Back To Shore

It’s been a week since I wrote about my plan to write more. A super busy week and my mind often all over the place because of it. My mind also was running ahead with plans for posts and none ever came to fruition because of all the business and also my need to recuperate from it. There probably won’t ever be a post about the gig in Cologne last week. Oh well.

Since February I have been going to the cinema more often. The main reason was that a UK friend told me they had signed up for a 3-months “Unlimited Card” at their cinema and I looked into if the multiplex chain over here offered a similar deal. And they did. It’s 19,90 € / month and if I go to see two movies a month I’m already saving money.

So I signed up, because I actually do enjoy the cinema quite a lot, but haven’t been going as much as I used to many, many, years ago. There are reasons for that of course. In parts it’s lack of time, even though I could have made time for it. Then there was the steep rise in tickets prices (at the multiplex most of all). If I wanted I could also blame the lack of interesting films, but that’s only partially true or a reason. Because decades ago I used to watch all kind of films and not all of them were all that good. If I’m honest sometimes I’m prone to inertia, as in getting in the car to go to the movies feels like too much hassle these days. It’s not as if I’m watching / streaming a lot of movies at home either though.

Anyway, I thought I should do something about it: Battle the inertia and also try to recover some of the film – loving part of me. When I was at uni 25 odd years ago, I was going to that multiplex several times a month. With friends on the weekend. With another student during the week for “sneak previews” where the tickets were half-price (if even that) and you never knew what you were getting into.

One thing that has changed though is that these days I do prefer to watch movies in the “not dubbed in German” version. I guess I can blame the language options of all the streaming services for that. And there’s often only one movies shown in the original English and it’s not always the one I want to watch. Which also might lead to me going to see more German movies or see a movie in English in a different cinema (and pay for it then), like I did yesterday.

Anyway here is a quick run down (from latest to first) of the movies I’ve seen in the past few weeks:

Eden (5 April, in a small 20 seat theatre)
This was based on true events from the 1930s where a couple of Europeans try to settle on an island in the Galapagos. Wikipedia calls it a survival thriller, but that doesn’t do it justice. It is much more an intense study of the human psyche: What drives us? What separates us and what brings us together? I thought the trailer was interesting and the movie didn’t disappoint (me). It also had a few surprising twists and turns in the end.

Heldin (16 March, Multiplex)
This Swiss/German production has a documentary vibe, as it follows a female hospital nurse through one shift. There isn’t all that much happening, but it gave me a really good insight into the working life of hospital staff. I’ve basically only ever been on the other side – as family member of someone in hospital – and I’ve complained and bitched about staff to some degree. So this was a helpful reminder to see the other side. And with lack of staff and lack of resources it’s not a pretty side.

Mickey 17 (5 March, Multiplex)
I kind of like Robert Pattinson, even though I haven’t really seen all that many films with him, I think. I admire that he managed to withdraw from the hype after Twilight and pick a variety of roles even though he probably could have easily build a career on heart throb / hero roles. He was awesome in the film and so were the other actors. Mark Ruffalo was doing such an amazing Trump impersonation in his role and he didn’t even have to dye his hair blond for it. I thought the sci-fi plot idea of identity and such was a good one. Bu I wasn’t such a fan of the creatures on the planet to be honest and I might not have picked the movie had they been featured more prominently in the trailer.

A Complete Unknown (1 March, Multiplex)
I admit I only know Dylan’s greatest hits. I know that his music played a big role in the US peace movement in the 1960s. I know he’s got a Nobel Prize and that he’s got a reputation to be difficult. I thought the movie was a good way to educate myself a bit more and it was. I like that Bob Dylan doesn’t necessarily come of as the good guy in this one. To be honest, I thought he was kind of asshole a lot of time. As a Frank Turner fangirl of course I compared Dylan’s ethos about performing to an audience to Frank’s and I’m glad Frank is more appreciative of his audience, to put it mildly. But the 1960s were a different time of course as well. I put Joan Baez on the list of musicians I need to learn more about after watching this. Timothee and Edward Norton played and sang all the parts in the film themselves, which was quite impressive.

Wunderschöner (15 February, Multiplex, before I got the Unlimited Card)
A sequel to a German movie success from a few years ago. A sort of interconnected multi-episodes movie about women of various ages and professions and relationships. I hadn’t seen the first one at the cinema back then so had to watch it on Amazon first, but I had seen the trailer a few times and thought I might like it. And I did, even though this sequel now was more serious than the first one. Still very funny but in parts it felt like the female director (and lead actress) tried a bit too hard to comment on everything that’s making womens’ lives to hard these days. Still a great and enjoyable movie.

I’ve seen quite a few trailers for new movies as well. Some trailers over and over again, which is no surprise. There are a lot of “let’s make a sequel / retell the same story” movies out this year. Paddington. Bridget Jones. Karate Kid. Plus variations of Marvel movies of all kinds. I’m not interested in Bridget Jones, but the Karate Kid trailer is starting to wear me down. I might want to watch the original movie first, because I don’t think I’ve seen this back in the day or since. But I’m not sure. It’s been a long time ago.

Anyway, I’m quite happy that I was able to recover some of my passion for the cinema again. I hope it’ll last.

