Ita

I am the first to admit that I knew almost nothing about Ita Buttrose before listening to this podcast. I kind of dismissed her as "the Women's Weekly" editor, always looking perfectly vacuous with her blow-dryed bob, perfect manicure and chiselled eyebrows. Truth be told I dismissed her as an airhead with nothing of any import to say except, perhaps, for how to make a delicious meal for less than $10 and the best way to get grass stains out of clothes. Had I actually stopped to think about it, I might have guessed that a woman who managed to successfully swim to the top of the Australian media fishbowl in the 70s might have had a thing of two to say about women in media and the role that the Australian media is currently playing in belittling our current Prime Minister*.  She also has a lot to say about the failure of women to progress beyond talking about the issues she was writing about in the 70s; equal pay, flexibility in the workforce and that not-so-mythical mythical glass ceiling. By the end of the podcast I wanted to read her book and there was just a little bit of me that wanted to be just like her. Passionate, feisty, ambitious and nice.  

*For the record, Ita has fairly strong views on who should be able to comment hair colour, bottom size and choice of shoe - funnily enough it's not the media, nor is it a stranger and probably not even a friend. Because personal attacks like this aren't nice and above all Ita is nice. 

Never too early to start

At two weeks, Emilia is just beginning to wake up to the world. It's a fascinating process. At the moment she's completely besotted by black and white, shadows and light. I know it's a little early to be reading, but this book, Dwell Studio's Look Book, keeps her entertained for a good couple of minutes - the contrasting colours perfect for a little girl just beginning to see. My little scholar! And a couple of minutes of angelic baby-time is just enough for this Mama to see that one-day, some-day this little bundle of joy who is currently consuming all my energy will also give back energy and joy and bundles of love in her own special way.

Berlinale

Berlinale, Berlin's International Film Festival is on this week.  This is Berlin's answer to Canne, Venice or Sundance with a little less a lot less glamour, as is befitting a city rugged up against the February chill.  That's not to say that Berliners don't take their festival going seriously.  It is not unusual to hear of people dedicating a week of their holidays to 'festival going', seeing as many as 14 films in one week. 

Matthias and I have settled for a more moderate film-lovers tour this year - we're seeing four films over the next 10 days.  On Friday we kicked off with Offside, a film that won the Silver Bear at Berlinale in 2006.  It's back on the program as a protest against the imprisonment of director Jafar Panahi by the Iranian government.  Offside is a wonderful movie - a comedy about five girls trying to get entry into a football stadium to watch a game (women are banned from attending football games in Iran). I loved it despite the Farsi and German subtitles making understanding slightly challenging. I'm hoping that the other three movies are just as good - on the cards is an Argentina film about a wine critique who looses his sense of taste, a Japanese film about Sushi and Riddley Scott's new film "Life in a Day".  Here are two teaser's from Life in a Day - since I've seen these this morning I'm even more excited about seeing the film on Saturday.

And a few more photos from Friday night.  Not surprisingly, Offside generated a bit of a media frenzy.  Check out all the big lenses!  Lots of elbowing and jostling for prime photo-take positions.  Below left is what all the photo-taking frenzy was about - as I said before, Berlinale isn't quite as glamourous as Venice or Sundance - but this odd collection of people wearing green neckbands are the cast and crew of Offside. The green is another symbol of resistance against the Iranian regime.

15 authors in 15 minutes

Celeste

Stephanie of Sunbeam Soapbox tagged me to list fifteen authors that had influenced me back in December.  I'm usually really bad at getting around to doing these sort of things, but the topic really appealled to me.  The challenge is to spend 15 minutes thinking about 15 authors who have influenced you in some way.

"Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen writers who’ve influenced you and that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes. Tag at least fifteen friends, including me, because I’m interested in seeing what authors my friends choose."

So... my list. In no particular order

1. Roald Dahl

2.EE Cummings

3. David Malouff

4. Kazuo Ishiguro

5. Margaret Atwood

6. Robin Klein

7. Tim Flannery

8. Peter Carey

9. Paul Farmer

10. Charles Bukowski

11. John Keats

12. Enid Blyton

13. Tim Winton

14. Jane Austen

15. AA Milne

Amongst the mix is a collection of childhood authors who instilled in me a love of reading and a curiosity to pick up books and discover the worlds within them.  There are quite a few Australian authors, mostly based on books I read in my last years of high school - I still have a copy of a very dog-eared, highlighted and bent out of shape "Fly Away Peter" which I must have read twenty or thirty times before sitting my final english exams in Year 12.  And then there are Paul Farmer and Tim Flannery, two passionate scientific men who have brought very important topics (access to healthcare and climate change) to the masses.

Little Miu

And now it's your turn, I'm supposed to list 15 other bloggers who should also participate.  This is the part that I hate.  Incidentally it's also why I tend not to reply to blog awards. I mean this in no way as a criticism to those who are brave enough to give and receive awards and I am humbled everytime I am tagged. But it reminds me of high school and I was never really "good" at the high school popularity thing.  

