Babies and Catacombs: VIENNA (Thoughts from Places)

2010-11-24 · letter vlog · John · 3:16 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Personal life (also: History & curiosities) · mode: Personal update · tags: recurring series, on location

John's comic tour of Vienna (babies everywhere, a pigeon, a confiscated camcorder) ends in St. Stephen's Cathedral's catacombs, where the city buried its dead for 400 years, leading him to ask how we best honor the dead and what we owe them.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Greeting; jet-lagged morning in Munich, the S-Bahn, the flight to Vienna, grey skies

• ★★ John wakes jet-lagged in Munich around 8 a.m., takes the S-Bahn to the airport and flies to Vienna, which rivals Munich for the world's grayest sky. — 00:00:00

00:00:32 — Walking Vienna: pedestrian streets, babies everywhere, missing Henry, a pigeon, Goethe, the king of the birds, Mozart, the green pressure pad

• ★★ John says Vienna, new to him, is great for first-time visitors because it is very dense and has huge pedestrian-only streets. — 00:00:32
• ★★ John says Vienna is packed with babies, which he insists are not cherubs, and that they made him miss Henry. (playful) — 00:00:32 · Henry Green
• ★ Walking Vienna, John lists what he saw: Goethe, a two-headed eagle, narcissistic graffiti, Mozart, more babies and space invaders opposed to homophobia. (playful) — 00:01:00

00:01:29 — The William Kentridge show at the Albertina; camcorder confiscated by security

• ★★ At the Albertina, John's camcorder was confiscated by security when he tried to film the William Kentridge show for Hank; he got it back. — 00:01:29
• ★★ John calls William Kentridge one of his favorite artists and says the Albertina show was so good he wanted to show Hank. — 00:01:29

00:01:53 — St. Stephen's Cathedral: catacombs, Habsburg urns, the square above, 11,000 buried, bone rooms, 400 years of burials ended in 1783

• ★★ John says urns in St. Stephen's catacombs hold the pickled innards of various Habsburgs, including Franz Joseph I. — 00:01:53
• ★★★ John says more than 11,000 people are buried beneath St. Stephen's square, and when the catacombs filled, prisoners stacked the bones to free up space. — 00:02:23
• ★★★ John says Vienna buried its dead in the catacombs for 400 years but stopped in 1783 because the stench kept people from going to church. — 00:02:23

00:02:52 — How do we best honor the dead, and what do we owe them? Sign-off

• ★★★ John says hearing this made him think about how the dead haunt us, and asks how we best honor them: near our sacred spaces, or by marveling at what they made for us? (unsure) — 00:02:52
• ★★★ Saying it is not a rhetorical question, John wonders what, if anything, we owe the dead. (unsure) — 00:02:52

In the description and comments

• ★ The description says several jokes reference two episodes of The Show with Ze Frank, and the green pad joke references a previous vlogbrothers video. — video description

Humor (significant)

• John wakes up in Munich feeling pretty jet-lagged. — 00:00:00

  “Even my yawns have yawns.”

• John notices that Vienna is packed with babies and points them out one by one. — 00:00:32

  “Baby, baby, baby, baby, rotating Mozart head, baby, baby.”

• Pigeons get distressingly close, and one craps on John's coat. — 00:01:00

  “because I am smart, I wiped it off with my hand.”

• John's camcorder is confiscated by security at the Albertina's Kentridge show. — 00:01:29

  “The next 40 minutes of my footage is just this.”

Threads in this video

• update · John's week in Europe for events in Amsterdam and Vienna (November 2010) — John tells his day travelling from Munich to Vienna and exploring the city, the Albertina and St. Stephen's catacombs. (00:00:00)
• first use · John's 'Vienna is packed with babies' bit (2010) — John's title gag: Vienna is packed with babies (not cherubs), which he points out one by one. (00:00:32)
• asked · John asks how we best honor the dead and what we owe them (2010) — John asks how we best honor the dead and what, if anything, we owe them, saying it is not a rhetorical question. (00:02:52)

Where the stories that moved here went next

• John asks how we best honor the dead and what we owe them (2010) — reported back; last: result reported, 2011-05-27

Mentioned

Central: St. Stephen's Cathedral · Vienna

Also: People: Franz Joseph I · Henry Green · Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · William Kentridge · Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Organizations: Albertina · Munich S-Bahn

Groups: House of Habsburg

Places: Munich

Only in the description or credits: Austria · The Show with Ze Frank · Thoughts from Places · Ze Frank

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