October 28, 2013
Dutch architects Jetty and Maarten Min of Min2 collaborated on a home in Bergen, North Holland they had built for themselves.
“The design includes a stunning arched rooftop, exposed tree-trunk columns, and clay tiles on the walls. The home offers breathtaking views of the surrounding dune landscape, particularly on the upper levels which offers large windows so the occupants can soak it all in.”
(Link: enpundit.com, Screenshot: min2.nl)
Tags: Bergen, dunes, North Holland
October 27, 2013
Théophile de Bock was a 19th century Dutch landscape painter whose current claim to fame is that his makes such a good street or school name.
He was also a landscape photographer and interestingly it appears that he was the only Dutch landscape photographer at the time. Arjan de Nooy explains:
Customers were not interested and [landscape photography] was apparently not attractive to photographers. In comparison with international nineteenth-century landscape photographers (such as Timothy O’Sullivan, Carleton Watkins, Gustave Le Gray) De Bock’s photos are more intimate and small-scale. He was, literally, close to his favourite subject, the trees and in particular his tree trunk photos are unique in nineteenth-century photography.
De Bock was only a photographer for a short time and it seems that his photos were only recently rediscovered. De Nooy believes that the success of his paintings put a stop to De Bock’s photography.
De Nooy has curated an exhibit at Walden Affairs in The Hague until 22 November. (The exhibit is open during the weekends and on appointment.)
(Link: Trendbeheer)
Tags: landscape painters, landscape paintings, landscape photography, landscapes, Théophile de Bock
October 26, 2013
This past summer Texas game manufacturer Pandasaurus released a board game called Nieuw Amsterdam (New Amsterdam) about the earlier years of the 17th century Dutch colony that was run by the Dutch West Indies Company, which later became New York City.
New Amsterdam was founded by the Dutch West Indies Company in order to encourage the lucrative beaver pelt trade with the local Native American hunters along the Hudson River. To establish a trading post there, they needed a town and a fort, which was built on the tip of Manhattan Island. To encourage European patroons, settlers of means or noble birth to populate the colony, they granted them both land and indentured servants. The patroons became the lords of a new feudal system not unlike in Europe. In New Amsterdam, players are those patroons, and they bid on action lots in order to build businesses, work land for both food and building materials, compete in elections, ship furs to the Old World, and trade with the Lenape Indians – a process that gets more complicated as players claim more land and push the Lenape camps farther up the Hudson River.
It is apparently not yet available in the ‘old country’, but I’m sure it’s just a question of time.
Here’s a review of New Amsterdam:
(Links bright.nl, pandasaurusgames.com, Image: Castello Plan of the tip of Manhattan)
Tags: board games, New Amsterdam
October 25, 2013
One of this year’s graduates from the Design Academy Eindhoven, Olga van Zeijl, created personalised knitted jumpers for her graduation project called KnittID.
She takes aspects of a person’s life then incorporates them into the pattern of the sweater. Shown here for instance is Debby, age 26, from Dordrecht: “The parachute symbol stands for my biggest life experience. During one of my jumps the parachute didn’t open and I was falling down to earth, luckily I could use my spare parachute.”
Van Zeijl suggests on her website that she was inspired by fishermen’s jumpers which apparently incorporated personal details. You can get your own KnittID jumper by Van Zeijl or order one of the existing ones if you don’t mind walking around with somebody else’s life covering your torso. Bright reports that an existing pattern will set you back 150 euro.
(Photo: OVZDesign.com)
Tags: Eindhoven Design Academy, jumpers, knitting, Olga van Zeijl, pullovers, sweaters
October 24, 2013
An advertising campaign featuring comedian Steven Brunswijk from Tilburg, Noord Brabant aimed at young people working in the hospitality sector (hotels, restaurants and cafes, aka ‘horeca’) has raised red flags with anti-discrimination groups as being offensive.
Brunswijk has been known for a few years as the ‘Braboneger’ (‘Brabant negro’ or ‘Brabant n*****’), which is his shtick. It is his stage name and his Twitter handle. What started off as a joke with Brunswijk and his friends making funny videos from a Black guy’s perspective on Noord Brabant (accent, culture, etc.) turned into a character that is on its way to becoming famous.
If anyone thinks that the ad agency came up with the character, then yes, that would be cause for alarm, even though the campaign is about young people getting proper working conditions and nothing to do with discrimination. The problem here is that people are now offended by Brunswijk’s own use of the N-word and therefore the ad campaign is considered to be offensive.
Brunswijk does use the abbreviation ‘BN’, which is also the Dutch abbreviation for celebrity (‘Bekende Nederlander’), again a nice coincidence. Maybe they could have used that instead, but others would see that as censorship.
Noord Brabant television station Omproep Brabant seems nothing but pleased that their guy is head of this campaign.
(Link: www.nieuws.nl, www.braboneger.com, YouTube screenshot)
Tags: comedy, Noord-Brabant, Tilburg
October 22, 2013
Dutch dictionary Van Dale is considering a bunch of English words as well as translated English words to be included into the Dutch language. The words are often slang that goes mainstream and IT-related words.
In May of this year, words like ‘religiestress’ (‘religion stress’, stress caused by religious beliefs) and ‘chillaxen’ (‘to chillax’, a slang word that combines ‘chill and relax’) were added to the online version of the Van Dale.
