All posts by Helle Møller
Exhibitions to visit
Purely as a reminder to myself, since Microsoft Word no longer synchronises documents edited on several different devices.
| From | Till | Name | Address and/or comments | Opening hours |
| APRIL | Many EMOP exhibitions continue | |||
| Kesselhaus Bamberg | Trip to Bamberg and Nürnberg end April | |||
| MAY | Many EMOP exhibitions continue | |||
| 01.03. | 03.05. | Chaussee 36 | ||
| 03.05. | 25.07. | Wim Wenders @ Gallery Bastian | ||
| 04.05. | n.b.k. (Neuer Berliner Kunstverein) Chausseestr. 128/ 129, Mitte, Di–So 12–18 Uhr, Do 12–20 Uhr, www.nbk.org, bis 4.5., Finissage-Wochenende Fr, 3.5., 20 Uhr, Sa 4.5., 14-16 Uhr | |||
| 04.05. | Akademie d.K. Hanseatenweg | |||
| 04.05. | Alte Feuerwache (EMOP) Marchiewskistr. Fr.hain. | |||
| 02.03. | 04.05. | Galerie Koschmieder Thu+Fri 14-18 | Oranienstr. | |
| 02.05 | 04.05. | Gallery Weekend | ||
| 03.05. | 04.05. | Frühlingsrundgang Spinnerei Leipzig | Going 4 May with JC and perhaps a few more | |
| 04.05. | Access Kafka, Jewish Museum (PERHAPS – right now anything that even remotely evokes thoughts of Israel makes my skin crawl and I even feel like taking a detour in order to avoid walking straight past that place a few steps away from my home – not rational, but there it is). | |||
| 01.02. | 07.05. | C/O Berlin | Cont African Phot. | |
| 11.05. | Kunstmuseum Cottbus | |||
| 04.04. | 23.05. | Borssenanger, Chemnitz | ||
| 25.05. | Friedrichshain Photo Gallery | |||
| 16.06. | Berlinische Galerie Alte Jakobstr. 124–128, Kreuzberg, Mi–Mo 10–18 www.berlinischegalerie.de | |||
| 25.04. | 21.06. | THOMAS STRUTH @ Max Hetzler, Potsdamer Straße 77-87 | GALLERY WEEKEND | |
| 22.06. | Stiftung Volksbank Tue-Sun 10.00-18.00 | |||
| 29.06. | Wolfgang Tillmans in Albertinum Dresden | |||
| 19.07. | Galerie Springer | |||
| 03.05. | 25.07. | Wim Wenders @ Gallery Bastian | Gallery Weekend | |
| 14.06. | 14.09. | Biennale | ||
| 10.09. | 14.09. | Berlin Art Week | ||
| 13.06. | 12.10. | Surrealism Kunsthalle Hamburg | ||
| 26.09.25 | 25.01.26 | Netzwerke der Surrealismus, Neue Nationalgalerie | ||
| September 25 | January 26 | William Kentridge | Dresden and Essen | |
Opportunities to play bridge in English in Berlin in the first half of 2025
Last updated: 23 April AM. Will be changed and updated regularly.
During the weeks where for one reason or the other there is no bridge course at VHS, we can play occasionally at my place. Where nothing else is stated, we aim at arrivals from 18.15, ready to start playing at 18.30, but for those who can only come later, that is also OK. We’ll start playing as soon as enough people have arrived.
Playing privately is a good opportunity for newcomers to get an introduction to the game, to the teacher, and to the rest of us without committing to a ten-session course right away. Some very basic prior knowledge is an advantage but not a requirement.
SCROLL DOWN TO SEE LINKS TO THE COURSES STARTING IN MAY.
The occasional opportunities to play bridge privately in the weeks where VHS is closed, are marked with *** below.
***Week 18: We can play at my place on 1 May, or on new option since last update: Saturday, 3 May. If I have understood everyone correctly,
AD, QL, RC and HM are definitely available on 1 May, with FV as “maybe”, while
AC, RC, TP, HM are definitely available on 3 May, with FV and QL as “maybe”.
Conclusion: We will be playing on both 1 and 3 May.
Correct me if I am wrong, and please let me know if you are interested in playing on one of those dates, or even on both of those dates.
Week 19: New courses starting, now available for registration: Course starting Wednesday 7 May here, and course starting Friday 9 May here.
Week 19: 7 May VHS 1/10; 9 May VHS 1/10
Week 20: 14 May VHS 2/10; 16 May VHS 2/10
Week 21: 21 May VHS 3/10; 23 May VHS 3/10
Week 22: 28 May VHS 4/10; 30 May VHS closed, presumably a “bridge day”
Week 23: 4 June VHS 5/10; 6 June VHS 4/10
Week 24: 11 June VHS 6/10; 13 June VHS 5/10
Week 25: 18 June VHS 7/10; 20 June VHS 6/10
Week 26: 25 June VHS 8/10; 27 June VHS 7/10
Week 27: 2 July VHS 9/10; 4 July VHS 8/10
Week 28: 9 July VHS 10/10; 11 July VHS 9/10
Week 29: 18 July VHS 10/10
Week 30 onwards till the autumn courses start there will again be opportunities to play privately at my place. Watch this space.
