Today is my birthday and the last day of 60pages. I wanted to post something really great and smart and funny. But nothing. For my birthday I got a cheerleader uniform  and I found my LOVE Shirt, I bought a lipstick called Antigone (hello to Mr.Steinweg) and Vienna [more]

I saw the documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly and I was thrilled and fascinated and shocked at the same time. “Men are often haunted,” Werner Herzog tells us at the beginning, “they seem to be normal, but they are not.” His documentary tells the story of such a haunted [more]

   In 1971, Edwin Lipburger built a spherical house on a meadow. The meadow was in Katzelsdorf, Wiener Neustadt in Lower Austria close to highway 4091. No planning permission existed, Mr.Lipburger defended himself that his “merely transient stabilized ball” would be a “positive constantly curved, two-dimensional space–––and therefore [more]

  In Vienna, we have this culture, which you will not find in any other European country, maybe not even in any other country in the world: Das Kaffeehaus. It is a normal coffeehouse with an interesting history and many Austrian peculiarities. The Kaffeehaus culture started in 1685, [more]

Normal filming routine, Cologne. A Glass of Water, the star of the film: Die Einsamkeit des Killers nach dem Schuss.

Four-leaf clovers, toadstools and chimney sweeps may be common good luck charms in most of Europe, but in Austria, Germany and Switzerland it’s all about the Glücksschwein, a New Year’s luck-bringing piglet made of marzipan. It is often clutching a Glückspfennig (lucky penny). In the Middle Ages, a [more]

From his Sister Marion Brasch: Das ist mein Bruder Thomas. Ich habe das Foto gemacht, als ich ihn 1993 in San Francisco besuchte. Er wollte dort für ein paar Monate wohnen, um zu schreiben. “Komm doch einfach her”, hatte er am Telefon gesagt. “Es ist schön hier.” In [more]

The Penthouse editors got thousands of applications by young women who wanted to move out and have been invited for an interview. Here are a few of the rejected candidates.

Captagon is the marketing name for Fenetylline and relatively unknown to Western consumers while it enjoys great popularity in the Middle East. In Central Europe the amphetamine first emerged in the 1980s as doping in football. It was also used for the treatment and improvement of children––those who [more]

I woke up today with a strange blue strain on the forefinger of my left hand. Last night was not wild at all. We ate, we drank and we smoked. A grown-up dinner, corresponding to my age. Nevertheless the provenance of this strain remains obscure. I feel like [more]

A few days ago it was on the news that now half of humankind was born after 1989. At first that seems terrifying. However I know a girl born in 1989, which I find quite wonderful. Her name is Jasna Fritzi Bauer. She is an actress and has [more]

More soldiers, more recruits, more heroes, more photos: October 26, the Austrian National Day at Heroes’ Square.

Since 1965, on October 26, the Austrian National Day is annually committed. The day the act of Austrian neutrality was decided in 1955. Nearly 1200 recruits from all over Austria, including three women, were sworn in on Saturday at the Heroes’ Square.

The German ‘gar’ signifies many things. In cooking it means ‘done’, used with ‘nicht’ it is a comparison. ‘Gar’ as ‘even’ or ‘maybe’ is usually used in spoken language. In the South, in Austria and Switzerland it means ‘very’ and textbooks tell you that it would say “Abtönungsartikel”. [more]

I like walking through Vienna at night. When all people, all tourists and all horses are sleeping. It has the touch of distant middle age. Not cheesy like in Woody Allen––but still cheesy. It’s like this short trip to the past. When you walk the streets you see [more]

Among penguins, dolphins, monkeys and other animals, it is considered normal when two males or two females have same-sex sex. Even insects and spiders copulate regularly among conspecifics of the same sex and this with an astonishing frequency. Up to 85% of male beetles in some species live [more]

Who shot Hanns Martin Schleyer? Over decades investigators don’t find an answer, not even with newest forensic methods. The former terrorists from the Red Army Faction keep silent. After 36 years. Hanns Martin Schleyer was kidnapped on September 5, 1977, in Cologne to free imprisoned RAF leaders like [more]

The first symptoms of losing his hearing Ludwig van Beethoven experienced when 26––at 48 he went totally deaf. Historians suggested that Beethoven was suffering from Paget’s disease of bone, but the real cause seems like a detective story: At first Beethoven tried everything to stop the progression of [more]

Episode: To Cure With Love

The fascination for Wurst is a phenomenon. I’ve never been to a city where you can find as many Wursts as here in Vienna. The most disgusting one would be ‘die Eitrige’––a bratwurst containing tiny pieces of cheese. The cheese melts while the Wurst is grilled. It’s not [more]

Rudi Gelbard is a great womanizer, he is about 70 years old and Rudi survived the concentration camp Theresienstadt. Being Jewish he was forced out of school at ten and was deported with his family at twelve. This morning he told me that his father tried to pretend [more]

How on earth can I know? How can I know that all the Hollywood movie bad boys stopped smoking? How would I know if the main female character just had a nervous breakdown? And that she is mentally unstable, if she is not lighting a cigarette with trembling [more]

and this is the answer from my friend Jasna:

After an early flight and a nice night out in Berlin with white wine, Anne and Bob, I am on my way (Thermacare belt around the hips) to the Burgtheater. Today starts a congress under the banner “Von welchem Theater träumen wir?” (Which Theater is it that we’re [more]

Today is World Dog Day. Or Day of the Dog. Dog’s Day?

