It was a pun, c'mon

I marvel at my remarkable ability to persevere at pastimes which are blatantly detrimental to my cosmic aspirations. Like my strange new habit of watching South Park reruns before going to bed. Or staring at computer screens. Ho, I have even taken up walking since my left knee had started giving me trouble. My conscience also whispers "alcohol", but no, conscience, bad conscience, you don't know what you are whispering about. There is a difference between being an awesome robot and a sober miserable ape. Sobriety, I believe, should also be approached with moderation. But to the point. The most vicious tit I had been trying to wean myself from is indulging (avariciously) in Pitchfork's BNM roster. I love it, of course, but music really jams thinking. So I have been experimenting with alternative aural pleasures. On the wave of I-have-watched-all-seasons-of-30-Rock-again I have downloaded an audio book of Tina Fey's selective autobiography and consumed it all in several sessions of dinner cooking. I have been listening to audiobooked autobiographies ever since. It is quite marvelous. On the one hand, you get some rich celebrity gossip (currently: Hemingway's Movable Feast), and on the other it is not so important that you can't miss a passage over whatever is sizzling on your frying pan. Hemingway, by the way, gives marvelous writing tips and inspirational advice on how to be poor and happy in Paris.

A block of I-s

  IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
  IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
  IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
  IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
  IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
  IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
  IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Fiets

"He once told me that the art of getting ahead in New York was based on learning how to express dissatisfaction in an interesting way. The air was full of rage and complaint. People had no tolerance for your particular hardship unless you knew how to entertain them with it." -- White Noise, DeLillo

This, I believe, is a very astute and a very much universal observation. Unless you know how to turn your grudge into a story - don't even bother. What I have realized since I had read these words is that Amsterdam has spared me an effort and each of my misadventures here came with a narrative I don't even have to make up.

When my bicycle was stolen a month ago I firmly resolved not to fall into despair (despite it being such a magnificent bicycle purchased at such a superb discount that I was going to make profit on reselling it at the end of my stay in NL) and just go an get another one. There is a non-profit (?!) bike shop right in my building. They buy bicycles fished out of canals (there is a job for that in Amsterdam) for cheap from the government, fix them, and sell them at a still very decent price.

My cultural studies professor (the one which looks and acts like Tracy) told us a story of his childhood as an illustration of gender-specific roles forced upon us at very early stages. He fancied a bicycle with a step-through frame, a "ladies' bicycle", and he could not quite understand why his parents forced him to get a boys' one, with a high top tube. Until then I had actually never thought about bicycles in these gendered terms, but I have always found the former type more aesthetically pleasing (and more practical! wearing a skirt? no problem!).

So when I was picking a fished out of the water bicycle for myself to be fixed, I had consciously chosen the "ladys'" one. My little contribution to queering the world. The guy told me to come back for it in a week, on Thursday. I did. The place was closed. And it was closed on Friday too. And then on Monday, and then on Tuesday.

When I had finally managed to get to the place I was told the guy who sold me the bike "went out with the bang" and I had to choose another one. So I did. The ladies' one, again. This time the transaction went smoothly. The new guy who sold it to me also told me a secret. The municipality tows improperly parked bikes to a specially designated place. "So my 'stolen' one might be there?" I asked. "Where did you park it?" "Leidseplein". "Oh, definitely!" he answered, "Call this number. Now you have a spare bike".

I don't like talking on the phone to strangers, so I wrote an email. "Hello! I was wondering If you might have my bike. It is a black Locomotief registered under the number AF0626227". Meanwhile, I felt like a fool. No, not like a fool, just upset. I have just bought a new bicycle, while I could have just retrieved my old one (for the price of 10EUR, but still!), if only I had known how this whole thing works. I conveyed my frustrations to my mother and she immediately understood me. I would have preferred my bike to be legitimately stolen than to have this silly mishap on my hands.

How relieved I was to receive an email "Unfortunately I can't find a bike under that registration number."

But the guy also asked for more details, like where it was removed from, and when, and what it looked like. I described, but did not get an answer for days. I relaxed. Until today: "I think I found your bike" with a precise description. Oh for fuck's sake.

Of course I'm gonna have to go and get it now, in the rain, at the price of paying for the public transportation, and something strange is going on with my knee... But LCC taught me to think on the margin. And that I'd definitely sell it with at least 300% of whatever I pay to retrieve it. So why do I feel so miserable about it?

