Hanna Reitsch Interview

I have always liked this interview; especially when she describes (in part three) how she actually slept through an airraid and afterwards felt embarrassed of it!

Part 2, part 3.

Panacea: Honey, ginger, garlic!

The goddess Panakeia, daughter of Asclepius and granddaughter of Apollo has pointed me to these substances which I have found very useful.

N.B. Garlic is the eastern European 'version' of the south-east Asian ginger insofar as both are of a disinfectant nature ginger is slightly more efficient though. Honey is one version of the ambrosia of the immortals; the Brisai-nymphs raised the young Dionysus on it. Honey conserves like amber or gold with which it shares the connotation as a symbol for eternity (gold is the metal that hardly corrodes). All three are especially good for sore throats, influenza, ailments of the upper torso, potency; honey as a relaxant ginger and garlic as an activator of force.

Covert-Coating

Whenever I wear this style of coat it evokes in me a sense of authority and responsibility and commands respect in others, something that I don’t necessarily like as you know if you have read this blog penned under the Bacchic seal of drunken madness. But it’s ideal daywear when I want to have a chat with my bank-manager or take a stroll on the Ringstrasse followed by a nice cup of tea in a café where I’ll read luxury editions of poetry-books that are elongated to such an extent that only 3, 4 words will fit into a single line.

Sometimes I eccentrically don’t take it off but bury myself inside of it while whispering to the waiter in a hushed voice so that he can hardly understand me, showing my contempt for society while still partaking in it somehow.

Advent in Austria

To elegantly and most authentically experience the time around Christmas and the New Year it is best to spend it in Austria. 
Crede experto.

From my Father’s Library:

„Selbst ein Weltmann von Format, ein umworbener Playboy, ein Snob, der schon alles kennt und dem das Beste gerade noch gut genug ist, oder ein Gentleman mit internationalem Flair wird mit diesem Buch noch manch unterhaltsame Stunden verbringen (und ihm manchen exzellenten Tip entnehmen- was er natürlich nicht zugeben darf).“

 (~Even a cosmopolitan, a playboy, a snob with eclectic taste or a jet-setting gentleman will spend many an entertaining hour reading this book [and will receive many an excellent tip from it- a fact that he of course should not admit] ).

Hans Makart

The egregore of the city of Vienna. [Actress Charlotte Wolter as Messalina]

Bacchic ramble [Der Triumph der Ariadne]

How to Ski-Trip:

  I have been an avid skier since the tender age of three and enjoy the sport. I even took the exam for the State skiing instructor that is traditionally held in summer on the Kitzsteinhorn-glacier (of course I never worked as one)...Now, girls and boys, this is how we do it: We wake up at 7 a.m., eat a large breakfast and be on the slopes at 8:30 or 9. This early will actually be the best because least crowded time.

  

For lunch we drink tea with lemon- no alcohol like the normaloes [normal/average people] since it will spoil the sport and the great experience of nature (if it’s really cold you may tell Sepp to put some rum in it)- and an apple with a power-bar or some light soup. As you know, I normally don’t refuse a drink if it’s pushed on me but not while skiing, not during the day (smoking on the lift as some cretins seem to be fond of is equally intolerable).

 After one, one-and-a-half hours of rest we’ll be back on the slopes, in the woods and the untouched deep-snow terrain off-track till about 4 p.m. Then, back to hotel, shower and about 2 hours rest (then maybe a few rounds in the pool).

 Then at dinner at a good or authentic restaurant we stuff ourselves with heavier or more opulent foods and drinks- mostly wines and beer-, afterwards off to the bar, nightclub or disco (for this it’s necessary to be in a place like Cortina, Kitzbühel or Gstaad that provides acceptable nightlife): we dance, guzzle Schnaps and fool around till at least 12:30 a.m. Next morning: again, wake-up call at 7 a.m.

Repeat this for one, two weeks!

