April 2006 Archives

Oh bliss, a whole day without working and the chance of blogging some inspiring work by somebody else. Found through the lovely artdorks. No working is exaggerated of course, so much illustrating creates a backlog of al sorts of very profane things. Like taxes. I'm running late on those. But I did discover why it is that everybody else with our kind of money drives around in big cars and goes on holidays a zillion times a year. Turns out I kept paying gas bills for our old house, more than half a year. Almost a thousand dollars. I am such a fool, I just pay any bill I find in my mailbox. And Michiel found a three year old cheque of four hundred that he never cashed. We could just as well be throwing our money out of the window. Never mind, we did have some laughs too, today. Nice anecdote. We went to the paint shop for a new shade of blue porch paint. We talked about house colours with the paint shop guy. One day, he told us, a man came into his shop and asked for the cheapest paint possible to paint his house. So he sold him a mix of all kinds of left overs, a hideous colour. The next day, the man's across the street neighbours came in, and bought a colour of their choice, they paid over two hundred dollars. The paint shop guy was asked to make the tins look real old and used. They then gave the paint to their neighbour, stating "Look what we found in our basement! Why don't you use this colour?"

And so my question to you is: "Did you ever spend or loose money in a really peculiar, odd, strange or plain stupid way?"

Elsbeth Etty compares Remco Campert's new novel to Philip Roth's Everyman. I will have to read both of them, although that might prove to be too much of a good thing for me. Old men, old men, and more old men. Willem will read them for me, he is the expert on the subject. I love Roth, but for example the Human Stain I could not endure, way too much old mennery. Prostate cancer and everything. I am not ready for that. I booked a flight for my lovely seventeen-year-old this morning. That is my phase in life, being the middle aged mother. Piffin will spend the Summer with the old man in Gorssel. She will have to endure her share of prostate cancer.

These are not changes, this is almost a new drawing. I have to take better care, some clients actually do have art directors, I'm spoiled in that department. And I just gave one tenth of the amount I charge for changes to two cuties collecting money for heart & stroke. If euro's were dollars, that is. No matter, I am going to hand over everything I earned in the last months to this guy anyway. Lucky him.

The column writer is on her horse again. Dining out with children is a nightmare. But even worse are child friendly restaurants. Children need to learn how to behave themselves. En garde! Otherwise they will even be a worse nightmare going through puberty. Because the whole idea of puberty is the consequence of Rousseau's ideas in the first place. Dear Mrs column writer... Did you know there actually are children in existence, on this planet, who are a joy to have around? Children you'd take anywhere, even to restaurants? When Piffin was still in Kindergarten we lived in Stuttgart, Germany. She had a habit of tricking us. She was soooo thirsty. So we sat down for drinks somewhere. And then when the waiter came, she would order Spätzle mit Sauce. Because it was her favourite dish, and because she looooved dining in restaurants. Where she behaved like an angel. Without parental training.

I guess this is all I did today. Except for my little mini work out, cycling to the Saint Lawrence market and back. I bought a 25 X 15 X 5 cm steak, which we ate with the four of us. Interesting butcher, I wish I wasn't too shy to take pictures of people like that. A southern European hunk with more muscles than his steaks, in an extremely dirty blood covered white butcher's apron. And shorts!

If there is any Dutch vistor at all. Who does not recognize this author. Then I am not doing my job. We had a lovely weekend in London by the way. Strange place. The only city remotely as ugly that I know of is Dunkerque. And London has not been bombed. Not this London anyway. But they must have had a weird sense of solidarity, because they voluntarily demolished their lovely town centre (we saw photo's in the museum), and replaced it with hideous hideous hideous buildings. And enough parking lots to give anybody agoraphobia. In one of the few remaining old buildings we listened to a clarinet recital of one of my friend Michele's students. In a beautiful little recital hall over a music shop. During the prohibition years an illegal dining room. Or drinking room, whatever. Very chique. I most liked Debussy's Première Rhapsody, but the professionals seemed to disagree with me. I thought it sounded like a score to an old thirties cartoon. But that is a very unprofessional observation. Christine also played Brahms, Srul Irving Glick, Jacques Hétu, and Luigi Bassi. All very beautiful.

From scratch in one single day. It doesn't show very well this tiny. Hurry hurry, the weekend is there. Piffin is seventeen today! She'll have a thousand friends over, so we -the rest of the family- are disappearing till Sunday night. Autoshare had a weekend special, so we are going to tour Ontario in a shining Toyota Echo.

This review is more positive than the two reviews I found online when I started drawing Kees Verheul. Very nice newspaper, NRC Handelsblad. Now I had never heard of Kees Verheul, and I only found ONE photo. I have no idea whether my drawing looks anything like him. His book is about a Russian poet, Tutchev. Now of Tutchev, I found lots of pictures. So I decided to make Kees Verheul look a little bit like Tutchev. Which gave me the perfect excuse not to draw him with his own impossible pair of glasses. Why do authors never buy themselves new glasses? They could start a museum together, the lot of them. Next week an old man again. With glasses. But this time a very very famous one! Enough references at least. I even met him once.

