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badgerbagI have wheeled over 51234123 cobblestones, bought a hat with a fox fur pom pom, been turned away from lippizaners and the museum of rooms of the empire (or whatever it was... with the silver) and the armor and weapons museum and some other Ephesus museum. I am now settled cosily into the Griensteidl cafe next to Michaelerplatz.
I did get into the papyrus museum. There was a big slope with a wheelchair sign and an arrow pointing up to the entrance and I was ready to go anywhere that was not full of snow. But, at the top of the slope (ha! ha! ha! ha!) was a 20 foot high iron and wood door with an intercom button. "I would like to see the museum..." "This is not a museum. There is no museum here, this is the national library," "But, it says, outside, and on the map, papyrus museum...." "Oh, yes, there is the papyrus museum." (There was also the weapons and ephesus ones.... ) 10 min later she came out and got the giant gates open with a button, then a key to a sort of lift on a rail, it was a good adventure....Then at the top, 3 people conferred about what could happen. "It is a very small museum. There is not really much there. You might like the (some name of an art museum)" "You want to see the papyrus museum???" "Is it snowing inside the papryus museum?" "No?" "Then I would like to see it" "But, it is 3 euros" OKAY THEN.... "You have to, have a paper for it, a ticket?" "Yes..." *pause* "It's ... it's a museum, right? You buy a ticket and go in, and look at things? " "yes, it is a museum" *pause* *blank stares all around*
I am sorry... am only a tourist... very humble.... can only say "Bitte, Helfen mit die fahrstuhl" and "Danke schon".
I wandered across the foyer to look at brochures as they tried to figure out what to do.
Thanks to the nice lady who finally came out as the other people dithered impossibly. She sold me a ticket and took me through the back rooms of the library (which I very much enjoyed) and a freight elevator and some basement corridors and storage rooms past the high security papyrus storage safes and old card catalogue cabinets, into the Papyrus Museum. I love the smell of old book dust. It was so homey.
I saw some papyri of Xenophon and Homer and a long long scroll with osiris's court and many tax records and charms against scorpion bites, labels for medicine bottles, and a lot of very cool textile exhibits on spinning and weaving. I could read the German enough to get the gist of things. Some cases had english translations. Samples of silk, flax, and wool were out for the feeling and each textile exhibit had photos very very close up of the amazing threads and how they were interwoven, sometimes with diagrams. I learned about tunics and the parts of a tunic which I can't remember but which involve a squared off woven trim at the neckline, some lines down the front with orbs at the bottom (with a name something like "orbicum") and other trim with specific names and styles. I wished I could read the german signs better as they were particularly good for the textiles cases.
Trigger Warning for The Museum of Colonialism and Genocide and Yet, Cool Things from Brazil and some interesting links.
The next museum that I could get into (with much difficulty and fuss again) had a very good exhibit of Brazilian things from expeditions of Johann Natterer and Emanuel Pohl. Pohl noted that he completely understands why people were hostile to him and his expedition and that it makes total sense for them to shoot him given that Christians were killing them and looting everything. So for a minute I thought, gee Pohl sounds like a decent sort but then I read his Wikipedia entry and saw that among the objects he brought back from Brazil were two people of the Botocudo or Nac-nanuk or Aimores, or today, the Krenak. I could not tell how consensual their journey was. ( I was glad that (unlike in the UK) there were no skulls. But I bet ... i just bet they have some in the basement. )
The museum did not say this but the Portuguese invaders brutally killed off the Nac-nanuk people as fast as they possibly could. I think Botocudo is also a derogatory term so probably not the best choice by this museum. It was also explained as far as I could understand the exhibit text that the indigenous people would rather survive than keep their culture so it is a good thing that museums have all of their stuff to keep it safe. DUDE. (it is not like anyone steals shit or bombs buildings here in vienna???) Here is a page by Shirley Krenak who is an author and the first indigenous person from Minas Gerais to get a university degree. Note to self (or anyone else) she does not yet have a Wikipedia page in English. Here is a bit more about the Krenak and genocide, with mention of Shirley Krenak: http://www.otherpossibleworlds.net/?pag
Some guy named Sochor also was on an expedition with Natterer but he died relatively early on. Natterer stayed in Brazil for 18 years and got married in Matto Grosso, then went with his wife and 3 daughters to Manaus and Belen, sending hammocks, feathered hats, baskets, spears, bows and arrows, fabric, and musical instruments back to Austria all along the way. "Hammock" in German is "hangmatte", which makes sense. Hanging mat; really, they name things well... I am going to read more later about Natterer. He has a cool thing named after him: Natterer's Slaty Antshrike.
