Tuesday, April 21, 2020

Strange attractor

As Germany prepares to ease off its lockdown it tickles me to think of the urban explorers around Berlin who now have the chance to take a jaunt to Spreepark PlanterWald, an amusement park that opened in 1969 and went out of business early in this century. Amusement parks tend to have sights that are odd objectively, but attendees just take them for granted as they have fun and/or try to remember where they parked. But seeing a huge model dinosaur with no head or a teacup ride with a thick coat of dust brings it home again.

Nearby Treptower Park houses the Archenhold Sternwarte observatory, which houses the world's longest 21m reflecting telescope. The author of the DRB article describes it as "look(ing) like a surreal gun pointed into the sky from the building."

Um, yeah. That's one thing you could say it looks like.

2 comments:

susan said...

Easing off the lockdown sounds like a very good idea - too bad it wasn't handled more sensibly in the US too. Sweden has done very well and so have S. Korea, Taiwan and Japan among a few others. Let's hope things begin to ease there soon.

I loved seeing the pictures of the old amusement park in Berlin. I've seen others too and it's always more than a little bizarre when there's moss and rust on the old rides or when you see a roller coaster that just ends in mid-air. Nice telescope or whatever :)

Today Jer posted a special 'this is the dawning of the age of coronavirus' broadcast (turn the volume waaay up): It's called 'Online'.

Ben said...

It is at the point where state governors down here are at least talking about their plans for reopening the economy. There's certainly been some grumbling in the population at large, even if you rarely hear about it, so maybe it's getting through.

Ah, the telescope. A roller coaster that ends in midair looks like it's made for real carny ride daredevils, who perhaps don't have the greatest sense of self-preservation. It's also interesting, and a little heartening, to see how ready nature is to reclaim things. Even if we're not ready for that.

I like what Jerry is doing with this medium.