I am still so very glad we moved from the boring 'burbs to the roaring downtown. Almost downtown. One of the reasons to do that was my work. I go crazy working at home, not speaking to a soul. Except the children. But lovely old Chinatown! I walk out to eat an apple, Kristin needs garden waste bags. We go have dinner at Mimi's, Jef comes in with a friend and joins us. And tomorrow morning even better. An actor neighbour is auditioning to play a character with a Dutch accent, and I'll help him rehearse. Never a dull moment in Riverdale.

I wouldn't mind drawing an author younger than sixty next time. Not that I have anything against old men, but I'd hate to become a specialist on the subject. And now for a little fresh air and sunshine. Before I look like I'm over sixty myself. From lack of movement and snacking at the computer. Current buns with salted butter and aged Gouda. Côte d'or. I'd better go jogging. Only I promised my kids to never ever do that. Because it makes me looks like a kangaroo trying to take off.

The weblog will be extremely boring this week, stay away, stay away. I'll be posting all right, I'm extremely busy. But I doubt I'll have very much to say. I don't have much to say now. And it's my biiirthdaaaaaayyyyyy. Ineke came for tea, fortunately. And Michiel came home early. And I chatted away with Jef, who was creating a strip of garden along the parking spots next to our house. Good for him! Now Graham's Porsche will be even prettier.

Not more than this little sketch today. Michiel started the revovation of The Porch. As my birthday present. Demolished all the non original parts, broke wood/soil contact, rented a monster sander. Bought paint. Which was the hardest part. We wanted blue. We agreed to this blue. Took the book to the shop. Selected a matching colour. Which was green! Decided that it matched, so it had to be right. Painted one step of the stairs. Way too green!

Harrie Geelen wrote the script for my favourite TV series, Q&Q. So he can't really do anything wrong with me. He also wrote Oebele and "can you show me the way to Hamelen", but I think I was already a bit to old for that one. My best friend even played in Oebele, but I didn't know that then, because I didn't know her yet. And it's absolutely trivial as well, that I know somebody who played in Oebele. But why is that trivial? Janet Luis accuses Harrie Geelen that the "aunts and uncles" in his short stories become a parade of idiots, that the stories lack cohesion. But isn't life itself a parade of idiots? Brace yourselves for the day I am going to write about aunts and uncles! I find it annoying when books are written with deliberate cohesion. They sometimes make me feel like I am being fooled, directed onto the wrong track, and then, surprise surprise, a climax. I am always very dissappointed when a book I really like suddenly starts to build up to a climax. So predictable as well, makes me feel underestimated. But enough rattle. Into the kitchen. We have a bunch of neighbours coming over tonight. And stupid me, I didn't think of good friday. All the shops closed!! Except Chinatown of course, but I wanted rosemary, decent potatoes, a nice roast, anchovies and olives. Fortunately I found business as usual in Greektown, they have a different calender, their easter is next week. I guess Jesus died twice.

Held could do no wrong. People would send him blank checks begging for an original drawing. In the latter half of the decade he appeared regularly in a half-dozen magazines, designed sets and costumes for Broadway plays, had two newspaper strips [Margie and Rah Rah Rosalie] and ran for Congress. In 1930 he wrote Grim Youth and had his famous woodcuts for The Saga of Frankie and Johnnie published in a limited edition. They turned up a generation later in the first issue of a new magazine called Playboy.

I don't have people sending me blank cheques yet. And I promise you I won't ever run for congress. But I am doing my first magazine pages in a long time. And believe it or not, for the first time in a genuine women's magazine. I turned down a few of them in the past, because they offered less money than Piffin gets babysitting. I guess Piffin's babysit money is my rock-bottom illustration fee. Mind you, we live in a good neighbourhood. And so I am diving into the world of women's magazines. Starting with John Held Jr. who is well worth a Google search or two. He drew "flappers". Now I had never heard of flappers, I learn something each day: "A young woman, especially one in the 1920s who showed disdain for conventional dress and behavior." I found the image above researching my topic. Intuition!

Of course the column is very dismissive of parents who have their children tested for the whole medley of things you can have them tested for. But try to not have them tested, I say. Try to defend yourself against teachers who suggest (of course they always only suggest) every learning disability they can think of. Ours both had dyslexia at the very least. And autism, and dysgraphia and a whole bunch of others that escape me right now. Probably my brain dysfunction. But in the end they settled for weird, I think. After they slided out of all the graphs. Untestable, our kids. Halleluja.

Look what happened today!

Dear boys, 1973

Holland's unrivaled greatest author died last night at the age of 82. I have no idea whether I get to do his portrait in the newspaper. But even if not, I'll have paid my own tribute today.

The horse is for Willem.

