unguided tour

“Vienna” is a travelogue in 10 parts. This is the final installment. Read part 1 here.

“The city does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand.”
(Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities)

Sometimes the city receives a past. My past, my memory. Does the memory stay when I leave the city?

The directions say, “Walk down Taubstummengasse (deaf-mute way).” Inside my head the name of the street hurts like an unexpected pinprick. A sharp, short pain. I don’t know why. When I came across Blindengasse (blind way) a few days ago, it didn’t bother me at all. Why  does Taubstummengasse? Is it because the street sign combines two disabilities, and that makes me uncomfortable? Is it because people with hearing and speech impairments can read the sign whereas a blind person walking down Blindengasse will be left unencumbered by the sign? These are reasons why someone, anyone, may be struck by this particular street sign but when a long forgotten memory suddenly arises from my unconscious, I know they are not mine. The memory takes me back to my early teenage years in Germany in the 1970s. (more…)

Ost-Tirol, Großvenediger seen from Lasörling

I’m in Ost-Tirol (Easter part of Tyrol). Surrounded by snowy Alpine mountains. Look! This is Großvenediger. And over here; this is where we’re going! And look… (more…)

What part does guilt play in an election?
In Austria, where elections to the European Parliament are held on June 7, I see two kinds of guilt: historical guilt referring to the Holocaust + pleasurable guilt that seeks punishment. The two kinds are intertwined but they’re not identical.
Election posters allow for the negotiation of both kinds of guilt. As voters scribble their comments on them, the posters become bulletin boards that draw attention to Austria’s repressed guilt for National Socialism. But the omnipresent oversized headshots of the candidates also invite mutilation, even effacement by perpetrators who know they won’t be prosecuted. (more…)

The other day I appeared on Austria’s national public radio, ORF. I was invited to talk about Austria’s increasingly stereotypical + despiteful perception of foreigners, especially those from muslim countries. I stated the obvious: in the current political climate ‘the foreigner’ + ‘the orient’ are projections of our difficulties to come to terms with changes in our own societies. Once we understand that we are strangers to ourselves, once we comprehend that the foreign dwells within ourselves, we will be able to create a platform for a dialogue with immigrants from muslim (and other foreign) countries. (more…)

I love Schnitzel. I grew up with Schnitzel, on Schnitzel. My mother makes an excellent Wiener Schnitzel.

Traveling to Vienna from the U.S. I crave simple food. Slow food. Most of all I crave Wiener Schnitzel. I have one every other day. My Viennese friends make fun of me. It would never occur to them to order the Wiener Schnitzel on the menu.

Wiener Schnitzel is undeniably simple (though, like all simple dishes, difficult to prepare): veal, breading, lemon, cucumbers, potatoes sprinkled with parsley, a glass of Grüner Veltliner.

In its simplicity the Wiener Schnitzel is the antithesis of the often over-spiced food served in American restaurants.

Or is it? (more…)

What is the difference between a rug and a map?

I confess the question never entered my mind until two weeks ago when I saw Mona Hatoum’s outstanding sculpture “Bukhara” in a group show at the Belvedere (Die Macht des Ornaments, through May 21, 2009).

“Bukhara” is a handwoven Turkmen-style carpet with the ancient Bukhara pattern, a geometric, octagonal ‘elephant’s foot’ print erroneously attributed to the Uzbek city of the same name. (For 2500 years — until the end of the 19th century when borders were redrawn — Bukhara, was a center of scholarship and the arts in Central Asia. From BukharaTurkmen rugs found their way to the West.) (more…)

Last weekend at a memorial service for former slave workers (Jews, Communists) at Nazi extermination camp at Ebensee, a sub-camp of Mauthausen. Two delegations arrive , one from Italy, the other one from France. A group of young men, all of them masked, attack the Italians screaming “Heil Hitler” and “Hier geht’s zum Gas!” (This way for the gas!) Next, the men fire rubber bullets at a group of French survivors and severely injure two of them.

On the same weekend in Tyrol (Western Austria) the owner of a hotel & restaurant rejects a group of orthodox Jewish men & women. “I don’t serve Jews anymore. Why don’t you stay at a Jewish hotel?” (more…)

“a realization of a direction
laid down in the deepest layer of the existence
of what is destroyed.”
(Georg Simmel)

“Memories”, Burggasse 47, Vienna

Walking down Neubaugasse (7. Bezirk) a young man with a black suitcase approaches me. “Excuse me, do you speak a little bit of English?” He’s poor. Several of his teeth are missing.
“Yes, I do.”
“I’m from Hungary,” he says. “I need to go back to see my family but my train ticket was stolen. Do you think you could help me?”
I hand him a 50-Euro bill and hurry away. I don’t want to hear him thank me. (more…)

I am in Vienna. The loft I’m renting is on the top floor of a 7-storey apartment building in the 7th Bezirk (district). Climbing the stairs I imagine that each floor tells a different story of the city. I decide to organize my writing from Vienna into seven chapters + a ground-level preface.

In Vienna life is slow. Very slow. People seem happy here. They have time, a lot of time. They don’t feel compelled to busy themselves making + spending money all day long. (more…)