Bundestag ingenuity

Climbing the glass dome of the Bundestag is unforgettable. We hadn't pre-registered online so we lined up with others in the 'spontaneous visits' queue. 

Everyone is given the option of head phones in their own language and as you progress up the ramp of the dome the headphones tell you when to stop, which direction to look and then tells stories about what you are seeing. It is an ingenious system because the device seems to be triggered by your position so you can go at your own pace.

From the top you can look right down into the parliamentary chamber. A moveable sun screen made of metal bars (picture 2) follows the sun so the chamber is protected from the heat and doesn't cost as much to cool.

One thing I like about Germany is that although they have rules they are perfectly willing to bend them. We had turned up 40 minutes earlier than our allocated time slot but were waved through without a problem.

Bicycles rule

Berlin car drivers are quite a different breed to those in Sydney. In Berlin there are bicycles everywhere and cars slow down to let them move into the traffic. Sydney drivers would be more likely to step on the accelerator just to teach the bicyclist a lesson. I am finding Berlin a refreshing lesson in good manners.

All museumed out

If you buy a three day museum card you feel obliged to use it, so for the last three days we have been to see more museums than you could poke a stick at and tonight we are too tired to move another inch.

This morning we went to the Museum of Contemporary Art ... huge spaces full of work by Joseph Beuys and others of his ilk which we found exhausting and boring, probably reflecting the mood of the people who made the art.  There were groups of students there but not many other people.

The Old National Gallery, however, was full of people looking at (and taking pictures of) the 19th century paintings. That says a lot about 'contemporary' art really.

My young companion whipped out her camera and snapped away.  In between we had visited the Museum of Communication and she had found telephones like those my patents had on their hall wall quite hilarious.
"And that wasn't so long ago," she marvelled, "because it was in your lifetime!"

History can be fun

I always imagine museums to be full of stuffed birds (which perhaps they were once upon a time) so I am caught by surprise when one captures my imagination. Today was one of those days.

The Museum of German History in Berlin is a fascinating place and my 15 year old companion and I spent more than four happy hours there, slowly making our way through the history of Europe and Germany in particular. I was interested to see a very early clock as I had once thought of making one for an art project before discovering that they are exceedingly complicated. 

My companion responded to anything about women and children but we had to make our way through centuries of religion and wars before women and children made much of an appearance.

Berlin: graffiti ... Anne Frank museum

Graffiti on inner courtyards (with bicycles) in the arty Berlin suburb of Hackescher Markt .... and a photo taken inside the Anne Frank Museum which is up several flights of narrow stairs off one of the courtyards.

Maribor Music 2014

The Maribor Music Festival is over for another year. Wonderful music as always and very appreciative audiences. Brava to Brigita and the organising team.

Gypsy Devils in Maribor

The Gypsy Devils played in Maribor on Sunday night to a very enthusiastic audience. Two and a half hours of virtuosic music with no notes and hardly a pause. The first half they played alone, the second they played with the Festival Orchestra. We all left humming.

Stefan Banyak, vituosic violinist

Music in wet Maribor

Maribor on the River Drava: taken on the only fine day this week

Town square in Maribor

Maribor is a city that captures your heart. There is something about the place that makes you want to return repeatedly, something that is hard to pin down.

The city is quaint, but lots of cities have picturesque quarters. Maribor is safe, but then so are many others. The citizenry are rather old worldly and conservative but they are very friendly and accepting. And they all love music. Perhaps it is the music that makes you want to return repeatedly.

I have been here almost a week and it has been a very wet one. But never mind, I am here for the music. The musicians are busy rehearsing and the concert halls are leak proof. What more could one want?

Rehearsal in progress

Koi carp and butterflies

You have to admire an airport that has fish ponds and rooms of butterflies to entertain their guests. Singapore airport .... if you have to have a stopover, this is the right place to chose.

Butterfly in Singapore

Koi

Mission Incognito: Flashmob von Rolando Villazón

Hallelujah!  Just as well we have inspiring musicians to lift our spirits.

Predicting the future

The Government report on the rollout (or lack of it) of the national broadband network (NBN) today  has provoked a stream of twitter comment:
“Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.” Lord Kelvin, British mathematician & physicist Royal Society, 1895
“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” Ken Olson of DEC, maker of mainframe computers, arguing against PCs in 1977
“X-rays will prove to be a hoax.” — Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society, 1883
“Television won’t last. It’s a flash in the pan." Mary Somerville, pioneer of radio educational broadcasts, 1948.

Malcolm Turnbull, Australian Communications Minister

Chickens on a bench

Welcome respite from the world's woes ... watching chickens bask in the sunshine.

The state of the world via twitter

We think we are civilised, or have have become civilised but how far have humans really progressed? My twitter feed this morning is full of images that make me wonder. Here's a sample:

Weekend Australian last week

Last week Murdoch's Australian newspaper (hemorrhaging money as we since found out, so only maintained to pedal influence) ran this divisive front page. In response a group of Christian and Jewish leaders have launched a campaign called We'll love Muslims for 100 years

Joseph Stiglitz

Australians, stunned by the realisation that the liberal party has been taken over by its far right wing and become a tea party, are starting to respond. Someone has posted a picture of Nobel Prize economist Joseph Stiglitz telling us the the Abbott Government's plan to deregulate education is a crime.