Today, I made Michiel very happy with a birthday present. We made him guess last night, with a line of praise from the back cover, but he didn't guess right: "Here is a book that will last, that you will reread all your life and then pass on to your grandchildren. Or ask to be buried with."

Tom Teicholz in the Jewish Journal also puts it nicely:

Reading "The Collected Stories of Isaac Babel" (W. Norton & Co., 2002) in paperback, edited by Babel’s daughter, Nathalie, got me thinking about Jewish gangsters and tough guys.
Babel was born in Odessa in 1894. He wrote of Odessa’s Jewish underworld and its gangsters in sparkling prose. Fifty years before Mario Puzo gave us "The Godfather," Babel offered up Benya Krik. Benya, Babel tells us, had "gangster chic" — a century before Tupac took the stage. Babel’s Odessa was home to a universe of Jewish murderers, pimps and crooks. Before there was 50 Cent, Babel wrote of a millionaire named "Yid and a half."

But the real credit goes to the unsurpassed Arnon Grunberg, who pointed out this book to me in the first place:

In a quote from the short short "At Grandmother’s," the grandmother says to the narrator, who might or might not be Babel, “You must know everything. Everyone will fall on their knees before you and bow to you. Let them envy you. Don’t believe in people. Don’t have friends. Don’t give them your money. Don’t give them your heart.”
Over money and a heart, I prefer Babel’s stories.

The last push towards the bookstore was the title of one of Babel's stories: "The story of my Dovecote".

And Now for Something Completely Different. Just so you understand exactly how Canadian our son is becoming. He accidently saw a brief moment of (field) hockey on Dutch (online) TV. He pointed at the screen and bursted out in laughter. Is *that* supposed to be hockey?!!!! How are they going to hit *anything* with those sticks?!!!

I would rather have drawn Tommy Wieringa, in the article to the right of Joke van Leeuwen. I just looooved Joe Speedboot. I have tried Joke van Leeuwen's poetry, honest to god I tried. But it's not for me. And it's not my call. Men are easier to draw as well, I don't know, they're easier to flatter. Their beauty is hidden in different features, not in the millimeters, like in women. I find. My own husband is very beautiful today. I wanted to take a picture, but he wouldn't want me to post it anyway. He has a lot of meetings today, and he and collegues went for a practical joke. They agreed to all appear in suit and tie. Which is extreeeeemely unusual for them. In the past weeks Michiel has been going to work in a velvet jacket, that I made him buy at Value Village. His boss told me that Michiel looks like a rockstar in it! The suit and shirt he is wearing today are Value Village as well, but you would never tell. Especially because he compensates them with a million dollar Paul Smith tie.

Found this card between the litter in my front yard. "Have a daisy of a day!" And now of course, you are supposed to comment: "Oh, I sooo needed to hear this, thank you, you are such an inspiration!" Why don't I get comments like that? I was contemplating something along those lines with a fellow Canadian blogster today. Could well be I am reading the wrong blogs, I am something of a masochist. But I never read them like that in Dutch. Maybe I am better at finding Dutch blogs, who knows. But it could be cultural as well. Maybe North American commenters are sycophants, and European ones criticasters. Criticism is tricky in North America, people are spoiled by positivism. Everything is great. Which is nice, in a way. As long as you don't believe a word people say.

Sometimes though, admiration is more than justified, here's an interview with somebody I really admire. I wish newspapers had this much time: "It takes me a couple of days to finish the piece, and I'll sit on it for a few more days before taking another look with fresh eyes."

Ready before the children come home. A necessity too, Piffin's teachers are ringing the alarm bells. Mother to the rescue. If there is anything to rescue. I am going to sit on top of her for the next six hours or so.

She needs more hair in front of her eyes, and a more expressive mouth. I should trust myself to exaggerate more. Weatherwise it was a strange day today, we had all seasons. This morning it was pooring sunshine, and in the afternoon we had hail and snow, and freezing wind. I noticed, because I actually went outside. Othodontist, science fair. The science fair was fun. Most kids had really worked their butts off.

I heard Luv is reuniting. A real life soap, what else. Imagine how old those botox victims are now, looking at my blossoming youth above, imitating Luv with my friends. Mind you, this was just the rehearsel, we really did pull that trick in a bar. "Het keteltje", I had completely forgotten that, but one of these girls googled me a while ago, and together we stirred up some memories.

This is an illustration in a regional newspaper, De Stem. In Breda, a small city in the south of Holland. I have nothing against small town newspapers, I wouldn't work for them if I had. But by Pete. Now they forget to credit me. And I am quite sure they won't even grasp why I mind. The NRC once payed me "name damage" volontarily, for a spelling error in my name. Very sofisticated newspaper, the NRC. I am sophisticated too, I'll credit Eefje, for sending me the scan. Thank you Eefje! And now I am going to cook and bake, and bake and cook, and broil and grill. On my new stove!

Update: Just found out it's okay after all. Name is in the colophon.