Such a vacation reinvigorates me both mentally and physically.

p.s. there is an alternative to such a ski-trip: you ski for about 45 minutes a day drink and eat and dance at lunch at the mountain-side hut, bake in the sun and party during day *and* night- absolutely feasible too and recommended to those who don’t or don’t want to ski.

Austro-Hungarian Naval Uniform Buttons:

Such buttons of historical uniforms- here mostly some from officers of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, the k&k Kriegsmarine- can be very apt to give a special note to ones blazer-jacket. Why not inform yourself about your local history and then invoke it anew by applying it to your attire?

Flannel and Tweed-Season:

In Praise of Fog:

Aquavit

Someone recommended this drink to me the other day and I wonder if it is any good (and if so where to even get it here). At least it seems to have a royal warrant of the Danish crown which is always a good sign.

Rambling about Northern painters and artistic preferences...

 I quite like Northern painters such as Friedrich (see his Eismeer à gauche or, also good: Monk by the Sea et al) who has a talent for romantically depicting man confronting his inner-, and outer nature that reflects former; or Munch who is able to efficiently portray pure emotion. I like both the Italians and the Dutch but am neither too fond of Dürer- not as a painter- too pedantic, too self-aware, too much an epigone of the Venetians like the great and underappreciated Jacopo de' Barbari and the Bellinis- though he is a good graphic artist, nor of Cranach- a Protestant! and friend of the fat, malicious Luther- but again think favourably of the so-called Donauschule (Danube School) especially Altdorfer with his archaic, cosmic nature-realism.

Coming again to more modern stuff, I even enjoy the jokes of the Surrealists and the still very much neglected kitsch of the French Academy and have nothing against the Impressionists, either, am more than tolerant of the English portraitists, water-colourists, of the visionaries Turner and Blake.

The last 50 years would deserve an additional (future) ramble: there is much hypocrisy, ignorance and blatant stupidity in them but at least we- and hereby I mean true art on this highest level as I understand it- seem to resurface a bit recently, meaning that complete abstraction and white-canvas, pure-idea-instead-of-substance Dreck, is declining again.

My recommendation of a good artist of the recent -my- generation would be Stelios Faitakis (I had already thought that European culture was initiated by the Greeks and also would be ended by them but maybe it will also again arise through them?) He is able to truly artistically re-interpret traditions like the Icon and Asian influences in the scope of the present, modern world; like in Gaudì's architecture one can see his faith, his true religiosity or at least his honest struggle with it and crave for it in his works.

I could propagate my own writings or my relatives' paintings and graphics here but I simply won't out of decency. That's how we few modern real artists actually feel: we again have found meaning and the value of meaning in life. We refute atheism and spurn purely profit-oriented thinking. We again put value on God or the gods and honour valour, our local and ethnic affiliations and Tradition (including but by far not restricted to modernism and post-modernism!). We, are the future.

Stelios Faitakis' work. I have his book 'Hell on Earth' -which I recommend- in my other appartment now. I'll post some of his more positive, 'iconic' pictures in a future entry.

Trainjourneys

I enjoy travelling by train through central, alpine Europe in this season. Taking a first-class compartment one is nearly never disturbed by other passengers. If somebody should try to sit with you, here is a simple trick: take a large newspaper, hold it upside down and empathically nod at them with wide open eyes like a madman.

Leisurely glancing at a volume of wild-romantic philosophy while dark-green forests, fog-enshrouded ravines and snowy peaks with red autumnal foliage are slowly passing you by is a very relaxing way to go from Vienna to Vaduz and on to Zürich where you will meet your friends in the local clergy and arts-scene before you catch up with the summer in Northern Italy or Southern France for a couple of days.

Oliver Reed!

"Reed was banned from all his local pubs. His most spectacular eviction came when he clambered up the chimney at the Bull's Head shouting 'Ho! Ho! Ho! I'm Santa Claus.' He was naked at the time." (Robert Sellers: Hellraisers)

An onomatopoetically creative interview