Something for the weariness

Something for the weariness

I didn’t use to understand why people hated  the newspaper. Their repeated use of phrases like “the same old bull” or “great, more messiness” when confronted with the news of the day astonished and slightly annoyed me. I figured that there must be a lack of interest at the root of this aversion, a badly disguised insularity that penetrated people’s thinking like a tumor. And I took pride in the fact that I, who had previously had his awakening to the sheer infinity of interesting facts and narratives the big, wide world offered, was different. I would not close my eyes to the truth, I would not shy away from the occasional ugliness of the world, I would take up the responsibility of knowing.

Henchman's medicine

Henchman’s medicine

According to a recent article on derStandard.at, the European Union is considering a “Marshall Plan” to boost its nations’ struggling economies. The measure would raise up to 200 billion euros to be invested in infrastructure, renewable energy and “key technologies”.

This doesn’t sound bad. After years of frugality-talk and fiscal hawkishness, the possibility that governments might actually take some money and invest it in the real economy instead of flushing it down the financial market's drain feels like a fresh breeze of sanity in a crisis that has so far been dominated by political cowardice and perplexity.

If the article had ended right there, one might have been able to indulge in a small amount of optimism that seems so hard to come by these days. Unfortunately, the article goes on to describe where the money needed for this would come from. The proposal suggests that 12 billion euros be taken from the European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism in order to raise private capital on behalf of the European Investment Bank using "complicated financial instruments". If this was a farce, it couldn't have been better put.

Authors in the online world

Kaleb Nation: How to write a book

When I hear the word ‘author’ I get a somewhat old-fashioned and romantic picture in my head: Sitting in his study, a man broods over his notes, the sole light in the room coming from a half burned down candle. The room, stuffed with books from top to bottom, resembles a library. Absent-mindedly his eyes wander through the familiar space, his mind traveling to never before seen places, until finally, he starts to scribble down words. Kissed by the muse a story begins to unfold, the words flowing down onto hundreds of sheets of paper. After years of writing and never leaving his study, shutting himself away from the world, the masterpiece is finished. A novel is born. Like every artist, the author is somehow peculiar and eccentric, a mystery to other members of the human species. While trying to sell his carefully composed thoughts, he is left to live below the poverty line until he dies of an incurable disease. Only years later are his works appreciated and his wit praised, but throughout his life the writer was shunned.

Freaky Finnish Food

Mustamakkara with Lingonberry Jam

Let’s be honest, George Bernard Shaw could not have been more right when he wrote: “There is no love sincerer than the love of food.” Seriously, how can romantic love measure up to sitting in front of a table piled high with all your favorite foods? And there’s another thing about food: Some of the most pervasive stereotypes we have about other cultures are about what they eat. Think Krauts as a name for Germans. Think Fast Food as the American export. Think Wiener Schnitzel.

It seems reasonable to conclude that culture and food are in some way intertwined in the human mind. Which is why I cannot, in good conscience, withhold what I know about Finnish Food.

Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream ...

Spending a lot of time down by the river with the intention of studying for tests seems to be a good idea – doing something useful and soaking up the sun at the same time. Unfortunately, I get distracted easily and the Salzach is the perfect place for distractions. This summer seems especially crazy, with ambulances driving through town by the hour. But my favorite distraction by far is and always will be the panorama boat “Amadeus Salzburg”.

Style

When I first arrived in Salzburg in October of 2008 I was miserable. I left shorts and t-shirt weather and for the first time in 12 years was required to wear a peacoat. I remember thinking “but its only October, doesn’t it start to get cold after Thanksgiving?” I grew up watching all these Lifetime movies of girls wearing lovely fall coats, walking in fields of red and yellow fallen leaves, and there I was bundled up, misguided, never exposing more than a centimeter of skin.

The Beauty of Creative Success

When we think of artists we don’t usually think of them as successful. Instead, we imagine a half-crazy, hunger-starved artist with torn jeans and a paint-stained shirt. When someone tells you that they are an artist – a professional artist, I should add – then people normally think that an artist is poor and lives a sort of hippie lifestyle. This, however, is a misconception and evidence of cultural prejudice. All the great thinkers in history were also great creatives: just think of Einstein, Edison, Steve Jobs - you name it. Anyone who ever invented something amazing or solved a pressing problem was a creative thinker and therefore in one way or another an artist. Society needs creative people. But what is it that sets the successful ones apart from the not so successful ones?