May 2006 Archives

She is up in the air, our darling. More than two hours delay due to thunderstorm and even tornado warnings. We have been thinking about her all the time, but she will have been blissfully unaware of that. Good thing her friends gave her two books to read yesterday. Piffin will be in Holland until August 8, never in our lives were we without each other for so long! But Willem has been missing her for much longer, so it's only fair. I remember the first time I was without her. We were living in the south of France. I was illegally accompanying Michiel on his international post artschool CG course, and my social worker called me in for an interview. Of course he was not to know I was abroad, so I took the night train to Rotterdam, sat trough the interview with leaking tits and took the night train back. I pulled the same trick when the course had moved to London, England. Only then I took a plane. Ah, the sins of one's youth... I hope Piffin's plane to train transfer in Amsterdam will go easy tomorrow morning. No scary junky pickpockets robbing her of her money and her return ticket, o nightmare...

Finished very late on this hot and sweaty night. And then I quickly check my mail before uploading my drawing. And I choke:

De maandelijkse Dutch Treat borrel komt iets eerder dan gepland vanwege de start van het WK op 11 juni en een speciale gast uit Nederland. Aanstaande dinsdag komt namelijk onze Nederlandse minister van integratie en immigratie, Rita Verdonk, gezellig bij Dutch Treat een borrel drinken. Aangezien wij allen specialisten zijn op het gebied van immigratie en integratie hebben we voldoende stof voor een informele discussie.

Translation (it's after midnight, bare with me):
Our monthly Dutch Treat gathering will take place earlier than planned because of the start of the soccer world cup on June 11 and a special guest from the Netherlands. This Tuesday our minister of xenophobia, Rita Verdonk, will join us for a relaxed drink. And because we are all experts on immigration and integration we will have plenty of topics to discuss informally.

I absolutely do not want to speak with this woman. Or should I? What do you think? Tell me, please.

Dit is fragment nummer 26 van het boek "Wembley" van Richard Osinga. Ik heb het pallet bijna leeg wannneer er een toeter gaat. Uit de andere deur van de hal komt Greuter samen met drie jongens, een Afrikaan en twee Arabisch uitziende mannen met kleine krulletjes en een snor. Ze groeten me en ik loop achter hen aan naar de ruimte waar de overalls hangen en de witte laarzen staan. Ze gaan zitten aan de lange tafel en pakken eten uit plastic tassen. De vrouwen van de inpakafdeling komen binnen en gaan samen aan een hoek van de tafel zitten. De twee magere vrouwen pakken brood uit hun tas. De dikke vrouw met het korte rode haar drinkt alleen een witte dikke drank. Ik ben de enige die niets heeft meegenomen. Leolo had niets gezegd over eten en ik heb er verder niet over nagedacht. Greuter, de Afrikaan en een van de Arabische mannen geven me een dubbelgevouwen stukje brood. Er zitten kleffe plakken kaas tussen. Het smaakt zoals het eruitziet, plat en geel. Ik eet de broodjes die ik gekregen heb op. Ze smaken niet alleen nergens naar, ze vullen ook niet. Alleen het brood dat ik van de Afrikaan heb gekregen heeft een volle, hete smaak. Waarom eten deze mensen deze smakeloze broodjes? Hebben ze geen geld voor warm eten? Ze werken toch? Ze hebben geld, dat kan niet anders, meer geld dan je ooit met het verkopen van sigaretten zou kunnen verdienen. Naar het begin - Doe mee - Lees verder >>

Dutch author Richard Osinga's third book is coming out June 1st. And he is putting the whole thing online, in chunks, on everybody's weblog. Fun! He needs 300 of us, so participate!

See my beautiful daughter. I think it is mighty courageous of her to be this different. All the other prom girls were dressed in pink and baby blue satin, some of those dresses true atrocities. I saw some of them when I took Piffin and her date to the prom in our mini-limo. And I failed to take pictures there, I am so sorry. Our red mini in a line-up of stretched limousines. All the way in Mississauga, in the thick of Friday night rush hour, it took me over two hours to get there and drive back again. In an extremely nice little car, so it could have been worse. Drifting off. The atrocities. The black guys were to die for though, white suits, white hat even, black shirts and flower corsages. Wow. But the girls! I told Piffin's date to go barefoot before her feet would start bleeding. Knife sharp brand new black two sizes too small lacquer pumps. I already bleed... she said.
I have some photo's I can show with Piffin's permission: This photo could be straight from a Douglas Coupland novel I think. Very prom. This photo shows some more chique. This photo shows what fun you can have without a drop of alcohol, and this photo shows the real limo that took them to the after party. An after party at the house of one of Piffin's classmates. They had all put money together to get the parents a hotel room for the night. And my beautiful daughter was home safe and sound around 10 o'clock the next morning. Public transport, no limo, no mini.

