Hip in the City
Trending Maboneng, a downtown enclave with galleries, restaurants, cafés, bookstores and designer shops, is Johannesburg’s hip neighborhood. On Albrecht Street, opposite the Museum of African Design (MOAD), the imposing Cosmopolitan, built in 1899 and now newly refurbished, offers exclusive shopping. After that, a cup of Ubuntu or Teranga, luxury tea grown on African soil, will go down a treat at the Yswara Tea Room (photo).
The Hamburger Kunsthalle art museum, which holds works from a good eight centuries (such as Caspar Friedrich’s “Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog”, pictured here) is celebrating its 150th birthday. A comprehensive program of events kicks off August 23.
Lauryn Hill, U.S. rapper and former frontwoman of the hip-hop group Fugees, only produced a single album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. That was 21 years ago, but it’s regarded as a milestone of neo-soul. This month, the singer is performing in Germany: August 27 in Cologne and August 29 in Berlin.
I took this on the waterfront in Vancouver, looking toward Vancouver Harbour and the North Shore Mountains. “Digital Orca, 2009” is a sculpture by Canadian artist and author Douglas Coupland, and to me, it’s both wishful and optimistic.
Kamil Bialous, photographer, Vancouver, Canada
According to Apulian legend, the venom from a tarantula bite makes you dance like crazy, which is where the festival La Notte della Taranta gets ist name. An array of concerts, folk dances and wild parties, it is held all over Apulia, southern Italy, every August.