The illustrations from Natterer's journeys were amazing and I loved seeing all the textiles and arrows and the ways that things were fastened to other things. I stared a lot at a particular axe and all the many different materials used to make it and how they were put together and the decorative motifs. "Stone axe" sounds cartoonish and crude but that is of course not true. They are beautiful and complex works of engineering. This one was particularly so.
As usual I have very mixed feelings and a sense of despair and anger as I view colonial and imperial loot in glass cases. and feel that really it does not need to be there. The museums were almost all empty anyway. There they were though and I looked at them. Now what....
Getting out of that museum was harder than getting in! I think they do not carry walkie talkies or anything but someone waits till another person comes and then sends them to wander around the entire museum until they come across the one person with the key, who could be anywhere. Everyone apologizes a lot and are very nice. But can they be really so bewildered about it? Am i the only person ever.... It cannot be! Wheelchairs.. they are like comets who come by every 70 years and want to have elevators unlocked. Or, the winter, sensibly, makes all the wheelchair users stay home, or migrate south.
I think that across the Heidlplatz i saw the profile of the top of the votivkirch (something like that) which is right next to the Palais Ephrussi which I just read all about in The Hare with the Amber Eyes (an extremely good book)
Killing time for another half hour till I wheel out into the freezing snow (i am very glad i have these thinsulate and leather gloves otherwise things would be impossible) to the hofburg conference center where i scouted earlier. there is an OSCE security booth out of crazy thick glass and revolving doors and steel. there will be a Reception and I am unclear whether there is food there but maybe so. Must muster social energy to hang out and then beg someone to get me a taxi back to the hotel as there is no way I can wheel myself around any more.
I did get into the papyrus museum. There was a big slope with a wheelchair sign and an arrow pointing up to the entrance and I was ready to go anywhere that was not full of snow. But, at the top of the slope (ha! ha! ha! ha!) was a 20 foot high iron and wood door with an intercom button. "I would like to see the museum..." "This is not a museum. There is no museum here, this is the national library," "But, it says, outside, and on the map, papyrus museum...." "Oh, yes, there is the papyrus museum." (There was also the weapons and ephesus ones.... ) 10 min later she came out and got the giant gates open with a button, then a key to a sort of lift on a rail, it was a good adventure....Then at the top, 3 people conferred about what could happen. "It is a very small museum. There is not really much there. You might like the (some name of an art museum)" "You want to see the papyrus museum???" "Is it snowing inside the papryus museum?" "No?" "Then I would like to see it" "But, it is 3 euros" OKAY THEN.... "You have to, have a paper for it, a ticket?" "Yes..." *pause* "It's ... it's a museum, right? You buy a ticket and go in, and look at things? " "yes, it is a museum" *pause* *blank stares all around*
I am sorry... am only a tourist... very humble.... can only say "Bitte, Helfen mit die fahrstuhl" and "Danke schon".
I wandered across the foyer to look at brochures as they tried to figure out what to do.
Thanks to the nice lady who finally came out as the other people dithered impossibly. She sold me a ticket and took me through the back rooms of the library (which I very much enjoyed) and a freight elevator and some basement corridors and storage rooms past the high security papyrus storage safes and old card catalogue cabinets, into the Papyrus Museum. I love the smell of old book dust. It was so homey.
I saw some papyri of Xenophon and Homer and a long long scroll with osiris's court and many tax records and charms against scorpion bites, labels for medicine bottles, and a lot of very cool textile exhibits on spinning and weaving. I could read the German enough to get the gist of things. Some cases had english translations. Samples of silk, flax, and wool were out for the feeling and each textile exhibit had photos very very close up of the amazing threads and how they were interwoven, sometimes with diagrams. I learned about tunics and the parts of a tunic which I can't remember but which involve a squared off woven trim at the neckline, some lines down the front with orbs at the bottom (with a name something like "orbicum") and other trim with specific names and styles. I wished I could read the german signs better as they were particularly good for the textiles cases.
Trigger Warning for The Museum of Colonialism and Genocide and Yet, Cool Things from Brazil and some interesting links.
