... then it's probably chocolate.
Quick update on the question I raised at the end of my previous post last week. Of the utmost importance, clearly. About the mysterious, funny smell that falls down on Amsterdam every few months or so. One of my friends who was born and bred not far from here told me that it is, in fact, chocolate.
Apparently it's the chocolate factory Verkade from Zaandam, a small town a few km to the north-west of Amsterdam. When the wind blows from up there, the whole city swells into a big funky-cocoa-smelling bubble.
Cool. Reminds me of something I wrote on this very same blog almost five (five!) years ago, about smelling cocoa and a chocolate factory in Mannheim, Germany.
Historic recurrence? Maybe. Or possibly it's just the universe that got stuck in some deep potential well and ended up bouncing back and forth, repeating itself over and over again. Just in case, I'm going to check again in another, say, five years.
Till then, have a nice evening.
And some chocolate, too.
Monday, September 16, 2013
Friday, September 13, 2013
Not a comet. Still here. And blogging
So, how many of you out there in the bloggosphere thought that my post a couple of months ago, while absolutely inspired and pure genius, was just going to be the sporadic, one-night-thing sort of appearance? Legitimate thought y'all, by the way, but I'm very happy to disappoint you! I'm still here -- and blogging, which is most incredible given my past record, I am going to agree with you on this.
The reason I didn't come back... well there's many reasons. For starters, there were holidays. Like proper, below-Alps kind of holidays, with extensive exposure to the local star us astronomers like to call "the Sun". But it didn't take long until I came back to the (still surprisingly summery) land of the Dutch. And with that came the usual amount of biking and running, hence lots of time spent in yours truly's head. Lots of time to conceive blog posts, one might argue. Mostly, though, alone time is not that pleasant whenever I move across Amsterdam/the Netherlands, whether by bike or just on foot. As I tried to explain in the previous post, it still eludes me how this dangerously-lived country manages to keep a standing population, and for this reason, I fear dearly for my very own life (and for the possible others that may also perish in the process) every single time I happen to navigate through the crowds of the careless pedestrians and cyclists that cross the streets of the orange kingdom.
While painful, this could be endless inspiration for blog posts - the same wise old one mentioned above might still want to argue. And I do agree, that's actually what I sort of anticipated in the previous post. But then, something went wrong. One of the highlights of my holidays was a über refreshing week spent in the cosy and glorious isolation of an eco-village in the sun-bathed far reaches of southern Italy. While lingering on the boundaries between space and time as conceived by globalised, neo-liberal society, I had lots of time to think. On top of that, the reason why I was there was to attend a yoga+theatre workshop [many have been inquiring about this apparently curious association... it's not curious, the workshop was actually "the yoga of theatre" and believe me, it makes perfect sense... I'll probably tackle this in a future post].
I'd be exaggerating if I were to say that the whole experience gave me a new insight into life, humankind and the universe, but I wouldn't be completely honest if I said that it didn't impact me, either. Don't worry, I'm not going to give up technology entirely (the very fact that I am blogging should be sufficient evidence in support of this claim). And most importantly, I'm not going to drift off and go fully spiritual here. I'm still the old, skeptic, cynical me who doesn't trust most living things on our beloved planet. I'm not even sure I fully trust inanimate particles from out there in the universe, so you get the point. Still, after this summer, I've been just trying to be less crabby, to complain less about tiny little things like when's the bus coming/why is it so late/oh dear I'm going to miss my next connection/why did this person write that the text's fine when it's full of edits now/why didn't they edit it themselves at this point? To sum it up, I've been trying to be less of a pain in the arse. Even if only to myself. Actually, in particular to myself. I've been trying to treat my very own self a wee bit better. After all, I still think it's a pretty cool person -- yes, a whole (but tiny) person!
With the result that (and here I'm finally back to the painstaking minutiae of my perilous life in the Dutch lands) whenever I see any of the crazy behaviours that would have set me on fire just a couple of months ago, leading me to yell the most horrible and painful things (in Italian, of course) to the careless biker or gigantic pedestrian that just tried to go through me and didn't even notice... well, I don't explode anymore. As opposed to despairing and screaming "WHYYY, WHY ON EARTH?" I just shrug my shoulders and think "well, isn't humankind an infinite tapestry of all sort of weird things?". Occasionally I may even stop in awe for a split second and whisper to myself... "seriously?" but still very calm and quiet. That kind of stuff.
[To be absolutely honest, this zen fairy tale is all very nice but not completely factual. As one of my local friends may confirm, I did have - at least - one outburst just last week. One fine morning, as my friend was driving her scooter past Amsterdam Central Station, she noticed a crazy little pedestrian who wasn't looking at the road much cause she was busy screaming inexplicably horrible things and gesturing to a cyclist. Then she realised that the crazy little pedestrian was, well... me.]
