December 3, 2009
Amsterdam designers Studio Roelof Mulder and Bureau Ira Koers (both sites under construction, almost a pun) have won the Serve and Facilitate (Public) Great Indoors Award for their project University Library of the University of Amsterdam. You have to see all the pictures to get a feel for it.
It claims the date of completion is August 2009, but that has to be a typo.
(Link and photos: dezeen.com)
December 2, 2009
Last year around this time, we wrote about Dutch kids being happy because they’re egocentric and in 2007 some Dutch mothers I know justified giving up work and career by pointing out that Dutch children are the happiest in Europe. If you read these two articles, you’ll see that parents teach them to be hedonistic and not take others into consideration and that children almost rule the family. I’m not saying this is true, but where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
However, it’s terribly easy to pick on young people because they’re growing up with more choices, technology and social pressure that previous generations. Hell, the pornography and sex they are exposed to considered normal in advertising and videos (hypersexualisation) scares me as an adult. Having more choices is bad because it makes choosing more difficult. And then mom gave up working just to take care of you and dad is burning out to keep it all together for you as well. That’s a lot of guilt to handle. I’d run out and put my iPod on loud too to drown that out.
Since the 1970s in the Western world, youth have always been called greedy, selfish and whatever, so that’s nothing new. Lack of respect for authority, well, even the authority here has a lack of respect for others and themselves, saying they don’t have the power to do whatever needs to be done and police letting people go because they can’t be bothered. And why would kids obey their parents or even their teachers if their parents and the schools let them walk all over them? Why should they try any harder if there are no consequences to their actions? And we’re back to turning up the iPod really loud.
(Link: nrc.nl, Photo: Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
December 1, 2009
Dutch singer Ramses Shaffy, known for his Dutch and French music as well as his collaboration with Dutch singer Liesbeth List, has just died of esophageal cancer at age 76, as I saw on television.
I admit I’ve been more interested in his French music, as Shaffy was born in France and grew up later in the Netherlands. The first and last time I saw him was last September, sitting quietly outside, very late at an Italian place after going to the movies.
May he rest in peace. He’s the elderly man in the video.
Liesbeth List is singing in French with the lead singer of Alderliefste, Gerard Alderliefste who sings in French, and then Shaffy joins in, in Dutch. The original song is by French singer Serge Reggiani called ‘Ma dernière volonté’ (My last wish). I love a good bilingual song.
Tags: Alderliefste, Liesbeth List, Ramses Shaffy
November 30, 2009
Eiko Ishizawa, a Japanese designer living in Amsterdam designed this fun sleeping bag that doubles as a bear suit or maybe it’s the other way round, I can’t tell. If you do get attacked by a bear — surely not in the Netherlands — you can’t sue him, he explains. “Leave your bear sleeping bag in the tent and don’t turn the light on for the bear’s sake”.
I think someone’s been watching too many nature films, but inspiration is inspiration. I can see before me an entire cool collection of fun sleeping bag for kids if someone hasn’t picked up on this idea already.
(Link: idealize.nl, Photo: eikoishizawa.com)
November 29, 2009
In the spirit of sharing happy Dutch news and combining that with Christmas music, I’ll be pressing on with the good stuff over at Christmas a gogo, where cool Dutch bloggers Guuzbourg, Wouter, and their mates from the UK, Denmark and elsewhere will be bringing you the best in holiday listening.
I enthusiastically kicked off the 2009 edition today — we only write around Christmas time — with the British-Dutch soul band Laura Vane & The Vipertones who are in the gift-giving spirit, offering you a free Christmas song. Back in September I threw up a great video by them.
Disclaimer: I know everybody I just wrote about and I really like what they all do.
Tags: Christmas
Cowboy John is a comic strip that appears regularly in Zone 5300, and that now has its own, eponymous album. It is basically a continuation or spin-off of the Jan Jaap comic that writer and artist Jan Vriends published in the same magazine.
Cowboy John is a man with a past that has led him to drink and dress up as a cowboy. The comic strip switches back between single strip gags and longer, dramatic bits, and to fill out the album ‘bloopers,’ out-takes and Cowboy John strips that appeared in other magazines.
Do I like Zone 5300 sending me review copies? Yes. Would I buy the book? No. Cowboy John has a warm, safe home in the tri-monthly and motley collection of comics, reviews, short stories and curiosities that is Zone 5300, where its erratic style fits right in. But it’s not an album with which to snuggle up on the couch and forget the world for half an hour.
The Cowboy John book is the first in a new imprint named after the magazine, Collectie Zone 5300.
Tags: Cowboy John, Zone 5300
November 28, 2009
Gossip ‘journalist’ Henk van der Meyden and sex boss Theo Heuft have teamed up to produce a musical about the latter’s former brothel, Yab Yum.
Yab Yum, named after a Tantric position called ‘woman on top’ in the West, was the iconic brothel of the Netherlands until it was closed down last year by the city of Amsterdam using the dubious Bibob law, which allows local governments to refuse permits on the basis of rumours.
Speaking of which, it was rumoured that Yab Yum was the place where one brought business associates if deals needed to be closed.
According to Radio Netherlands, Heuft told the Telegraaf (Van der Meyden’s employer):
It’s an honour that there’s going to be a musical about my life’s work. That’s what Yab Yum was. I mounted prostitution in a golden frame.
[The musical will allow us] to enter a world of beautiful young women, of glamour and glitter.
(Photo by Chana de Wolf, some rights reserved.)
Tags: De Telegraaf, gossip, musicals, prostitution, War on Fun
November 27, 2009
After giving birth to a total of 170 piglets, breeding sow ‘Fokzeug 1281’ (‘fok’ means ‘breed’ in Dutch before anyone asks) is getting a proper retirement instead of being turned into pork roast. Pig breeder Edwin Snoek from Heerhugowaard has decided that 1281 gets to spend the rest of its days at Het Beloofde Varkensland (The Promised Pigland) in Amstelveen with its last piglet, 170.
The picture here is of Caesar, a pig who had its own webcam at Promised Pigland.
(Link: vleesmagazine.nl, Photo: varkensgeluk)
Tags: Heerhugowaard, pigs
November 26, 2009
Dutch jazz virtuoso Pia Beck has died of a hear attack at her home in Torremolinos, Spain. RIP. She was self-taught, couldn’t read sheet music and just, well, jammed it: boogie-woogie, jazz, rock ’n roll, blues, you name it.
Here she is scatting along and singing in French.
(Link: shownu.nl)
Tags: jazz
I bet Internet lawyer Arnoud Engelfriet gets all kinds of questions and this one I just had to share with you.
A woman asked if she could hire a hacker to find out what her husband does on the Internet. In other words, what he does online at home using their shared computer. Surprise, surprise, she thinks he’s mailing (nice euphemism) another woman and wants some confirmation.
Engelfriet explains that in the Netherlands, installing spyware or hacking someone’s password to read their mail is technically ‘ruining their peaceful enjoyment’, which is illegal and cannot be done directly or indirectly.
However, within a (obviously not very healthy) marriage, a computer is common property, unless otherwise specified in a pre-nuptial agreement (not very popular here). Then it’s not a crime to hack your own system, like it’s not a crime to hire someone to break one of your locks.
Of course, it could be considered an invasion of the husband’s privacy. And then Engelfriet gets cocky: “Even in a marriage people have privacy, although not much at all, if you ask me. After all, you got married to share everything with one another.”
My advice to the woman, putting aside the mess of advice to be given about the obvious trust issues, is why not check his mobile phone? Follow him under another name on Twitter, MSN or Facebook. And get some professional help, collectively or otherwise.
(Link: security.nl)
