Nuts in May

"I'm tired of high policy talks. 

I want to focus on nuts and bolts."

Dave Freudenthal 

Edward Ka-Spel - Nuts in May

Well not the nuts of the old nursery rhyme, but rather nuts that go with bolts. Currently, Gersthof where I live, is going through a massive tram line maintenance process. Believe it or not, and this is not very girly, I am finding it fascinating. Whenever I pass the works with my camera, I take the time gathering some photographs.  

I have been experimenting with some rather arty shots, “gathering” these arty ones of nuts with their bolts. Not something that would be usually classed as beautiful, I found these ones strangely attractive in their collected form. All thrown together in a box, waiting to be used or recycled back into the track work, where they would then perform their designated function. 

Raindrops Keep Fallin’...

 
 
 
 
 
"Let the rain kiss you. 

Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. 
Let the rain sing you a lullaby."

Langston Hughes 

Frédéric Chopin - "Raindrop" Prelude, Op 28, No. 15

My last trip to the Alps gave me spring and April showers. I decided then that I should start pushing my camera to the max and improve my photography skills. It was basically let’s see what we are both made of. Of course my PENTAX K-7 DSLR is made of metal, rubber, circuitry and glass. Me? Well, I am “made of  sugar and spice and everything nice,” because that is what little girls are made of, according to an old popular nursery rhyme, "What are little boys made of". That, of course, is another story. 

The above aside, I spent that trip photographing everything that caught my eye, and really gave the Pentax a workout, while improving on my skills. Since then I haven’t stopped. Besides the flower, insects, mountains and anything of interest that catches my eye, I also photograph raindrops. Raindrops are not simple things to photograph, (or anything small for that matter), when you don’t always have both lenses with you and you are sometimes stuck using the 55-200mm. This is the case with these wet green snaps.

Best Keep Secrets of Austria - Introducing artwalk18

"Without poets, without artists,

men would soon weary of nature's monotony."

Guillaume Apollinaire

Escape The Fate - Picture Perfect

A further tale of adventure from Austria, the land without the Kangaroos. I have recently been musing about why people choose to visit this small country. For this article, I decide to ask Google the simple little question “why do people visit Austria?” Interestingly auto select tried to convince me that I wanted Australia, the land with the Kangaroos, but I wasn't going to play that little Google game. I stumbled across 2 blog/webpages that both provided me with a list of ten and five reasons respectively:

a. The Shearing Blog:
1. Classical Music; 2. The Austrian Alps; 3. Architecture; 4. "The Sound of Music";  5.Food; 6. Drinks; 7. Weather; 8. Railways; 9. Dancing; 10. Yodelling

b.  Nomadical Sabbatical:
1. Yodelling; 2. Mountains; 3. Classical Music; 4.Architecture; 5.Food & Drink

Baby IT Was Cold Outside! The Eisheilige 2014

"It's too cold outside for angels to fly."

Ed Sheeran

Margaret Whiting & Johnny Mercer - Baby Its Cold Outside

Most years in May, with some exceptions, Austria along with most of Europe goes through an icy spell that throws us back into winter for a week. Those glorious spring days seem to take a break or disappear without so much as a protest to be replaced by rain, icy winds and extremely cold weather.  In the Alps, the days can sometimes herald the last of the winter snowfall for the year.  After that is generally becomes a downhill run into summer.  

The days are referred to at the Eisheilige (Ice Saints). The worst day is usually St. Sophia’s feast day and she is referred to as the Kalte Sophie (Cold Sophie). Despite global warming and indications of climate change during the seasons, these days religiously, (pardon the pun), arrive every year around the same time and have for centuries. Farmers generally hold off some of their labours, to ensure that any work in the fields is not wasted. The days generally are: 

St. Mamertus, Bishop of Vienna – 11. Mai

St. Pankratius, an early Christian Martyr – 12. Mai

St. Servatius, Bishop of Tongeren – 13. Mai 

St. Bonifatius, an early Christian Martyr – 14. Mai

St. Sophia, an early Christian Martyr – 15. Mai

Spring ~ Nature's Promise of Warmer Days

Strolls and Dandelions

 ANTon and BEEtrice

Humble Bumblebee

 The POLLENator

" Aerodynamically, the bumble bee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumble bee doesn't know it so it goes on flying anyway."

Mary Kay Ash

Donovan - Mellow Yellow

During my last visit home to Mauthen, located in Carinthia, Austria, I wandered around everywhere with my camera looking for inspiration. After the first couple of snaps, I became mesmerised by spring. The colours, especially that one, wonderful bright colour that stood out so much more than any other. The one that nature throws at you when she is at her artistic best – YELLOW. Yellow in all it various shades, from mellow yellow* through to bright golden yellow.

