Happy Friday! ☀️
I spent the weekend and a few bonus days in the beautiful countryside of Uckermark near the Polish border and feel grateful for spending time in a beautiful house, surrounded by nature and water, and the sun.
What I’m reading 📖
‘Über Menschen’, the clever title for Juli Zeh’s follow-up novel to ‘Unterleuten’ is perhaps Germany’s first Corona novel. The story follows Dora who moves from Berlin to the countryside in the spring of 2020 and finds herself confronted with all the feelings we all felt this year: fear and insecurity, craving nature and connection, a volatile work and love life, and the tension between ideology and humanity. Thoughtful and caring, it provoked my thinking more than I had expected. More about the book.
What I’m listening to 🎧
‘Finding Van Gogh’ is an investigative 5-part docu-style podcast series produced by the Staedel Museum in Frankfurt. It’s a wonderful quest to understand the history of Van Gogh’s last great painting ‘Portrait of Dr. Gachet’ and to find the whereabouts of the painting that was sold for $82.5 million in 1990. It’s a captivating journey into Van Gogh’s life, the art world of then and now, and why a painting of such value and such an eventful history is kept hidden from the public eye. Listen to the series in English or German.
What I’m watching 📺
‘Call Me By Your Name’ is such a gift of a movie I hadn’t watched until this week. I am glad I finally did. Set in the 80ies in rural Northern Italy, it’s a coming-of-age story that is so rich in beauty: the plot, the cast, the film locations, the acting.
What I’m thinking about 🧠
“But to make yourself feel nothing so as not to feel anything ― what a waste!”
– excerpt of the moving monologue by actor Michael Stuhlbarg as Mr. Perlman in the movie ‘Call Me By Your Name’.
What else?! 💯
On April 29th 2015, more or less on a whim, Isa and I hosted our very first Role Models event. What initially started as an experiment turned into a regular event series, an English-speaking podcast in 2017, and a German-speaking podcast in 2018. 6 years in, Isa and I have hosted candid conversations with over 120 inspiring women, the podcast has been downloaded over 1 million times, and has 100.000 active listeners. Happy birthday, Role Models! This week, we also released our episode with marine biologist Antje Boetius who shares what it felt like to experience her own Eureka moment and scientific breakthrough. Deep dive!
Thanks for reading, have a great weekend!
David
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