrian refugee who wanted to recreate
an American version of downtown Vienna.
Victor Grün escaped to America
from Nazi Austria in 1938 with “an architect’s degree, eight dollars,
and no English.” By the late 1940s, World War II was over and the
American economy was in full swing. Suburban sprawl and consumerism were
the new normal, and this bothered Grün. “[Strip malls are] avenues of
horror… flanked by the greatest collection of vulgarity—billboards,
motels, gas stations, shanties, car lots, miscellaneous industrial
equipment, hot dog stands, wayside stores—ever collected by mankind,” he
wrote.
Grün conveived of a central,
indoor shopping location that would allow Americans to get out of their
cars and socialize. He envisioned a crop of apartment towers popping up
around the mall, the creation of an urban downtown within the suburbs -
that's not what he got.
Grün designed the first
shopping mall in the USA which opened in Edina, Minnesota in
1956. The Southdale Shopping Center cost $20 million to create and had
72 shops, cafés and even a zoo. More than 70,000 people attended the
mall on opening day. Copycat malls began to spring up around the country
following Grün's formula, plain exteriors with inward-facing stores,
multiple floors looking down into a central atrium and high windows.
The mall was a success, and they
grew in number quickly, partially because builders found they could
benefit from tax breaks granted by suburban municipalities, but also
because of something now dubbed "the Grün effect." When shoppers entered malls
their senses were thrown off and they were dazzled by the new
environment. Because of this, they would stay longer and shop more,
often forgetting the purpose of their trip in the first place.
By 1960 there were 4,500 malls
in America accounting for 14% of all retail sales. By 1975 there were
16,400 malls making up 33% of all retail sales and by 1987 there were
30,000 malls accounting for 50% of all retail dollars spent. The mall
had taken over America.
Mall culture had truly arrived
in the US. Films and TV shows proliferated the idea of the
“valley girl,” and the “mall rat.” In 1992, at the height of mall
culture, The Mall of America, not too far from the first mall in Edina,
Minnesota, opened its doors. The Mall of America occupied 78 acres
making it the largest mall in the USA. On opening day The Mall
of America had 330 stores, an amusement park, and employed 10,000
people.
By the mid-1990s, however, the
concept of "the mall" had hit its peak. 140 malls were being built a
year, creating too much competition, and discount stores like Marshall’s
began popping up, attracting bargain hunters away from the confines of
the mall.
The demographics of the suburbs
also changed as money started moving back into the cities. Between 2000
and 2011 the number of suburban poor grew by 64%, double the rate of the
city. In 2008, the U.S. toppled into a crippling recession and in 2011,
for the first time in over 100 years, urban population growth outpaced
suburban growth.
Around this time online retailers like Amazon.com took a 6% bite out of brick-and-mortar business. Put all of this together and it
meant bad news for the shopping mall. Retail analyst Green Street
Advisors predicts that half of American malls will close within the next
10 years, and even Southdale, our nation's first mall, has 18% of its
stores unfilled.
Victor Grün ended up renouncing
the mall, saying he hated what they stood for; publicly he refused to
“pay alimonies for these bastard projects.” It looks like 55 years
later, he’s finally getting his wish.
Friday, April 18, 2014
Cello Musik und Theater -- Thunderstruck
Mehr Vivaldi! (Here -- must be filmed in Vienna -- 2 Cellos also feature Vivaldi, at least at the beginning.)
Saturday, March 2, 2013
Mercer Quality of Living Survey
Julia, du, unter anderem (among others), wolltes sehen, wie die Städte in den USA hier bewertet sind. Bitte sehr! Juchhe: Wir verbessern uns!
The cities — 221 in total, from Vienna to Baghdad were evaluated on 39 factors including political, economic, environmental, personal safety, health, education, transportation and other public service factors. The survey also identifies those cities with the highest personal safety ranking based upon internal stability, crime, effectiveness of law enforcement and relationships with other countries.
Cities were compared to New York City which was given a base score of 100. In 2012 SIX (6) USA cities, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Wash.DC, NYC and Seattle all broke into the Top 50, to join Honolulu. (With NYC a staple at 100, this means the ratings have fallen a bit from 2010.) Honolulu continues to be the top USA city and is on the rise (see North America, below).
First (Summary) Top cities by region -- based on 2010 numbers,
followed by a few city photos and
then an actual table of results from 2010 with edits from 2012.
North America
| Rank | Overall Ranking 2010 | City | Quality of living |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4 |  Vancouver |
107.4 |
| 2 | 14 | Ottawa |
105.5 |
| 3 | 16 | Toronto |
105.3 |
| 4 | 21 | Montreal |
104.2 |
| 5 | 28 | Calgary |
103.5 |
| (USA's top city is Honolulu, seems to have overtaken Calgary at 28th --up from 31, so the USA flag should soon appear in the updated version of this chart.) | ||||
| ||||
| Rank | Overall Ranking | City | Quality of living |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 |  Vienna |
108.6 |
| 2 | 2 |  Zurich |
108.0 |
| 3 | 3 | Geneva |
107.9 |
| 4 | 6 |  Düsseldorf |
107.2 |
| 5 | 7 | Frankfurt |
107.0 |
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