ritas kleine welt

birgit and i went for a walk through berlin on friday afternoon in order to secure some tickets for the world premiere of the restored metropolis. (we were short of ten people in front of us when the box office closed. dang!) on our way to the friedrichstadtpalast, we crossed one of the many bridges across the river spree. this is what we saw...

buster keaton: not your stereotypical kind of classically handsome man. but, damn!, there was an aura about him that just makes you weep into your morning coffee. certainly not handsome -- but beautiful!!!

observing the mid-winter growth of my potplants, i was delighted to see that the hibiscus is in bloom again. which never happened before during this time of year simply because our flat is a bit colder than average. so i'm rather delighted that the plant surprised me with an open blossom this morning.

edit: and thus, silliness ensued...

shoetossing doesn't stop. not for the die-hards. not even in winter. not in adverse conditions, like snow. so here's the latest sighting of shoefiti in leipzig.

sorry for the lack of colour. it's winter, as i would like to have you know.

here's a lovely toy to play around with on rainy or snowy days. (in other words: it's perfect for the next week or two!) it's a virtual polaroid camera tool invented by the crafty devils over at the Poladroid project site. it's a fun little gadget to pimp your holiday pictures that need just a little touch of off-colour.

five days away from christmas, in christian parley on the fourth sunday in advent, i thought i should finally get into the spirit of the season and make a day of it. so in the order of appearance, here's what i did today.

a couple of days ago, the fabulous eldivinomarques over from LJ and i got talking about vintage photography and how it looks very much different from what is being produced today. for starters, changing the paper on which the prints themselves are/were produced already is largely responsible for that. of course the old papers were incredible instable with their silver coating and the pictures fade over the years because of that. but the silver also brought out a wonderful translucient quality in the images. something that has been lost ever since.

monday just after i had finished teaching the second round of shakespeare's lusty world of sonnets, i was on my way to berlin to celebrate 20 years of the opening of the iron curtain together with birgit and christoph. at first it was wet. and then there were lots of people. and then we had a hunch that the people in front of their tellies saw much much much more and also heard what was being said. but still it was great fun! it's not every day that a nation gets to celebrate its freedom and invite the whole world to the party.

and then, shortly after midnight, christoph found himself in the arms of two obliging ladies who wished him a happy birthday.

before you continue with the content behind the cut, please, take the time to re-watch the original broadcast of the tagesschau with a very happy anchorman announcing the opening of the east-german borders.

walking home from the leuschnerplatz after midnight last friday, the official lichtfest was already over and the nearly 100,000 leipziger had already gone home to sleep. the city was empty and quiet again. but unlike twenty years ago this was not a quietness of dread, but of calm and peace. there's a unique spirit in this city which you can encounter every day. it's got nothing to do with being showy or over the top. it's being content with what's here and taking pride in what has been achieved. it's a marvelous little place.

on 9 october, 1989, the prayers for peace began in the nikolaikirche in leipzig. thousands of leipzigers had begun gathering each monday to pray for a peaceful solution to the bubbling conflicts in what was to become the final year of the GDR. for his level-headed guidance and the repeated call for, 'keine gewalt!' (no violence!), the reverend christian führer was later awarded the augsburger peace prize. yesterday, twenty years after the first monday prayers, he repeated the reading of the sermon on the mount. guests of honour were the german president, horst köhler, saxony's prime minister, stanislaw tillich, leipzig's mayor, burkhard jung. but no one received a greater cheer of welcome than germany's former foreign minister, hans-dietrich genscher. the people of leipzig welcomed him with standing ovations.

following the shapes of autumn, here are the colours that go along with them. please keep in mind that these pictures were taken with a hand-held camera whilst creeping and crawling through the underbrush in one of the largest, uninterrupted woods in germany. there was just no way i would have managed to log a tripod through these woods. except for hurling it at wild boars, it wouldn't have helped much anyway, as i was nearly lying on my stomach during most of these pictures.

every year, autumn goes over the top with a display of colours -- depending on the amount of sunny days during summer, of course. if you take away the colours, regardless of sunny summer or not, what remains are the shapes.