Jay's Blog

"Deze trein wordt in Amerfoort opgeheven!"

2011-07-20T00:12:00.004+02:00

Hoe kan een dienstverlenend bedrijf bestaan, dat bij voortduring niet in staat is, om de dienst te leveren die het aanbiedt?

Mijn treinreis tussen Schiphol en Zwolle eindigde vandaag weer eens voortijdig in een ongepland oponthoud in Amersfoort omdat de trein die direct naar Zwolle (en verder) had moeten rijden aldaar werd opgeheven. "Herstelwerkzaamheden" was de reden. Maar wat werd er eigenlijk hersteld? Misschien een verkeerde trein op een verkeerde plaats? Een kapot getrokken bovenleiding? Een machinist die eigenlijk al vrij had moeten zijn? Bij de verstoringen op de NS site was niets te zien, alleen de reisplanner gaf een extra reistijd en een overstap in Amersfoort aan.

Nu ben ik normaal gesproken niet iemand die geen begrip kan opbrengen voor onverwachte problemen in het openbaar vervoer. Alleen hoe de Nederlandse Spoorwegen met deze situaties omgaan is keer op keer weer verbijsterend.

Als er namelijk iets mis gaat, dan is er op het perron geen NS petje te bekennen, die de verdwaasde reiziger nog wat extra informatie kan geven. De regel lijkt te zij dat het aantal petjes in gelijke mate afneemt, naar mate de problemen op het spoor groter worden. Kennelijk vindt NS het niet nodig om er op zo'n moment voor de reiziger zichtbaar te zijn (al moet ik toegeven dat ik op zo'n moment ook niet graag de drager van het petje zou willen zijn). NS heeft immers in de eigen ogen al genoeg informatie gegeven, als ze in de trein omroepen dat de treindienst opgeheven is en de reizigers maar eens de volgende trein moeten nemen. Dat er in de volgende trein ook al mensen zitten en de 700 wachtenden op het perron er eigenlijk niet allemaal bij kunnen boeit NS kennelijk niet zo.

Maar vanaf vandaag ga ik terugvechten, heb ik besloten. Ik ga bij vertragingen voortaan lekker bij de volgende trein in de eerste klas zitten. Dat wordt vanaf nu mijn vorm van stil protest tegen alle uren die NS al van mij in mijn leven gestolen heeft, de ontelbare beloftes die NS heeft verbroken, vele niet waar gemaakte verlangens en in een enkel geval zelfs tegen de serieuze gevolgen die het niet leven van de vervoersdienst voor me had.

Laat die conducteur met zijn kniptang of zijn cardreader maar komen en me dwingen mijn zitplaats op te geven. Ik lust hem rauw. Als hij boos wordt, kan hij de wind van voren krijgen. Wil hij mij uit de trein zetten op het spoorvak tussen Amersfoort en Zwolle, dan kan hij een confrontatie verwachten met alle niet geleverde diensten in de afgelopen drie decennia. Een knap mens dat deze jongen uit deze wagen krijgt!

How Mr. Wilders does it: Facts are futile

2011-03-10T22:19:00.009+01:00

I found the following article of Rob Wijnberg in my morning paper (nrc·next, March 8, 2011). Of course it was in Dutch, but I felt the urge to translate it (with some help from James). The article makes very clear why it is so difficult to argue with right wing politician Geert Wilders and his followers.

» If you have already called for the end of equality, a tax on headscarves, the deportation of non-Dutch citizens without jobs and the registration of all citizens to ethnicity, it becomes increasingly difficult to surpass yourself.

There was no great indignation when PVV leader Geert Wilders recently suggested that judges should no longer be appointed for life, but that they had to pass the PVV test every six years instead: proof that the judge punishes severe enough. If he does, he may stay, but if he chooses a community service as a punishment too often he better can work for “social services” or be a mental worker, according to Wilders.   

Some commotion was surely to be expected. What the PVV leader was proposing is the elimination of the distinction between jurisdiction and politics. The law and jurisprudence would no longer be the basis for Lady Justice then, but the political winds blowing through the Netherlands.   If the PVV is high in the opinion polls, a judge may think twice whether he interprets the law merciful: he wants to secure his job. You could call it hypocritical (it was the same Geert Wilders who denounced his own trial as a "political trial") but it is better to call it brilliant power politics: no left-liberal party robe, but a PVV robe.

I am not writing this because of the proposal itself, but I want to detect the strategy that lies behind it. This is not incidental but structural: almost all the proposals of the PVV meet the same criteria. The first step in that strategy is the politicization of a social institution, known for its 'independence' and 'neutrality'. In the past six years, Wilders politically discredited almost every conceivable part of the public domain in the same way.

Judges are left-liberal robed, scientists are environmentalists in sheep's clothing, journalists are socialists with a bloc note, the Queen is a spokeswoman for the multicultural clan, education is the indoctrination machine of cultural relativists, the arts are a hobby of elite bosses. In other words, each institution is secretly part of the “left church” and its agenda.

After this politicization usually there is a step or two to follow: the neutralization of the institute. The PVV wants to terminate the Senate; the seats in the parliament can be brought down from 150 to 100 (so the threshold becomes higher for little parties), the European Parliament - that pursues the European integration – should be dissolved; Public Broadcasting can be minimized to one channel; scientific research on climate change should stop, the Commission Equal Rights can be dissolved, justice must be under political surveillance, the King/Queen should give up his/her position in the government, the arts sector should be transformed into a "free market", Islamic schools should be closed and the rest of the education should be centralized and nationalized. Wilders recently even demanded the dismissal of a principal of a primary school who allowed pupils to celebrate the Eid al-Adha (Festival of Sacrifice) as if he were the Rector Magnificus of the Netherlands.

Add the fact that Wilders wants to ban the public funding of political parties, while his own party goes through life as a member-less “movement” with secret accounts, and you cannot but conclude that the PVV aims for a society that in political sciences is known as a “totalitarian democracy” - a term introduced in the fifties by the Israeli historian Jacob Talmon.

Note that the term “totalitarian” has connotations that are here not applicable. It does not mean “fascism” or “dictatorship”: such comparisons won’t work. Wilders does not call for violence (and scum-villages are no concentration camps).

No, Talmon says that it is typical for a totalitarian democracy that “the scope of the policy extends to all aspects of human existence”. “It considers all human thoughts and actions as socially meaningful” - and therefore as a part of the political domain.   

That is, ironically, not only a striking summary of revolutionary, communist and radical left positions from the past (“The personal is political”) but also of Wilders ideas. He also sees in every statement or action political significance: every critical question that a journalist asks is a sign of (leftist) bias, all scientific research or any calculation of a planning office that violates the PVV program is a matter of (left ) activism, any court decision that the Freedom Party does not approve is a manifestation of hidden (left) agendas, and every word that the Queen unauthorized expresses is an element of multicultural (left) propaganda, any doctor or teacher that thinks that headscarves or Eid al-Adha are not a problem is an agent of progressive Islamization (facilitated by the left).   

This “politicization of everything” is very successful for two reasons. First, because it is fundamentally irrefutable. Values such as “objectivity”, “neutrality” and “independence” exist only as a theoretical idea. Every major enlightened thinker that advocated an objective science, free press or a neutral and independent judiciary, was therefore always given a lick with the rough side of the tongue by his later postmodern critics: nice in theory, impossible in practice. Above all these scientists, journalists and judges are humans - and humans inevitably take a culture, a vision of the world and political and personal interests with them.   

In short there is nothing to bring in against politicizing. No matter how much research you do and evidence you have that “proves” that the public broadcaster, the court or the science is not as “left” as Wilders claims, the claim that the research itself a product of that “church” (“the Universtity of Amsterdam is a Labour stronghold”, “the Volkskrant is a left parish newsletter”) is enough to disqualify it. In other words, there are no facts, there’s only politics.

  The second reason why Wilders’ strategy is so mercilessly effective: it affects the current left wing, progressive (constitutional) parties in their most basic philosophical assumption: the world can be understood through “ratio” and can be explained through “facts”. That of course does not mean that only left parties restrict themselves to the facts, while the right wing is twisting the truth? No, the left assumes that facts speak for themselves and do not need to be embedded in a rhetorical environment that would give them the desired load.  

Look at the most recent video campaign of the Labour Party: that shows a list of amounts (“Child 84 euros more expensive”, “Higher rents 180 euros”, “Bonuses for bankers: 447 million”) and ends with the conclusion “This is not fair”. The assumption behind this is that each rational being cherishes the same definition of justice and numbers “prove” that this government is asocial. That’s a wrong assumption, reality and morality are not only defined by “facts”, but also by language and emotions; you can see child-care as an elitist hobby, or bonuses as a meritocratic ideal. Wilders never says how many immigrants come to the Netherlands, he says only that “the valve is wide open”. That is the art of rhetoric: giving reality a color that is favourable for you.

  The PVV leader it seems has learned a lot from Karl Rove, campaign strategist of George W. Bush, who argued that political enemies should not be attacked at their weak spots, but their strong points. By politicizing everything Wilders does exactly that: it undermines the belief in “objectivity” and “neutrality” values where the established order practically has based her whole philosophy on. Arguments that begin with “figures of the Planning Bureau show that…”, “the court believes that…”, “research shows that…”, “according to the Constitution…” - and in that way arguments of his opponents start very often - can therefore be referred to the trash.   

Strategically it’s brilliant, but it also has a dark side: the PVV leader claims any disagreement with his party equals political activism. So everything is going to be a “coup” - an attempt to gag his party. The result is a kind of real-life Truman Show starring the PVV: surrounded by media, scientists and courts that are all secretly acting in a play of the left wing. This is the way the PVV leader wins the trust of ordinary people (Henk and Ingrid), who believe in this play.   

And everybody who says something about it, must be instructed by the Great Left Director. Did you know, for example, that Rob Wijnberg loves classical music, lives next to a Muslim and studied philosophy at the University of Amsterdam? Well, read his article again very carefully. End of discussion.

  This is how totalitarian democracy works.

  Rob Wijnberg is editor of the left wing messenger. «

Agenda/Termine/Dates

2011-03-09T00:00:00.002+01:00

In the following week(end)s I am fully booked/terribly busy/out of the country:

Jul 1 - 3 (CSD Cologne)
Jul 14-18 (Sitges)
Jul 23 (N+M)
Jul 30 (BBQ)
Aug 5 - 7 (Pride A'dam)
Nov 25 - 27 (Bearpride Cologne)
? (USA)

Besides that I am working on Monday evenings.

Somewhere

2011-01-31T16:32:00.002+01:00

This morning I saw "Somewhere" a movie about a movie star who seems to have it all. Of course he doesn't make much out of his succes: women, drugs and horsing around. His live changes when he has to take care of his daughter. The movie is funny in all it's tragedy. One woman in the audience couldn't stop laughing about all the clumsiness of the main character. I liked the movie.

Let 'm roll

2011-01-30T19:23:00.002+01:00

I saw my first 6 films some we nice some were mysterious and some were confusing.
Yesterday I saw 3 of those 6 movies together with my festival friend Herman. Funny thing is that although he lives in Amsterdam, I see him once every year at the most: at the IFFR. There are years that we can't meet because he is here on other days then I am or one of us is not here in Rotterdam at all.

About the movies now: I saw "Curling" a Canadian movie not about the sport Curling but about a man who wants to protect his 12 year old daughter by isolating her form the outside world. The result is that they live in rural Quebec, where he is home schooling her, they have no tv and the biggest treat is listening to some music when she does something right. Little by little the man is able to open up the closed system. Very oppressive atmosphere. Not the kind of movie that makes you leave the cinema in a happy mood.

Film Festival Rotterdam started

2011-01-28T13:25:00.005+01:00

It's that time of the year again: the IFFR has started and I'm attending it as most of the years. This year I took my iPad and I try to keep track of all the movies as I use to do every year.

(Right now I try to get my iPad to do what I want it to do.)

Pays Bas zéro points

2010-02-08T00:03:00.003+01:00

Shalalie Shalala sung by Sieneke will be the Dutch entry for the Eurovision Song contest 2010. This is such a shame. How could such a bad song been chosen. It really is the worst entry of The Netherlands ever. I feel as if the clock has turned back to the time of Gerd and Hermien with "All the Pigeons on Dam Square". How can someone expect to get any point from any country with that stupid song?

IFFR 2 (Feature Films)

2010-02-07T23:11:00.004+01:00

Since there are lots of descriptions of the movies on the Internet, I decided to only rank the movies I have seen from excellent to bad and maybe say a few words about it if necessary.

Excellent:
Eyes Wide Open about homosexuality between orthodox jews (a very controversial subject made credible)
J'ai tué ma mère don't worry the mother was only killed imaginary. The fights between mother and son are great (how wonderful when everything is screamed in French)
Tales from the Golden Age absurdity in the Romania of Ceausescu but not in a Kafkaesque style, but pure hilarious.

Good:
Zero
Skeletons
Slice surprising movie, certainly at the end
Twisted Roots
My Queen Karo
Bonded Parallels all about heritage

Average:
Zarte Parasiten
Piggies
Los Condenados
Mother
Rapt
Vaho
Down Terrace
Women Without Men
Shirley Adams
Les signes vitaux

Boring:
El pasante
Sailor of Hearts I fell asleep in the middle of the movie.

Bad:
The Ape I hate movies where nothing happens...

IFFR 1 (Documentaries)

2010-02-07T19:20:00.003+01:00

During the last International Film Festifal Rotterdam (IFFR) I choose for seeing basically two kinds of movies: documentaries and long feature films. Shorts usually don't do so much for me, so I did not opt for them. This post is about the documentaries. I saw three of them and in their own way they were all ecellent and certainly are worth seeing.

Mi vida con Carlos is the documentary portrait that Germán Berger made of his father Carlos Berger, who was arrested and murdered by the regime right after Pinochet came into power in Chili. German Berger of course is personally involved with the subject, and he is one of the main characters in the documentary. He brought together his mother and his two uncles and made a reconstruction what happened tot the family during the Pinochet regime and the effects on their present lives. The film is a strong and pretty impressive document.

Russian Lessons is about the recent war between Georgia and Russia in august 2008. A Russian couple, both journalist, travel to the war area, but both report from the other side of the frontline. The shocking truth reveals: Russia had planned and orchestrated the war on the Caucasus. And guess what it wasn't even for the first time. While the world believed that it was Georgia who started the aggression, the makers of this movie make it plausible that it could be the other way around. Russia has no interest in strong neighboring states (Ukraine, Georgia) to the South, that are even flirting with the West.

Die Frau mit den fünf Elefanten is the story of Svetlana Geier, who fled from Stalin to Germany and who thought she would give something back to the Germans for their hospitality. So she translates Dostojevsky from Russian to German. The impressive part is the difference between mental strength and the fragile physical appearance of the old lady.

Strange but funny video...

2010-01-29T14:31:00.002+01:00

I got this strange video via e-mail from Philips today and thought I wanted to share it with you. I couldn't find the English version. If anyone has any thoughts or own experiences and wants to share it, ... I'm very curious.

IFFR 2010

2010-01-25T00:25:00.002+01:00

Lentil soup

2010-01-16T19:15:00.009+01:00

As a kid I didn't particularly like lentils. I guess my father didn't like them either and that's why we never had them. My experiences as a kid are limited to my cousins house. My aunt made lentil soup once in a while. I remember that it was made out of brown lentils and that we had to add vinegar to the soup when we wanted to eat it. The soup was very thick and I didn't care for it much.

As a grown up I avoided lentils because of the culinary experiences of my childhood ...until... My first encounter was a few years ago at the Filmfestival in Rotterdam. I was hungry and had only a little time. The little restaurant at the festival was out of any other food then lentil soup. So I had some and I LOVED it. After that I had some lentil soup in Turkish restaurants and tonight I made some myself. Here my recipe which is a fusion between Turkish and Indian.

Ingredients

* 1 or 2 tablespoons olive oil
* 1 onion, diced
* 2 cloves garlic, minced
* 1 carrot, diced
* 1 tin of tomato paste
* 1/2 cup dry red lentils
* 3 cups vegetable stock
* 1 ts minced cilantro
* ground coriander seed
* 2 ts sour cream of yogurt
* half a lemon

Procedure

Heat the olive oil in a large pan over medium heat. Once oil is hot, add the onion and carrots. Cook for a few minutes, until the vegetables have started to soften, then add the tomato paste and the garlic.

Add the lentils and stock to the pot. Simmer over low-medium heat for 20-30 minutes, until lentils are softened. Then add the sour cream/yogurt, cilantro and coriander seed.

Freshly squeezed lemon juice is a nice addition, preferably immediately before serving.

