white space the archives about black |
today i have to say: ----------------------------------- ae-1 
last time i said: ----------------------------------- hoofdstuk 4 13 C. That's 55 degrees, which is, with the end of May in sight, what the temperature has fallen to. That's jacket wearing, stay indoors, see-your-breath-in-the-air kind of weather, and just two days ago everyone thought that summer had finally come. It had been balmy and warm. For a couple weeks we had an increase of strangely summer-like weather, with a shining sun and warm temperatures. It hit 80 one day, and everyone sat outside at the cafes after work eating ice cream. A bit of humidity encouraged the desire to open windows, and the breeze was enough to move air gently through your house or keep you from scorching in the shine. Last night, though, a storm came off the ocean. It was a surprise because I had met some friends at the beach for pizza and ice cream. The sea was flat and gray, and except for the blue patches above us, so was the sky to the horizon. You couldn't see the setting sun for the clouds in front of it, but those clouds didn't look menacing as much as justification for the increasingly wet air.  As I took the tram home and made my interconnections, gusts of cool wind raced next to me along the sidewalk, following the paths the buildings made lining the street, as water would rush through the cracks of a dried mud bed. Lightening flashed in the distance from where I had come. I waited patiently as drops started to wet the windows, though even when I finally got off the tram near my house the full storm was still a minute away. As happens, I had only to reach my door before the full torrent rained down. It was as if the swimming pool of the gods had cracked in half above me. The radar map from that day showed an angry red god, not unlike a hurricane. All night thunder cracked nearby and water fell. From my loft I had a view of the lightening striking behind spires and steeples. The sound of the rain on the roof lulled me to sleep, reminding me in my dreams of the Texas storms which in this part of the world aren't so prevalent. I miss them nearly as much as I miss barbeque. Northern Europeans prefer misty, dreary rains, which can last for days, but this storm, like the best, lasted just one night. The next morning with skies still gray but filled with a clear air, the crisp coolness of a dying winter kept its head above the summer tide for another week. last time i said: ----------------------------------- vanity fair i got taken out to a fancy lunch the other day, by not one but two beautiful, smart, and well-to-do women. it was all business. we negotiated logistics and talked about how much product would be run. however, the best part of the meal was the food! party a, the interested party, invited me, party b, to liase with party c, and find a time when a lunch like this would take place. as yesterday was a holiday in this country, it seemed like the best opportunity to get this done on our own time. to use a funk phrase, the restaurant was built. located in a 5 star hotel, the place gleamed with opulence of golden ages past. masterpeices hung on the wall, i kid you not, and the parking lot showed the flashy classy rich client's tastes: black bentleys, old-school blue porches, and of course the red ferrari. though presented with menus we choose a bottle of prosecco and the chef's recommendation, a 5 course luncheon extraveganza peppered with words like 'lobster foam' and 'duck liver pate' and 'filet of baby.' ok, i made that last one up. the meal was excellent, though to be picky the courses came spaced just a litle too far apart for my tastes. the wait staff must have thought it was a small intimate party, but it was business, and i was eager to get out of there and enjoy the sunny afternoon that it had turned out to be. dishes were preseted as rectangles or boards upon which smaller plates had been set on top; it had started off with beautiful porcelin glazed with splashes of color, to set out the mood of a dining experience with post-modern implications. it was all about tastes and textures, mixes of food in the mouth, the feel of the mash as it slid down your gullet. the chef obviously though way too much into it. i correctly used all of the 6 different pieces of silverwear, and felt good about myself for having done so. i also noticed with glee that one of the other members of my lunch was eating fork-right- and knife-left-handedly, something that in america they call european and here they call american. at least i hadn't worn my blue jeans that day like i'd planned.. the gnoccis were my favorite course, with a creamy sweet chili sauce and olives. the chocolates at the end were exquisite. business turned out as i had expected, with no full promises made but definite amicability and a relationship established for the future.    