Ilja Leonard Pfeiffer on Ramsey Nasr, wow. I gave them a second version of this drawing, with better contrasts, but they didn't use it, damn. The change did a lot for the likeness. Here's the better version. I guess they just didn't see the difference, I should have given the file a different name, which I didn't, stupid. Anyways. There are more important things. Piffin's prom. She's going for prom king, yes king, not queen. I'm helping her sew a pair of pants out of some wild Value Village dresses, and she took apart a blue velvet jacket and put it back together with all the seems outward. She bought very cheap pumps and painted them. Looking good. All the other graduates will arrive at the prom in stretched limo's. So Piffin had me rent a Mini Cooper for her and her date. I hope to post some pictures tomorrow!

I nosed around a little more on the website where I found yesterday's newspaper article. It's a website with old photo's of my native city. And I could swear I recognize this fish merchant. I think his name was Thij or something equally one syllably. Every Friday, with me on the child's saddle, my mom and I cycled to the market to buy fish. The street was paved with large cobble stones, the edges with smoother red clinkers, for the bicycles. I remember that. She died young, at 43. In the StJoseph's hospital. And that's exactly where my doctor is sending me now, to the StJoseph's hospital. Only it's in Toronto. Freaky. They renamed the old StJoseph's hospital Maxima Medisch Centrum, after our new princess, so it's a good thing I can go here. I'm having all sorts of tingling and squeezing sensations checked. Too much computer probably. But the doctor said I am young, but not that young. So he wants to rule out a whole list of terrible diseases. He said I am too old for MS, that's reassuring.

I bought myself a new pair of jeans today. In fact I bought two pairs, but that's beside the point. I also bought possibility of an island. Neighbour Kathryn came home from work, saw me sitting on the porch, and instantly noticed I was wearing jeans. "Hey jeans! Now you're becoming Canadian! Jeans! What's next?" Certainly Kathryn, nobody in Europe wears jeans, we're way too sophisticated. Funny, the way Canada looks upon Europe. It's always Europe, they never single out countries. And when they say "European" they usually just mean great or beautiful or cultural or of good quality. "Ooh, I just looove that colour, sooo European!" On the radio I once heard something about a person speaking English with a European accent. Lovely. But, dear fellow Canadians. The image above is proof we chique Europeans already wore jeans as far away back as 1965. I remember it well. My brothers were extremely cool, they were among the very first jeans buyers. Can't have been 1965 though, we are going to have to add a couple of years here. My stepmother covered the furniture with plastic. And she wasn't on the scene yet in '65.

I spilled wine on my keyboard yesterday, and now my "o" is stuck. I had to type the word "shoes" three times, damn. It's al right if I just bang all the keys extremely hard, as if I am angry. Which I am not. The [ is stuck as well, which is a drag, because it is an important short cut. My weekly drawings are done early this week, because there's a bank holiday in Holland. f curse in Holland, they did not consider Victoria day. Never mind, I'll celebrate ascension day all on my own in Canada. Oh yeah, the clumn is about children wh cannt decide n the clur f their shes. The clour f my shes is the least of my wrries right nw. I want my keybard to wake up.

Very late with uploading my work today. I didn't even work late, we went out. I hardly dare admit it, but hey, Jeff gave us free tickets. All four of us went to see the musical Hair. What can I say, at least it wasn't the Dutch translated version. It was the first time in my entire life I ever saw a musical, and it confirmed every prejudice I had against musicals. Hair high and low, yeah right. The actors were wearing very un-1968 jeans, with very 2006 trimmed pubic hair. I guess the costume designer was born way after 1968 as well. And the set designer. And I do think the original version must have had more nudity in it. With pubic hair. Poor kids, they had to smoke all the time, that must have been a new expirience for them.

Drawing a supermarket is not easy, it took me a while to figure out how I was going to approach things. Looking at lots of pictures of supermarkets, I found that they always show a lot of ceiling, so I drew ceiling too. (Example) I think it it works, the ceiling suggests a lot of space. I chose not to draw the best part of Laura van Zuylen's article, I did not want to give away her punch line in the drawing. I can do that now. One christmas eve she was so hung over from partying, that she threw up in a plastic bag, whith the customers waiting in line. Imagine that from the customer's viewpoint!
Notice how they matched the colour of the typography with my drawing. I like that. And they put me between the queen and Ayaan, I like that too. Big version.

The inconceivably erudite Elsbeth Etty and Kluun. The outcome was predictable. I sometimes read his weblog, and I find the little bits and pieces he writes there amusing enough. A whole book would certainly be torture. As I said before, Kluun is from my part of the country, and it wouldn't even surprise me if we would be second or third cousins. My past is full of Kluuns, I would probably feel more at ease in his company than in Elsbeth's. Kluun's debut was a vast bestseller. However unlikely maybe, for a flat scrubbing brush from Brabant, as Elsbeth calls him. But he is not the first or even best bestseller author from Brabant. The best sold book ever in Dutch literature is Beekman en Beekman by Toon Kortooms, who must be Kluun's mentor. The title of Kluun's last book was a pastiche of a Kortooms title. I hereby confess to have read piles of Kortooms in my younger days. They made me laugh uncontrollaby, but they also made me understand my father's past. Maybe for a future generation, Kluun's book will serve that same purpose.

