Cora Buhlert

Journey to the Edge of the Ruhrgebiet: Cora’s Adventures at the Marché Noir Retro Fair in Dorsten, Part 1: It’s Roadtrip Time Again

Posted on February 18, 2025 by Cora

I first heard about Marché Noir, a retro toy/comic/games/cool stuff fair in the Ruhrgebiet region, sometime last year. It sounded like exactly my sort of thing. However, Marché Noir is traditionally in February and last year I couldn’t go for personal reasons and probably wouldn’t have enjoyed myself, even if I had been able to go.

In previous years, Marché Noir took place in a former tram depot in Dortmund, but this year they moved to a new venue on the premises of a former coalmine in a town called Dorsten. The name of the town didn’t ring a bell at all, but when I looked it up on a map, I saw that Dorsten is located on the northern edge of the Ruhrgebiet and is actually closer to Bremen than Dortmund would have been. And of course the fact that the con venue was a former coalmine turned arts and events venue also intrigued me, because anything that combines a con with industrial history has to be cool. Plus, last week was the first anniversary of Mom’s death, so Marché Noir gave me something to distract me and look forward to. So I decided to go.

And you know what this means. It’s roadtrip time again!

Autobahn A1

I got up at quarter past six AM. As with my trips to Castrop-Rauxel and Hanau, it was still dark when I got up. However, by the time I got into my car shortly before seven AM, the pitch darkness of the night had been replaced by gray twilight gloom. By now, it’s quite notable that the days are getting longer again. However, it was also freezing cold – the entire week has been cold and we even had snow.

I made a brief pitstop to throw my mail-in ballot into a mailbox – Germany is having a general election next Sunday, which is dreaded by pretty much everybody, and since the far right AfD is projected to win approx. twenty percent of the total vote, every vote counts even more than usual. Then, my civic duty done, I set off towards Dorsten.

I drove onto my old friend Autobahn A1 at Groß-Mackenstedt in southbound direction. As I’ve said before, almost every roadtrip starts on the A1. Because it was seven AM on a Sunday morning, even the normally busy A1 was as empty as it ever gets. There were very few cars about, because it was so early. And since trucks are not allowed to drive on German roads on Sundays except for urgent cargo like perishable goods or live animals, there were hardly any trucks either, at least not on the Autobahnen. Because there were plenty of trucks parked on the large parking lots along the route.

Because there was so little traffic, I made good time. Even better, my old nemesis, the monster 33 kilometer construction zone between exits Lohne/Dinklage and Bramsche is also gone with a few leftovers, where there’s still some construction work going on at the edge of the highway or on highway bridges and the like.

On the downside, the stretch of Autobahn from Groß-Mackenstedt to Wildeshausen, which used to be a “go as fast as you like” zone and then acquired a speed limit of 120 kilometers per hour, has now had the speed limit reduced to 100 kilometers per hour because the tarmac is in bad condition. I guess that’s where the next monster construction zone will be. It’s still a bummer, though, because 100 kilometers per hour is pretty slow for an Autobahn that’s straight and even, not to mention almost empty.

After Wildeshausen, however, the speed limit was lifted and I could drive as fast as I like. And because the Autobahn was empty and there are few curves and no hills here, I drove at top speeds up to 150 kilometers per hour or so, which is faster than I normally go. But in such conditions and with good music on the radio, driving is fun. Plus, it wasn’t dark anymore, but gray, though the sun didn’t rise until approx. 7:40 AM, by which time I had reached Service Station Dammer Berge with its iconic bridge restaurant. Though this time around, I didn’t stop there, because I wasn’t in the mood for soapy coffee or gloopy cake.

There was snow in the fields and woods alongside the A1. At first just a little bit and then by the time I reached Cloppenburg, the fields were fully covered in snow, though the Autobahn itself was free. Interestingly enough, the snow completely vanished by the time I Osnabrück. Normally, the hillier and more southern parts of Germany get more snow. But this time around, North Germany got all the snow, while the regions further south didn’t get nearly as much.

Country Roads, Take Me Home:

When I’m driving I need music on the radio to stay awake and alert. That makes me the opposite of my Dad, who needed to hear someone talking to stay alert, preferably live, but the radio would do as well. With was a problem during roadtrips, when I was a kid, because Dad would switch on talky radio stations – usually news and political stuff – and also keep the music at a very low volume, whereas I wanted music at higher volume and preferably no talking at all, because it disrupted my thoughts. And since I cannot tolerate headphones, a walkman was no solution either. Eventually, I learned to tune out the talking on the radio to the point that I accidentally gave myself audio processing issues (basically, I tend to drift off after a few minutes of talking on the radio or another medium), which initially made it difficult for me to listen to podcasts, audio books and audio dramas (which is ironic, considering how important audio dramas were in West German youth culture). Come to think of it, I’m not sure if I ever suggested to my Dad popping an audio drama on cassette into the tape deck of the car radio, so we could at least listen to talking that was fun. But then, I don’t think it would have worked, because my parents didn’t like audio dramas very much (some nonsense about audio dramas harming reading abilities), so I never had all that many audio dramas on tape. Oddly enough, they did buy me Kid Stuff readalong records from the US, because anything is educational, when it’s in a foreign language.

My radio station of choice has always been Radio Bremen 1, because I like their mix of older and newer music in a variety of styles. However, around Osnabrück you get out of range and have to choose a different station. In this case, this was WDR 4, which has a similar mix of music to Radio Bremen 1, though they’re more 1980s and generally oldie focussed than Radio Bremen 1, and is enjoyable enough to listen to. Though my trip to Hanau in December was actively painful, because I just couldn’t find a radio station that worked for me at all. At one point, I even asked an employee at an Autohof to which station their radio was tuned, because at least that one had decent music.

A few days ago, there was a discussion on BlueSky, where an American expat in Germany said in response to “Country Roads, Take Me Home” being played at the Super Bowl (allegedly – I didn’t watch that thing and actively dislike it, since Mom died during the night of last year’s Super Bowl, so it brings back bad memories) that in Germany the entire stadium would have sung along. In response, another expat said that they didn’t understand why Germans liked that song as well as “Seasons in the Sun” by Terry Jacks so much, since no one under fifty in the US would know those songs, which led to a discussion about John Denver (whom supposedly no one under fifty remembers either) and the music played on German radio stations, which many expats find irritating. Well, to be fair, I find American and Canadian radio stations with focus on only a single type of music irritating as well.

Anyway, as I was driving down the A1, what song came on on the radio? Exactly, “Country Roads, Take Me Home”. And yes, I did sing along – because that’s another thing I like to do, when I’m driving on my own, singing along with the radio. Later in the day, I actually heard the song a second time, this time courtesy of WDR 4. I also heard “Seasons in the Sun” BTW, which I did not need right now. Not that I don’t like “Seasons in the Sun” – it’s a good song. However, it was played at my Mom’s funeral, because she loved that song, so I really didn’t need to hear it only a few days after the anniversary of her death.

Autobahn A43 and Breakfast in Dülmen

I made excellent time and drove past Osnabrück towards Münster. At the intersection Münster South I changed onto Autobahn A43 – yes, one of the dreaded A-fortysomethings that criss-cross the Ruhrgebiet. By now, it was 8:30 AM and time to look for a place to have breakfast. But where?

The first exit on the A43 had an Autohof, but it was closed for renovations. I also wasn’t familiar with any of the names of the exits and towns at all, since I don’t think I’ve ever been on the A43 before – at least not in the last forty years. So I had no idea which exit had a town nearby and which would just lead to an industrial estate or disgorge me in the middle of nowhere. So when I spotted a sign for a rest area named Karthaus, I stopped to check Google Maps for a suitable place nearby to have breakfast. I saw that there was a town of reasonable size called Dülmen up ahead, which had several bakeries fairly close to the Autobahn. Dülmen also apparently has some surviving medieval buildings as well as a famous nature park with wild horses, but I didn’t see any of this.

So I left the Autobahn at the exit Dülmen, ignoring the complaints of Else, my GPS. The first bakery turned out to be attached to a grocery store and was closed, but the second one was not only open and busy, but also had a large café. It was a branch of Bakery Geiping, a chain that operates bakery cafés all over the Münsterland and the northern part of the Ruhrgebiet. The name rang a bell and indeed I had coffee at another Geiping branch on my way home from Toyplosion in Castrup-Rauxel last year.

For a Sunday morning, the bakery was busy and there was a line of people waiting to be served. However, most of them were picking up fresh bread rolls to take home – Sunday breakfast is something of a ritual for many German families – and the line to eat in was much shorter. There was a poster advertising an avocado bagel, but the lady behind the counter informed that avocado bagels were only available during the week. So I ended up ordering scrambled eggs with vegetables and a latte macchiato.

Autobahn A52, Marl and fucking Gladbeck:

After breakfast, I got back into my car for the rest of the trip. I drove back onto the A43 and two exits later my GPS Else instructed me to change onto Autobahn A52 – not an A-fortysomething for once – at the intersection Marl-North. Though it’s more of a junction, because the A52 peters out shortly after Marl-North.

Marl was actually a town whose name I did recognise as a Ruhrgebiet city that’s a center of the chemical industry. Indeed, the Autobahn directly passed Marl Chemical Park, a massive industrial complex, and I could see the various chemical plants in the distance. Apparently, parts of Mark Chemical Park are open to visitors and there is also a former coalmine on the premises, which you can visit as well. However, I didn’t know this at the time and besides, I already had an appointment at a different coalmine.

I also saw a mosque, complete with dome and minaret, directly next to the Autobahn. Mosques aren’t rare in Germany – we have approx. 5.5 million Muslims after all. And due to its industrial history, the Ruhrgebiet has a higher percentage of Muslims than many other places, because many Turkish immigrants flocked to the Ruhrgebiet cities in the 1960s and 1970s to work in the mines and factories. However, most mosques in Germany are converted warehouses, shops, restaurants or even single family homes. Purpose-built mosques with minarets and interesting architecture are still fairly uncommon and sadly controversial. Some research reveals that this particular mosque was actually one of the first purpose-built mosques in all of Germany and was built in 1992.

The signs on the Autobahn did not mention Dorsten at all, but instead announced Gelsenkirchen and – somewhat troubling to me – Gladbeck. As for why seeing the name “Gladbeck” on a roadsign upsets me, that’s because of the so-called Gladbeck hostage crisis, most of which did not actually take place in Gladbeck but in Bremen. That hostage crisis led to a massive media circus and cost three lives – police officer Ingo Hagen, 15-year-old Emanuele di Giorgi and 18-year-old Silke Bischoff, who went to my school, though she was a few years ahead of me. As a result, the entire school was traumatised – because the victims were our age, because Silke had been one of us, because everybody knew the bus stop where the bus was hijacked (it was a main stop on the bus route into Bremen and my best friend and I had been at that same bus stop the day before) and because it could have been anyone of us. Rumours were also flying high, making events that already were horrible enough even worse. I don’t know if any of those rumours were ever true and I have certainly never repeated them. And our teachers not only had no idea how to handle a bunch of traumatised teenagers, but probably didn’t even recognise they were dealing with traumatised teenagers and reacted really badly. Indeed, the mere fact that we wanted to talk about the events seemed inconvenience the teachers. Mr. Bösche, who was my class teacher at the time and a terrible person, basically told us that everything that had happened was our fault, because we had watched the news reports and live interviews with the gangsters on TV. Honestly, as an adult the lack of empathy among our teachers is shocking. If something like this happened nowadays, there would probably be psychological support offered for students.

It took me a long time to even understand that the Gladbeck hostage crisis had caused a lingering trauma in me. After all, I wasn’t directly affected. I didn’t even know Silke Bischoff personally and I didn’t know Emanuele di Giorgi at all. But 36 years later, I still cannot look at the iconic photos of the gangsters brandishing their guns inside the bus and of the gun pressed to Silke Bischoff’s head and get upset when I chance to see them without warning. I also still get upset when I pass service station Grundbergsee on the A1, where Emanuele di Giorgi was murdered and Ingo Hagen was killed in a car crash, and I would never ever stop there. When one of the gangsters was released from prison in 2018, I was furious, though I’m normally not in favour of extremely long prison sentences. And when a trailer for a 2018 TV movie about the Gladbeck hostage crisis came on unexpectedly, I literally screamed at the TV how on Earth they could broadcast this without even the courtesy of a trigger warning. That was the point when I realised that it had been thirty years after all, well beyond any statute of limitations, and that my reaction wasn’t exactly normal, but a trauma response.

Just as service station Grundbergsee bothers me, seeing the name “Gladbeck” on every second sign on Autobahn A52 also bothered me a lot. Though of course, I can’t expect Autobahn signage to respect my personal issues with a town which probably isn’t happy to be synonymous with one of the most infamous crimes in postwar Germany either. In fact, I even briefly considered stopping in Gladbeck after the con to see if seeing the place would exorcise my demons. However, I didn’t know where the bank was and apparently the building no longer exists anyway, but was demolished. I guess they wanted to exorcise the memory, too.

Besides, I didn’t have to drive as far as Gladbeck or even Gelsenkirchen anyway, because Else directed me to leave the Autobahn at the exit Marl-Frentrop. I ended up in a rural and very flat area (parts of the Ruhrgebiet have hills and mountains, but this one doesn’t), while Else told me not to take the road that led into Dorsten proper. I went along with this, because a coalmine probably wouldn’t be located in the city center, but somewhere on the outskirts. So I crossed the river Lippe and the Wesel-Datteln canal and got a little nervous, when I still saw only rural landscapes and no sign of a town, let alone a coalmine. In other parts of the Ruhrgebiet, towns and cities tend to blend into each other, but this was clearly not the case here.

When I programmed Else before setting off, I couldn’t find the street where the former coalmine was located. According to Else, the street didn’t exist. I later realised that this was because Else’s map is out of date (and can’t be updated anymore, because the manufacturer no longer supports this particular system) and because the street in question wasn’t built until the coalmine was decommissioned and turned into an arts venue and business park, which meant Else had no way of knowing the street. So I programmed Else for a nearby street that she did recognise. There was only one problem. The street in question was long and so Else just led me to an intersection in a rural area and announced that I had reached my destination.

I turned into the destination street into the direction of Dorsten, figuring that since coalmines are big, I should be able to spot it from the car. Never mind that there would probably be signs pointing at the arts venue. And indeed, I eventually came to a roundabout with a sign indicating the arts venue. Even better, I could spot a mineshaft elevator tower in the distance. So I had found the right place.

Finding a place to park was slightly more difficult, because the dedicated parking lot of the arts venue was full as was the parking lot of an adjacent grocery store (which was closed, since it was Sunday). Across the road from the grocery store, there was an office park built on top of the former coalmine. The office buildings had parking lots, so I just parked my car there. After all, the offices were all closed for the weekend, so who would mind?

Then I headed to the mine and con. But that’s a story for part 2.

Posted in Con Reports | Tagged 1980s child, Autobahn, comics, con reports, Dorsten, family, German history, industrial history, Marché Noir, music, road trip, roadside views, Ruhrgebiet, toys | 3 Comments

Cora’s TV Adventure

Posted on January 31, 2025 by Cora

Before we get to the main topic, let’s start off with where else you could find my writing late. In mid January, I was at Galactic Journey, reviewing the 1969 science fiction crime anthology Crime Prevention in the 30th Century, edited by Hans Stefan Santesson, and the 1970 science fiction thriller Drug of Choice by John Lange a.k.a. Michael Crichton, two books which very much address social issues and anxieties of the early 1970s. It’s fascinating how good Crichton was at the start of his career. Also it was depressing to write about the sense of hope and optimism that flowed through West Germany following the 1969 general election, especially compared to the fact that pretty much everybody only views the general election coming up this February with dread, because incompetent as the last government was, what’s coming is likely worse.

On a less depressing note, I was also at the Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow Blog of the Seattle Worldcon, writing about how the sword and sorcery genre got its name.

But now let’s get to the main event. For last week, I had a somewhat unusual experience, because I had a TV team in my home. No, it had nothing to do with SFF or the Hugo, but was for a completely different reason.

NDR is a public regional TV and radio station in North Germany. They’re licence-fee financed, operate several regional radio and TV channels and also contribute programming to ARD, a joint TV program supplied by the various public regional TV stations.

Some time ago, NDR initiated a project called #NDRfragt (NDR asks), where they ask viewers/listeners about their views on various topics of the day. The idea behind this and similar projects is that the public TV and radio stations have been accused – not without reason – of being politically biassed and generally too far removed from the actual concerns and views of the viewers/listeners, who after all have to support these programs via the mandatory licence fee. So several public TV/radio stations initiated projects to give their viewers/listeners a chance to share their opinion. In general, this is a good thing.

The way it works is that they send you a link to a survey about the topic du jour by e-mail. When you fill out the survey, they ask you if they can quote from your answers (because they need your permission) and also if you would be willing to participate in a radio or TV interview about the topic.

I signed up for the #NDRfragt project some time ago. I don’t even know what it was that prompted me to sign up, whether it was a specific topic or a general sense of “This is a good project and I want to support it”. I often sign up for surveys, research questionnaires and the like, because I remember from my university days how difficult it is to get people to participate in research surveys and questionnaires. At any rate, I always tick the “Yes, you may quote from my answers” box and the “Yes, I would be willing to participate in a radio or TV interview” box as well.

I didn’t really expect anything to come from it, but then last Tuesday afternoon, I got a call from a journalist from the NDR asking if I wanted to participate in a TV interview about the topic of their latest survey – “Were the covid measures too strict and do we need some kind of political post-mortem?” I considered for a moment – it is a sensitive topic, after all, and there’s a chance of pissing off people – and then said yes.

“We’ll be shooting the interview on Friday or possibly Monday,” the journalist said, “Are you home?”

“I work from home and am generally flexible,” I said, “And I don’t have any appointments on those days.”