last time i said: ----------------------------------- 10 other things I could be doing now in reverse order, whenever i find myself bored i consult this list: 10) painting a painting 9) reading a book 8) working on something tangible (ie: friend's birthday gift) 7) planning an event (ie: friend's birthday party) 6) laundry 5) socializing 4) writing ideas 3) emailing my parents 2) studying ____(insert language here)____ annd number one.. 1) eating something last time i said: ----------------------------------- this really happened On the morning of my birthday I was invited by the Princess for coffee and cake. My girlfriend and I got up early that morning and drove an hour north to a small, old town near the capital, and met with the Princess and her advisers in the lunchroom of a fancy hotel. The Princess was of course lovely, having had the latest in top-quality facelift procedures and decked out in suitably sublime spring fashion. I especially noticed her eye-glasses, wonderfully German thick black frames lined with vivid green on the inside. This, I felt, personified her better than her shoes, which I noticed were drab and lacked royalty. Even the upper class must have 'those worn out comfy pair of shoes,' I reasoned. As we introduced ourselves around a wife of an adviser, an American woman who I guess had binged on the free coffee, began speaking at length about personality types. She took a new-age approach to the subject, which while refreshing also made me wonder whether the coffee had drugs in it. She projected a HCSE personality, 'Hippy Chick Stuck In Europe,' though I kept the joke to myself... Dropping the conventional 'letter sequence' personality-type structure that people always talk about, she drew analogies to the elements: Fire for passionate and driven, Air for collaborative and group oriented, Water for cause-and-effect and creativity, and Earth for grounding in numbers and law. Not specifically Chinese mysticism, but also not your Captain Planet analysis, she brought up valid points on the strengths and weaknesses of these personality types, and of the deductions you can make if you are able to pinpoint combinations of a person's two strongest elements. Mine, for example, Fire-Water, makes me an individually creative person, while Air-Water makes people group oriented creatives, Fire-Earth people are passionate about numbers, and so on. The Princess, interestingly, had strong combinations in many different areas, and whether this was innate or cultured was left to speculation, though it did say much about her position. I had the honor of cutting the cake, and the Princess herself helped pass it around. It was apparent that a few of the advisers were embarrassed by this, and I made it a point to dish out the smallest pieces first, so that when the last pieces came to us the Princess and I had the choicest strawberries and cream. We helped ourselves to more coffee, and chit-chatted about the weather. It had always managed to rain on my birthday; I vividly recalled childhood barbeques taking place in our garage with fans blowing the smoke out of the house. The Princess found this amusing, and we all laughed. At precisely 12:15 I excused myself, because I knew the Princess had other engagements to attend. last time i said: ----------------------------------- just words i like words. i like the overlay between reality and the created meaning of text. i hold a special place in my heart for ambiguity, a vague blank which you can fill magically with whatever the heck it is you're thinking should go in that space. that's why i like this internet stuff. it explains what it is only to a point, and lets the viewer fill in the rest with whatever they want, no questions asked. sure, a lot of it is full of nothing, nonsense, and proganda. a lot of it tries to sell you something, or tell you what to do. but there's a lot of room for interpretation too. i like this art. the internet is allowing us to not only have access to floods of stuff, but also to sort out that information, make it accessable, and allow you to change it or use it in different ways. (emerging useful applications are google flu watches, and the uk's snow storm watch.) which is why i like the next link, which is similar to the above concept but in a different direction: taking meaning and laying it on thick on top of what we think are solid objects. but imagine our ancestors around a campfire - their information was that directly observable. (not so these days!)their campfire was their sole world, and communications consisted of basic thoughts from one member to another in groups of no more than about 100. now our group numbers billions, and in-fighting for control occupies time with our need for entertainment, work, and advertisement. people are targets, and organizations all vye for feed time into our brains - will we concern ourselves with stock tips? shoe sales? political messages? sexual enhancers? information from our friends? i'll be keeping a look out for informations from you guys! last time i said: -----------------------------------    It says: "Take big matters with a light heart, treat small matters seriously." last time i said: ----------------------------------- doing my days hello everyone. sorry for the long hiatus. i've been busy with other things in life, and to be honest i have not had any drive to write about what's going on. the good news is that i'm still doing things that are interesting; the bad news is that i cannot remember them all, nor would i be able to put them into a coherent order for your vicarious consumption. here's a taste: i went to the rotterdam international film festival last week - it was great! i went with my roommates and some other friends, and we split into 2 groups - all the spanish speakers went to see some chilean movie, and my group went to see a japanese horror trilogy. as we had chosen the last day of the festival to go, there were multiple big parties around the town that night, and we hopped from a chill lounge to a crowded mixer and finally ended up in a club dancing until the trains started running again early the next morning. quite nice. i have also been working, but, shout out to my co-workers, i don't like it. teaching was nice on certain days, and being a model also had its perks, but i can't stand the lady who sits in the same office as me; she is old and evil, and makes strange noises! also, the job's kind of boring. finally, i've been stenciling and playing with paints to create and experiment. these are some pictures of things i've done: pieces of cardboard for friends:   'bananabox' and 'flower star study #2'