For some time now I suffer from back pain. Hard ache in the lower intervertebral discs. Nothing can make the pain go away besides back muscle training (which I don’t do) and the amazing Thermacare heat belts. The belts constantly and very slowly release heat that causes pleasant [more]

In my backyard there is a chestnut tree. I like how the tree changes with the seasons coming and going. When it starts to bloom in spring with beautiful flowers and slowly growing green leaves on the branches. In its full blossom during summertime with huge marvellous green [more]

Styling and photography by Wilma Hörbiger:

Maria Theresia’s lap dog. The Empress of Austria was also the sovereign of Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia, Mantua, Milan, Lodomeria and Galicia, the Austrian Netherlands and Parma and the mother of Marie Antoinette. The dog is now on display in a show-case at Vienna’s Natural History Museum. Creepy.

Austria has many sports idols who are actually from Austria. Lots of ski racers like Franz Klammer, Karl Schranz or Toni Sailer. My father loved them. There is of course Niki Lauda, the tennis pros Horst Skoff and Thomas Muster, my father hated them. There are plenty. But [more]

I like the Arsenal. It is the place where the Burgtheater rehearses. I like the building. It’s big. It has four or five rehearsal stages in four big halls. In one hall you can make it rain if you want, but I never saw it happen. It was [more]

I lost my favourite shirt. I am pretty sure it was my favourite shirt. Indeed I know of hundreds of better and nicer shirts but this one was definitely special. It was gray, a beautiful mixture of light gray and dark gray and slightly washed out, not too [more]

This is my friend Kasa. Kasa is wearing a cheerleader uniform. Kasa is really cool––Street Cool. Anyway, we spent a Sunday afternoon together and she was wearing this uniform. Only American schoolgirls wear this, mostly in bad movies. But since that day, I also want one, quite desperately: [more]

Yesterday someone told me women shouldn’t drink beer. Such an idiot. There is nothing more elegant than a beer-drinking lady. Bavarian beer. I always drink beer; wine makes me aggressive. Beer and I belong together. I like how it tastes, looks and smells. Right out of the bottle. [more]

The result of today’s Austrian elections is somewhat shocking: The right-wing populist party, the FPÖ (Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs) is, with a total score of 22%, stronger than in the last 12 years. Now everybody else hopes that the Social Democrats of chancellor Werner Faymann––still the strongest party with [more]

[jwplayer config=”audio” mediaid=”3864″] Yes, it’s Kate Moss “singing”, which I had quite enough of when she decided to feature on a Babyshambles track not that long ago, before marrying Jamie Hince and secretly hoping she could usurp Alison Mosshart and become a full-fledged rock star in her own [more]

Frank Stronach, born Franz Strohsack, is Austria’s most extraordinary politician. In the early 1950s he left Austria with only 200 bucks. In Canada, Stronach founded a company that grew over the years into a multimillion-dollar enterprise. Now, in his 80s, Stronach doesn’t care about money anymore. He wants [more]

  Málaga has built a great new port with a lot of space for the cruise liners. Most of the huge boats head for Africa. I would love to go to Africa but not on one of these cruise ships. Africa is not far. The big fences with [more]

We don’t know what exactly happened, but it did happen. A couple of days ago we had an earthquake here in Vienna. Now I ask myself: Was it really an earthquake? In its epicentre it had an intensity of 4.8. on the Richter scale. However, nobody took notice [more]

Austria is pretty weird. You probably guessed that hearing about the scary kidnapping of Natascha Kampusch or -even worse- the years of torture Josef Fritzl put his daughters through. Writing these lines and names I just realize, “weird” is not the right term to get across the dark [more]

Yesterday after the show I was sitting in the cantina and there was this amazing director Rene Pollesch with sexy Martin Wuttke and the beautiful Birgit Minichmayer. They talked about their work and the new show, called Cavalcade or Being a Holy Motor. They are rehearsing at the [more]

Because of my job I travel a lot. Mostly by plane. And each time I sit in a plane, starring at this tiny monitor above my head––in a not really comfortable position full of neck pain––I am shocked again and again. This shock is the conclusion of not [more]

The world’s oldest amusement park is in the centre of Vienna. And with old, I mean old. It’s really old. It has opened in the 1850s. My Kids and even I love it. Remarkable is the sound when you enter the park: Loud techno music, people screaming in [more]

Mit Apoll hat der nichts zu tun, er leiht sich von ihm nur manchmal die Gene und den Wagen, in dem schon einmal jemand verstorben ist, dieser blöde Phaeton. Das war wirklich ein folgenschwerer Unfall, meinen hat ja nicht einmal mein Mann bemerkt, nur die Sonne und die [more]

Frittatensuppe is the most delicious soup you can get in Austria. It’s a crazy mixture between Brühe and Eierkuchen. The Eierkuchen (egg pancakes) is sliced in tiny pieces and is floating in the Brühe (broth). It looks like an uncomplicated and not very spectacular meal. But it’s an [more]

The Kantine. The heart of the famous Burgtheater in Vienna is the only cantina in the whole of Europe where you are allowed to smoke. Whether you are smoking or not – you have to. I quit. For one year. And started again – there. It’s ugly and [more]