part 4 :: long weekend in berlin :: an unexpected mural at the park inn

in 2018, this mural - a colorful work of ceramics and glass - was uncovered behind a wall at the park inn in berlin. it's the tall building right beside the tower that's the symbol of berlin. it was the pride of east berlin in its day and today, it's a radisson. public art was a big deal in east germany and this beautiful, colorful work is just one example from 1970s berlin. one could easily be inspired by these same colors today. 

down in one corner, there were two names and they made a public appeal to find those people. gertraude pohl came forward to say that she was the pohl part of the signature. walk had made the ceramics and as the story was told to me, i don't know whether they came forward. gertraude had the sketches she had made of the work, back in the early 70s. and through them, she helped with the restauration.

four of the restored panels can be seen at the hotel today. the other five have disappeared without a trace. perhaps into the home of some art collector. or maybe they ended up in storage somewhere and they will be similarly rediscovered sometime in the future. i hope it's the latter. 

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oh, and i found an article about it online here - just use the google translate function if you, like me, don't read german. 

what really happened to the arctic sea?

photo found multiple places online, sorry i don't know whose it really is.

in recent weeks, i've found the story of the supposed pirate attack on the finnish-owned, maltese-flagged vessel arctic sea a compelling one. initially, it was interesting because it appeared to be a pirate attack in european waters and the first of its kind in decades.

as the story goes, the ship left finland july 23, loaded with timber. the next day, the ship reported that a group of men, presenting themselves as swedish police, boarded the ship in the baltic sea between finland and sweden. strangely, the only ones they notified of this were the russian embassy in finland, tho' at some point the swedish police were involved. apparently, some 12 hours later, the men left the vessel and it continued on its way. the next report of it was that it sailed through the busy english channel, still hijacked, tho' the story gets a bit hazy.

after that, they switched off their AIS system (an international electronic tracking system that all merchant ships have (go here to see ships live, right now, as we "speak")) and disappeared for more than two weeks, finally resurfacing 200 nautical miles from the cape verde islands off the coast of west africa. a bit far from her destination port in algeria. the russian navy rushed in, "rescued" the russian crew that was onboard and arrested 8 alleged hijackers, most of whom were from estonia, and spirited them off to moscow. word has it that the captain stayed onboard with russian navy personnel and that they are sailing the vessel and its cargo towards the black sea.

the russian navy's keen interest in the case, as well as grumblings from NATO sources, lead one to believe that there was more than a cargo of timber onboard. before loading the timber at the port in finland, the ship spent two weeks in kaliningrad, that important little baltic port that russia kept after the disintegration of the soviet union. i've read rumors of everything from drugs to guns to cruise missiles to nukes. but, i suppose, like with the kursk submarine case a number of years ago, we'll never really know the truth. but it does set the imagination on overdrive. i could definitely see constructing a james bond plotline out of this one.

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took this screenshot of all of the ships in "my" area on that marine traffic website. each of those little colored ship-shaped bits is a ship and if you hover over it (on the site, not on my screenshot), you'll learn the name and how fast she's currently sailing. how cool is that? why didn't i know about this before? it's a very cool website, but i can see that there is no data available in the pirate-infested waters off east africa and through the malacca straits. very smart thinking, that. wouldn't want to assist the pirates. go and check it out, it's really quite fun to realize exactly how many ships are out there. be sure to check out the english channel, it's really crowded.

randomness to clear my head*

fitful sleep, filled with nightmares about the environment and global warming, tossing and turning and hearing the alarm even tho' it wasn't ringing. strangely, when i woke up, the bracelet i always wear on my right wrist was on my left one. i don't really remember the dreams exactly, they were disjointed and noisy and colorful yet dark at the same time. there was some kind of planned landing in water (my dreams always involve planes), where we smoothly went under and lodged in the soft bottom of the sea and proceeded calmly to gather our things and get ready to leave the plane as if things were totally normal. at least no wings were sheared off from landing between tall buildings that were simply too close for that--that's what usually happens. and there was something about sabin being missing and me frantically searching for her. i woke up, heart pounding, having to check that she was indeed here, because although disjointed, it was very real. but it was strange to wake up to the life that's going on over here in the (ostensibly) awake world. perhaps i should go to bed before 2 a.m. tonight.

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please check out the wonderful, giving post on how you can help kelaya over on tangobaby. kelaya is a woman who fled an abusive husband together with her three children and because all of the shelters are full, she needs your help. the lovely and talented tangobaby has set up a way for you to do that. because she's just that cool. please go read kelaya's story and do what you can, even if it's only leaving a note of support.

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the poor swedish police, they always seem to have the worst luck. just reading in my newspaper that a 40-year-old swedish count and his 38-year-old girlfriend were brutally shot on tuesday outside his daughter's school in the middle of gamla stan in stockholm. and, as is often the case (remember olof palme and the early days of the anna lindh case, tho' thankfully they eventually solved that one), they have no clue who did it, despite it happening in broad daylight. they brought in some jetset ad exec for questioning (he's friends with the count's ex-wife), but released him again after a few hours.  meanwhile, the count and his girlfriend are in critical condition in a stockholm hospital. 

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interesting:

annual danish military budget: 20 billion danish kroner

amount made by maersk on US military shipping contracts in 2007:
18 billion danish kroner

source: information 

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a few people among my influx of new readers here and those checking out my photostream on flickr have asked me for advice for amateur photographers. ha! imagine that, asking me for photographic advice! i am the most amateur of amateur photographers myself, i'm just fortunate to have access to some good cameras and lenses (nikon, nikon, nikon). and also fortunate to be part of the digital age. when you take a dozen pictures of every subject, one of them is bound to turn out, right?
 

but to be serious for a second, i will say that developing your eye is the best advice i can offer. and carry your camera with you everywhere. everywhere. i take my camera in when i go to the grocery store (that's only partly to do with the fact that it's worth more than my car). i am never, ever without a camera.  and when you do that, you start noticing things...like shadows and light and eyeballs on the trees. 

you also find that you get increasingly fearless in stopping and snapping pictures (i don't do much of that with people, mostly with things, if you take pictures of people, you should ask them if it's ok). you lose your self-consciousness and you get down on your knees to get the right angle, and you stop caring what people might think of that. you may also start carrying a little pouch containing subjects that you photograph in various places.

so my best advice to amateur photographers--take your camera everywhere and be totally fearless. 

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please tell me i did not just hear a CNN weather man say expecially....

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please forgive crappy quality of phone picture

do you ever stand next to such a door on a plane at cruising altitude and feel a nearly irresistible urge to open it? don't worry, i resisted. they were about to come around with cocktails and those great little bowls of posh mixed nuts (no peanuts), so the urge passed.

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and finally, a question: what would your dream job be? it sounds like a weird question to ask in these troubled economic times, but perhaps a bit of creative thinking is warranted these days. what would you most like to do?

*this may become a regular feature. my head seems to need a lot of clearing.