I've known for quite a while that time goes faster as you get older, but I wasn't expecting it to go this fast!
I seriously cannot believe that it was a week ago that I wrote my Modern Art post - it feels like yesterday. Days are flying past at an amazing speed, one moment it's Monday morning and I'm on my bike thinking of the things I want to do at work that day, the next it's almost Friday afternoon and I've barely managed to squeeze everything I wanted to do into the past week. Which also included extra unexpected things, such as hauling my bike through the snow and over icy roads, and meeting people I hadn't seen for a very long time. It's not that I'm overly stressed or overly busy, it's just that even when I think I don't have lot to do, things creep into the free time that I thought I had. All nice things, but they take up time. Also, my evenings are usually pretty full, which doesn't help, because having lots of things to do makes time go even faster.
So I'm party happy that time is going fast, because it means I'm busy and doing lots of things, and as they are mostly things I like to do, without stress or other negatives attached, it's all good. I'm also partly unhappy, because it feels like I never have time to do the things I want to do whenever I have a free moment, such as finishing my book, sending a few postcards, writing a blog post (I've been meaning to write about Hemingway and the First World War for a while now), or even filling the bird feeder in the garden. The things that make you relax and make your brain stop whirring for a while. People then tell you to 'make time', and if anybody can explain to me how to pull that one off, I'll be eternally grateful.
For now, I'll just continue on the crazy-busy road filled with crazy-busy, but very nice, things.
Friday 31 January 2014
Friday 24 January 2014
Modern art
I don't know a lot about art. I know some, especially Western art from the 1400-1900 period (I've done the religious and allegorical paintings in my English culture classes, so I can explain The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb but not Hirst's diamond encrusted skull). I know what I like, and what I don't like. I've visited some of the world's most famous museums and art collections, most of which were outside my own country (ironically, I have seen the US's Declaration of Independence in their National Archives, but I haven't visited one of my own countries big museums...).
Because I am aware that I don't know a lot about art, especially recent art, but that I do have some preferences, and that these preferences may say something about me or about art, I bought What are you looking at?: 150 years of modern art in the blink of an eye by Will Gompertz. This book promises to explain to me what modern art is, why people like it or hate it and more importantly, why some artist's unmade bed is art, while mine is not.
I haven't really gotten very far in it, and I keep mixing up the names of the French pre- and post-Impressionists (Delacroix, Duchamp, Degas...), but already I feel like I know more than I've ever known about modern art. I can see now the influence of the Romantics, how Monet and Manet are different, how Degas isn't really part of the Impressionists, how Van Gogh and Gaugain took the whole thing one step further. These are all names I already knew, styles I am familiar with, so (to speak in educational terms) I have a hook to hang my new knowledge on. However, these artists are all still painting figuratively (albeit a bit blurry at times). I can see what they're doing, and with some explanation, I can see why. I am curious to see what will happen when we get to the Mondrian's and other more stylised things.
Also, it's good to keep in mind that what we now see as radical new art is nothing compared to the stir that the first modern artists made when they appeared on the scene. Whatever we call new and fresh and daring pales in comparison to the bold steps they dared to take, which you can also see in the fact that most of them died pretty young and in poverty.
But most importantly, I think, I can see now that it's all interconnected. I knew this was true for literature, of course, I can trace the line from the Romantics to the Victorian novel, to the Modernists and post-Modernists, and I knew some of their figurative counterparts, but I hadn't really looked at the whole visual arts as a line on their own. Luckily, Gompertz has included a 'map of modern art', rather like a London subway map, to explain it all.
The going can be tough sometimes, as the writing is a bit dense and convoluted and I have to re-read some parts to really get them, but it is very interesting. And after I've finished this, I have a great excuse to visit all those beautiful museums again; now I will actually 'get' what I'm looking at!
Because I am aware that I don't know a lot about art, especially recent art, but that I do have some preferences, and that these preferences may say something about me or about art, I bought What are you looking at?: 150 years of modern art in the blink of an eye by Will Gompertz. This book promises to explain to me what modern art is, why people like it or hate it and more importantly, why some artist's unmade bed is art, while mine is not.
I haven't really gotten very far in it, and I keep mixing up the names of the French pre- and post-Impressionists (Delacroix, Duchamp, Degas...), but already I feel like I know more than I've ever known about modern art. I can see now the influence of the Romantics, how Monet and Manet are different, how Degas isn't really part of the Impressionists, how Van Gogh and Gaugain took the whole thing one step further. These are all names I already knew, styles I am familiar with, so (to speak in educational terms) I have a hook to hang my new knowledge on. However, these artists are all still painting figuratively (albeit a bit blurry at times). I can see what they're doing, and with some explanation, I can see why. I am curious to see what will happen when we get to the Mondrian's and other more stylised things.