NASA -the earth weeps

NASA Global Climate change talks about the difficulty in reaching out to tell the climate story. You would think NASA had influence but they are up against the Murdoch empire (above). I do wonder what Murdoch's children think of his newspaper's stance - are they so very undereducated?




Then there is this stunning cover of the New Yorker responding to Ferguson. Hands up in surrender to a violent and destructive power.

Quintuplets

Lastly and on a note of hope within disaster, from the UN Refugee Agency comes a picture of five babies born weeks after a Syrian mother fled her country.

Watching Jonas Kaufmann sing

For those Australians who saw Jonas Kaufmann last week and need another little fix, try the link below.
The thing I found most fascinating about his live performance was being able to see (or perhaps feel) how he adjusts his body in preparation for singing. It is as if he adjusts the strings of his internal cello, holds it all in place, inhabits the role, then breaths - and suddenly the air carries vibrations of such beauty you feel like weeping.

Quite extraordinary ... and perhaps ones own body mimics his, because it makes you feel as if you are part of the performance in some odd way.

Artistic talent

Becoming an artist

Teachers have such power, though they may not think so themselves.

So many people have told me that they can't paint because their teacher told them long ago that they weren't any good. Many of these people harbour an unrequited wish to try again and when they do they often find hidden talent they never knew they had.

Others have told me they really couldn't draw at all when they started art classes, but perseverance has led them on a rewarding and fulfilling art journey.

Art is like anything else ... if you practise lots you get better, and if you practise a great deal you get a great deal better. The bonus is that it is such fun practising.

Doodling Tannhäuser

My doodle for today.

Not Italy?

You look at the fresco on the ceiling; and the statues in the courtyard;  you look at the architecture of this two storey building complex and you pinch yourself and ask 'is this Monday and am I in Italy?'

But no, you are not in Italy but in a little bit of Italy on exactly the other side of the world.

Across the road from this ornate Italian edifice which houses a cinema as well as several restaurants and a weekend market, are small fibro and wooden dwellings, the type of dwellings that characterise Ettalong on the NSW Central Coast. Yes, you are in Ettalong, not in Italy. 

This is the most extraordinary building in the most extraordinary place; in a town full of seaside cottages, fifty meters from a lovely swimming beach and quite off the beaten track. How did this building land here?

'Italianate' architecture

Jonas Kaufmann in Sydney

Jonas Kaufmann is billed as the world's hottest tenor and he seems to have been smoldering at me from all my Internet feeds recently -  obviously the internet bots know my viewing preferences. I saw the man sing in the flesh last night and the reality is even better than the promos.

His voice is rich, velvety, extraordinarily flexible and fills even difficult spaces like the Sydney Opera House concert hall. The man is a consummate artist, much nicer than the posed photos.

Sydney Opera House flowers

There were almost audible gasps as Kaufmann started singing ('Recondita armonia' from Tosca) and after this first song my seat neighbour turned to me and said "Well even that one song was worth the (considerable) price of the ticket."

As Kaufmann sang I noticed a tenor sitting in front of me mouthing the words with an ecstatic look on his face. He obviously knew just how much  hard work and dedication goes into delivering such a result. I had met this tenor earlier in the year and he told me he had bought an opera subscription just so he could get a good seat to hear Kaufmann sing. I am sure he was not the only one. 

Kaufmann inhabits each role he sings (he was singing arias from French and Italian operas and his characters inevitably die tragic deaths) but he was also refreshingly joyous as well.  Violinist and concert master Laura Hamilton played us a lovely 'Meditiation' from Jules Massenet's Thaïs and on his way to the stage afterwards Kaufmann plucked a rose from the huge vase to the side of the stage and presented it to her. [The displays of white flowers along stage front and in two big vases were so opulent I thought they must be fake ... but no, they were real.]

The Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra was conducted by fellow German Jochen Rieder and I think this was the master stroke.  Rieder feels the songs just as Kaufmann does; he knows his singer and it showed.

Kaufmann sang three encores to a wildly clapping and stomping crowd at the opera house last night, two of them German popular songs.  I would love to hear him singing Wagner.  I might just have to follow him to wherever he sings Siegmund or German Lieder.

Addendum: excellent ABC interview with Jonas Kaufmann here .

And I paint roses

Syria,Gaza, Irak, Ukraine
Watercolour/ink on paper

Syria, Gaza, Irak, Ukraine,
Climate change denial,
Australian detention centers
torturing children.
And I drink coffee.
And I paint roses.

More here

Speicherstadt Tango

Speicherstadt Tango card by elizabethgw

Speicherstadt Warehouse (image from Wikipedia)

I will be in Hamburg in September and I am looking through my sketches to find some to hang in the coffee shop to replace the ones that have hung there for two years. I found this etching of the Speicherstadt.  The Hamburg Speicherstadt is the area encompassing the old warehouses on the harbour. I spent time bicycling around the Speicherstadt in 2009 when I spent 9 months in Germany at Hamburg Art School.

While I was there, the high school where a friend taught had a teacher's gathering and they all danced Tango. They inspired this etching of tango dancers at the Speicherstadt.