last time i said: ----------------------------------- project frog
last time i said: ----------------------------------- the baron's estate  
 
   
last time i said: ----------------------------------- the joys of being new i can't count the number of times people have said to me "oh, i'm so jealous, i wish i could travel like you." and every single time, i say, "well, it's not as easy as it looks." sometimes, it's not so great being new. everyone likes stability, me included. with the old things come guarentees: you know how to find your friends. you have that old cuddly blanket. you know where you'll be sleeping at night. a life spent perusing various locations tends to mean a life streamlined to the essentials, and a certain amount of uncertainty. like, where will i find income? who will be my friend? what freakish language are these people speaking now? i've spent the last month in an adventure to find a bit of stasis in this world. i haven't asked for much, and it is coming far stingier than i'd imagined. all the same, i've managed to make it this far without collapse (no, haven't enrolled in any of those clinical drug trials YET), and the longer i'm here the more i'm learning how the system works. it goes like this: and mind you, these are just some things that i've recently learned. imagine what all else i should pick up to even begin fitting in here! being new also brings a lot of simple-witted questions from the locals. you may be freshly off the plane and in your first minutes in a new country, but why, they ask, don't you have the special card that everyone else has that lets you use the phones? you're not a baby, and being an adult somehow amazes people, who assume that matured humans in a particular place have all learned the rules by now. so before you fly off to some exotic place and think you won't miss your teddy bear, do you home work, and then do more. then don't go anywhere, just leave it to a professional noob like me. last time i said: ----------------------------------- next time i'm bringing lederhosen   
last time i said: ----------------------------------- cold blooded i took the coldest shower that i've taken in a long time this morning. i was the last of 4 people to wake up in this house the morning after a party. when i got to the bathroom the mirror and windows and floor were already well wet and soaked. no matter, i thought, and prepared to make my ablutions. the water was warm for a minute or so -just long enough to get in- and then became deathly, icey cold.       last time i said: ----------------------------------- selling myself this week i've been emailing job websites and company recruiters in earnest, so, hello, to any future employers who may be reading. finding work has been a bit more like work than i thought it could be. you might regard your time sitting in front of a computer without getting paid as play, but i assure you that i have been hard at work. seeking what i want is high-caloric effort. what am i doing here? where will i be tomorrow? what am i doing next week? these are questions that i'm asking myself on a sometimes hourly basis. it's good for the mind, it's like exfoliation - keeps bad habits away, makes you think, helps you focus in a cluttered world. but sometimes i think i've come much too far for a soul spa. last time i said: ----------------------------------- i was in greece with friends for a couple weeks, and this is what we did: first, we went camping on the beach.  .
it was great.     .
then we drove around   and met some interesting people  and wild animals   and delicious things   .
still, we had plenty of time to sit on the beach    and walk around    and take pictures of old stuff     too.
all in all, i saw some pretty amazing things    and had a really great time.  .
some photos by d.k. shout out to the greeks. last time i said: ----------------------------------- it's bombing in georgia after being here in brussels for only about 72 hours with an old classmate from leiden, we've already had quite a time getting into some harmless trouble. as you can see, a little make-up and some sunglasses, and i was king of the tree parade!   
north europe is so green and pedestrian friendly, and delicious. it is very nice to be here visiting my friend. she is from bulgaria, and with all the nonsense happening in (the former soviet state of) georgia, i am being filled in on the nuances of russian diplomacy - that is, the bombs that are being dropped on the georgian people, and why the ruskies don't like small states trying to make friends with other powerhouses. well, tragedy it is, but you can't blame putin for planning ahead.    
