Christopher Anderson is a regular contributor to the Vienna Review, and has worked as Managing Editor and Associate Editor. His areas of interest include politics, music, literature, the arts, and sports in Vienna, in Austria, and beyond. He is co-author of Frommer's Germany 2012, and contributed to Frommer's Austria 2011 as well as Europe By Rail 2011. As a reporter for Yanks Abroad, he has covered American soccer players in Europe, and reported in person from the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. Born, raised, and educated in North Carolina, USA, his travels over the past 14 years have taken him around the world through China, Mongolia and Siberia, to Brazil, to most of the countries of Europe, and throughout the Caribbean. He is fluent in French and German, and communicates in Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Russian. Vienna has captivated him for over five years, where he completed an M.A. program in International Relations at Webster University Vienna in 2010.
Stories from Christopher Anderson
A new pizzeria on Praterstraße has a mission: to prove that good taste can come in large packages, and that italian food can be sleek and modern, and still a feast: Buon appetito!
Now that the holiday season is behind us, Vienna has rung in the new year, and the first snowfalls have dusted the city with a wintry nimbus – which provides the perfect backdrop for gazing out the window and pondering life’s eternal questions…
Such as, Does this town really need another pizzeria?
Vienna may top the rankings of quality of life, but what about those mysterious qualities that make it “the-place-to-be”?
Several recent surveys have deemed Vienna the vanguard in quality of life (Mercer) or green-friendliness (Siemens). But is Vienna fashionable? Is it ‘in’? The term ‘cool’ brings to mind the New Yorks and the Berlins.
What about Vienna?
A recently re-opened memorial preserves the evidence of 50,000 victims of the Vienna Gestapo in shocking original records
The doors of Vienna conceal many pleasant surprises: a Baroque courtyard, a fountain or a Renaissance arcade. Others, like those at Salztorgasse 6, reveal a history of nightmare, one that takes time to tell, and sometimes even longer to set in stone.
A small eatery in Mariahilf dishes out grand flavors, with an acquired taste for minimalist interior design
In my travels, I have always enjoyed stumbling upon restaurants installed into unlikely places. My list includes churches, petrol stations, windmills, abandoned train cars, and auto repair shops. In fact, it seems that the stranger the predecessor, the greater the allure.
The annual exhibition delivers hard truths as always, with a few light-hearted moments
A review of the award-winning press photos from 2010 reveals a hard truth about visual news: Much of it is difficult to look at. Despair of those forgotten, atrocities of war, the heartbreak of personal loss characterize the images that hang in the Westlicht Gallery until Oct. 9.
A racially-motivated beating of a newspaper salesman raises troubling questions about tracking racism
Toni walks down a long hall in the Vienna courthouse (Landesgericht für Strafsachen), his regard fixed ahead of him, his gait relaxed, a slight tremble in his hand. At the end of the hall his two assailants from the night of his beating stand waiting to enter the courtroom. As he enters with a solemn face and walks through the crowd of five defendants, their eyes follow him as he sits down outside the courtroom for the hearing. They haven't seen him since the early morning hours of Feb.
A city once dismissed by Le Corbusier as ‘ridiculous,’ the Serbian capital continues to reinvent its built landscape
Entering the Serbian capital from the west by car, the Genex Center towers rise out of the horizon and announce your arrival into the suburb of Novi Beograd, across the Sava River from the old city. The dominating twin blocks of apartments conjoined at the top were Serbian architect Mihajlo Mitrović’s vision of a new western gate for the city in the 1970s.
May 30 to June 6, Gozo will host the 4th-ever Viva Tournament
We are nearing the season of that sacred ritual that transpires only once every four years and brings much of the world to a standstill to watch a round ball move around a field in the hopes that it might finally pierce a net. While the World Cup of soccer ranks as the unparalleled greatest sporting competition in the world, this year’s rendition has posed a conundrum in getting fans out of their armchairs and on a plane to South Africa.
The topography of post-war blues
It has been snowing in Vienna and the temperature is probably ten below zero. There is a place on Prinz-Eugen-Straße – a guitar pick’s throw south of Schwarzenbergplatz – where the bass, electric guitar, harmonica, and the scratchy, deep voice of a blues singer can warm up the air inside and out:
This is the Louisiana Blues Pub.
A new Südbahnhof rises from the rubble; will the old one be bound for oblivion?
A swarm of rail enthusiasts in Vienna’s Südbahnhof crowded around tables strewn with second-hand clothing, outdated timetable books, and paper placards indicating train lines like “Wien Westbahnhof – Linz – Salzburg.” A row of familiar blue signs, which once adorned stations in unfamiliar places like Aspang and Hartberg, lined a nearby wall like snowboards waiting to be grabbed.
“Seven euros!” a volunteer hawker announced to a man examining a scratch-ridden motorcycle helmet.
“I only have five,” the customer muttered.
