Post Number 1: Filling in blanks.
Howdy, y'all. 'sbeen a while. I keep meaning to post more, but I'm finding myself completely worn out by the time I get home. This whole waking up early thing, it's not for me.
Let's see. Whathappen since we last talked... ah. On Saturday, Jakki and I went to Haarlem to go see the opening of a show at De Hallen, which is the Frans Halsmuseum's modern (think late 19th and early 20th c.) museum, located in the Grote Markt. The show is centered on one particular Dutch writer/art cricket/theorist/poet whose tendrils reached deep into the local art scene. I don't mean to make him sound evil, but he looked like a Bond villain. I'll get a picture and put it up eventually. I took Jakki to the FHM (not the magazine) so that she could get a look around. She has pictures. I don't recall if I had my camera with me that day or not, but suffice it to say, I took no pictures that day.
Sunday - My co-intern Abbie's boyfriend Derek owns a boat. So on a warm, sunny afternoon, Abbie, Derek, Jakki, I-self, and two friends of a friend of Abbie's - Brazillians named Milena and Solon - loaded up with snacks and took a nice 3-hour cruise on the canals and into the harbour. In our colourful armour. (no armor was involved - just realized that I spelled it "harbour")
I got a touch sunburnt. 'twas a good way to see the city.
That's Derek and Abbie.
Don't stand up on the boat, you might hit your head.
That's Milena and Solon.
I like strawberries and hummus. Not necessarily together, though.
Finally got the OK to go ahead with treatment. Going to be working on one of the sleighs, mostly cleaning. Consulted with a furniture conservator, and it's likely that he'll do the structural work. I'm having to pull out all of the tricks to get the cleaning to go smoothly - overpaint, pigmented and discolored varnishes, oil coatings, resinous original paint. It's fun.
One of the curators visited to see what I was doing - he seemed to like how things are going. He also told me more about these sleighs, like how they were important during courtship between rich families, and how young Dutch men would sing in bars about "how to keep your girl warm on the ice" and in the summer they'd sing about "how to get your girl wet on the beach." Very straightforward, the Dutch were/are.
I can't stress enough how important YouTube is. I can find clips of MY shows to fall asleep to. And that's important. I haven't watched much TV since I've been here - mostly at Jakki's while we're inbetween going places. Bear with the story here: The other day, we were flipping through the channels, and a game show comes on. That's cool, right? Everybody loves gameshows. On this show, there are two teams - 2 players on each team answering questions, and 2 players on each team performing physical challenges between question rounds, with the audience split into two groups so that they're on one of the teams, too. The questions are memory-based, where the teams try to memorize things like WHAT COLOR IS THE BALL, WHAT KIND OF PLANT DID THE WOMAN DROP, and WHAT KIND OF BOX WAS SHE CARRYING THE PLANT IN? Extremely rudimentary. Then we realized that everyone on the show was mentally challenged (is that the PC term still? I could rant about PCisms, but I'll save it), except for the host. This makes me wonder: 1. Who is the target audience? 2. What kind of ratings does this show get? 3. Do the contestants feel empowered by this? 4. Is this merely exploitative? 5. Who watches this, really?
I have no idea how to answer these questions. It was so incredibly bizarre, kinda sad, and kinda funny all at once. Dutch TV. Soccer (I'm putting my foot down and refusing to call it football. Football is football, and Europeans are terrible at it. Have you ever watched an NFL Europe game? The name NFL Europe makes no sense, too. National Footbal League Europe. There are several nations involved. Although a lot of the players do come from the States. But I digress. And the US is terrible at soccer.) and mentally challenged game shows.
Let's see. Whathappen since we last talked... ah. On Saturday, Jakki and I went to Haarlem to go see the opening of a show at De Hallen, which is the Frans Halsmuseum's modern (think late 19th and early 20th c.) museum, located in the Grote Markt. The show is centered on one particular Dutch writer/art cricket/theorist/poet whose tendrils reached deep into the local art scene. I don't mean to make him sound evil, but he looked like a Bond villain. I'll get a picture and put it up eventually. I took Jakki to the FHM (not the magazine) so that she could get a look around. She has pictures. I don't recall if I had my camera with me that day or not, but suffice it to say, I took no pictures that day.
Sunday - My co-intern Abbie's boyfriend Derek owns a boat. So on a warm, sunny afternoon, Abbie, Derek, Jakki, I-self, and two friends of a friend of Abbie's - Brazillians named Milena and Solon - loaded up with snacks and took a nice 3-hour cruise on the canals and into the harbour. In our colourful armour. (no armor was involved - just realized that I spelled it "harbour")
I got a touch sunburnt. 'twas a good way to see the city.
That's Derek and Abbie.
Don't stand up on the boat, you might hit your head.
That's Milena and Solon.
I like strawberries and hummus. Not necessarily together, though.
Finally got the OK to go ahead with treatment. Going to be working on one of the sleighs, mostly cleaning. Consulted with a furniture conservator, and it's likely that he'll do the structural work. I'm having to pull out all of the tricks to get the cleaning to go smoothly - overpaint, pigmented and discolored varnishes, oil coatings, resinous original paint. It's fun.
One of the curators visited to see what I was doing - he seemed to like how things are going. He also told me more about these sleighs, like how they were important during courtship between rich families, and how young Dutch men would sing in bars about "how to keep your girl warm on the ice" and in the summer they'd sing about "how to get your girl wet on the beach." Very straightforward, the Dutch were/are.
I can't stress enough how important YouTube is. I can find clips of MY shows to fall asleep to. And that's important. I haven't watched much TV since I've been here - mostly at Jakki's while we're inbetween going places. Bear with the story here: The other day, we were flipping through the channels, and a game show comes on. That's cool, right? Everybody loves gameshows. On this show, there are two teams - 2 players on each team answering questions, and 2 players on each team performing physical challenges between question rounds, with the audience split into two groups so that they're on one of the teams, too. The questions are memory-based, where the teams try to memorize things like WHAT COLOR IS THE BALL, WHAT KIND OF PLANT DID THE WOMAN DROP, and WHAT KIND OF BOX WAS SHE CARRYING THE PLANT IN? Extremely rudimentary. Then we realized that everyone on the show was mentally challenged (is that the PC term still? I could rant about PCisms, but I'll save it), except for the host. This makes me wonder: 1. Who is the target audience? 2. What kind of ratings does this show get? 3. Do the contestants feel empowered by this? 4. Is this merely exploitative? 5. Who watches this, really?
I have no idea how to answer these questions. It was so incredibly bizarre, kinda sad, and kinda funny all at once. Dutch TV. Soccer (I'm putting my foot down and refusing to call it football. Football is football, and Europeans are terrible at it. Have you ever watched an NFL Europe game? The name NFL Europe makes no sense, too. National Footbal League Europe. There are several nations involved. Although a lot of the players do come from the States. But I digress. And the US is terrible at soccer.) and mentally challenged game shows.
posted by mpc at 3:03 PM
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