So, if you are interested in taking part in this challenge (and it's a worthy task to spend 15 minutes thinking about authors who have influenced you), please link back to me so that I can see who makes it to your list.  And because I think these people might be interested, here are some blogs I read who have, at one stage or another, showed an interest in reading too.

E tells Tales,
Cracks in the Pavement
Tea with Lemon Photography
Striking Keys
Resident on Earth
We Heart Books
Pieces of Me
For the Easily Distracted
Emerging Em

I just realised that this short list also provides a view of my fairly ecclectic blog reading.

Happy Weekend!

permanent cycle on my ipod

I first heard this girl sing at the Falls Festival in January.  At the time I asked my ever-so-much-hipper younger sisters who this quirky, slightly awkward girl wow-ing the crowd was.  Almost simultaneously they both looked at me with the distain reserved only for older sisters who are displaying how totally out of touch with the Australian music scene they have become, and they told me she was Lisa Mitchell, one of the few talented singers who has managed to succeed as an independent musician after the roller-coaster of Australian Idol.  I flew back to Germany and promptly forgot about the whole thing until last weekend at the movies I saw an ad for mobile phones, of all things, using her song.  Afterwards I went home, downloaded her album Wonder, and have had it on permanent cycle on my ipod since.  Guaranteed I'll be listening to it this weekend too as I settle into another wet weekend spent indoors chilling out, eating homemade soup, reading and listening to the rain fall on the roof. 

Flying Bach

 Image: Red Bull Deutschland

Last weekend I went to a performance of Flying Bach at the Neuen National Gallerie near Potsdamer Platz.  The Neuen National Gallerie was the perfect space for this really interesting and unique performance.  Urban dance including break-dancing, krumping, popping and rap to Bach.  I was a little skeptical at first, but this was one of the best things I've seen all year.  The artists were so athletic and a lot of thought had been put into tailoring the dance styles to the nuances of the music.  It was really so much fun and attracted such a diverse audience.  It's really what music should be all about - fun..  You can check a bit of it out in the Utube videos below.

bright star

I watched Bright Star last night.  I was completely taken.  Beautiful, beautiful shots of English summer where you can almost feel the warm breeze and smell the flowers.  And the story - it's so wonderfully, romantically tragic.  And there's some really incredibly well shot images of hand embroidery and stitching.  Almost makes you yearn for the 'simpler' times of the 1800s.  

Fanny Brawne wore mourning dress for six years after Keats' death and didn't marry for another 12 years.  Keats' wrote his most admired poems while he was secretly engaged to Fanny.  So, so tragic and yet his poems and letters are so beautiful.  More Keats to come, me thinks - the movie was a great introduction!

Berlinale

Berlinale starts tomorrow.  I've been quietly scanning the programme trying to work out what I should see. Definitely on the list is this:

Bran Nue Dae is playing, as a once off, on Sunday.  Tickets go on sale tomorrow at 10am and you can be sure that I'll be in the (internet) line waiting.

I'm also thinking about;

In the Air (USA 2009) 

A Perm (Korea, 2009)

Derby (Romania, 2010) 

Derby is on the top of my list - here's what Berlinale says:

"Mircea has a 15 year old daughter whose boyfriend is invited to dine with the family. He arrives earlier and they go to her bedroom. While watching TV, Mircea can hear his daughter moaning from her room. They start dinner and Mircea finds out that the boyfriend supports a different football team."

Makes me giggle just thinking about it - eastern european, budget movie with everything unravelling over Football.  

I think my favourite thing about International Film Festivals is that you never really know what your going to get.  I remember sitting through one film where the only thing that was said was 'Bonjour' for the whole 90 minutes.  It was slow, it was strange, but it definitely made me think.  What are your 'film festival' favourites?

Mozart and the Whale

This weekend we cleaned the new apartment,

We went 'dream' furniture shopping in the antique shops around Prenzlauer Berg. Then we did some rough sums and decided on Sunday to visit Ikea,

We bought beautiful old pots and pans at the Mauer Flohmarket on Sunday morning at... 8am (!). (Pictures to come)

Then went to Ikea where we bought a bed, wardrobe, chairs and many other "absolutely essential things" that you can't help not buy when you visit Ikea. Does that happen to anyone else?

After that exhaustion set in and all further plans were scrapped in favour of spaghetti and a movie. I got to choose from this awesome Video Shop near our house. This shop is fantastic. It has literally thousands of films - german, english, french, austrian (!)... it has a section where it groups movies according to director - amazing. And another according to actor/actress, and then another for genre. So cool. I could have spent hours just wondering around looking.

Mozart and the Whale was the final choice. Perfect movie for Sunday night - cute, slightly quirky and romantic. It's "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime", but Christopher Boone is now grown-up and trying to navigate through life alone. There are spots where its slightly awkward and Josh Harnett doesn't quite get is right. But mostly its nice.

Now I have Matthias's mobile sitting next to me and I'm waiting for the Ikea delivery men to call. I have a 'script' in german beside me. I'm really nervous. Telephone calls in German?!?!