baslog

meet Cagers

So yesterday Heather and I dropped off some of our clothes and stuff we did not want to move to Chicago at the Goodwill store. We weren't alone however and there was quite a line of waiting cars full of crappy stuff
for the poor people. Aghhh, I love the smell of a cleaned conscience in the morning. I got bored, got out of the car to see what's what in the second hand store: and there she was, the best piece of campy junk I have seen in a long time. A piggy bank. With a tiara and a tutu. I laughed really hard for a couple of minutes, possibly raising some concerns about my mental health with the Somali check out ladies, and then decided that I needed to have it. So here she is: Cagers. She so will get a spot in my office.

boem patat

Het kruispunt aan ons appartement is een magneet voor ongelukken. Veel autmobolisten schijnen te denken dat de straat die achter ons gebouw loopt een eenrichtingsstraat is, terwijl het wel degelijk een tweerichtingsweg betreft. Misverstanden en ongelukken zijn dan ook het logische gevolg. Zaterdag was het weer prijs:dame in een mercedes sloeg links af, en werd aangereden door een auto die uit de andere richting kwam. Allicht had de Mercedes bestuurster zich in een eenrichtingstraat gewaand en nooit de auto uit de andere richting verwacht. Gelukkig geen lichamelijk letsel, hoewel dat natuurlijk wel betere plaatjes had opgeleverd.

Still in Cagers

I found out the other day that my office will be in the downtown campus. It will be nice to be downtown in the middle of it all, but the reason we rented a place in rogers park (northern part of Chicago) was that I could be close to work, and now I am still facing a commute downtown. Oh well, no biggie. Uploaded some pics : effe klikken

Chicago

So we will be in Chicago for the next couple of days. Heather is taking her bar exam the next two days and I was summoned along to provide mental support etc. Well as long as I can hang out in a swanky hotel all day I am not complaining. We decided to stay at the Sofitel, a very classy joint. It also happens to be literally next door from the downtown Loyola campus where I will be teaching classes a good month from now. Walked around in Chicago a bit today, around Michigan Avenue. What a kick ass vibrant city this is. I could get used to this. I'll take some pictures tomorrow.

Travis

Yesterday I saw Travis at First Avenue, probably my last show I'll see there. Travis crafts good songs and is very good live, but it is all a bit "light." "Why does it always rain on me" was the encore and an appropriate song to end my first avenue career on. Here is my top ten of favorite shows at first ave:

1. 16 horsepower
2. massive attack
3. PJ Harvey
4. TV on the Radio
5. Interpol
6. devotchka
7. sons and daughters
8. Eels
9. Blur
10. The lucksmiths

my corner

Found this pic on some blog of our intersection. We will miss you,
26th and Nicollet."

How stupid can you be?

Sometimes I think I am a reasonably well functioning and smart individual. Sometimes I think I should be more on top of my sh*t. Sometimes I think I should start sending out applications to villages looking for a village idiot. Today I think the latter. I just bought online tickets for Interpol, (a band I quite like, saw them live once and they blew me away) who are playing in town here this coming October. I logged on to ticketmaster, typed in the pre-sale code, got some tickets for the lower balcony, paid all the ridiculous charges and ended up forking out 80$ for two ticks. "Well done, bas, keep your rock 'n roll on," I hear you say. (I have the sleeping in part down) Thank you. Only problem is that they are playing in MINNEAPOLIS on oct. 12 and I will be moving to CHICAGO on August 4. Minneapolis and Chicago are 400 miles apart. Why wasn't I thinking about that? I am so mad at my brain right now I could kill it. I wish it would just move out and leave me alone.

And the winner is.....

Mijn vorige post was nummer 300. Feestje! Ik heb deze morgen eens wat zitten "bladeren" door mijn blog,
en het was interessant om eens zaken te herlezen die ik eigenlijk al lang vergeten was. Ik zou dit eigenlijk eens moeten saven, want ik weet niet hoe lang ik nog van the university of minnesota's server ruimte gebruik zal kunnen maken. Misschien gooien ze me er van de ene op de andere dag af en deleten ze alles. Het is nu wel geen "Finnigan's Wake," maar toch. Het doorbladeren van zo'n blog is ook genadelozer dan je geheugen er op naslaan. Alles wat er staat, de dt fouten, de kromme zinnen en vergeten werkwoorden, incluis, all my own doing, alsook de dommigheden die ik hier en daar heb neergepend en waar mijn tenen nu van gaan krullen. Wat dat betreft is dit wel de stomste entry van de bende.

for rent

Iemand op zoek naar een huurwoonst in Minneapolis? check out our place.

Playing tricks on the brain

Onze hersenen, en dus wijzelf, zijn toch rare dingen. Gisteren avond laat zat ik wat te surfen door Humo's platenrecensie-archief en nog net voor het slapen gaan las ik wijlen Marc Mijlemans' -wat kon die man goed schrijven- recensie van het laatste Smiths album dat ooit zou gemaakt worden: Strangeways here we come. Eén zinnetje van de recensie bleef me door het hoofd spoken tot net voor ik in slaap viel: "alles wat een redelijk mens van pop kan verlangen [zit] in 'Stop me if you think that you've heard this one before'" omdat ik het er eigenlijk volkomen mee eens ben. Deze morgen werd ik om acht uur wakker gebulderd door het ongenadig gebeuk van een zware drilboor ergens op straat of bij de buren. Een echte teringherrie die het rustig doorsoezen vrijwel onmogelijk maakte. Bij het wakker worden zei ik zomaar bij mezelf this f*cking noise " could make a shy bald buddhist reflect and plan a mass murder." Een zinsnede gerukt uit "I started something I couldn't finish," het lied waaraan ik aan het denken was toen ik in slaap sukkelde en dat mijn ontwakende brein meteen incorporeerde in de dagdagelijkse ervaringswereld. vreemd toch.