The lady from the NDR also asked me if I was a member of any political party. She said it wouldn’t be a problem, if I was, just that they’d need to mention it. This is probably a response to an uproar which erupted, when a TV team from a public channel did street interviews and one of the people interviewed turned out to be a member of the Green Party and the local town council. The TV channel was accused of political bias, though the interviewer likely had no idea about the party affiliation of this random person they interviewed on the street – it’s not as if journalists can be expected to recognise every single member of every party. Ironically enough, one of the other two people featured in the TV report, did turn out to be a member of the Green Party, which is mentioned in the report.

Finally, the lady from the NDR promised to call me back the following day about the exact time and date.

So now I was about to be interviewed on TV and would have a TV team coming to my house. Which meant that I needed to accelerate the post-holiday clean-up to get the parts of the house the TV team would see up to speed in two and a half days. And there wasn’t much left of the half day, especially since I had an appointment on Tuesday in the early evening.

In particular, I needed to clean up the dining room/hall – basically a large room on the ground floor, from which you can access the other rooms. It’s a room that’s used a lot, so the floor tends to get dirty and stuff also tends to accumulate before it’s moved somewhere else. So I had to move stuff that had accumulated elsewhere – either final destination or intermediate storage – clean up the place a little and – most importantly – vacuum and mop the floor, which is tiled. And I really hate vacuuming and mopping the floor, because it’s hard on the back and I hate my parents’ vacuum cleaner. We do have a vacuum bot, but you basically have to empty the room before using it, because it tends to get stuck on chairs and the like.

On Wednesday afternoon, the lady from the NDR called me back and said they would like to film on Friday morning. Also, since I work from home, could they film me in my office? “Sure,” I said, “But I’m mostly sitting in front of the computer typing, which isn’t particularly exciting.”

The lady from the NDR also said, “You mentioned taking walks by a lake during the covid pandemic. Could we film there? And can we use a drone?” I replied, “The lake and the park are maybe 600 meters away, but I don’t think it’s a problem to film there. As for the drone, we’re close to Bremen airport, but not that close that drones are banned.”

So in addition to cleaning up the hall/dining room, I also had to clean the office. Which meant more vacuuming and lugging the bloody vacuum cleaner up the stairs. Honestly, I’m getting myself a new vacuum cleaner, because this thing is barely usable, too heavy and kills my back.

Anyway, I got everything cleaned up by Friday morning – even though I managed to knock over a plate with cookies and had to vacuum part of the floor again – and was ready for the NDR TV team to arrive. Which they did – ten minutes early – when I was on the toilet in my underwear. So hurray for that. I also realised that though I had vacuumed and mobbed the entrance area and guest toilet, I had forgotten to move some of the stuff in the entrance area like keys and the like that I need to grab quickly.

The TV team consisted of three people in a van. The lady I’d talked to on the phone as well as a camera operator and a sound technician. The sound technician seemed to be fairly new to the job, probably still in training. The camera operator was the oldest and most experienced of the three. They were all very nice. They even took off their shoes.

A lot of equipment – camera, tripods, sound equipment, etc… – was lugged into my house and the reporter and the camera operator examined the dining room/hall. The camera operator in particular liked the light in the room – there is a large window and the glass backdoor – and was he also liked the vintage rocking chair, the early 1970s interior and Else, my department store mannequin. He was also fascinated by my Masters of Universe figures who have taken over some of the shelves (I really need to rearrange the shelves, since they’re still full of my parents’ books, which I don’t want to throw out, but don’t want in the entrance area of my house either). The Hugo trophy was duly admired as well. The sound technician managed to knock over some of my Masters of the Universe figures and profusely apologised, though nothing was damaged.

The reporter asked if they could see the office now, so everybody went up the stairs. “Oh, there’s more figures here,” the camera operator noted. Though in general, everybody agreed that they liked the dining room/hall better, because it’s much bigger, has better light and has a more exciting interior. And could I maybe just take the laptop downstairs? Okay, so I had vacuumed the office for nothing, though it did need to be cleaned anyway.

Back downstairs, the camera operator became interested in the living room, which is separated from the hall by a glass door. “Can we switch on the light in there, so it won’t look like a dark void?”

“Sure,” I said and switched on the lights.

Now the living room is in the process of being transformed into the collection room/toy room and has a big diorama style Masters of the Universe display, which of course fascinated the TV team.

“Oh, there are even more figures in there,” the camera operator exclaimed, while the reporter asked me if we could go in there. I said, “Sure. But there are still some holiday decorations in there that I didn’t get around to clearing away yet.”

So the TV team moves into the living room to admire my collection, while the camera operator asks if we can open the blinds. I said, “We can open one of them, but the other one is broken. There’s a cable damaged somewhere. My Dad tried to locate the damage, but then he died and I don’t think anybody else will ever be able to find the damaged cable, so it’s permanently down.”

In the end, the TV team decided that they preferred the dining room/hall and asked me to set up the laptop. The camera operator also asked if we could put some of my Masters of the Universe figures onto the dining table.

I said, “Of course. There actually were some figures on the table until yesterday, but I moved them away. Do you want any specific figures or should I just pick something?”

“Could we have these ladies?” the camera operator asked and pointed at three different Teela figures.

So I took the three Teelas and when they turned out to have problems keeping their footing on my quilted tablerunner, I also grabbed Battle Cat to hold them upright.

“Could we also have the King?” the camera operator asked, so I grabbed King Randor and positioned him opposite the three Teelas. You can see what it looked like below.

King Randor addresses three Teelas and Cringer.

Here we have the Masters of the Universe Classics Battleground Teela a.k.a. Brass Bikini Teela a.k.a. Teela in the style of the early mini-comics, Masterverse Revelation Mercenary Teela and the regular Masters of the Universe Classics Teela leaning against the Masterverse Battlecat/Cringer and being adressed by the Classics Filmation style King Randor.

“So let me get this straight? When I asked Zoar for reinforcements, a portal spit out three different versions of Captain Teela?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Ready to serve, Sire.”

“Your wish is our command.”

“Well, I’m sure the Guard is in good hands. As for Prince Adam…”

“We will protect Adam, Sire.”

“With our lives, if necessary.”

“We won’t let him out of our sights, Your Majesty.”

“Sigh. I just hope Adam survives three of them.”

***

The sound technician then hooked up the microphone. A small mike was clipped to the collar of my sweater (later replaced with a slightly different model), then I was asked to run the wire under my sweater. Finally, the wire was connected to a receiver that was clipped to the waistband of my pants.

Once the Masters of the Universe figures were set up, I switched on the laptop, pulled up a random document (it turned out to be my latest post for the Seattle Worldcon blog) and started typing some stream of consciousness stuff, so I would look busy, while the TV team filmed.

Then I was asked to sit down in my Grandma’s old rocking chair and answer the interviewer’s questions about the topic of the week, which I did.

And then it was time to go to the park. Now the park isn’t far away, but it’s quite far when lugging heavy equipment. So we all piled into the TV team’s van and drove to the park.

Once at the park, the team surveyed the area and zeroed in on the lake, which is really the most interesting part of the park.

The camera was set up and a wind protector was added to the microphone, so it looks as if I have a Tribble stuck to my sweater. Then I was asked to look straight into the camera and give a short intro and outro statement of my opinion. After the end statement, I was also asked to turn around and walk up the path until I vanished behind some shrubbery. Rinse and repeat about two or three times, especially since a dog walker and a woman on a bike interrupted the filming.

I was also asked to walk across a bridge in the park (twice) and then I was asked to position myself at the lake and look out across the water.

“Can you take a step forward?” the camera operator asked.

“I’m sorry, but this is as far as I can go. Another step forward and I’ll end up in the lake.”

Then, the camera drone was unpacked and I had to look out across the lake some more, while the drone circled me, stirring up the ducks who live around the lake. I watched the ducks, which made it easier to ignore the drone buzzing around me. On top of everything else, it started to rain.

While the camera operator and sound technician were packing up, the reporter asked me if I had TV experience. “Sort of,” I replied, “I was active with the local public access channel almost thirty years ago. I did interviews, filming, editing, anything that needed doing.” This cued a discussion about how many things had changed – when I was editing, it was all analogue and we didn’t have drones at all – and how a lot of things had stayed the same. The lady of the NDR said that a lot of her colleagues had gotten their start at the public access channels. This makes sense, since Germany only has very few universities that offer TV and film classes – it was two in all of Germany, when I was a student, and I don’t think it’s more now – so public access channels offered everybody who was interested in working in film or TV a way to gain some experiences. “Back then, I wanted to become a director and go to Hollywood,” I said, “Eventually, I found out that writing was a better and easier way to tell stories and channelled my filmic ambitions into taking photos of toys.”

The TV team got back into the van and took me to the street corner. They would also have taken me home, but since they had to return to Hannover for the next filming assignment, I said, “It’s fine. I can walk the rest of the way.”

Once home, I had lunch. And then, because I was tired, I laid down to take a nap. I was woken about an hour later by the phone. It was the sound technician of the TV team. “I’m sorry,” he said, “But we’re missing a tripod. Could you check if it’s in your house?”

“I didn’t notice any stray tripod,” I replied, “But I’ll check again.” So I went through every part of the house where the TV team had been – including the visitors toilet – but found no tripod. “Maybe it’s still in the park,” the sound technician said, “I know it’s an imposition, but could you maybe go and check?” The TV team was shooting the next interview in Hannover at this point, about a hundred kilometers away.

So I got dressed to go back to the park. However, it was raining steadily outside and besides, I didn’t want to lug a tripod all the way back from the park (cause it felt wrong to just leave it there), so I took the car instead, parked it by the roadside near the entrance to the park and went in search of the tripod in the rain. I found it, too, leaning against a line of trees and bushes alongside a path, pretty much invisible, unless you were very close.

I picked up the tripod, carried it to the car and put it on the backseat, because it was too big for the trunk. Then I called the number the NDR reporter had given me. “Good news. I found your tripod. It was between the trees along one of the paths. I took the liberty to take it home, cause it’s safer here. You can pick it up whenever you want.” The reporter told me they’d call me back, when they would pick it up and that was that.

Here is the lost tripod leaning against coat rack. I used a wollen hat as a buffer to capture moisture (the tripod has been out in the rain for two hours or so) and keep it from scratching the wall.

As for the actual TV report, it aired during the Hallo Niedersachsen (Hello, Lower Saxony) regional news program on Tuesday evening and you can also watch it here on the NDR website. The entire report is six minutes long with the intro and it features three people. In addition to myself, there is a chimney sweeper/volunteer fire brigade member from Hannover and a disability advocate from the Weser Uplands who is a member of her local city council, raises hedgehogs and has long covid. So the two hours it took to film were condensed down to one and a half minutes, which is far from uncommon. The vast majority of footage shot for anything is never used.

I also briefly show up in a different report about the same topic on the NDR Info TV channel, which you can see here. Oddly enough, both reports picked the same quote about how school closings negatively affected children, which is something I did criticise.

However, I also criticised a lot of completely senseless measures which didn’t protect anybody, but were just senseless harassment such as the federal “emergency brake”, which postulated that a county exceeded a certain number of covid infections, there would be a nighttime curfew imposed (because the covid virus is apparently vampiric and only operates by night) and schools closed. My country Diepholz is very big – thank you, stupid and unwanted 1974 Lower Saxony community reform. In the spring of 2021, there was a covid outbreak on an asparagus farm near the town of Sulingen, which is at the other end of the county 45 kilometers away. So the schools were closed in the entire county and a nighttime curfew was imposed, even though the covid numbers were normal in our part of the county, which encompasses the southern suburbs of Bremen and is far more densely populated than the rural area around Sulingen. I like taking walks alone late in the evening or early in the morning, which I wasn’t allowed to do because of the bloody curfew, even though this was probably one of the safest activities you could pursue. Even worse, the asparagus farm was not shut down, but was allowed to continue operating, as long as the workers stayed isolated on the farm (asparagus farms usually employ migrant workers from Eastern Europe in not very good conditions), so the farm owner was even rewarded for exploiting his workers, while the entire county suffered and not a single life was saved. I talked about this in the interview, but it never made it into the video.

Anyway, that was my TV adventure.

Posted in TV | Tagged Galactic Journey, German politics, German TV, interviews, NDR, Seattle 2025, sword and sorcery | 1 Comment

Cora’s Adventures at the Church of Eternia Masters of the Universe Holiday Event in Hanau, Part 3: The Road Home… and Offensen

Posted on January 14, 2025 by Cora

On the third advent weekend in 2024, I attended the the Church of Eternia Masters of the Universe holiday event in Hanau. For the long trip to get there, see part 1 and for my impressions of the con itself as well as walking around Hanau in the footsteps of the Brothers Grimm, see part 2.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I spent the night at a really nice hotel in the town Langenselbold some twenty kilometers east of Hanau, which meant the trip home would only be about 450 kilometers instead 471 kilometers. Small comfort, I know.

Breakfast in Langenselbold

I wanted to set out early, though not quite as early as on the trip out, because it didn’t really matter at what time I got home. So I slept until half past seven, got dressed, packed up my stuff and headed down for breakfast, which was included with the price for the room, so why not take advantage of that?

I ventured into the hotel restaurant – which was pleasantly rustically furnished – and found a lone employee behind the bar and three tables laid out for breakfast. It was pretty easy to tell which one was mine, since it was set for one. The other tables were all set for two.

Though for now I was all alone. The other guests were apparently sleeping in or at least getting up later than me. So I ordered some tea from the lone employee and enjoyed a typical German hotel breakfast.

Now German breakfast normally means bread rolls served with butter and a selection of cheese, cold cuts as well different flavours of jam and honey and sometimes Nutella in small packages. Usually, there are also some slices of tomato and cucumber for decoration, though thankfully this place had a separate plate for them. There was also orange juice as well as a choice of coffee or tea. I suppose I could have ordered an egg, if I wanted one.

A typical German hotel breakfast with orange juice, bread rolls, butter and a selection of cheeses and cold cuts as well as small packages of jam, honey and Nutella,

The way you’re supposed to eat this German breakfast is to cut the bread rolls in half, put butter and then the topping of your choice on it. However, this is not how I eat breakfast. It never has been. I eat the breadrolls and the cheese separately, almost never use butter and don’t eat jam (allergy risk) or cold cuts (I don’t eat smoked or processed meat) at all.

This actually got me in trouble in kindergarten. Because once a week, we had breakfast in kindergarten, which looked a lot like this breakfast, though not nearly as nicely laid out. So I did what I always did, reached for a bread roll and started munching on it, only to be told by the teacher that I should eat it properly. In spite of declaring that I was fine with a dry bread roll and didn’t want anything else, I was forced to cut the bread roll in half with a dull knife and then judged for doing it badly – because I never eat that way. I was then forced to put butter on the bread roll – even though I didn’t eat or like butter as a kid and had problems digesting it – and then I had to choose a topping. Now the only remotely edible thing at the kindergarten was Nutella, since I don’t think they had cheese, just jam and some kind of meat product. So I obediently cut my bread roll in half, put butter and then Nutella on it and got judged for doing it badly. The result is that I’m probably the only person in Germany who never cared for Nutella – I only sometimes use it for baking – and that I think I’m bad at cutting bread or rolls to this day, even though it’s complete nonsense.

I also don’t understand why the teachers wouldn’t just let me eat the dry bread roll. But then, German teachers are weird about breakfast in general and both get upset, if kids don’t eat breakfast at all, or if they somehow eat the “wrong” breakfast (and pretty much anything is wrong). My Mom had arguments about this with my teachers, who complained that she gave me pretzels and things like peeled carrots rather than a sandwiches, whereupon she replied, “At least she eats this. She won’t eat the sandwich or – if she’s really hungry, she will peel it apart and eat the bread and the toppings separately. But most likely, she’ll just hand the sandwich off to Petra [the classmate who was always hungry and ate everything] and I’m not making sandwiches for Petra.”

However, there was no Mrs. Joppe or Miss Neubauer hovering over me to judge my breakfast and the lone employee was puttering about in the kitchen, so I ate the bread rolls and cheese and the veggies all separately. I also felt a tad guilty about the cold cuts, because maybe I should have told them the evening before that I don’t eat meat for breakfast, so the cold cuts wouldn’t be wasted. However, I didn’t know what breakfast at this hotel would be like, since a lot of hotels have breakfast buffets nowadays, so the issue wouldn’t arise. But considering there were only three tables set for breakfast, a buffet wouldn’t have been feasible.

While I was eating, two of the other guests, an elderly couple, came down to enjoy their breakfast. Then, after breakfast, I got my luggage and handed in my room key to the nice young man behind the counter. I also asked, if there was anything of interest in the area for sightseeing – after all, I had a whole day ahead of me – and noted that I’d been to Hanau the day before.

“Well, Frankfurt’s always worth a visit,” the young man said.

“I don’t doubt it,” I replied, “But Frankfurt is the wrong direction. Is there anything in the other direction, since there are a lot of towns along the Autobahn.”

“Well, those towns all have Christmas markets, but…” He shrugged. “…Christmas markets are kind of all the same everywhere. Plus, they’re all closed now.”

“Well, I’ll probably stop somewhere further north,” I said, “I have family near Göttingen, so I might pay them a visit.”

Outside, I took the photos of the hotel and Langenselbold Palace, which I posted in the previous post. Then I headed for my car and found the parking lot, which had been so full the night before, nearly empty.

Just Driving in the Rain

The day was as gloomy as the one before, though the sun was up by now. And then, just as I reached my car, it started to rain. So I jumped into my car and drove off.

I made my way back onto Autobahn A66 and set off towards home. While I drove through the Kinzig Valley, it was raining most of the time. On the mountains on both sides of the highway, I could even see a bit of snow.

I considered leaving the Autobahn at Steinau an der Straße (Steinau on the Street), the town where the Brothers Grimm actually spent most of their childhood, for though they were born in Hanau, the Grimm familiy moved to Steinau when the brothers were quite small. The former house of the Grimm family in Steinau is museum and apparently, the town also has a castle.

However, by the time I was approaching the exit Steinau an der Straße, the rain had gotten heavier, so I drove onwards. The most annoying thing about the rain was that according to the weather forecast, the day was supposed to be cold and overcast, but not overly rainy. So why was it raining and when would it stop?

