Tarpaulin

January 28, 2012 in Diary | Tags: , , | 1 comment

Sometimes here in Belgium the clouds hang so low and thick and dark over the land that in their lowness and thickness and darkness they exert a palpable and ominous physical presence on the beings underneath. As if someone strung a giant tarpaulin over Ghent and the villages sheltering in its vicinity, a malevolent shadow to be imposed at will. Between when it rained and when it didn’t rain (the day before yesterday), the roads never really dried up; toward the evening, light started filtering back in and the edge of the tarp stood out in sharp contrast against a reddening evening sky.

The Grapes of Wrath

January 24, 2012 in Books, Music | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

2012/1

John Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath (476p.)

I used to score books here on the Mountaintop, as in Alberto Moravia The Conformist 9 Mountaintops, until one night I woke and sat, beads of sweat lining my forehead, in panic at the thought of so much foolishness, the talentless a posteriori bookkeeping of someone else’s a priori talent. I got myself a hand pick (Steinbeck: a han’ pick) and tore apart the cabinet, only retaining the top drawer, 10 Mountaintops, in which I had previously stored away (out of the last four years of reading only) Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook, Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet, Don DeLillo’s Underworld, and Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, and to which I’m now adding John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.

Steinbeck busies a colloquial version of American English which might intimidate fair-weather readers not used to reading in English (‘something’ as ‘somepin’’), but it fits the Joad family wonderfully well, a hardened family of sharecroppers forced to flee native Oklahoma (Dust Bowl) during the Great Depression, migrant Okies on the way to California, a tale of unspeakable suffering in times of a changing economy.

Steinbeck himself quoted that “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires,” but maybe even more so The Grapes of Wrath is as powerful an anti-globalization statement (50 years before globalization became mainstream in the mid 80s), as Animal Farm is against communism or 1984 against totalitarianism.

Nobel Prize Literature 1962.

For those who have nine minutes to spare (I think you should): Bruce Springsteen and Tom Morello (RATM) in a brilliant live rendition of Springsteen’s The Ghost of Tom Joad, named after the main character in The Grapes of Wrath.

(Hard times on Wall Street, hard times on Main Street.)

Bodhi and me – dispatches from a stay-at-home dad

January 11, 2012 in Fatherhood | Tags: , , , | 4 comments

The lady gave him his first bottle this morning (7ish) before whisking off to work, which in turn allowed me to ease into the day as in lockstep with the first bottle comes another nap, the last certain nap of the day, and the perfect time to get a few things done already, a grocery list perhaps, the perfect time for anticipation as well, which as all experienced parents know is the key to good parenting. Failing to prepare is preparing to fail. Coach Wooden would have approved of me.

A beautiful spring day it was, full bloom daffodils in the lawn in front of the village church like so many stars in a milky way, and when Bodhi woke, I took him for a short walk, merely for fun – let it be clear I walked him many a times because I had to. We walked, getting ready for his daily mash, cauliflower, potato, a dollop of olive oil, which went down well, a sigh of relief, a mash gone down well usually means smooth sailing for the rest of the day.

I met up again with the lady at noon, the three of us, hidden somewhere at the back of a small mom and pop restaurant close to where she works, I won’t divulge the address here. Rarely do I savor the warmth of a small close-knit family unit more than when we sneak off for lunch, at least once a week, and sidestep society’s business for a wasted hour, splendid isolation, le plus beau temps c’est le temps perdu.

He slept long when my boy and me got home, and woke up ablaze with anger, the unexpected tantrum, which I only succeeded in dispelling by manning up for yet another walk and delaying his next bottle with half an hour. In the meantime word had come from the post office, confirming the arrival of his (second-hand) first ski suit (we’re off to Morzine in February), which I subsequently collected and brought home unopened, as I happily defer this small pleasure to someone who cherishes it more than I do.

I then showered, shaved, cut a pineapple, watched some television (all while keeping him cool), eagerly listening for a sound, the sound of a car driving up our lot, the sound of a key turning, the sound that signifies changing of the guards for me, treats for the cats, the arrival of primary care giver-1 for Bodhi (and another bottle), the sound of the lady getting home. All is well.

At four months

January 2, 2012 in Bodhi time-lapse | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

De Haan

December 31, 2011 in Bikes | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

I rose early today and when dawn broke I had already made my way to De Haan, at the Belgian Coast, for a 48 kilometer trek across its dunes and beaches. 48 kilometers of quicksand and crosswinds, equaling a great winter training. Magnificent end to a magnificent year.

 

Spotify

December 25, 2011 in Music | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

We’re in a time of convergence, with lesser and lesser time between new technology swells rolling in and flooding the levees, relegating long-cherished habits to obsolescence. One day on Spotify and already downloading MP3s and storing them on external hard disks has an outdated ring to it – the stale smell of the past, the past forever. Such is the beckoning call of the Spotify siren that I ended up re-activating my Facebook account; luckily the latter site can be bypassed for a direct visit to the music idyll.

There are of course the 10 million songs (but no Beatles), there’s the automatic recognition of local libraries (bye bye iTunes), and I just wonder whether Spotify to some extent does not signify the end of radio either, due to the ease with which music can be shared and tuned into, from a variety of sources. As a tool for getting to know new music, Spotify is the peerless prom queen. In addition and last but not least, Spotify is legal. (The erosion of the album concept (as opposed to individual songs) probably started with the advent of MP3s already.)

