From »Just A Found Item #37«: »Allie, I’m so sorry … they do not have any tee-shirts of Elfriede Jelinek. It’s just the collector’s pack of stamps that they still have.« – As said by Bob, a 57-year-old tourist from Massachusetts.
Object 307: »If the Wurstl is the message, what is then the hot dog around it?«
Object 308: »Hundertwasser: Wurstl, Hot Dog or Ketchup & Senf?«
From »The Lost Answers #136«: »Hundertwasser is the real architectronic backline of the new sounds of Austria.«
From »The Let’s Hope Files #89«: The question with a given problem is always: how much can you enjoy it?
27.03.2003 – WHAT’S WRONG WITH NAZI ART? AS FAR AS IT’S CLAIMED AS »GoodoldGoebby« I can’t really say anything, BUT THEY SHOULD REALLY CLAIM IT
instead of consciously forgetting it or turning around the pot in all possible escapable ways. The problem with nazi art is that most people say: »I don’t have to think about it, because it’s nazi art & I’m such a liberal, democratic guy that I already know this is bad art, bad ideology & bad style for bad people.« This is stupid bullshit & the best way to bring back similar stuff like all those anti-globalist, left-wing Jew haters all around the world. Do you know a guy named Laurence Rickels? He works in Berkeley and wrote two books on how the nazis used (not mis-used & not destroyed) psychoanalysis & liked modern jazz & electronic music. You will never ask yourself such questions when you never try to watch Riefenstahl & confess that there is much (often too much) that appeals also to your little liberal bullshit heart & soul. It’s not catharsis, it’s becoming a political subject. And in some ways it’s funny & hard like Lacan – why not?
29.04.2002 – When Haider went to Baghdad for his children foundation or something and then met Saddam and got photographed with him, did you feel he really knew him well by that time?
02.06.2004 – To me it seems that Schlager is hardly ever reviewed at all in the daily press. What is the situation, I mean how can they still hit and not be visible in the regular media? The number one attitude in the Austrian catalogue of cool: ignore everything that’s not already inside your mind!
Image has always been an intrinsic part of music (it starts in the 20th century with, lemme say, Caruso). and POPmusic has always been just a part of POP. But since the neo-liberal 1990s you have – like politics without politics/politicians – music without music in terms of music for people who don’t really like music made by people who think music is just another job – A PRODUCT SUPPORT with NOTHING UNDERNEATH than A MOBILE COMPANY – well, see Christina Starmania … she does not represent music or even anything that deals with SHOW but she HEAVILY represents a MARKET … in between Manuel Ortega and Ötzi and house music at FPÖ clubbings. – Before a beer, everyone HATES Schlager and after two beers EVERYONE SINGS THE WHOLE SCHLAGER SONG without any mistakes and HATES YOU for reminding them … THE SCHLAGER IN THEIR EARS IS TERRIFYINGLY REAL! Whatever their ideas and mirrors of themselves, they build the question WHAT MAKES ME DIFFERENT FROM A SCHLAGER SUBJECT AT THE END? Well often NOT MUCH … (so order an 18th beer and sing along like grandpa raised the hand) – THERE’S VERY LITTLE JOURNALISM, THE MARKETING makes the PITCH and some people are just fulfilling a JOB …
Intellectuals in Austria don’t have to fear the gulag, the Khmer rouge, Stalin, Pol Pot, instead of that, they are confronted with another cultural revolution – not killing people but killing their minds in the same way. We are the living dead.
Found Item #23: »I won’t apply for another art scholarship this year to go on holidays when I can probably find bargain tickets. It takes too much time to fill in all these papers and get the money.« – An art student, as heard in a bar.
If the avant-garde here goes on, I’ll go for a theoretical text that I’ve always thought I should do, which goes ALL THIS BLOODY BORING AND SAD FUCKIN SQUEAKY MUSIC is not a CREATION AT ALL IT IS JUST THE MIRROR of their own LIFE SHOULD WE PAY FOR THEM TO HAVE AWFUL GIRLFRIENDS TOO RICH FAMILIES AND LOOK SMELLY AFTER HUGE BOREDOM DUE TO REFUSED MASTURBATION??? The answer is: NO FUCKIN WAY!