A little after Steinau, I did stop at rest area Hundsrücker Berg, drank a bit of water, had a cookie and a piece of chocolate and checked the weather app on my phone where the pesky rain had come from and when it would stop. The weather app said that the rain would get lighter and eventually stop, though it might return in the afternoon, which was good enough for me.

By now, I was feeling a bit of pressure in my bladder, so I got out to use the toilet and indeed, the rain seemed to be getting lighter. The rest area also had a nice view overlooking the Kinzig Valley and the Spessart Mountains, so I snapped a photo.

View across the Kinzig valley from rest area Hundsrücker Berg

This view across the Kinzig valley towards the Spessart mountains from the rest area Hundsrücker Berg on the A66 is quite bleak and gloomy.

Then I drove onwards, towards Fulda. The rain did indeed stop, though the day was still overcast and gloomy. I paid attention to the brown tourist information signs by the side of Autobahn, which mention interesting sights along the route, but nothing really piqued my interest and made me want to check it out.

So I just drove on, steadily northwards. I’d considered stopping in Fulda to have lunch and maybe check out the city, which I’d never visited. But by the time I actually reached Fulda, it was not even eleven AM and way too early to have lunch. So I continued onwards, changing onto Autobahn A7, still driving steadily northwards, through the bloody Kasseler Berge again. At least the rain had stopped by now.

Autohof Lohfelder Rüssel

By noon, I was approaching Kassel, which should be the perfect place to find something to eat. Just before Kassel, there was service station Kassel East, but service stations are overpriced and the food quality is usually not good, so I drove onwards.

The very next exit – Kassel-Lohfelden – had an Autohof, so I took that exit and decided to check out the Autohof. And if the Autohof turned out to be disappointing, I could check my phone for other food options in the area.

Autohof Lohfelder Rüssel (Lohfelder trunk) turned out to be located on a plot of land between Autobahnen A7 and A49, literally an island between two Autobahnen. The Autohof has an independent restaurant – not just a fast food chain – which looked decent enough, so that’s where I had lunch. It turned out to be a good decision and I have added Autohof Lohfelder Rüssel to my personal list of Autohöfe that are actually good. In case you’re interested, the list is: Autohof Lohne/Dinklage on the A1, Autohof Schwarmstedt on the A7, Autohof Lohfelder Rüssel also on the A7 and Autohof Apen/Remels on the A28.

I ordered a dish called Spaghetti Um-Lei-Tung (Spaghetti Detour), which consisted of spaghetti with Asian style vegetables in a sweet and sour sauce. It was an interesting and tasty dish, especially for an Autohof, where the food is normally pretty meat heavy, since they mainly cater to truckers.

Spaghetti Um-Lei-Tung a.k.a. Spaghetti Detour, courtesy of Autohof Lohfelder Rüssel in Kassel.

At the table next to mine, there was a group of football fans in Borussia Dortmund jerseys. Dortmund is not located on the A7, so the fans had to be en route to an away match. I realised that I hadn’t paid any attention at all to the German football that weekend – after all, I attended an event where the important teams are the Heroic Warriors, Evil Warriors, Evil Horde, Great Rebellion, Snake Men, Space Mutants and Galactic Protectors, not Werder Bremen, Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund and Hamburger SV. Besides, I paid more attention to German football, when my parents were still alive, because they cared and were both Werder Bremen fans. Indeed, whenever I visited Mom at the nursing home or Dad in hospital, I always kept them up to date about the latest football results.

So I checked my phone whom Dortmund was playing that Sunday and it turned out to be TSG Hoffenheim. Hoffenheim isn’t much liked by anybody except by their fans – and since the village of Hoffenheim only has 3200 inhabitants, they don’t have a lot of organic fans – while I quite like Borussia Dortmund. So I wished the Dortmund fans a good onward journey to Hoffenheim and told them I was rooting for their team, which was absolutely true. The match ended in a draw BTW.

And while I was checking football results on my phone, I also checked how my hometown club Werder Bremen had fared the day before. Turned out they defeated FC St. Pauli, which will pain my neighbour Jan, who is a huge St. Pauli fan to the point that his one-year-old son always runs around with a woollen St. Pauli hat. I once told Jan that he should be careful or his kid would become a Bayern Munich or Hamburger SV fan in a fit of teenage rebellion. “Bayern Munich I could tolerate, but if he becomes a HSV fan, he must move out,” Jan replied. HSV and St. Pauli are both based in Hamburg and bitter local rivals.

Unlike the Dortmund fans, who had to make it to Hoffenheim in time for the match, I had plenty of time and so I decided to order a dessert. The holiday menu offered warm apple strudel with cinnamon ice cream and vanilla sauce, so I ordered that. The nice server said, “I’m very sorry, but we’re out of cinnamon ice cream. But I could give you vanilla ice cream instead.” “That sounds wonderful,” I said and so I had warm apple strudel with vanilla ice cream and vanilla sauce as well as a latte macchiato.

Warm apple strudel with vanilla ice cream, vanilla sauce and slices of orange and a latte macchiato, courtesy of Autohof Lohfelder Rüssel

Autohof Lohfelder Rüssel also has an Autobahn chapel, a curious German phenomenon, about which I wrote more here. Inspired by the roadside shrines and chapels found in Catholic parts of Germany from the Middle Ages until today, the big Christian churches started setting up chapels and churches at service stations along the Autobahnen from the 1950s on. Some of these were existing village churches which were incorporated into the Autobahn network, others were newly built. For more about Autobahn churches and chapels, see here and here.

The Autobahn chapel at Autohof Lohfelder Rüssel is a fairly new one, built in 2009, though judging by the Brutalist design, I’d assumed it was older. I’m also glad they’re still building new Autobahn churches, because I like that something like this exists as a refuge for travellers who want a moment of quiet and contemplation.

Autobahn chapel “Light on the Way” at Autohof Lohfelder Rüssel in Kassel

I’m my mother’s daughter – and my Mom could never pass a church without going in, less for religious reasons, but more because she liked the architecture and atmosphere. And so of course I went into the Autobahn chapel. It’s very peaceful inside. They have an altar where people can light candles for victims of traffic accidents and also for any other reason as well as a guestbook. I left a note in the guestbook, saying, “I’m on route from Hanau to Bremen and found this chapel. I’m thankful that places like this exist. Merry Christmas.”

Offensen

Refresh after my stopover at Autohof Lohfelder Rüssel, I set off again. I had briefly considered driving into Kassel to visit the UNESCO World Heritage site Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe. However, a gloomy December day isn’t really the right time for that. I’ll probably come back in the spring or summer, when the artificial waterfall is switched on.

Instead, I decided I would do what I’d tentatively planned to do on the way out, namely make a pit stop in Offensen near Göttingen to pay a visit to my relatives there. For more about my family connection to this tiny village near Göttingen, see part 1.

I didn’t know the exact address – the address I did remember turned out to be that of my Aunt Irmgard in Göttingen, who’s dead – so I just set Else, my GPS, for Offensen (Uslar), figuring that since Offensen is very small, I would easily find the right house. Else directed me to leave the A7 not at the exit which lists Offensen’s neighbouring town Adelebsen as one of the destinations, but at an earlier exit. I did follow her advice, though, and quickly found myself driving along narrow country roads through the Solling mountains.

At this point, I began to doubt the wisdom of the whole expedition. For absolutely nothing along that narrow and winding country road seemed even remotely familiar – not the town names, not the area, not the landmarks (what landmarks there were). I drove slowly along the unfamiliar roads, much to the frustration of the local drivers stuck behind me. On top of it all, it started to rain again.

“What am I even doing here?” I asked myself. “I haven’t been here in more than ten years, I don’t recognise anything and I’m not even sure if Aunt Elfriede and Uncle Gert are still alive, since they were older than my parents.”

Finally, I got the chance to stop at the side of the road – it was a very narrow road and there was not much chance to stop – and let the impatient local drivers pass – though they felt the need to honk at me for being nice. I seriously considered turning around and returning to the Autobahn. However, the road was too narrow to turn around safely, and besides I’d been driving through the backwoods of the Solling mountains for twenty minutes at this point and would have to drive back another twenty minutes, wasting forty minutes on a completely pointless detour.

So I decided to drive on to Offensen after all and take a look to see if there was anything there left at all. Eventually, I reached the neighbouring town of Adelebsen and suddenly I started recognising the landmarks again such as Adelebsen castle, the ancient Jewish cemetery on a hillside that had so fascinated my Mom, and the ruined church of Reinshagen. I was finally back in familiar territory.

Adelebsen castle sits on top of a hill above the eponymous village. The tower and much of the castle date from the 13th century and were inhabited by the Counts of Adelebsen, until the last Count died in 1957.

Come to think of it, it makes sense that I didn’t recognise anything, when I left the Autobahn, because I was coming from the south, whereas we had always come from the north, when we visited Offensen, so of course I’d never been on those narrow, winding roads before.

Somewhat encouraged, I drove on to Offensen, only to realise that while the village seemed familiar, I had no idea how to find the house of my relatives. I remembered that the house was at the edge of town and that just behind the house, there was a bridge over a creek. So I pulled into a bus stop – it was a Sunday, after all, and therefore it was extremely unlikely that a bus would need to stop at exactly that moment, since there probably only were two busses per day anyway – and checked Google maps. I located the creek and the bridge and realised that I had taken a wrong turn.

So I turned into the right street and – lo and behold – there was the farmhouse. I recognised it at once, complete with the barn where I’d helped Aunt Elfriede feed the pigs and chickens and the attic where I’d played in the stored grain with my Smurf figures as a little girl. I had a Smurf cart drawn by a snail and used it to ferry grain back and forth.

And this is the farmhouse, where my relatives. The building at the back is the barn, where I helped Aunt Elfriede to feed the pigs and the chickens. You can even make out the staircase that leads up to the attic where I played in the grain.

So I parked my car by the roadside – I didn’t want to drive onto the yard of the farmhouse, in case my relatives no longer lived there – and walked over to the house. I decided I’d ring the doorball and explain who I was to whoever opened. Even if Aunt Elfriede and Uncle Gerd were no longer alive, there had been kids. There was at least one daughter, older than me, who’d played with me in the grain. And even if someone else lived there now, at least they might know what had happened to my relatives.

So I rang the doorbell, but there was no answer. I then walked across the yard towards the barn, calling “Hello! Is anybody here?”, since there was a delivery van parked in the yard with the logo of a supplier of organic pork, which made sense. This time around, I did attract a living soul, namely a black cat. The cat immediately came to me, rubbed against my legs and followed me around the yard. Almost as if she recognised me, though that wasn’t very likely. After all, it had been more than ten years since I last was here and cats don’t live as long as humans.

The cat looks out of a window in the covered entryway of the farmhouse.

The cat has settled down on a large swing suspended from the rafters of the barn

The cat was lovely, but unfortunately she wasn’t able to answer any questions about what had happened to my relatives. And there was no one else around. Offensen was completely deserted.

When I returned to my car, I finally saw another living soul that was not a cat, but two teenaged boys walking a dog in the rain. I asked them if they knew the people who lived in the farmhouse and if they knew what had happened to the Münnemann family who used to live there and explained that I was a relative, but the boys didn’t know. I guess they had a story to tell at home about some weird woman who asked about the farmhouse by the creek.

In retrospect, I’m kicking myself for not writing down the name of the supplier of organic pork mentioned on the van parked in the yard, because they likely would know what had become of my relatives and who lived in the house now. It was an unusual name, but for the life of me I can’t remember what it was.

However, there was still one place to visit in Offensen, namely the local cemetery, where my Great-Aunt Mariechen and Uncle Heinrich are buried. I’d been at that cemetery several times and remembered that it was located on top of a hill above the village. Apparently, it’s customary in the Solling mountains to place cemeteries on top of hills – also see the Jewish cemetery of neighbouring Adelebsen. Lucky for me, there even was a sign pointing to the very narrow road that led to the Offensen cemetery.

So I made my way up to the cemetery on the hill and immediately recognised it. The gates, which give the date 1868, when the cemetery was established and the funeral chapel with its stained glass windows, which is considerably newer than 1868 (I’d guess it dated from the 1950s or 1960s, maybe even later), and which so fascinated me at age two that I disrupted Aunt Mariechen’s funeral service to point out how pretty everything was until a nice lady who worked at the local kindergarten – yes, tiny Offensen had a kindergarten in the 1970s – took me by the hand and went outside with me where I found a really great white stone. I still have that stone BTW.

Offensen cemetery. Note the date 1868 chiseled into the posts of the gate and the funeral chapel in the background. Note the passive aggressive sign from the cemetery administration in Uslar on the gate.

A closer look at the funeral chapel of Offensen cemetery. The chapel is much newer than the cemetery, though I couldn’t find out when it was built. I guess sometime in the 1950s or 1960s.

That said, my visit to Offensen cemetery was depressing. For starters, the cemetery was half empty with only a few graves left. In Germany, graves are removed after twenty-five or thirty years unless the family pays up to continue using the grave. It’s something of a scam IMO and the period is much too short, though it does make some sense in big cities, where cemeteries would easily get crowded.

Offensen, however, is tiny – only 269 inhabitants – so you could easily just leave the graves where they are without runnings out of space. However, the cemetery administration in Uslar, the town to which Offensen belongs since the 1974 Lower Saxony community reform forcibly bundled previously independent small villages into larger communities and even combined smaller counties into larger ones, mercilessly removed the graves anyway and even placed a passive aggressive sign on the cemetery gates, informing people not to place flowers or candles into the lawn or the anonymous graveyard (Offensen has an anonymous graveyard?), because this would interfere with lawnmowing.

So fuck the Uslar cemetery administration and fuck the 1974 Lower Saxony community reform, which was forced on the towns and villages from above and absolutely hated by everybody at the time, even though many seem to have forgotten that. Here’s more about the 1974 Lower Saxony community reform and why it was supposedly necessary (those little villages all did their own thing and did not comply with centralised planning). Here’s also a report about the more recent community and county reforms in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and that there are actually negative effects with people feeling more disconnected from local politics. I sympathise with that. Note that the county seat of the county where I live is a whopping sixty kilometers away – thank you, fucking 1974 reform.

So I walked across the half empty village cemetery in the rain. It was pretty clear to me that I wouldn’t be able to find Aunt Mariechen’s and Uncle Heinrich’s grave – after all, Aunt Mariechen died in 1975, so that grave is probably long gone. However, I figured that maybe I would find the grave of Aunt Elfriede’s first husband. But I didn’t find anything and maybe he was never buried there in the first place.

I also tried the door of the funeral chapel, but it was locked. No white pebbles either and I couldn’t even tell where I might have found mine. Though come to think of it, Aunt Mariechen’s funeral service might also have been in the village church of Offensen and not the funeral chapel, since the village church has an impressive historical altar which was more likely to impress two-year-old Cora enough to disrupt a funeral service.

A look across the village of Offensen from the hilltop cemetery

A look across the village of Offensen from the cemetery on the hill.

All in all, the detour to Offensen was a failure and also pretty depressing, though the rain might have something to do with that. Initially, I had planned to maybe pay a visit to a visit to the Jewish cemetery of Adelebsen on the way back, but since the weather was so awful and it was already past three PM by now, I just drove straight back to the Autobahn. After all, the sun would set in less than an hour and I wanted to get as close to home as possible before it got dark again.

Service Station Harz East

The detour to Offensen had also tired me somewhat, so a coffee would have been nice. However, it was a Sunday afternoon and the bakery cafés would close at five PM, if they were open at all. Offensen no longer has a bakery at all. Adelebsen has two, but both are tied to grocery stores and were closed on Sundays. Uslar and Bodenfelde have several bakeries, but that was the wrong direction. Of course, Göttingen also has plenty of bakeries, but I didn’t want to drive into Göttingen either. There’s a really nice bakery at Autohof Schwarmstedt on the A7, but that’s north of Hannover, more than an hour away, and by the time I’d get there, it would be closed.

So a service station was my best bet to get a cup of coffee. However, I’d passed service station Göttingen East just before I exited the Autobahn to go to Offensen, so it was behind me now. I figured the next service station would be Hildesheimer Börde just south of Hildesheim and quite a way off. However, I’d forgotten service station Harz East, which was maybe forty kilometers or so north of Göttingen. So that’s where I stopped for a coffee and to use the toilet.

Now service station Harz East is not normally a place I’d patronise, since most of the service station building is taken up by a McDonald’s, though there’s also a coffee and snack counter unaffiliated with McDonald’s, which is where I ordered my coffee. However, service station Harz East was remarkably busy for a Sunday afternoon a week before Christmas. And the busiest part was the McDonald’s where almost every seat was taken by families on their way back from a day trip, truckers and soldiers returning to their posts after the weekend. So I guess fast food chains like McDonald’s or Burger King are what most people want from service stations and Autohöfe, even though I don’t. In fact, my Dad would occasionally stop at a roadside McDonald’s or Burger King for food, while on the road, so I’m not sure why I avoid these chains now he’s gone. Though I really hate ordering via touchscreen, because it’s so impersonal, so maybe that’s the reason.

It was already getting dark by the time I pulled into service station Harz East and once I had finished my coffee and continued my journey homeward, it was completely dark. So once again, I got to drive past the Harz in the dark and didn’t even get to see any of it. That said, I should maybe do a day trip to the Harz when the days are longer and weather is nicer.

Homewards and Service Station Goldbach

So I continued the rest of my journey in the dark once again. The coffee had refreshed me and I passed Hildesheim and Hannover. I did consider stopping somewhere for dinner, but when I passed Autohof Schwarmstedt north of Hannover, which has an American style diner, I found I wasn’t hungry yet.

At junction Walrode, I changed onto Autobahn A27 for the final leg of the trip. At this point, there wasn’t much of a chance of finding a place to have dinner, because the Autobahn cuts through a thinly populated area and even the few exits and towns there are, are quite a bit away from the Autobahn, requiring yet another detour.

