I just got a CD through the mail today from Radio Rijnmond with a Valentines Day radio recording. You will hear Jana Beranová and me talking about the Jan Hart book.. Pretty funny!
De benoeming van Ahmed Aboutaleb tot burgemeester van Rotterdam.
Why do I do, just as you say
Why must I just, give you your way
Why do I sigh, why don’t I try to forget
It must have been,
That something lovers call fate
Kept me saying, ‘I have to wait’
I saw them all,
Just couldn’t fall ’til we met
It had to be you, it had to be you
I wandered around, and finally found
The somebody who
Could make me be true,
And could make me be blue
And even be glad, just to be sad
Thinking of you
Some others I’ve seen,
Might never be mean
Might never be cross,
Or try to be boss
But they wouldn’t do
For nobody else, gave me a thrill
With all your faults, I
Love you still
It had to be you, wonderful you
It had to be you
‘It Had to Be You’ (1924) music by: Isham Jones, lyrics by: Gus Kahn
from the film Casablanca (1942)
The Lijnbaan - by architects van den Broek en Bakema - is the main shopping street of Rotterdam. The Lijnbaan is named after a ropewalk which was there between 1667 and 1845.
It has been opened in 1953, as the main street in the new shopping district, after the old shopping district got completely destroyed during the bombings of 1940. The Lijnbaan Shopping Centre became the prototype for similar centres in Europe and America that allowed only pedestrian traffic.
Since I was a little boy I always wanted to live in The Lijnbaan-flats. And now I am actually living inside one. How exciting! I feel a bit like Le Corbusier everyday.
photo: with my new iPhone 3G (bought on The Lijnbaan), laughter…
I made this video in the end of 2006. The two videos were using archive
material of Groningen, which were be shown at the Tschumipaviljoen on
the Hereplein in Groningen between December and January 2007.
Via surround sound the audience around the ‘paviljoen’ could follow the
performance with music of Herman Brood. Cause good old Herman had
an exhibition (in that period) in the Groninger Museum.
Above you can see one of the two videos. The other one is here.
A while ago Sophie Krier asked Suus and me to come up with a way of portraying ‘temporariness’ in a graphical manner so it could be used as a recognizable identity in ads, posters, flyers, etcetera for Sophie’s new cluster of temporary interventions in the public space about temporariness itself, called ‘long live temporariness’.
Sophie planned four interventions in the lovely town of Nieuw Vennep to celebrate temporariness in order to point out that ‘all that’s temporary’s cool’, things taking too long will lose their pureness and that the beauty of things are often found in their temporary character, like with kisses, fights, a rainy day and icecream.
We came up with disappearing phrases explaining just what’s interesting about temporariness, the point where one isn’t exactly sure whether the temporary character of a thing or an event is to be liked or disliked. This first one’s saying ‘I love flowers, but they tend to die on you so quickly’ [ik hou wel van bloemen, maar ze gaan zo snel dood]. Turned out quite nice, I think.
Anyway, first intervention’s a happy car parade through town followed by an all free temporary drive-in cinema showing two films on cars and driving. Friday night ‘Cars’ is playing and saturday it’s Wim Wenders’ Don’t come knocking. On both occasions Lukasz Skapski’s short film ‘Machines 1 - Drivers’ screens beforehand. Come ’round, have a blast!
Four new streaming vids in my YouTube video stash (thanks again Tombrecht!). Consisting of two supporting graphics I made which were used in videos, the registration of a performance I once did at homeboy Kraft’s (H)ot Scenes fest AND this portrait of Marcel Alexander Wiebenga (the first) that I once made as an actual video for Benny Sings but alas it wasn’t found good enough. A couple of days ago I lost my urban prince and his girl Jasmijn to the warm, seductive arms of commodity fetishism as they, like so many before them, have moved to Amsterdam. Herefore, finally, an ode to all my friends going for gold in the form of Peter, Bjorn an John’s ‘Amsterdam’. I wish you all a lot of luck and nothing but good fortune, health, happiness and Prosecco.
Peter, Bjorn and John
Amsterdam
Baby went to Amsterdam
She put a little money into travelling
Now it’s so slow, so slow
Baby went to Amsterdam
Four, five days for the big canal
Now it’s so slow, so slow
And I was heading up north
To a place that I know
Eating well, sleeping well
But still I was way, way out of line
Amsterdam was stuck in my mind
Oh, it’s a kind of stupid groove
That you can’t ignore
Oh, it’s a kind of natural fact
Sometimes you’re just left to be alone
Baby went to Amsterdam
She put a little money into travelling
Now it’s so slow, so slow
Baby went to Amsterdam
Four, five days for the big canal
Now it’s so slow, so slow
And I got to go away
To a place of my own
Working hard, fill my time
From that day on, till I hit the bed
Amsterdam was stuck in my head
Oh, it’s a kind of stupid groove
That you can’t ignore
Oh, it’s a kind of natural fact
Sometimes you’re just left to be alone
