Last week us “Vienna Writers”

It is a long road being a writer.  There is no guarantee of success, and success itself is open to individual interpretation. If writing then is a journey, I guess my time with Vienna Writers makes for a pleasant one. Without the group it would be a rather lonesome experience. So thank you to everyone in Vienna Writers for your company, enthusiasm, and experience. Here’s to a big year in 2012!

Today I received a story rejec

After receiving the rejection I was sitting with my son watching a documentary on dinosaurs. We watched a comet slam into the earth and wipe out all the dinosaurs including a couple of baby T-Rex who’d just lost their mother after she got into a deadly scuffle with some heavily armored dinosaur with a big ball on its tail and a pea-sized brain. I watched this devastation and I told myself, compared to them I’ve got it good. I said this a few times and it helped.  It was kind of therapeutic. Perhaps I could be the founder of ‘Dinosaur Therapy Inc’

Seriously though, if you are going to submit prose or poetry anywhere then I recommend you check out Duotrope. Here you can explore markets and also look at statistics such as response times, acceptance ratios, and pays scales.

The other evening

• The Immaterial World (realms 31 to 28): No bodies. Entirely mind. Tricky realms to enter.
•  The Fine Material World (realms 27 to 12): Extremely refined bodies of pure light.  Extremely refined degrees of mental pleasure

(The above realms are considered the heavenly abodes)

• The Sensuous World (realms 11 to 5 are favorable; realms 4 to 1 are deprived): Dominated by the five senses. Humans are in there in realm 5. Although we experience suffering, we are in a favorable position to develop virtue and wisdom (no pain, no gain!) and strive for Nirvana (non-existence).

Realms 4 to 1 include Demons, Hungry Ghosts, Animals, and Hell Beings. Tip: Avoid these if you can.

So there they are. No excuse for not knowing your realms now!

From a speculative fiction writer’s perspective these thirty one planes of existence might provide fertile ground for exploration. In Ian M Banks’ novel, Surface Detail, he explores virtual worlds where wars are played out (to prevent the carnage of a real war) and where Hell realms exist to punish wrongdoers. His portrayal of these hell realms with demons and fire and extreme suffering is frightening. Perhaps he took inspiration from Buddhist cosmology.

Here is a link to the Access To Insight article, The Thirty-one Planes of Existence:

The Thirty-one Planes of Existence

It explains things far better than I have here (well, they didn’t mention Ian M Banks!)

There are some years

Friends stayed over on New Years eve. We stood on the balcony and watched the fireworks bursting in the fog out in the valley. At midnight, as is the tradition here in Austria, we danced (or attempted to dance) the Vienna Waltz and wished each other a big year for 2012.

We talked about 2012 and one of our guests explained how Earth was shifting from the third dimension into the fifth dimension (thus bypassing the pesky fourth), and how there would be a corresponding shift in consciousness. We would all realise our creative potentials, reject neo-liberalist crisis economics, turn our backs on capitalism and turn to help one another and end all war. I liked the sound of it all but harbored skepticism. Still, if we all made it a new years resolution to look out for one another and engage in random acts of kindness then perhaps we might find ourselves hovering in the divine fifth dimension. By the way, here is a link to a an organization devoted to delivering random acts of kindness:

Random Acts of Kindness

Many thanks to Emilien Maienfeld for the photograph. Emilien’s photographic blogsite is on my links

This ecstatic man’s sobriety–like the deceased dictator’s list of venerable qualities–is a little suspect, but if you can get past this (he claims he wasn’t high)and would like to capture English coloquial history in the making then it might be worth watching this video and having a truly “double rainbow” experience.

Here is the link:

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/dcf83410c7/insane-double-rainbow-guy

I would like to think then, that for truly awesome experiences, in memory of Kim Jong il, the expression, “double rainbow, bright star!” may one day be used. Maybe I’ll work it into a future story.

From the warmth of his room he peered down at her. She was a ghost; he was certain. She lingered there. He waited for her to drift away or vanish. Eventually he returned to bed.

In the morning Winter’s first snow lay on the ground.

I wrote this to assist my good brother-in-law

I’m tipping it’s going to be an Audi A6.  These are good cars—stylish, plenty of power, reliable, popular with executives. I don’t mind them at all.  It’s the type of car that says, “Hey, before you get behind my wheel put on a tie and polish your shoes.  I won’t have slobs sitting on my seat!”  I wonder if Audi car sales people run checks on potential customers to make sure they’re up to par.

