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...]

After a long hiatus, I am starting a regular blog-go series again, this time on a dying institution, cinemas, in this blog in particular those in Berlin! I will always post a pic of one cinema and caption it, then blog other stuff...

CINEMA
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Yep, this cinema is so old & respectable, it's just called "Cinema". It's a miracle it still runs - I've never seen it fuller than a quarter - mainly showing movies for German pensioners, I guess. Some snoring may occur, but other than that - simple and dear!

On the media
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(Sorry, I couldn't stop myself with that sub-title, referencing the famed US radio meta-journalistic show.) Whenever Great Pretenders like the heads of (already old & wasted) USA and (newly elected, greedy) U.K. say or tweet something outrageous, the media immediately follow & comment & analyse, endlessly. Am I really to believe that they don't see the manipulative side, intended to manipulate esp. them? When Trump tweeted Greta Thunberg to go "chill", he wanted to divert from the impeachment debacle, which does seem to bother him just a tad (as witness his usual 180°-logical written letter (!?) attack on Mrs. Pelosi yesterday).

I would like the media to concentrate on the failed election systems in the named two countries, and how those affect political disengagement over decades. Majority-winner-takes-all voting mechanisms in local boroughs, towns and (parts of) cities are simply way out of date in the 21st century, I feel.

Hermits
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German government is setting up a task force on loneliness. I wonder what will be achieved at such a far-above-ground level with something that most people have to deal with very personally. Cities may greatly increase personal freedom, but they do also further isolation.

One alternative, I suppose, is to develop a kind of modern form of hermitism. (Is there such a thing? I herewith define it as the state of a positive hermit, if not!) Rejoice in the many chances one has to develop paths of interest/study/timepassing. Get grounded in oneself ("in sich selbst ruhen", Germans say). And then try not to preach too much at all those extroverts running around above, outside the hermit hole, when you do venture outside...

[Toodle-oo, till the (happy!) New Year...]

While I'm here helping an accident-downed relative out for a few days, in her new beautiful apartment looking toward the Swiss Alps (cf. view from living room on left), I lennon-like imagine...

• a new near-septagenarian interior minister, who actually does something about refugees arriving from the South-East, e.g. by getting in tandem with the foreign minister to establish processing consulates in African countries to inform intending migrators of their chances, plus by supporting the foreign aid minister in getting more effective economic help to source countries - rather than prattle on opportunistically about what religion belongs to our national culture or not
• a labour minister, who, perhaps in tandem with the economic & foreign ministries, finally does something about fair trade via labourers of foreign countries, if fair work is truly a concern of his (as he has said in the past)
• a young & loud health minister, who does more in his tenure than just stop-gap one tenth of needed personnel in care-for-the-aged institutions
• a prime minister (or "chancellorette") who doesn't try to "pick up" voters who have browned-out toward the populistic hard right, but e.g. makes the path to citizenship for foreign folk in the country clearer & more achievable, at the same time informing the general public that citizen's rights are strongly/visibly protected by a nation that has - for better or worse - managed to overcome (with a lotta help) the inhuman ravages of fascism!