Thai Coconut Chicken Soup: Tom kha gai

2009-12-05T00:39:00.004+01:00

Ingredients

1 quart chicken stock, with chicken meat,
1 stalk lemon grass, white part only, cracked open with the flat side of a knife
3 kaffir lime leaves, fresh or dried, hand torn
1 (3-inch) piece fresh ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
2 small Thai chilies, halved lengthwise
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 (13-ounce) can unsweetened coconut milk
2 tablespoons Thai fish sauce (nam pla)
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
1 (8-ounce) can straw mushrooms, rinsed
4 limes, juiced
1 1/2 cups shredded cooked chicken
salt and freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves

Directions

Bring the stock to the boil over medium heat in a soup pot. Add the lemon grass, kaffir lime leaves, ginger, chilies, and garlic. Lower the heat to medium-low, cover, and gently simmer for 10 minutes to let the spices infuse the broth.

Uncover and stir in the coconut milk, fish sauce, sugar, mushrooms, lime juice, and chicken. Simmer for 5 minutes to heat the chicken through; season with salt and pepper. Ladle the soup into a soup tureen or individual serving bowls. Garnish with cilantro. Be careful to avoid chewing the lemongrass, ginger, or lime leaves.

Yield: 4 servings

Stripped

2009-11-16T00:08:00.004+01:00

Friday night James and I went to the Heineken Music Hall in Amsterdam to see Eddie Izzard's show Stripped. James had won us two tickets to the show and used the opportunity to pay a visit to IKEA before we went to see the show.
Eddie Izzard had a great hilarious show in which he proofs that if there is any GOD out there "his plan is very similar to someone not having a plan." But the show is not all about religion it's about history and philosophy as well and then all in a the typical style of British humor somewhere in between Monty Python and French and Saunders.
James and I enjoyed the show very much. By the way I didn't know that there were so many British people living in the Netherlands.

End of the big break???

2009-11-03T22:53:00.004+01:00

Sorry, guys I was not blogging for a long time and I see that I still owe you information about the end of my last trip to the US. (And that was not even my last trip. James and I went to Italy in August).
I will write the last chapter as soon as I finished the last part of Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy. The books are addicting I must say. But don't worry I am on my last 150 pages of the total 1800 pages. The books were real page turners and I can't wait to go on with it and see how it ends.
I did at least post all pictures on my flickr page now. The pictures from Italy will follow as soon as possible.
Tonight I will update my calender.

Meteor Crater, Winslow/Holbroke, Petrified Forest/Painted Desert

2009-06-11T19:53:00.004+02:00

The next aim on our trip was Petrified Forest N.P. Before we reached it, we drove East on I-40 along the former Highway 66. James' friend Bill had asked us to visit Meteor Crater since we would be passing it anyway. On the Interstate we already saw big billboards advertising for the Crater and asking us to tune in to AM 1670. It seems that the meteor crashed a few thousand years on what is now private property. The owner had built an 8 miles road toe a big parking lot at the edge of the crater. He/she/they had built a big visitor center and wanted to collect $ 15,00 per person for access to the crater's rim (going into the crater is not possible) and a spectacular movie about the meteor impact. Goes without saying that we didn't want to take our chances and did not go and see the the crater (one four corners experience is enough for one vacation).
So we went on to Winslow, where we stood on the corner and made some great pictures of and in the Posada Hotel. Holbrook showed us some of the faded glory of former Route 66 before we headed on to Pertified Forest N.P. Here we admired all the petrified wood that just lay there and looked so real. At a certain spot it looked like someone was chopping wood and all the wood chips were left behind. Of course everything was just stone.

Wupatki/Sunset Crater and Walnut Canyon

2009-06-11T19:51:00.003+02:00

We left Grand Canyon a little on the late side. We had planned to do visit an other park on that day: Wupatki N.P. In fact we were unfortunately a little bit too late when we arrived at Wupatki (just North-East of Flagstaff). The good thing about that late hour was, that the first ruins we saw lit up in an unearthly wonderful warm light. The bad thing was that the visitor center was closed and that we ran out of light in no time. We could barely see the Wupatki ruins at the visitor center en it made no sense to drive up to the Wukoki ruins since it was dark by then. Through Sunset Crater Volcano (which of course we couldn't see either) we went to Flagstaff where we spent the night.
The next morning after one of those wonderful American breakfasts, we went to Walnut Canyon National Monument. We walked there in the footsteps of people who lived at Walnut Canyon more than 700 years ago, and who built their cliff dwellings deep within canyon walls. We saw of course only a small part of the canyon: the so called Island. The Island Trail descends 185 feet (56m) into the canyon providing access to some cliff dwellings. We were exhausted after the 240 steps we had to climb back up.

Grand Canyon

2009-06-02T18:27:00.004+02:00

Yesterday we spent nearly all day on the South rim of the Grand Canyon. James had never seen the Grand Canyon though he had lived pretty much around it in the last few years (Las Vegas, Grand Junction and Phoenix). I myself had visited the North rim 11 years ago and as far as I remember it was not as spectacular as the what I have seen yesterday.

Spectacular, let me go on with that word, because Grand Canyon is unimaginable BIG: 15 to 20 km wide and 1600 m deep must be called spectacular. On the other hand it is more then I can comprehend. A cliff that is only 300 m high in Canyon de Chelly, has a deeper impact on me since the canyon is narrower. I know it shouldn't make any sense but that's how it feels for me the second time in my live. Don't get me wrong I really liked what I have seen yesterday, I just wanted to describe how my eyes and brains can play tricks with me.

Monument Valley and Canyon de Chelly

2009-06-01T04:35:00.006+02:00

Keep in mind what I wrote below under "Indian Friendly" when you read this, since both sites are within the Navajo Nation.

Monument Valley, who doesn't see images of old Westerns before his eyes when he hears this two words. In fact quite a few Westerns especially in the 30's and 40's were really shot here. But as everything in the movies reality is different. My high expectations didn't meet the real landscape. Don't get me wrong the buttes and cliffs and canyons were spectacular, I just had expected them to more isolated from each other in a more outstretched landscape.

Since the valley is on Indian territory, we of course had to pay $ 15,00 for fuzzy map and the use of a crappy unpaved dirt loop road through the valley.

Canyon de Chelly National Monument on the other hand was very spectacular even though it also is Navajo land, that is maintained by the National Park Service. There is no entrance fee and camping is free as well. Accessible without a Navajo guide, on the other hand, are only the two roads that lead along the rim of the canyon(s) and one hike into the canyon to an ancient ruin. Of course we did the hike: it was very nice. We regretted the fact that we were not able to explore the canyon bottoms on our own.

"Indian friendly"

2009-06-01T03:57:00.003+02:00

The last two days I am absolutely amazed, that a country that has turned kindness into an art form, houses so many unfriendly Native Americans. For three days now we are either in the Navajo or Hopi Indian Nation, and in restaurants, motels, shops or even on roads or trails a numerous number of people have a very unpleasant way of treating us.

As a European I feel free to comment on this subject, while James sees the same things I see, but maybe for historical reasons keeps a distant from any judgement.

The examples are lots: holding up only a slip of paper with figures when you inquire about the rates of a motel, not greeting us when we wait to be seated in a restaurant or not acknowledge you when you meet them on a hiking trail. The only way they will greet you however along a hiking trail is, if they want to sell something. Vending stuff is very popular around (pre)historic sites (even in a National Monument).

What really pissed me off was an incident today. We were driving up a hill top and a thunderstorm was in the valley. I thought it would be nice to stop for a moment en take some pictures. So I stopped the car and we climbed on a little dirt hill along the way side. No harm was done. Eventually a pick up truck with seven Indians stopped under the hill and the driver gave us a lesson that it was absolutely forbidden to walk on any Indian lands. Keep in mind that there was no sign to tell us, that there was absolutely nothing but dirt and a few bushes around us, and that the only thing we left there were foot prints. While many Indians pollute their own environment with heaps of trash and junk around their spread out trailer dwellings.

I must say that I really had it now. I look forward to tomorrow when we leave the reservations behind us.

Mesa Verde N.P.

2009-05-30T17:49:00.006+02:00

For the second time in my life I visited Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado. The first time was about 11 years ago, when I came together with Bob to the 4 corners area. Mesa Verde N.P. is a lot like Bandelier, it only has much more prehistoric sites and more impressive cliff dwellings. Although the rangers tell us every time, that the cliff dwellings are only of minor importance in the history of the Ancestral Pueblo people who made Mesa Verde their home for over 700 years, from A.D. 600 to A.D. 1300, the cliff dwellings speak the most to our imagination since they are so well preserved.

James and I took a few self guided and two ranger guided tours throughout the park. I visited areas that I hadn't visited the first time I was here. What struck us both was, how devastating the wild fires had been in the last years. Nearly all the trees in the park were burnt. The dead remains of them can be seen over hundreds of acres all over the park.

Last night we reached Kayenta in the middle of the Navajo Nation in Arizona. We had a quick and disappointing stop at the four corners monument. (We had to pay $ 3,00 each to see the place where UT, CO, NM and AZ meet and there was a Navajo market with T-shirts and pottery around it. It was so NOT worth paying the entrence fee!!!) We spend a wonderful night in the luxerious Hampton Inn (after we checked out the other two hotels in town: Best Western and Holiday Inn where we were treated rather unfriendly) and are on our way to Monument Valley and Canyon de Chelly N.P. now.

Bandelier NP and Los Alamos

2009-05-28T18:45:00.004+02:00

Right now we are in Durango, Colorado, ready to see the Mesa Verde National Park.

The two days before we visited Bandelier National Park and the town that never was: Los Alamos.

At Bandelier we visited the evidence of the Ancestral Pueblo people that can be found in the whole South West. There is no written history about those people. All we know now is by the evidence they left in their dwellings, artifacts, and petroglyphs. It is believed that the ancient culture is continuing in the culture of the modern pueblos in the South West. Bandelier hosts a few cliff dwellings and Tyuonyi Pueblo. That "big house" had 400 rooms but only 100 people lived there. Many of the rooms were used mostly for storage of food and pens for turkeys.

James was not so fond of all the ladders we had to climb up and later down at the Alcove House. He later said the he had to face dead when he was climbing the ladders. I thought that it was not so bad. The altitude was more that got me there. At more then 2200 m one can be short of breath very easy.

We camped at the campground in Bandelier after we had done a bit of scienic byway over the wooded mountains on NM-4. The next day we visited Los Alamos. During the second world war the town did not even exist, because the team of Robert Oppenheimer developed the first atomic bomb there. Even today the Los Alomos Laboratoreis still exist and most of the land around Los Alamos is off limits for the public. Of course we visited the science museum there where we learned everything about the bomb.

On our way to Durango, Colorado I got sick. I think it was a combination of food poisoning from the burger we in Los Alamos and the altitude. Anyway James took all responsibility and checked us in into a very nice Super 8. Thank you my wonderful man, for what you did to me!

After a good rest I feel ready now to face more adventures.

Santa Fe Trail

2009-05-28T18:36:00.003+02:00

From Las Vegas (NM) we went North West to Montezuma. There a former hotel of the Santa Fe Railroad has been transformed into an international college (Armand Hammer Foundation). Most parts of the school are closed for public, but the Dawn Light Sanctuary, a building designed as a place of contemplation and reflection was open. It's a new round building with 12 large prisms built in the windows. The prisms break the sun light shining through the windows and project rainbow colors at the white walls of the room.

The reason why the Santa Fe Railroad Company built the hotel there at that particular spot at the Gallinas River were the hot springs. Of course James and I soaked our feet in the hot water for some time.

On I-25 we continued our way South to Santa Fe, the capital of New Mexico. We first visited the state capitol. The building is different from all the other state capitols I have seen till now. We were actually able to see even the inside of the building with access to the Senate and the House of Representatives. The capitol houses a wonderful art collection from local artists. Santa Fe itself is a very art friendly city. Many museums and galleries can be found here.

We visited the Santa Fe Museum of New Mexican History, that had just opened the day before and therefor the admission was free. The museum was packed, but the exhibits were quite interesting. (So we learned everything how New Mexico became the 47th state of the union in 1912 just a few weeks before Arizona joined the union. For those curious to know which states followed: Alaska (49th) and Hawaii (50th))

Santa Fe gave name to the Santa Fe trail, one of the trails that the early settlers followed on their way west. (Oregon trail is an other well known trail.)

Santa Fe kind of blends in with the surrounding (spectacular) landscape: only low rise buildings mostly from adobe or at least built in the classic (Mexican) adobe style. The mountain tops around Santa Fe still are covered in snow while down here the temperature is a cozy 26ºC.

A night in Las Vegas

2009-05-25T16:57:00.003+02:00

After visiting the UFO Research Center in Roswell we left the city not knowing what to think about the so called Roswell Incident. Fact is that in the night of July 4th in 1947 something had crashed in the desert near Corona, NM. Corona is by the way more then 100 km (to the NW) away from Roswell. Fact also seems to be that the army tried to cover something up. Personally I do have my doubts if that was an UFO crash in the desert. The eye-witness reports differ too much from each other for my taste. ...but you never know... My advise: always keep an eye in the sky!

We drove North through the deserts of New Mexico and saw only 7 cars in the last 65 km before we reached Fort Sumner where we payed a visit to the grave of Billy the Kid and the sheriff who shot him. On US 84 we headed further North to Santa Rosa and Las Vegas. Around Santa Rosa the scenery changed: evergreen trees (junipers and pine trees), rocks and hills appeared in the prairie.

We finally arrived in the charming little town of Las Vegas. Since the grass is green in other places as well, the Spanish settlers called other places then the famous one in Nevada “Las Vegas” (the meadows) as well. Not much gambling and shows are going on here. So we organized our own show, stayed the night in our nice Super 8 motel room and watched the last episode of Desperate Housewives. What a strange show was that...

Rosswell

2009-05-24T17:37:00.004+02:00

James and I are back in the US. After visiting his parents for a few days in Fort Worth (later more about them), we hit the road yesterday morning and drove to Roswell, New Mexico.

Although James and I both believed that the circumstances were ideal for an other UFO experience (we observed animals behaving differently, ideal weather, nice landing strips and the fact that Atlantis was returning back to earth this very day) we didn't see any last night.You can imagine how disappointed we are right now... (James has a very valid addition to this paragraph: "Everybody knows that we could have been abducted last night, but the erased our memories when they brought us back. That's what they do."

Talking serious, we both found out that the so called Roswell incident is commercialized extensively here in this town. Everything is about UFOs and then of course there is the one and only Roswell International UFO Research Center. We'll see what we can do this morning to find out more about the aliens.

BLØF in ZWØLLE

2009-03-22T22:29:00.004+01:00

Yes, the famous (well ok I admit, only in The Netherlands) Dutch band BLØF made it to Zwolle. Paul and Susanne couldn't make it to the concert because Susanne just had given birth to a healthy daughter. So they gave their tickets to James and me.

On a Monday evening James and I went to the new theater "De Spiegel" here in Zwolle. We knew we would have bad seats, but when we finally found our seats at a balcony I didn't know existed, we knew we had the best seats of the worst row in the whole theater (higest balcony, in the middle of last row). Altghough it was very steep we actually had a great view. The whole concert was incredible. I think that James enjoyed it very much and so did I ... thanks to the baby of Paul and Susanne.

Yummy Jamie Oliver recipe: Zalm met olijven en sperziebonen

2009-03-08T23:57:00.006+01:00

Wat heb je nodig:
4 zalmmoten (zonder vel en graat)
200 gr. sperziebonen
15 kleine kerstomaatjes
20 zwarte olijven zonder pit
(ik neem meestal wel groene)
verse basilicumblaadjes
peper en zout

olijfolie

Recept:
Kook de sperziebonen beetgaar
Halveer de tomaatjes en de olijven
Meng in een schaal de gekookte sperziebonen met de tomaatjes, de olijven en een handje verse basilicumblaadjes. Besprenkel met olijfolie en breng op smaak met peper en zout
Verwarm de oven voor
Neem een grote braadslee
Leg aan de ene kant de stukken zalmmoot (besprenkel met olijfolie) en aan de andere kant het sperziebonen mengsel

Laat de zalm in ongeveer 15 min. garen in de oven

Ook een aanrader voor als je mensen te eten krijgt! Je maakt alles van tevoren klaar en schuift het op het laatste moment in de oven!

Met dank aan Sylvia's Kitchen!

I Love Paris...

2009-02-15T00:36:00.003+01:00

On Valentine's Day (actually it was the day before) James and I gave each other a little present: we set off to visit Groningen. James wanted to know where the train ends, he takes every day from Rotterdam to Zwolle. After we explored the sights of the city we had dinner at Wagamama. It was of course great as always.

When we came back we thought we would love to train a little more through Europe so we bought two first class tickets to Paris in April and we made some reservations for Ibis as well. We will be there for 3 days and really look forward to that.