Also, it's good to keep in mind that what we now see as radical new art is nothing compared to the stir that the first modern artists made when they appeared on the scene. Whatever we call new and fresh and daring pales in comparison to the bold steps they dared to take, which you can also see in the fact that most of them died pretty young and in poverty.
But most importantly, I think, I can see now that it's all interconnected. I knew this was true for literature, of course, I can trace the line from the Romantics to the Victorian novel, to the Modernists and post-Modernists, and I knew some of their figurative counterparts, but I hadn't really looked at the whole visual arts as a line on their own. Luckily, Gompertz has included a 'map of modern art', rather like a London subway map, to explain it all.
The going can be tough sometimes, as the writing is a bit dense and convoluted and I have to re-read some parts to really get them, but it is very interesting. And after I've finished this, I have a great excuse to visit all those beautiful museums again; now I will actually 'get' what I'm looking at!
Thursday 16 January 2014
Life talks
When I was in university, most conversations with friends were about university stuff: studying, boring subjects, impossible deadlines, weird lecturers, mad dashes from one building to another to make it to the next lecture, expensive food in the canteen, classes that went on till 22:00, anything and everything to do with our main occupation. Apart from that, we had conversations about hobbies and tv-series we were watching and the weird habits of our roommates, because we were still having time for hobbies and tv-series and living with random other people.
I have several friends who are still in university, and our conversations are generally about their world: university. This is a world we both know and can both relate to.
Then you get to the second 'step' in the conversational ladder: work. We are both working full-time, and several of our friends do too. These conversations are all about work: what we do, whether we like it, strange twists and turns in company policy, the quality of coffee in the pantries, conferences, weird co-workers and their weird habits, how much money we make, things that went very wrong, the joys and problems of office landscape, again; anything and everything to do with our main occupation. With friends that are still in university, you can't really have these conversations, because they've never experienced 'the working life' (or more accurately 'the office life'). The same is true for the next step on the conversational ladder, the step that I haven't yet taken but some of my co-workers have (and some of my acquaintances, which I haven't really spoken to since, as will become clear in a moment): children. Even though we share the same work environment, most of the non-work-related conversations I have with co-workers are about their children. What they eat (and don't eat), when they go to sleep, wake up, what funny things they did or said, what they're doing in daycare, what they're learning in school, what their teachers are like, what they did during the weekend, how much they like or hate their other siblings, anything and everything to do with their children.
Now I can't really participate in these conversations, because I don't have any children of my own. Somehow, this doesn't stop the subject from appearing or being discussed, even though my side of the conversation is only that of attentive listener with the occasional remark.
This made me wonder: why is it that I don't talk about work things with university friends, but that people with children do talk about their children with people who don't have them? Is it because children are considered such a universal topic that anyone must be interested and also have something to say on the subject? We all know children, we've all been one for a part of our lives, so the subject must be okay? Or is it that once you have children, there is no room in your life or in your head for anything else, and it is the only subject you can really express yourself on? Maybe I will find out when I get my own.
As always, there are exceptions to the rules above. I have several co-workers who refuse to talk about their children at work, stating it as 'un-professional'. They (generally men) talk about soccer, other sporting endeavours and tv-programs. Also, those co-workers with children who are older, secondary school or above, generally talk about films, cooking, books, or other generic topics.
And then there are the friends who do have a job and no children, but don't feel the need to talk about their work all the time. With these friends you can have in-depth conversations about travels or life plans or other major subjects, the things that you usually don't really get to with all the people mentioned above. These are the real conversations, with the real friends, with whom you can talk about the important stuff regardless of what life phase they or you are in.
But otherwise, conversationally speaking, I'm on the middle step. I do wonder whether I can still relate to my university-step friends when I get to the children-step. Only time will tell.
I have several friends who are still in university, and our conversations are generally about their world: university. This is a world we both know and can both relate to.
