Coffee & Culture

When you are walking through the oldest part of Berlin, Friedrichswerder, which was built at the end of the 17th century, you might need a rest from looking at the (still to be rebuilt) Stadtschloss, the Berlin Mint or the Bauakademie.
Can you imagine that - when you only want a cup of coffee - you have to pass a security control first? 'Put your jacket and the handbag into the basin, please', says the friendly security guard of the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin, then you walk through the scanner.
Yes - EVERYBODY has entry to the Atrium of the former Reichsbank. A fine Light Court with a historical panorama view through 30 x 20 metres glass wall - kept by a wire rope anchorage construction. Beautiful: the glass ribbons of the American artist James Carpenter, which change colour by light. The Old (1934) and the New Building (1999) of the Federal Foreign Office are impressing (you can see it as a whole only on a special visitor's day). The Old Building served as the Reichsbank from 1934 to 1938. In 1959 the Socialist Unity Party of the GDR chose it at their headquarters. The New Building was designed by the architects Thomas Müller and Ivan Reimann - with a stunning transparent facade of glass and travertine stone, three inner courts (sorry, you can only visit the first - and its 'garden' with citrus trees, mimosa and jasmine is very easy to take in).
Inside the Atrium at the left you find the Coffee Shop. While you drink your coffee you can look at the Friedrichwerder Church (built 1824 - 1830 under Karl Friedrich Schinkel) or the Bauakademie (from 1905 - they are restaurating it - you see only a Potemkin facade):

Even if you are not that interested in the building: the coffee is worth it!
("We use real milk with 3,5 % fat for the foam, not that thin UHT milk", the barista proudly tells me).  You can try this at home.




 

"Blackbird singing in the dead of night"

Looking a bit tired at the moment? 
Some of the culprits for what is commonly called 'springtime lethargy' might be our feathered friends: at 4:18 dear robin starts its song, followed at 4:28 by the blackbird, at 4:33 the wren adds its lovely tunes, 4:38 the great tit joins in, then at 4:58 the chiffchaff, and 5:04 the trillions of sparrows we have in Berlin, (and what they chirp I don't call song). 
Our sociocritical poet Bertolt Brecht, "poor B.B.", expressed it in his inimitable unfriendly way: 
"By morning in the grey dawn the firs piss, and their vermins, the birds, start to scream..."  
Old sourpuss - I prefer those noisy concerts to Rachel Carson's Silent Spring!  
Talking of birds: yesterday a biologist might have described the look that husband and I exchanged in the underground with the reaction of male sparrows when they have to listen to the songs of their competitors:  tartish. Our amygdala was tortured by two women (each with a child) who discussed the interesting details of a friend - "and then he said..." "and I said: What???" 
They sat far apart, so they had to shout very loudly - which didn't disturb them a jota, but the rest of the compartment looked pained (except those lucky ones with headphones on).  
Did you know that sparrows or blackbirds that live in cities trill their songs much louder than their country relatives? Most people think that they thus try to outdo the noise of cities - but Danish biologists found out that city architecture matters too: high houses reflect sounds in a different way, so they calculate the echo of buildings. And weather is important: the more it changes between damp and dry the more complex the sound sequence. They say. In Maryland researchers listened over thirty years to the songs of sparrows (oh my God - what a (wild)life!) and found out that only the melody in the beginning of their songs remained the same over time - the middle part changed drastically, the trill at the end became shorter and shorter by time.  
The sparrow-girls throw their little hearts to the boys with the most variations - 
"O fortune, fortune! all men call thee fickle" (Juliet in Capulet's orchard). 

"Spring lets 'his' blue ribbon..."

I can't believe it - this photo was taken by a friend of mine in the Botanical Garden in Berlin - exactly two weeks ago!! 
You see: there I am still wearing a thick coat (Alpaka - for those who might be on the way to catch their spray cans to protest against fur!) - and the huge model of a magnolia is artistically made from paper. 

Now another artist - Spring himself -  is at work. It's Real Life now, flowery scents lure and awake the senses, cool silken petals from blossoms touch gently the skin, sunbeams tease, off with that coat, no need to hold back - no glass pane between me and Life - 
you're welcome.  

Here my rough translation of Eduard Mörike's famous spring poem, written in 1892 (in German, "spring" is male)  

It Is Spring 
                                                                  
Spring lets his blue ribbon 
Flutter through the air again, 
Sweet, well-remembered scents 
Touch light and hazily the ground. 
Already sweet violets are dreaming, 
Soon they will come.  
Listen - from far away the faint sound of a harp! 
Spring - yes, it is you! 
I hear you coming. 