There is, however, one service station on this leg of the A27, namely Goldbach. I don’t normally stop there, because it’s pretty close to home. But I was getting tired again, which is a dangerous state to be in, while driving, so another coffee would have been nice.

So I pulled into service station Goldbach, only to find the place completely dark. The service station and restaurant were closed, which they normally never are. And it wasn’t even seven PM yet. Worse, there were no lights on the parking lot anywhere, so I had to make my way to the gas station (which was open) in the dark, using the flashlight function of my phone to avoid stumbling. The lack of lights is super dangerous, because service stations do get a lot of traffic, so it’s easy to get run over. Besides, it was Sunday, when trucks aren’t allowed to drive on German roads, so the parking lot was full of trucks waiting until they could continue their journey.

At the gas station, I used the toilet – which was open as well – and then had a cup of coffee at the gas station itself. I asked the guy behind the counter why the restaurant was closed and was told, “Oh, they don’t have enough staff, so they close at three PM.”

While I was drinking my coffee, two somewhat tipsy East European ladies came in to buy champagne from the gas station shop, before they got into a car with a man and drove off. I suspect they might have been prostitutes. Not that it matters and they were very nice.

The conditions at service station Goldbach with a pitch dark and dangerous parking lot and the restaurant closing at three PM were so bad that I wrote an angry e-mail to Serways, the company operating the service stations at German Autobahnen, to complain about these flat dangerous conditions. I never got a reply. But then Serways is kind of infamous for being an overpriced monopoly owned by investment funds who don’t give a fuck.

As for dinner, there is an American style diner at Autohof Oyten, but that’s only twenty minutes from home and since I wasn’t tired anymore, I could just as well drive home and eat something there.

Home at Last

It was half past seven, when I finally made it home.

In theory, I should have received a package in the mail that day, which I’d instructed the mail person to leave on the doorstep. However, there was no package on the doorstep, so I assumed it hadn’t arrived after all.

When I took some trash out, I finally did find the package waiting for me on the table of the patio behind the house. Turns out my neighbour had found it and since he knew I was out, he thought it would be safer on the patio. I also found something else waiting for me, namely the Christmas tree my neighbour had bought me and also left on the patio.

As for what was in the package, it was a vintage Tiki mug. I do collect things other than Masters of the Universe figures, you know.

This vintage Tiki mug is marked “Gastronomy supply Stuttgart” on the bottom and was used in the restaurants of the Möwenpick chain in the 1970s.

So that was my very long trip to the Church of Eternia Masters of the Universe holiday event in Hanau. Was the event worth the long trip? Well, I had fun and that’s the most important thing and I made pretty good haul, too – see my previous post. Plus, I got to see some places I would probably never have visited otherwise.

Would I do it again? Honestly, that’s something I will decide next yeat, if there’s another Church of Eternia holiday event.

Posted in Con Reports | Tagged Christmas, Church of Eternia, con reports, family, food, German history, German politics, Hanau, Langenselbold, Masters of the Universe, Offensen, photos, road trip, tiki mug, toys | 1 Comment

Cora’s Adventures at the Church of Eternia Masters of the Universe Holiday Event in Hanau, Part 2: The Con as well as Hanau and Langenselbold

Posted on January 13, 2025 by Cora

Following some holiday interruptions, I return to my adventure at the Church of Eternia Masters of the Universe holiday event in Hanau, which I attended on the third advent weekend. For the long trip to get there, see this post.

Into Eternia

The Church of Eternia Masters of the Universe holiday event took place in a business and retail park on the outskirts of Hanau, so getting there would have been an issue, had I decided to take the train, since the train station is in the city center, so I would have to find a bus – in a city I’m not familiar with.

I had programmed my GPS for the address of the con venue, but as I was about to drive into the target street, as Else my GPS always phrases it, I spotted a mannequin dressed like an Eternian Royal Guard pointing the way to the parking lot of some adjacent business – I think it was a garage – which was closed for the weekend and had a bigger parking lot than the actual venue.

Mannequin dressed as an Eternian Royal Guard pointing to a traffic lot.

The Eternian Royal Guard has been deployed for traffic control. I wonder about those boots though. Did this particular guard take a detour through the tar swamps?

The venue itself turned out to be a paintball arena called Color Area. It has hosted Masters of the Universe events before such as the Los Amigos convention before it moved to Neuss, because the owner is a fan.

The premises were festively decorated with a Masters of the Universe theme. I’m not sure which of the decorations were part of the regular interior and which had been specifically set up for the holiday event, but whole thing looked good – especially considering the place normally operates as a paintball arena.

Once I got my ticket, I found myself in the outdoor part of the venue, where a stall selling sausages – charmingly named “Grill-at-Arms” – and a stall selling hot beverages ranging from coffee and tea to mulled wine and alcohol-free holiday punch, basically mulled fruit juice, had been set up. There were also a few tables and seating and outdoor heaters, since it was pretty cold, barely above freezing.

The area just outside the venue. Note the Castle Grayskull entrance and the Spider-Man mural.

I have to admit I chuckled at “Grill-at-Arms”, though it makes total sense that Duncan would be the Eternian barbecue master. I now also want to find an action figure sized grill for him.

The outdoor patio with the grill and some tables and seating are a regular part of the venue according to the website and were not just set up for the con. The idea is that people can relax and grill some burgers and sausages after a round of paintball.

Because I had gotten up very early in the morning, was exhausted from driving and the coffee I’d had in Kirchheim had worn off by now, I went to the drinks stall and got myself another coffee. I wouldn’t have minded mulled wine at all, but I still had to drive to my hotel later, so coffee it was.

After I finished my coffee I ventured inside through an entrance way shaped like Castle Grayskull wearing a Santa hat. Next to the entrance, there was also a Sky Sled replica driven by a mannequin in a Santa outfit wearing a Skeletor mask.

Castle Grayskull entrance way at the Church of Eternia con

Castle Grayskull is decked out festively.

“You’d better watch out, you’d better not cry, you’d better not pout, I’m telling you why. Santa Skeletor is coming to town.”

In the entrance area, there was a Christmas tree as well as a beautiful diorama of the throne room from the 1987 live action movie, staffed with a mix of Masterverse and Classics movie figures as well as custom versions of characters that never had an action figure in their movie forms such as the Sorceress, Man-at-Arms, Teela and Detective Lubic.

Masters of the Universe movie diorama front view

Front view of the Castle Grayskull throne room diorama from the 1987 live action movie. There’s even a camera operator included.

1987 Masters of the Universe movie diorama

Side view of the Castle Grayskull throne room diorama from the 1987 live action movie. This inspired me to get myself a Classics Karg, especially since he’s fairly affordable. I also hope that Mattel eventually makes the missing movie characters in the Masterverse line.

Batman Rocks

The next room after the entrance area housed a stall selling seasonal sweets and candy, a human-sized Road Ripper replica as well as tombola. The tombola was intended as a sort of fundraiser for the event. The prizes had been donated by various vendors and every ticket was supposed to win you something.

The tombola at the Church of Eternia Masters of the Universe holiday event. Note the Man-e-Faces banner and the relief of the Central Tower of the Eternia playset in the background.

I purchased a ticket, opened the little plastic ball and found a piece of paper inside which said, “Batman guitar”. I handed the paper to the tombola attendant and said, a tad puzzled, “Apparently, I won a Batman guitar.”

Well, it turns out that what I won was not a Batman guitar but a McFarlane Toys Batman action figure with a guitar.

McFarlane Toys DC Multiverse Batman action figure with guitar

And here is the Batman action figure I won photographed on my kitchen table at home.

Why does Batman, a character not normally known for his musical abilities, have a guitar? I guess only Todd McFarlane knows for sure. Though this is a very cool Batman figure. I couldn’t find this particular figure on Amazon, but a quick look shows that McFarlane Batman figures normally go for around 30 Euros, which is a lot more than I paid for the ticket.

As for why Batman has a guitar, personally I believe that Bruce Wayne occasionally feels the need to play a few chords and belt out songs to relax. Alfred isn’t overly impressed by Bruce’s musical skills, but knows that he needs to unwind. Catwoman pretends to enjoy it and sometimes joins in and Damian makes fun of his Dad. As for which songs Bruce likes to play, this one is an obvious candidate as is this one. Sometimes, Bruce also stands around on roofs in full costume and belts out “Behind Blue Eyes” by The Who, because for years I misheard the lyrics as “No one knows what it’s like to be the Batman, to be the sad man, behind blue eyes.” And yes, my version of the lyrics totally fits, except that I always assumed Bruce Wayne had brown eyes.

An Eternian Christmas Market

The rest of the venue – both the indoor part and also a small backyard – had been given over to stalls of vendors – both commercial and private – selling vintage and modern toys and merchandise. Masters of the Universe was strongly represented, of course, but also Star Wars, Marvel and DC, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Wrestling figures, various retro games and even Barbie. The whole thing was billed as an Eternian Christmas market.

There were some true rarities as well, such as the first ever vintage Tytus figure I saw in the flesh (the two giant figures Tytus and Megator came out at the tail end of the original Masters of the Universe line and are among the rarest figures – I have the Classics versions, but not the originals), a loose Bionatops, missing his gun, but otherwise in very good condition (and I really wish Mattel would make the Preternia dinosaurs again one day), a vintage Dragon Walker in box, which I duly admired, but did not buy, because if I ever get a Dragon Walker, I want to play with it and not keep it in a box, as well as pretty much the entire range of the mini-statues (called “stactions”, because these are statues that look like action figures) that continued the 200X toyline after Mattel cancelled it. The stactions are quite rare for something that isn’t that old – though they are coming up on twenty years by now. At any rate, I almost never see them anywhere.

There are a few videos on YouTube about the Church of Eternia event by Stamm der SABINErinnen (I’m pretty sure I spotted this lady at the event), bumo.tv, who couldn’t attend himself, but hosts a video a friend of his made, and The Ulti-Mate Player, all of which give you some idea of what the whole thing looked like. One of the most positive effects of attending German Masters of the Universe and toy conventions this year is finding so many German geek, retro and toy YouTube channels I had no idea existed.

This wall of framed Phantom comic covers is part of the regular interior of the venue, as I learned when I commented upon them, since The Phantom was my Mom’s favourite superhero.

The event was smaller than Toyplosion or the Los Amigos con, but both the offerings and the crowd were still pretty good. One thing I really liked was that there were a lot of families with kids in attendance. There even was a guy dressed as Santa who handed out little gifts to kid attendants. I saw a couple of cosplayers – not just Masters of the Universe, but also several Star Wars cosplayers (I think they’re a club). In fact, I initially mistook a Star Wars cosplayer in Jedi robes for a monk, when I saw him getting out of a car. Finally, I also met the guy again who told me about the event in the first place. “Cool, so you made it after all. Though I’m afraid I still don’t have a Classics Rattlor.”

My Haul and Fun with Action Figures

Chatting with other fans is fun, but of course you also attend such events to buy stuff, so here’s my haul:

McFarlane Toys Batman, Masters of the Universe 200X Serpent Claw Man-at-Arms, Princess of Power Scratchin' Sound Catra and Masters of the Universe Classics Ninjor

My Church of Eternia haul: In addition to the Batman figure, there’s also a 200X Serpent Claw Man-at-Arms, a Princess of Power Scratchin’ Sound Catra and Masters of the Universe Classics Ninjor.

And since I had them all set up already, I also took a photo of Catra getting up close and personal with Man-at-Arms.

The Vintage Princess of Power Catra is getting up close and personal with the 200X Serpent Claw Man-at-Arms, while Batman and Ninjor look on.

Catra is getting up close and personal with Man-at-Arms, much to the amusement of Batman and Ninjor.

“Meow, what big strong muscles you have. Why don’t we go somewhere more comfortable?”

“Unhand me, girl. I’m in a committed relationship and besides, you could be my daughter.”

“Just enjoy the ride. Catwomen are chaotic and will drive you crazy, but they’re also a lot of fun. Trust me, I have experience in that regard.”

“Meow. Just listen to Batman and relax.”

“I most certainly will not. Like I said, I’m spoken for and you’re lesbian.”

“Oh, my Catwoman kisses girls, too, on occasion. It’s very hot.”

“Yes, but is she in a troubled relationship with the daughter of your King?”

“The USA are a republic, so we don’t have a king.”

***

After a bit of fun with action figures, let’s get back to my actual haul.

For starters, I found a loose Masters of the Universe Classics Ninjor for a good price. Ninjor is one of the more absurd Masters of the Universe characters, for why would Eternia have ninjas? The answer is of course that ninjas were cool in the 1980s and rival toylines like G.I. Joe or the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, who were just getting started around this time, all had ninjas, so Masters of the Universe felt the need to have one or rather two ninjas (cause there also was a white good guy ninja planned, who never made it into production in the original toyline, but was released later on) as well.

Besides, Ninjor is the only Evil Warrior (okay, there’s also Twistoid, but almost no one cares about Twistoid) I was still missing in 6/7 inch scale. What is more, I have his good guy counterpart Slamurai, so of course I needed the villainous Eternian ninja as well. Plus, Ninjor is actually awesome. Just look at those demonic red eyes and monster feet. Whatever this guy is, he’s not fully human. The Classics Ninjor also has an unmasked head, though I’m setting mine up in full ninja get-up for now.

Behold the Masters of the Universe Classics Ninjor: Note his clawed feet and glowing red eyes, indicating that this is not your average Earthly ninja.

Besides, now I have Ninjor, I can also recreate “The Search for Keldor” mini-comic with my action figures, since I have every character I need for it.

I also found a loose Serpent Claw Man-at-Arms figure from the 200X toyline. Now I don’t officially collect 200X figures, but I picked up a few, whenever I found them for a good price. And fifteen Euros is certainly a good price. Besides, Man-at-Arms is a crucial character I’m still missing. Now I really need to find a 200X Teela to complete the family, but she’s very expensive for some reason.

My small collection of Masters of the Universe 200X figures: Two-Bad with reversed sides, Beast-Man, Mer-Man, Blood Armour Skeletor (who’s apparently quite rare), Keldor, Serpent Claw Man-at-Arms and Prince Adam. I don’t have a He-Man yet, because so far I’ve only found weird variants I don’t want.

Finally – and this was an unexpected highlight – I found a vintage Princess of Power Scratchin’ Sound Catra in a really great condition and for a very good price. Now I normally don’t buy vintage Masters of the Universe and Princess of Power figures from the 1980s, because either the condition isn’t great or they’re really expensive. And in almost all cases, there is a nicer more recent version of the character.

Vintage Princess of Power Scratchin’ Sound Catra. Isn’t she gorgeous?

But when I found this utterly gorgeous Scratchin’ Sound Catra for a great price, I just had to buy her. She’s missing her cat mask and the comb all the Princess of Power figures had, but otherwise she’s complete and in great condition.

Of course, we have had several Catra figures since the vintage era. However, they were all based on her appearance in the Filmation She-Ra cartoon (and in one case on her appearance in the 2018 She-Ra and the Princesses of Power cartoon). But as with many of the Princess of Power characters, Catra looked quite different in her toy form from her cartoon counterpart (this is apparently due to Filmation basing the designs on early prototypes). And none of Catra’s three variants in the vintage Princess of Power toyline – regular Catra, Scratchin’ Sound Catra and Shower Power Catra – have ever been made again in any toyline. Which is a pity, because I’ve always loved Catra’s toy look with the furry skirt and patterned tights. She looks very much like a 1980s pop star. Indeed, check out this 1984 music video of Nena, where she looks almost exactly like Catra.

But there’s also another reason why I bought this Catra figure and that’s because I always wanted a Catra figure back in the day and never got one. Because my parents – bless them – accidentally bought me a Vultura figure from the Golden Girl and the Guardians of the Gemstone toyline instead. From an adult POV, it’s an easy mistake to make – pink and gold packaging, 5.5 inch doll with dark hair and skimpy black and red clothes – but as a kid I was annoyed that my parents had gotten me the wrong toy again (this happened a few times). I still have the Vultura figure BTW and she is in great condition for a forty-year-old toy, but she just isn’t Catra. For that matter, please someone bring Golden Girl and the Guardians of the Gemstone back, because that was an awesome toyline.

So now, almost forty years later, I finally have a proper Catra figure. So of course, I had to introduce her to her frenemy She-Ra. Unfortunately, my vintage She-Ra got lost – in addition to Vultura, all I still have from back in the day is a mangled Flutterina – but the Origins She-Ra figure works very well.

Masters of the Universe Origins She-Ra and vintage Princess of Power Scratchin Sound Catra

I wasn’t in love with the Masters of the Universe Origins She-Ra, but she fit remarkably well with the vintage Catra

“Hey Adora…”

“Go away, Catra. I don’t want to fight you. Not today.”

Catra gets cozy with Adora and strokes her cheek

Scratchin’ Sound Catra’s scratching action feature looks more like she’s trying to stroke someone’s cheek. Though it’s better than some of the 200X figures, who look like they’re doing a “Heil Hitler” salute. Besides, it’s amazing that Scratchin’ Sound Catra’s action feature still works after almost forty years.

“Who said anything about fighting, meow?”

“What… what are you doing, Catra?”

“What’s it look like, Adora?”

“This is wrong, Catra.”

“But it feels so right…”

Smooch.

***

In Hanau on the Trail of the Brothers Grimm:

Okay, after that little interlude, let’s return to my adventures at the Church of Eternia holiday event in Hanau.

At noon, I went to a retail park across the road from the con venue. Since I didn’t fancy sausages, I had lunch at an Asian buffet restaurant, which was pretty much the only place where you could get something to eat in the area.

Then I went to a Rewe supermarket to buy some sparkling water for the trip back home. Now supermarkets and retail in general is a lot less regionalised than it used to be with the same chains operating all over Germany. That said, there still are regional differences. For example, I couldn’t find my usual brand of sparkling water and had to resort to buying a different brand. I chose one that’s nationally available, so I wouldn’t have problems returning the bottle.