[In my defense, the cyclist had almost run me over *on the freaking zebra crossing* cause they don't stop there. They don't stop anywhere, it's like uniform linear motion. With the occasional acceleration whenever in proximity of a fellow human being, of course.]
So, I have been trying to be more calm about this and less of a pain in the place where the Sun doesn't shine (an expression that may be slightly confusing here cause it may well refer to the entire country). With the occasional failure. But still trying, trying very hard to cope with all that, and holding back -- holding back on the great few stories that I had started to line up in my head to bring this blog back to its glittery past (!)
In the meantime, I've started twittering. Could you imagine? Me, on twitter? Me, who is remembered for having once pronounced (another friend is warmly invited to reminisce here, please) the glorious statement "I don't tweet, I spit". Yes, I ended up on twitter, where I mostly blather about theatre, life and the universe -- cause honestly, is there anything else worth bothering about?
While twitter may be a practical alternative to blogging for all of you concise fellows out there, it's not the ideal hub for a verbal-incontinent like yours truly. To avoid the outrageous constraint imposed by the 140 charcter limit, I thought I should expand those nuggets into proper blog posts -- about the same few and fundamental issues, clearly. And -- spoiler alert -- I'm about to kick that one off shortly, so stay tuned.
But with my pretend-of-a-new-take on life (and the universe) I thought the new blog must be cheerful, or at least -- as already stated -- less of a pain in the wherever hurts. So while I do spend time conceiving posts when by myself (since I haven't fully moved to the XXI century and am a proud non-owner of a smart phone, I can't blog on the spot -- and seriously, would you imagine me blogging as I run?) I am at the same time trying to keep my neurotic, crabby persona at the minimum.
Or at least, so I thought. Then came this evening. Running. At the park. And all those people just trying to pass/run/bike through/over/across me [please choose your favourite. they all kind of work]. And then the kid, who must not have been older than 12. On his bike. Writing a freaking email. Or text message, I don't know. Maybe even browsing the freaking internet. In the (almost) darkness of the park at twilight. Not a single glance at the road. At the tiny-person(=me)-bearing road that unfolded in front of him. WHAT THE FREAKING HELL, SERIOUSLY?? I can't keep this inside anymore. I'm going to have the neurotic ooze out somewhere. And I guess this blog's the ideal place for that.
So please, do stay tuned. I won't be a comet, I promise. I'll be me, the grumpy, pain-in-the-arse-y good old me that used to blog in the good old days. The newly found, bright and shiny, almost cheerful persona will be colonising other pockets of the world wide web, inaugurating new blogs and sending tweets out in the air. The internet's large enough to accommodate all that. This blog will stay true to itself. And report about the cranky side of Amsterdam.
Deal.
---
Addendum
Incidentally. Any Amsterdam dwellers out there? The city's been smelling kind of funny lately. It happens every so many months. At first you think someone's shaking sacks of cocoa in the air. Then you smell more carefully, and it's pungent, kind of starchy too, like your granny's overcooked potatoes. Some say it's hops. From the brewery. Which brewery, I didn't manage to find out. Any more information about this very pressing question would be most very welcome :)
The reason I didn't come back... well there's many reasons. For starters, there were holidays. Like proper, below-Alps kind of holidays, with extensive exposure to the local star us astronomers like to call "the Sun". But it didn't take long until I came back to the (still surprisingly summery) land of the Dutch. And with that came the usual amount of biking and running, hence lots of time spent in yours truly's head. Lots of time to conceive blog posts, one might argue. Mostly, though, alone time is not that pleasant whenever I move across Amsterdam/the Netherlands, whether by bike or just on foot. As I tried to explain in the previous post, it still eludes me how this dangerously-lived country manages to keep a standing population, and for this reason, I fear dearly for my very own life (and for the possible others that may also perish in the process) every single time I happen to navigate through the crowds of the careless pedestrians and cyclists that cross the streets of the orange kingdom.
While painful, this could be endless inspiration for blog posts - the same wise old one mentioned above might still want to argue. And I do agree, that's actually what I sort of anticipated in the previous post. But then, something went wrong. One of the highlights of my holidays was a über refreshing week spent in the cosy and glorious isolation of an eco-village in the sun-bathed far reaches of southern Italy. While lingering on the boundaries between space and time as conceived by globalised, neo-liberal society, I had lots of time to think. On top of that, the reason why I was there was to attend a yoga+theatre workshop [many have been inquiring about this apparently curious association... it's not curious, the workshop was actually "the yoga of theatre" and believe me, it makes perfect sense... I'll probably tackle this in a future post].
