September 2006 Archives

I can't tell you anything about the Benno Barnard article because there was something wrong with the click to enlarge option on the website. So I will use this podium to ask you a question that suddenly came up in our household today. I catholicism, do people sometimes become angels after they die and go to heaven? I tend to think not, I always thought angels were a whole different species than humans. The Wikipedia says they are supernatural beings, and nothing about humans turning into angels. And the Wikipedia page about heaven cites the catechism, according to which people in heaven are for ever like god, and thus (I assume) without wings: "Those who die in God's grace and friendship and are perfectly purified live for ever with Christ. They are like God for ever, for they "see Him as he is," face to face." (Catechism of the Catholic Church §1023) And there is also the doctrine of Assumption of the Virgin Mary: "having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory", which implies that heaven must have some facility to support human bodies as well as souls.

Opa is here, and it's like he's always been here and always will be. Just two weeks though. Orbit and I picked him up from Pearson. Stupid me, dogs aren't allowed in the terminal, they threw us out, threatened with penalties. So we waited outside, looking through the window at the steady stream of arriving passengers. A steady stream without opa. Two hours (!) after the plane had landed, I got worried. And cold. And Orbit had had enough of it too. So I locked him in the car and went to the information desk. No, not to worry, there were still a lot of KLM passengers waiting to come through customs. Afterwards opa told me what had happened. There were at least FIFTEEN wheel chair passengers, and five of them were eighty year old muslim women. And their wheel chairs practically got taken apart. Of course, why not? After the fluid explosives they come up with senior terrorists, how clever!

I left before we did the long poses, I was too tired. Walking a dog sure eats energy. I also did a parental advice, about reading again, the topics are starting to recur. The column tells us not to over-emphasize reading, not to spoil the pleasure of reading by pushing it. The column cites the famous Annie MG Schmidt quote je hebt nu eenmaal leeskinderen en leefkinderen (there are read-children and live-children). Which sounds great, but is extremely simplifying. My daughter and myself, we are neither. We are not really leeskinderen, read-children. We certainly are not leefkinderen either, we don't even play soccer. I think maybe we are kijkkinderen, look-children. Otger is a read-animal, he devours books, but he is beside my point right now. My point is that in my experience kids (or grownups) who don't constantly read, are thought to prefer easy books. Page turners, romance novels, or what have you, chicklit. Yikes! The fact that we don't read for pass-time doesn't mean we are stupid! And I hate the kempy way in which it is sort of allowed nowadays and all of the sudden to confess one's tendency to garbage. Kijkkinderen may not read much, but may just as well expect the books they do read to be worth their while. Piffin had Wittgenstein's Tractatus on her night stand when she was not even twelve. So! Don't insult the kijkkinderen among us.

I only know this author from the radio, I never knew what he looked like. And I didn't find many photographs either. Did I do a good job? You be the judge, I tried to put the pictures in chronological order, he ages:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Business as usual. An education institute for seniors wants second use of an illustration - without pay. A theatre person wants forty portraits of celebreties, and thinks I can do those in half an hour a piece. A former accountant at Sellotape wants to know how Sellotape is doing in Canada. An emerging illustrator wants to know how to start a carreer. She started well though, sang a Bangles song in a very popular radio show. And these are only the people I actually got back to. The rest of you, bare with me. I have work to do. I do value the entertainment though, keep them coming.

You know what I hate about Fall? I sit at my computer and freeze, so I put on a fleece pullover, and warm my hands on Orbit. And then when I go out to walk him, I sweat because it is still much warmer than I thought. And I don't have anything to say about Thomas Rosenboom, except that I got a dog this week, the title of the Rosenboom article has a cat in it, and the title of the Grunberg article has a fish in it. No I am not going to complain again that the Grunberg portrait was cancelled on me when I was already working on it for I am not even going to tell you how many days. I can totally appreciate anyone preferring Francis Bacon over me. But I did find one omission. Duh. To illustrate the fact Grunberg writes a lot, Arjen Fortuin lists everything Grunberg published apart from his novels. And he doesn't mention his weblog.

We would never do this to the real Orbit. He sleeps in his own bed. Right now he is waiting for me to go to bed, so he can too. He will not go upstairs without me. And I will not go to bed at ten, he can just forget that. Orbit is exhausted, I don't think he got very much exercise with his previous owners. Two long walks and he is floored. Other than that, he is perfect. We heard one bark in a whole day. One bark at the boy next door. He was honoured. I get the impression Orbit likes it in our household. He acts the good dog constantly, very submissive and timid. As if he is afraid we won't let him stay if he's not good. He's heartbreaking.

Update: finished version (it'll be in De Stem October third).

