Freedom of Speech

“It was time for us to not see each other for a while; we really needed a break."
The young woman across the aisle was clutching her cell phone, staring out of the train window as she conversed. The car was fairly quiet and all passengers could follow her side of the conversation.

“We needed to take some distance.” That sounds like private information to me, and, if possible, I would want to avoid sharing such personal details with strangers. This is an old saw-horse for non-natives in the Netherlands: we converse more readily than the natives with strangers in public spaces, but we prefer to keep details of our private lives out of those public encounters.

Having said that, there is visible evolution underway; conversational boundaries appear less daunting. Whether or not this is happening independently of the ever-increasing vociferousness of the xenophobic right-wing (on occasion this can trigger responses such as “if you don’t like that in NL, just look at your own country” or “you can leave if you don’t like it” – before things get that far, I try to say: most countries seem to have one. Both countries which continue to supply me with passports certainly do), I can’t say.

More good news: xenophobes from England travelled to Amsterdam this weekend to join their Dutch comrades in an anti-foreigner demonstration, which basically fizzled out due to poor attendance. The righties were indignant about being forced to hold their rally far from the city center. Police kept the xeno’s and rival groups at a safe distance from one another, and I believe the Brits even got a free ride back to the airport in police vans. With so much hostile debate - on the streets and in parliament, for that matter – one doesn’t necessarily want to spend a train trip as witness to the hashing out of a private relationship, no matter how skilled the speaker may be. By the end of the young woman’s conversation with her estranged (business?) partner, she was chuckling and suggesting time and place for coffee.

For those wanting to avoid uninvited input of this nature, the Dutch railway system offers an alternative: many trains include a ‘Silence Car,’ a compartment where conversation, use of telephones and over-modulation of audio devices are discouraged. I respect the zone – not even my emery board comes into view. ‘Silence’ (and the Dutch equivalent ‘Stilte’) appears on the windows for those seated inside. The phone and conversation ban is also introduced with small visual aids on the walls. The challenge can be to identify the car before boarding, by catching a glimpse of the sign as your train speeds up to the platform before screeching to a halt. I scan the cars with some anxiety as they pass; my successes in entering Silence Cars have been purely coincidental.

Several recent occasions come to mind, all of them on trains passing through Amsterdam on their way to Schiphol Airport. Natives who have unwittingly taken seats in the quiet zone can generally be cajoled into a reflective state or at least into reducing their conversation to a whisper. Some collapse in giggles when asked by fellow passengers to respect the rules; others demonstrate belligerence – all of which contributes to even more noise.

A good number of the passengers are foreign visitors on their way to catch a flight home at the end of a busy working day or week. Once on the train, they are experiencing their first moments of leisure, remembering local hosts fondly. They make phone calls to offer thanks and to finalize agreements; they ask people to look out for a vest or scarf carelessly left behind. A Swedish businessman had evidently been working hard: he was slap-happy with laughter as he bid his hosts farewell. A Greek salesman ran a last inventory check, commenting on items held up from the open briefcase on his lap. A man speaking a minority language from the Surinamese interior was harangued into silence by a businesswoman (with whom I shared a moment of significant, simultaneous eyebrow-raising) speaking Sranantongo, the unifying language of Suriname, along with Dutch, of course. A group of French-speaking women introduced great mirth and good cheer into the wordless zone with chatter and laughter (please consult video fragment below). A fellow passenger, again across the aisle, explained (breaking off her glare at the rather derelict figure, with a bandaged hand and unkempt hair, hunched sideways in the bench across from mine in utter oblivion as he emitted a loud, grating snore) - she explained in a delightfully heavy Amsterdam inner-city accent why this was okay:

“They’re foreigners, they don’t know the rules.” I was grateful for this unexpected encounter with a glimmer of tolerance in the zone where we were meant to have immunity from exposure to any and all contrasting views.

Please tilt head or computer and read

Fortunate circumstance allows me to assemble these titles on my own bookshelf for this group picture to be presented during a wee presentation later today on engaged writers from the USA. Preparation of said presentation has robbed me of the time to post thoughts here on just how these (and many other titles) books occupy common ground.

I have called upon the reader to enlarge a photo and read on 1 previous occasion, in March 2009, with the embedded text Salt Lake City Again.

Invigilation, Anarchy and Civilization

Laws and constitutions are subject to interpretation, that much we all understand by now. But when a Dutch lawyer confessed to me that nobody in Holland really knows exactly how many laws there are to begin with, because they’re all rumbling around in profusion on computer chips in The Hague, I wondered if this was an aspect which could at some point spawn unforeseen complications. Breaking the rules is a matter of pride in this country – so it would be nice to identify the limits - perhaps not nationwide, but certainly in Amsterdam, where violation of most recognized codes of behavior has become a code in its own right: hurtling along a crowded sidewalk on your bicycle, tossing a still-burning cigarette butt in the air. I’ve been confronted with challenges to the system, not only as a civilian on the street, but as the enforcer of exam roles, the protectress of the honest and the good. I have performed as the invigilator.

While presiding over distance-learners as their invigilator, I was often in one hall with dozens of individuals from various Dutch Provinces, Britain, Spain, Portugal, Nigeria, Cameroon, Thailand China, Pakistan, Russia, Poland and the Czech Republic. Most exam candidates were prompt, if not early, settled at their assigned desk in a state of concentration. Usually a small knot of desks in the middle would be empty until 5 minutes before the exam began. Suddenly the door would burst open and a noisy group of adult males – accountants doing the compulsory refresher course – would rush in to find their numbered seats, come to register at the front desk without the required papers, inquire whether it’s really necessary to sit at the numbered seats, smirk and roll their eyes at the reply, ask us to look up their seat numbers, slouch back to their seats, transfer plastic-sealed snacks and water bottles (allowed) from their bags (not allowed) to the desktop, etc. On one occasion, a young woman presented an expired (not allowed) passport as her photo ID, and returned triumphantly when the exam was over to show me the registration papers which stipulate that a photo ID is indeed required – but the word valid didn’t appear anywhere in the text.

