If you’re thinking of opening a bar, think mainstream design. Otherwise, you might hire an architect like the Dutch artist Atelier Van Lieshout, who gave us BarRectum, a long and winding rendition of the human digestive system, with the “tongue” at one end and the “sphincter” at the other. It is/was open for business outside a Vienna museum. Problem: Most patrons have to sit in the “rectum” area. Problem: The emergency exit is the poop chute. Boing Boing
Archive for the ‘Dutch’ Category
Family Tree
Sunday, August 9th, 2009
I used to be cute.
A while back, I started trying to find out more about my family tree. There wasn’t anyone around that I could or would want to ask about it, so I just jotted down what information I knew.
See, genealogists occasionally sell their services, and promised me they could track back my family history as far back as when they first entered the US. Well, duh, that was 1951. Not exactly a deeply US rooted family tree.
Anyway, a while back, I posted Family History, Introduction, My Father’s Story, My Mother’s Story, My Indo Heritage, and My Indo Heritage 2. This is what I love about the Internet. A cousin I knew nothing about found one of the posts, and wrote to me that he though we were related. We were! His grandfather was my grandfather’s brother. That’s Bart Veenstra, by the way. He’s an anthropologist, and he goes all over the place. As of this writing, he’s in Ghana, putting in semi-jury-rigged water filtration thingy. I think that improvisational trait runs through the family. My usual supplies include duct tape and clothes hangers.
With Bart’s help, the Allen County Clerk’s Office, and the Allen County Public Library’s genealogical staff, I was able to fill up some holes.
So this is my family tree (pdf). Fine, more of a family bush. I’m sure I didn’t do it in a correct genealogical method, but it takes some weird twists and turns, and ended up much wider than it was tall. Happens in extended families.
Anyway, if you’re related, I’d appreciate hearing from you.
Calling on Indo Diaspora
Sunday, June 28th, 2009I have to thank Bianca at http://dutcheastindies.blogspot.com/ for the following information:
Hello All,
Professor Dewulf from University of California has launched a research project about the Indo Diaspora. Please see announcement below. If you would like to respond, you can either send me your information and I’ll gather it all together or contact him directly.
Dank je wel,
Bianca
The Dutch Studies Program at the University of California, Berkeley recently started a research project related to literature from and about the “Indo” community in the diaspora. In this context, we are looking for all types of text (such as novels, memoirs, autobiographies, stories, letters, articles, diaries, etc.) written by Indo’s after they left the Dutch East Indies. We are particularly interested in people who wrote about their experience as emigrant in the US (or Australia, Brazil, Suriname, etc.). All types of text are welcome, both in English and in Dutch.
If you would have such materials yourself or if you know someone who might have texts that could be interesting for our research project, please
contact:
Prof. Dr. Jeroen Dewulf
Queen Beatrix Chair in Dutch Studies
Department of German
5329, Dwinelle Hall
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720-3243
jdewulf@berkeley.edu
Snow, Snow, Snow and Christmas
Thursday, December 25th, 2008Hello. Just thought I’d catch up a little.
If you didn’t see the news, this past week the Seattle area got slammed with snow. Normally, we might get 1-3 inches. That’s enough to totally screw up traffic and make the big hills around here just plain dangerous. This week, we got 8-10 inches, which I understand was the most amount of snow we’ve gotten since 18 years ago, and the storm came on the very same day.
Fortunately, I didn’t have to work the first day after the storm, but the week didn’t get much better. I spent most of the day Tuesday, putting cable chains on the carrier vehicles. Then I spent most of the rest of the day, going out to rescue carriers. Wednesday, everyone wanted proper chains, so we did most of the vehicles, and we still had people throwing chains, and I still ended up on the street doing rescues.
Expresses were badly delayed due to flights being stuck at O’Hare and other airports. Tuesday, we actually got Expresses for the same day delivery after 4:00 pm. Insane. And a lot of these were gifts, so the supervisors and manager struggled out to the addresses the carriers couldn’t deliver. Imagine a Cadillac going where a postal truck couldn’t go. Very exciting. There were a few addresses that were messed up, and I felt bad not being able to get these to their destinations on time for Christmas.
There were many addresses we simply couldn’t deliver to, because they were too dangerous. I have a couple of routes that dead-end right into Puget Sound, and are at the bottom of terrifying hills.
Even for this ex-Hoosier used to dealing with multiple feet of snow and monster snow drifts, it was probably 10 times worse than anything I saw. Seattle and Tacoma just ground to a complete stop. Still, my “kids” made it to places that even UPS and FedEx feared to tread, and our guys were driving tin cans on wheels.
By the way, Herodotus’ passage, “Neither rain, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds,” is NOT the official motto of the Postal Service. It originally appeared on a Postal building in the 1920′s or 1930′s, I think. “This inscription was supplied by William Mitchell Kendall of the firm of McKim, Mead & White, the architects who designed the New York General Post Office. Kendall said the sentence appears in the works of Herodotus and describes the expedition of the Greeks against the Persians under Cyrus, about 500 B.C. The Persians operated a system of mounted postal couriers, and the sentence describes the fidelity with which their work was done. Professor George H. Palmer of Harvard University supplied the translation, which he considered the most poetical of about seven translations from the Greek.” While a great passage, again, it is not the motto of the Postal Service.
By the way, the full passage is,roughly, “Now there is nothing mortal which accomplishes a journey with more speed than these messengers, so skillfully has this been devised by the Persians: for they say that according to the number of the days of which the entire journey consists, so many horses and men are set at intervals, each man and horse appointed for a day’s journey. These neither snow nor rain nor heat nor darkness of night prevents from accomplishing each one the task proposed to him, with the very utmost of speed.”
On other news, well, nothing new about pipes except I managed to break my old, much abused, meerschaum into many pieces and am unable to repair it, even with superglue. Stupid sweatshirt pocket.
For more on the Dutch celebration of Christmas, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinterklaas#Celebration_in_the_Netherlands.
Finally, Merry Christmas to all, new friends and old friends! I’ll be posting pictures of some of my Christmas on Flicker later this month. Happy Holiday!
400 Year Old Dutch Clay Pipe
Sunday, October 5th, 2008I thought I’d share with you one of my favorite pipes. I’m fascinated with Dutch history around 1602 with the Dutch East Indies Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie). They established colonial Dutch Indonesia, which is my heritage.
This pipe has been dated to the mid-1600′s. I’ve included a contemporary pipe for size comparison.
Clay pipes were used in inns during that period. The pipe would start out about the size of a Churchwarden, but as each new guest used them for smoking, they would break off a piece of the stem so they’d have a fresh smoke. This pipe measures about 6 inches, which is pretty long for a surviving pipe from this period.
It’s a nice accompaniment to a 1629 edition I have of Historia Belgica. The Netherlands emerged from the 1558-1567 war between the Low Countries (roughly Belgium, The Netherlands and pieces of Germany) and Spain. The book is a history of that period of time. The author of this book is pro-Spain. This is from my personal collection. This is printed on vellum, the book is bound in goatskin, and this is a Latin translation.