We are waiting for the dog. The pet rescue lady is picking it up at the old owners' right about now. I put an old blanket in the corner of the living room. With a bone on it. From the supermarket. I hope the dog will bring its own food, I think it will. It's on special diet food, this dog eats fish. Irritable bowel, which we trust will disappear with love and attention. We have so much love and attention to spare, anybody would go off fish in our house. And that I am drawing dogs today is completely coincidental. But I did try to make it look like our Orbit, I'll have him model tomorrow. Make him work for his money. The drawing will illustrate a children's story. Which dog looks like it's getting hit on the head by a falling newspaper?

And then I am almost done, and then dear IJsbrand (thank you!) sends me a stream of a talk show interview that was broadcasted live tonight. OMG, this guy dropped fifty pounds since his last public appearance! In other words, I drew him way, way too fat. Which is bad for the drawing, but worse for the man in question I imagine. What happened to him? Is he ill?

Do you ever listen to the music I sometimes recommend? Guess not, heh. But Clare for example, you would love this, sister. See, I still have such a small audience that I can address all of you personally. But large audiences don't always listen either. Merel said I was the only one who heard her radio interview, and she has six thousand unique visitors daily. Mind you, I am a radio girl. I never ever play cd's, I think the radio people are so much better than I at picking music. I can pick radio stations. I've been listening to VPRO radio while working for at least 25 years. Dag In De War is my all time favourite. Where they asked random people in the street whether they wanted their day messed up. And then they cancelled all their appointments and went to a place from their past or something. Great radio.

Otger did the drawings, June last year. Marilyn gave him the job, his first paid job. Marilyn is a set designer, she is Dutch, and she lives on our street. She promised to give him back the drawings, but she never did. I finally bought the DVD, and now I can see why she never brought them back. Henry's mother gets shot in front of them and they end up covered in blood, nice. You don't actually see her get shot, there's nothing between my before and after screendumps. Still, the film is very violent, but if you're into these kinds of things, by all means, go see it. Bruce Willis and everything.

Listening to the oldies show with Otger. Son, you don't have to know everything about pop history, but there are a few things you just have to know. Who is this now? Don't know. It's a very old song, but mommy remembers playing air guitar to it in the street. Singing I love you yeah yeah yeah. Strange really, I don't think I had a clue what it meant, but I'm quite sure we sang I love you yeah, not she loves you yeah. How can you make such a mistake if you don't know any English? Anyway, Arnon Grunberg got cancelled. They're moving him to a different page, and they want me to stay on the page and do a different author. God fucking damn it. The positive thing about that being that they won't deny me any more important authors, because there aren't any. After I didn't do Reve, I now won't do Jesus.

Didn't really have a picture today, so I just looked what was in the camera. Almost forgot Michiel took this picture, he wants to buy it for in the hallway, would be very beautiful. Well, at least it's on the blog now, so I won't forget about it again. I'd tell you which store this is, but I wasn't there, and Michiel is too sleepy right now. And oh, the dog rescue lady was here. We have to remove the piles of old planks and other renovation garbage from the back yard before she brings Orbit. Other than that, it's a go.

It is the era of the heavy frames. Tom last week had one, this one has one. And I've got mine back. I had one, then my eyes changed, I had new lenses put in, then my eyes changed back and I started wearing my old frame again. I have fluctuating astigmatism. Fortunately the people at Josephson's kept my old lenses on file, and today I had them put back in my heavy frame. Guess I needed the state of mind. I am dead nervous for this one. I gave myself some more time. For pacing the room in between horrible sketches. Deadline not yet in sight.

Look, we visited Orbit, isn't he the cutest sweety pie. I think we're about halfway through the adoption procedures by now. The dog rescue people still have to come measure our garden fence or something. His favourite thing is sitting on the porch and watching the world go by, we are kindred souls. I however don't tend to go after raccoons.

I'm at thirty parental advice columns, so I thought I'd show the collection. The overall tenor of the columns is that children are bad, and parents stupid. Never mind, der Rubel rollt. Our own parenthood isn't doing that bad, daughter had her first day of school! After she just missed the IB by one point, and was rejected by the universities of her choice, she decided to do some more highschool courses to upgrade her marks and improve her chances for admittance next year. She found a semestered school where she could do seperate courses, but that would have meant only physics in the first semester. She was dying to go to Rosedale school of the arts, to prepare for possibly artschool. Rosedale was full, but she was told to try again in the second week of the school year, because not all students always show up. And it worked out! She started today!

I'm post-blogging, it is 9-12 as I write this. I wanted to repost this prophesying picture on 9-11, but our internet was wobbly, wobbly, more wobbly, and finally died completely yesterday. Today the Rogers mechanic replaced all the cables from our computer, along the tangled mess through four or five back yards onto the pole in the alleyway behind the Chinatown shops. Don't despair if I haven't yet replied to emails...

