Color me Bad

The artist & architect Friedrich Stowasser (1928 - 2000) changed his name to Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser which roughly translates as Peaceful Rainy day Darkly multicolored Hundred water, which is reason enough for me to take a shine to a fella. But Hundertwasser did some even niftier things in his day.


Like design this awesome apartment house in Vienna. Called, what else, Hundertwasserhaus. It's still just a regular ol' city owned apartment building, so while it may be one of the most prestigious addresses in Vienna, rent isn't much higher than any other state-owned apartment building, which I think is pretty nifty.


Hundertwasser waved his fee for the design because he said it was worth the work to "prevent something ugly from going up in its place."

View of the building from around the corner. Hundertwasser incorporated trees right into the fabric of his architecture, calling them "Tree Tenants" and saying they paid more in rent than their human occupants by cleansing the city air, attracting birds, cooling with their shade and soothing with their beauty. He also typically designed planted roofs - with soil and sod, trees & bushes - all with one eye on beauty and the other on the environment.He also liked to put onion domes on top of his buildings. Can't argue with that.

There is whimsy and playfulness everywhere you look.

And lots of ceramic and mosaic work.

(Q: Why do I always make that face in photos? A: It always seems funny at the time.)

Two classic whackadoodle Hundertwasser quotes:
"An uneven floor is a melody to the feet." and "The straight line is ungodly."

The man was full of radical ideas. The "window right," for example, in which he called for every person to have the right to change the exterior of their apartment building (even a rented one!) from their window. Whatever they could reach from the window they should be allowed to scrape, resurface, tile or paint to reflect their individual outlook to the world.

Around the corner from the Hundertwasser house is another of his buildings, this one housing an art museum (filled mostly with his work.)

Even his parking spaces were all higgeldy-piggeldy.

He's been accused of being too gimmicky in his work, but I like his playfulness, the environmental factor, his bright colors and the organic feel of his work. Hundertwasser is my favorite non-conformist at the moment. Below are a couple of his other buildings and one of his paintings that I grabbed off the internet for your viewing pleasure.

Note the planted garden roof.

Dig those colors!


-k.

Call me Hermione....

Diagon Alley it ain't, but I've finally found a place in Vienna to get all my magic supplies.
I think we will ALL sleep better tonight knowing that.

-k.

Only in Vienna

-k.

Volcanos are Dumb

A couple weeks ago we were expecting visitors Bingo & Bobbi in from Florida. Then Iceland had to go exploding its big, stupid volcano and ruining everything. Tens of thousands of flights in and out of Europe were canceled over the course of the week and by the time the sky was declared safe for flying, it was too late and our Florida peeps never made it.

This made me sad. For many reasons.

Not the least of which involved these guys. You see, B &B's first weekend here coincided with the Steiermarkdorf, or Styrian Village Festival, in which Vienna celebrates all things farmy, folksy & Austrian. There's fresh produce and wines, wandering brass bands, lots of country-fair style food, folk dancing and just general good, wholesome fun. Loads of people turn up in traditional Austrian dress, wood chopping contests are held, the sun shines, the wine flows, the apples are farm fresh and everybody feels happy and lucky to live in such a fine country.

We would sip cold, fruity white wine, marvel at seeing more lederhosen in one place than we thought possible and chow down on strudel. And we would be able to watch the red checkered shirt dudes above do the goofy-crazy-cool slap dancing like the video below. (I wasn't able to capture a good video myself and so was forced to borrow an example from youtube. But the red checkered shirt guys were awesome, trust me.)




And so Bingo and Bobbi, feast your eyes on that and we shall dream of your next volcano-free vacation plans when we'll all feel lucky to be in such a fine country. Miss you guys.

-k

Oh Poop

This may be a case of TMI for some of you, and if so I apologize in advance. If you live by the axiom "Bodily functions are never funny" I suggest you stop reading here. For those of you who have been known to occasionally giggle after letting out a little fart…read on. But be warned, this is not for the faint of heart (heehee, say that twenty times fast.)

The Hub and I have recently moved into a new apartment with a…let's just call it… interesting feature. I'm talking about a flat-bottomed toilet bowl, people. This may not sound so comment-worthy right off the bat.

Let me explain further.

The flat part is right where, umm, stuff lands. And it is above the water line. You starting to get the picture? It's like shitting on a plate. It lands with not so much of a ker-splash as a dull thud. Disconcerting, to say the least.

Maybe it's a water saving device? Or perhaps just a temporary dogleg in the (ahem) annals of toilet engineering? After all, everything else in this apartment is circa 1962, so maybe the flat-bottomed toilet was all the rage that year.

The first thing you learn when living with this idiosyncrasy is that the water in an ordinary toilet acts as an odor catcher. Maybe it doesn't do a perfect job, but trust me on this one folks, you are better off with the water barrier than you are without it. Suddenly I find myself courtesy flushing as a courtesy to my own self.

Consequently our bathroom is now equipped with several options for combating odor: candles, incense, potpourri, several choices of industrial strength air freshener and a good old-fashioned pack of matches. Sometimes the oldest and simplest techniques are the best ones, eh?

The new throne has added a previously undiscovered, low brand humor to our household. Upon exiting the WC, the husband* now remarks upon volume. Though this is nothing new, as he has been announcing volumes like a proud poppa announcing the birth of his progeny for years. (4 lbs 2 oz, 11 inches long!) The new wrinkle is the commentary on shapes. The Fire hose. A Campfire. The Perfect pretzel. I found this funny. At first. It was only when he crossed the line into ground beef products (chilli, meatballs, sloppy joes) that I began to object. I also started cooking a lot more chicken.

(*Let's assume for the purposes of this essay the "the husband" is a fictional character, as any actual husbands may experience alarming levels of mortification if comments above were to be credited to him publicly.)

Trying to look on the bright side, I can imagine there are medical benefits. How many times has a doctor asked you about the color and consistency of your, um, BM? How many times have you been stymied by the question? Almost as ashamed to admit you haven't been examining it as you would be by admitting you have. Well with the new flat bottom…you really don't have a choice. It's there. I mean THERE. Sitting on the plate-like bottom, in all its stinky glory, practically begging to be admired and commented upon. I am tempted to make us appointments with a Gastroenterologist simply because we could now furnish him with such detail and in-depth analysis he would be astounded. We might make medical history! Certainly a journal article or two?

So for better or worse, the flat-bottomed commode has made poop a daily topic of conversation for us. Well, daily, when things are running smoothly. Thank goodness we aren't faint of heart.

-k.