The colour is such a promise of the warmer golden days to come. From bulbs to bushes to flower to wildflowers, beguling the human eye and encouraging insects, especially the bees, to enjoy their first meal of the season, as well as kick starting their working year. I realised I had a theme, maybe two – COLOUR and INSECTS.

Eurovision 2014: And the winner is...

Rise Like A Phoenix 
2014 Eurovision Song Contest winning number
YouTube Channel - Conchita Wurst

 Conchita Wurst - My Heart Will Go On 

YouTube Channel - Alienhomeful

" Tolerance is giving to every other human being every right that you claim for yourself."
Robert Green Ingersoll 

Conchita Wurst - Unbreakable

Austria (the country without Kangaroos). Thank you Conchita Wurst, who represent ed the country at the Eurovision Song Contest. The song, though not brilliant, was better than many of the others presented, having a message that was powerful and clear for everyone who listened to the lyrics. 

After watching the Contest program with friends last night, I had originally decided on a very different and perhaps more amusing essay to celebrate Austria’s first win since 1966. I was going to base it on a remark from one of the friend about it being a “James Bond” song. I have changed my mind since then. 

Ode of the Two-faced Monster

Ode of the Two-faced Monster

Hark! Ness perfidiously glides from the new world’s shore
That false gem behind Peter’s counterfeit gates of gold
Traverses for another not so serendipitous rendezvous.
Two-faced audaciously vain painted from top to floor
Selfish and perfidious in abandonment of kith and kin
Deaf to loyalties laments and heart’s tears hidden in mist.
In a place renowned as the old continent’s city of amour
Savouring further a succulent two-faced plan so bold
She connivingly travels to be with her Gallian paramour
Indulging again so blatantly in well planned salacious sin
With plots to lay of envisaged trysts on new world’s shore
Hidden behind convenient frequently bloomed assemblies
Ness glides on preaching of known union’s eternal evermore.

© W. Heron, 2014

"Puttin' on the Ritz" in Vienna - Street Art Stencils

Street Art - Stencils found in Gersthof - 2013

Fred Astaire - Puttin' On The Ritz

YouTube Source - fred l

A Paramount Pictures promotional photo-montage 

 "Puttin' on the Ritz" in ''Blue Skies'' (1946). 

Source: Wikipeadia

"I'm puttin'on my top hat Tyin'up my white tie Brushin'off my tails"

Irving Berlin

Fred Astaire - Top Hat, White Tie and Tails

I have become rather fascinated by the Street Art since living in Europe. In particular the form of Street Art delivered via the medium of stencils, some of which can be found in the area of Gersthof, located in Vienna, where I live. Every time I come across a stencil I haven’t seen or an improved image of one, (or a coal chutes for that matter), I just can’t help snapping them. 

Poor graffiti and Street Art does nothing for me, less than nothing when it defaces a building. Most of the stencil art in Vienna has been neatly applied to boring removable features of buildings, hydrants and telephone or electric junction boxes, that could do with a little uplift and can be easily cleaned. I do suspect the local council’s may not agree, but then again I haven’t witnessed a rush to clean any of them away, in this hyper maintained and very clean city.

In Love With Shakespeare!?! - An experience

" There, Shakespeare, on whose forehead climb
The crowns o' the world.
Oh, eyes sublime
With tears and laughter for all time"
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, A Vision of Poets 

Miranda Cosgrove - Shakespeare

Well today, 23 April 2014, has been a day filled with a gross amount of hype surrounding that great playwright and poet, William Shakespeare. Why today? If you haven’t already noticed, most scholars guesstimate that his birthdate was 23 April 1564. The basis of this is the fact that most babies of the period were christened within three days of their birth. The parish records from Strafford-upon-Avon have young Will being baptised on 26 April 1564. So “to be, or not to be” this is the date that the venerable Bard’s birthday is celebrated.

Most of us have a love/hate relationship having been first introduced to his plays as school children, forced to study various school selected plays that had to be read and analysed in great detail, causing many of us great amounts of misery. Well the tragedies at least. The comedies are debatable. I have to admit I did enjoy the comedies.

Truth

Truth

Unfaithful spinner of promotional yarns.
Given less than serendipitous chances,
Union secretly in multiplicity is broken.
Superficial perfidious sense of kinsfolk care.
Attractive made unattractively duplicitous.
Truth unbeknown, but a worthless consort.

© W. Heron, 2013