And finally words that are actually Dutch: ‘vingerpistool’ (‘finger pistol’, a gesture that indicates you’re shooting at someone) and ‘roeptoeteren’ (roughly pronounced ROOP-too-tee-ren), to give your opinion in a really loud and poorly considered manner.
(Links: www.nieuws.nl, www.rtlnieuws.nl)
Tags: dictionary, Van Dale
October 21, 2013
In 1962 Dutch cinema’s golden child Bert Haanstra visited the zoo of Amsterdam, Artis, during a sun-filled period and filmed the visitors as they were laughing, yawning, scratching themselves, chatting and taking naps. Then he filmed animals doing the same thing and edited the result to contrast the two groups and perhaps to say “we are not that different, you and I”.
The result seems comedic, making fun of the little people that are closer to the animals that they themselves seem to believe. The film itself is not too clear about which position its maker chooses. The editing and some of the videography is clearly done for comedic effect (ostriches’ heads popping up, the walk of the penguin), but the powerful walk of the tiger and the jazz music by Pim Jacobs do not fit the label ‘comedy’.
American broadcaster NPR seems to like the humane explanation the best:
Magically, [the film] makes the cages, the trenches, the walls disappear, and what you get is a real zoo — a mix-it-up porridge of animal life, where all the animals, the mischievous little boys, the oh-so-shy monkey, the proud baboon, the wide-eyed girl and the yawning lady trade moods, glances, worlds — our differences melt into little moments of us being like them, them being like us.
The name Artis was originally the zoo’s nickname. It came from a text written over the gates, “Natura Artis Magistra” (meaning “Nature is the teacher of art”). You can watch the video on the NPR page or by buying the complete works DVD set.
Thanks Fred Yoder for the tip.
(Photo: screenshot of the documentary)
Tags: Artis, behaviour, Bert Haanstra, documentaries, people, zoos
October 20, 2013
Dr. Corrie is a fictional character who talks on public TV to 10- and 11-year-olds about topics such as how to French kiss, what it’s like to be in love, what to do when you’ve got an unwanted erection, and so on.
She uses a lot of humour and I think this is why a group of ‘concerned parents’ has started a website called Stop Dokter Corrie!—the show normalizes sexuality and there are people who don’t want that. The action committee believes it’s not the government’s task to raise children. The group claims it is not tied to any religion, so it must be especially painful for them that only Christian media seem to be spreading their message.
All episodes have a famous Dutch person talking about some early experience with love or sex. Dokter Corrie is played by comedian Martine Sandifort.
An example of an episode that the group objects to is the one about kissing. The broadcaster’s description says “it is important that you only start with kissing when you are ready. Don’t do it just because somebody else wants you to.” Children seem to like the show.
(Photo: screenshot of the show from YouTube)
Tags: elementary, sex education, sexuality
October 19, 2013
A popular tourist activity on the Caribbean volcano island of Sint Maarten is fence surfing.
As you can see in the photo the runway of Princess Juliana International Airport starts right behind Maho Beach. Fence surfing is holding on to the fence that separates the runway from the beach and waiting for planes to take off in order to experience the jet blast.
In 2000 a Swiss woman by the name of Hartmann was blown onto a rock and injured. Instead of accepting that exposing yourself to the forces of a Boeing 747’s engines may not be the smartest thing she could have done, she sued the airport. Part of her complaint was that the signs which read “Warning! Low flying and departing aircraft blast can cause physical injury!” weren’t clear enough. Dutch courts usually have little patience with stupidity and so the complaint was rejected.
Mrs Hartmann took the case all the way to the Dutch Supreme Court which surprisingly agreed with her on the issue of signage. In what came to be known as the Jet Blast Decision the Supreme Court argued that “in order to decide if a warning can be considered a sufficient protection against a certain danger, it has to be determined if the warning will lead to either an action or the abstinence of an action that will avert the danger”.
The sign has been changed since then. Law professor Edgar du Perron points out in a recent online lecture at Universiteit van Nederland (a cross between MIT OpenCourseWare and TED Talks) that a further problem, one the new sign shares with the old one, is that the sign is attached to the fence—when people see warning signs attached to fences, they assume that the danger is on the other side of the fence.
Recently a curb was added to the beach because the jet blasts were eroding it. Although this prevents tourists from slamming into the rocks directly behind the wall, these days the tourists slam into the wall (warning: graphic video and stupid comments).
(Photo by Alljengi, some rights reserved)
Tags: damages, Edgar du Perron, law professors, Maho Beach, plane spotting, responsibility, signage, Sint Maarten, SXM, warning signs, warnings
October 18, 2013
Back in 2011 we told you about a woman who refused to be fingerprinted to get a new Dutch passport. Although she finally got one, she definitely made her point of not wanting to let the government store her fingerprints in a database that could be used for other purposes.
The European high court has declared that using fingerprints in a passport is fine, but storing them in a centralised or decentralised database is illegal, as it does not serve the purpose of the passport. Furthermore, there is ‘no legal basis’ for storing the fingerprints, as they could be used for other purposes. Pursuant to Article 4b of the Dutch passport law, the government stores passport fingerprints in a central database, which the Ministry of Justice eventually intended to use to track down criminals, using them for other purposes.
I can imagine why the woman did not want to give away her privacy for free and the EU court agrees with her completely. There are a lot of cases pending and for now Big Brother is on the losing side.
(Links: webwereld.nl – vingerafdrukken, webwereld.nl-opslag)
Tags: fingerprints, passports