Slumdog Millionaire and Gomorrah

2009-02-07T22:37:00.003+01:00

Outside of the IFFR I saw two memorable festival titles: Gomorrah and Slumdog Millionaire. I did not like Gomorrah and i really don't understand why all the screenings were sold out at the festival. Of course I am not in the position to judge about the reality factor of of Gomorra, but for me it seemed to be just one more movie about the maffia, while the pretentions of that movie were much higher.
Slumdog Millionaire on the other hand was the winner of the KPN audience award. The movies was nice the concept was interesting and as a feel-good-movie there is nothing to dislike about it, but I must say that I understand those who say that the movies is based on stereotypes and overhyped. It would not have been my personal number 1, but I understand why it got it's award.

Slumdog Millionaire (IN 110')
An uneducated Indian from the slums who becomes a national hero by winning millions of rupees in a TV quiz. ‘From rags to raja,’ according to the quizmaster with a superior grin. How did he do it? The film offers four options: he cheated, he was lucky, he's a genius, it's fate. The police are suspicious, and in between the two days in which the live broadcast takes place, Ja is subjected to a hard handed interrogation. In order to explain the right answers to the quiz questions, he describes to the officer his childhood, which we see passing in flashbacks.
As a child, Jamal was inseparable from his brother Salim in a huge violent slum district. Gradually the two brothers start to vie for attention as they grow up, fed by a shared and continual interest in beautiful Latika.
Boyle edited the two periods together beautifully and plays with tilted frames, depth of focus, close-ups and moving camera, thanks to cameraman Anthony Dod Mantle. The scenario refers regularly to Oliver Twist and is by Simon Beaufoy, based on Vikas Swarup's novel Q&A. The soundtrack is an encounter between East and West with songs by the English-Sri Lankan artist M.I.A. (Paper Planes) and a soundtrack by Bollywood master A.R. Rahman.

Gomorrah (IT 135')
Matteo Garrone has added a classic to the Mafia genre with his widely praised Gomorrah. He based his film on the non-fiction bestseller by Roberto Saviano (whose portrait of Mafia leaders necessitates him leading an underground existence) and primarily sketches the rough, unglamorous side of the Mafia. Gomorrah is not a star vehicle with a polished storyline, but a complex whole of crossing plot lines in which many relatively unknown actors and amateurs portray a very charged reality in Neapolitan dialect. The images are overwhelming in their authenticity and misleading beauty. The more these lines come together, the more we see that virtually the whole of social and political life in and around Naples is infiltrated by the Camorra. Corruption, settling up accounts and extortion are commonplace, and the families of imprisoned Mafiosi are maintained by colleagues. The most revealing and convincing thing about this hard-boiled film is the way in which young Neapolitans are recruited and how easily they fall for a Mafia life with its very uncertain future. Garrone allows two of them to get reckless and pay a heavy price. He focuses primarily on the broad foundation of an immense army of 'foot soldiers', filming their home base as one huge unpredictable pigeon coop, or rather a beehive divided rigidly into ranks filled with changing alliances.

IFFR 2009

2009-02-01T22:14:00.006+01:00

This year I'll do it differently, then the years before. Here is my list of films in order of my rating:

Troubled Water

Frozen River

Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi

Pranzo di Ferragosto

The Higher Force

The Hungry Ghosts

Flashbacks of a Fool

Schattenwelt

Pandora's Box

Der Architect

Delta

Involuntary

Pomgranates and Myrrh

Los Bastardos

The Strength of water

La Nana

The Storm

Unspoken

Bronson

Eleve Libre

Black Dogs Barking

Dogging: A Love Story

Autumn

Un Autre Homme

33 Scenes from Life

Among the Clouds

I Sell the Death

La Mujer sin Cabeza

Better Things

Tony Manero

Zara

Liverpool

So "Troubled Water" was my best movie and "Liverpool" the worst one.

IFFR Films (The good ones first...)

2009-01-31T14:16:00.019+01:00

Here are the descriptions of the movies I saw. I used the official descriptions of the festival en added my comment ... sometimes.

Troubled Water (NO/SE 115')
Jan Thomas has just been released from prison, where he served eight years for murdering a child. He finds a job as an organist in the church, where he becomes involved in a relationship with the pastor Anna. She is the single mother of Jens, an eight-year-old boy who has a stunning likeness to the boy whom Jan Thomas is supposed to have killed eight years ago. The chance of making up with a loving father role is jeopardized when Jan Thomas is recognized by the mother of the victim. Then Poppe shows the viewpoint of the mother still dogged by grief (a fantastic Dyrholm), who has now adopted two girls with her husband. She starts stalking Jan Thomas.

Frozen River (US 97')
When she gets up one morning just before Christmas, Ray discovers that she is a single mother. Her husband, a gambling addict and Mohican Indian, has run off with the down-payment on their new mobile home. Ray sends the children to school and says that she is not even going to go and look for her husband. But she does anyway.
In the Mohican reservation, she finds his car just as it's being stolen by the Mohican Lila Littlewolf, but she doesn't find her husband. Ray is all on her own and a new mobile home seems impossibly distant. A strange twist of fate is that Lila, the car thief, offers a solution. Ray and Lila can smuggle illegal immigrants over the river between Canada and the United States. The loopholes in the law of the reservation are big enough for that, even though it's not without risk.
Frozen River is effective thanks to its grim social realism, but the power of the film is in the casting of the actress Melissa Leo, who plays a stubborn woman branded by life. When she shoots a hole in Littlewolf's mobile home, she's just as convincing as when she serves popcorn for breakfast. The film won the prestigious Grand Jury Prize at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.

Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi (US 84')
A reporter who comes to a foreign country, seldom speaks the language and is often unfamiliar with the culture. Even for an experienced journalist, it is difficult to understand the finer points of local morals. For that, one has the so-called fixers. Often they are also journalists who literally and figuratively know their way around and know when something is wrong.
Ian Olds (1972) followed the American journalist Christian Parenti and his fixer, the Afghani journalist Ajmal Naqshbandi, for the documentary Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi. The film is open-hearted and intimate, but also tragic and moving, because from the very first scenes, it's clear that 24-year-old Naqshbandi is no longer alive.
In 2005 Olds directed with Garrett Scott the film Occupation: Dreamland, about a group of very young American soldiers in Iraq. After Scott died suddenly, Olds made Fixer. The film was intended as a glimpse behind the scenes of the approach of a news reporter, but during shooting, a nightmare scenario emerged. During his work, Naqshbandi ended up in an ambush. He was kidnapped alongside the Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo. The Italian was freed, Naqshbandi was not. Olds' both intelligent and committed film sketches a depressing picture of the future of Afghanistan, but is at the same time a homage to the 'best fixer in Afghanistan'.

Pranzo di Ferragosto (IT 75')
Giovanni is fifty and the only child of his mother, a widow with whom he lives in an apartment in Rome. It's mid-August and hot in the city. His mother has a fairly demanding nature and so Giovanni spends as much time in the local bar as in his apartment, where he does a lot of the household chores.
Ferragosto, the traditional free weekend in Italy (Assumption) is coming up and Giovanni receives a visit from his landlord: Can he look after the landlord's mother for two days? In view of Giovanni's rent arrears, it's a request he cannot refuse. A little later he receives a visit from his family doctor with virtually the same question. It's then up to Giovanni to organise a good lunch on a holiday...
Gianni di Gregorio wrote and directed with verve this appealing, heart warming feature début, Pranzo di Ferragosto, in which he also plays the leading role of Giovanni. The construction of the story, the interaction of the old ladies, the refinements of language use and eating habits, yet also all kinds of other small details together yield a minor masterpiece that was a kind of surprise hit at the recent Venice film Festival. The peculiarities and charms of the old ladies are especially beautifully portrayed.

The Higher Force (IS 80')
After having made quite an impression in 2008 with The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela, the story of a Filipino transsexual, Olaf de Fleur Johannesson situates his next film in his own country, Iceland. Here the small, amateur good fellow and wannabe poet David wrestles with life. A car accident that killed his little brother, who shared his love of kung fu, continues to haunt him. He earns his living collecting debt for an amateurish Mafia gang in which he is the fall guy. The only solace in his grey life comes unexpectedly from his landlord Harald. David thinks he recognises him as the driver who killed his brother. As revenge, he suggests to the gang members that this lonely man is a mysterious crook who disappeared in Mexico.
Olaf de Fleur does little to make the characters credible. On the contrary, he allows David to rise in the pecking order of the bizarre group of Mafiosi in a series of events. Combined with stubborn faith in their own escapist fantasies, that turns The Higher Force into an unashamedly offbeat comedy filled with droll fake pretense, miscommunication and plot developments that can't be taken seriously. The addition of producer Stefan Schaefer as a talkative German crook and Michael Imperioli (The Sopranos) as Mafia boss heighten the implausibility of this crazy story in which the pleasure of film making transcends all.

The Hungry Ghosts (US 105')
Hungry ghosts refers to a concept in Eastern religions for dead people who cannot say farewell to the living. The term is often a metaphor for people who do not realise that it is increasingly painful and difficult to find happiness if they continue to believe in their illusions. In this feature début by actor Michael Imperioli, his characters float as spirits through life, looking for happiness, looking for the fulfilment of a desire. Imperioli has been an actor in, and scriptwriter for, The Sopranos and played in more than 30 films, including ones by Spike Lee and Martin Scorsese.
In The Hungry Ghosts, several narrative lines run together. There's a rundown radio presenter (a beautiful role by Steve Schirripa, also from The Sopranos) who keeps on his feet using drink and pills and quarrels with his ex-wife on the phone about their son who has gone off the rails. There's a young woman who is fleeing her life and visits girlfriends and ex-boyfriends looking for a place to sleep. In the course of the film, set in and around New York in the period of 36 hours, it becomes clear and inevitable that the narrative lines will come together. The film is reminiscent of the best TV dramas, thanks to the subtle directing of the actors, the rapid sketching of situations in a character's life and the creation of space through clever moments of non-activity.

Flashbacks of a Fool (UK 114')
The story starts as the mess is cleared from the luxury beach mansion of Hollywood actor Joe Scott, in whom we recognise the present James Bond actor Daniel Craig. But this is a different kettle of fish. Scott is on the bottle, squabbles with his housemate about a mutt she's picked up and that he regards as too much of a pansy and during lunch he's dumped by his arrogant agent.
Then he walks into the sea and the story goes back in time to the 1970s, to the East Coast of the USA. A girlfriend introduces the young Scott (Harry Eden) to the world of David Bowie and Bryan Ferry. But the energetic seductive art of the mother of his best friend throw a shadow over this tender love.

Schattenwelt (Long Shadows) (DE 91')
Long Shadows starts with the early release of the RAF terrorist Widmer, who has to find his way in a changed German society after 22 years in jail. Sentenced for the murder of a businessman and his gardener, he bears the burden of a heavy political heritage. He gets an apartment beside another client of his lawyer, the young Valerie, whose son has been taken into care because of a single case of abuse by his mother. The two do not seem to be more than average neighbours, but their first encounters quickly make one suspect a different scenario.
Long Shadows is not another classic RAF drama, but focuses without idealisation or sentimentality on the scars left by the deeds of the RAF on the second and third-generation victims. The composed rhythm of the film hides the complex psychology of a young woman who wants to avenge the death of her father and the desire of a terrorist to see his son, with whom he has never had contact since his detention. The director increasingly allows their worlds and those of the lawyer and an investigator to become entangled, until there's a new and violent climax with another innocent victim. Guilt, revenge and liberation acquire an under-cooled layer in Long Shadows that, told chronologically, keeps adopting new, unpredictable dimensions right up to the end.

Pandora's Box (TR 112')
Nusret’s adult children - daughters Nesrin, Güzin and son Mehmet - live separate lives in Istanbul and have all come to terms differently with the monotonous void in their urban existence. After hearing that their mother is not well, they trek to their hometown near the Black Sea. Finding Nusret unconscious yet physically fit, they take her back to Istanbul, the city that Ustaoglu regards as a 'Pandora's Box'. The burdensome situation reawakens old conflicts between the siblings. They quickly notice that Nusret is suffering from Alzheimer’s. Nesrin and Güzin first take care of their mother. But the task proves to be too difficult for the quarrelsome sisters: they not only can’t cope with their mother’s decline, they can’t deal with their own alienated lives. The headstrong Nusret abhors the concrete city with its insincere modern relationships and just wants to return home. But unexpectedly she forms a close bond with her rebellious pothead grandson Murat. The film is a profound study of loss, estrangement and familial tensions, but above all it is a critique of a contemporary society that has de-familiarized itself from its roots, its 'Mother Nature'. Pandora’s Box won several prizes in 2008, including the San Sebastian Best Actress Award for protagonist Tsilla Chelton (1918).

Der Architekt (DE 93')
When architect Georg Winter accepts a prize, he explains that an architect has the good fortune of measuring every realised building against the rightness of his original idea. Which also reveals the theoretical framework of Ina Weisse's feature début about a middle-age man who is forced to take stock of the achievements and mistakes he has made in his personal life.
Der Architekt is an intense drama in which the four members of the family travel to a mountain village to bury Georg Winter's mother. They get stranded in bad weather. In this unexpected isolation, several proverbial skeletons emerge from the cupboard to throw new light on the past but also on the present life of the parents and the two almost-adult children.
Weisse's first feature has many classic aspects but also allows the actors to leave the beaten path. The smooth surface of the model family hides sexual intrigues and unhealthy dependencies. Weisse plays these beautifully against each other in charged scenes in which the characters do not as much reveal factual details as psychological characteristics. Against the background of the virgin white winter landscape of the Tirol, the director repeatedly adds new accents to bring to the surface unfulfilled desires, falsely agreed compromises and profound insecurities. Choices must be made. The only question is: who's going to make them?

Delta (HU/DE 92')
Made by a hungarian filmmaker and set in the beauty of the delta of the river Danube, this is an exceptional movie about intolerance and hate . A young man comes to the village where his mother lives with her new lover and his sister, that he hadn't seen for many years. The moment the man meets his sister you see that the two of them have a kind of understanding, while at the same time the new partner of his mother doesn't like him. The son decides to live in the old fishing hut of his father and to built a house of his own at that spot. After a fight between the new partner of the mother and and his sister in which stepfather rapes his stepdaughter, she runs off to live with her brother. The family and villagers don't accept that and the tension rises to a climax.

Of course I don't feel ashamed by anything (not true). Well, have fun at my expense.

IFFR 2009 (the higher middle range)

2009-01-31T14:00:00.001+01:00

Involuntary (SE 98')
What is the influence of a group on the individual? How can we avoid group pressure? In Involuntary, the second feature by Ruben Östlund, we see five separate, familiar stories all taking these questions as their point of departure. For instance, Olle becomes unwillingly involved in the sexually tinted games of his old mates. Villmar is injured at his own party, but doesn't want to ruin the mood and so he carries on bravely as if nothing is wrong. And the girlfriends Linnea and Sara go out wearing sexy clothes but are not able to predict the effect in advance.
This successful Swedish mosaic film is fortunately occasionally very funny, but the camera continues to run soberly and relentlessly, when even the voyeuristic viewer doesn't really want to know what happens next. Östlund chooses his subjects with an eye for the sharp sides of Western freedom and attainments. Licentiousness (awoken by alcohol and lust), power abuse and bourgeois dissatisfaction put the characters into difficult situations .
Is in their own fault or are they the innocent victims of circumstances? That's only the start of the question. Because there's only one person who decides what we see and what we don't, or how long a scene lasts, and that is the director. A conclusion that often seems a cliché, but is here essential for the power of the film.