Most of the candidates were impressive: young adults holding down full time jobs while they studied, preparing for promotions or for assignments overseas. The hours of quiet had great appeal, linked by a few sounds only: papers sliding on desks, the clicking of pens and soft tapping on calculators, the rare sniffle or sneeze.

Occasionally there was someone like the au-pair from New Zealand, sitting for ‘Chinese Literature and Society’. She finished early and as no other candidates were present that day, we talked. As a believer she had joined a Christian Church and had learned Dutch from reading the Bible. I told her about learning Dutch from reading newspapers when I first came to Amsterdam. When I started speaking the language, I sounded like a walking front-page article – full of a syntax which is effective in print, but less than convincing when applied in conversation. She told me yes, her Dutch did echo Scripture, but that she didn’t mind, and neither did most of her partners in conversation as they were members of the Congregation, too, where by the way she planned to linger for the foreseeable future. There was little to go back to, what with the Maori’s being coddled by the government and the foreigners getting all the breaks. I was sure she would fit in somewhere in NL, perhaps with the political party whose leader is now on trial for inciting hatred and discrimination. The nanny was uncertain about whether her visa would be extended and had decided to get a head-start on Chinese civilization in case she gets sent home – at least the Chinese are coming down and creating jobs, not just claiming them.

Both Sides Now: Muoslak Muo?

Should this be your first encounter with the person of Oum Kalsoum (that's her at the mic in the above picture), you may want to look her up, and for that purpose you have numerous options, including : Umm Kulthum, Om Kalthoum, Oum Kalthum, Omm Kolsoum, Umm Kolthoum, Um Kalthoom) (Arabic: أم كلثوم ). Egypt’s most celebrated singer crossed the river in 1975 at the age of approximately seventy-five, give or take a few years, interrupting the workings of government in Cairo during three days of national mourning.

Certain elements are not what they first appear to be in the person of Oum Kalsoum. That’s how she got started: her father, an Imam at the mosque in their small village, dressed his pre-adolescent daughter as a boy so that she could mingle freely and practice with males instructed in religious song. Dad thought she was better than her brothers, and the deception paid off: she went on to become the greatest female vocalist of her time in the Arab World.

Amsterdam’s Royal Tropical Institute used to stage a monthly open-mic talent night. On one such evening, I watched a gifted Oum Kalsoum impersonator whip a crowd of men of Middle-Eastern origin into a clapping, cheering frenzy. The applause trickled off to a confused, out-of-sync splatter as the audience gradually realized that the impersonator was a man. After a few tense moments, the singer struck another great note, and the audience, either convinced by the talent or just determined to prolong this good night out, rose up to the occasion and began to sing along and sway in rhythm again.

With this idea in mind (the idea that initially comes to mind is ‘opposites which attract’ as a relative concept, subject to amendment as circumstances change), I was charmed by the image of Oum Kalsoum lyrics floating in two languages across a screen in illustration of her improvisational virtuosity and unparalleled ability to sustain notes. The original Arabic lyrics move from right to left, the English lyrics from left to right (okay, backwards, but the impressive timing is the same).

The screen occupied a small rectangle of space in an exhibition in a European capital devoted to Oum Kalsoum. As reflected above, the display/audiovisual array was complex: photographs, recordings, film and print documentation, clothing items, current fashion from the Middle East inspired by her look and, touchingly, even the vintage microphone and radios that carried her sound live to millions back in the day – it was all there. And all off-limits for photographers. Somehow this clandestine still from the video for musicologists reached my files. She was, by the way, born as Fatima Ibrahim al-Sayed al-Betagui. What happened after that is the stuff of musical magic, cultural cooperation and rivalry, intrigues, geopolitics and global wars, all on a large but also small, intimate scale.

A Dish Towel in the Sun

My parents were married on September 10, 1938, after a whirlwind courtship in and around Toronto, Canada (Mom) and New Haven, Connecticut, USA (Dad). Her mother was critical of daughter Mary swanning off with an uncivilized Yank; the family of Alfred was disdainful towards the import bride with no previous exposure to New England protocol.

But Mary was swept off her feet by the bold young lawyer and punster who appeared out of nowhere as the Best Man at a wedding where she was the Maid of Honor. Alfred fell for the sparkling Toronto lass, an avid reader and lover of jazz, eager to escape her mother’s sharp scrutiny with emigration to the south.

Family friends from the early years of their marriage would later recall how Mary was a gracious hostess who would rather curl up with a book than clean the house, while Alfred drew praise for his gardens and succulent meaty treats prepared on outdoor stone grills built with his bare hands.

Mary’s Scots-Canadian temperament did not always blend well with the formalities enjoyed by her in-laws. She missed her Uncle George, a shy Ontario farmer who still spoke with a brogue which she never tired of imitating. Her mother inadvertently encouraged her to hone her natural beauty by asserting that she had none; Uncle George offered her blissful hours rumbling along on the back of his horse-drawn wagon carrying fresh peas to market.

Alfred would also show off the odd pumpkin or tomato that appeared in the green zone, but his love lay with flowers. You’d think this might have given more pleasure to his father, a professor of Forestry and planner of urban woodlands. Bare-chested in the summer, protected by layers of flannel and wool in the winter, Al hacked his way through thicket and bush with an enormous machete.

The parents catch up with me from time to time: on a restaurant sign mimicking Dad’s handwriting; on a common dish towel with tips for Scots pronunciation. Their anniversary falls in late summer, on September 10, a fortuitous day in some ways for many of us.

Is/was on a Roll: English as Accessory Pt. 2

The July 23 LifeBeforeNews post was offered in the spirit of vacation. Vacation is still the dominant mode in Amsterdam, but meanwhile entries are piling up fast for ‘English as Accessory Pt.2’ (Please see ‘English as Accessory’ May 2, 2009) as the holiday season wears on. Please bear with me: your vocabulary list of Dutch words may be longer than you think, because they're English. And consider this: it turns out that third person singular present and simple past forms for the verb ‘to be’ (is/was) are identical in Dutch and English. You could be onto something.

