Notes from the Basement

While striking various poses around his apartment Haindl addresses an imaginary public his speeches ranging from defiant to contrite Each one shows a different side of his personality from political grumbler to poet in a slouch hat His monologues deal with the usual prejudices such as those against women and foreigners and none of them can be reduced to a single coherent point of view Commonplaces are qualified with contradictions and selfirony and his tirades occasionally swerve in the direction of serious analysis The state of pandemonium which characterizes the Austrian soul is depicted as a labyrinth of rhetoric Dominik Kamalzadeh