Pomegranates and Myrrh (PS 95')
Pomegranates and Myrrh is a multiply layered love story depicted against the background of everyday issues in today's Ramallah. It is quite unique to see footage of Palestinian reality being used not for a TV news report but for a creative drama (the wall, checkpoints, the confiscation of an olive farm, heavily armed Israeli soldiers patrolling the streets, etc.). A strong and mature début by a promising film maker.
Zaid (Ashraf Farah) and Kamar (Yasmine Al Massri) are Christian Arabs; the film begins with their marriage in East Jerusalem. Their happiness as newly weds does not last long though, for soon after the wedding a conflict about the confiscation of Zaid’s olive farm ends up with him being put in prison for an indefinite period of time. Kamar is a strong and modern woman, and to survive this difficult period, she decides to pick up her love for dancing again and joins a group of traditional Palestinian folk dancers despite her new family's disapproval.
A new choreographer, the Palestinian returnee Kais (Ali Suleiman) joins the dance group and brings a fresh breeze to the group and to Kamar. Her life is thrown into turmoil as she becomes increasingly attached to Kais and is caught between her desire to dance and not breaking family and social taboos about the role of a prisoner's wife, while life under occupation rages on…

Los Bastardos (MX/FR/US 95')
After Sangre (2005), supported by the Hubert Bals Fund, The Bastards is the second feature by Amat Escalante. The young Spanish-Mexican director has remained faithful to his stylistic principles. He has again engaged an amateur cast, as well as his Mexican colleague Carlos Reygadas, with whom he worked on Battle in Heaven (2005). Escalante now aims his securely observing camera at two Mexican brothers, Fausto and Jesus, who live in Los Angeles as illegal day labourers.
The Bastards describes 24 hours in their lives. A day that starts like all others: finding work - whatever work - is the most important issue. Forcefully and in matter-of-fact way, but also with humour, The Bastards shows the vulnerability of their existence. Alongside the continuous threat of deportation, we see unreliable employers who want to haggle about everything and drunken racists in the park where they seek rest. In the evening, the brothers break into an American woman's house whose husband has hired them to kill her.
Some similarities with Michael Haneke's Funny Games (1997) then emerge. What are the brothers going to do with the defenceless woman, who herself has several surprising problems? It's not primarily about the role of the viewer, but about the confusion, the ambivalence and the banality of life and the violence that eventually - you have been warned - still comes as a surprise.

The Stength of Water (NZ/DE 86')
The northern coast of New Zealand in the Hokianga region forms the backdrop for a story set in a small Maori community. The film maker chose to work with people from the community instead of professional actors. Thanks to this, but also to the harsh location, the film looks very authentic.
The little boy Kimi Kaneha is suffering greatly after the death of his twin sister. He doesn't really accept her death. For instance, he eats for two and hence becomes very fat, all in order to keep her spirit with him. He almost always drags a chicken round with him, one of the thousands from the family farm, as a kind of furry toy. He isn't taken very seriously, but does seem to have more insight than everyone thinks. His strange way of coming to terms with his sister's death might just work.
The film focuses on Kimi, yet he still remains an outsider. In the end it is more about the lives of the adults around him. They are forced to lead a harsh and frugal life and don't spare each other.

Nana (Maid) (CL 93')
A south American movie about a maid who served a family for 20 years but lately she can't do all the work any more. The family hires different maids to support her, but she works them out of the door one by one. All that leads to some funny situations. I would say that the film is about the importance of family and the value of friendship.

IFFR 2009 (the middle range)

2009-01-31T13:00:00.003+01:00

The Storm (TR 156')
For eighteen-year-old Cemal, being accepted to the University of Istanbul is more than just an opportunity to continue his studies, it is his big chance to leave his remote Kurdish village in Southeast Turkey once and for all. Getting off the bus, he is overwhelmed by the grandeur of the big city, but the historic campus is a whole different story. This is the early 90s; radical student activities are at their peak and cops patrol the grounds. Our naive protagonist quietly attends classes and keeps his head down, but soon, Queen Bee Helin will cajole him and two other Kurdish classmates, Orhan and Rojda, into joining her anti-system revolutionary group. This is a precious time for self-discovery. The three friends start questioning the status quo and embracing their cultural identities. They form new friendships, fall in love, read Marx, talk about their dreams and get carried away anticipating the revolution. But all isn’t rosy; conflicts rise within the group and the police encircle them like vultures. Kazim Öz, known for his captivating documentaries of Kurdish life, presents a masterful second feature in the form of an epic that realistically depicts the social uprising and urgency of Turkey’s student movement of the past decade. Hardcore and heart-wrenching, The Storm has already started to gain cult status among young audiences in Turkey.

Unspoken (BE 97')
Unspoken is a character study of few words - or better, of a lot of unspoken words - about the inability to communicate of the parents of a daughter who disappeared without trace five years before.
The mother, played by Emmanuelle Devos, who is nearly bursting out of her seams from pent-up emotion, regularly sees a girl in the underground who looks a little like her daughter. And the father (played by Bruno Todeschini), who is wasting away from self-torment, receives mysterious telephone calls that may point towards the girl. Until the father/husband disappears without trace too. From that day on, the mother/wife is all on her own twice over, which may seem less lonely in some ways.
Fien Troch made her feature début in 2005 with the prize-winning Someone Else’s Happiness. Her second feature is about coming to terms with a loss that can't really be coped with, because there is no certainty about the nature of the loss. It's not about unravelling the fate of the daughter, but the question of what the loss does to those left behind, who after a time are confronted with people in their surroundings who expect them to have come to terms with the loss. This hidden tension cuts through the soul like a scalpel, not lastly through the delightful play with depth of focus by cameraman Frank Van den Eeden.

Bronson (GB 92')
Michael Gordon Peterson has published 11 books, writes poetry, is an idiosyncratic and talented painter and does 2,500 push-ups each day - in prison, where the most violent prisoners of England are held for life, even though he has never killed or fatally wounded anyone. He was sentenced in 1974 to 7 years at the age of 19 for a raid on a post office and has become the longest serving prisoner in the United Kingdom. With a history of hostage-taking and violence against prison personnel, the incredibly strong 'Bronson' - a nickname he earned during his short career as a free fighter in the very brief periods he was a free man - spends most of his time in isolation.
Nicolas Winding Refn allows Bronson to tell his life story, dressed as a variety artist. But it isn't a literal biography: Refn, who as a Dane was unfamiliar with Bronson's status, is more interested in his personality. The actor Tom Hardy, responsible for the spectacularly intense leading role, had been fascinated by Bronson for years. He also provides an amazing performance: as an actor and as a trained sportsmen.

Élève Libre (BE/FR 105)
An élève libre is someone who receives private lessons. But the title has layers, because what is ‘freedom’ for Jonas? He is kicked out of school after failing his exams. Game stress puts an end to his hope of professional tennis. His parents are divorced and have largely disappeared from sight (Flemish actor Johan Leysen has a bit part as the father); Jonas is staying with friends of his mother. A friend of theirs offers to give him free private lessons for an exam which will help Jonas to catch up three years. He has to spend some time with the man, and they talk about algebra and literature, but also about sex and relationships. Like the couple with whom Jonas lives, the man is outspokenly direct. When Jonas talks about his first time, they ask him all the details. ‘Did she suck you ?’ ‘Is she vaginal or clitoral?’ ‘And inside, is she tight?’ At first their 70s openness and his blushing butchness are funny, but the sexual candidness gradually shifts to uneasy territory. The lady of the house wouldn't mind demonstrating a blow job - and otherwise he can watch her and her boyfriend? Jonas is especially confused by his private teacher.
Lafosse adopts a modest approach. With little music and a registering camera, he avoids imposing judgement. His film asks: where is the boundary between teaching and forcing something on someone, in word and deed?

Black Dogs Barking (TR 88')
Restless and young, best buddies Selim and Çaça live a meagre existence on the outskirts of Istanbul. Their neighbourhood's view of the city's gigantic business towers accelerates their ambitions. By day they grow pigeons on the roof, by night they drive their pimped-up car, 'My Orange Angel', and roam the mean streets with their entourage. The two buddies want to open up their own parking-lot business near a gigantic mall, and they just might get lucky, since they’re supported by the local mafia boss. But everyone wants a slice of the cake and the mall’s dodgy security contractor, Sait, is not so willing to let his 'turf' slide to these up-and-coming lads. Plus, the cops are on the boys’ tail to gather evidence against the mafia’s now 'legalized' activities. It isn’t long before Selim and Çaça’s dreams will be shattered when they find themselves in water over their heads. This sizzling début feature from Mehmet Bahadir Er and Maryna Gorbach, shot in a verité style, captures a verisimilitude representative of the many unemployed young Turkish men who just want to make a better life for themselves. Submerged in poverty and the prevailing macho culture, it is no surprise that they become victims of violence. Bustling with energy with its in-yer-face attitude, Black Dogs Barking proudly takes over On Board's (1988) legacy of the working class anti-heroes.

Dogging: a Love Story (GB 103')
In the north-east of England an ensemble of characters united by amorous misadventure search for love in all the wrong places. Dan is a university graduate who, having so far failed to secure work as a journalist, sleeps on the sofa of his cousin’s plush city centre flat. He investigates the phenomenon of dogging (sex in cars) via the Internet. While browsing the chat rooms he makes the acquaintance of ‘HORNY GEORDIE LASS’ and finds himself pretending to be the dogging expert that he clearly is not.
His career-minded girlfriend Tanya is tired of his lack of ambition. Dan's cousin Rob is an overconfident estate agent who boasts of dogging experience and, like Tanya, takes great pleasure in ridiculing the Internet approach to journalism. Convinced that Dan needs to ditch Tanya and start living, he wastes no time in suggesting he experience the dogging scene for himself. Rob’s current partner Sarah also enjoys carefree, al fresco sex. Living nearby with her over-protective father, Laura lives an exciting life via Internet chat rooms as ‘HORNY GEORDIE LASS’. She is meanwhile pursued by Jim. Charismatically persistent, he thinks nothing of haplessly approaching girls for a phone number and maybe a kiss or a cuddle.
Dogging: A Love Story is a quietly comic take on sex, danger, jealousy and 21st century romance in the great dark outdoors.

Autumn (TR 106')
Autumn is an intricately woven inner journey covering the insuppressible past, the fleeting present and the lack of a promising future. But despite all, it is the hope for change, which once drove, and still drives, the characters to firmly grip their lives. Such is Yusuf: in 1997 he was a politically active left-wing student; in 2007, he is a disillusioned misfit. After a decade of imprisonment for his lost cause, he returns to his native village in the eastern Black Sea region. His widowed mother is more than happy to welcome him, but the overbearingly beautiful mountains of his homeland only deepen his self-doubt and isolation. One day, meandering in a tavern with his childhood friend Mikail, Yusuf encounters a similarly wounded soul. She is the ethereal Eka, a Georgian prostitute who yearns for the day she can reunite with her daughter across the border. These kindred spirits will help each other to confront their darkest fears.
Autumn is one of those long-awaited, magical yet brutal films that acutely tackle the issues of forsaken young generations in Turkey whose struggle for social change has cost them dearly - physically and emotionally. Alper’s evocative and sublime images of the present, mixed with intense raw footages of the recent past, brings to life a riveting reflection of a man in search of his deepest core.

33 Scenes from Life (PL 95')
Julia has everything one could dream of: a great and warm home, a loving husband, good parents and a successful career as an artist-photographer. But all of a sudden her world collapses when her mother becomes sick with cancer. In the following months she struggles with her mother's illness, the continuity of her career and the absence of her husband, who is also successful. The sickness and death of Julia's mother are very different and more absurd from a close perspective than one would expect. As if all of this weren't hard enough, her father can't deal with his wife's death and drowns himself in alcohol. Julia looks for comfort in the arms of an unexpected person...
A valuable film with high artistic quality, this is about the ridiculous turns that life can unexpectedly take, about loosing the people dearest to you and becoming a part of the adult world. Malgoska Szumowska has excelled in presenting not a tear-jerking drama but a true mirror of the vulnerability of life. Human, intensive, realistic. Tragic and sometimes funny, with a lot of cigarettes and booze. A film that will stay with you forever and make a place for itself in international film history.

Among the Clouds (IR 83')
Among the Clouds is a first feature film by the Iranian director Rouhollah Hejazi that was shown and awarded at the Fajr Film Festival in Teheran in 2008. The story takes place at an Iranian-Iraqi border and presents an unforgettable picture of this far-away world.
Malek is a teenage boy who earns extra money carrying luggage for tourists and religious pilgrims at the Iran-Iraq check-point. One day he spots the beautiful young Iraqi woman Noura, who earns her living helping Arab pilgrims from Iraq cross the border and find their way around in the nearest Iranian city. Malek cannot keep his eyes off Noura and regularly looks for ways of catching a glimpse of this beauty. He does this while he is working, trying to keep his feelings private.
Noura takes advantage of Malek's naivety and his emotions and asks him for help: Can he carry some bags for her clients? Malek does not hesitate. But this is only the beginning of Noura's plans. The boy embarks upon the dangerous activity of smuggling things (and people), which could get him into big trouble. When Noura disappears, he decides to go search for her in Iraq, in the town closest to the border. Dangerous situations and sobering discoveries follow.

I Sell the Dead (US 85')
Glenn McQuaid was fascinated as a child by British horror costume films made by Amicus Films and Hammer Films, in which genre stars such as Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing were gloriously sanguine. This début can also be regarded as a homage to these production houses.
I Sell the Dead is a genuine buddy movie, but then about grave robbers, body snatchers and living dead. The story is situated on the misty and grimy 19th-century British Isles. Thanks to McQuaid's background in post-production and special effects, the fact that this low-budget film was shot on location around New York cannot be seen.
Partly because of the comic-strip adaptation of his story (made by Brahm Revel) McQuaid attracted a star cast. Ron Perlman (The Name of the Rose, Hellboy) is on fine form as a very unconventional priest and Dominic Monaghan, well known as Charlie from the TV series Lost, plays the sympathetic body snatcher Arthur.
When Arthur waits in a dark dungeon for the execution of his sentence, he receives a visit from Father Duffy. Arthur's buddy Willie ended on the scaffold and he awaits the same fate. So it's high time to confess to Father Duffy. While enjoying a bottle of whisky, Arthur describes with delight how the business of grave robbing works. Father Duffy is extremely interested, especially in the part about bringing the dead back to life...

Un Autre Homme (CH 89')
The third feature by Lionel Baier is an intellectual satire on the profession of film critic through the entertaining adventures of an aimless young man. François moves with his respectable girlfriend to Vallée de Joux, where she teaches at a secondary school. He finds a job as film critic with the local paper, where he thinks he can raise the level of reporting by writing film reviews with a high level of analysis. In reality, he copies them from a highbrow Paris magazine and is guilty of plagiarism. Then he meets Rosa, a celebrated film reviewer with a respected newspaper who is out to get the newcomer. An erotic game starts in which Rosa is the manipulative spider spinning a merciless web for him.
Baier, who says that this film is his most personal, resorts to film noir, but gives his own turn to this game of desire and deception. Inspired by a book by the Swiss painter Félix Vallotton about an art critic annex murderer, he is primarily interested in the harsh, insensitive sides of desire, which are expressed in the film in sharp contrasts between city and countryside, truth and lies, lust and love. In the end, he has the young man travel to Paris in order to meet as apotheosis Bulle Ogier, the queen of French cinema.

IFFR 2009 (the lower range)

2009-01-31T12:00:00.004+01:00

La Mujer sin Cabeza (AR 87')
A middle-aged woman is driving on the highway. She becomes distracted and runs over something. It could have been anything. A dog, a child or something else. Shocked, she drives on, but on the days following this incident, she fails to recognise the feelings that bond her to things and people. She just lets herself be taken by the events of her social life. One night she tells her husband that she killed someone on the highway. They go back to the road only to find a dead dog. Friends close to the police confirm that there were no accident reports. Everything returns to normal and the bad moment seems to be over until the news of a gruesome discovery again worries everyone.
With her unusual talent in dissecting suppressed emotions and their social context, Martel focuses on an event that makes a crack in the existing world, in a manner of speaking. With a frighteningly intimate, formal approach and above all through the stunning soundtrack, the viewer is slowly but surely introduced to a life in which something goes gruesomely wrong. In the beautiful details of the world around the protagonist, hence in the out-of-focus background, the worrying social message of the film can be read. Because somewhere, someone has to pay the price for denial, silence and repression.

Better Things (GB 93')
After two prize-winning short films, Duane Hopkins made his début as a feature director with Better Things (previously a CineMart project in Rotterdam), with which he pursued a long British tradition of cinematographic social realism. At the same time, he gives his very own take on it.
Hopkins shows three relationships of inconspicuous lovers who are all in a crisis. There's a schoolgirl who is pestered by her jealous ex-boyfriend. There's the older married couple who are still tormented by an event from the past they cannot discuss, living in a permanent state of cold war with each other. And there are the two young lovers who are in danger of succumbing to their inability to resist the seduction of hard drugs.
Hopkins avoids melodramatic or politically charged class consciousness. He does not tell a story from A to Z, but zooms in on the moments that are decisive in life. With determined precision, he seeks in each of his characters the emotional price that is paid for deeds of which they have not estimated the impact in advance. The observations do not seek a classical climax, but form more of an unprejudiced 'close study' of mutual dependence and the lack of an individual course. And is it far-fetched to compare the heroin intoxication of some of the protagonists with the languid, subtle, warmly photographed style of the film?
Outside of the UK, this movie can not be prize-winning without proper subtitles. My god that English was non understandable.