Anyway, whatever the car Hansi might choose, my only advice to him is do not get a black one. Why, you ask?  Here’s why:

Black cars are like black suits: They’re an extension of a puritanical outlook to life. The puritans once were on a sort of pilgrimage to self-perfection, which involved self-denial. They rejected many of the joys of life in their strive to achieve their elusive self-perfection. They mostly wore black, and didn’t approve of anything colourful or fun.  Tom Hodgkinson, in his book How To Be Free, asserts that the lonely pilgrimage of the puritan is pervasive in our secular society, manifest as the career.

Quoting, Tom: “…the Puritan tradition of money-making and self-denial, have elevated ‘career’ into the epicenter of their daily struggle.”

And I have noticed how often drivers of black cars drive too fast, are hurried and impatient (they have a meeting to get to, and they are very important), and can be very rude and inconsiderate (puritans did not approve of non-puritans).

So, I say to my good brother in law, Hansi.  There is one occasion when a black car is tolerable.  And when one rides in this big black car, one is also wearing a black suit.  It is the last suit one ever gets to wear.

This afternoon we went to the Adventmarkt in Purkersdorf.

If you come to Austria before Christmas then you’ve got to check out a Christmas market (Adventmarkt of Christkindlmarkt). They have a fairy tale feel about them.  Go easy on the mulled wine: It’s taken me a few years to learn my limits!

Here are a few interesting non-Christmas Market facts about Purkersdorf:

1. It was historically first mentioned in 1130 (Purchatesdorf)
2. Maximilian I designated Purkersdorf the forestry headquarters for the entire Vienna Woods in 1500
3. Josef Schöffel saved the Vienna Woods from rampant deforestation (ca. 1870) and became known as the savior of the Vienna Woods.  If he were alive today he’d probably the leader of the Greens.  The world needs more Josef Schöffels!
4. Josef Hoffman (one of the Viennese Secession Movement artists, and cofounder of the Wiener Werkstätte  (along with Otto Wagner) )  was the architect for the Purkersdorf Sanatorium (ca. 1903)
5. Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony—the “Pastorale” is also known as the Vienna Woods Symphony.  Inspired by his time laying about some grassy meadow deep in the Vienna Woods somewhere near Purkersdorf
6. Before the Wright brothers famous flight, there was Wilhelm Kress who took off on a small artificial lake just out of Purkersdorf, but unfortunately crashed after getting airborne for  a few seconds.  Fortunately Wilhelm  survived the crash, and although he is mostly forgotten, there is a monument erected by the lake in his honor. The monument comprises two bent wings rising out of a tall reed bed, and a goggle-eyed pelican flapping away in terror. The inscription reads: “Runway, you say? What’s that?
7. The Mayor (Burgermeister) of Purkersdorf is Karl Schlögl.  Everyone seems to like him and he appears everywhere (a little uncanny really; must write to Stephen King about this!).  He features often in the book,  “Purkersdorf, The Special Town In The Vienna Woods,” which I referred to, to write this blog.

That’s enough history for one day.  I’m tempted to write Merry Christmas here, but I’ll save that for another blog.

I admit

Here’s the link:

http://www.jamesmorrisonmusic.com/videos

Click on “I won’t let you go.”

And here’s Jimmy Barnes with his band, Cold Chisel playing a very early number, Flame Trees (1984):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILd1O44BDqc&feature=related

Es Reicht mir schon! 

In our apartment block, for example, people having been dumping all their things in a communal storage area, which is supposed to be kept in an orderly manner, with each person allocated their own storage compartment.  Our “Hausmeister”  who is obviously a talent with the pen has somehwhat succumbed to the overcast mood of autumn.  Here’s a partial translation of his notice:

To all anti-social types here in this house, who out of arrogance don’t want to consider others (very rough translation here!)

People, I’ve had a gut-full!  You cannot simply and indiscriminately fill our communal storage room with all your rubbish….I’ve had it up to here!  And on he goes.

He has a point: people can be very inconsiderate.  He goes on to rally the troupes, warning that he and his cohorts will get all the rubbish and remove it just as indiscriminately.  I was of the mind to join them.  I wanted to suggest that we’ll get all of that rubbish and pack it into a big cannon and blow it all into the sky so it rains down on the entire town and everyone will now just how “genervt” we all are!