Then you get to the second 'step' in the conversational ladder: work. We are both working full-time, and several of our friends do too. These conversations are all about work: what we do, whether we like it, strange twists and turns in company policy, the quality of coffee in the pantries, conferences, weird co-workers and their weird habits, how much money we make, things that went very wrong, the joys and problems of office landscape, again; anything and everything to do with our main occupation. With friends that are still in university, you can't really have these conversations, because they've never experienced 'the working life' (or more accurately 'the office life'). The same is true for the next step on the conversational ladder, the step that I haven't yet taken but some of my co-workers have (and some of my acquaintances, which I haven't really spoken to since, as will become clear in a moment): children. Even though we share the same work environment, most of the non-work-related conversations I have with co-workers are about their children. What they eat (and don't eat), when they go to sleep, wake up, what funny things they did or said, what they're doing in daycare, what they're learning in school, what their teachers are like, what they did during the weekend, how much they like or hate their other siblings, anything and everything to do with their children.
Now I can't really participate in these conversations, because I don't have any children of my own. Somehow, this doesn't stop the subject from appearing or being discussed, even though my side of the conversation is only that of attentive listener with the occasional remark.
This made me wonder: why is it that I don't talk about work things with university friends, but that people with children do talk about their children with people who don't have them? Is it because children are considered such a universal topic that anyone must be interested and also have something to say on the subject? We all know children, we've all been one for a part of our lives, so the subject must be okay? Or is it that once you have children, there is no room in your life or in your head for anything else, and it is the only subject you can really express yourself on? Maybe I will find out when I get my own.
As always, there are exceptions to the rules above. I have several co-workers who refuse to talk about their children at work, stating it as 'un-professional'. They (generally men) talk about soccer, other sporting endeavours and tv-programs. Also, those co-workers with children who are older, secondary school or above, generally talk about films, cooking, books, or other generic topics.
And then there are the friends who do have a job and no children, but don't feel the need to talk about their work all the time. With these friends you can have in-depth conversations about travels or life plans or other major subjects, the things that you usually don't really get to with all the people mentioned above. These are the real conversations, with the real friends, with whom you can talk about the important stuff regardless of what life phase they or you are in.
But otherwise, conversationally speaking, I'm on the middle step. I do wonder whether I can still relate to my university-step friends when I get to the children-step. Only time will tell.
Saturday 11 January 2014
Sent favourites
Sometimes you find a postcard that you really really love, and you buy it with the vague idea of ever sending it to the perfect person, but deep down you know that this card will never be sent, and that you will just keep it for yourself. I have several of these, mainly old Alice in Wonderland illustrations, but also some other pictures and book covers.
Once in a while though, I come across a profile that I really like, by a person who is so very much like me, that I cannot help but send them the card. Usually I tell them how long the card has been waiting for that perfect recipient, and how much I hope that they will enjoy the card as much as I did. Usually, I get a very happy and emotional response. There was this one guy who I sent a card that was among the first batch of cards that I had ever bought for Postcrossing, and he didn't respond at all (and now he's removed the image from Postcrossing altogether!). Luckily, I found the same card again, and am now resolved not to send it again.
But some cards I have sent, and then favourited when they arrived. This feels a bit like 'liking' your own Facebook post, but in my eyes it is different. I'm liking the card, not the message I put on that card. I would love to receive that same card from someone else, which I can only make clear by 'favving' it (so that it will show up in my Favourites, a place where most Postcrossers do look before sending a card). I haven't actually received one back yet, but I'm still hoping.
Anyway, here are some examples of cards I've sent, but would secretly loved to have kept for myself (I have not included all the bird and butterfly photographs and book covers, as this may have become a bit repetitive):
Which may lead me to conclude that I like cards with people, and black-and-white cards, more than I think I do!
Once in a while though, I come across a profile that I really like, by a person who is so very much like me, that I cannot help but send them the card. Usually I tell them how long the card has been waiting for that perfect recipient, and how much I hope that they will enjoy the card as much as I did. Usually, I get a very happy and emotional response. There was this one guy who I sent a card that was among the first batch of cards that I had ever bought for Postcrossing, and he didn't respond at all (and now he's removed the image from Postcrossing altogether!). Luckily, I found the same card again, and am now resolved not to send it again.
But some cards I have sent, and then favourited when they arrived. This feels a bit like 'liking' your own Facebook post, but in my eyes it is different. I'm liking the card, not the message I put on that card. I would love to receive that same card from someone else, which I can only make clear by 'favving' it (so that it will show up in my Favourites, a place where most Postcrossers do look before sending a card). I haven't actually received one back yet, but I'm still hoping.