Tony Manero (CL 98')
The beautiful and gritty film takes its title from John Travolta’s character in the worldwide hit Saturday Night Fever (1977), and is a critical, occasionally gruesome, yet also very funny film. (Personally I think this isn't true at all).
Santiago, 1978. A Chilean TV show organises a contest for a local Tony Manero, while anyone who reveals a contrary opinion is arrested, tortured or murdered by the Pinochet regime. The poor Raúl (beautifully played by Alfredo Castro) is convinced that he'll win this contest as the only real Tony Manero. Certainly if he can have a dance floor with flashing lights under the tiles. Armed with this obsession and the aggrieved tunnel vision of the putdown loser, the immoral opportunist Raúl wants to realise his dream in front of the whole Chilean people .
Tony Manero shows that Chile, about 20 years after the end of the dictatorship, is still coming to terms with its past. Larraín's film does not focus on the dictatorship, but with its idolisation of Tony Manero provides a parallel with today's Chilean society. According to Larraín, the country has forgotten its original culture and traditions, and Chile now functions entirely in America's wake.
The story sounds funny, but I didn't think the movie was catchy or funny at all.

Zara (CH 85')
In an expanse of stony Turkish landscape, two women roam around looking for the village of Zara. The Kurdish Mirka is returning to her birthplace after 12 years, accompanied by her ignorant German-speaking blonde girlfriend. On the way, reality, memory and fantasy increasingly become entangled as they are confronted with people and nightmares from the past.
Zara - literally 'birth of the road' - portrays Mirka’s quest to find the right way back to a wild past she hasn't come to terms with, and, she seems to hope, to a bearable present. Her Western companion wants to mirror her own traumas in those of Mirka and that's why she came with her.
This début by Ayten Mutlu Saray is a poetic meditation about the deep grievances of exile and the history of the Kurdish community that was forced to give up its own language and roots. Not only does the landscape seem to be filled with metaphors, the director shows important rituals and myths that underline the bond between the Kurds and their homeland and express his historic convictions. The gap between East and West turns out to be irreconcilable. Mirka’s companion dies, and burying her Western girlfriend turns out to be the first step on the way to the catharsis Mirka was hoping for. This serves to break through part of the isolation.
I was hoping that I would learn more about the history and the present problems of Kurdistan, but for me the movie was a big disappointment.

Liverpool (AR 84')
Liverpool starts on board a large ship on its way to the Argentine Ushuaia, the most southern city in the world. One of the sailors is Farrel, who tells the captain that he wants to take some leave there in order to visit his mother, whom he hasn't seen for 20 years. He disembarks and, like earlier heroes in Alonso’s films, sets off on his journey. On foot or in the back of a truck, he treks deep into the freezing mountains of Tierra del Fuego. The alcoholic Farrel keeps himself warm with booze - lots of booze - and falls asleep occasionally in strange places. Once he arrives in the hamlet at the end of the world, he finds his mother needy and dying, and he turns out to have a daughter too.
Liverpool has a rather more complex narrative structure than Alonso’s earlier films. The film doesn't end when Farrel reaches his destination. Nor does it end when the protagonist leaves again. And the sketch of the microcosm of the remote village is very hectic in Alonso’s terms.
It is apt that in the case of the apparently minimal narratives of directors like Lisandro Alonso, an endless amount can be written, said and, even better, thought, about issues that are not answered or shown - or not explicitly at least. Where is the daughter's mother? What does the title mean? Where does Farrel end up?
Though the story could have a lot of potential, I think that the movie is rather boring. The characters are way too far from my imagination. The pictures of the landscape are nice but for me that isn't enough for a good movie.

OV-chipkaart

2009-01-25T01:33:00.003+01:00

James came to join me at the festival on Friday evening. Though I had seen him the day before I was so glad he was there again. It seems that I have difficulties to be with out him. We saw two movies together (later more about those), and then I could use my OV-chipcard (a chipped credit card format plastic card to travel in Public transport in The Netherlands) for the first time. I'd uploaded € 30,- on my card and bought a new card for James. I must say that it was very unreal to travel with the card. You have to check in and you have to check out, without knowing exactly what the ride will cost, since you do not know how many kilometers you are travelling. When you check in you pay € 0,75 start fee, each kilometer you travel costs € 0,115. That might be more expensive then the old “strippenkaart” (a paper card that we use for paying for public transport right now). When you change busses or trams you have to check out first from the public transport you came from and you have to check in again in the new mode of transportation. Rotterdam was the pilot area to kick off the OV-chipcard a few years ago, so it is the first city that kicks out the strippenkaart in the subway now completely.

black days

2009-01-22T23:30:00.001+01:00

Today was a strange day. I should be off because this was my first day at the International Filmfestival in Rotterdam. But because I couldn't get everything done yesterday evening that needed to be done before I could go, had to log in at my work account this morning to get the rest done. So I started out with work. Then I packed my stuff and loaded the car and I drove to Rotterdam. On my way here I thought that I heard something strange. And yes I did: it seemed that the muffler was lose and needs to be replaced. (As I learned from James, the muffler had come of completely by now.) Add that to the rust I saw at one of the windows and you could say that the car is in a bad state, not to mention the costs. And speaking of costs did I write something about my dishwasher yet? No? Well, it seemed to be broken since it was leaking water and it wouldn't stop pumping. Well when the technician came the problem seemed to be over. He saw that there had been a problem and that I didn't make everything up, but he couldn't find the cause. Well it seemed we had caused the problem ourself when we didn't load it right. So the steam exhaust got blocked, pressure was building up in the machine and water was pushed out of it.

The Time of the Year

2009-01-20T19:19:00.002+01:00

Yep, it's the time of the year again that I pack my suitcase and take off to the International Filmfestival there. My friends Elly and Jaap are as excited as I am. They will host me for the next 9 days and they go to the festival as well. James will accompany me for 2 days in the first weekend. The poor guy has to work (since he had to use some of his vacation days for the intensive Dutch course, he is following right now. He is a little bit behind with his work, and has to catch up.)
I will try to post regularyly on the blog about the films I have seen. I have some good experiences with direct blogging in the last years. A few months ago I even got a reaction of one of the filmakers from last year, who commended on my entry about his film Men's Group.

Ich hab' noch einen Koffer in Berlin, ...

2009-01-01T23:25:00.004+01:00

I'll start this entry off on our way back to Zwolle. James and I spent the last four days in Berlin and are now heading back home. We are off for more then a week now and enjoy our time together.
Christmas we spent with our friends Arjen, Jos and Yaser. We were eating goose, something that has become a little tradition now. It was nice to spent the holidays at home, after I had one of the most stressful periods at work just the weeks before.
On Sunday after Christmas we took the train to Berlin. Pino and Frank were waiting for us at the platform already and when we got to Pino's house Christian had already prepared a wonderful meal (“happy meal!”) for us.
On Monday we took a stroll to the Potsdammer Platz, the city's center back in the 20's and 30's, and the Brandenburger Tor (with the new American embassy). James and I went to the Pergamon Museum while Christian, Frank and Pino did their own stuff. It's years ago since I was in the Pergamon Museum, but I still remember the most impressing artifact back then: the Istar gate of Babylon. And it made a deep impression on me again, but this time I was also amazed by the big section of Islamic Art. Some of the exhibits reminded me of the things I had seen at the Islamic Museum in Istanbul. The difference here was that many exhibits had images of humans, something that I hadn't noticed that much in Istanbul. In the evening we all had some pizza at the Prenzlauer Berg before we headed off to the Prinzknecht.
On Tuesday James and I explored the city on our own. We drove S-Bahn to Spandau and walked around in the old center. After that leisurely start we did some “hard history”. We went to the commemoration at Plötzensee. About 3000 opponents of the Nazi regime were brought to death here. We got some good insights on how life was back in the 30's and 40's. While waiting at the bus stop we met an old lady. She said she was 85 years old. She asked if we came from the commemoration, and then told us more about her experiences during the war. From Plötzensee we went to the former Checkpoint Charlie. History was covered there for the period right after the war till the unification of Germany. Of course the accent lay in the period of the cold war. Though we didn't visit the Mauermuseum we got a lot of information on the panels that were installed along the Friedrichstrasse, the street on which the checkpoint was situated.
To end the day on the sunny side we went shopping at the Alexanderplatz and headed home where an other wonderful meal made by Christian and Pino was waiting for us.
On new years eve we bought some bottles of Rotkäppchen sekt (sort of champagne), walked around the Kurfürsten Damm (the former center of West-Berlin) and visited the Gedächtniskirche, before we headed east to see the town of Köpenick. After a little detour we arrived home again where we were resting to be fit for the night. In the evening Krijn, Jan-Willem, Ollie, Andreas and Maurice arrived and all together we went to the bear-party in Moabit. Though all the bears were moaning and complaining about the party on the next day, James and I had a really good time there.
I end this entry with some words about the weather in Berlin. I must say that James and I were freezing our asses of when we were walking around the city. So we enjoyed every possibility to warm up in public transport.
Special thanks to our friends Cristian and Pino for their hospitality! I hope we'll meet again soon here in Zwolle.

Sorry, sorry, sorry,...

2008-11-30T17:01:00.003+01:00

I get complaints for not blogging and you know what guys, you are right. I should put more effort in this. I am shocked by myself that this is my first real entry in November.

To make things worse, this is not the only thing I am late with: birthday cards meant to be sent never got sent (sorry Ton!), phone calls meant to be done never were made (sorry mum!), books and papers meant to be read never were read, translations (German - Dutch) meant to be ready haven't even started (sorry brother!), plants meant to be in the garage already to protect them from frost never made it there (we'll see what survived next spring), and loads of other stuff I should feel guilty about.

James just said that I should blame him for the everything, but that would be unfair. I was really busy with all kinds of other stuff. At work we are getting new software for our registration and I am in charge to get it running in time. To make sure it WILL be in time I made a lot of overwork hours. My Italian course had an exam last week and I didn't want to be the worst student, though I might be the worst anyway. The yard and the house needed some attention. I was lured in to the purchase of a new telephone and it took quite some time to bail myself out of it again (maybe later more about this).

Next to all the obligations James and I did some nice things as well. Last weekend we went to Cologne for the Bear weekend. We arrived in our little hotel on Friday and after some light shopping we went to the big party in Gloria. It was nice to meet our friends there (Alain, Jean-Luc, Roland, Arjen, Joop, Mika, Uwe, Bert, Tinus, JD, Jürgen, Cees, and loads of others). On Saturday we attened the Mr Bear election and were disappointed about it as every year. But the show was great and though many people complain about it, I like the porgramm. Next to the peaople we met on Friday already, we saw Jos and Yaser, Jan and Timon, Torsten, Andre, Loe, Udo, Alex and again a whole bunch of other people). I could evensay that the two gatherings are mainly a more a social event then entertainment.

The downside of last weekend was the weather: when we went to Cologne it was stormy and when we left the city it was snowing. Especially the way back took us an hour longer then it would usually take. But we made it safe and sound - that's the most important.

Other pleasant things from the last weeks were of course the new episodes of Desperate Housewifes. I got James hooked on it as well. When he came to Zwolle he said that his only guilty pleasure was America's Next Top Model. After we downloaded and watched all that episodes (they even were in Amsterdam this summer), we now know that McKey, a deformed girl on the show with a mouth from ear to ear and legs that start right under her boobies, is the winner. ...and James states that I am as hooked on ANTP as he is on DH. (You wish, James...)

"Live Is Life"

2008-10-28T06:59:00.004+01:00

I'm living together with James now for more then two months, and it seems to be much longer. Living together with him just feels so natural to me, like I did it for a long, long time. James is not the guy who wants to change everything around me and that gives me the rest I need. He appreciates everything here: the house, the city, my cooking, our slow weekends, the series and movies that we watch together, our little trips, socialize with our friends, .... I guess we are pretty happy with each other and there's not so much more we need to wish for at the moment.

It's good that we enjoy each others company so much. Our days are pretty much the divided in two sorts: weekdays and weekends and both sorts seem to follow their own program. On weekdays we get up at 5.00 h. I'll bring James to the station here in Zwolle, where he takes the train to Dordrecht. While he is on the train I read the morning paper and have some time for surfing the www. I'll leave the house at 8.00 h for my busy job (I have a new director with new and good ideas sincs one month). When I come home from work I watch the news and make our dinner. James arrives at 20.15 h. We'll have dinner and we try to be in bed by 23.00 h. I still have my Italian lessons and the cinema, so that are two days that I am late and that I have to miss James. The last weeks I'm working 5 days a week and so does James.

By the end of the week we are both exhausted. We sleep in on Saturday and Sunday, have an extended breakfast and after that we do something useful in house and garden or tour around and meet friends.

So this is a short update of our life at the moment.

Vacation, vacantie, vacance, vacanze, Urlaub, ...

2008-10-12T23:13:00.005+02:00

It seems that I had only one vacation this year: my trip to the US. Of course that is not true at all. It was the trip that took me the farthest away from home, but James and I had a very nice small quiet vacation right after he came to Europe in August.

First we drove to Maastricht, the most "undutch" city in the Netherlands. Maasticht has Belgian flair and Dutch no-nonsense mentality. An ideal combination. We had of course our trip through the center and ate our obligatory vlaai.

Via the highest point in the Netherlands (Vaalse Berg), we went to Aachen (Aix la Chapelle). Aachen is the city of Charlemagne and we did the important sights that remind us of his existence, such as the incredible cathedral (Dom; see picture above) and the treasury of the cathedral with the famous golden mask. Charlemagne was in essention the first real European leader.

From Aachen we went to visit our friends Alain and Jean-Luc in Luxembourg. On our way we did a little detour to pittoresque Monschau and Malmedy. Luxembourg was great. Our friends took good care of us. The first night we went to the fairground (see picture of me with the pink unicorn bag) and the second day we got the grand tour. On both days we were spoiled with an incredible meal.

With some useful tips Alain and Jean-Luc send us on our way to see Metz and Nancy after the weekend. I had passed both towns on earlier occasions without taking the afford to have a closer look at them, but I must say that especially Metz is an incredibly beautiful place.

A 31 and N 57 took us further south through the Vosges Mountains to Belfort and the Alsace. We saw the church Notre Dame du Haut (Le Corbusier) and the tops of the Alsace mountains. Near Munster we found a nice quiet campground where we stayed for two nights. We toured around on both sides of the river Rhine. We saw Colmar and Freiburg and climbed (LOL) the tops of the Black Forest.

Via Strasbourg, Worms and the picturesque part along the river Rhine (where we enjoyed a wonderful dinner on a terrace just above the river), we found our way home.

Blogging, my last priority...

2008-09-21T15:16:00.004+02:00

Since James is here in Zwolle, blogging seems to be my last priority. Of course I don't want it that way, it just happened to be that way. Or as Harry brought it to the point: "I gave the two of you enough time together, now it's time to talk..."
Well let me start with the migration thing then. James arrived in Amsterdam right on time after an uneventful flight. (And I was there with the car after many traffic jams, right on time as well.) He had managed to sleep some on the plane and I tried to surprise him with a pick-nick in a park in Amsterdam (that I had prepared the evening before).
The next day we did all our migration stuff. Making passport pictures, register at the city and our appointment at the immigration service (IND). All went really pretty smooth. Right away James got his temporary residence permit and within two weeks James had his social service number (BSN). Right now he is at work for a week now in Dordrecht.
The only bad thing about the work is that is so far away. James has a horrible commute every day. We get up at 5 AM and I bring him to the station at 5.30 AM. If everything goes well with NS (Dutch railway) he is back home at 7.45 PM in the evening.

Almdudler substitute

2008-08-17T01:08:00.004+02:00

Those who have been on vacation in Austria might know Almdudler. It is a delicious lemonade made out of herbs. (For their official website click here.) Of course you can not get it outside of Austria :-( and especially not here in The Netherlands. Though tonight I found a good alternative: Mix a little bit of Amaro (Sicilian herbs liquor) with clear lemonade (Sprite) . Of course the result is not the real stuff, but it reminds me of Almdudler, especially since I hadn't had some in quite a long time.

Countdown

2008-08-17T00:40:00.004+02:00

Yes, the day that James and I are starting our live together is nearly there (and we came a long way). We are counting the hours (56) until we will be together again.
The last weeks/days were crazy for both of us. Well honesty commands that I should stress that the time was more crazy for James then for me. My task was only to make some room for his stuff and giving some moral support to my great partner. He on the other hand he had to quit his job, having issues with the place he wants to work for here in The Netherlands, end the lease of his house, selling some big things, packing all his stuff or getting rid of stuff he didn't want to keep. Last week he even had to tear down an entire wall in his house (to get it back in the original state). This week had had to drive to his parents in two days, unload the truck and getting some paperwork done there.
In the end everything payed off. He got everything done and he's got his job offer. Right now he has his farewell party at his parent's house. Monday he will fly to Amsterdam, where I will get him on Tuesday morning .... and our life together will start. James, I hope I can live up to your expectations!
After the paperwork here (all the appointment are already made), we'll start our life with a short vacation in The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France and Germany.

