595 - Junk: Everybody's Got Something To Hide



I said junk and I mean junk. I’ve had slightly better images on Friday, but I finally decided for this one, not for its aesthetic qualities (on a scale from 0 to 100 it would firmly score in the negative range), no, not for aesthetics, but because it reveals something. How so, you ask? By hiding, I say.

Vienna’s southern train station, Südbahnhof, is is (and will be for years) a big construction site. I remember four images ("448 - Down In The Hole)", “525 - Too Much Of Nothing”, “588 - SoFoBoMo - Progressing Pretty Well” and one earlier, that I’m too lazy to search for now, that have been shot at that place. I did it always on Fridays, as Friday is my traveling day from Vienna to Carinthia. I always shot them through this wire fence … and now they have hidden the site.

Suddenly.

Unexpectedly.

Oh, I know why. It’s because in two weeks Austria will be host to “Euro 2008”, the European soccer championship. It always amazes me, how well organized this crime is. All newspapers are staunchly pro, as are all television stations. This is propaganda with an efficiency every authoritarian régime of the past, Nazis included, could only have dreamed of. Sure, the Nazis had similar results, and so had the Soviets, but they had to use force. Today the propaganda system is fueled by money only.

Ask someone on Austria’s streets. People are at best indifferent, most are outright fed up with this “event of the year”. Public and publicized opinion contradict each other strongly. Why? Money.

Euro 2008 is sold as a big event that will be beneficial to the public. The saying is, that restaurants and bars will profit hugely, and that it will have a lasting effect on tourism.

Maybe. So far I see that in the so-called “Fan Zones” everything will be controlled by the biggest European brewery Carlsberg (nobody will be allowed to sell a local beer), Coca Cola and McDonalds. The usual suspects, one might say.

And now they’ve hidden the construction site on Südbahnhof. Ok, ok, I stop my rant. Things are as they are, the world won’t change because I find it disgusting, thus I could as well arrange myself with it. Uhh … yes … thank you, City of Vienna, that you spare me the view of holes in the ground and machinery, from now on I’ll happily photograph white fences. But probably you’ll spare me even that. You’ll hopefully rent the white fences to advertisers. That’s it. The only thing that’s still missing. Advertising. And if at all possible, please do it for “Euro 2008”. This city needs it. Advertising will make it a better place.

But now for something completely different.

SoFoBoMo.

Yesterday morning I was ready to give up. Not so now. I certainly won’t finish before midnight, but I have reinterpreted the rules. As long as it is May, 31 somewhere on this planet, it will be SoFoBoMo. This gives me 11 hours more time. My deadline now is tomorrow, 11 am. At that time there will be no May any more. Hmm … one could cheat and deny daylight saving time for probably another hour 🙂

Anyway, I’ve got to be back to editing now. See you tomorrow, hopefully with a book. Good Night.

The Song of the Day is “Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except Me And My Monkey” from the White Album. Hear it on YouTube.


There are 3 comments

Michael   (2008-06-01)

I just want to say thank you for showing an interest in my blog. I have been reading yours for a few weeks now, via my friend's blog. I really like the way you compose the layout of your posts, and as I kind of said the other day, it inspired me to upgrade mine. I swear I'm trying my best not to copy, but rather to come up with a similarly clever layout. 🙂

I also want to thank you for asking me such probing questions. They really got the wheels in my head turning, and I decided to post about it. You can see my answers to your questions here.

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Markus Spring   (2008-06-01)

good to see your intensive work on this lenses opportunities, what you got works for me.

What works as much for me is your rant about that "22 men and a ball" thingie. Over here people start putting flags on their cars and probably begin to rehearse the national anthem and don't see how they are balled by the big money makers. I do remember well '86 when most concerns about the Tschernobyl catastrophy became 2nd class just because of the soccer world cup. So I am feeling with you, but we are probably not many.

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Thomas   (2008-06-02)

Ah, count me in! I mean, c'mon... 22 grown-ups, running after one ball. We should simply give each of them one and be done with it.

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