Another thing I noticed was that this Rewe market had a whole shelf of Äppelwoi (apple wine), a type of cider popular in the region around Frankfurt on Main. My local Rewe in North Germany doesn’t carry Äppelwoi at all. If I want it – and there is a recipe which requires it – I have to go to a specialty store. But Hanau is Äppelwoi country and so even a suburban Rewe market has several brands. I was tempted to look for Frankfurt Green Sauce herb bundles – another regional specialty I can’t get in my part of Germany at all – but it was the wrong time of the year for that.

The con started to wrap up around three PM. I made a brief pit stop at a gas station in the retail park – after all, I’d driven 471 kilometers and my tank hadn’t been completely full, when I left Bremen – so it was time to refuel and besides, the gas price was good. I chatted briefly with the young man behind the counter to ask him for directions to the city center. “There really isn’t much of interest in Hanau,” he replied. “Well, there’s at least one thing of interest,” I said, “And since I’m here already, I at least want to see it.”

Now there are a few things that Hanau is known for: Two of them are negative The first is that Hanau was home to a manufacturer of fuel rods for nuclear power stations that was embroiled in a scandal about improperly stored nuclear waste in the 1980s. Indeed, in the 1980s, I mainly knew Hanau as “that place where they make nuclear fuel rods” and probably would have refused to visit the town at all. The fuel rod factories and storage facilities are all gone now and I wasn’t even in the part of the city where the nuclear factories once were.

The other negative thing Hanau is infamous for is a mass shooting in February 2020, where a far right arsehole killed nine people, all of them members of various ethnic minorities, and wounded several others in and outside three different shisha bars in Hanau. He also murdered his disabled mother (who is often forgotten in memorials, even though she’s as much of a victim as the other nine) and finally shot himself.

However, Hanau is also famous for a positive reason, namely that Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, the famous Brothers Grimm, were born here. Though they only lived in Hanau for the first few years of their lives before the family moved to nearby Steinau an der Straße (Steinau on the Street, which refers the medieval trade route Via Regia). The brothers attended a grammar school in Kassel, university in Marburg, both were professors at the University of Göttingen, before getting kicked out for co-signing a petition against the suspension of the constitution of the Kingdom of Hannover (modern Hannover is very embarassed about this) and finally moved to Berlin. In fact, I passed by several places where the Brothers Grimm lived and worked – Hannover, Göttingen, Kassel and Steinau an der Straße – on my trip to Hanau. Coincidentally, Hanau is also the starting point of the German fairytale route, while Bremen is its endpoint. Though I did not drive along the actual German fairytale route, much of which follows smaller country roads. That said, I have visited many of the sights along the German fairytale route in the past and may well visit again in the future.

I found a parking garage at the edge of the city center of Hanau (the actual city center is largely pedestrianised) and started exploring. I wanted to visit the Brothers Grimm National Monument on the market place and see what else I could find along the way. Like many German cities, Hanau was badly bombed in WWII and much of the historic city center (not remotely a target of strategic value, unlike the factories and train line on the edge of the city) was completely destroyed. So there were fewer historic buildings than you’d assume and much of the city center was drab post-WWII buildings.

First, I came across the former residence of the Prince Electors of Hesse and the Counts of Hanau-Münzenberg. Not that there is much left. The medieval castle was torn down and rebuilt in the 18th and 19th century and their successor was destroyed by two massive air raids in early 1945. It would have been possible to rebuild the palace, but most of it wasn’t rebuilt in an attempt to erase the feudalist past. This was sadly quite common in post-WWWII Germany both East and West, though only the East gets flak for it.

So let’s take a look at what’s left of Hanau castle:

The sole surviving tower of Hanau’s medieval city wall, built in the 14th century, and part of the former residence of the Prince Elector of Hesse. The building behind it is the former chancellery of the castle, which was restored.

The former chancellery of Hanau castle, built in the 17th century, has been lit up after sunset. Since the 19th century, the chancellery building has housed the Hanau city library, the city archive and other cultural institutions, which is why it was lucky enough to be rebuilt after WWII. The parking lot right outside the historical, literally where the castle courtyard would have been, is another postwar city planning mistake.

The former mews of Hanau castle were turned into a Stadthalle (literally city hall, but Stadthallen are events venues not administrative buildings) in 1928. The neo-classical facade was added in 1928, the rough stone walls behind it are part of the former mews.

The Stadthalle events venue is now named Paul Hindemith Halle for the famous composer and pioneer of free tonality, who was born in Hanau in 1895 and is the third most famous son of the city after Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm. I first encountered Hindemith’s work in high school music class, when a teacher valiantly tried to introduce us to free tonality and atonality and painstakingly explained Hindemith’s alternative system of tonality, whereupon my classmate Gerthild, who came from a musical family and earned some money for herself as a church organist, dismissed the whole thing as nonsense. “This was Hindemith’s life’s work,” the teacher said. “It’s still nonsense,” Gerthild declared, “It’s not my fault that he wasted his life on nonsense.”

But even though my classmate Gerthild declared Paul Hindemith’s life’s work nonsense, his hometown Hanau still named their Stadthalle after him.

The former tower of Hanau castle looms above some residential buildings. The top of the tower was destroyed in WWII and its former outline is represented by a steel structure.

The sad fate of Hanau castle once more illustrates that postwar city planners were as much of a danger to historical buildings as WWII. Buildings that were salvagable were town down because they no longer fit someone’s vision of what the city should look like, only a handful of buildings were restored and weird half ruins were left standing as monuments to WWII bombing victims. And it didn’t just happen to 19th century buildings which were considered hopelessly old-fashioned at the time, but also to much older buildings you’d assume would have historical merit.

There are plans to restore Hanau castle to something closer to what it was before WWII, which includes restoring the tower with the weird steel skeleton outline to its former glory. You can see more about that here.

As I ventured further into the city center of Hanau, the next sight of interest I came across was a beautiful timbered house. This striking building, erected in 1543, had been Hanau’s townhall until the 18th century, when a new townhall was built and this one became obsolete. Nowadays, it houses the German Goldsmith Museum, since Hanau was once a center of jewellery making.

The German Goldsmith Museum in Hanau, built in 1543, with fountain of justice and Christmas decorations.

A closer look at the fountain of justice in front of the Goldsmith Museum. The fountain was set up in 1608 and is decorated with a statue of Justicia.

The German Goldsmiith Museum after sunset with all the Christmas decorations lit up.

Once I came across the Goldsmith Museum, I thought I’d reached the historical city center, but instead I walked past more drab postwar buildings and finally a modern shopping mall, built in 2015.

Lit up tree at the Forum Hanau shopping mall

A lit up tree with hearts decorates the Forum Hanau shopping mall.

By now I was in the pedestrian shopping district Hanau, which was quite busy and bustling, since it was a Saturday afternoon a week before Christmas. Though I didn’t pay much attention to the stores, since it was basically the same chains we have at home.

And then, at last, I found the market place and the Brothers Grimm.

The Brothers Grimm National Monument in front of Hanau’s new townhall.

Since it was a week before Christmas, Hanau’s market place had been transformed into a Christmas market and Hanau’s new townhall, built in 1733, had been transformed into Hesse’s largest advent calendar, an idea I found very charming.

Unfortunately – since it was a Saturday a week before Christmas – the Christmas market was also packed. Even getting a decent photo of the Brothers Grimm was difficult, because people had settled down at their feet to eat Christmas market treats

The Brothers Grimm National Monument in front of Hanau townhall with Christmas market.

Hanau also has other monuments devoted to its two most famous sons (sorry, Paul Hindemith), including a Fairy Tale Path of statues representing various fairy tales collected by the Brothers Grimm that are scattered around the city. Apparently, there are eleven fairy tale sculptures altogether, though I only came across two of them, largely because I didn’t know that this Fairy Tale Path existed.

Indeed, when I came across the first fairy tale statue, representing “King Thrushbeard”, I didn’t make the connection to the fairy tale at all, but just thought it was a neat piece of art, which is why I took a photo. Regarding “King Thrushbeard”, there is a delightful East German movie version from 1965 with interesting minimalistic set design and starring a very young and handsome Manfred Krug, who even plays the hurdy gurdy at one point.

King Thrushbeard by Dr. Hatto und Christoph Zeidler

The second fairy tale statue I came across represents “The Devil With the Three Golden Hairs” and this time around, I realised exactly what it was, because the scene of the evil king forced to spend the rest of his days as a ferryman is very memorable.

The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs statue in Hanau

The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs by Wilhelm Zimmer

For even though fairy tales, whether the ones collected by the Brothers Grimm or the ones penned by Hans Christian Andersen or Wilhelm Hauff, were considered old-fashioned, too violent and possibly harmful for children, my parents didn’t care and read or told (cause note that these were original stories to be told) me the Grimm and Andersen fairy tales in all their bloody and gruesome glory.

Indeed, when I first came in contact with the watered down US versions of those classic fairy tales as a young kid in the US, I even asked my Mom why the American fairy tales were all wrong and left out all of the good parts, Mom replied that American kids get scared more easily than German kids, so the fairy tales had to be tone down, so American kids wouldn’t be scared. Of course, Mom just wanted to keep me from blurting “This is all wrong and this is how the story really”, followed by a detailed description of the gruesome fate of Cinderella’s stepsisters or the Evil Queen from Snow White, in kindergarten in the US, but it’s still a remarkably accurate description, except that it’s parents and teachers who would get upset by the gruesome originals rather than the kids.

Should I ever come back to Hanau, I will definitely visit all of the fairy tale sculptures. But that day had already been very long as well as cold and drab. And though it was only ten past four PM, the sun was already about to set. So a hot drink would have been nice to warm me up again. However, the Christmas market was too crowded and besides, mulled wine was out because I still had to drive to my hotel. And since I had passed several cafés along the way, which were cozier and considerably less crowded than the Christmas market, I went to the Henri & Leo bakery café to have a coffee instead.

Afterwards, I made my way back to the parking garage where I’d left my car. By now, it was almost completely dark again, though it was barely five PM. But then daylight is brief and fleeting in mid December.

In Bed with Napoleon: A Night in Langenselbold

After my excursion into the city center of Hanau to pay a visit to the Brothers Grimm, I hopped into my car again and returned onto Autobahn A66 to drive approximately twenty kilometers to the town of Langenselbold, where I’d booked a hotel for the night.

Now I’d never heard of Langenselbold before in my life. However, the town had a hotel with free parking and rooms that were cheaper than what I would have paid in Hanau and it lies next to the Autobahn on the way home, so it was the perfect place to spend the night.

Since it was completely dark, I had to rely on my GPS to guide me through the narrow streets of a town I’d never even heard of to my hotel. The GPS finally led me to an archway, which seemed to lead to some kind of courtyard or quad with two lit up buildings. There were signs informing me that parking was not allowed in the courtyard/quad, so I parked on what turned out to be the parking lot of a church, picked up my luggage and headed for the two lit up buildings, one of which turned out to be my hotel.

Turned out that my hotel and all the other buildings around the courtyard were part of the former residence of the Counts of Isenburg-Birstein. Note that the photos below were taken the following morning, because it was dark by the time I arrived. That said, the photos still look gloomy, because it was another gloomy day.

Langenselbold Palace was built in the 18th century in the grounds of a former monastery. In the 20th century, the city of Langenselbold purchased palace as well as the grounds from the Count of Isenburg-Birstein and turned the two main buildings into the townhall and the city library, though some members of the Count’s family continued to live on the premises.

Langenselbold Palace: A look across the garden with well

A look across the garden of Langenselbold Palace with a well in the foreground. The two buildings at the far end of the garden/courtyard were a former storage building as well as the former resident of the Count of Isenburg-Birstein and his family. Nowadays, they house the townhall and city library of Langenselbold. The two buildings on the side are the former stables.

Another look across the garden/courtyard of Langenselbold Palace. The large building at the far end are the former stables, which now house an events venue. There’s an identical stable on the other side.

Meanwhile, the building that housed the former servants’ quarters and military barracks had been turned into a hotel and restaurant called Dragonerbau (Dragoon Building in reference to the time it served as military barracks during the Napoleonic Wars). This was the hotel where I was staying.

The “Dragonerbau” (Dragoon building), former military barracks and servants’ quarter turned hotel and restaurant.

When I made my booking, I assumed the hotel was some kind of country inn with a weird name. The fact that it turned out to be a historical building that once housed dragoons and other soldiers during the Napoleonic Wars made it a lot cooler.

And it’s not just the dragoons, no, Napoleon Bonaparte himself spent the night at Langenselbold Palace in 1813, fleeing the united Prussian and Russian forces through the Kinzig Valley towards Frankfurt (so nope, Cold War strategists did not come up with the idea to use the Kinzig Valley as a route to attack/conquer Frankfurt). For the Count of Isenburg-Birstein was a supporter of Napoleon Bonaparte and invited Napoleon and his forces to spend the himself the night at Langenselbold Palace. Though I strongly suspect that Napoleon slept in the actual palace on the other side of the garden/courtyard and not with his soldiers at the barracks. So I probably did not spend the night in the same building as Napoleon Bonaparte 211 years before, though on the same premises.

I went to the reception, registered, got my room key and went up to my room on the first floor to refresh myself. The furnishings were somewhat rustic, but nice enough. There was also – uncommon for Germany – a kettle and a tea tray as well as a water bottle.

The interior of my room at the Dragonerbau Hotel in Langenselbold.

My room was at the rear of the building, overlooking the garden of the hotel and a public swimming pool. Autobahn A66 was very nearby, only 500 meters or so away – which I didn’t realise until morning – but nonetheless it was pretty quiet. I was a bit surprised at how many airplanes I heard passing by overhead both in the evening and the following morning, until I realised that I was very close to Frankfurt on Main and Germany’s biggest and most important airport.

The obligatory view from the hotel room window, taken the following morning. You can see a playground behind the hotel, a public swimming pool, Autobahn A66 and the Spessart Mountains in the distance.

Since the hotel had a restaurant, I planned to have dinner there, so I wouldn’t have to venture out again. However, it turned out that the restaurant was already full booked for the evening. At was a Saturday a week before Christmas, after all, so you had both date nights and Christmas parties taking up space. I probably should have reserved a table beforehand, but I almost do that, because things like date nights rarely cross my mind.

So I had to venture back into town after all. I probably could have walked – Langenselbold isn’t that big. However, I was both completely unfamiliar with the town and exhausted, so I took the car and headed into town. I found an Italian restaurant named La Contessa, where I had dinner.

As a starter, I had caprese salad.

Ravioli filled with cheese and pear, served with sage butter

As a main course, I had fiorelli filled with cheese and pear, served with sage butter and parmesan.

The food was very good and probably cheaper than at the hotel. The only downside was that I couldn’t order wine with my dinner, because I still had to drive back to the hotel.

Because I was exhausted, I had dinner relatively early – at half past six PM or so – and then returned to the hotel, foregoing the kind of after dinner walk I normally like to take in situation like this.

This time around, I also found the right parking – because the church parking lot was not the one I was supposed to take – only to find it pretty full, because the hotel shares a parking lot with the adjacent event venue Klosterberghalle, where there was some kind of event going on. What is more, the hotel restaurant was also full, so I had to squeeze my car into a fairly narrow parking space.

Then, once I was back at the hotel, I went straight to bed, figuring I would fall asleep almost instantly, since I had been up since 4:30 AM, had driven 471 kilometers (more like 500 kilometers, if you factor in driving around Hanau and driving to Langenselbold), and walked five or six kilometers, too. Besides, I was dead tired.

However, there was one problem. I couldn’t sleep. I guess the six or seven cups of coffee I had over the day – normally, I have one or two cups – were just too much caffeine.

Of course, I did fall asleep eventually after all and had a good night’s rest. Which was important, because I still had the long drive back ahead of me. But more about that in my next post.

Posted in Con Reports | Tagged Batman, Brothers Grimm, Christmas, Church of Eternia, con reports, fairy tales, food, German history, German literature, German politics, Hanau, Langenselbold, Masters of the Universe, Masters of the Universe 200X, Masters of the Universe Classics, photos, road trip, She-Ra: Princess of Power, toys | 2 Comments

A Tale of Two Geldors

Posted on January 10, 2025 by Cora

In the 1980s, both the original Masters of the Universe and Princess of Power toylines were very white indeed, with the only two black characters, Clamp Champ and Netossa, introduced at the very tail end of either line. This is something of a surprise, since other Mattel toylines were a lot more diverse at the time. Barbie has had black friends since 1966 and by the 1980s, you could get black, Asian and Hispanic Barbies as well as an array of multicultural friends in addition to the standard blonde and white Barbie.

But even though the Masters of the Universe and Princess of Power toylines were very white, both the mini-comics and the Filmation cartoons depicted a more racially diverse Eternia and to a lesser degree Etheria. The Filmation cartoon had a recurring black character in the royal archaeologist Melaktha (who still hasn’t had a figure in any toyline) plus various background characters of colour and also occasionally sent He-Man to visit other kingdoms on Eternia whose inhabitants happened to be not white.

Meanwhile, the Masters of the Universe mini-comics usually stuck closer to the actual toyline they were supposed to advertise, though there were several instances of characters looking very different from the final toys – usually because the comics were based on early prototypes. And the third wave of mini-comic from 1984 also featured several stories where He-Man and friends battles not Skeletor and his Evil Warriors, but one-of villains who never had toys in the original line.

One of these one-of villains from the mini-comics was a character called Geldor. He appeared in the 1984 mini-comic “The Secret Liquid of Life”, written by Michael Halperin and drawn by Larry Houston, where Geldor commanded an army of monsters and did anything necessary to obtain the titular liquid and eternal life, only to be thwarted by He-Man and his friends. “The Secret Liquid of Life” is definitely one of the better and more iconic mini-comics of the vintage era. You can watch a dramatised reading here.