Bernard

2008-07-23T17:49:00.001+02:00

I found this cute bear while I was surfing on You Tube. Usually things end more tragic for Bernard.

Where to begin?

2008-07-21T22:33:00.003+02:00

That's not only the question I have to ask myself while writing this post, it's also a question of practical nature, that I ask myself more often in the last in the last weeks and that will pop up even more often as the date of James' arrival comes nearer. It's not that I didn't do anything in the last few weeks or that nothing has happened. In contrary, but all the things were not that big that they need an own entry here. But anyway let me try to get some logical order in everything.

Simone my boss announced, just before everybody went on vacation, that she had a new job (SHIT!). Of course I am happy for here, but the whole management team is not amused at all (to say use an understatement). Of course that only proofs that she did an tremendous job in the last two years.
I got a visitor for nearly three weeks an though Fran is a nice guy, I must say that 3 weeks is most definitely too long when I have to go to work and my guest is not able to leave the house on his own. If someone would come to visit me for such a long time he/she should be able to find his/her own way and get around. If someone on the other hand would visit me that would be dependent on me (for ideas, information, language, transport, ...) it should only be for a just a few days. A following time when someone comes to visit me (visitors are always welcome) I will be a bit more specific about this subject.
During Fran's visit we made it to CSD Cologne. It was nice see people there, that I hadn't seen for quite a while. One special friend I hadn't seen in quite a while and who was there was Aldo (looking hot as ever, LOL). Fran and I stayed on a campground in Cologne and I enjoyed it a lot. Well, .... except for the last night. That was a night from hell, since our air bed had a leak and we couldn't find it. Fran eventually found it when we were home again. I repaired it already. While we were in Cologne, Fran and I traveled to Bonn and Bad Godesberg. I had never been there and I liked the places a lot. They were further away from Cologne then I would have thought.
On the last weekend of Fran's visit I had an appointment with Erik in Amsterdam. Erik suggested it and I agreed because I thought it would help me to get over him and the break up. I hoped that I wouldn't be as scared as I was the last time when I saw Erik in Amsterdam, when I would run into him a following time. The meeting went well. Erik was quite nice to me, but I found out that I am still very angry at him. Talking about my anger didn't help at all. I only found out that we can not reach out to each other at his point anymore. So I guess Erik still thinks that he made the right choice based on the right argument and I slowly think that I can live with his choice, but I cannot agree with the arguments he uses. (And again, those reasons are real for him, I understand that, but since they concern me and my supposed intentions, I can only tell that they are wrong.) I guess that's a typical example of a black box: with the things he fills in for me I can understand the outcome, but the intentions he thinks I had were never in the box. So what will the future bring? In any case no more "love". "Friendship" will be only possible if I can master my anger. So I don't know the answer yet.
The breakup was at least good for one thing: it cleared the path that lead to James. I wouldn't have been in Phoenix in the first place if Erik hadn't dumped me and I wouldn't have been open for learning to know James if I still had had some hope that Erik and I could have come together again. I guess James and I can only that Erik that he made clear to me what he wanted just before I went on vacation in April. And maybe that is the hopeful thing about the whole story, now that I am so completely in love with James I might grow over my anger. We will see....
Since I have the house for myself again I start my preparations for James arrival. In only four weeks, he will be here. I cannot express my happiness, that all the waiting will finally be rewarded. I can't wait to start my life together with James. We both think that we will have a wonderful future together. James is very supportive, I found out especially in the last three weeks. I am very happy with his advise and moral support. James is very stabile, no mood swings, no unexpected moves, but unconditionally there for me. He is my man and I am very happy for that. I found my soul mate!

So far for now. I'm very tired. My eyes are closing automatically all the time and I can not concentrate on my thoughts at all any more. Time to go to bed. Maybe I will tell the stuff that I forget now, some other time....

Nothing but blue skies...

2008-07-12T00:25:00.002+02:00

Blue skies
Smiling at me
Nothing but blue skies
Do I see

Bluebirds
Singing a song
Nothing but bluebirds
All day long

Never saw the sun shining so bright
Never saw things going so right
Noticing the days hurrying by
When you're in love, my how they fly

Blue days
All of them gone
Nothing but blue skies
From now on

With this song by Irving Berlin, James had me crying this morning. He had recorded the song while he was singing it for me and he sent is by email. Of course I was touched by the fact that never ever had sung a song for me (and he was really good at it believe me) but I was also touched by the choice of the song. In fact I've heard that song quite often in the last few months since it is one of my favorites on The Great American Song Book from Rod Steward (ok, I know, please don't judge me just on that).

To the moon and back, and all around the stars...

2008-06-30T19:11:00.002+02:00

I guess it is impossible to tell anybody how happy I am that James and I met at the right time at the right spot. I think if I were to go three weeks earlier to Phoenix I would not have been ready to open up and even see him standing. I guess back then I was still hoping for a happy end for Erik and me, even though I probably could have known better. I'm not sure if anybody would have been able to open up my heart back then (certainly nobody who lived that far away from me, LOL). At this moment in time I am very happy that all the mist cleared up right in time to see my prince arrive.
James, I love you to the moon and back, and all around the stars.
Right now James and I are taking some giant leaps. This week he should hear about the job proposal from Dordrecht. But since we have our own itinerary as well (that hopefully goes together with the job proposal, but at the same time is somewhat independent from that), we made up our further plans to start our future together.
James bought his one way ticket for The Netherlands. He will arrive on August 19th and I have already made all the necessary appointment with the city and the IND. Only that gives us the security that James will have a Social Security Number (BSN) as soon as he is required to produce it (in case his job starts on September 1st).
My friends Joop, Guido, Harry and Leo give me all the emotional support, while Jos and Yaser in addition offered some practical help. (By the way Guido, do you work on the 19th? James arrives with a LH-flight).
As far as vacation goes for this year. I'm off when James is here for his first two weeks. If possible we will spend Thanksgiving with James' folks and stay a week to explore the gulf coast of Texas. We found some great air fares on the internet, I hope we can use them.

IND and stuff

2008-06-22T11:18:00.002+02:00

After all the bad news you hear about the Dutch Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND), it's time to write down some good experiences with the service.
Since James and my plan is shaping up quite positively (it seems that the people he spoke to in Dordrecht are really in to him: this week they let him know that they are willing to make him an offer), I got a little bit nervous about my own status here in The Netherlands, so I decided to go straight to the snake pit and find out. Last Friday I went to the IND.
For getting information it is not necessary to make an appointment. And while everybody warned me (confirming my own experience, by the way) that they were very bad in giving straight information, this time was perfect. At the counter I met a lady who, when she saw my German passport, said that she knew everything about EU-questions, "test me". Guess what, she was right. Since I am a citizen of an EU country , the Dutch government is not allowed to treat me different then any other EU (read Dutch) citizen. So that means that the same set of rules apply for me when it comes to forming a durable relationship as to Dutch people. Having said that, all becomes very easy. James as a citizen of the USA can come to The Netherlands very easy. The first day he's here, we can go for registration to the city (burgerzaken) and get a paper that proofs the registration. After having made an appoint at the IND we go there and they will globally check my citizenship. After that James gets a sticker in his passport thet allowes him to stay here with me and gives him the right to work. With the sticker we can go to the tax office (Belastingdienst) to get a social security number (BSN formerly known as SoFi).
En passant the lady slved my identification problem. She advised me take the creditcard shaped ID-card of the IND. It costs only € 30,= one time. The problem with the ID however is, that it is only valid for identification within The Netherlands, since the government is not allowed to issue ID-cards for EU citizens for use within the union. To make things clear the lady said that it isn't a residence permit any more but only an ID card.
So it became true what I always said: European integration is a wonderful thing, please let's move on with the process. If there was an European citizenship (in stead of the national ones) I would opt for that. I'd be proud to call myself "European" above all the other crap.

James in The Netherlands

2008-06-15T22:28:00.005+02:00

Last week I had absolutely no time to write something for my blog, because my mission was to spend as much time together with my lover James as possible.
James came here with some unexpected delay on Saturday afternoon. Before I got him from the Schiphol, I had coffee with my friend Guido who is working on the airport. Nice to catch up with him and a good opportunity to calm down my nerves (not necessary of course since everything went just fine after James had found his luggage).
James and I went home to Zwolle and I got him to sleep some hours. After dinner we had a beer in the center of Zwolle and we went dancing at the COC.
Sunday (it was sun all over) we took the route over the dike to Enkhuizen and the Zaanse Schans. In Enkhuizen we tasted the new herring and at the Zaanse Schans we took pictures of the windmills and lay a long time chatting on a deck at the waterfront. We finally made it to the Zeedijk in Amsterdam. It was a Sunday that should have a bear meeting at the Barderij, but it was not very busy. So after some drinks we decided to have a look at the city. While strolling through the old center we ran into Erik who had a drink on a terrace together with our friend Krijn. I was so startled by the unexpected encounter that I could only wave my hand (if I even did that). The funny thing was that James had seen him long before I saw Erik. He didn't say anything because he had only seen one or two pictures of him and thought he couldn't recognize him from that.
Monday we still had wonderful weather and James and I went shopping and swimming.
Tuesday and Thursday were big days since James had two job interviews. Both went surprisingly (for both of us) well. Since one of the interviews was in Amersfoort we took advantage of the that and went to see Utrecht. After that we drove to Deventer and had dinner with Leo at a Turkish restaurant.
Thursday evening we saw the cathedral of Cologne and Friday we visited the town where I was born in Germany.
Saturday (yesterday) we discussed our future plans and cooked a farewell dinner. While today was a sad day. We had to part again. I took James to the airport, went to Amsterdam, but I didn't like walking there all alone. So I went home and was back early to track James' flight back to the US.

You are the sunshine of my life...

2008-06-01T19:36:00.004+02:00

My very first aim was the Saguaro NP near Tucson. After visiting the park I took the very first motel of my favorite chain (Motel 6). I sent James an e-mail telling him that I was staying in a motel 6 in Tucson for the night. I was very surprised when the telephone rang an hour later. James told me he had called all the Motel 6 in Tucson and told me that I was not in Tucson but in Marana. That's why he could not find me at first. Thanks to very helpful employees of Motel 6 in Tucson he was able to locate me. Of course I hadn't expect hem to call me and when I told him, he told me that he even had planned to come down to Tucson for the night.

From that day on I kept James updated on where I was spending my nights and he would call me every

night and every morning (even with a time difference of 2 hours in Texas). How sweet is that?

Nine days (and 3655 miles) later I was back in Phoenix. I was a little early at James' house. He wasn't home yet. While I was cleaning out my rental car and got everything organized I heard a car with squeaking wheels turning into the street. It sped up and seconds later after driving at least 65 mls/h (in a residential neighborhood) it stopped right next to me. In the car with a big smile: James.

It goes without saying that we spent the rest of my time in Phoenix together. He even brought me to the Sky Harbor and waited together with me till it was time for me to go through security.

Meeting James

2008-05-31T18:48:00.001+02:00

Time to write something about James. So how did I meet James, who is he and what is he?
I met him at the first pool party in my live. The bear community in Phoenix has a circuit of pool parties, and I understood that Tommy's party is traditionally the first of the season. Tommy is a very sweet Southern gentleman, who had no problems with the fact that Kirk, Harry and Brian brought me to the party.
Since we brought also two different kinds of cocktails and garden chairs, we were the first to arrive. There was a lot of delicious food and drinks at the party and Tommy had that wonderful house with a lovely garden and a pool.
Tommy knows a lot of interesting people. I was talking to a couple of guys, that either I introduced myself to or was introduced to by Kirk: “Meet my friend Jörg from The Netherlands, Amsterdam, you know...” Mostly the other would say then: “Nice to meet you Jerk ... oh I love Scandinavia.” (From former visits I learned from Kirk that it was useless to tell them that I do not live in Amsterdam. “The Netherlands, wherever that might be is Amsterdam”.) Of course many guys have been to Amsterdam or were at least curious about that strange country where everything goes... So starting some chitchat is very easy after that information. I was really having a good time. When I wanted some rest at some point I was just floating in the pool and observed the crowd.
At some point we were in the phase of handing out jello-shots and jumping in the pool to annoy anybody who was in the pool with a big splash. At some point James came jumping into the pool and he came over to Kirk and me. I thought that he was a hot guy, but that he was with a lover, a guy who came over to talk to him. Well, anyway we ended up chatting with each other in a corner of the pool. Kirk had made his way back to the hot tub by then and finally it was only James and me. He told me that he would love to live some time in Europe and that he had thought about going to Belgium with his company. But most important of course was that we had a click right there and then.
We ended up spending the evening and the night together after he had promised to bring me back to Kirk's house the next morning. And he did. :-)
I was supposed to see him again if he was able to make it workwise the next evening at Charlie's (a famous gay bar with an outside patio in Phoenix). Needless to say that he showed up and that we spent an other evening and night together.
The next day I was supposed to leave Phoenix and visit the Organ Pipe Cactus National Park. Before I could hit the highway he told me that he had called in sick from work and how I would feel about going together and come back to Phoenix in the evening. So that's exactly what we did. Traveling together was most enjoyable, since we could make fun about all the agencies selling Mexican insurances as we came close to the border. Or what to think about our preparation for the park? James had read in the guidebook I had bought at Borders, that we could take the big loop, and that it would bring us to Quitobaquito Spring, a historic natural water hole that attracts more then 260 species of birds. We decided to see them all and count them. So how big was our disappointment when the Park Ranger (a hispanic boy of hardly 18 y.o.) told us that the big loop was closed because of “border issues”. So when James asked him what that would be, he kept repeating the those words: “Border issues, you know.” He recommended the small loop combined with a hike. And his solution for my disappointment for not seeing the lake was, that they had a pond (25 liters at the most) outside the Visitor Center. James' answer to this was only: “But will we be able to see more then 260 species of bird there as well?”. Well we had a great time in the park anyway. We were hiking to a hill and it was very nice out there. No snakes, no scorpions and no gila monsters.
The next day James told me that he still was not feeling very well and suggested that we'd go to Jerome, an old mining town in the North of the state. Of course that was only postponing the day of our goodbye. On Wednesday morning I left Phoenix to start my big tour.

Learn Dutch Fast

2008-05-20T01:55:00.002+02:00

In an attempt to learn Dutch, James came across this very funny video about learning Dutch curse words. Don't get tricked by the honorable lady with her pearl necklace, the windmill in the background and the duck you can hear. She is saying the most horrible things.

Have fun!

Hairspray

2008-05-19T23:31:00.002+02:00

Ok, I was bad in blogging the last few weeks, but I'll catch up with some stuff today:

The moment I arrived back from the US my neighbor Yoke was busy in front of her house and before I could enter my house I already heard the latest news. So I learned that night before my other neighbors had become grandparents. Their daughter gave birth to a healthy daughter names Aimee.

The day after my vacation I was found at work already. It was a short week only, since Monday May 5 (the day I came back) was a public holiday and the next Monday (Whit Monday would be a holiday as well). On the weekend of Pentecost I went to visit my friends Guido and Jelle in Amsterdam. I saw the musical Hairspray (the remake) with them and we felt like we were the only gay men who hadn't seen this movie. Guido had baked muffins and cake for our enjoyment during the movie (if that had been necessary). Anyway they were picture perfect, Bree couldn't have made them better.

After the movie I went to the Netherbears, which was quite interesting, to say the least. I met Leo, Hans, Niek, Gert and some others there, but I went home early since I wasn't feeling very well.

On Tuesday I had dinner with Leo in Deventer (Turkish).

On Thursday I was heading for Berlin. When Pino was moving to Berlin He couldn't take everything with him. So he brought one box of stuff to Zwolle and I was getting an other one at his former house before I went to the US. Now was the time to bring the content of the two boxes to Berlin. After a 5 hour train ride in a much too hot train coupe I finally made it to Berlin Hauptbahnhof where Pino was waiting for me. He took over his stuff and I was very grateful for that. The weekend in Berlin was quiet but very nice. (A picture will follow).

Today after a same 5 hour train ride I arrived back in Zwolle right in time for an other 3 hours work.

Leo as Queen Beatrix and Miss Rose Murphy as Princess Maxima (Queensday 2008, Enschede)

2008-05-07T01:18:00.002+02:00

Do all good things end?

2008-05-06T01:15:00.002+02:00

How could I ever have known that I really would come back from Phoenix raised as a Phoenix from the ashes. If you ever find yourself in a situation that you need some time for yourself go to the Arizona deserts when they are in blossom and enjoy everything you find out there.

