Goose Bump Music

langer:

My officemate Jesse overheard me watching this video just now and proffered one of those questions that doesn’t seem as obvious as it should be until it’s finally asked: how is it even possible that someone can take to the podium in the United States Congress and say something like this and not get laughed out of the chamber?

Late update: Thank you, oliviaisferosch. That explains that:

Because no one is there! I used to give tours of the Capitol and one of the best parts was seeing these people speaking to, literally, no one! No one is in the chamber generally except for those few people at the front (none of whom listen) and maybe two other reps waiting to speak for a minute about whatever they want.

They ought to take that awesome last name of hers as punishment.

More Hans Teeuwen. This piece, ‘Dwight’, is really piece of genius.

Available on the Youtube: a show in English by Holland’s greatest ‘cabaretier’ (a typically Dutch blend of stand-up and song) Hans Teeuwen.

Teeuwen was the top dog in Holland for a decade and then retired in the early 2000s, saying that there was nothing left for him to achieve in Holland.

Now after a few years, he’s resurfaced in England where he is finding out whether his comedy come across with foreign audiences. Judge for yourself. Warning: not for the faint of heart.

mynylife:

My Vienna

A Walk in the Park

Across the street from our apartment building is a park where I was often taken as a child (as was my mother, and as were my children). The first thing you come across is this Mid-century bear statue (1). I sat on that bear many a time (as did my children).

After leaving the bear, you next see this enormous bomb shelter (called “bunker” in German) (2), an everlasting remnant of WW II. There are actually two in this park, and numerous others scattered throughout Vienna. They are now being used in various ways — one is an aquarium — because, of course, there is no way to tear them down safely. They’re pretty heavy-duty.

The sight of this thing is etched very strongly among my earliest memories. There’s a playground at the base of it, and I spent many hours there as a child (not to mention as a mom).

My mom didn’t use this shelter during the war. The building in front of hers had been a post office, long ago, and because back then the post office was used for transferring cash, the basement of the building had extremely sturdy and secure walls, and was suitable to go into each day near the end of the war, when the U.S. was bombing Vienna on a daily basis.

From this angle (3), it looks like a monster in a science fiction movie, looming among those other buildings, that are just kind of standing there, minding their own business.

Like most parks, this one is ringed by some very fine, old houses. I never noticed this one as a child, not until I was much older and could appreciate such things. It’s a splendid Art Nouveau building in pristine condition (4).

Not only are the collossal things bunkers, they are also air defence units. These things were mounted with tonnes of guns to fire at Allied aircraft. Imagine the amount of stuff that was shot up that came straight down again without hitting anything. A similar bunker can still be visited in Wedding, Berlin.