In addition to the fact that the entire supporting cast of “The Secret Liquid of Life” consists of original characters, it’s also notable that all of those original characters – the villain Geldor, his unnamed wizard goon, the sage Torgul, his daughter Maran and the heroic Prince Dakon, childhood friend of Prince Adam and Maran’s fiancé, are black. Indeed, Larry Houston, the artist who designed the characters for the mini-comic, based Geldor on Mr. T. As can be seen in this scan of the original artwork, Larry Houston also explicitly included a note for the colourist that Geldor is supposed to have white hair and black skin.

But while Geldor never had an action figure in the original toyline, he has since appeared in action figure form twice, once in the Masters of the Universe Classics toyline, where he won a fan’s choice contest (a win that apparently was controversial, since international fans favoured Geldor, while many American fans favoured a character named Illumina), and once in the Masters of the Universe Origins line.

I happen to own both Geldor figures, so I took a photo of them standing side by side:

Masters of the Universe Classics and Origins Geldor action figure side by side.

The Masters of the Universe Classics and Origins figures of Geldor side by side. The Classics Geldor has a glass of the secret liquid of life as well as his iconic axe. The Origins Geldor has no glass, but a whopping three axes for maximum chopping action.

If you look at the two Geldors side by side, you’ll note that they’re very similar except for the size difference. You’ll also note something else. Both of them are pretty light-skinned.

So what happened here? Did Mattel whitewash one of the comparatively few characters of colour from the early years of Masters of the Universe? And if so, why?

Personally, what I suspect happened is that the Masters of the Universe Classics version of Geldor, which was the first time the character ever appeared as a toy, came out a little bit paler than intended. Because if you compare Geldor to other Classics figures, his skin tone is a tad darker than that of He-Man or other white characters, but not as dark as other cannonically black characters like Clamp Champ or Netossa or Dekker or Zodak with a K, all of whom had figures in the Classics line. If you look at the original mini-comic, Geldor’s skin tone as well as that of the other characters also varies throughout the comic. This isn’t uncommon for the Masters of the Universe mini-comics – the colouring was often off, even for characters who did have toys.

It seems to me as if the skin tone of the Masters of the Universe Classics Geldor came out a bit lighter than intended. This might have happened at the factory during the final production, though this video of the Mattel display at the 2013 San Diego Comic Con gives a glimpse of what is likely the Geldor prototype and he’s pretty light-skinned, too.

I checked the director’s commentary video by Masters of the Universe Classics brand manager Scott Neitlich on his YouTube channel to see if he addresses Geldor’s skin colour, but he doesn’t. The video mostly focusses on the fan’s choice contest Geldor won and the related controversy. I also checked contemporary reviews of the Classics figure to see if any of them address the fact that Geldor is lighter skinned than he should be and found that only the review on the German fansite Planet Eternia (which pushed Geldor in the fan choice contest, earning them the ire of the American fans of Illumina) and the review on It’s All True address the issue in passing, mostly along the lines of “Huh? I thought Geldor was supposed to be black.” The It’s All True review also puts Geldor next to the Masters of the Universe Classics figure of Dekker, another black character with white hair, to show the difference between the two.

Meanwhile, the artwork on the unofficial bio of Geldor depicts him as black once again and also connects Geldor to the slave city of Targa from another 1984 mini-comic also drawn by Larry Houston.

Last year, almost exactly to the day ten years after he appeared in the Classics line, Geldor received his second action figure in the Masters of the Universe Origins line. The figure was sold exclusively on Mattel Creations and as of this writing, he is still available. This time around, Geldor looks pretty unambiguously white, both as a figure as well as in the artwork on the back of his package and the accompanying mini-comic.

This is quite surprising, especially since Mattel has even integrated the Rulers of the Sun, a toyline from the 1980s which was specifically created by a black mother as a response to the overwhelming whiteness of Masters of the Universe and other toylines of the era and which featured diverse characters of multiple races, into Masters of the Universe and made all the Rulers of the Sun characters, both produced and unproduced, as part of the Origins line. So Mattel clearly doesn’t have an issue with black characters in Masters of the Universe. So why is Geldor once again portrayed as light-skinned in his Origins incarnation?

Now I don’t know for sure, but what I suspect happened is that the designers of the Origins Geldor figure looked primarily to the Classics figure rather than the original mini-comic for inspiration – note how similar the headsculpts are – and simply had no idea that Geldor had originally been portrayed as black.

Interestingly, in the mini-comic that came with the Origins Geldor figure, “Plague of the Immortal”, written by Joshua Sky and illustrated by Tim Lattie, Geldor is portrayed as white, while his opponent Prince Dakon, returning from the original mini-comic, is still black and Geldor’s late wife, who never appeared in the original mini-comic, is black as well. Again, you can watch a dramatised reading of the comic here. A lot of people criticise the Origins mini-comics, but I quite like this one. Not only is it a direct sequel to the original mini-comic, but it also explains why Geldor was so eager to achieve immortality in the first place. Last but not least, Geldor learns the error of his ways in the end and is reformed, which is a more satisfying ending than “He got eaten by a tree, but then he got better.”

So it seems that Geldor’s changing skintone is less a case of deliberate whitewashing but more of a mistake. Though Geldor is not the only Masters of the Universe character of colour who fell victim to whitewashing. Two characters from the New Adventures of He-Man, Vizar and Nocturna, suffered the same fate. Vizar is black in the New Adventures toyline, while Nocturna is Asian. However, in the New Adventures of He-Man cartoon, Vizar and Nocturna are both white and Nocturna is shown to blonde, when he takes off his helmet. And the German New Adventures comics, Vizar and Nocturna are not only both portrayed as white (and Vizar’s appearance is based on an early design), but they have also swapped names and abilities. Though once again, this seems to have happened more due to communication problems than out of malice. Neither Vizar nor Nocturna have ever been made again (and likely never will be), so we don’t know how later toylines would have portrayed these characters.

Posted in Comics, TV | Tagged He-Man, Masters of the Universe, Masters of the Universe Classics, Masters of the Universe Origins, mini-comics, New Adventures of He-Man, race, toys, whitewashing | Leave a comment

Happy New Year 2025

Posted on January 4, 2025 by Cora

2025 is already three days old by now and so far, things don’t look too bad, though I am apprehensive about the general election coming up in February.

Now I have to admit that I’ve never been a huge fan of New Year’s Eve celebrations. Part of the reason is that New Year’s Eve is just too close to Christmas and I’m usually all holidayed out from three days of Christmas celebrations, so I don’t really feel like having another celebration. Of course, I did the party thing and the “standing around on the market square in the cold, watching fireworks” thing, when I was younger. But in the past few years, I mostly celebrated with my parents at home and/or in a restaurant.

My parents are both gone now and most of favourite restaurants in reasonable distance have closed down, so I was at home all alone, which suits me just fine. I initially planned to make something special for New Year’s Eve dinner. However, while my parents had both an electric fondue pot and a raclette set, I couldn’t find either, so the New Year’s Eve stand-bys fondue and raclette were out. I considered making some kind of vegetarian hotpot, but in the end I just made myself a nice hot bowl of ramen noodles, albeit jazzed up with vegetables and an egg, because that’s both quick and tasty.

Come to think of it, I think I had a bowl of ramen last year for New Year’s Eve as well, so maybe that’s my new tradition now. Unless I find the fondue pot or raclette set after all or break down and buy a new set. In fact, I should probably replace the raclette set anyway, since my parents’ set isn’t electrical as far as I recall, but uses an alcohol burner. And I don’t want open fire in my home.

When I was a kid, my parents always spent New Year’s Eve with friends in the village of Teufelsmoor (literally Devil’s Moor), who went all out decorating their living room for New Year’s Eve with garlands, streamers, cardboard silhouettes of scantily clad women and good luck charms. The decorations were about the only thing I liked about New Year’s Eve in Teufelsmoor and I wish I could have saved the silhouettes and one of the good luck charms, which I suspect were lost when my parents’s friends (well, just the wife – the husband died quite suddenly) moved out of that isolated farmhouse in Teufelsmoor into a city apartment.

Meanwhile, my own New Year’s Eve decorations are limited to the dining table, though I think we have paper garlands somewhere.

New Year’s Eve decorations

I bought a pot of four-leaf clover and arranged my own collection of good luck charms – chimney sweepers, pigs and toadstools – around the pot. I also got out my New Year’s Eve candle holder. It was a gift from a friend, when I hosted a New Year’s Eve Party sometime in the 1990s. It’s handmade, plaster-cast and painted and almost thirty years old by now, but I still treasure it, even though I long lost contact with the friend who made it.

New Year’s Night in Germany is also time for fireworks. As I explained here and here, there have been complaints about money wasted on fireworks as far back as the 1980s and in recent years, there have been more and more calls – usually from Green adjacent folks – for a fireworks ban for private citizens and for private fireworks to be replaced with professional displays or drone shows, disregarding that this requires driving during New Year’s Night and that people in small towns and villages won’t get to enjoy any fireworks at all.

It’s a stupid debate. There certainly are improvements to be made, such as stricter noise limits, ban of plastic in fireworks, requirements to pick up your trash and maybe even banning thrown firecrackers that just make noise but don’t produce a pretty lightshow altogether, since those are the biggest issue, but a total ban isn’t the answer. Though it would really help, if we could harmonise fireworks regulations across the EU, since the biggest problems and also the majority of injuries are caused by illegal fireworks imported from Poland. The fact that Berlin is very close to the Polish border and has easy access to illegal fireworks is also part of the reason why certain neighbourhoods in the city regularly turn into war zones on New Year’s Eve. I why I suspect a lot of the problems with fireworks we’re currently seeing would vanish if Poland had stricter fireworks regulations or enforced them better.

The fireworks debate is something of an annual event or rather an annual annoyance by now. However, this year – or rather last year – it just didn’t happen for some reason. I suspect the fact that there is a general election coming up in February might have something to do with it. The Green Party, who is most fervently in favour of a fireworks ban, already has the reputation of a party who wants to ban everybody from having fun or just living their lives as they please. Not without reason, because the Greens really love to ban things they disapprove of, but then so does the conservative CDU/CSU, though they disapprove of different things. Nonetheless, the Greens probably preferred not to launch into a fireworks ban debate less than two months before an election.

Though we did get the annual fireworks ban discussion after New Year’s Eve, because there were several deaths – all from illegal or homemade fireworks – as well as significant property damage in Berlin, also due to illegal fireworks, which are already banned.

Meanwhile, it seems that the constant fireworks banning debates have also caused a defiant reaction among fans of fireworks, because buying a lot of fireworks and setting them off suddenly feels rebellious. The fact that many of the pro-ban people are also incredibly aggressive doesn’t help either. Last year some woman wished death upon me for pointing out that even though a majority of Germans is supposedly in favour of a fireworks ban, the sheer amount of fireworks bought and set off tells a different tale. And while some stores and chains have stopped selling fireworks altogether, others upped the ante. For example, the lowest category of fireworks, which aren’t subjects to as strict regulations, were advertised and sold in several grocery and discount stores well before Christmas. It is legal to sell the lowest category of fireworks at any time, but normally they wouldn’t explicitly advertise and offer them so early.

Meanwhile, higher category fireworks may only be sold for three days per year, between December 29 and 31. Of course, December 29 was a Sunday this year, which in previous years meant “tough luck – one day less of fireworks sales”. This year, however, the fireworks sales started on December 28. Not sure if the regulations changed or if they always allowed for this. At any rate, it meant one more day of dealing with fireworks randomly going off, even though you’re only allowed to set them off between six PM on New Year’s Eve and one AM on New Year’s Day, but no one really cares about that. Fireworks randomly going off is a problem for pets and their owners and wild animals. There’s also a risk of vandalism, since some idiots like throwing fireworks into mailboxes and newspaper tubes to blow them up. So I taped off the newspaper tube and blocked the mailbox with a heavy tool (some kind of chisel I found in Dad’s workshop) every single day, which is annoying. And of course, I had to unblock the mailbox again the next day to receive my mail.

On New Year’s Eve at half past five, my normally quiet suburban street turned into a warzone. Fireworks were going off seemingly right outside the house, so I opened the door to see if someone was setting off their fireworks directly in front of my house (some folks do that, so others have to deal with the trash). However, it turns out that one of my neighbours was setting off what looked like his entire stash early, so his two young kids aged four and two could enjoy the spectacle. Which I have some sympathy for, except that I’m not sure why you’d set off extremely loud firecrackers – they’re called cannonball crackers – near toddlers. After all, you want them to enjoy the fireworks, not be traumatised by noise.

The air outside was also smoky and appallingly bad, because we had a temperature inversion which traps gasses in the lower atmosphere. The air quality was already bad from regular exhaust fumes and fireworks made things worse. Ironically, this means that both holidays where you absolutely don’t want to have a temperature inversion – Easter, because of the traditional Easter bonfires, and New Year – did have one this year. It was pretty cold, so normally I would have used the AC in heating mode, since my battery was full, but that would have blown the bad air indoors, so I had to resort to a space heater and to keeping the central heating running through the night. As the night went on, we got a winter storm, which blew away the fireworks smoke, but caused other issues, because heavy wind tends to make fireworks fly where they’re not supposed to go.

Once the neighbour had shot his shot (or so it seemed), New Year’s Eve calmed down again towards the usual background noise of explosions going off in the distance. I had dinner and then went to my computer to finish up the 2024 eligibility post. At around quarter ten, there was another round of very noisy fireworks nearby, so I looked out of the door again and saw the neighbours on the other side setting off fireworks in their driveway with friends.

Now my neighbourhood is currently undergoing one of its periodic demographic shifts, as the original residents who moved there in the 1960s and 1970s gradually move out or die off and younger people move in, often families with kids. We had a similar demographic shift in the 1990s, when the residents who’d moved in in the 1950s or before moved out died off. The majority of the houses on my street date from the 1960s and 1970s, but some are older.

More younger people means more fireworks. In fact, the remaining older residents mostly barricaded themselves in and didn’t even come out onto the street at midnight to admire the fireworks, which is sad. The neighbourhood is also getting more diverse – there’s a Russian German family living behind me, a Turkish German couple living next door and a Lebanese family living a bit up the street and possibly others as well. Though there isn’t much of a difference in fireworks enthusiasm between Germans and people with an immigrant background, to use the politically correct expression. The traditions and celebrations might be different, but they all like fireworks and there are several people on my street and in the wider neighbourhood who set off a lot of them.

The Russian German family whose backyard borders on mine celebrated New Year’s Eve – and New Year’s Day – with a backyard barbecue, sauna and hot tub. This is how they celebrate pretty much everything – birthdays, Christmas, New Year – with barbecue, sauna and hot tub. At midnight, they briefly emerged from the sauna to set off fireworks and then retreated into the sauna again. The next day, there was more barbecue (their barbecue is really tasty BTW), more sauna and more hot tub.

At around twenty to midnight, the party next door spilled out into the driveway, as evidenced by Turkish dance music punctuated with fireworks. A little grumbly, I shut down my computer and went downstairs to get the champagne out of the fridge. Luckily I remembered to purchase a small piccolo sized champagne bottle, because a regular bottle would have been too much for one person.

I also got out one of my Mom’s vintage lead crystal champagne glasses. Mom had a full set of lead crystal glasses which date from the late 1950s or early 1960s. They were really expensive at the time and have almost no value these days, because no one collects fine china or glassware anymore and they’re not dishwasher proof either. I basically only use them for New Year’s Eve or when I have guests, though they are pretty.

Just before midnight, the fireworks started going into overdrive outside, though I waited until midnight to toast an empty room with champagne from a vintage crystal glass. Then I grabbed my coat and my boots and went outside the admire the fireworks and wish the neighbours a Happy New Year.

And there was a lot of firerwork to admire. Remember the neighbour with the two small kids who apparently had set off his entire stash at half past five? Well, turns out that he did not set off his entire stash after all, since he still had plenty left to set off at midnight. Even more amazingly, his four-year-old daughter was still (or again) awake and set in the doorway, watching adoringly as Dad indulged his fireworks habit. The Mom had apparently gone inside. I ventured over to wish them a Happy New Year and the little girl waved at me.

Meanwhile, the neighbours on the other side whose party had spilled out into the driveway at half past eleven, were eagerly setting off fireworks, while listening to music. I went over to wish them a Happy New Year and offer that one of their guests could park their car in my driveway rather than at the curb, since parking your car at the curb on New Year’s Night isn’t the best of ideas. This is also when I learned that some of the guests at the party had actually come over from Turkey, where private fireworks are not allowed on New Year’s Night, so the guests were really thrilled by this suburban fireworks display.

Someone at the party next door also had some kind of pistol – I think it was a gas pistol or probably a starter pistol – and the guests were taking turns posing, while firing into the air. They asked if I wanted to shoot as well, an offer I politely declined.

Fireworks and the silhouettes of the guests at the party next door.

Meanwhile, a bit further down the street, some very fireworks-crazy people set off multiple of rockets all at once, which persuaded me to keep well away from them. Meanwhile, several cardboard boxes, which might have been the casings of fireworks batteries, were just left burning in the middle of the street. The entire thing had a distinctly post-apocalyptic ambience.

At around half-past twelve, the fireworks started to calm down a little and I ventured back inside. Though I kept hearing the occasional firecracker go off through the rest of the night.

The storm that had started to blow in on New Year’s Night fully hit us on New Year’s Day, accompanied by heavy rain, so I basically just stayed inside. Normally, I would have gone out to pick up any fireworks trash that ended up on my premises, but the weather was so bad that I didn’t. Besides, the storm might blow additional trash onto my premises, if I was unlucky, or blow trash away, if I was lucky.

Vegetarian red beans and rice

For lunch I made a big pot of vegetarian red beans and rice, since it’s a suitable New Year’s Day meal and extremely tasty. Plus, I had leftovers for the two following days.

After the storm had blown through on New Year’s Day, the weather became much more pleasant and the sun actually came out. I did go out to take an important letter to the mailbox and picked up some fireworks trash in the yard. Thankfully, there wasn’t a whole lot of fireworks trash. I guess the storm really did blow it away.