Postmodernism?

I'm browsing through a vast collection of contemporary art at artsy. It is truly impressive, but, and I think it would occur to anyone after 10 minutes of browsing, there is so much angst and fear and paranoid-schizophrenic fragmentation... This, of course, is as much about our epistemological predicament as it is about contemporary art, so, in a sense, all these paintings, lithographs and installations are certainly right to be angsty about the impossibility to appraise the world in its totality. But this is a fearsome situation by itself. If a hundred years ago an artist was still a hopeful figure capable to lead the way, the message today, it seems, is that all of us are pretty much in the same hopeless boat. Hence, perhaps, the oft repeated remark regarding contemporary art: "Anyone could have done that". It is amusing, in this respect, to read about the reception history of Hirst's shark in formaldehyde and his retort "But you didn't, did you?" immediately followed by a story that, well, actually someone did, two years before. This, I believe, is very telling. Just like truth has become whatever we make it to be, so has the value of art. If back in the days the genius of a work of art seemed to be still independent of whether yours or mine puny mind was capable of appreciating it, today more than ever it demands a conscious decision, like the decision to consider the Emperor fully clothed. The notion of "masterpiece", in this sense, has lost its meaning once and, perhaps, for all.

On the margins

I was very impressed (and proud) to learn today that my father's blog has the same daily readership (in thousands) as one of the top local newspapers at which he also (charitably) works. I don't say it very often, but I am in an immense debt to whatever (potentially) good has (or ever will) become of me.

In Brugge

I almost got busted at the Dutch/Belgian border for not having a passport on me. "Did you know" they said "that this card is not valid without a passport?" they said. "No shit" I thought, "No I didn't" I said. They looked at my residence permit through a magnifying glass and walky-talkied someone to check its number. I felt betrayed by the Schengen agreement.

But that was after. Bruges was full of Russian tourists. Of all places... A lady in her fifties, whit a rich Soviet past, no doubt, was unpleasantly surprised to see people take the hand of a boat driver (I cannot quite bring myself to call him a captain, he just steers a boat) on getting on and off a tour boat. "И бабы и мужики" was her wording; the rest of judgmental message could be inferred from the intonation.

Brugge's Onze Lieve Vrouw Kerk (Church of Our Lady) is one of the rare places outside Italy where one can see Michelangelo's work. One's misanthropic sentiment could be easily fueled by the following picture. People, who were obviously not clear on what they were in for, would pass the beautiful statue of Madonna and proceed towards a flashier tombstone in the back. Then they would take a short glance at it, then a picture, and walk away (no doubt, they are going to study it at length in the comfort of their homes). Ok, maybe I've always been a bit coy about my true ability to appreciate Renaissance art but this!

The city, though, is really an eye candy. Especially when you walk away from the tourist areas. Only 20k people actually live within the city limit so the chance you will meet a local is next to nothing. No surprise. A piece of real estate in the quieter part of the downtown, we were told, was selling at 9+ mil eur...

But travel itself, it is so refreshing for the head. Not only have I come up with a potentially lucrative idea, mulled over old conclusions, but also have finally been able to truly appreciate Panda Bear's Tomboy (as well as the new Akron/Family).

I know that perhaps very few people believe me when I say that travelling alone is a choice and not some sort of a thousand years of solitude gig. But this is what it is and I do not remember when travelling did me more good than when I went alone, first to Paris and then to Brugge. There is a special thrill in being one on one with a city.

The one in which I review the queen's day

6.8.

One fine milky-eyed gentleman of unspecified level of intoxication inquired if I were the police.

Another gentleman, no less fine I am sure, crossed a blocked road shielding from potential altercations with a small child. Rebuked by a policeman, he insisted "You bust me? You bust me with a baby?!" and took a picture of the man of law, adding: "Man, you ugly!". "You are ugly too", replied the policeman and both laughed. Male bonding?

The Dutch traffic jam

Maybe it is just me, but I get the feeling that people here have very unsophisticated music culture of the 'drop the beat' variety. I struggled to tell apart the contents of the numerous sound-spewing venues sprinkled around the city. And the huge main stage at the Museumplein with it's numerous billboard-sized screens featured, to everyone's delight I'm sure, shoddy karaoke. What's that? No, you heard that right. Ka-ra-o-ke.

What sold me in the end, though, is that it has become legal for a day to have a beer outdoors. What can I say, I am a simple man.