Not so very long ago:

I was rearranging suitcase contents around midnight. The late cancellation of my flight out of a small regional airport in the USA (We apologize for the inconvenience. Please see our ticket desk for overnight vouchers) had resulted in my transfer to this nearby hotel, built on an awkward rectangular plot of land surrounded by new highways and access roads to industrial zones. Early morning would see me transferred back to the airfield – no need to unpack. I had been happy with the vending machine delivery of root beer (No meals are prepared here. Please visit our Food Lounge next to the elevators on the third floor), my childhood soft drink of choice. Cool sips, TV news in the background, as I puttered.

A voice in the news report caught my attention. The woman was speaking English, easily and fluidly, with a Dutch accent. I didn’t believe much of what she was saying (defending her son, who was a suspect in connection with a young woman’s disappearance on a Caribbean island), but hearing her made me homesick for my hood in the Netherlands. I had been away for several months. Her tones in English were/are part of the daily setting in my second homeland. Not only when English is spoken, but also when English is inserted into Dutch. (as I mentioned, Please see LBN post of May 2, 2009: “English as Accessory”)

Please find below a list of words, compounds and phrases from the English language, shown in context in above images; all common usage (in certain circles) in spoken and written Dutch:

Time heals everything
Claim (cultuur = culture)

Thrill
T-shirt
Service
Privacy
Killer
keukenDesign (keuken = kitchen)
Finest hour
Diehard
Corporate

The May 2 post included:

splendid isolation

for Kids
Outlet
Copyright or wrong

In focus
Update
Never a dull moment
Next
Something rotten

Now back to my vacation.

English as Accessory

Learning Dutch involves making choices. Depending on where you live, you may or may not want to take on the local accent and vocabulary (regional dialects are another issue altogether). Differences in pronunciation can be significant – perhaps less for foreigners more accustomed to adjusting to new sounds than for, let’s say, Dutch TV-makers, who are prone to adding subtitles when non-mainstream native Dutch speakers are on screen.

Students of Dutch familiar with English, German, Swiss-German and Danish have a head-start in the language-learning process in the Netherlands, but newcomers who don’t speak English at all may be at a disadvantage. Knowing which English words or phrases to use, and when to do it, adds a certain je ne sais quoi to one’s Dutch.

Consider these few random examples encountered in recent weeks:

The nation’s leading evening newspaper, the NRC Handelsblad, stays high-brow in an editorial on Holland’s faltering judicial system by referring to something rotten.

Their morning tabloid edition targets the mobile generation with the name NRC Next.

The need for speed also peppers the speech of a producer of a jittery prime time talk show, where, as the producer concedes, haste can unhinge a script, but it’s TV and there’s never a dull moment.

Streamlined modernity shapes the program title InFocus (an example of how English words are sometimes combined into one for the Dutch variant) and its Update from the Muslim Broadcasting Company (in a system with Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Humanist and other secular broadcasting organizations).

A music sector network opts for misguided word play (that’s when it gets irritating) in framing their discussion Copyright or wrong… on authors’ rights.

Clearly a wrong decision was made when a woman named ‘Lies’ (Dutch pronunciation = ‘Lease’) created a store name by combining her own name with an English-language description of the business, resulting in Lies. For Kids. Good luck there!

I am, however, grateful to the Dutch journalist and author John Jansen van Galen who offers splendid isolation as an option for this country’s noisy right-wing PVV Freedom Party.

Those Persians

A professor of Iranian origin now working in the Netherlands introduced Persian culture as 'the place where Asia kissed the Middle East.' I'm sure he said 'kissed.' He may also have said 'embraced' in the next sentence or two. It's possible that he also referred to China kissing Turkey. What's absolutely certain is that he referred to a mutual acquaintance of South Asian origin with significant disdain, more or less attributing this person's abrasive - as he saw it - personality to ethnicity. It struck me at the time as ironic that while pressing the point of a multicultural or pluralist tradition in his homeland, where there had been a unique and extended period of ecstatic cultural exchange and expression, he also illustrated some of the residual irritations that can remain visible, like scar tissue, when personalities clash.

Kavir is (was?? has the global crisis closed it down??) a pluralist Persian culinary zone in Glasgow, offering Carrot & Persian Ice Cream Milkshakes, Persian herbal tea and all variety of smoothies. I found their sign rather alluring, and I hope they've not had to fold. My Persian connections are scattered, but detailed, and luckily for me, publicity around an exhibition at the British Museum on 17th-century Iran draws another epic description of Silk Route dramas in centuries past in the days of glory in Isfahan, where, as it happened, the going currency was a silver coin mined by slaves of Spanish conquistadores, but manufactured by the mercantile Dutch. Who's kissing who, I mean, really?

My first Iranian connection was probably during my grade school years in New Jersey, when I played with the daughter of a carpet importer. After that, on my first flight from West to East, the standard pre-landing announcement from the cockpit was slightly amended to Ladies and Gentlemen, we will land shortly at Teheran Airport, where the local time is 1500 years in the past.

In contrast: I received a congratulatory card on International Women's Day once and only once - from a forward-thinking Iranian exile in Holland. And in the new Millenium, I was witness to the bizarre application of a dynamic, modern survey of the pro-active and largely successful Iranian minority in the Netherlands. In academics and many other fields, (Dutch-) Iranians are forging ahead.

Nevertheless, it was a bit of surprise when a Canadian friend was drawn into this survey as being one of them. Amsterdam city records showed his mother's place of birth as being Teheran, where she indeed first appeared on this earth as the daughter of English oil company employees temporarily residing in Iran. He was thereby classified as an Iranian in Holland, and when the survey of his lifestyle and habits was done, there was no way to clarify his true background. I know, because I sat in as a witness.

It was quite a shock to see that the barrier to providing accurate information was built into the software on the laptop provided to the interviewer by the marketing company being paid by government and/or city funds (taxpayers) to generate useful data on Holland's new demographics. The Canadian interviewee repeatedly explained the circumstances of his mother's birth in Teheran, but there was no way of recording this history. Another strange question concerned the subject's social life: do you spend more time with your own group (Iranians) or with Dutch people?? He asked: what about everyone else? But there was no way to file accurate details.