and how about those chinese? a lot of hooey they're doing over there on their side of the world as well. i mean, holy cow. can you believe what they've done with the olympics? i almost feel as if they've bought out the world. give everyone a great show to watch, and you can forget about all the people. i saw a bbc program the other night. now presenting!: a documentary about china, starring, tibet. 
 but this isn't a political blog. i can give a lot of people junk, and they can give it right back to me. that's the fun thing about opinions and ideas! like my dad always said. you can dish it, but can you take it? well, if you want to give it back to me, get in line. really, this blog is more of a 'living viacariously' type thing. 
so! i'm in belgium, and i think it's great: it has a lot to offer, including rain, gray skies, and cozy little bars and cafes. holland was great too, because it's always wonderful to see family. really, 'having a rest' (as my chinese friends would say) seems to be a way of life here; something the americans would do well to take a lesson from. it's nice to have things changed up a little bit, even if this place has its own share of problems. 
 tomorrow evening i am heading to athens to see another friend from leiden, and from there we'll be heading to an island or two in the mediterranean for some beach fun - what do YOU think will happen in the world till then? last time i said: ----------------------------------- let's see, 11 plus seven.. it's almost 6 oclock. i sit now in this small green park, in the bow of a canal. it forms a sideways U around me. in the middle with me is a place for the dogs in the neighborhood, and plenty of signage for the people of the neighborhood to clean up after their canine friends. around me on the water a boat is slowly rown by a man taking his family out for a monday summer afternoon. the weather is really supreme today, warm in the sun, cool in the shade. slightly overcast. the wind either blows in sea air or the smell of cows, neither of which are disapointing. 
 
 
last time i said: ----------------------------------- i'm on the dike. the weather is perfect. what a day for my camera to be broken. yesterday and the day before it was sunny, today it's a little overcast. i rode my cousin's bike along the raised earth along the sea. it's ridiculously perfect - sail boats drift on the water. a few look like replicas - a japanese junk, a small clipper ship from the 1700s with all it's sails catching wind. a loan man on a kayak paddles by. i couldn't find a proper seat so i just stopped next to some earth moving equipment. some parts of the dike are being reinforced, so i climbed up the biggest orangest one, and now i'm looking at the cloudy sea. a car will pass every now and then, along with couples on bikes or the odd motorcycle. it's very quiet. behind me holland's newest windmills, white and skinny as bean poles, churning the wind into free electricity. it MIGHT rain. it was scheduled to rain yesterday, but nature was able to flaunt the dutch weatherman's plans, though today it looks as if it will have to. soft rumbles on the distance tell me this humidity will only be the begining of my wetness isues. (i am a good 10 kilometers from home). i learned a new dutch word yesterday. kriebele, to tickle. (i think that was the word. also: wortel, carrot.) a scruffy looking man without a shirt passes me by slowly on his motor bike. i see more sail boats. where the land wraps around to my right, i can see the town harbour where i imagine most of these boats will seek haven should the weather take a turn. 300 years back, when this town was one of the most prosperous in holland, would this sea have been full? ships from afar bringing spices, cloth, treasures to be distributed throughout the old world, all of them would have known of this harbour. it's almost 5 oclock, and i know i've missed the market. we slept in today; i suspect everyone in the family did. the wedding last night was a smash, i doubt it was possible to not have fun. the elders sat quietly (and endured the blaring speakers), sipping their wine and having a cup of coffee to stay awake at the end of the evening. us youngers did dance and drink into the night, but alas, the band did finish too soon. it was at the begining of the party that i discovered my camera had ceased to function, so pictures, unless provided by other kind souls, may not be so quickly forthcoming. really, this one ship is fascinating. it has 3 masts, at least 8 sails. like something right out of a patrick o'brian book. it is white, and moves steadily in its diection. the smaller boats have mostly cleared out of the water but this ship takes it's time. how graceful. smaller, single mast sail boats zip by, a red and white, a blue and white. the thunder rumbles. will we still be going out tonight? i can see the land far away as the coast wraps around to the other side of the sea, but on the left of me the water stretches to the horizon. i am being swarmed by small gnats, and i fear it may rain soon, so i shall deboot my computer and move locations, perhaps the next you hear from me will be from the city center, a nice place to enjoy a cupje koffee and a glasje beer, and to see the ships come into the port. |
