A Small Venue Makes A Big Impression
The smoky air is vibrant with the sounds of glasses clinking together, people chatting, and jazz playing from the speakers in the background. Once the quartet steps onto the stage, everything quiets down and on the “one, two, three, four” count, the room comes alive in a different, more effervescent way. This is ZWE, a [...]
Working Mothers
In a country where 66% of the mothers with school-age children work, the Austrian school system that sends pupils home at midday persists as a lumbering dinosaur, built around assumptions that no longer work for either children or parents. The issue is that for some 1.2 million children in Austria (Kindergarten to Gymnasium), the school [...]
Thai-Land Of Smiles
Thailand. Fall 2009. The plane lands on time, the doors open and the climate controlled tunnel guides the passengers into Bangkok’s Suvarnbhumi airport. This airport is a monster – the world’s third largest after Dubai and Beijing – with metal limbs and glass skin, pathways that move even if it’s not going uphill. Making my [...]
Book Review: A Darker Domain, by Val McDermid
A Taste of Scottish Mystery Two cold cases resurfaced at the same time, and it’s up to Detective Chief Inspector Karen Pirie and journalist Bel Richmond to get to the bottom of them… Scottish crime writer Val McDermid’s eyes light up as she dives into the narrative, a winding storyline and thickening plot that quickly [...]
Meeting at the Grill
As spring rolled into Vienna this year, everything turned from gray to green, in the luminous tone that only happens in April, making the outdoors the place to be. All over the city, chairs and tables appeared out of nowhere on sidewalk Schanigärten and were instantly occupied, as the worlds of Kaffeehaus and Beisl moved [...]
Indie Scene on The Big Screen
Vienna may be a city of music; but on the alternative scene, many non-German speakers may find it difficult to dig deep and find some true Viennese local bands. Some may just play it by ear and pick any locals they spot randomly along the way. But the annual festival of music videos, Screen Sessions, [...]
Accordion Festival Nights
Now in its tenth year, the Accordion Festival has become a fixture on the late winter music scene in Vienna. The orgy of “squeezeboxes” begins mid February and continues at venues all over town until the middle of March, dates varying each year. Attending one of the shows on a recommended night can be considered [...]
Diknu Schneeberger: At Sandra’s Salon
A young man walks up to the small stage, just slightly elevated from the concrete floor of the café, introduces the band, and begins to play a richly rhythmic, acoustic style of jazz that I had heard far too few times in my life. The place: the unassuming Bohemian Café Einfahrt on the Karmelitermarkt in [...]