I'd be exaggerating if I were to say that the whole experience gave me a new insight into life, humankind and the universe, but I wouldn't be completely honest if I said that it didn't impact me, either. Don't worry, I'm not going to give up technology entirely (the very fact that I am blogging should be sufficient evidence in support of this claim). And most importantly, I'm not going to drift off and go fully spiritual here. I'm still the old, skeptic, cynical me who doesn't trust most living things on our beloved planet. I'm not even sure I fully trust inanimate particles from out there in the universe, so you get the point. Still, after this summer, I've been just trying to be less crabby, to complain less about tiny little things like when's the bus coming/why is it so late/oh dear I'm going to miss my next connection/why did this person write that the text's fine when it's full of edits now/why didn't they edit it themselves at this point? To sum it up, I've been trying to be less of a pain in the arse. Even if only to myself. Actually, in particular to myself. I've been trying to treat my very own self a wee bit better. After all, I still think it's a pretty cool person -- yes, a whole (but tiny) person!
With the result that (and here I'm finally back to the painstaking minutiae of my perilous life in the Dutch lands) whenever I see any of the crazy behaviours that would have set me on fire just a couple of months ago, leading me to yell the most horrible and painful things (in Italian, of course) to the careless biker or gigantic pedestrian that just tried to go through me and didn't even notice... well, I don't explode anymore. As opposed to despairing and screaming "WHYYY, WHY ON EARTH?" I just shrug my shoulders and think "well, isn't humankind an infinite tapestry of all sort of weird things?". Occasionally I may even stop in awe for a split second and whisper to myself... "seriously?" but still very calm and quiet. That kind of stuff.
[To be absolutely honest, this zen fairy tale is all very nice but not completely factual. As one of my local friends may confirm, I did have - at least - one outburst just last week. One fine morning, as my friend was driving her scooter past Amsterdam Central Station, she noticed a crazy little pedestrian who wasn't looking at the road much cause she was busy screaming inexplicably horrible things and gesturing to a cyclist. Then she realised that the crazy little pedestrian was, well... me.]
[In my defense, the cyclist had almost run me over *on the freaking zebra crossing* cause they don't stop there. They don't stop anywhere, it's like uniform linear motion. With the occasional acceleration whenever in proximity of a fellow human being, of course.]
So, I have been trying to be more calm about this and less of a pain in the place where the Sun doesn't shine (an expression that may be slightly confusing here cause it may well refer to the entire country). With the occasional failure. But still trying, trying very hard to cope with all that, and holding back -- holding back on the great few stories that I had started to line up in my head to bring this blog back to its glittery past (!)
In the meantime, I've started twittering. Could you imagine? Me, on twitter? Me, who is remembered for having once pronounced (another friend is warmly invited to reminisce here, please) the glorious statement "I don't tweet, I spit". Yes, I ended up on twitter, where I mostly blather about theatre, life and the universe -- cause honestly, is there anything else worth bothering about?
While twitter may be a practical alternative to blogging for all of you concise fellows out there, it's not the ideal hub for a verbal-incontinent like yours truly. To avoid the outrageous constraint imposed by the 140 charcter limit, I thought I should expand those nuggets into proper blog posts -- about the same few and fundamental issues, clearly. And -- spoiler alert -- I'm about to kick that one off shortly, so stay tuned.
But with my pretend-of-a-new-take on life (and the universe) I thought the new blog must be cheerful, or at least -- as already stated -- less of a pain in the wherever hurts. So while I do spend time conceiving posts when by myself (since I haven't fully moved to the XXI century and am a proud non-owner of a smart phone, I can't blog on the spot -- and seriously, would you imagine me blogging as I run?) I am at the same time trying to keep my neurotic, crabby persona at the minimum.
Or at least, so I thought. Then came this evening. Running. At the park. And all those people just trying to pass/run/bike through/over/across me [please choose your favourite. they all kind of work]. And then the kid, who must not have been older than 12. On his bike. Writing a freaking email. Or text message, I don't know. Maybe even browsing the freaking internet. In the (almost) darkness of the park at twilight. Not a single glance at the road. At the tiny-person(=me)-bearing road that unfolded in front of him. WHAT THE FREAKING HELL, SERIOUSLY?? I can't keep this inside anymore. I'm going to have the neurotic ooze out somewhere. And I guess this blog's the ideal place for that.
So please, do stay tuned. I won't be a comet, I promise. I'll be me, the grumpy, pain-in-the-arse-y good old me that used to blog in the good old days. The newly found, bright and shiny, almost cheerful persona will be colonising other pockets of the world wide web, inaugurating new blogs and sending tweets out in the air. The internet's large enough to accommodate all that. This blog will stay true to itself. And report about the cranky side of Amsterdam.
Deal.
---
Addendum
Incidentally. Any Amsterdam dwellers out there? The city's been smelling kind of funny lately. It happens every so many months. At first you think someone's shaking sacks of cocoa in the air. Then you smell more carefully, and it's pungent, kind of starchy too, like your granny's overcooked potatoes. Some say it's hops. From the brewery. Which brewery, I didn't manage to find out. Any more information about this very pressing question would be most very welcome :)
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