The best ways to keep informed are
- ask to be placed on the teacher, Rob Crouch’s, mailing list if you are not already on it;
- keep an eye on this website post;
- check out the group on Facebook here; on nebenan here; and in the games group on InterNations here.
Birdwatching and walking early on Easter Sunday
On my way to a Volkshochschule birdwatching walk on the cemeteries at Bergmannstraße, I swung by Urbanhafen just in time to see about eight baby coots make their first plunge into the water from one of the manmade “islands” there.
Shortly after sunrise, it was cold, and half misty half sunny, and ended up as a gorgeously warm and sunny day.
On the Bergmannsttraße cemeteries, it was still a bit misty, but the sun was definitely winning.
Experimenting while looking for photos for a course assignment
IN PROGRESS
This has nothing whatsoever to do with the assignment – just something that caught my eye passing by:
Another thing I don’t understand about people in this country
They are frantic to answer their phone the SECOND it rings. Even if they are eating, or worse: playing bridge or in mid-sentence talking to somebody, they can’t bear not to respond and would not dream of ignoring it till a more opportune and less impolite moment.
But they ignore their e-mails, many often for days on end.
99,9 percent of all phone calls can wait, at the very least ten-fifteen minutes if you ask me, and if people can’t be bothered to record a voice message, or send a whatsapp or email instead, it was not important, whereas the majority of emails requires some kind of attention and response.
So is that also just part of the German IT Angst, or why are people slaves of their telephone and not of their emails?
Hamburg and Bremerhaven April
IN HAMBURG:
This exhibition on surrealist sculpture in Bucerius Kunstforum.
Followed by a walk in the area of the hotel/course which I did not know at all:
Bonus info: I am staying at Leonardo Hotel Hamburg Elbbrücke, purely because of the proximity to where my course on 13 April takes place. Since I have been to Hamburg many times, it is always interesting to get familiarised with different areas of a city, but the problem with this one is the difficulty finding something to eat in the area without having to traipse back to the S-Bahn (either Elbbrücken or Veddel) and travel.
Google will show you several cafés that look good on the internet but my walkabout yesterday revealed (and I don’t mean to sound neither sexist nor racist, but this might bother other old, single women even more than it bothers me) that they are all crammed full of men of a different ethnic origin than German, staring at you as if to say you definitely do not belong there, AND chain-smoking (yes, also in the inside area). I did have a very good cup of coffee on the terrace of one of them, but I was unable to find anywhere where I would imagine having dinner on Sunday night when the restaurant at my hotel will be closed. This poses a bit of a problem since I will need to spend time post-processing the photos taken during the course, rather than travelling around looking for something to eat. My solution in this case: Lieferando.
The view of Elphi (one of the world’s best concert halls, if you ask me) in the early morning of 13 April:
On 13 April: This photography workshop with Blende2 in Alter Industriehafen:
And finally, almost back at my hotel after a great workshop with Blende2-Hamburg, I came across these two pairs of different subspecies of geese. The Nile Geese (left) are supposed to be invasive and territorial and aggressive towards the domestic grey geese, but these were lying down, sunning themselves together (and totally unfazed by the trains roaring past in the background) until I appeared.
IN BREMERHAVEN:
IN PROGRESS
Started with a walk to familiarise myself with the area and enjoy the maritime flair.
Visited Zoo am Meer for some animal portraits and a bit of ICM:
I am calling the below series “The gull and the garbage”, or: how to turn two OK photos and one epic fail into a story:
More photos to come
On day two I spent a lovely morning on (at? in?) Luneplate, a nature protection area especially famous for its birdlife, about 1,5 hours by bus from central Bremerhaven. Lots of reeds, so that will be interesting soon, when the types of birds nesting there arrive, lay their eggs, for the cuckoo to then come and throw some of those eggs out and lay their own eggs there. Also a wetlands area and a viewing tower. And some cows.
Also, I finally got a couple of decent photos of the Chiffchaff/Zilpzalp. In Berlin, I had ever only heard, seen and managed one photograph of it, and in Hamburg I heard it everywhere all the time but did not get a photo. They are tiny and move around all the time. I also got a bad photo of a reed bunting/Rohrammer.
I saw many geese, ducks and egrets far away, and some birds of prey, but did not get any good photos.
The real highlight came when I was waiting for the bus to get back to Bremerhaven. I was watching some swallows whizzing around at breakneck speed without even attempting to photograph them, until one of them suddenly sat on a branch, which made me wonder. They usually stay in the air for months. I still had my camera locked and loaded and in burst mode so aimed it at it, or her, as it would turn out, when this happened:
So how is that boycott of US goods and services going?