Okay I'm on my way back to Amsterdam while I write this. At the last entry of my blog I was in Austin, TX. I went from there to Dallas. And before you ask, I missed the South Fork Ranch and Sue Ellen. I made it to downtown instead and saw the spot where JFK was shot.

In the evening I had an appointment with Tom, a friend of Rick and Derek from Butte, MT. Tom lives with his cute dog in a wonderful former warehouse close to downtown. Tom is a smart, good looking guy with brains and humor. We had an entertaining evening together.

Trough Fort Worth and Abilene I went westbound on I-20/30 to Grand Spring, TX where I left the Interstate. Heading North/West I reentered New Mexico and went to Carlsbad. Of course there is absolutely no resemblance between Carlsbad, NM and the original Karlsbad in the Czech Republic.

Near Carlsbad are the Carlsbad Caverns in a National Park. The caverns are famous for two things: bats and the cave with stalagmites and stalactites. The caverns are part of the Guadalupe Mountain Range, actually a prehistoric reef made of limestone. Since limestone can be solved easily in an acidic environment, that's exactly what happened and how the cavities in the mountains were formed. Carlsbad Caverns has two entrances a natural one that the bats use and that's how the caverns were discovered and one via the visitor center through an elevator that brings visitors in 87 seconds 230 meters below the surface of the earth. Down there is an unearthly atmosphere. The most beautiful shaped rocks and stalactites/stalagmites can be found there. The lightning in there was installed by a Broadway lightning specialist and makes everything even more dramatic.

Of course I took the natural entrance through the bat cave as well. Just before you enter the cave there is built an amphitheater where visitors can see the bats fly out of the cave when the evening falls. Millions of bats will come out of the cave at the same time. It takes them more then 20 minutes until they are all out of there. You can imagine that entrance stinks of all the bat guano there. Once I was beyond the point where the bats are the trail brought me downwards into the cave very quickly. After about one hour a reached the elevator and made made my way up to the warm sun light again.

The next stop was the Guadalupe Mountains NP back in Texas (“The proud home of our president George W. Bush”). I took a desert hike here for 3 hours along a party dried out river. It was a wonderful hike. I saw cacti, birds, lizards and even a small snake.

The last day of my tour I was taking the scenic route back to Phoenix. I wanted to visit the cliff dwellings at Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, but when I was nearly there I found myself caught in a big bicycle race: The Tour of the Gila. It seemed that I was driving right behind the first three cyclists of the tour and I some point they took me out of the tour. I had to wait for three hours to continue my way or I had to turn around and go back to the main road. There was no other way to reach the National Park. Since I did not have the time to wait for three hours I turned around, continued my way and visited a ghost town instead. The drive through the mountains of New Mexico and Arizona was spectacular to say the least. I went trough woods, followed little streams crossed big canyons and had great views along the winding roads. I enjoyed the ride very much.

Back in Phoenix I stayed at James' place. Together we went to the state capitol and the botanical gardens. And on Saturday we had lunch with Kirk, Brian and Harry at “Los Dos Molinos”. It was Mexican food with lots of Margaritas as you can guess by the name.

On Sunday James brought me to the airport (called Sky Harbor in Phoenix) and here I am Flying home to Amsterdam.

Halbzeit

2008-04-28T07:05:00.002+02:00

Those new technologies are amazing. Nearly all the hotels I stay have wireless internet access and that means that I can check my mail with my small iPod touch. Did I already mention that I simply love that thing? It is one of the best investments I made. Anyway I know now who at home is thinking of me and who isn't, hahahaha

Since I'm able to send emails, I'm also able to blog in its most simple way.

I'm already half way through my vacation. I'm in Austin now and since I won't make of to Galveston this will be my most Eastern point of this trip.

What did I see? I saw the organ pipe cacti in the national park of the same name (more funny stuff about about it later, for now I will only keep it to facts, because typing is rather difficult with the iPod) and I saw the saguaros I'm their own park. Of course there were plenty other species of cacti as well in both parks. A lot of them were blooming - very impressive. A blooming desert is so beautiful, I could have never thought about that.

After the parks on Arizona it was time to move on to the next state and its natural beauty. In New Mexico I made it to White Sands National Monument. The white sands isn't sand (quartz) at all but it is just gypsum. The wind blows the grains together in big moving dunes. Everything is white and even the animal have adapted to their environment. They have white mice and white lizards there. The monument itself lies in the middle of a big military base. It is the desert where the US tested their nuclear weapons.

Next stop was the Big Bend National Park in Texas. Here at the border to Mexico a good deal of all life depends on the Rio Grande. So sad to see that the Rio Grande now is nothing more then a 6 meter wide and 1 meter deep river. Even the Zwartewater in Zwolle is more impressive. They had a nice Canyon (Santa Elena) there, that I hiked in for 1 kilometer or so.

Last night I spend in a small hotel in Ozona, TX. Both hotel and town were horrible.

Today was the day of the cities in central Texas: San Antonio with The Alamo and the riverwalk, New Braunfels with its german roots and culture, and Austin the capital of Texas.

Arida Zona here I am...

2008-04-18T18:00:00.002+02:00

After a lot of delays and a day of more then 30 hours because of those delays I finally arrived in Aizona. Kirk was already waiting for me at the airport to give me a warm welcome with a big bear hug. Delta had informed Kirk that I would be delayed and he had checked the itinerary online so he knew pretty much when I was at Phoenix's Sky Harbor.
I remember telling Alexander that I didn't make it it Australia yet because of the distance and the long trip, well maybe I should go there on my next trip it can't be worse the this...
After a good night of sleep I'm rather fit now. I just met all the dogs (8), cats (2) goats (4) and horses (2). We are going to have breakfast now and then Kirk is taking me for some serieous sightseeing and we're going to a pool-party tomorrow.

Easter weekend (Pasen)

2008-03-26T22:52:00.004+01:00

My Easter weekend started on Thursday when my friend Joop, who lives in Spain, came to visit me with his son (Thomas) and his friend (Pedro). You can see all of them on the picture. We had a nice dinner and it was sweet to see how shy Thomas can be (he is turning 18 this year). Pedro is an amazing guy. Very intelligent and funny (like Joop). So we had all ingredients for an entertaining dinner. Too bad they all had to leave far to early on the next day (right after breakfast).

On Saturday morning I went to Deventer where I met Leo at the station. We had agreed with my friend Pino that we would accompany him a little at his move back to Berlin. Leo had bought a box of sweets from Leonidas (yummy) and we had the chance to sit all together in the train and talk. I was stunned when I heard that nobody of his friends in Amsterdam had gone through the trouble to bring him and his luggage to the station (something he had organized for Berlin). I felt guilty that I hadn't done it myself as I had planned initially. Leon and I had to leave the train at Hengelo, while Pino had to travel stil for an other four hours on the train.

Leo and I went to Enschede for some light shopping (we didn't buy a lot of things, we just were looking around). The best shop we found was "China 1000". It was such a pity that I didn't bring my camera. So many tasteless, tacky things in one shop: UNBELIEVABLE! We were laughing so much about the goods that the owner was relieved when we finally left his shop.

What's better then to visit a sauna when it's cold, windy and snowing. So that's what we did in the afternoon. We went to 't Bölke and dove into the steam bath, the hot tub and the swimming pool. I learned to know a nice older gentleman (Kees), who was there with his future husband. He told me about his interesting live and it seemed that he had been the main character in a documentary a few month ago.

On Sunday, Leo and I went to an other gathering of the Netherbears in Amsterdam. On our way there we met Leo's good friend Hans in Apeldoorn. The tree of us went together. The gathering started out very slow, but in the end it turned out to be a very interesting evening. I met interesting people and heard interesting stories. I am amazed how easy the atmosphere and the people are those gatherings.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

2008-03-26T21:53:00.005+01:00

On Saturday March 15, I saw a truly extraordinary performance of the play "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" by an amateur theater group (PlusLeo) in Deventer.
Not only was the play performed very professional it was also played at a very special location: a boat. The boat could only accommodate an audience of 50 people. The decor was wonderful: everything was white, the patients were in innocent light blue, while the nurses were dressed in a very powerful red.
On the website of PlusLeo you can see some of the pictures that were taken during the performance.

After the play, that I had seen with Leo (yes the one who was the "PLUS") and two friends of his, the four of us went out drinking and dancing in the COC bar (really nice!) . A perfect evening!

Like Phoenix from the ashes (or something...)

2008-03-22T10:57:00.004+01:00

Finally I booked my ticket for the planned trip to the US. I decided to travel the south of the US along the Mexican border form April 17 to May 4. I will fly into Phoenix and go south to the Organ Pipe Cactus National Park. From there I will travel Eastbound along I-10 and I-20 trough New Mexico to Texas (El Paso, San Antonio, Austin, Houston, Dallas).

On "bevrijdingsdag" (Liberation Day) I hope to be back in the Netherlands totally reborn and filled with a lot of new impressions and experiences.

Tutte Storie

2008-03-14T12:24:00.004+01:00

I wrote in my previous blog that I found out something about my family history. I want to write about it today.

My mother told me that she had respect for my deceased grandma Anna, the mother of my father, because she had a difficult life after the second world war. I was not sure if I heard it right, because as far as I knew (and had experienced until 1971, the year my grandma died), the two women didn't like each other at all. So I asked her about the story:

My grandma Anna and my grandpa Hermann had two children: my aunt Hilde and my father Karl. For some reason my grandpa had managed to stay out of military service during the war ... until the so called "Volkssturm" (lit. "Folkstorm"; "People's Storm" ). In the winter of 1944/45 the war was already lost for Germany, but Hitler didn't want to hear about it. He was calling for all men older the 16 to defend the country. Every village had to send in a certain number of men. In the village (Merkenbach) where my family comes from it was 2 men. Willy the husband of Anna's sister Lina was responsible for recruiting those men. ... and guess what, my grandpa was one of them. He left the village on 25 January 1945.

Members of the Volkssturm received only the most basic of military training. This included a brief indoctrination training, and then a training on the use of basic weapons. The weapons they received could be any equipment available. Often the weapons had been captured by Germany in her five years of war. Volkssturm units were supposed to be used only in their own districts, but many were sent directly to the front lines. So was my grandpa. He was sent to Pyritz (now Pyrzyce in Western Poland), where the Eastern front was at the time. We know he got wounded very quick and from there (half february 1945) my grandma has lost any track of him. The guy that left the village together with my grandpa got "lost" along the line and turned up after the war alive and kicking. When my grandma Anna asked him what had happened he always said he was fighting together with my grandpa until a certain day ... (something that wasn't true my grandma found out later, he never made it to a Volkssturm unit).

Till her death she was hoping to see her husband again, though Red Cross searches and own research had shown here that the chances to see him alive and well were zero. Unlike widows of "ordinary" soldiers Anna and her kids had to wait for 2 years for a war pension. Two yeas without any money. She was furious with her brother in law, who sent her husband away though everybody knew that the war was lost already. The reason for my mother's respect was that Anna was able to make it up with her sister and her brother in law years after the war.

Family ties (or how you can choose your friends, but not your family)

2008-03-12T23:55:00.003+01:00

Wednesday night time for some blogging.

As some of you know I spent last weekend in Germany. I was very reluctant to go and I was postponing the visit since Christmas. Now I felt I had no more excuses, I had to attend my brothers stepson's confirmation at church and the following party. I was afraid of questions about Erik, and I got them: people missed him and were asking me about him. But that was not the main reason why I was so afraid to go to see my folks:

My father died 18 years ago. My mother met a new partner a few years ago (4 years?). His name is Hans and the problem with him is, that he wants to be with my mother, but not with her sons, her family or her friends, while he expects her to be there for his family and friends. He uses excuses not to have contact with my brother, my mothers best friend or with me. In my case that would be that I am gay. Though my mother is pretty cool about my homosexuality, she tells me would say that he can't deal with it and that he doesn't wanna have to do anything to with me (nothing personally, of course ..... LOL). The worst thing is that my mother accepts all that rubbish, and though I think she felt all the time that I was not okay with that, I felt that I had to tell her as well. As you can imagine that is not a pretty subject to talk about with your mother, but last weekend I did. I felt I had to do that, no matter what here reaction would be. I can tell that she didn't like to hear what I had to say about it, but she also said that I was right, but that she feels that she has no other choice at the moment.

The other thing about my folks is, that my brother bought the house where I was raised (of course far below the real market price). My mother has the right to live there till her death. My mother on one side and my brother and his wife on the other side irritate each other a lot. My brother and his wife don't keep the house as my mother would do and expects them to do. It starts with cleaning, maintenance of house and garden and the contact with the neighbors. My mother on the other hand spoils my niece (her only granddaughter) and my brother and my sister in law want her to be harder for Nuria. When I come there they both want to drag me on their side. Something I don't want to of course.

Those are the little problems with my family in Germany. Sometimes I thin kit is really about nothing.

Three aspects were positive about the trip:

On my way to Germany I could meet up with my friend Joop, who lives in Spain nowadays. We were meeting in Eindhoven (with an other friend of his as well), where he was to celebrate his fathers birthday last Sunday with a surprise party. We could spend all afternoon together and in the evening we had dinner together as well. Time enough to catch up with things.
In Germany I did some shopping for stuff that I can't buy anywhere else. Bread, certain cheeses, toothpaste, and some stuff that's just cheaper in Germany like liquor.
I found out some surprising stuff about our family history in WWII. I'll blog about it later.

Respiro...

2008-03-04T23:09:00.004+01:00

Tonight I had my Italian lesson as every Tuesday night. Loretta, my teacher surprised me when she said: "How is it possible that your Italian doesn't have any German accent?" I told her that it was because I didn't breath German any more. She understood.... LOL!!!
Unfortunately she couldn't tell me which accent I had instead.

All quiet in the North...

2008-03-02T22:24:00.002+01:00

I enjoyed a weekend without any appointments, obligations or plans. I guess that's what made my weekend so productive: I did my tax declaration (I'll have to pay € 500,-) , sorted out my administration (was overdue since june 2007), slept a lot, made pictures (see flickr for the results), bought a present for my brother (I'll go there next weekend), saw a movie (an old Dutch one from 1968), watched tv (In Europa 3 episodes and the finals of Idols), ironed my shirts (I hate ironing), did some of my Italian homework (not enough, so I'll have to go on tomorrow), called my mother (and was disappointed as usual), gave some plants a now pot (and myself dirty fingers, LOL), had a pick nick on my zebra carpet (all on my own), read some "Moby Dick"(how boring but yet intriguing so far), found a reasonable priced flight to the US (but didn't book it, because I want to know for sure that I can be off from work), and did so many other things....

... give me reason, but don't give me choice, 'cause I'll just make the same mistake again...

2008-02-27T23:50:00.003+01:00

So where do I begin? I have neglected my weblog after I came back from the International Film Festival.

Many things have happened and I won't write about everything (even if they are important for me) because they are private as well. Besides if you are in closer touch with me, you know everything already anyway.

In a nutshell:

I visited my friend Pino twice in Amsterdam and he spoiled me with a birthday present (I use it every day, to remind me not to keep off the emotional roller coaster) and Pan di Stelle (the best Italian cookies). Finally i managed to get him the chocolates that I had bought for him when I was in Paris.
My FlickR-friend Guido made an effort and visited me here in Zwolle. We had dinner with some interesting talks about friendship, love and partnership. It seems to be my favorite subject lately, how is it possible? I must say all those talks with friends make a lot of things transparent for me.
We had our New Years Reception with the neighbors and founded a book club. We all have to read Moby Dick by Herman Melville now, so we can discuss the book in April.
I had a kind of a job interview at work for my own job. It went well. I can remain team manager. Further more it seems to rain complaints at the moment from clients. (They can't appreciate the report of our concerns to the child protection service.) Apart from the complains it's very busy at work and usually I'm happy when I am home ant there's not so much to do any more.
As I wrote before I started dating again with some men, but I'm very cautious and so far nothing irreversible has happened. (In other words: I'm not pregnant yet, LOL.) I just enjoy my dates and take it slowly.
Last Sunday I visited a gathering of the Netherbears for the first time. My friends Roland and Arjan had invited Leo and me to spend the afternoon with them in their house in Weesp (what a beautiful house!) and after dinner we all went to the Barderij in Amsterdam, where the happening took place. I'm sure I will go again an other time.
Aldo was in Zwolle two weeks ago. I finally had a chance to show him my town, though it is no comparison with Paris in any way. Aldo brought a very nice shirt, that Père Noël had delivered for me in Paris.
I got and still get a lot of support from all my friends: thanks a lot Elly, Jaap, Ton, Willy, Hensen, Arjen, Jos, Yaser, Peter, Harry, Gea, Ria, John, Paul, Natasja, Craig and all the others who stood open for my misery after the break up! And despite what everyone says I'm not sure that given a choice I wouldn't make the same "mistake" again (see title of this blog).
I realize that I split up my friends in two groups and though I do not want to do so, I see that I am cautious about the things I tell people that are still in contact with Erik. Not that I think that those people will talk about me with Erik or are not trustworthy any more, but I don't want to bring them in any tricky situation because Erik and I are not longer together any more. I realize that an attitude like that causes a distance between me and some of my former friends, but I'm not sure how to handle it in an other way these days. Hopefully things will change when my feelings for Erik have died (that's not the case right now) . I guess it's the same safety mechanism that I use to protect myself against too much pain, by keeping my distance to Erik as long as I can.
Apparently I'm not capable to by a ticket to the US (fortunately the exchange rate keeps being good for me), Sitges (thanks for the invitation Joop), Istanbul (sorry Harry, it'll take a little longer) or Rome (very sweet of Robert and Tony to ask me to come over and stay with them). I postpone my travel plans at the moment form day to day.