On January 3, finally, I did venture outside to go grocery shopping and also to pick up some pre-orders for myself and a friend at the Smyths Toys superstore (Smyths is an Irish chain, which took over the European Toy R Us stores after the demise of the parent company and is actively expanding) in Posthausen.

As for why Posthausen, a village of not quite 2000 people, has a Smyths Toys superstore, well, Posthausen also happens to be home to North Germany’s biggest shopping mall and one of the two biggest malls in all of Germany and the Smyths Toys store is one of the tenants.

As for why a village of not quite 2000 people in the middle of nowhere became home to one of Germany’s biggest shopping malls, which attracts some five million shoppers every year, that’s due to a man called Hermann Dodenhof, who opened a small village store in 1910. In 1925, he moved to a larger building and also acquired a large plot of farmland along with the building. The original store from 1925 could still be seen into the 1980s and may well still be there today.

The store was successful at serving customers in this very rural, very isolated area on the moors north of Bremen, so in 1961, they built one of those new-fangled department stores. The customers kept flocking to the store, which by now was also no longer in the middle of nowhere, but in easy reach of the Autobahnen A1 and A27 (in 1989, the Autobahn A1 got an exit named Posthausen, which is basically the Dodenhof exit), so in 1975 the Dodenhof family built a furniture store, then the biggest in North Germany. The Dodenhof store – and it was initially just a single big box store – kept expanding, adding a café, a children’s play area, a gas station, a gorcery store and a large warehouse where you could pick up self-assembly furniture, an idea they borrowed from IKEA. By the 1980s, Dodenhof in Posthausen was one of several big furniture stores around Bremen and I remember being taken there several times when I was a kid.

However, my Dad didn’t like Dodenhof, because an employee treated him badly once – which is ironic, because Dodenhof are famous for their well-trained and polite employees, which is why people go there over cheaper options. In fact, I have known several people who worked at Dodenhof – either as student jobs or permanently – over the years and they only had praise for the company. So I guess we were just unlucky or Dad was being difficult, cause he could be a very difficult customer. Also, Dad really hated furniture shops in general, something I inherited. I was definitely there, when it Dad had his altercation with a Dodenhof employee, and I think it was about a lamp, though I don’t remember any details or even which lamp it was and if I still have it. What I do remember is going to the department store part afterwards – in the 1980s, people mainly went to Dodenhof for furniture – and being shocked at how messy the toy department was and how ugly the clothes on offer. That was it for us. I don’t think Dad ever set foot in the Dodenhof store again and neither did I.

Meanwhile, Dodenhof kept expanding and growing. They built a new multi-level fashion department, added a bridal saloon, which is where pretty everybody in the neighbourhood gets their bridal gowns, added an electronic department and a sports deaprtment and gradually turned the whole massive complex into a shopping mall, though I had no idea it was one of the two biggest malls in Germany until very recently. They also have lots of events like late night shopping, fashion shows, exhibitions, a Christmas market, etc… and they’re doing well. In fact, the one time I was at Dodenhof with my Dad after the affair of the lamp was when they hosted a motorbike show on their massive parking lot.

There are several photos on the official Dodenhof website about the history of the store and here’s a video about the history of the company and an interview with the current owner/manager. Yes, Dodenhof is still family-owned, which is extremely rare for both shopping malls and big box stores.

So on Friday morning, I got into my car and drove to Posthausen. The Smyths Toys store is on the edge of the gigantic Dodenhof premises, sandwiched between the gas station and an Aldi supermarket.

And here’s my haul from Smyths Toys on the kitchen table with two Turtles of Grayskull Leatherhead figures, two Turtles of Grayskull Stealth He-Men, a Masterverse New Eternia Fisto and a free audio drama on CD.

When I set out, the sun was shining. By the time I got to Posthausen – a trip that takes maybe 25 minutes – the sky was overcast. When I walked out of Smyths, there was dense snowfall outside. Initially, I had planned to go to the food court and grocery store area of Dodenhof afterwards, but because of the snow, I didn’t. Instead, I just took my purchases to the car and drove home.

By the time I reached Autobahn A1, the snowfall was so dense, plus the wind was blowing it directly against my windshield, that driving was unpleasant. So I left the Autobahn again at the next exit and headed for Autohof Oyten, which has a bakery café and an American style diner. I parked my car and checked the weather app on my phone to see how long the intense snowfall would last. Because if the snowfall would subside after half an hour or so, I would simply wait it out at the bakery café or the diner. However, the snowfall was projected to last for three hours and I did not want to spend three hours at Autohof Oyten, so I set off again.

This is what my street looked like when I came home from Posthausen. Note how heavy the snowfall is.

When I made it home, it was still snowing. To my dismay, I discovered that the mail person had been there, while I was out and had stuffed a large envelope with a calendar I ordered from Amazon into the mailbox in such a way that half the envelope stuck out. The envelope was already soaked through, but luckily the calendar is salvageable.

The temperature was slightly above freezing, so I assumed the snow would quickly melt away and initially that’s what happened. But in the evening, there was more snow and because the temperature was below freezing by now, the snow was frozen as well. There’s more snow forecast for today, so it seems the snow will stick around for the weekend.

So that was how I spent the first three days of 2025. There will hopefully be more blogging in 2025, more interviews (since I didn’t do any of those in 2024), more toy photo stories, more roadtrips and of course the remaining parts of my adventures at the Church of Eternia holiday con in Hanau.

Posted in General, Personal | Tagged Dodenhof, fireworks, food, German politics, Masters of the Universe, new year, photos, Posthausen, snow, toys | 2 Comments

A handy guide to all SFF-related posts and works of 2024

Posted on January 1, 2025 by Cora

I never felt particularly comfortable with eligibility posts, but I posted such an overview for the first time in 2016, when someone added my name to the Hugo Nominations Wiki. Eventually, it paid off, because I was a Hugo finalist for Best Fan Writer in 2020, 2021 and 2022 and won in 2022.

So if you’re interested in what I write, here is an overview of all SFF related blogposts of 2023, in chronological order, as well as a list of all the SFF and other fiction I published.

I separated the Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre Toy Photo Stories from the rest of the blogposts, because they are quite different from everything else.

That said, I have a shiny rocket on my shelf and there are many highly deserving fan writers who have never even been nominated, let alone won. Therefore, I’d like to ask to nominate some of those other great folks.

Finally, I know that there are people out there who don’t like me and don’t like what I have to say. That’s okay, no one has to like me and my work. But if you don’t like my work, just don’t read it. There’s no need to send harassment mobs my way.

And if you think you’re going to silence me, think again. Cause it’s not going to work.

At this blog:

The Complete Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre Toy Photo Stories:

At Galactic Journey:

Elsewhere:

Podcast appearances:

Fiction (SFF):

“Deer Stew” in 99 Fleeting Fantasies: A Fantasy Anthology, edited by Jennifer Brozek (flash fiction)

Posted in Links | Tagged blogging, eligibility post, fan writing, fantasy, File 770, Galactic Journey, interviews with other writers, my books, podcasts, science fiction, Seattle 2025, shameless self-promo, toys, Yesterday Today and Tomorrow | 3 Comments

The 2024 Jonathan and Martha Kent Fictional Parent of the Year Award

Posted on December 31, 2024 by Cora

It’s the last day of the year, so we present to you, live from the Multiversal Nexus Ballroom, the winner of the 2024 Jonathan and Martha Kent Fictional Parent of the Year Award.

While I have been awarding the Darth Vader Parenthood Award for Outstandingly Horrible Fictional Parents for 44 years now, the Jonathan and Martha Kent Fictional Parent of the Year Award is a new prize that I only introduced in 2020 as a companion piece to the Darth Vader Parenthood Award. The 2020 winner may be found here, the 2021 winner here, the 2022 winner here and the 2023 winner here.

As for why I felt the need to introduce a companion award, depictions of parenthood in popular culture have been undergoing a paradigm shift in the past few years with more positive portrayals of supportive and loving parents and fewer utterly terrible parents. Personally, I believe that this shift is a very good thing, because the reason that I started the Darth Vader Parenthood Award in the first place is because I was annoyed by all the terrible parents in pop culture. For while most real world parents may not be perfect, at least they do their best. Maybe, the conditions that gave rise to the Darth Vader Parenthood Award will eventually cease to exist and we can permanently retire the award.

The bar is open for the adults, the play area and ball pit are open for the kids, and the kitchen is serving up delicacies from around Multiverse as well as the greatest selection of pastries and sweets found anywhere in any universe, so without further ado, let’s get started.

Warning: Spoilers for lots of things behind the cut! Continue reading →

Posted in Comics, Film, TV | Tagged anime, Avatar: The Last Airbender, awards geekery, cartoons, DC, Jonathan and Martha Kent Fictional Parent of the Year Award, Masters of the Universe: Revolution, My Adventures with Superman, Skeleton Crew, Spy x Family, Star Wars, Superman and Lois, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Acolyte, The Mandalorian, The Wild Robot, US TV | 2 Comments

The 2024 Darth Vader Parenthood Award for Outstandingly Horrible Fictional Parents

Posted on December 30, 2024 by Cora

It’s almost the end of the year, so we are proud to present to you, live from the Multiversal Nexus Ballroom, the 44th Annual Darth Vader Parenthood Award for Outstandingly Horrible Fictional Parents.

Let’s have a bit of background: I have been informally awarding the Darth Vader Parenthood Award since sometime in the 1980s with the earliest awards being retroactive. Over the years, the list of winners migrated from a handwritten page to various computer file formats, updated every year. Eventually, I decided to make the winners public on the Internet, because what’s an award without some publicity and a ceremony? The list of previous winners (in PDF format) up to 2017 may be found here, BTW, and the 2018 winner, the 2019 winner, the 2020 winner, the 2021 winner, the 2022 winner and the 2023 winner were announced right here on this blog.

The bar is open, the various assembled winners of yesteryear and this year’s hopefuls are plotting with each other, while enjoying delicacies from around the Multiverse, so without further ado, let’s start with the ceremony.

Warning: Spoilers for several things behind the cut! Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Comics, Film, TV | Tagged A Sorceress Comes to Call, Agatha All Along, anime, Avatar: The Last Airbender, cartoons, Darth Vader Parenthood Award, DC Comics, Deadpool and Wolverine, Echo, Fallout, Game of Thrones, Green Arrow, Lindenstraße, Marvel, Masters of the Universe, Masters of the Universe: Revolution, Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury, My Adventures with Superman, US TV, Wicked | 4 Comments

Christmas 2024

Posted on December 28, 2024 by Cora

It’s been a while since I did a Christmas post, because in the past few years I was either busy with work and holiday preparations or sick on Christmas or both.

Holiday He-Man and She-Ra wish everybody a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

Initially, it seemed as if Christmas 2024 wouldn’t be much better, since I was busy with translation work well into last week. I also wasn’t feeling well, got tired very quickly and my blood pressure was way too low, leaving me feeling woozy. Low blood pressure and feeling woozy was a massive issue in my teens, which somewhat improved in adulthood, but still recurs on occasion, often dependent on the weather.

But before we get to the meat of the post (literally in one case), here are some links to other recent posts by me. For a seasonal starter, I revisit the 1985 He-Man and She-Ra Christmas Special at File 770. Also for File 770, I wrote a piece to commemorate the birthday of Leigh Brackett. At Galactic Journey, I reviewed The Unicorn Girl by Michael Kurland and wrote about (West) Germany’s first ever satellite, Azur, which launched in November 1969. I’m also writing for the Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow Blog of the 2025 Seattle Worldcon on occasion and have written about legendary editor Cele Goldsmith Lalli, the 1960 science fiction novel The High Crusade by Poul Anderson and the 1960 movie The Time Machine so far. Finally, I’ve also got an article called “Tanith Lee: Dark Mistress of the Weird” out in issue 4 of New Edge Sword and Sorcery, though my copy hasn’t yet reached me.

Back to the holidays: 2024 is also the first Christmas with both my parents gone. Last Christmas, my Mom was still alive, though in a nursing home and in an increasingly bad condition, bedridden and unable to even get into a wheelchair. So 2023 was actually the first Christmas I spent all alone. I visited Mom in the nursing home, of course, but that was just a short visit since she tended to fall asleep after half an hour or so.

There’s something of a stigma about spending Christmas, particularly Christmas Eve, which is the main event in Germany, all alone. It’s considered a very sad thing to spend Christmas Eve alone and there are meet-ups for people who’d otherwise spent Christmas alone organised by churches and charities. I briefly considered going to one of those meet-ups, but then I realised that I didn’t want to. First of all, it wouldn’t be a proper Christmas Eve for me, because even though there would be other people, the food would be all wrong and it just wouldn’t be the kind of Christmas I enjoy. There also are platforms which connect people who want to host a Christmas Eve or Day dinner with people who’d like to attend. Once again, I considered this and then decided against it, because while I wanted to make my personal holiday foods, I didn’t necessarily want to feed strangers. Plus, inviting strangers into the house would mean extra work such as cleaning, whereas if I’m alone and the floor isn’t spotlessly clean, who’ll care except for me? Besides, I actually like my own company.

Initially, I also wondered whether to bother with a tree or decorations. But then I actually put up quite a lot of decorations, including things my Dad wouldn’t have liked like illuminated window decorations. Because my Dad didn’t care for Christmas lights or decorations at all. It usually took asking several times until he could be bothered to put up decorations I couldn’t put up myself like the star in the front window. This time around, I just asked a tall and fit neighbour to do it for me and he did.

Illuminated Christmas star decoration with snow

This illuminated star, here pictured with the snowy garden, is one new decoration I got for myself, because Dad didn’t like putting things in the window.

So in short, now that I’m alone and no longer beholden to other people (though I would of course prefer having my parents back in the sort of good health they both still had in 2020/21), I could decide what sort of Christmas I want to have, what sort of decorations, food, etc… I also decided that I wanted a tree anyway, because though Christmas trees are a lot of work, they also bring joy. Though my tree is a little shorter than the ones we used to have and I decided to ditch the live candles that my Dad insisted on adding to the tree, because frankly I find live candles too dangerous and decorating the tree is a lot more fun, if you don’t have to worry about accidentally setting it on fire. Besides, not every tradition needs to be kept. I have more lights in my home for Christmas than ever, but not a single live candle, because live candles are too much of a fire hazard for my taste and modern LED candles look just as nice.

As for food, I decided to stick with our traditional holiday dishes, though scaled down for one person, which isn’t always easy, especially with older “feed a regiment” recipes. For example, for our traditional Christmas Eve lunch – grilled venison with red cabbage, apple cranberry sauce and some pasta to soak up the sauce – I ditched the venison (though I like it) and the red cabbage (though – again – I like it) and just kept the sauce and the pasta, because the sauce is actually what makes the dish special. Besides, there’s no law to say that I can only have venison and/or red cabbage on Christmas. I can have both whenever I want to.

Pasta with apple cranberry sauce. Tha sauce is amazing and IMO doesn’t need the venison or red cabbage to shine.

Grandma Buhlert’s famous herring salad (the recipe for which I shared at The Skiffy and Fanty Show several years ago), which we traditionally have for dinner on Christmas Eve (and Christmas Day and Boxing Day and however long the bowl lasts, often up to New Year’s Eve), poses another problem. Grandma’s original recipe produces enough salad to feed a regiment. I’ve scaled it down over the years and scaled it down again this year, but there are some hard limits. For example, the recipe calls for a celeriac root and celeriac roots are big. Even if you buy the smallest one you can find on the market, it’s still big. Sometimes, we would just use half the root for the herring salad and use the other half to make celeriac salad, but the last thing you want when you’re making a lot of salad is even more salad. So the ratio of celeriac to the other ingredients gradually crept up, simply because celeriac is the most difficult to scale down. Boiling a celeriac root also takes forever, even in a pressure cooker (and Christmas is the only time I use pressure cooker and I inevitably curse the damned thing). This year’s celeriac root is a bit crunchier than usual – I guess I should have boiled it even longer – but otherwise the salad came out fine. Last year, I took a small pot of it to my Mom at the nursing home BTW, even though the nurses didn’t want her to eat solid food and insisted on pureeing everything.

Grandma Buhlert’s famous herring salad. The bright magenta colour comes from beetroot.

The sailor’s curry we traditionally have on Christmas Day was the least problematic, because you can easily freeze leftovers. Though I did scale it down last year and even more this year and it’s still enough to eat on Boxing Day as well, which means that I don’t have to worry about Boxing Day lunch as well. Though Boxing Day was usually the one holiday meal slot that was up for grabs and varied the most. When I was very small, it was often Chicken Fricassee (which I found bland and boring, though I might like it more today). Then, we had French style roast rabbit, because my Grandma gifted her stepdaughters a rabbit every holiday season. Grandma hailed from Moritzburg near Dresden and roast rabbit for Christmas is an East German thing. I actually have Mom’s recipe for the roast rabbit and may give it a try eventually, since I remember liking it. Even later, it became Boeuf a la Mode (which I actually quite liked, especially the way my Mom made it, which included currants and olives – and yes, I have her recipe) or Coq au Vin (which I also like). In recent years, once I took over the holiday cooking duties, I mostly made some kind of Cajun dish – Crawfish Etouffee, Shrimp Creole, Gumbo, whatever ingredients were available. But since the curry is enough for two days, I can enjoy it on Boxing Day as well and just have my Cajun food or Boeuf a la Mode or Coq au Vin or roast rabbit some other day. Not Chicken Fricassee, though. I looked up recipes and it still sounds bland and boring to me. Half the recipes had titles like “Chicken Fricassee just like Mom’s”, so apparently everybody’s Mom made this dish at some point, though other people clearly have fonder memories of it than me.

Of course cooking requires shopping. I hate crowds, so I tend to go grocery shopping either very early in the morning, just after the shops open, or in the evening just before closing time. A lot of ingredients could also be bought ahead of time, but some – particularly the pork for the curry and the salted herring for the herring salad – can only be bought just before Christmas Eve. I had planned to buy the foods that don’t keep well on Monday morning and everything else on Friday early in the morning, so I wouldn’t have to go out on the weekend and could do other things – clean the house and the living room, etc… – that needed to be done. However, it turned out that the one grocery store that usually carries them didn’t have fresh cranberries on Friday, but maybe they would get them in again on Saturday. So I set off again on Saturday – while not feeling well at all – and even drove to the big Edeka store in Delmenhorst to get fresh cranberries, only that they didn’t have any either. The nice lady stocking the shelves even checked the warehouse. So that meant trying once more for cranberries on Monday or use dried cranberries for the apple cranberry sauce.