Anyway, here are some examples of cards I've sent, but would secretly loved to have kept for myself (I have not included all the bird and butterfly photographs and book covers, as this may have become a bit repetitive):
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| NL-1537948 sent to Austria on 10 November 2012 |
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| NL-1253609 sent to Finland on 3 June 2012 |
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| NL-1474709 sent to Finland on 7 October 2012 |
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| NL-1484155 sent to Poland on 12 October 2012 |
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| NL-1366803 sent to Brazil on 7 August 2012 |
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| NL-2026982 sent to Germany on 24 August 2013 |
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| NL-1137391 sent to Germany on 1 April 2012 |
Which may lead me to conclude that I like cards with people, and black-and-white cards, more than I think I do!
Friday 10 January 2014
Short stories
I haven't read many short stories in my life. To be honest, I only discovered that short stories are a 'thing' in their own right when I had to read some for a literature course (I can remember 'The Story of an Hour' and 'The Lady with the Dog', and something by Kate Mansfield about a garden party). When I was younger, I read a collection of short stories by Anton Quintana, who is a Dutch author and not very famous at that, so I might be quite unique in that area. Other than that, very few short stories were ever read by me.
Until I bought The Complete Short Stories by Roald Dahl. Did you know that he was an air force pilot stationed in Greece during the Second World War? And that he hadn't written anything until someone asked him to give him some notes on stuff that happened during the War? And that Dahl's 'notes' were actually the first story he ever wrote? Neither did I. And that was just from the Introduction.
I've been zooming through the stories at quite a high speed, and I've recognised some, either from the aforementioned literature course, or from other places (I may have read one or two in a Dutch translation when I was younger). I can't really say too much about them, other than that they're gripping, and moving, and slightly disturbing, and all very very different. From milk-drinking snakes to being killed by a frozen leg of lamb, all amazing in their own way.
If you find yourself without a book to read, do try Dahl's stories. It's like reading 10 great novels in one day.
Until I bought The Complete Short Stories by Roald Dahl. Did you know that he was an air force pilot stationed in Greece during the Second World War? And that he hadn't written anything until someone asked him to give him some notes on stuff that happened during the War? And that Dahl's 'notes' were actually the first story he ever wrote? Neither did I. And that was just from the Introduction.
I've been zooming through the stories at quite a high speed, and I've recognised some, either from the aforementioned literature course, or from other places (I may have read one or two in a Dutch translation when I was younger). I can't really say too much about them, other than that they're gripping, and moving, and slightly disturbing, and all very very different. From milk-drinking snakes to being killed by a frozen leg of lamb, all amazing in their own way.
If you find yourself without a book to read, do try Dahl's stories. It's like reading 10 great novels in one day.
Friday 3 January 2014
Writing when bored
So Neil Gaiman said (quite a while ago, but only today did he actually post a link to the interview on his blog) that "the best way to come up with new ideas is to get really bored." Which is why he is temporarily suspending his use of social media, as they distract him from what he should really be doing, namely "making things up".
This is very true. Writing is done best when your head is clear of other things, and it's wandering around, hopping and skipping over a wide variety of subjects and events and memories, until somehow and from nowhere inspiration hits and you're filled with this wonderful feeling of A Great Idea That Must Be Written Down Now. Only experience has taught me that writing it down at exactly that moment actually kills the process, so I tend to muse on it a bit longer until it is cristallized into exactly what I want to say, and then I write it down (by which I mean: I take out a notebook and pen, and literally write it down. Using a computer to type things up is wonderful, but it also makes you type things you can easily delete again, whereas when you put in the effort of actually writing, you think about what you're writing and exactly how you're saying things more. That's the way it works for me, at least).
Now my head hasn't been exactly empty or bored lately, so logically I haven't been doing much writing. But I have had this storyline at the back of my head, complete with protagonist/narrator, ready to be fleshed out whenever my head felt the time was ready. This holiday, my head became sufficiently cleared enough, and somehow whole themes, sentences, concepts, dialogues and paragraphs came jumping out at the weirdest moments. Usually while I was slightly bored about the thing I was actually doing, such as trying to finish a 1500 piece jigsaw puzzle, cleaning the toilet, or biking through town. You have to be doing something else, it doesn't work when you're lying in bed ready to fall asleep, or walking a long distance, or just sitting still. There has to be some conscious, but minimal and slightly boring, activity going on in your head, with your subsconscious being sufficiently unoccupied.
