IN PROGRESS

On a glorious, warm morning in July nearly three years ago, shortly after 5.00, I was walking towards the hospital Vivantes am Urban for a bilateral mastectomy (after having been diagnosed with breast cancer when a total of three malignant tumours had been found the month before), when a fox suddenly appeared right in front of me. (I had probably been too busy practising long, deep, anti-panic breathing to see him coming).

We both froze and stared into each other’s eyes for what seemed like minutes, but was more likely seconds.

I remember thinking that had I believed in omens, I would be wondering whether this was a bad or a good one. (As it turned out, I could not have wished for a better outcome of an inevitable surgery).

I often thought about the moment in the time afterwards, marvelling at Berlin’s inner-city wildlife. I also decided that if I got back into photography mode, I would seek more such encounters and try to document them.

Since then, I have been photographing wildlife, mostly birds, in more natural settings and in cemeteries, but not in the streets, until one early morning recently I startled, and was startled by, two kestrels in E.T.A. Hoffmann Promenade, a small alley leading from Lindenstraße, opposite Jewish Museum, to Friedrichstraße just north of Mehringplatz.

I was out looking for photographs for something entirely different for a photography course assignment, so my camera was locked and loaded, though not for bird photography, and I managed this bad photo of one of them:

On a Saturday in July, depending on RSVPs

IN PROGRESS

Not my kind of town, but currently hosting two exhibitions which I would like to visit:

(Thursday 19 or Thursday 26)

In Albertinum: Wolfgang Tillmans: Weltraum.

In Robotron-Kantine: Ostrale Biennale

1. The last of three photo walks as part of a VHS course led by Johannes Rigal – Berlin’s best photography teacher if you ask me :-).

2. A bird photography workshop on Tempelhofer Feld as part of “Langer Tag der Stadtnatur”.

3. A Sunday boat tour with Derk Ehlert, by one newspaper called “Berlins Wildtier Gott”, also part of “Langer Tag der Stadtnatur”.

Visit to the exhibition “Arktis” at Technival University:

Visit to Luckenwalde and Jüterbog 7 June:

We wanted to visit E-werk to see the video Love Is the Message, The Message Is Death, by Arthur Jafa (we, or at least I, actually thought there was an entire exhibition around it, but there was not, so the venue was more intersting).

With Luckenwalde itself cordoned off by some kind of village feast, there was nothing much else to do than to proceed to Jüterbog, on my list of places to visit, so we took a bus, during quite a heavy rainfall, to what turned out to be a quaint old town centre witha well-preserved city wall and lots of towers and gates which I will return to photograph later when it is not raining. Maybe. Very dull town despite the fact that this was a Saturday.

First and last photo are smartphone snaps.

Visit to Dessau to look at Bauhaus landmarks 10 June

A list of Bauhaus buildings in Dessau can be found here.

Thunderstorms were looming, so I did not make it to the Törten Housing Estate in the south, nor to the Kornhouse restaurant in the north. Nor did I go into the Bauhaus Museum (HUGE!), so there is enough for another visit (and I have not even mentioned the TIerpark ….

I got the first notable building I saw after coming off the train confused with the “historical job center” (designed by Walter Gropius, last Bauhaus photo in this post), and later realised it is not Bauhaus (but perhaps Bauhaus-inspired? and I still like it:

Next up was Bauhaus. I was happy to see they have joined the 21st century and ditched the stupid lawnmowers and awful, unsustainable lawns:

The Masters’ Houses:

And finally, the – HUGE – Bauhaus Museum, and the historical job centre:

More impressions from Dessau:

On 11 June – the rise of the strawberry moon:

The last in the “shake-up” class provided by Strudelmedia – this time around.

In case anyone wonders what this is about – ask me.

About 35 minutes by regional train from Südkreuz. The weather took at turn from sunny to drizzling while I was on the way and there was nothing much to see and do there, so after a quick walk through the Altstadt (and a really good cup of coffee in this café right next to relatively picturesque Marktturm: Pelikan Café, I walked to Zoo Luckenwalde and took a couple of animal portraits, mostly black and white, but one in colour, for obvious reasons (I really like the colour orange).

Depressingly,  misogyny is more and more rampant, even – or especially – among young people. In this, the 21st century, a lot of men are worse than cave-dwellers.

I heard a story (true, alledgedly and unbelievably) the other day that illustrates it.

Someone (who I suspect is a bit of a misogynist himself, judging by the tone in which he speaks to women but never to men – overbearing,  occasionally shouting) was talking about genealogy and the DNA technology, and a friend of his, or a friend of a friend, had found out that the father he had always thought of as his father was not his biological father.

Having found out the name of my father’s biological father through generalogy and DNA tests myself, I am finding it amusing with all the skeletons falling out of the closets the world over with this software and the relatively new technology, but my heart goes out to women who not even a century ago were stigmatised due to their “illegitimate” children. A horrible concept which I did not think existed any longer,  especially not in the minds of more recent generations.

Turns out I was wrong. Back to the story.

The grandchildren of the woman in the story were “not pleased” (oh dear …. I’m guessing they are male) – because up till then “they had idolised their grandmother”. (Indicating that now she had fallen from grace, due to having had a child without being married to the father of said child, a couple of generations ago).

The notion that THEY feel entitled to judge HER at this day and age is disappointing to put it mildly, and I am almost hoping that she is no longer alive to see history repeating itself through immature, bigoted descendants who really ought to have evolved, but clearly have not.

With family like that, who needs enemies?

I could not believe my own ears.

So not only was she stigmatised and shamed at the time, and suffered the indignity of the father of the child running off and away from his responsibilities (but that was considered OK, and still is) – and if the case was anything like so many other similar cases back then, her parents would have made it abundantly clear how mortally ashamed they were of her (the man’s parents, on the other hand, were not ashamed of him but rather felt mildly inconvenienced – in fact, people probably empathized with him for having been “lured” into such an unpleasant situation – oh, boohoo), and forced her to marry a man she might not have wanted to marry had it not been for her scandalous “illegitimate child”.

Not only that but now she is judged and shamed by her immature, judgemental, “holier-than-though” grandchildren – in the 21st century.

In the case of my grandmother, I suspect she found out that she did not like the father of her “illegitimate child” (my father). From what I have heard about him and his later biological children, that would certainly make sense, and I am grateful that my father only inherited is good sides.

Perhaps that was also the case in the original story here – he was just not a desirable life partner – and these descendants take after him.

Especially their home-made “Crispy Chili Oil):

From Tagesspiegel newsletter this morning:

“Essen & Trinken – Für Unentschlossene gibt es in dem neuen, kleinen Imbiss „Dirty Dumplings” in Kreuzberg den „Dirty Mix” (11,90 Euro). Da bekommt man sechs Stück der filigranen, aus dünnem Teig gefalteten und in Bambuskörben gedämpften Taschen. Gefüllt sind sie in drei Varianten: einmal gebratene Shiitake-Pilze und Tofu, einmal mit Shrimps und Kimchi sowie mit Halal-Rindfleisch und Knochenbrühe. Empfehlung für alle, die sich nicht vegetarisch ernähren: Die unfassbar saftigen Dumplings mit Rindfleisch sind ein feistes Vergnügen. Vor allem in Kombination mit dem wunderbaren Crispy Chili Öl, das sie hier selbst machen und mit einer schönen Röst- und Sternanis-Note das kleine Imbissglück komplett macht. Das hausgemachte Kimchi ist auch absolut sein Geld wert. Mo-So 12-21 Uhr, Ohlauer Straße 38, U-Bhf Schönleinstraße”