So far for now. No reason to bore you any longer with my little inconveniences.

To Blog or Not to Blog!!

2008-02-20T19:26:00.001+01:00

For my friend Pino:

...because it is funny to see him wrestle with this question on a regular basis.

Sakli Yüzler / Hidden Faces

2008-02-03T00:37:00.000+01:00

A Turkish movie about so called "Honor Killings", crimes committed to safeguard the family honor. The film starts out with a film in the film. A documentary about honor killings gives all the background information and tells a horrible example of these killing. Through the movie the family of a Zuhre, a girl who should have been killed by a honor killing, finds out that she is still alive. Her uncle wants to fulfill his task and find and kill Zuhre. A race against the clock starts with the maker of the documentary who wants to safe Zuhre's life.
A thrilling movie that addresses a problem that still exists in modern Turkey and in the countries where Turks live. Though the movies is shocking, I try to have no moral judgment on the subject. Something that is nearly impossible for me as "family honor" doesn't exist in my vocabulary.
Rating 10 out of 10

Margot at the Wedding

2008-02-03T00:28:00.000+01:00

When I met Ben from the Fraterhuis in Rotterdam he said, "oh you're going to see that women's movie..."
Margo goes together with her son to a place somewhere in New England to attend the weeding of her sister. She doesn't agree with with the choice of her sister regarding her future husband and as the film continues she doesn't agree with a lot of things her sister does. She interferes strongly with the live of her sister and later on in the movie with everybody around her. The whole time we see that her own live's a mess as well.
If you want to see unhealthy relationships between people and dramatic twists in the plot this is the movie to watch.
Rating: 8

Import Export

2008-02-03T00:12:00.000+01:00

The latest movie of Ulrich Seidl seems to be as strange as Hundstage a film I saw in 2002 on the IFFR. Seidl makes controversial films in which he gives his vision of Austria and Europe.
In this movie we see Olga who moves from a depressing place in Ukraine to Vienna in the hope to find a better future. She works in a depressing nursing home.
On the other hand we see looser Paul who does some strange business together with his stepfather in Ukraine.
The film is about humanity, dignity and moral values. But the style of the movie might not be very appealing to all viewers.
Rating: 7 out of 10

Ping Pong-Kingen / The King of Ping Pong

2008-02-02T23:57:00.000+01:00

Rille is a large, fat adolescent (16), who lives with his divorced mother and his younger brother in a small town in the North of Sweden. The only thing he feels good about is the ping pong club at his school, where he is kind of in charge.
Both boys adore their father, who works in the off shore industry and sees the boys once in a while. Then he's doing fun stuff with them like ice fishing or learning them how to drive a car. But the father has an other (irresponsible) side as well when he drinks a lot, introduces them to his ever changing future wives or when he makes up stories to impress his sons. The youngest boy is very impressed by that kind of stories, he hates his mother and her new lover. Rille is less outspoken and he wishes he could choose as unconditional as his brother. Competition and jealousy between the brothers lead to a bitter sweet end.
Rating: 8

Railroad Crossing

2008-02-02T16:00:00.000+01:00

One of those movies that better couldn't have been made because it is
extremely boring. This Spanish coming of age film is not only slow, I
couldn't discover any significant plot either. If I want to see shots
I'm a row, I prefer watching at pictures in stead of this movie.
Rating: 2

No Country for Old Men

2008-02-02T15:54:00.000+01:00

The newst film of the Coen brothers. An innocent man happens to
discover a drugsdeal that went wrong (all men involved and even the
dogs got killed). The guy finds himself to end up with a bag of $
2.000.000. Of course there is someone who's looking for the money: a
most violent killer. I really lost count of all the dead bodies in the
movie. My rough guess would be 50. Unless all the killings, the movie
has humor as well. My rating is 8.

Let the Right One In

2008-02-02T10:28:00.000+01:00

Swedish vampire movie with a lot of snow in a suburb of Stokholm. A light and funny movie, but nothing more.
Rating: 7

Trapped in a snowstorm

2008-02-02T10:23:00.000+01:00

Yesterday night after the last movie I found myself in bad weather, so
I thought I try to meet my friends at the Doelen, a bar during the
festival. I was lucky nearly all of them were there. While we were
sitting there (10 or 12 people) the weather got worse and worse.
Strong winds and heavy snowfall mixed with rain, made it impossible to
bike home. So we all stayed until 2.30 AM when they were closing the
bar. We had to take a taxi since the weather was still too bad.

Redacted

2008-02-01T17:37:00.001+01:00

Shocking reconstruction of the rape of a 15 year old Iraqi girl and
the murder of the whole family by a few American soldiers in Samara in
2006. The event really took place. Brian de Palma choose for a fake
documentary style for this movie. Real pictures of innocent Iraqi
victims are shown at the end of the movie.
Though it's a really "feel bad" movie my rating is 7.

L'ora di punta

2008-02-01T12:24:00.001+01:00

Italian movie about an ambitious business man, who seems to do
anything for his career: corruption, giving up love and even killing.
The movie gives a bad image of Italy as a corrupt country up to the
highest levels of society. Actually it is the second movie I saw with
this theme.
My rating is 7 but just because I still love Fanny Ardant.

Le Tueur

2008-02-01T12:12:00.000+01:00

Film with lots of surprises. A professional killer comes to Paris with
an asignment. The victim seems to know that someone wants him dead and
he finds out who his murderer will be. He even gets to talk to him.
Without giving away the surprising twists of the story I can't go any
further.
I like the film and my rating is 8.

Stellet Licht

2008-02-01T10:22:00.000+01:00

Mexicaanse film about a Dutch/German religious minority in northern Mexico. The community consists mainly of farmers.
The plot of the film is very simple: a farmer with wife and a bunch of kids falls in love with an other woman. The story unfolds very slowly with beautiful shots.
I can imagine that some people say that the story could be told in half of the time (that's true) and that they will not like this movie.
I like it anyway and therefor my personal rating is 9.

Magnus

2008-01-31T21:30:00.000+01:00

Movie from Estonia, that I'm not going to rate. A young man, who never
experienced any love from his horrible (devorced) parents. After his
so manyth attempt of suicide Magnus is going to live with his rich
drug addicted father. It's all filmed in depressing yellow, that makes
all even worse.
The film is mostly disturbing.

A queen's birthday

2008-01-31T14:14:00.000+01:00

Last night after my last movie I tried to find my friends Elly and Jaap, who so generously let me stay in their house during the IFFR year after year. Thank you so much guys!!! While I was searching them, I ran into Bauke and Eric-Jan (two guys I know through Elly, though Bauke seemed to be a former colleage of me from Delta/Bouman). They told me that my friends were both sick at home (eaten something wrong). I had to sit with them for some beers. While we were sitting under a poster of the movie Men's Group we were having our own men's group session. Eric-Jan was talking very openly about his relationship with his wife, Bauke talked about his deceased partner John. They wanted to know about the end of my relationship with Erik. We discussed the differences between gay and straight men. We talked about sex, attraction, falling in (and out) of love, love itself, bringing sacrifices in your relationship, the meaning of friendship, fidelity and much more.
When I finally came home Elly was still waiting for me to congratulate me with my birthday and give me a present. How sweet I'd that? Too bad that we didn't have time for the champagne, but we'll do that tonight.
This morning started out stormy. I wonder how I will be able to bike to my first movie without being blown from the bridge. It was nice to find a lot of messages on my phone (e-mail, SMS and voice mails).
Thank you guys!!!

It's Hard to Be Nice

2008-01-31T13:09:00.000+01:00

This film from Bosnia Herzegovina is set in Sarajevo. It's about Fudo,
a cab driver, who a small crook as well. When he decides to be a good
guy and when he wants to stop his small criminal activities he's
haunted by his past. The film has a lot of funny elements though it's
certainly not a comedy. Rating: 7-8

Avant que j'oublie

2008-01-31T12:58:00.000+01:00

Before I Forget is the last part of the trilogy of Jacques Nolot about
the life of an older gay man in Paris. (La chatte à deux têtes, a
film that Hensen gave me is an other title from the trilogy).
I'm not sure if I can call this movie depressing or hopeful. The film
is disturbing in a way. It just gave me a lot to digest and I'm still
not through with it, even though I saw the movie two days ago already.
No rating.

Out of Coverage

2008-01-30T19:23:00.000+01:00

Syrian movie about a man who works three jobs to support his own
family and the family of his best friend who happens to be in prison.
At one point he seems to be in love with both women, his own wife and
the wife of his friend. In the end he looses all.
Shocking in the movie is the women behave like princesses: always
demanding and always fitting on everything.
The movie was funny in a way, but not as funny as I had expected,
therefor my rating is only a 7.

IFFR info

2008-01-30T14:51:00.000+01:00

A friend asked me about some background information on the International Film Festival Rotterdam. The festival is the biggest single event in The Netherlands. The films in the program are mainly new films that were made in 2007 or even in 2008. The program consists of several hundred films. It is impossible to see them all. My highest score once was 60 long films (I don't count the shorts).
Some of the films have a Dutch distributor when they are screened here. They usually come in roulation right after the festival. Others don't have a distributor yet and other won't find one either. Documentaries usually belong to the last category, that's why I like to choose them here at the IFFR.

Meine Mütter - Spurensuche in Riga

2008-01-30T14:34:00.001+01:00

In his latest film Rosa von Praunheim is searching for tracks of his biological mother in Riga, Latvia. Just before Gertrud, the woman Rosa considers to be his mother, dies she tells him that he was adopted when he was a baby. The filmmaker starts a quest to find his own roots. In a documentary style the movie has to touch subjects as the german occupation of Latvia and the genocide of 97% of the latvian Jews. Above all he never looses his respect for Gertrud.
The film earns a rating of 10 out of 10, but that might not be very objective since I am a fan of the work of Von Praunheim.

Men's Group

2008-01-30T00:52:00.000+01:00

Authentic and realistic film about an Australian counselling group of
only men. As a former counseller of different men's groups in The
Netherlands it was an interesting movie for me. Interesting was also
the making of tv movie, because the actors didn't know how their
characters would develop. They got global instructions before every
scene and they had to improvise the scene. Rating: 9.

Estômago - A Gastronomic Story

2008-01-29T21:56:00.000+01:00

Rating: 9 for this wonderful film from Brazil. A movie about my favorite subject: food and it's preparing. Those ingredients mixed with a crime passionelle make the plot of this movie.

The Last Lear

2008-01-29T21:48:00.000+01:00

Indian movie about a famous actor who used to play Shakespear and is
asked to play a leading role in a bollywood movie now. The film has a
deeper layer about trust and friendship.
My rating is a 6 out of 10 mostly because of the bad English and the
lek of subtitles.

Trumbo

2008-01-29T12:54:00.000+01:00

The second documentary for today. This one is about the American screenwriter Dalton Trumbo who was imprisoned and blacklisted after being heard by the House Un-American Activities Committee. He was one of the "famous" Hollywood Ten that were suspected of having communist
sympathies. Any similarities with the US of today is not intended?
Rating: 9

Dagen Zonder Lief

2008-01-28T23:56:00.001+01:00

Belgian movie about the meaning of friendship and relationship. The former friends are 30something. If they have a relationship they are in deep crisis: jealous, unsatisfied or with a history. They are all in search of something they won't find.
According to the director of the movie this is very typical for his generation. A generation that can't be children any more, but that doesn't want the responsibility of grown ups either.
Personally the film seems to be the story of my life. Especially when I think of my last relationship with Erik and how of ended.
My rating is a 8.

La France

2008-01-28T18:14:00.000+01:00

Let me start with the rating: not more then a 3. A film about the WW1.
In 1917 Camille gets a letter from her husband telling her not to
write him any more and that she won't see him any more. Dressed as a
man she's determined to find him. On her journey to the front she gets
involved with a group of deserters.
What sounds like an interesting plot was worked out very surrealistic
and unbelievably (like singing the same song on improvised instruments
in orchestra quality on several times in the movie).

Paranoid Park

2008-01-28T15:39:00.000+01:00

Was it an accident, was it murder? A dead body is found on the railroad tracks near a skate park. The film unrolls the story in flashbacks and forwards seen from the perspective of Alex, one of the
skaters. What seems chaotic in the beginning all makes sense in the end. Interesting and surprising movie: rating: 9 out of 10.

Biutiful Cauntri

2008-01-28T13:06:00.000+01:00

Documentary about the eco-maffia in Campania, an Italian region. A
movie with a message, an inconvenient truth for authorities in Italy.
Interesting film and an even more interesting discussion with the
makers after the screening.

Mythia

2008-01-28T12:20:00.000+01:00

Gangster movie from India, where one of the bad guys is replaced by an
actor (who is also forced to do it). The family of the gangster/actor
doesn't notice at first and when they finally do a big slaughter
starts. All comes with a love story.
The movie isn't very good, but not boring either.

IFFR

2008-01-27T23:24:00.000+01:00

I made it to Rotterdam more then in time after a relaxed Sunday. Here I found Elly who gave me the key of there house. I got my tickets without having to wait. So it seems everything went right
until now.

Test

2008-01-26T01:42:00.001+01:00

Een test om te kijken of ik vanaf het filmfestival straks weer kan
bloggen.

Verstuurd vanaf mijn iPod

37th IFFR

2008-01-20T18:36:00.000+01:00

It's the time of the year again. Others go and celebrate Carnival, but for me it's time to go to Rotterdam to attend the International Film Festival (IFFR). This weekend I was very busy to make my own personal program for the festival. As usually I found it difficult to start with, but in the end I'm very happy and satisfied when I managed the problem again.
This year my program isn't as "dense" as it used to be in former years. I will start later (on Sunday the 27th January instead of the 23rd), and I skipped all the movies that seem "doubtful" after reading their synopsis. The result is that I have some "holes" in my program, but I will fill them with shopping and coffee, LOL.

Here's what I'm going to see:

Avant que j'oublie

Biùtiful cauntri

Dagen zonder lief

Estômago - A Gastronomic Story

Hidden Faces

Import Export

It's Hard to Be Nice

L' ora di punta

La France

Le tueur

Let the Right One in

Magnus

Margot at the Wedding

Meine Mütter - Spurensuche in Riga

Men's Group

Mithya

No Country for Old Men

Out of Coverage

Paranoid Park

Rail Road Crossing

Recycle

Redacted

Stellet licht

The King of Ping Pong

The Last Lear

Trumbo

Sick

2008-01-19T14:10:00.000+01:00

Last week I couldn't go to work because I was too sick. I didn't even attend my Italian lesson and that means a lot. Wednesday I went to the doctor. He gave me codeine against the coughing. I took the pills, but didn't really read the leaflet or what was standing on the package. So I didn't notice the yellow sticker on it as well.
In the evening I cooked a risotto and thought I should have a glass of the wine that I had used for cooking. Man, I could not understand what was happening: after just one glass of wine I was DRUNK.
The next day I understood. You shouldn't drink alcohol while using codeine. Or maybe you should, if you look for an easy way to get drunk.

Het tuinpad van mijn vader

2008-01-18T23:00:00.000+01:00

Toen ‘k langs het tuinpad van mijn vader
De hoge bomen nog zag staan
Was ik een kind. Hoe kon ik weten
Dat dat voorgoed voorbij zou gaan
[W. Sonneveld]

The father of Elly, a friend of mine from Rotterdam, died last Sunday. And though I was sick at home the whole week, I wanted to attend the cremation in Den Bosch to support my friend. When I came there I didn't seem to be the only only one who hag the same thought. A dozen of friends I also know by face and small talk had shown up to support her.
Elly was very brave, I thought. She was able to speak at the ceremony about her memories about her father. It was very touching (because it reminded me of so many things of my own live: my dead father, my youth, his funeral (and others), and death in general).
Apparently you can get 87 years old and even then it is much too early to cross the river Styx.