Bewegen and add on!

Today I was moving... I mean - moving my body. Well, actually it was my body which was moving. Not me. Okay... maybe it's too complicated. Let's start from the beginning: Veronika, a friend of mine, is doing a body moving workshop, which is just a brilliant idea and I was part of it for the first time today. We moved as our bodies wished (please, no funny dirty here!) and it was just great to behave like a child again or an animal or play with Veronika and giggle and have a blast of a time! It all lasted 20 minutes but it make me just feel so free! :) I'm loving it!

Also, coming back home I have visited the add on. 20 Höhenmeter Project at the Wallensteinplatz (Gesundheit!), which has grown near my place. It is an arts project consisting of a temporary habitat construction made of free standing scaffolding with crazy add-ons like a camper, open-air bar, green house, computer lounge. There are several artists from Austria, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Turkey and Germany, who are living in the habitat and presenting their works at different days for the next six weeks. If you can, just drop by and certainly take a look. The construction is open every day till midnight and (!) it is free!

Btw, the look from the top is really cool in the night. You can even feel like the whole 20 meters high construction moves a bit, how every step any person on the habitat makes moves the whole thing! (And of course it is a bit scary! While being at the top, all kinds of different this-thing-is-going-to-fall scenarios rushed through my mind but... here I am! I survived!)

Berni's Blog Party

Berni, who is my flat-share and a celebrity in the 20th district of Vienna *g*, has organised a small blog party in Cafe Frame, which is just around the corner of our place. The reason of the party was to celebrate the 1000st visitor on her blog. Congrats and best wishes for another 1000! ;-)

We talked, we laughed, we had some drinks and danced to traditional Balkan music in the end... it was a GREAT blog party and I hope to host one too as soon as I get my 1000 clicks!

Here some impressions:

Mauthausen

Yesterday my flat-share friends and myself have been to Mauthausen, one of the painful places in human history so far... It was one of the concentration camps during the second world war and even that it was designed as a working camp, it was regarded as one of the most brutal ones as it belonged to the highest level of camp typology. Mauthausen is now a museum and a memorial. You cry as you walk down the main avenue. You stumble upon personal stories of people who have been there and survived... or not. During the time Mauthausen was functional, more than 100.000 people have lost their lives behind the camp walls. And you feel their pain... behind every wall, under the ground, in the buildings you enter. It makes you weep... and swear not to allow something similar again.

We shall never forget!

As I was walking throughout the camp I have stumbled upon two (most probably) turkish boys playing in the free. The day was a bit under clouds, though still a pleasant day. For them it was an afternoon like any other...
For me it was refreshing to see them there on site, in Mauthausen. It has given the place a new life... a new hope... that there still lies hope for the next generation to decide otherwise.

...and I have thought of all the war conflicts which are happening daily around the globe and how much we diminish as the human race. One by one... killing each other... second by second... It is just sad.

Queere Lieder für die Liebe

On Tuesday, the Volxtheater singers and friends gave a performance at the EKH in Vienna. Queer Songs for Love was one of the main events of the identities queer film festival and... I have been part of it! :)

The evening was a total blast from my point of view! It was just mesmerizing to be there! The guys on and off stage were so supporting and everybody was enjoying it tremendously, I think! (Well, at least, I did!)
I have sung I am too sexy (from Right Said Fred) and loved the song... I got a bit shocked as I have almost fallen down from the stage *oops* at the same time my mic got numb and while I was changing to another I have totally lost the track of the song! Nevertheless, I enjoyed it! *g*
My thanks go to: the band (what a performance!), Ursula (whom I have been at the cashier's desk for the first half of the program), Karin (my co-singer for I fell in love with a dead boy from Antony and the Johnsons) and Jan (who has given me another mic when the first one has given up on me *g*). Thanks guys!

As soon as I stumble over some photos, I will upload and publish them. Here are some I have taken while we were rehearsing the songs:

Tarnation

It was as if an angel had touched the screen in the cinema. Pictures of pain, loss, forgiveness and hope. All of them. At once. Tarnation, by Jonathan Caouette a young (31) actor and film-maker, is telling his personal, very private story of growing up in a dysfunctional family in Houston, TX. His mother was sent from one mental hospital to another for many years, so he was actually raised by his grandparents. He started filming when he was 11 years old after getting his first camera.

Tarnation is a hell of a movie! Literally... It plunges into the very personal stories of Jon, his mum Renee and his grandparents. It lets you feel desolate though still hope for a chance of getting better. When Jon starts crying at 5 am in the restroom you want to turn off the camera yourself and just hold him tight because you know he is in pain because of who he might become. And because he loves.

I wanted to see the film since it opened in the US last year however wasn't able to do so till now. (Thanks identities for bringing it to Vienna!) See it, if you dare.
It also triggered a journey of my own. (I have to look onto our family footage to see what kind of teenager I have been.) I was thinking of my family. How my life was till now. Steady as a beating drumm, I suppose. Calmness before the storm? Maybe...

I have also found out how much I love my family. Especially my brother. And how much I actually care for him. Thanks for being the Best brother I could wish for! :) I love you.



P.S. For the fans of Tarnation: the great minimalistic original music by Max Avery Lichtenstein can be found at the website of Tin Drum Recordings.

Person of the Week: Me

Who would ever think about me being at one point a Person of the Week! Unbelievable but true... and of course I am totally modest about it. ;)

Zeil2 is a EU supported project aiming at the revitalization of several regions within the city of Vienna (focused on the 2nd and 20th district). The people of the Ziel2 also want to draw a picture of how life is in these city regions, therefore two of my flat-share colleagues (Eva and Berni) and myself have been interviewed for their website. The interviews have been published online last week or so under the title People of the Week.

The link to my interview is here.

Btw, identities, the Viennese queer film festival started today with the premiere of D.E.B.S. (which I did not see so far). I am planning to go and see several movies, so may bump into me in Filmcasino or Top Kino almost every day from now on.