This makes me both happy and sad: happy to know that I can still have these moments, and then write them up and feel incredibly accomplished, and sad to know that once I have to start working again, my mind will be taken up by lots and lots of practical things that will push out any space for creativity or musings of any kind. Maybe someday I will be able to have a dayjob that requires minimal attention span and doesn't 'linger' in my head so I can still write in the evening hours or during weekends, but I don't really see that happening. Art isn't a part time thing. I wish I were Neil Gaiman.
This is very true. Writing is done best when your head is clear of other things, and it's wandering around, hopping and skipping over a wide variety of subjects and events and memories, until somehow and from nowhere inspiration hits and you're filled with this wonderful feeling of A Great Idea That Must Be Written Down Now. Only experience has taught me that writing it down at exactly that moment actually kills the process, so I tend to muse on it a bit longer until it is cristallized into exactly what I want to say, and then I write it down (by which I mean: I take out a notebook and pen, and literally write it down. Using a computer to type things up is wonderful, but it also makes you type things you can easily delete again, whereas when you put in the effort of actually writing, you think about what you're writing and exactly how you're saying things more. That's the way it works for me, at least).
Now my head hasn't been exactly empty or bored lately, so logically I haven't been doing much writing. But I have had this storyline at the back of my head, complete with protagonist/narrator, ready to be fleshed out whenever my head felt the time was ready. This holiday, my head became sufficiently cleared enough, and somehow whole themes, sentences, concepts, dialogues and paragraphs came jumping out at the weirdest moments. Usually while I was slightly bored about the thing I was actually doing, such as trying to finish a 1500 piece jigsaw puzzle, cleaning the toilet, or biking through town. You have to be doing something else, it doesn't work when you're lying in bed ready to fall asleep, or walking a long distance, or just sitting still. There has to be some conscious, but minimal and slightly boring, activity going on in your head, with your subsconscious being sufficiently unoccupied.
This makes me both happy and sad: happy to know that I can still have these moments, and then write them up and feel incredibly accomplished, and sad to know that once I have to start working again, my mind will be taken up by lots and lots of practical things that will push out any space for creativity or musings of any kind. Maybe someday I will be able to have a dayjob that requires minimal attention span and doesn't 'linger' in my head so I can still write in the evening hours or during weekends, but I don't really see that happening. Art isn't a part time thing. I wish I were Neil Gaiman.
Thursday 2 January 2014
New Year's resolutions
I'm not really someone for New Year's resolutions (or 'good resolutions', as we call them in Dutch - as opposed to the bad resolutions you can have all year round); I try to improve on things I'm not really happy about whenever I get the chance. I haven't heard many amongst my friends and colleagues so far either, except for 'eat less and exercise more', but that to me seems no more than logical after a week of almost continuous eating and hardly any movement.
So they're not really for me - or so I thought! Today someone viewed the first post I ever wrote on this blog, which pops up on my 'stats' panel, and that post was written on the 10th of January 2012. And then somehow I came to check the date I joined Postcrossing, a neat 1089 days ago, and that was on the 9th of January 2011. Two rather big things in my life, which I apparently started in January.
I can remember lurking around the Postcrossing website and fora for a while before deciding to join, so that really wasn't a spur-of-the moment thing, it was a conscious decision. Same goes for starting this blog: I'd been wanting to finish my old blog (which is now just attracting lots and lots of spam) for a while, and starting afresh, but somehow couldn't do it until January arrived.
So maybe there is something to New Year's resolutions, even if they're not consciously connected to the whole phenomenon: January seems to get people in motion. And I can say for Postcrossing and blogging, that even though I can't spend half as much time on them as I would like, they were pretty good unconscious New Year's resolutions.
Happy and healthy 2014 everyone!
So they're not really for me - or so I thought! Today someone viewed the first post I ever wrote on this blog, which pops up on my 'stats' panel, and that post was written on the 10th of January 2012. And then somehow I came to check the date I joined Postcrossing, a neat 1089 days ago, and that was on the 9th of January 2011. Two rather big things in my life, which I apparently started in January.
I can remember lurking around the Postcrossing website and fora for a while before deciding to join, so that really wasn't a spur-of-the moment thing, it was a conscious decision. Same goes for starting this blog: I'd been wanting to finish my old blog (which is now just attracting lots and lots of spam) for a while, and starting afresh, but somehow couldn't do it until January arrived.
So maybe there is something to New Year's resolutions, even if they're not consciously connected to the whole phenomenon: January seems to get people in motion. And I can say for Postcrossing and blogging, that even though I can't spend half as much time on them as I would like, they were pretty good unconscious New Year's resolutions.
Happy and healthy 2014 everyone!
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