Disclaimer: the similarity of the chin with some other part of the male body was unintentional. Coincidence is the artist's best friend. Click.

And a thank you to Willem for the picture of nrc.next.

With apologies to Geleynse and van Tol for changing a character in their cartoon. But tomorrow I'm making my debut in Holland's hippest newspaper! (Which is, dear non Dutch reader, the tabloid morning edition of the earnest old NRC Handelsblad.) They gave me three hours to turn my this week's black & white author into full colour. The other way around I knew, this exercise was new for me. Next week I'm doing a young and hip author again, should I anticipate a coloured version?

I did sort of see it coming, but I had decided to hang my laundry in the back yard and you know me. I do what I say and I say what I do. The soaking laundry is still in the back yard. Michiel came home soaking, and almost hit by lightning on the Don Valley bridge, he said. Piffin came down from her attick loft a little white around her nose, while Otger and I were still playing chess on the porch, watching the water come down like gun fire. Thunder and lightning so loud and simultaneous that car alarms kept going off. Michiel climbed our garden gate to unblock an eavesdrop. Neighbour Greg went on his roof to unblock an eavesdrop. Neighbour Bryan climbed his ladder to unblock an eavesdrop. Neighbour Bryan is going to call Paula Fletcher. Neighbour Bryan, us, a very nice Vietnamese family and the slightly strange neighbour Carl share a laneway. Nobody knows who owns the laneway, so we think it must be the city. But the paving is in a terrible shape, and all the water on the laneway ends up in our basement. The laneway is full of potholes too, if we do nothing, our neighbour's cars will end up in our basement too. Ours is the only house directly on the laneway. So now I gave neighbour Bryan a gallon of green paint to paint his deck chairs, he gave me a plant, and he will call Paula Fletcher to get the laneway paved. Excellent deal, I hate phone calls. Don't you ever call me. Certainly not about paving.

They're hanging on my studio wall more or less like this. Studio wall sounds too important, I could say living room wall, but that sounds too homely for how it looks. Eighteen was important to me, I missed a corner with seventeen. Very annoying. But now we are eighteen. Or twenty four, depends how we count.

This is a hard head, I sketched it six hundred times. Then there is likeness, and the next moment it's gone. Tiresome. I carry on accompanied by developments that unfold by the hour, getting more and more unsavoury by the hour too, unfortunately. I have never agreed with Ayaan on anything at all, but the greediness with which the riff-raff is demanding her head all of the sudden is plain disgusting. And the single-minded, solid, static, stern, strait-laced, strict, stringent, unalterable, unbending, unbreakable, unchanging, uncompromising, undeviating, unmoving, unpermissive, unrelenting, unyielding minister is only too happy to oblige. Why on earth Ayaan ever joined the same political party as this minister beats me. And why in the hell she is now going to join Bush will for ever remain a mistery to me. Maybe she will be a born again christian, everything is possible.

The title of the article is a quote from Margriet de Moor's new book, I can't help it: "Decisions start to push through their intentions as soon as you have taken them, like pigs that were already laying and waiting for their bucket of swill". Willem temporarily had the book this week. He has a friend who works in a bookstore. If I need to know more about a book, she just brings it to him after work, and picks it up again the next morning. Willem read to me from this book, through Skype. Not exactly this sentence, but we had a lot of fun. What can I say. Louter, in the comments, thought I look like Margriet de Moor. But I don't. Next week's author could well be my second or third cousin. He is from my part of the country, and my whole god damned family looks like this guy. It's true. We are definitely the same gene pool.

Big version in (updated) portfolio.

Chinatown anecdote. I went to the cornerstore, because I forgot to buy dish washing liquid and AA batteries at the supermarket. The radio was playing in the store. A pure Swiss or Austrian or German -whatever- yodel song, in Chinese. So I draw the store lady's attention to this interesting piece of music. Yeeeeees, Niiiice music! Chinese! No, I tell her, it's Swiss. It's yodeling. Yodeling is what they do in Switserland, not in China. And even if there is yodeling in China, the song had a cuckoo clock in it. Nothing Chinese about it, except the lyrics. Ooooh, the lady said, I know this song from kindergarten, so long! Velly old! Yes, her husband added, music international!

I could tell you more and even more interesting anecdotes today, but there are dilemma's you know.