Te gek voor woorden - too crazy for words - an expression which I now can hope to learn in Farsi, thanks (to end on a high note) to the recent publication of a Compilation of Idioms in Dutch & Persian. The book's author is a Teheran-born long-time resident of the Netherlands and a certified interpreter and translator. Farsi, as it happens, is Iran's official language - but there many dozens of others.

I Promise You

Some good news in the final weeks of 2008: this Polish-language sign was removed from the window of a store in my Amsterdam neighbourhood. I do not read Polish (please see http://lifebeforenews.blogspot.com/2007/06/no-vocabulary.html) but upon inquiring inside was told that it warned potential shop-lifters of the presence of security camera’s. Theft had become a major problem for retailers in 2008; a majority of those caught came from Eastern Europe. Polish was selected as the most effective language of deterrence. I will eventually ask why the sign was removed. For the moment, I’m banking on a cheerful explanation: robberies were down/the shop-owners decided not to stigmatize Poles/the sign did not enhance the Holiday mood.

The Holiday Season began to gather steam for me in the post-Thanksgiving and Sint Maarten period, as Dutch Muslims were gathering for the Eid al-Adha and others had just celebrated Sinterklaas, which I acknowledged at a weekend dinner party held mostly in anticipation of Chanukah at the home of a non-observant Jewish friend who grew up celebrating Christmas in Pennsylvania in the USA. There are those who would launch the winter celebrations in October with Halloween, running straight on past Chinese New Year (I have been advised to muster up lots of patience for the Year of the Ox) beyond the Ides of March and, why not, into Easter.

At the dinner party, we had a heated discussion about whether the City of Amsterdam is acting wisely in reducing soft-drug trade and red-light areas for prostitution. Arguments were made for protection of and health care for prostitutes to prevent their disappearance into illegal brothels where trafficked women (most are women, majority trafficked) and men from all over the world are held against their will. The economy of Amsterdam is fed not just by museum-goers and lovers of Indonesian food, but also significantly by soft-drug visitors from neighboring countries, Brits on wild weekends, and by hooker-gawkers from around the globe, including families who link hands with grandparents and kids, stroll by the windows and stare at the women as though studying an amusement park theme. Visitors also have a chance to stroll around sex-shops, such as the one just visible in the photo above, across from the store that had displayed the warning sign in Polish.

Still at the dinner party, a gay man, a long-time resident of Amsterdam, said he fears that a conservative crackdown on prostitution would damage the local economy and eventually result in correspondingly conservative anti-gay backlash-legislation. So!..If you plan to visit Amsterdam in the New Year, even as a one-day cruise ship visitor or a transit passenger at Schiphol Airport, do enjoy the architecture, museums, music, harbour ferries and good coffee! The city is already transitioning into a revised self – which would include less exploitation of women from far-off lands – it just hasn’t yet decided how to pay for it, what with so much money being allocated to over-budget transportation projects and the like. Give a call if you pass through town. I promise to show you a good time! Happy 2009!

‘Metadata…Wild Type and Poorly Transformable Strains…’

Name-tags, handsewn onto clothing and other household items, are not something I see every day. Here’s one I have read and reread. The excellent quality of both bed sheet and label, the color and strength of their material permit me now, presumably a good long while after manufacture, to speak of their endurance.

Recently an acquaintance of many years placed a suitcase (that briefly belonged to me and then went into storage in her whereabouts) out on the street – common practice in Amsterdam. The story of what happened next, as a result of the fact that she did not remove the name-tag with my name, address and phone number on it, is for another day, but the fortuitous development of that story after its reckless launch has prompted me to display the text found on this sheet. Which, by the way, I did not pick up off the street. But I do not know how it entered my home.

Mr/Mrs/Ms J. Kooistra: I have your sheet. I have no idea how it ended up in my linen closet, but I would be happy to return the white bed sheet with your name on it if you would tell me where to send it.

You might be the author of this thesis from 1974: Fate of donor deoxyribonucleic acid in wild type and poorly transformable strains of haemophilus influenzaeas well as subsequent related articles in medical journals. J. Kooistra is apparently still a Senior Researcher at the Faculty of Social Sciences at Utrecht University, and is the co-author of Metadata as a means for correspondence on digital media (…Metadata derive their action from their association to data and from the relationship they maintain with this data…)

Or are you an Attorney in Wyoming, Michigan? Perhaps Dr. Kooistra, a Pediatric Pulmonary Disease Specialist in Wisconsin in the USA, who also helps children with asthma at a summer camp?

J. Kooistra the poet writes in Frisian, the language of the northern Dutch province of Friesland (and an official EU minority language!): Ik ha dy nedich, dû bist myn lêste treen, ik bin as deze himpen, rûch en rimpen, mar dû bist sêft as simmerreen, simmerreen. J. Kooistra also co-authored A Shorter Introduction to English Literature, a reference work which went through 18 editions but which was originally published in 1937, so I don’t think this sheet belongs to him. (Another Frisian J. Kooistra is locally known as the ‘Frisian Wiesenthal’ for his work on thousands of World War II casualties related to the province) Evidently a good number of Kooistra’s are literary figures in Friesland. And they get around: several years ago, J. Kooistra taught a course in Creative Writing: PROSE FICTION at Nipissing University in North Bay, Canada, where in September 2008 they just held a one-day welcome back powwow – there are hundreds of First Nation, Inuit and Métis students studying at Nipissing!

J. Kooistra is at the same time a veteran fire-fighter in the city of Portland, Maine, in the USA, where he became involved in a defamation suit around a colleague known for looking at women with “elevator eyes” – the court case, I should report, involved more grievous claims. And J. Kooistra is at work as a carpenter in Leeuwarden in Friesland back in the Netherlands, where the surname has its origins. You might want to visit his website if you are fond of sound effects: http://www.timmerbedrijf-jkooistra.nl/index.htm

If you want your sheet back, send me your address.

Wallace is a Good Speaker - Pt. 1

My neighbour thinks that basically I’m a good person, easy to get along with, probably affectionate with friends. He has never said as much, and he wouldn’t; that would be ungentlemanly, and Wallace is very well-mannered. But I can see the expectation in his eyes. I know how to read drunks, and he knows that I know. So I'm safe: he'll keep trying to bamboozle me; I'll glide through like a fairy. He'll never know I'm real.