I hated the stage design. There, I said it. It's a really famous stage designer, and he sounds very convincing in the interviews I read, but I was bored stiff by the whole visual part of the Götterdämmerung. And damn it, I have been dreaming about going to this opera for two nights in a row that I can remember, I was looking forward to it so much. But there was not a thing to see. Offices and computers and ties and suits for crying out loud. Enough to drain all the passion out of the overdramatic storyline. And yes, I did close my eyes every now and again, great music, great singing! I liked Brünhilde best in Act III, Scene 3: Wie Sonne lauter strahlt mir sein Licht, track 21 on this website. And sung today by Susan Bullock, beautiful, beautiful. And of course, let's not forget the third clarinet, it was fabulous. And the new opera house, let's not forget that either, I don't know, the building really has a very nice feel to it, I felt at home right away. And so so clean and new, open and spacious. Round rows of balconies just like they always used to have in old opera houses. We didn't have the best of seats, and the usher advised us to just take better ones, since the house wasn't full. So we took a box with it's own little private room with little cupboards and a mirror and coat hooks. Neat. And loose chairs, so you can position them in any way you want. Comfortable too, five-and-a-half hours, no problem at all. Were it not for the costume & stage design...

I found it dead on the sidewalk. You don't see them very often, but that is more than compensated by the times you hear them. When we first moved to Canada I was completely puzzled by their sound. Thought it must be all these electrical wires everywhere along the streets resonating. Long stretches of shrieking sound coming and going. Not like any animal of any sort. But it is, it's a cicada, a big bee-like ugly thing, quite frightning when you see one fly. Which doesn't happen often. The Wikipedia knows why: The nymphs of the periodical cicadas live underground, at depths of 30 cm (one foot) or more, feeding on the juices of plant roots. They stay immobile and go through five development stages before constructing an exit tunnel in the spring of their 13th or 17th year. And then they make their horrible sounds, mate, and die. So I guess the one I found has mated. Good for him. Or her.

Elsbeth the author-slayer, isn't she just fabulous. Burns down books like nobody else. And if I may say this -in no way I would dare compare my judgments to hers- the both of us seem to have sort of the same idea about Tom Lanoye. I noticed his looks merge from Boy George to Jean Luc Godard, Elsbeth reads Arnon Grunberg and Hugo Claus in his novels. This last novel -I haven't read it, Willem has- being almost a duplicate of Grunberg's De Asielzoeker. Picasso once said a wise thing about copying, but I can't find it. He was right though.

It was a very beautiful girl, I didn't really do her justice. I have one with a better head, but this one's body is better. Don't forget the category. And you can pay Willem a visit, he writes about me. He told me there is so much wild sex in the book that it tires out the reader.

I once read somewhere that before he was even published, he walked into an optometrist's, and told the optometrist he was going to be really famous, and if the optometrist gave him a different frame a month, that this would be good publicity for the optometrist. And the optometrist went for it. Which really complicates the drawing, because he seems to have recently changed the style of the frames he weares.

He never really looked like Boy George, but my this week's author did make an interesting transition in the course of his life. And ended up looking like Jean Luc Godard, he could have done worse. I remember there always used to be tons of Boy George look alikes, Boy George has a face that sort of looks like everybody. And that is also what makes my this week's author so hard to draw, he just doesn't have very distinguishing features it seems. Can you guess who my Jean Luc is?

We've come a long way since men adopted the sedentary lifestyle. And now we are members of this successful tribe that defends its territory with boys and girls in impressive uniforms. The traffic jam of expensive cars to the border, big shiny SUV's for the most part, took more than three hours. We had trouble filling in the simplest of forms after that. Very very different, US and Canada customs. The US bullet proof vests are so much bigger that they look more intimidating, darker blue also. They were all nice enough though, cheerful even, despite the rain. How do we get back to Canada from here, we're doing a U-turn. You wanna get back to Canada??? There's a lot of prejudice on both sides of the border. Otger noticed that the US customs computers were standing on the counter just like that. Travellers could pull the plugs, how's that for terrorism safety. On the Canadian side the monitors were built in neatly. Nice neat and sweet, that's Canada for you. No scary 9-11 pictures with "we will never forget", not even a photo of the head of state. And yes, a permanent residency status for us, at last. Hurray! We're members of two succesful tribes now, there are people in this world who risk their lives for that. We can spend the rest of our lives in Canada, or in a EU country of choice. And we only had to endure the last little bits of Ernesto for that.

Time for a domestic photograph. Michiel found this chair on the curb of the fire station. Old and dirty and held together with duct tape. I always thought firemen the handy types, turns out I was way wrong. Revamping process is getting along just fine. Neighbour Rick donated a piece of maple to replace a missing spindle. Michiel bought a beautiful little tool called a spokeshave to make the spindle. To me that sounds like ghost razor, which makes it an even more beautiful little tool.