More objects: »Did Thomas Bernhard and Placido Domingo ever actually meet?« »Mireille Mathieu? Yes, she’s French. Why do you ask?«
24.12.2004 – Where does this tradition come from here that whenever an artist is getting international acclaim (Haneke, Jelinek, Bernhard, etc.) he or she is so massively, totally, aggressively AGAINST Austria? I mean basically you could divide the art situation and history in two boxes. The national heroes, who are local stars and usually backed by institutions but who hardly made it abroad at all, and the international reputations, who in
most cases left the country and are extremely negative about the whole thing going on in the country. Why? Isn’t there on the other hand also a totally aggressive tradition of treating art & artists? Sending them to jail, destroying their works – ignoring & dissing everything that’s the radical Other to Heuriger, gemütlichkeit, »glückliches Vergessen«. Who was & is still happy that none of the refugees who were into science & arts and fled the Third Reich got a return ticket by post-nazi Austria? Re-education stopped here shortly after the war. Sentimental Heimatfilme from the 1930s till the 1950s still dominate the Saturday afternoon on telly. Who is programming this stuff over and over? Who wants this stuff to be shown? Who thinks this has no effect on his/her mind? When Schüssel said this year that Austria was not only the first victim of Hitler but also the first to fight against him he finally made it possible for Austria to come to its authentic identity. Like Austro-fascism was THE antifascism of the 1930s. Our problem: if you hate all of this, you must be aware that hate is nothing but love from the rear.
I must say myself that I don’t think I’ve ever heard so much Wagner played on a national radio. (Schubert and Mozart too actually, but that’s all right.) Is that possibly true?
15.08.2003 – Why is everyone here Magister or Doctor? What does it say about the society? Is it like Lord or Sir in the UK? Or is it like the flag in Switzerland you find in every street in case you’d doubt where you are?
When HAUSMASTERS transform themselves into HAUS-FÜHRERS: how much hillbilly you must think about yourself that you always have to spit from your balcony and still hate everything beneath your own threshold? How funny is it to pretend being a volkstümlicher down-home type of guy by hating the modern world of pop? Do you really pretend? No? Well, hello Herr Karl! Stay by your Silberwald & little Gefreiter point of view. What’s the difference between a chill-out lounge & the music rooms at Eagle’s Nest and Wolfsschanze? Or an Offizierskasino? Tell me! Is there any? Would this music be dangerous for the Silberwald?
11.11.2005 – Something drew my mind to a halt the other day. I passed this huge advertising for a new art show entitled »Stars« (I think), and it had Madonna or Marilyn Monroe on it. And I thought »wait a second …« Every time I go to Saturn shops and look for records or films I can see the same things, but the difference is that in these shops my possibilities to encounter artworks will still be wide open and free of any preconceived selections. Correct, no? I mean I can jump from the Andy Warhol artwork for Paul Anka to Grace Jones. From tags and street paintings to Basquiat. From Keith Haring to Mondino, from Björk to Sonic Youth. All these well known and acclaimed artworks will be available, but I can also start to watch the layouts of the bargain CDs or any of the 2nd or 3rd class releases.
No one there will tell me that Heino’s, Derrick Harriot’s or Suzi Quatro’s compilation is less a record cover than the new Madonna. As it happens, nowadays a good bargain shop means more freedom to explore and less taste restraints for us. – Face the real, don’t go musical Burschenschaft! You don’t have to understand ANYTHING/EVERYTHING, but to not understand YOU HAVE TO READ/LISTEN first!!!
Found Item #212: »A barely legal and almost naked female artist is our message.«
More Items: »Xcuse me, Mam, where do you keep the Third Reich merchandising in ya shop? It’s all fuckin‘ Moozart koogles in da here.« Like people surprised to see NITSCH nowadays? Why surprised? Nitsch always based his supposed transgressions on the BOURGEOISIE … the reality of someone like that is to be BEHIND the Government press conference, WHATEVER the Coalition.