A newly opened exhibition of the Norwegian’s work places the artist in unfamiliar company
No one walking into Oslo’s Munchmusset can forget the impression of seeing Edvard Munch’s signature tableau, The Scream, displayed as you first enter the museum. The famous contorted face of Angst and Weltschmerz on a bridge of oblivious passers-by is what you came to see.
The rest of the museum endeavors to show the man behind the scream.
Renowned scholar Daniel Goldhagen proposes radical measures to combat human rights violations
Inviting guests over for dinner to discuss genocide is not likely to result in many takers. The unsettling topic did not draw droves of attendees to the Kreisky Forum on Oct. 28 to hear a lecture about it either. Nonetheless, a room full of open ears entertained the topic as distinguished scholar Daniel Goldhagen presented his latest book, Worse Than War: Genocide, Eliminationism, and the Ongoing Assault on Humanity.
A raspy voice heard overhead opens the concert. “...the reason I play so many sounds, maybe it sounds angry, is because I’m tryin’ so many things at one time, you see...”
The musicians stand in solemn contemplation as the voice of the late, great John Coltrane tries to enunciate the feeling of his music. Then, the drummer taps a cymbal and a snare, and a bass rumbles. The pianist claws a few keys and a soprano sax cries out. Soon, a tune emerges as the elements meld into Coltrane’s “India”.
Now that the jazz scene has returned to the cozy environs of Vienna’s Klubs and Kellers, it’s time to entertain the question nagging aficionados the most. Is jazz best enjoyed sitting or standing?
Recent concerts in the Began in Africa series at Porgy & Bess exemplified the pros and cons of seating. Afrobeat legend Tony Allen attracted enough people to warrant removal of the tables and chairs in front of the stage. Fortunately at the Porgy, those who arrived early nabbed one of the tables in the wrap-around balcony. For Allen’s concert, though, even those sitting couldn’t resist the urge to stand and wiggle to the groovy beat.
Ireland’s famous quintet bring the flame of tradition and memory to Vienna for five days of melodies and humor
A recent five-night stand by the quintessential Irish folk group The Dubliners answered the question of what to do when members from years past pass on: you keep playing with them anyway.
At the timeless old cabaret theater Metropol on the edge of the Gürtel, the Irishmen made another annual visit to Vienna in September to reminisce about former founding members Luke Kelly, Ronnie Drew and Ciaran Bourke, while keeping the music alive for future generations.
Back to the African Roots
Imbube, Mbalax, Jiti, Kizomba, Apala, Soukous, Taarab and Highlife. Sound familiar? These are not brands of beer, but rather the styles of African music that in one way or another have influenced the formation of blues and jazz.
Last issue’s “Hot Sounds for Summer” showcased Vienna’s Jazz Fest, which featured one particular incarnation of this fusion of influences: Afrobeat. Those of you who witnessed Seun Kuti and the Egypt ’80 at the Rathaus’ Arkadenhof in July experienced the full-blown energy of the genre. If you missed it, no worries; September has more Afrobeat and African-imbued jazz to come.
A music festival on an island in Budapest masters the art of keeping people entertained for more than a week
An eight-day music festival? For those unfamiliar with the annual Sziget (pronounced see-get) festival in Budapest, the prospect of a week-long party may seem daunting. To the tens of thousands who go each August, the reality is heavenly.
Austrian clubs prove their grit in Europe
On a recent Thursday night, Flanagan’s Irish Pub was filled to overflowing with green paraphernalia. But this was not St. Patrick’s Day: This crowd had gathered to watch the historic SK Rapid (green) – Aston Villa (burgundy) football match that would decide the entrant into the group stage of the Europa League. And that night, the Green and Whites made history: They became the first Austrian club to knock out an English club of European competition.
Discovered 30 years ago, the best-preserved medieval art in Vienna is shown in a downtown outpost of the Wien Museum
In one part of the grove of trees, a dozen people still sober enough to stand are dancing wildly around in a circle. Nearby, some other folks are gnashing on a Stelze from a spit. In the bushes, a man is trying to make a move on his female companion. Scenes from the annual Donauinselfest? No, but in a sense they might have been: These are little-known frescoes of a medieval Bacchanal from a Vienna of an earlier time, tucked away in the heart of the city’s 1st District.
Celebrating Vienna’s sister-city on the Mediterranean, a chilled out new hot-spot for the ‘jeunesse d’orée’
This year it’s not Summer Stage, or Hermann’s Strandbar; the newest hit on the Vienna out door summer scene is the “Tel-Aviv Beach” bar that opened May 1st on the Danube Canal at Herminengasse – just on the edge of the old Jewish Quarter in the 2nd District of Leopoldstadt.
![Mihajlo Mitrovic Genex Center (1970): a](/sites/default/files/imagecache/small/ON DISPLAY Belgrad_GenexCenter_Mitrovic.jpg "Mihajlo Mitrovic Genex Center (1970): a "western gate" to Belgrade | Photo: S. Ralic")