All in all, I’m greatly impressed (but find myself listening a big chunk of my music time to Neil, Bobby, and Jimi regardless).

Bless Spotify.

Going Public

December 23, 2011 in Diary | Leave a comment

Most of you probably haven’t even noticed it, but the ‘About’ section shows my real name and has been showing it for a few weeks now, instead of monikers of sorts. Folks who have known me for instance when I was doing my Ph. D. and wonder whatever happened to all that other stuff I was always doing, well LinkedIn won’t be the only hit anymore when they enter my name in Google. You may say ‘why bother’ - the thing is I always had to bother, the wrong way around. A small change, but a portentous one.

Celeste

December 12, 2011 in Bikes, Books | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

I got this picture out of De Muur, a Dutch quarterly (and literary) cycling magazine, of which I had ordered the January 2011 edition because it contains an anthology of cycling literature, compiled by Arthur van den Boogaard, who is in the picture, together of course with the 2003 Nobel Prize for Literature recipient, the great John Maxwell Coetzee (in front) – wearing ONCE cycling tights (very 90s again) and riding a Bianchi road bike (no doubt colored ‘Celeste’ (Italian), ‘Selest’ (English), or Bianchi Green for the rest of us – the oldest bicycle company on the planet), both tights and bike on borrow as Coetzee was on a visit to Amsterdam, as a writer, not as a rider.

Neil and Me

December 6, 2011 in Books, Fatherhood, Music | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

2011/27

Scott Young: Neil and Me (379p.)

Scott Young’s Neil and Me is a rare case of a biography written by the dad on the son, the dad being Canadian sports journalist Scott Young, the son being Neil Young, rock ‘n roll’s creative genius who over 50 years has built himself a career in rock only equaled by Bob Dylan, and this without compromising himself once. With his falsetto voice and acoustic guitar, Neil Young might come across as outdated to the younger generations, but I have listened to his music on tape, vinyl, CD, and MP3, and I would through streaming too were it not that accessing Spotify requires a Facebook account. His Live Rust album really got things going for me back then, a quarter of a century ago – I’m getting old.

Neil Young has three children, two boys and a girl, and while there is no genetic component to cerebral palsy, both his boys suffer from it, Zeke mildly, Ben strongly. Amber, his girl, has epilepsy. There are a lot of nice passages in Neil and Me about what it means or can mean to be a father, but otherwise, I’d say Neil and Me is for the fans really, which I am. The front cover says ‘A gem in the library of rock’ – I’m still hoping to discover that gem one day.

Get his Live at Massey Hall album (1971).      

(Rumor has it that Neil Young is in the process of writing his autobiography. Panic among the Young fans as it might detract him from working on his Archives series – the definitive, comprehensive, chronological survey of his entire body of work.)

NY holding Zeke at a 1974 San Francisco Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young gig.

Bar Martin

December 3, 2011 in Scraps | Leave a comment

Just another scrap, from the scrapheap – in Dutch:

——————–

Vooraan in de bar gaf Barcelona Santander partij, Munitis was gekwetst, obligaat drupte het vet uit de jamons die aan het rokerige plafond bevestigd waren, Paco verzoop het geld van zijn familie, Fernando het geld van de lotto, en achteraan in de bar hingen vergeelde foto’s van Buenos Aires, de Avenida del Libertador, Astor Piazzolla, de Boca Juniors, foto’s die als heipalen het leven van deze generatie in Mecinilla ankerden aan het leven van de vorige generaties in Argentinië, die op hun beurt na een lange boottocht uit Italië gekomen waren. Overdag waren de sierra’s nog warm in november, ’s avonds bracht een valwind de koude van grote hoogte mee, en het eenzame geblaf van geketende honden in de Andalusische nacht. De vino collapso had Paco inmiddels balorig gemaakt, met drank is het altijd hetzelfde liedje, in slaap vallen, de vrouw van een ander ambeteren, of in Paco’s geval naar de elfjarige dochter van de buren lonken. Zo was vandaag zoals gisteren was en zoals morgen zal zijn in Bar Martin. Van Paco’s geleuter keek eigenlijk allang niemand meer op, Santander had geen schijn van kans, we trokken de deur van de bar achter ons dicht en liepen naar de Plaza Gerald Brenan, die ooit als eerste expat in de Alpujarras neerstreek, met dertien muilezels, tweeduizend boeken, en Virgina Woolf. Andalusië was toen nog een paradijs zonder Engelsen, een paradijs van ongeletterdheid en armoede, de burgeroorlog moest er nog aankomen, Koestler nog in de bak vliegen in Malaga, Walter Benjamin zelfmoord plegen in Portbou na door Franco’s fascisten het land uitgezet te zijn, maar dan was de tweede wereldoorlog al bezig en konden we het niet meer op de Spanjaarden steken.  

…

Hardie is reading:

Paul Auster: Sunset Park

Peter Heigl: Mystiek en Drugs

Hardie on the road:

Ski Morzine, France 18-25/2

Bike Mallorca, Spain 28/4-5/5

Bike Mont Ventoux, France 12-19/5

Bike Trans-Provence, France 9-16/6

Kilometers season 2011-2012

834
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