I had tickets for a gig in Cologne – about 70 km away from where I live – last night (Saturday). I went to that and there hopefully will be another post about it in the next few days. All week I considered on and off to stay in Cologne overnight for the whole weekend. It wasn’t that I had urgent / clear plans to do other stuff in Cologne. I just felt like I needed a break. To just be somewhere else for a bit. Take myself out of my regular environment to get some rest and clear my head. Treat myself to something nice.

For the longest time I couldn’t make up my mind, because it’s such an expensive indulgence to pay for a room (or apartment in my case) in a city less than one hour drive away and for parking and for eating out and such. Though latter was part of the “treat myself” plan. On rather short notice I decided to go ahead and book and do it anyway.

All in all I’m glad I did, even though there were issues with the apartment. before I started typing all of this I sent an “I expect compensation” mail to the company I booked from. But I’m determined to not let this nuisance and the lack of enough restful sleep spoil the otherwise good time I had.

• I caught up on some reading (not as much as I had liked, but that’s fine).
• I wrote a blog post yesterday and am determined to keep doing that more often. Case in point this one right here Thees Uhlmann, the German singer/songwriter I went to see last night has a lyric which translates to “If you can write, write!” and I’m determined to take that to heart more often.
• I went shopping for some new outdoor / hiking pants.
• I had yummy vegan food yesterday and a big breakfast / brunch today.

Before I got in my car to drive back home I had a stroll around the old town / cathedral area in preparation for a visit from UK friends in a few week’s time. One of them has never been to Cologne and we’ll have a few hours in town after I pick them up from the airport. So, where to go?

This whole “first time in Cologne” idea made me think of my very own view of and relationship to the city and to think of “must see / do” in the inner city. And I realized I should brush up on my limited knowledge of Cologne history to not just bullshit my way through being a tour guide that day 😉

I don’t consciously remember my first trip to Cologne. I assume our parents took us at some point for a trip to a museum or basic sightseeing. There had been several school trips in middle school, because it is one of the biggest cities in our state and the one with the most (interesting) history, I guess. The Romans and the Cathedral and all that. A friend of mine went to uni there and for quite a while from the early 2000s till mid 2010s I was a big fan of the town’s ice hockey team. At some point – when they won the championship unexpectedly – I was among the crowd of fans welcoming the team back in the town hall. I didn’t quite pass the town hall today but was in the area and that made me remember it.

A TV show / actor fandom I was engaged with from the late 1990s till the mid 2010s had ties to Cologne, which made me go there for events and for meeting other fans quite often as well. In the past two decades there also were gigs of all kinds of course.

Ever since the school trips over 30 years ago though I never really cared all that much about the classic tourist-y / sightseeing bits of the city. I don’t recall if I really cared back than either. It was school and we were young and with our mates.

I’m going to end this with a list of possibly random stuff I feel I should refresh my knowledge of or have resources ready on my phone, while I take my friends around:

• Basic Roman history of Cologne
• Basic history of the Cathedral
• Origin of 4711 (I have a vague memory)
• the culture of “Kölsch” (the beer brewed in Cologne)
• Why is the Gürzenich called that?
• Tünnes & Schäl (not really necessary, but I passed a restaurant with this name and it made me wonder, because I don’t know the history, just the names)

And yes I know, I don’t NEED to be a proper tour guide and these days everything can be looked up on our phones while we stroll around anyway. But where is the fun in that? And it is interesting and fun to actually read up on some of the information.

Lyrics: “Try This At Home” – Frank Turner, 2009

At work this week I offered to rework / copy edit a text which had been generated by ChatGPT. Why anyone uses ChatGPT or any other AI to produce some words instead of writing those words themselves might be topic for another post (which might turn into quite a rant, I’m afraid). But people were grateful that I willingly offered my services even though copyediting is not part of my job description.

But it served a good reminder to me that I do enjoy writing and working with words in any kind of way. And that I’m quite good at it. So why don’t I make more use of this space I’ve got here, was a follow up thought of mine. Not thought right away, but over the course of a few days. I think over the last decade or so I might have raised the bar of what I myself consider a worthy content for this space to some impossible standard. Not everything has to be meaningful. Or essay length. I should just start writing here more often instead of typing my thoughts into the limited space of an Instagram story.

German news magazine DER SPIEGEL last week had a title story presenting their “World’s 100 best books from 1925 – 2025”. I’m often on the fence about these kind of lists, because it’s all so subjective, isn’t it? In the editorial they explain that they are aware of the European / North American centric view of literature tradition so to speak and thus they put German academics with interest and knowledge in African, Asian literature on the jury. For some reason they obviously didn’t consider putting a German academic or writer with an ethnic minority background on the jur.

48 of the chosen books are written by Europeans. 24 in USA / Canada. But “at least” (they state almost proudly) 28 were written in the Caribbean, Latin-America, Africa or Asia. To put it in perspective: Europe and North America are about 1,5 billion people (~ 20%) to the 6,5 billion (~80%) in the rest of the world. But they have produced 75% of the “World’s Literature” to mere 25% of the rest of the world. I can’t be the only one who thinks this is a very skewed way of thinking.

28 of the 100 books were written by women. That’s another discussion I’d like to have with this jury. At least it’s not a “top 100 list, counting down from THE #1 book”.

Like I said I don’t really care much about these kind of lists. I have only read 3 or 4 of those 100 yet. A few more are on my “to-read-shelf”. A few more I added now after I’ve read this article. Mostly from female writers, if I’m honest. I probably have read more than enough books by (white) men in the first 35 or so years of my life.