From the very first indication of physical violence between Wallace and his friend, or boyfriend, roommate or protégé, whoever he is (I’ve never seen him), our communications have resembled communications between trusted acquaintances - the constructive, hopeful words that fall between pitched battles, the words spoken by the strong, who, however stressed and strained, know about the promise of serenity, know that they should want it. He knows that I want peace and quiet, and somehow I think that part of him (the part that does understand conflict) wants that for me, too. I suppose he uses our brief conversations to regroup. I use them as a security measure, knowing that a well executed sentence can provide protection in more ways than one.

But we are not friends. We rarely speak, and when we do, we are in the hallway of the apartment building. I am on my way in or out and the noise of my keys has drawn him to his door. Wallace is always impeccably groomed. Elegant silk shirts fall gracefully on his slender frame and his shoes gleam. Even the smoke of his thin cigarettes has a certain dash to it as it spirals off towards the staircase. His appearances are almost always for the purpose of apologizing for the most recent eruption. There’s no rhythm to the schedule. I’m out a lot, and I’m sure I miss some of the sparring, but when at home I’m no longer surprised by the shouts and thuds, the crack of a body slamming against a wall. So yes, I would really like to see this come to an end. But another part of Wallace enjoys the spectacle, of course, not the actual fighting, not even witnessing my discomfort, but his role as the eloquent narrator, as though it’s the best tale he can tell, and it will go on and on. Part of the plot is that he is apparently trying to help this other person. This story line has emerged in the notes he has started slipping under my door.

New Words in Dutch used in English

A credit card company offered me thirty free minutes on (in?) a golf simulator (I looked it up: a golf simulator [the Dutch word is formed by joining the two English words, and the Dutch word was used in spite of the fact that the advertisement was distributed in English], not surprisingly, creates a sort of virtual golf), thus engaging my brain in one of a myriad of wasted moments of alarm and desolation triggered by marketing campaigns.

Even though I have acknowledged feelings of being harassed by golf and its marketing campaigns since the final decade of the 20th-century, the point at which I created computer and paper files to accommodate my habit of holding on to all golf-related information which came my way, and in spite of the fact that the feelings of harassment have been toned down by my having recently embarked on a quest to find peace with golf, the truth is that it’s one of the few sports that really bothers me. I have chosen not to speak up until now, largely because a good number of individuals I like and even love are or have been committed to golf to some extent. For the time being I find it unnecessary to embellish upon the specific issues which might bring sadness to others.

It may seem that I have done everything possible to avoid talking about golf with that vulnerable group of devotees, but this is not the case. I have in fact actively pursued the subject of golf, in a manner that would allow me to learn more about the science of the sport, and explanations of certain golf-specific subjects, such as the handicap system, have invariably been complex and truly interesting. I have even gone out to play on a real golf course, dressed in golf clothes. It rained that afternoon, so the game was cancelled.

Some of the subjects in my golf files (which exist under the general heading of ‘The Rise and Fall of the Global anti-Golf Movement’ ) include: golf simulators, golf and globalization, fair pay for caddies, regional land disputes, farmland sold to golf course developers, farmers forced off their land to make way for golf courses, farmers who take up golf in their spare time, burial grounds excavated to create golf courses, environmentally-friendly golf courses, climate change and the future of golf, golf colors/fashions and accessories, the golf course as sanctuary, my Father’s private golf course in our back yard, growth and loss sectors in the golf industry, the history of golf, golf in China, golf etiquette, gender and race on the golf course, etc. Contributions to the archive are always appreciated. Thank you in advance.

Let me count the ways

When I first caught sight of it, the sign was tacked to a wall in a shady corridor of the Municipal Judicial Authorities building in Kandy, கண்டி, a Sri Lankan mountain town. The three alphabets were graceful together; the colors enhanced by age. The message seemed either absolutely effective (the setting couldn’t have been quieter) or perfectly located, like a stage direction conveying a desired atmosphere which had been attained long ago.

A third possibility was to read it as a confirmation or announcement: This is silence, or as close to it as you’ll get for the time being. We walked into the building before office hours began, just passing by the Judge’s office for reasons which had remained unexplained, slowing down after a pre-dawn rush to the Buddhist Temple in Kandy where the faithful protect a tooth relic from the Buddha himself.

The Judge, the kindest person you could ever hope to meet, had picked me up at the guesthouse and run alongside of me in his loose sandals to the temple. He did this as a favor to his sister, a close family friend of a friend of mine in Colombo, but still, I had anticipated an element of formality in the temple expedition: a dignified stroll at the end of the night, slipping into the temple by a narrow entryway where religious supervisors would screen visitors with practiced looks.

Instead, the Judge rushed up to the guesthouse and bumped into the edge of the wooden porch several times as he greeted me, his crisp, white shirt contrasting with dark curly hair which even careful grooming with coconut oil, evident in the gleaming parallel locks, could not prevent from tumbling onto his forehead and cheek. In the dim light he looked like a schoolboy, ready for anything.

We said Must run! simultaneously and bounded across the garden lawn, arriving nevertheless too late at the temple, where the staff presumably recognized the Judge and allowed us to rush along the corridor as quietly as possible, only to reach the inner chamber housing the tooth relic just as the golden casket was again being sealed, leaving us to share this moment of disappointment with the smiling priests still bent over the treasure.

Which brings me to the fourth possible interpretation of the sign – which I fell in love with at first sight – hanging on the wall when we entered the Municipal building. Option #4 was conveyed by the figure of the apologetic man, a respected figure in this town who probably seldom failed in the execution of his duties. He shrugged just once and showed me inside without saying a word, the look of boyish anticipation gone from his face. As early as it was, we were warm from our exertions, ready for the cool interior, but the fine air seemed to cover the scene with a tinge of sadness rather than relief. The Judge padded around his office, with less urgency now, opening and shutting drawers and cupboards. I understood that this was a time for no conversation. I didn’t know how his relationship with his sister, his stature as a Judge, his religious convictions and relationship with the caretakers of this most sacred of sites were intertwined and how they all weighed in the balance.

