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Some new holiday snaps

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Pictures from our trip to Munich and Bolzano (the Dolomites) here.

Geiger not pleased with Myotonic

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

And ouch - the first review of the State of Mind album is in (in Danish only): Geiger.dk manages to be positive about one out of fourteen tracks.

Home again

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Flew back from Munich. Tired.

Back via Munich

Sun, 18 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Drove back to Munich on the train. By now we'd learned that the trick was to spend as much time in the dining car as possible - sipping beer and white wine to the best view of the mountains passing by. Checked into the same hotel in Munich to get some rest before the flight home tomorrow.

Yours truly, the wanderer

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

On our last day in Bolzano, I took the cable car to Suprabolzano/Oberbozen (elevation: 1250 m) and went for a short hike through the beautiful forest landscape, past the weird eart pyramids. Returning to Bolzano, our dinner plans were nearly thwarted by the Catholic custom of closing restaurants not only on Sunday, but already from Saturday afternoon. We decided on the slightly pricier Hostaria Argentieri - and for a few Euros more had the best meal of the entire trip! While most restaurants in Bolzano cut corners catering to the tourist, this place offers Italian cuisine at its best.

Up in the mountains

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Reluctant to take the cable car, Birgitte figured out that we could get up in the mountains by taking a bus to the small town of Unterinn. Although the bus ride high up through endless hairpin curves proved almost as scary as a cable car ride. Unterinn offered a spectacular view of the mountains and valleys - and that was about it. Enjoyed a nice lunch before going back down.

An illustrated castle

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Took the bus to the castle Runkelstein/Roncolo - a very charming place overlooking the valley where Bolzano lies. Apart from being a quaint medieval castle, its main attraction is a great number remarkably well-preserved frescos - all secular, as the receptionist informed us. A welcome relief after the crucifiction overdose in Alte Pinakothek.

The iceman

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

The main tourist attraction in Bolzano has to be the "iceman" mummy in the Museum of Archeology. The rest of the museum is pretty standard fare and Ötzi the iceman looks pretty much like the (much younger) bodies found in Danish peat bogs. But the real scoop is the amazing amount of facts that scientists have deducted from the find - clothing, diet, lifestyle, diseases. Including evidence that not only was he killed in the last of a number of attacks, suffered in the last few days of his life. History doesn't come more alive than this.

Arriving in the Dolomites

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Took the train from Munich through Austria via the Brenner pass to Bolzano/Bozen in South Tirol. Was welcomed by Antonio, whose flat we stay in (Home Exchange once again). The town is quite charming - old Tirolean building, surrounded by tree-clad mountains in the near distance and jagged Alpine peaks further away.

Old masters and drinks in the sunset

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Checked out the Alte Pinakothek - an utterly overwhelming collection of early European art. Very impressive - but neither of us can bear to look at another crucifiction scene anytime soon... In the evening Thai dinner with Christian and his wife Cornelia, and after a walk through the old town drinks in the sunset at Odeonplatz. Nice - although Christian couldn't help pointing out the square's role in some of the classic Nazi rally footage...

Arrival in Munich

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Flew off to Munich and checked in at a suprisingly nice hotel. After a walk through town and a bite to eat, we met with my old friend Christian - whom I haven't seen in ten years or so. He took us to one of Munich's leading Biergartens, which just happened to be close to the hotel. Very nice.

A few new random photos

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Nah - haven't been photographing much lately, but just for the record: A few pics from our last trip to Paris - and a single one from Berlin.

Olafur Eliasson at Martin Gropius

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Before catching the plane back to Copenhagen, I went to see Olafur Eliasson's Innen Stadt Außen exhibit in Martin-Gropius-Bau. Thankfully, the long line of visitors was for the much hyped exhibit of the utterly overrated Frida Kahlo.
Well, speaking of overrated, I'm still not sure what to think of the whole Eliasson phenomenon. His work is certainly inventive, powerful and well, it just plain works.
Mirrors placed inside a room, creating the illusion of an endless, polyhedric structure. A room filled with fog, coloured by lights, obscuring your visibility to a few feet and at times giving the strange impression of darkness having a colour. A darkened room with a spasmodically twisting garden hose, its sprays of water lit only by stroboscope lighting, showing drops frozen in mid-air.
All these images are stunning - but can they claim to be art - or are they just clever tricks by an imaginative special effects expert?
If we define art as that which speaks of the human condition, the answer could be a resounding "yes and no".
"No" in the sense that Eliasson doesn't deal with the big questions of the human race: Life, death, love, the quest for meaning - in fact humanity appears to have been written out of the equation - Eliasson's works are as impersonal as nature itself.
But - at the same time the works are designed to be perceived by - and often to baffle - the human brain. Eliasson draws on science and the psychology of perception to create magic tricks that aren't magic tricks after all, because he does not try to fool us. He shows us exactly what's up his sleeves, and we still can't help but have our brains fall for his often quite simple illusions.
A powerful work was simply a huge mirror placed outside a window of the Martin-Gropius-Bau. Viewed from the inside where you can't see the edges of the mirror, it's almost impossible to convince your brain that you're not looking at the outer wall of an identical Martin-Gropius-Bau a few feet away - even as you see the mirror image of yourself looking out of the window.
Another definition of art is that which shows us the world in a new way. And with his utterly transparent visual trickery, Eliasson does exactly that - teaching us surprising lessons about the nature of our own perception.
And after all, does it matter whether it's art or not? It's bursting with a creativity and an intelligence that most "real" artists can only dream of.

Quentin and me...

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

My browsing for rare used cds in Berlin now centers around the very nice Logo shop in Kreuzberg. On the wall I discovered a couple of photos revealing that Quentin Tarantino was another happy customer (when filming "Inglorious Basterds" in Babelsberg studios right next door). The shopkeeper remembered Tarantino as a very nice guy, "but a bit loud..."

Berlin once more

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Flew off to Berlin to check the apartment one last time before the summer holidays. Among other things to get the door pane fixed that a previous guest broke.