
Toen wij uit Engeland vertrokken
In mei 2011 kwam de Nederlandse journalist en schrijver Joris Luyendijk in Engeland wonen. Afgelopen zomer is hij teruggekeerd naar Nederland en schreef over zijn tijd in Groot-Brittannië een afscheidsbrief in Vrij Nederland. Hij blikt terug…

The elimination of pain
what about suffering?

Great dance scenes in films
Some memorable unexpected dance moments in film.
5. Forced dance in Beetlejuice (1988)
As if dancing isn't already like being possessed.
4. Napoleon Dynamite charity dance (2004)
A very funny film with a hilarious way of helping…

Green Blood
Aliens and space ships, love and humour, tragedy and the after world....
Great song, on loop all week >>
Green Blood by Sonny and the Sunsets
"Well, something happened..."
"What's that, Sonny?"
"I fell…

Love, Prince
It was already over with my girlfriend when I went to see Prince live in concert in 1992 in Rotterdam. Not that she knew it already, I hadn't told her yet. This coincided with the looming termination of my physics study at uni and leaving the…

The Spirit of Bach
This is music.
Glenn Gould
Nina Simone

The Path
An exercise in expression
Introduction
What are the modes one can resort to when faced with the challenges of life? Here is a possible scenario with 10 modes:
1.
Artistic / Literary mode
“Art is whether or not there…

A healthy mind in a healthy body (& vice versa)
If there ever is a key to a perfect health and happiness I'd love to use it, but in the meantime this is what I've come up with:
1. Sleep
It's not about the quantity but rather about the quality. Fresh air in the bedroom, good pillow and…

The Chaos
A poem demonstrating the irregularity of English spelling and pronunciation. Written by Dutch writer, traveller, and teacher Gerard Nolst Trenité (1870–1946), it includes about 800 examples of irregular spelling.
Gerard Nolst Trenité…

The Age of Anxiety
There is no word in the Dutch language for ‘anxiety’. There are words that come close, like ‘worried’, ‘concerned’, ‘fearful’ or ‘scared’, but none of them come close to the dreadful experience of actual, real anxiety. Does…

Separated Identical Twins – Reunited
What if you would meet your identical twin - as an adult? What would that say about yourself if you would find someone just like you? Will your identity just be relative and not that special or would the excitement be just too big to have a…

Helado Negro
The son of Ecuadorean immigrants, Roberto Carlos Lange, better known by his stage name Helado Negro was born in South Florida in 1980. His childhood was suffused with tropical heat, humidity, hurricanes, all refracted with the rich sounds…

David Bowie, Hero
Just as his latest and enigmatic brilliant video 'Lazarus' came out on his 69th birthday it turned out to be quite something else.
Like as with many people David Bowie meant a lot to me. These are my personal highlights:
A New Career…

Doppelgängers
They say there is always someone that looks just like you.
…

Chet Baker
There is something about the early 50s.
My Funny Valentine

Slavic Soul
One time on a visit to my father he got out this old record player from the attic and put on a 78 rpm (I believe he got from his father); a Sovjet-labelled record from the Fyodorov Sisters and it was as like a call from another world.
There…


Seapony
This Seattle-based indie band is no more. Fortunately their dreamy music lives on.
Here are some of my favorites:

Pushing Doors
7/7 - 10 years on and the creation of a story
Haarlem, 7 July 2015
It is 10 years ago since that fatal Thursday morning of the 7th of July of 2005 in London when one of four Islamic suicide bombers blew himself up in the Piccadilly…

Bullies in the Park
Not too long ago – in the light of eternity – when I was a kid, about 9 years old, I was walking on clouds. I wanted to reach the sky you see, and now and then I got pretty close.
Every day I was walking to school through the…

The Rothko Light
Art isn’t about what you see.

Moebius Redux
Great documentary about the late Jean Giraud, better known as Moebius, perhaps the biggest genius in the world of European "comics", reaching well beyond the genre and creating visuals for films like Tron and the Fifth Element... all that accompanied…


Graphic novels
This is a top 10 of my favourite graphic novels / artists.
1. Chris Ware
Country: US
Key work: Acme Novelty Library (1993-present)
Life as a manual
Ware's unique autumnal isometric world view is perhaps "clinical" at first…