So the new year wasn't quite so happy so far - although I'm medically fitter than in end-of-year months - and so, also, not so regular in terms of this new series. But another cinema is included, and even integrated, into the one thing that occupies all our thoughts, now...

YORCK
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One of Berlin's best-known cinemas, the Yorck (named after the street it's located in), was so successful over the years, that at some point it expanded to a 2nd viewing hall called the "New Yorck". This double cinema then triggered a whole series of theatres in the city, bundled in the Yorck group of independent cinemas. This amalgam now regularly presents some mainstream stuff, and many indie movies, including quite a few in original language; it has actually opened a new small cinema complex near the old main train station, near the Zoo.

O, Corona
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Yes, even here this matter rules! As the above photo shows, drastic consequences have been taken - "first closing since 1977" - almost as if we're preparing for a major war-time effort...

The thing is, people like you or me can't say much about this, the 2nd SARS virus. As one astute Tweeter pointed out, at the beginning of any comment on Corona there should be a sincere disclaimer that the writer is NOT a CoVid-19 expert!

About mid-March, the one thing I was missing, was - how long does the virus actually remain "live" on surfaces? I found this useful New England Journal of Medicine article, which helped me appreciate how plastic compares to i.a. paper, and how important the viral dose is, that droplets (aerosol or bigger/heavier) contain.

As for the politicians who brag and babble and call out "important" stuff about the new virus, my gut tells me that the ones who are loudest or most demagogic are the ones who had behaved badly at some point, e.g. by not paying too much attention to the coming pandemic weeks ago. Cuomo of NY state is great now, but probably wasn't at the beginning, which could be why the starting gradient of the NYC curve is so steep; the Great Presidential Pretender - now with mass destruction option, for his own citizens this time - isn't great now, having become a signal argument for why the US need to reform their political hierarchy* - so many lives of innocents shouldn't be in the much too small hands of one man!

Perhaps, in this time of crisis, we need to not always follow the recommendations of big mouths and show hosts, beating the drum of every new scandalous tweet or meme, but keep a sharper eye/ear on the less loud points of appropriate governance, e.g. the governor of California, and even Germany's own Merkel (whose near-eternal restraint is a boon right now, for once).

As for self-quarantining: I always thought I was hermitically inclined, but this is too much even for me. I am so glad book shops & video rentals are still open in Berlin! Other than that I try to aim my info focus at places close to home or family, consume the terrible consequences when the virus causes intensive damage to people's health in some sort of quanta, and divert small donations there (as well as to one or other local shop and/or cinema)...

[Go - and stay! - well...]