I busied myself with a long, close stare at the sign. (This must have been when without a sound he slipped a small object into his pocket, producing it much later in the morning when he finally smiled widely again and opened his hand and peeled back tissue paper, which no longer crackled in the considerable heat, to reveal a small carved elephant, the beast central to the magnificent annual Perahera procession which appears to go on in spite of all extenuating circumstances) The Judge emerged, closed his office door and noted my focus on the wall, whereupon he offered to give me the sign without the slightest hesitation. They wouldn’t miss it in this quiet place, he assured me.

Fortunately I usually carried then as I do now a protective folder for flat, loose sheets of paper or objects, and I was able to slip the flaky cardboard rectangle into a cool, dry case for transport in my cotton shoulder bag. This was not the first time that I was able to make off with a sign.

Not Barefoot in the Park / No Naked Flames on Pentecostal Weekend Ferry

Drought warnings are in effect in parts of the Dutch countryside. But in Amsterdam, a city of canals, the sunny weather has been highly appreciated over the past week, since before Liberation Day 2008 - that's May 5th. Liberation Day marks the release in 1945 from Nazi occupation during World War II. Things have gone pretty well in Holland since then. Holidays are considered a basic right for all inhabitants of the Netherlands, and more than 20% of the Dutch population has reportedly been on vacation in the first half of May. This is good. It helps relieve the congestion in Amsterdam. Most city parks, and some waterways (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OfMOHdlpP8), sponsor holiday activities, with vendor markets, games for children and live music.

In one park in eastern Amsterdam, the activities reflect the local population: the merchants selling clothing, music and handicrafts are Dutch, Indian, African, Surinamese, Antillean and so on. Potential buyers reflect the same lines of descent. Many take their small children to the park’s wading pool, a large, clean circle of water surrounded by grass. One of the signs around the area warns of broken glass and other dangerous objects on the ground. The visual warning hangs too high for children to notice. I was interested in the policy at the city office responsible for this park so I called and asked whether language (multiple, in this neighbourhood) considerations played a role in deciding to feature the pained foot above glass, with no verbal reinforcement, on the sign.

A receptionist thought that it was a message discouraging people from leaving glass in the area. The person in charge of all park signs was out of the office, possibly all week, on vacation, as I said, and perhaps into next week as well, as the third major holiday in May (the first was Remembrance Day, on May 4th, honouring all War Dead, including WWII and all other conflicts) is today, with Whit Sunday or Pentecost, a Christian holiday which is an official holiday for all inhabitants of the Netherlands. The event is recalled differently in separate churches, but it all ties in with the idea of the Holy Spirit returning to man – according to certain groups: as tongues of fire settling on top of the Apostles’ heads! Extraordinary! This allowed them to speak in tongues, to all who would listen. The subject remains highly controversial in our times. It's an issue with, for example, the “Glossolalia Movement.”

No Naked Flames suddenly appeared as an apt warning on the ferry which carried me over a river yesterday, at the start of this holiday weekend.

Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggaugagoggchaubunagungamaugg, a guy-thing

Where were you?

I needed to relax, so I went for a drive.

I grew up in car-culture, where there was space to coast gently or even speed up without experiencing stress.

Really? That’s so funny. It’s such a guy-thing.

She was genuinely surprised, even though she had known me for a long time. But she had grown up in a city built for boats, surrounded by countryside originally designed for tractors and cows. Automobiles have extended their influence at an alarming rate over the past half-a-century, but this has happened with a competitive core feeling, and many drivers lurch at top speed from one red light to the next, not associating cars with calm.

I had never specifically thought about life in cars that way, although it’s true that driving a car was definitely a guy-thing while I was growing up. My mother drove if Dad was off at work, but when both parents were in the car; my father was always at the wheel. We sometimes drove to a favourite nature site in the Watchung Hills for a Sunday afternoon walk with the dogs. Vacation expeditions usually meant packing a picnic for a full day’s drive: parents in front, four daughters in the back. We sang songs together, practiced tongue-twisters, clung to long series of numbers to deliver a final sum and we answered riddles. All of this was administered by my father, who must also have felt that driving was a guy-thing, if only because he was doing it and there were no other males present. The arithmetic and riddle litany became familiar enough so that we were eventually able to recite the full answer as the question was being posed. When stories wore out, they were shelved, repeated no more. New and challenging riddles were introduced to keep the bar high.

Just around the time when I decided to start relaxing by going for drives, I was revisited by one of the archived riddles, in an otherwise inconspicuous article about long place names, naming Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggaugagoggchaubunagungamaugg as the fifth longest word in the world (Guinness Book of Records) and the longest name for any lake anywhere.

My father would ask:

What’s the meaning of Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggaugagoggchaubunagungamaugg?

We learned to answer:

You fish on your side, I fish on my side, and nobody fishes in the middle.

The riddle was one of Dad’s favourites, and having never heard it again since the childhood car-drive days, I felt as though his story-telling powers had somehow willed the Lake into existence, as a real place. I do accept the version which says that as a young man his imagination was piqued by this word of Algonquin origin, which he stored and passed on to his children as few others had done – I never had friends who were familiar with the sounds. But it felt, it feels, like a tribute to him that the lake is there, albeit officially known as Webster Lake, in the town of Webster MA, named after Daniel Webster (who left us a dictionary). The riddle was something of an oratorical exercise, and from a contemporary perspective, it was a lesson in Native American culture and New England geography. The competitive origins of this story would bear out years later as a girl-thing.

Rising sea levels in literature

Time to release my files, to offer transparency on documentation I’ve held onto, some of it for a very long time. First up: the “Roses are red…”quips written by a childhood friend on the back of a card which reads “Learn to complain without suffering.” This appealing take-off on the self-help industry was ahead of its time. As young girls we were amused by the messages on both sides of the cardboard. As an adult, I acknowledge that some cardboard should stay, but some should go.