Very recent interview with her -day before yesterday- on fecal face dot com:
Lets start with the basics; what's your full name, where do you live, and how old are you?
Aurel Schmidt, New York, 23
Have you lived there a long time?
I have been in New York for a year, but I live out of a suitcase, so I wouldn't say that I really live anywhere, I more live where-ever.

The image above kept haunting me since I found it. I thought I had seen it before, or something extremely similar. Was it the lion of Oz? The elephant man? Michael Jackson? No. And then it dawned on me. The beast! I never even knew I remembered that stupid series. My brain is a thrift store.

Felt like posting something other than my own work today. I found Laurie Lipton through my del.icio.us illustration tag feed, a wonderful way to find things of beauty. If you take the time to click through tons of garbage too, that is. But I like finding things there, it's like finding things on a flea market. I prefer finding things at flea markets to finding them pre-found in antique shops. In the same way I prefer del.icio.us to sites like Drawn! or Art Dorks, which doesn't mean I don't like those. It's just that in general I don't like it much when others decide for me what is interesting. Oh yeah, I did the death subject too today. For the column.

Two more very nice sites from my feed: click click

Some years ago, I decided to read some more Dutch literature, because I felt I was loosing touch with the homeland. This was before I could pretend to just be in Holland. Through the internet. I think it was a book by this week's author that my desire for Dutch literature ended abruptly. I am not sure though, I may be accusing her falsely. In this book I stumbled on a sentence that just did it for me. Enough and no more. I never finished the book. And I didn't read any Dutch literature for quite a while. I remember that sentence to this day: "Hij stopte op sportieve wijze bij het tankstation". (He stopped in a sportive way at the gas station. Go make English of that yourselves) Now isn't that the most horrible incomprehensable sentence. I guess none of you knows from which book it is. I would like to know, at the time I had no idea this sentence would stick in my brain to eternity.

We payed a maternity visit to a 12 days old little Korean girl tonight. I have never in my life seen anything so cute. Perfect little mouth, pitch black hair. I bought her a bright green and pink little velvet Van Dutch outfit. Her mother will provide some little golden chains, she promised. Unfortunately I didn't see the little hands, little baby girl was all swaddled up.

I'll have one more fresh look at the contrasts tomorrow. This was a big job for just a few days. And don't think I didn't have any weekend at all. I also made my family pizza from scratch, had sex with my husband, wine with the neighbours, and found Martin & Michele a Summer home for when Michele is playing Wagner's Ring. If I am not Superwoman in the flesh, I don't know what I am.

I needed Dutch groceries for this drawing. Found this site. A must for every homesick Dutchie. But hey, Ann has declared me Balgian, I am so honoured. Saluukes!

Drawing my natural habitat. But today I didn't go to my supermarket, I went to the St Lawrence market. Not to the hunk-in-shorts butcher. The Sausage King this time. A woman before me could not decide on salami. The Hungarian salami was made in Canada. She took ages. The butcher, I have never seen him smile, rolled his eyes and sighed. She went away without buying anything. Then it was my turn. Four Macedonian sausages. But only if they're really from Macedonia. He actually laughed. Sure, he said, just arrived from Macedonia. Oh and yeah, I hope Michiel will help me with the perspective tonight.

This one is for next week, but the deadlines are piling up here, so I am working fast. Ready in time for a beer on my blue porch. Michiel is at the lumber yard, looking for some old flooring. The boys just set free another mouse that was going crazy inside the trap. And Piffin is in the streetcar, coming back from her math exam. Willem is probably watching TV, after a long day of playing chess, but I don't know. His harddisk broke down, so he can't Skype. I miss him, I have gotten used to chatting with my father-in-law all day long.

Your average women's subject. It seems you have totally lost touch if you don't have botox injected. But as I said before, as long as you laugh enough, you'll only get wrinkles in the right places. I have a natural smile, I am in fact Mona Lisa, my mouth's edges point upwards, I can't help it. The older I get, the happier I look.

Think of her, tomorrow they start. She might pass, but then again she might not. It can go either way. The school has rented the church across the street, supposedly because the constant announcements in the school would distract the students. But I think they're counting on divine inspiration. She is not to discuss the exams with anyone including me, before 24 hours have passed, because IB students all over the Northern Hemisphere are writing the same exams. Interesting time differences. Beats me how on earth they are going to find out any information leaks. Maybe some Swiss inspector will infiltrate IB chat boxes, who knows. I bought her some mechanical pencils. I hope they're the right ones. She studied on the porch until it was too warm. First really warm day today. First barbeque. Michiel's first day working his new shift, seven to three! He witnessed the end-of-a-beautiful day street ritual for the first time. Chatting neighbours everywhere. First you can see them come home from work. Then they all start to walk their dogs. Or they take a stroll to the beer store and back, which is what Michiel did. Then it gets a little quiet, dinner time. Then they come out again with hockey sticks and squash rackets. Or to exchange garden plants.