The Weeding Cultivator - Quote from E.F.Benson's "Queen Lucia"

"A yew hedge, bought entire from a neighboring farm, and transplanted with solid lumps of earth and indignant snails around its roots, separated the small oblong of garden from the road, and cast monstrous shadows of the shapes into which it was cut, across the little lawn inside. Here, as was only right and proper, there was not a flower to be found save such as were mentioned in the plays of Shakespeare; indeed it was called Shakespeare's garden, and the bed that ran below the windows of the dining room was Ophelia's border, for it consisted solely of those flowers which that distraught maiden distributed to her friends when she should have been in a lunatic asylum. Mrs. Lucas often reflected how lucky it was that such institutions were unknown in Elizabeth's day, or that if known, Shakespeare artistically ignored their existence. Pansies, naturally, formed the chief decoration - though there were some very flourishing plants of rue. Mrs Lucas always wore a little bunch of them when in flower, to inspire her thoughts, and found them wonderfully efficacious. Round the sundial, which was set in the middle of one of the squares of grass between which a path of broken paving stone led to the front door, was a circular border, now, in July, sadly vacant, for it harbored only the spring flowers enumerated by Perdita. But the first day every year when Perdita's border put forth its earliest blossom was a delicious anniversary, and the news of it spread like wildfire through Mrs. Lucas' kingdom, and her subjects were very joyful, and came to salute the violet or daffodil, or whatever it was."

Don't, Mr. Disraeli!

Thursday and Friday I made a trip to Hildesheim for cultural reasons. 
Husband exploited the situation to force beg me to look through some of the chests with clothes I hadn't (but might!) worn for years some time. 
Now, that most of the thousands of husband's books (no exaggeration!) are brought to a special very big room in the attic, I was asked to sort my books out, too. To our Berlin flat, husband and I brought only a small part of books from Hildesheim. 
But even that is too much. Soon, when you'll visit in Berlin an Oxfam Bookshop you might be surprised of the rows and rows of well assorted English literature. Some in leather and gold, some just Penguins. Most of them in very tiny print - and almost every one of them read by me. But it has come the time that I know (and admit ) that I will not read them again. Good bye, "Pamela - Or Virtue Rewarded" - thank you Mr. Richardson, I think I have been the only student at the University of Mainz who read all four of those very big tomes - and enjoyed it! - but I think I don't have time enough to repeat that. 
I'll keep the books I read again and again, but: Good bye, Mr. Trollope (except Barchester Tower), and to most of Mr. Thackeray - ("The History of Henry Esmond", which I translated for a German publisher I will keep, though I will not read that again either). 'Beowulf' I will keep, and Mr. Jonson, and I love 'Tristram Shandy', but I give away Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress' - though I keep "Mrs. Fytton's Country Life" by Mavis Cheek, hahaha, even if you cry "Don't, Mr. Disraeli!"  
See: now I follow only my own enigmatic judgement, no need to impress anybody, and I do as I please. 

PS: I did what you should NEVER do when trying to get rid of books - I thumbed through Pamela - my William Heineman edition from 1902 has nice reproductions of 'rare contemporary drawings and with plates for the text' - and then I started to read - and ... I like it... will keep those... (but I am hell-bent not to thumb through Trollope)

The Collection Bayer

When you are in Berlin at the Potsdamer Platz, not everybody knows that you have to walk only a few steps to find the impressing museum, the Martin-Gropius-Bau. The building was erected in 1877 as an Arts and Crafts Museum. Since 1981, when the ruin had been restaurated, you can not only see exhibitions of photography and art, but also admire the building with its high atrium.  

Yesterday (they are open on Monday) I went to see the Collection Bayer (from the chemical and pharmaceutical international concern).  The paintings, normally hanging in the offices of their (important, I guess) employees are now "out of office", because the concern is celebrating its 150 years company anniversary. In 1909 Carl Duisberg asked Max Liebermann to paint a portrait of him, which was the foundation. At first the concern bought paintings to educate their employees - now they own over 2000 works of art.  
It is the first time that 240 of their works of art are presented to the public. And the names of the artists are exquisite: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Max Pechstein, Emil Nolde,Max Beckmann, Lyonel Feininger, Georges Braques, Pablo Picasso, Joan Mirós, Gerhard Richter, Sam Francis, Andy Warhol - to name a few. 
The exhibition is divided into four parts: German Expressionism, École Paris, After-War-and Informal Art, and American modern art.  I liked a drawing of David Hockney, "Rapunzel" very much, and of course Emil Nolde's paintings. As  nobody is allowed to photograph, you have to put up with the poster, sorry.  

Solved: The Riddle of a Literary Garden Quote

Fancy an educated guess who wrote this in 1892? 


April 14. Spent the whole of the afternoon in the garden, having this morning picked up at a bookstall for fivepence a capital little book, in good condition, on Gardening. I procured and sowed some half-hardy annuals in what I fancy will be a warm, sunny border. I thought of a joke, and called out Carrie. Carrie came out rather testy, I thought. I said: 'I have just discovered I have a lodging-house.' She replied: 'How do you mean?' I said: 'Look at the boarders.' Carrie said: 'Is that all you wanted me for?' I said: 'Any other time you would have laughed at my little pleasantry.' Carrie said: 'Certainly - at any other time, but not when I'm busy in the house.' 
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