Papers from my archive that can and should be recycled include blow by blow accounts of family feuds; detailed daily logs from offices, church organizations and sports clubs; Christmas newsletters containing hyperbolic reports of the achievements of one family; Certain love letters; Copies of third-time reminders of subscription cancellations; Photocopies of an article from a South Florida newspaper describing ´Floribbean´ cuisine from the ´mango gang.´ After all:
There are only four years to go before celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Julio Cortázar’s Cronopios and Famas (Historias de Cronopios y de Famas), a work addressing a number of socio-cultural concerns as relevant today as they were in 1962. Nonsense, you say, this literature of the absurd pokes fun at human foibles, but nothing is intended for serious reading. The author himself said he wrote the book for fun, but for many readers, this kind of fun can only be appreciated by those who have experienced not-fun or extreme discomfort. Cortazar’s commitment to the written word was experimental, intimate and irreverent. The texts in Cronopios and Famas are short, a length familiar to those who hoard undesignated jottings from train rides, notes from a seminar or thoughts that pile up during a telephone conversation and have nowhere else to go.

"As the scribes will persist, the few readers there are in the world are going to have to change their roles and become scribes themselves. More and more countries will be made up of scribes, and more and more factories will be necessary to manufacture paper and ink, the scribes by day and the machines by night to print the scribes’ work. First the libraries will overflow the houses, then the municipalities decide (now we´re really into it) to sacrifice their children´s playgrounds to enlarge the libraries. Then the theaters will go, then the maternity homes, slaughterhouses, bars, hospitals. The poor use the books like bricks, they stick them together with cement and build walls of books and live in cabins of books. Then it happens that the books clear the cities and invade the countryside, they go on flattening wheatfield and meadows of sunflowers, even though the Department of Highways manages to keep the roads cleared, even if only between two extremely high walls of books. At times a wall gives and there are terrifying automobile accidents. The scribes labor without let because humanity respects vocations, and the printed matter reaches the seashore. The President of the Republic gets on the telephone with the presidents of the republics, and intelligently proposes to cast the leftover books into the sea, which act is accomplished simultaneously on every coast in the world. Thus the Siberian scribes see their works cast into a sea of ice and the Indonesian scribes etc. This allows the scribes to step up their production as the earth again has space to store their books. It does not occur to them that the sea has a bottom and that at the bottom of the sea the printed matter is beginning to pile up, first in the form of a sticky pulp, then in the form of a solid pulp, and finally a tough though viscous flooring which rises several feet a day and will finally reach the surface. Then much of the water invades many of the lands and there is a new distribution of continents and oceans, and presidents of various republics are replaced by lakes and peninsulas, presidents of other republics see immense territories newly open to their ambitions, etc. Sea water, forced to expand with such unprecedented violence, evaporates faster than ever, or seeks rest. Blending itself with the printed matter to make that glutinous pulp, to the point that one day ships´ captains on the great trade routes report that their ships are advancing slowly, thirty knots drops to twenty, to fifteen, the engines sputter and pant and the propellers are wrenched and bent out of shape. Finally the ships stop wherever they are at different places in the sea, trapped by the pulp, and scribes all over the world write thousands of articles and books explaining the phenomenon and are filled with an enormous happiness. The presidents and the captains decide to convert the ships into islands and gambling casinos, the public arrives on foot upon the cardboard seas, and on these islands and casinos dance orchestras fill the night and sweeten the air-conditioned atmosphere and the dancing lasts until the early hours of the morning.. New printed material is piling up on the seashores, but it´s impossible to put it into the pulp, so that walls of printed matter are growing and mountains are being born on the shores of the old seas. The scribes realize that the ink and paper companies are going to go bankrupt, and their handwriting gets smaller and smaller and they use the most imperceptible corners of each sheet of paper. When the ink runs out they write in pencil, etc. When the paper goes, they write on slabs of wood or rock or on stone tiles, etc. The practice of intercalating one text into another begins to become popular, to take advantage of the space between the lines, or to scrape down the letters already printed with razor blades so as to use the paper again. The scribes are working slowly now, but their numbers are so immense that printed matter now separates the land completely from the bed of the ancient seas. On the earth the race of scribes lives precariously, doomed to extinction, and at sea there are the islands and casinos, or rather the ex-transatlantic liners, where the presidents of the republics have fled to refuge and where they hold enormous parties and exchange wireless messages from island to island, president to president, and captain to captain… (´End of the World of the End´, from Cronopios and Famas by Julio Cortázar, 1962.)

A Win-Win Situation

He is losing his edge, the articulate right-winger in The Hague who has provided one-liners and sound-bites for what seems like a very long time already. In one of his recent anti-Muslim rants, in this case connected with burkhas (or was it the burkhini?), he stood in front of camera’s - wearing a dark suit and light-colored shirt, as do most of his many dozens of male colleagues darting back and forth across the glimmering hallways of government buildings - and referred to women wearing burkha’s as ‘penguins.’

This Dutch parliamentarian with startling bleached blonde hair, from the PVV “Freedom Party” is (possibly) celebrating his breakthrough onto the international scene, as the person responsible for an anti-Islam anti-Koran film, not yet released, which has now triggered anti-Dutch demonstrations on the streets of northern Afghanistan. The Dutch government has officially distanced itself from the blonde’s inflammatory message, which could lead to loss of life; NATO officials have warned of further disturbances. For months the focus has been on the polarizing Parliamentarian and what to do about him. He doesn’t need official bodyguards - he has had them for years.

The film might just suddenly be there on the internet, but even if it never actually appears, the PVV-penguin will have enjoyed enormous attention because of his ability to aggravate and offend, one word at a time. I was recently reminded that it is quite easy to do this by drawing people’s attention to something that they don’t understand. That can be unpleasant. I wore a sign with core-Dutch content and non-Dutch form, so designed, I thought at the time, to draw attention to the message. This was not entirely the case.

The sign with white letters on an orange background reads in Dutch as ‘Hup Nederland!’ which translates as ‘Let’s go Netherlands!’ A more authentic rendition of the original cheer would have been spelled out as the alliterative ‘Hup Holland Hup!’ in Dutch as displayed in blue letters on the orange t-shirt manufactured for soccer/football fans from Holland.* This sign was designed by a Dutch citizen of partial Dutch descent, raised outside of the Netherlands, now a dual national here and in his country of origin, where his parents had settled as immigrants.