Another unexpected issue was the pork for the curry. Normally, this shouldn’t have been an issue at all – I’d just send an e-mail to my local neighbourhood butcher, preorder the pork and pick it up on Monday. Alas, when I sent off my e-mail last Wednesday, I got a reply that they didn’t accept anymore preorders at this late date (since when is a week before Christmas late?), but that I could come to the store and buy it there. So I got up really early on Monday morning – in spite of still feeling sick and woozy – to make it to the butcher at opening time to beat the crowds. The butcher opens at 7:30 AM. I was there at 7:32 AM and not only had a war broken out on the parking lot – which is way too small for the shop – but the line was already around the building and all the way to the bakery next door. Apparently, lots of other people had the same idea. And the line didn’t move briskly, because many people take forever at the butcher, because it’s always five slices of this and five slices of that and ten different types of sausages and cheese and salad (which the butcher sells as well) and whatnot. Now note that I was feeling woozy and my blood pressure was already low, so spending twenty minutes or half an hour or more standing in line was out of the question, because I know that standing for extended periods completely wrecks my blood pressure. And I certainly didn’t fancy collapsing at the butcher shop on the day before Christmas.

So I drove onwards to get the herring and the cranberries (and this time around, they actually did have fresh cranberries) and thought I’d come back to the butcher afterwards, when the crowds had dispersed a little. I assumed many people had come before work to pick up the meat supply for the holidays and things would look better at 8 AM or later. Meanwhile, the butcher counter at the grocery store was completely empty – no line at all. I briefly considered just buying my pork there, but then I took one look at what the butcher counter at the grocery store called “filet of pork” and decided that I didn’t want it. Besides, whenever my parents caved in and bought the pork for the curry at a grocery store, we later regretted it. Chicken and turkey are perfectly fine to buy at the grocery store – pork is not and neither is beef. So nope. I wanted good curry, so I needed good pork. So I returned to the butcher shop after finishing my other grocery shopping and found that the line had gotten even longer. Frustrated, I drove back home and decided to try again around noon, when all of those people waiting in line were hopefully at home having lunch or at work or wherever. Anywhere as long as it wasn’t waiting in line at the butcher.

By noon, the line was a little shorter. Still snaking out of the door, but no longer all the way to the bakery. So I got in line and was visibly grumpy, which apparently annoyed some of the other customers. Meanwhile, people who had preordered – which I had tried to do – could just go through. At one point I said to an employee, “Well, I tried to preorder, but you wouldn’t let me.” – “Well, you have to be early enough.” – “I tried to preorder a week before Christmas.” – “Oh, that’s much too late. We stopped accepting preorders four weeks ago.” – “Well, maybe I should preorder for next year then, since I’m here already”, I said snarkily.

You may be wondering why this particular butcher shop is such a mess and so overcrowded. There are two reasons. For starters, stand-alone butcher shops are becoming increasingly rare in Germany. They have problems finding apprentices, are struggling with regulations and bureaucracy and neighbours not wanting “that sort of business” next door, though they’re happy enough to buy the products, plus the supermarkets are cutting into their customer base. The second reason is that this particular butcher shop has been consistently ranked as one of the best in all of Germany in the past few years, which means that there were people waiting in line from as far away as Hamburg. As if you couldn’t find a good butcher somewhere in Hamburg, a city of 1.4 million people.

Not that I begrudge the butcher their success – and besides, the meat really is good. However, this is my neighbourhood butcher. They opened a year after I was born and I have literally been going there since forever. I remember how the shop looked before it was all snazzy and modern, long before it was officially one of the best butcher shops in Germany. I remember when the grey-haired ladies behind the counter were fresh-faced apprentices. I am one of the original customers and yet I get treated like crap, while some people from Hamburg, who couldn’t even find Seckenhausen on a map, get preferential treatment, because they preordered five weeks ago.

I wasted twenty-five minutes standing in line at the bloody butcher and once it was my turn, I was out of the shop in maybe three minutes. The guy who was in line before me took longer to get all his umpteen purchases than I took to get my six hundred grams of filet of pork. Anyway, it seems that next year I will either have to preorder a month before Christmas or find myself another butcher. Which is a pity, because I have been a customer there for much longer than those people from Hamburg – and they looked like wealthy jerks from Hamburg, too.

Once I made it home from the butcher’s, my neighbour (the same one who put up my Christmas star in the window) set up the tree in the living room, because it would have been too heavy for me to carry it inside. We always had a natural tree and though I considered getting an artificial one, none of the ones on offer really did it for me, so a natural tree it was. It’s a Nordmann fir, because pretty much all commercially sold Christmas trees in Germany are, though personally I prefer regular firs.

The undecorated Christmas tree in the living room.

Because my blood pressure was still too low, decorating the tree took longer than it normally would. And after I was finished, I was so tired that I just went to bed.

On Christmas Eve (which is the main event in Germany), I got up fairly early to chop up the last ingredients for the herring salad and make the apple cranberry sauce. In previous years, I also baked a cake for the holidays, but I decided not to do that this year, because I have plenty of cookies and a cake just for me would have been too much. My blood pressure was also still way too low and I was exhausted, so after lunch I just laid down for an extended afternoon nap.

Now the way Christmas Eve in Germany usually works is that there is coffee and cookies or cake in the afternoon. Some people attend a church service in the afternoon, others go to midnight mass and some don’t go to church at all. After the afternoon coffee and church, if applicable, the tree is lit and duly admired. Depending on the family there is singing, poems are recited or the Nativity from the Gospel of Luke is read out. Then the presents are opened. Afterwards, there is dinner (some families also have dinner before opening the presents, but that’s cruel to young children) and then the family hangs out, tries out new presents, drinks a glass of wine or beer or whatever they prefer. In recent years, the present opening has crept ever earlier into the afternoon to the point that some families are opening present directly after lunch. I’m not a fan of torturing kids by making them wait forever, but the kids can handle some waiting and opening presents before it’s dark is way too early IMO. Besides, keeping the kids occupied and out of the way until it’s time to open presents is the reason why Christmas TV specials are broadcast in the afternoon and also why the first church service of the day is very child-friendly with a nativity play put on by older kids, etc… Honestly, if I had impatient kids at home, I’d send them to the child-friendly Christmas service, because it’s a lovely experience, and IMO children should at least know why they’re celebrating Christmas.

I’d set my alarm for late afternoon to have my cookies and coffee, but when it went off, I still felt woozy and not well, so I snoozed for another half hour or so. After all, I was all alone and no one cares if I have my herring salad at eight PM or when I light up my tree. When I finally did get up around six PM, I still felt woozy and my blood pressure was still low. I didn’t feel like having dinner just yet, so I made myself a coffee and a cookie platter. And then a minor Christmas miracle happened, because after I’d eaten the cookies and drank the coffee, I suddenly felt a lot better and my blood pressure evened out, too. So maybe I just needed caffeine or sugar or both.

Holiday cookie platter, featuring clockwise from the top, spelt cookies, chocolate cookies, nut kipferl, almond cocoa cookies, brown cookies (North German specialty), gingerbread triangles and in the center Spekulatius and black and white coffee cookies.

This Scandinavian modern wrought iron candle holder dates from the 1960s and adorns my dinner table along with some glass votice candle holders.

So I retreated to the living room, switched on the tree and the various LED votive candles in decorative candle holders scattered around the room. Normally, I’d sit with my parents, sip wine, listen to holiday music on CD and open presents. When I was a kid, I also used to recite holiday poem in front of the Christmas tree, while my parents took pictures, but I haven’t recited a poem in years. We also used to sing Christmas songs as a family, but we eventually stopped, because we all are blessed with terrible voices and realised that we all hated it. One tradition we kept, however, was the reading of the nativity story from the gospel of Luke. This tradition started when I won a reading contest in school in sixth grade and just kept going. I always read the nativity story from an old Bible of my maternal grandmother’s printed in blackletter font and stuffed with all sorts of paper ephemera such as ancient church programs and the Seneca quote Mom wanted on her death announcement in the newspaper, because that only that old Bible had the German translation that everybody knows, not the modernised version, which I don’t like. As Bible translations go, I’m a traditionalist. Whenever I need the English version of a specific Bible verse (it happens occasionally when you’re a translator), I tend to go with the King James Bible.

Last year, I took the old Bible to the nursing home and read the nativity story to Mom in her bed. This Christmas Eve, I was all alone, but I still got the old Bible from my Mom’s nightstand drawer, where it’s kept, and read the nativity story to an empty room. Except that it wasn’t really empty, because my Playmobil nativity and a sizable part of my Masters of the Universe collection are currently there. So I read the nativity story to a bunch of toys and it only felt a little weird.

My Playmobil nativity, complete with Roman soldiers directing the traffic and a lot of farmer women and their animals as well as the more traditional players.

Masters of the Universe Masterverse Motherboard, Hordak, Entrapta and Modulok

“Have yourself a merry little Hordemas” – The Masters of the Universe Masterverse Motherboard action figure is so big that she only fits on the living room table. And when the time came to redecorate the living room for Christmas, I decided to just leave her there and added some other members of the Evil Horde to hang out with her.

Then I made myself some Christmas punch (the alcohol-free version of mulled wine) and put We Wish You a Merry Christmas by the Ray Conniff Singers into the CD player. Now one thing you should know about traditional German Christmas music is that it’s terrible. The songs sound like funeral dirges and are usually performed by choirs or Schlager singers. Nowadays, you have alternatives such as the various pop Christmas songs, but when I was a kid, these terrible German Christmas songs were all there was. And even today, the radio stations still play this crap on Christmas Eve starting just after noon, because people apparently demand it. I call it the terror of Besinnlichkeit. The closest English term is “contemplation”, but it doesn’t quite hit the point. Basically, “Besinnlichkeit” means Christmas being quiet and austere and depressing. Personally, I suspect it’s a conspiracy of the Germanic pagans of yore to make Christmas Eve in Germany as depressing as possible.

However, when I was a kid we had two vinyl Christmas albums that my Dad brought back from the US. One was a Bing Crosby/Frank Sinatra album, which sadly was interrupted by a lot of talking from Bing and Frank (Guys, I want to hear you sing, not talk), and the other was We Wish You a Merry Christmas by the Ray Conniff Singers, first released in 1962. For years, this was literally the only Christmas album we had that wasn’t German terror of Besinnlichkeit stuff, so we pretty much listened to it on an endless loop during afternoon advent coffees and on Christmas Eve. Eventually, we got a CD player and other Christmas albums like the two CD Rock Christmas set which has most of the 1970s and 1980s pop holiday songs, Elvis Presley’s Christmas album and some country music Christmas compilations my Mom picked up at the discount store superceded the Ray Conniff Singers, especially since our vinyl record player no longer functioned reliably. And then three years ago, I bought our old Ray Conniff Singers Christmas album on CD, so we could all listen to it again.

Listening again to that album as adult, I’m struck by the fact that the songs on the album are mostly the English version of the sort of traditional Christmas carols that I dislike so much in German – “Little Drummer Boy”, “Let It Snow” and “Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep” are the two newest songs and they date from 1941, 1945 and 1954 respectively. However, English language Christmas carols are cheerier in general and Ray Conniff’s arrangement and the performance of his group make them sound fresher and a lot more fun than the depressing German Christmas dirges.

There were no presents to open, because while I had declared books and toys delivered just before the holidays “Christmas presents”, I didn’t bother to wrap them. The closest thing to proper presents I got were a bag of homemade holiday cookies from one neighbour and a bag with chocolate and a bottle of wine from another and those didn’t need unpacking either.

This year’s “Christmas presents” include various toys and books which happened to arrive shortly before Christmas as well as two nice goodie bags from my neighbours.

So I just sat in the living room, sipped Christmas punch and listened to the Ray Conniff singers. And it was good.

Of course, I also took some pictures of my tree and decorations.

A view of the full Christmas tree.

As I’ve undoubtedly explained before, my Christmas tree is basically a legacy tree with the oldest ornaments dating back to the 1960s, when my parents bought them as newly-weds. There were new ornaments added almost every year – sometimes as gifts, sometimes bought – while occasionally older ornaments were cycled out, because they broke (it happened, even if you’re careful) or because we no longer liked them or – for gifts – never liked them in the first place.

A close-up view of the top of the Christmas tree, where most of the vintage ornaments of my parents are. They date from the 1960s and are incredibly fragile. Near the top you can also spot a Santa head ornament I made from a seashell when I was five. No one showed me how to make it, I designed and crafted the whole thing myself as a gift for my parents.

This gives me a beautiful tree with a lot of personal history, which I prefer to the more uniform design many people have.

However, there’s also a problem and that is that the vast majority of ornaments are not things I bought for myself, but things my parents bought and ornaments that were given to me, often by my Aunt Gisela who gave me at least one ornament every year for more than forty years. Now I love many of the vintage ornaments of my parents’ and I love many of the ornaments I was given as a kid. However, the ornaments I love most are usually the ones I bought or picked for myself.

Last year, as I was decorating the tree, I realised that I wasn’t decorating my own tree or even my parents, but I was decorating Aunt Gisela’s tree. Which is ironic, because Aunt Gisela and Uncle Reinhard never had a Christmas tree of their own in all the time I’ve known them. I guess they were worried that stray needles might mess up their beautiful, perfect home. What is more, Aunt Gisela had a very different taste from mine, especially as I grew older. I still kept the Aunt Gisela ornaments, since they’re part of my history (and some of them are nice in their own way, even if I wouldn’t have bought enough Santas and dwarves to recreate the questing party from the Hobbit with Christmas tree ornaments. However, I also bought some ornaments of my own that match the person I am now. This included replacing the tree topper (I think we went through four different tree toppers in my lifetime and I was never really happy with any of them) with a golden tentacle.

Some of my all-time favourite ornaments are three woodcut and hand-painted ornaments shaped like Disney characters – Pinocchio, Jiminy Cricket and Winnie the Pooh. A woman called Jenny gave them to me when I was five. She lived in Florida with her husband Jack, who was the manager of a shipyard, which is how my Dad knew this couple. Jenny had a full set of Fiesta Ware (which I used to call Jenny pottery before I knew the proper name) and she was a crafter. She had built the most amazing dollhouse and she also made those woodcut Christmas tree ornaments and gave me three of them, which I’ve treasured ever since. I have no idea what Jack and Jenny’s surname was and whether they are still alive. They were older than my parents at the time, so I doubt it. However, I have treasured Jenny’s handmade Disney ornaments for forty-six years now.

Now pop culture Christmas tree ornaments have never really been available in Germany. I guess cartoon or pop culture characters on the Christmas tree would be too vulgar and also interfere with “Besinnlichkeit” – heavens beware that people might actually have fun. Check out the Christmas address of Germany’s president Frank Walter Steinmeier for a look at what the ideal German Christmas tree looks like – straw stars, red baubles that are not too shiny and real wax candles. Austere and boring. Every year, I marvel at that terrible tree, which looks like something an impoverished Grandma would put up rather than our head of state, and wonder if this will be the year that the tree catches fire and sets the flag, the President and Bellevue Palace on fire. And yes, that bloody tree looks the same every year going back to the 1990s at least. So by German standards, my tree is actually quite gaudy.

What is more, Hallmark, the prime producer of pop culture themed Christmas tree ornaments, doesn’t sell their Christmas tree ornaments in Europe at all. IMO, they’re leaving a lot of money on the table there, because the one thing that every German person who travels to the US brings back are Hallmark Christmas tree ornaments. So I do have a couple of Hallmark ornaments that my parents bought in the 1970s and even one that Aunt Gisela bought during a trip to New York – and whenever I have that ornament – two bells decorated with holly – in my hands I marvel how Aunt Gisela managed to purchase the single dullest ornament Hallmark ever produced. However, I have only one Hallmark pop culture ornament – the Tasmanian Devil of Looney Tunes fame – and that’s one I bought for myself.

Luckily, you can get Hallmark ornaments in Europe via the Internet now, though they are quite pricey. Nonetheless, I got myself two pop culture ornaments last year and another this year, so my tree will reflect the person I am a little bit more. You can probably guess which ones they are in the photos below.

Christmas tree close-up with He-Man and Skeletor, the Tasmanian Devil, the three Disney ornaments a lady called Jenny gave me and a vintage wood shavings angel which we got from my Grandma.

Vintage wooden angels hover around Baby Grogu, because Christmas has room for more than one very special baby. Also note the Wedgewood ornament in the background.

On Christmas Day, I went over to my neighbours to deliver some presents and then I heated up the sailor’s curry, cooked rice and prepared the side dishes for our traditional Christmas Day lunch.

Sailor’s curry and basmati rice

The side dishes for the curry. Clockwise from the left: Hardboiled egg, gherkins, pickled beetroot, banana, onions, atjar tjampoer (Dutch Indonesian pickled vegetables), lime pickle and mango chutney.

The sailor’s curry all mixed up on the plate.

The rest of Christmas Day was quiet and so was Boxing Day, where I had the rest of the curry.

And that was Christmas 2024, which all in all went better than I thought it would.

I’m not sure if I’ll get the second part of my adventures at the Church of Eternia Masters of the Universe holiday event posted in 2024 (the post is about half finished), but of course there will be the eagerly awaited announcements of the winners of the 2024 Darth Vader Parenthood Award for Outstandingly Horrible Fictional Parents and the 2024 Jonathan and Martha Kent Fictional Parent of the Year Award.

Posted in General, Personal | Tagged 1980s child, Christmas, family, food, German culture, German food, He-Man, holidays, loot, Masters of the Universe, She-Ra, toys | 8 Comments

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