The next museum that I could get into (with much difficulty and fuss again) had a very good exhibit of Brazilian things from expeditions of Johann Natterer and Emanuel Pohl. Pohl noted that he completely understands why people were hostile to him and his expedition and that it makes total sense for them to shoot him given that Christians were killing them and looting everything. So for a minute I thought, gee Pohl sounds like a decent sort but then I read his Wikipedia entry and saw that among the objects he brought back from Brazil were two people of the Botocudo or Nac-nanuk or Aimores, or today, the Krenak. I could not tell how consensual their journey was. ( I was glad that (unlike in the UK) there were no skulls. But I bet ... i just bet they have some in the basement. )
The museum did not say this but the Portuguese invaders brutally killed off the Nac-nanuk people as fast as they possibly could. I think Botocudo is also a derogatory term so probably not the best choice by this museum. It was also explained as far as I could understand the exhibit text that the indigenous people would rather survive than keep their culture so it is a good thing that museums have all of their stuff to keep it safe. DUDE. (it is not like anyone steals shit or bombs buildings here in vienna???) Here is a page by Shirley Krenak who is an author and the first indigenous person from Minas Gerais to get a university degree. Note to self (or anyone else) she does not yet have a Wikipedia page in English. Here is a bit more about the Krenak and genocide, with mention of Shirley Krenak: http://www.otherpossibleworlds.net/?pag
Some guy named Sochor also was on an expedition with Natterer but he died relatively early on. Natterer stayed in Brazil for 18 years and got married in Matto Grosso, then went with his wife and 3 daughters to Manaus and Belen, sending hammocks, feathered hats, baskets, spears, bows and arrows, fabric, and musical instruments back to Austria all along the way. "Hammock" in German is "hangmatte", which makes sense. Hanging mat; really, they name things well... I am going to read more later about Natterer. He has a cool thing named after him: Natterer's Slaty Antshrike.
The illustrations from Natterer's journeys were amazing and I loved seeing all the textiles and arrows and the ways that things were fastened to other things. I stared a lot at a particular axe and all the many different materials used to make it and how they were put together and the decorative motifs. "Stone axe" sounds cartoonish and crude but that is of course not true. They are beautiful and complex works of engineering. This one was particularly so.
As usual I have very mixed feelings and a sense of despair and anger as I view colonial and imperial loot in glass cases. and feel that really it does not need to be there. The museums were almost all empty anyway. There they were though and I looked at them. Now what....
Getting out of that museum was harder than getting in! I think they do not carry walkie talkies or anything but someone waits till another person comes and then sends them to wander around the entire museum until they come across the one person with the key, who could be anywhere. Everyone apologizes a lot and are very nice. But can they be really so bewildered about it? Am i the only person ever.... It cannot be! Wheelchairs.. they are like comets who come by every 70 years and want to have elevators unlocked. Or, the winter, sensibly, makes all the wheelchair users stay home, or migrate south.
I think that across the Heidlplatz i saw the profile of the top of the votivkirch (something like that) which is right next to the Palais Ephrussi which I just read all about in The Hare with the Amber Eyes (an extremely good book)
Killing time for another half hour till I wheel out into the freezing snow (i am very glad i have these thinsulate and leather gloves otherwise things would be impossible) to the hofburg conference center where i scouted earlier. there is an OSCE security booth out of crazy thick glass and revolving doors and steel. there will be a Reception and I am unclear whether there is food there but maybe so. Must muster social energy to hang out and then beg someone to get me a taxi back to the hotel as there is no way I can wheel myself around any more.
no subject
Date: 2013-02-13 06:57 pm (UTC)When I visited my aged uncle a couple of years ago (southern Germany, so not quite the same), we went to a natural history museum at my behest. His hip gave out near the end and I had yearling baby in a lightweight stroller, so he inquired and they let us out via the freight elevator on a stair-free route. For that museum, it's stair-free only for deliveries--they don't expect wheelchair users (or people with faulty hips?) to visit. Your sense of a comet is probably spot on, sadly.
no subject
Date: 2013-02-13 11:16 pm (UTC)Oh god, the ethnology museum Yeah, I remember that being disturbing.
Are you pretty booked for the rest of the trip or are you looking for more accessible museums? I am disappointed to see that the Secession with Klimt's Beethoven Frieze (also with what the locals describe as a giant golden cabbage atop the museum) is only partially accessible. Sigh.
no subject
Date: 2013-02-14 03:51 am (UTC)I find that door-openers and misplaced library experts give me that "a wheelchair? whatever for?" look no matter where I show up, even nominally ADA-bound US.
no subject
Date: 2013-02-14 05:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-14 11:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-14 07:14 pm (UTC)No matter how beautiful or impressive these works of architecture may be they are built on the backs of African and Native American slavery -- and even the poorest of the European poor forced to emigrate there.
I'm not saying you're not allowed to admire (though I personally dislike that style immensely on aesthetic grounds as well as moral grounds) -- but please acknowledge how the wealth that built them and the wealth that decorated them came into Europe in the first place.
Love, C.
no subject
Date: 2013-02-14 10:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-16 02:29 am (UTC)