His choice of wording was, as far as I know, an unintentional step away from the norm. His choice of font, on the other hand, was deliberate, inspired mainly by the fact that said choice, once the exclusive province of typesetters, is now open to anyone at all. “Freedom of font,” you could say. The sign was assembled as a lark. He had not expected me to either print it or wear it, and his ambitions were totally divorced from social concerns. It became apparent while displaying the sign that this sign, which tricks the reader into thinking that the text is in Arabic, was unsettling to a small group of natives seated nearby.

On this occasion, an international skating championship in a Dutch (skating) town, the number of non-Dutch spectators would have been restricted to an infinitesimally small group, meaning that nearly all onlookers would focus warily on the sign because of its apparent foreignness. Initially skeptical of the non-Dutch English-speakers in their midst, those nearest by gradually became elbow-nudging allies, pleased that we were armed with lists of the draws for races and quick to comment on the athletes as they stepped up to face the start pistol. At this level, the Dutch skating fans cheer for everyone, and even losers are heartily applauded for achieving a personal best.

*The remarkable ambivalence of the Dutch national anthem, printed on the back of this t-shirt, will be focused on in future posts.

Things to think about on escalators

I was looking for a reference work on the fourth floor of the Central Public Library of Amsterdam. As spelled out on an English-language page produced for their website (http://www.oba.nl/): "The right to information is enshrined in law and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights." An employee assigned to the fourth floor reference section had said that if there were any books with detailed info on the subject of drums from the Colombian Pacific rainforest, a key element in a text I was translating from Spanish into English, they would (probably) be on the shelves I was circling.

Coincidentally, the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces, the FARC, had reportedly just kidnapped (reportedly, because even with witnesses describing the culprits, their identity as FARC rebels has not yet been confirmed) a new group of people vacationing in the region referred to in the aforementioned text about the drums. The kidnapping itself was reported in international news sources but had not left what you would call a lasting impression. That's not surprising, as the new hostages vanished in the news shadow of another related event, the release by the FARC elsewhere, just days before, of two people who had been held for years. Those were high-profile negotiations. Colombia and Venezuela, the USA and France - just a few of the countries involved. The rainforest kidnapping may have now drawn Norway to the table.

I thought of this while scanning books for references to Afro-Colombian musical instruments. None were found that day, but a visit to this relatively new library is always fun. At the ground floor reception desk, visitors can pick up a foldable map of the ten-floor building, presented as Europe's largest public library. The classic library hush does not apply here, with scheduled and spontaneous piano performances audible on multiple levels, blending with escalator chatter from those en route to upper-level meetings, lectures, presentations or the view from the top-floor restaurant (n.b. the tuna sandwich displayed here upper right is no longer on the handy foldable map, perhaps in conjunction with the first recorded break-ins at the library, evidently carried out by individuals in search of restaurant cash).

Name as Gerund

http://www.boomerwolf.com/soundsmovies/single.au

The letter from Greece began with 'Deer Martha' and I imagined myself catapulted away from the computer, hooves clanging on bare floors as I struggled to stay in forward motion. I eventually found refuge behind trees and was thankful for the profound silence.

Martha Howley, Hooley, Ms. Horley - these arrived in the mail at later dates, with more boisterous connotations.

I completely understood the gender confusion and appeals to Mr. Hawley, Mr. Awley, Mr. Hawkey. Especially endearing was the message for Hans M. Hawley. My middle initial is actually "M," so it was impossible to know whether this was an encroachment upon my first or middle name. For a brief period I answered the telephone with "Hello, Hans speaking" to see how far this could go, but the Hans ID didn't really stick, and took up far too much time as I carefully screened callers, hoping to connect with the person who had called me Hans. I wanted to know why this had happened, but the story fizzled out in a series of exasperated explanations, and I let it slip away. There were other lines: Hauley, Hawkey, Hawky, Halwey, Hoawley, Fawley - it's astounding how many wrong names have reached me. I accept them all.

The freshest name has now come in clear black letters on a white surface. There was no address, and I missed the sound of the small package being thrust through the door. A beautiful new envelope arrived, bearing a gift and another new family sound, reminiscent of celebrities of our times. A gerund is a wonderful thing, releasing me from the still, dense forest.

Still, even or perhaps especially, under its own sounds: http://www.boomerwolf.com/soundsmovies/single.au

Global Local Something Like This Pt.1

The globe you see was made by imprisoned Sinhalese Marxists sometime before December 1993, when it came into my hands as a gift from a therapist in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo. This therapist worked with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) sufferers, including combat and torture survivors. Among his patients were leftist Sinhalese nationalists seized during anti-government uprisings.

Once in prison, these Marxist-Leninists were encouraged by occupational therapists to make globes out of papier-mâché, an excellent paper and glue precursor to plastic, lightweight but sturdy. (Nevertheless, as a precaution I carried it in my hand luggage on the return flight home)

There is something supremely optimistic about mustering up the energy and curiousity from inside a jail on a war-shattered island to produce a replica of our planet. At the same time, this particular group was indeed part of a movement which ascribed to world revolution. Small-scale globe production could be seen as a valuable pastime behind bars. As you can see, Leningrad has not yet been renamed as St. Petersburg on this object, suggesting either that it was made before the name switch in 1991 or that a Trotskyite craftsperson chose to ignore this minor detail.

Many accurate placenames are correct, others are correct but misspelled, and still others attest to bold flights of the imagination: Algeria is fine, while Balgeria, Hungeria and Yogoslo are evidence of the will to try. Interrupted education shines through (in fact perhaps they hadn't yet heard about Leningrad being dropped from the list), with Switzarland alluding to imperial pasts, albeit not of the alpine variety. Unite Kingdom Britain, an irreverent amalgamation of often inaccurately interchanged names relating to the former colonial power, could be the opening verse of a church hymn. It’s not, of course, but then again, Protestant missionaries have run many a school on this isle, so they can't be ruled out.