As far as I am concerned, and judging by what I hear and read from others – the short answer is “slowly”.
It is not like boycotting Russian good and services (I am not aware of availing myself of any Russian goods and services, though I have to admit I am not certain exactly what Germany, where I have chosen to live, currently depends on from Russia).
And as far as Israeli goods and services go, I have always avoided buying foods (such as oranges and lemons) from there, as well as watching Israeli film and TV, so that is a no-brainer too.
The case of USA is different. The easiest part was avoiding buying things like avocadoes and wine from California which a lot of us started already the first time around – “Trump light – boycott light”. Back then, I also vowed not to set foot in that country again – incidentally, round about the time I also decided not to fly again. I slipped up not so long ago and signed up for a photography retreat in Santa Fé – a place that was on my bucket list pre-Trump – but I woke up, thought – what on earth are you doing you unprincipled sloth – and cancelled that. Since then, I am happy to read that the majority of Europeans are no longer travelling to USA if they can avoid it. Many are now choosing Canada as a holiday destination.
Speaking of that photography retreat – it was organised by my favourite photography course provider – US-based. Because hypocrisy rules, I am currently attending one of their courses (using zoom – another US business ….) since I had already paid for it before the European boycott started to pick up speed. But this will be the last one, and I shall miss those courses greatly.
I am currently busy deleting accounts with gurushots, kelbyone, etc. The next hurdle will be the streaming services. As part of weaning myself off Netflix and Amazon, I no longer watch any US produced films or TV series, and am one click away from deleting my Netflix accoung. I don’t like to think about living without Facebook and all the information I will be missing out on, but sooner or later it will have to go. Instagram will be easier since I never liked that media anyway. And I am not even mentioning that third one.
I hope with time there will be non-US alternatives to all the really difficult, to the point of impossible, ones such as google, microsoft, adobe, zoom and I am sure there are many more that I am just taking for granted – viable alternatives so that we never have to revert to the old US ways again.
This time around, loathing and mistrust is irreversible.
By the way, I am a little bit astonished to learn that the concept of boycotting seems unknown in USA. Many Americans I know simply do not seem to understand it, and are taking it all very personally.
Boycotting goods and services from a country is a completely normal thing to do, and one of the few resources ordinary citizens have. And it is not personal.
USA let somebody run for office who should not even be eligible to be a garbage collector, let a long President, and that person is now doing what he had always said he would be doing and they still voted for him. Now he is planning on handing Europe to Putin on a silver platter, starting with Ukraine (and he is too stupid to realise how Putin is playing him). Also, since he has no understanding of economics at all, having spent his life so far bankrupting one business after another, he is now bankrupting USA and the world.
And like a good would-be dictator, he dodged the draft by lying about an injury, and is now planning a military parade for his next birthday.
Give me a break: NOT boycotting that banana republic would be completely counter-intuitive to me as well as to most other Europeans.
EDIT on 09 April: And now this: https://youtu.be/c143MbcoITw?si=sxEWkTvnA03N5BaF. And I believe those cheering audience sounds are real. Every time we think it can not get more cringe- and puke-worthy. Going completely off-line just so we do not have to be assaulted by the daily dose of vomit coming out of that country seems more and more doable until such time that we have non-US alternatives. Even listening to someone – anyone – speaking with an American accent is becoming unpleasant, much the same as hearing Russian spoken.
The idea of not being perpetually angry is appealing, but will it be better to feel perpetually ignorant?
A slightly different kind of “hummus”
IN PROGRESS
INGREDIENTS: 1/2 cup black lentils 3 + 1/2 cup water 3 pieces garlic 2 shallots 2 + 2 tbsp olive oil 1/2 tsp cumin seeds 1/2 tsp fennel seeds 2 tbsp lemon juice 1/2 tsp salt pepper to taste 1/2 cup tahini few sprigs parsley
DIRECTIONS: 1. Add the black lentils to a small saucepan along with about 3 cups of water. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer on medium low for 25mins 2. Crush, peel, and roughly chop the garlic. Peel and slice down the shallots 3. Heat up a sauté pan to medium heat. Add 2 tbsp of olive oil followed by the garlic and shallots. Fry for 2-3mins. Add the cumin seeds and fennel seeds, then cook for another 30 seconds. Set the pan aside 4. Drain the remaining liquid from the black lentils and transfer to a food processor. Add the sautéed garlic and shallots. Add 1/2 cup water, lemon juice, salt, and pepper to taste. Blend for about 2mins. Add the tahini, then blend again for about 1min 5. Plate the dip and garnish with salt, pepper, chopped parsley, and olive oil to serve
Never leave home without your camera ….
…. even if you are just going to the supermarket. (Or on a quick, early-morning walk at Urbanhafen – photos further down).
And finally – they never stop doing that these days – even the teenagers – do the not realise what a horrible cliché that has become:
Just trying to convince myself while actually losing interest in photography.