A dreaded sunny day, so I'll meet you at the lakes....

Minneapolis is playing some tricks on me. It is behaving really well, as if it wants to convince me to stay. Usually this period of year is marked by hot, humid, sticky weather, but this year our summer has been very tolerable. Hot days and cool nights and not too humid. Perfect. Last night was perfect running weather. I ran 10 miles around the Chain of Lakes, which I think is about the best running one can do anywhere. Three lakes connected by bike and running paths, surrounded by gorgeous mansions, lush trees, beaches, boat rentals... They are really fun to run around, as each lake has its own character. Lake of the Isles is the most upscale one, also the least busy one. Perhaps because there is no food place on it (this is america after all). It is my favorite lake, it has lots of twists and turns and you never quite know where you are at. The houses around it are stunning too. Lake Calhoun is the biggest one, one lap is exactly 5 K. It is the busiest lake with a lot of show-off runners. The ones that fly by you at the beginning but are "stretching" half a mile down the path. This is also the lake where you will find the most smokers, which really kills me when I am running. As far as I am concerned, not every bar or restaurant needs to be smoke free, but if you are smoking on a path where people go to run and enjoy the outdoors, you ought to be smacked in the head. Lake calhoun is the best lake to go to the beach and people watch. Lake Harriet is a really nice lake too, its 2.8 miles always seem less far to me for some reason. But it is the lake where the families go, strolers, unpredictable babies on the path as well as dogs on leaches make running somewhat hazardous there.

If one is tired of the lakes however, there are always the banks of the Mississippi to run along. It is no surprise then, that Minneapolis consistently ranks high in best running cities polls, and if wasn't for the winters that make outdoor running nearly impossible, it would rank even higher I think. I know Chicago also has a good reputation as a running city, as one can run along the shore of Lake Michigan, but I think I prefer the variety of the lakes here to run around. You can run in a circle around them, running around Lake Michigan may be a bit a tall order. And I always think that running from point A to B and then back to point A looks a bit goofy. I love the lakes and I will miss them, I think they make Minneapolis a very unique city to live in.

This is my absolute favorite spot along the chain of lakes: A little bridge along Lake of the Isles from which you have a great view on downtown Minneapolis. Especially at night it is spectacular. It is best on crisp fall nights when the first cold air from Canada announces the arrival of winter, on one of the first runs you can see your breath and no one else is out there but you, and you stand still for a couple of seconds to take in the view, this is for me the quintessential minneapolis moment.

Some more pics of the lakes:

The lakes also produce one of my favorite sounds in the world. In the spring, when the ice is almost gone from the lake, all the small pieces of ice float towards the shadowy bank of the lake and on its gentle waves, these pieces of ice sound like a thousand ice cubes in a glass. ("klotsen" in dutch - translation anyone?) I always thought I should record that sound for one of those "sounds of nature" sound machines that new agers use to calm down. It does not really calm me down, but it always makes me crave a nice gin & tonic.

half marathon pics

Pretty it ain't, but the pics of the Portland half marathon were emailed to me the other day: click here. (In my defense, my official time was three mins. faster than the race clock indicates....)

Back home

This morning at 5.30 I arrived back at good old Twin Cities Airport. It was a nice trip, I think I will go back there. So much to see and do there. But at the same time, it is nice to be back in Minneapolis. As our time over here is running out as well, it is nice to enjoy the last weeks of our time in Minneapolis. And I need to get in shape if I really want to come back and run the TC marathon this october. New pics from the trip added to Flcikr
effe klikken

A morning in Seattle

Today I am in Seattle. I drove up yesterday from Portland and met up with Martin, an old friend from Minneapolis who came here to do his post doc. Martin was cool as ever, we had a couple of beers and some solid manly discussion about soccer, life and other things of no consequence but grave importance.

It is pretty hot in Seattle today. Not nearly as humid and hot as in Minneapolis, but still bordering the unpleasant. I decided to drive around in the comfort of my air conditioned rental car a bit longer and turn it in in the afternoon instead of in the morning, as I had planned. I took a look in the Seattle tourist guide Martin had given me for the day, and decided to head over to "funky" Fremont, a cool but very gentrified area just north of downtown Seattle. As I was heading back to my car after a light breakfast, I realized that I had been wearing the same T-shirt for days, and it showed. As I was getting disgusted by myself, I passed by a T-shirt store. Serendipity! So I went in to buy a new T-shirt. The catch was that all the T-shirts in the store were imprinted with logos or slogans from real places and businesses in Seattle. I bought one of a local music store, Easy Street Records.

The shirt reminds me a bit of an REM T-shirt (circa "monster") I once had. I like the star. Now that I had purchased the shirt, I felt that I also had to go to the actual store, otherwise I would have been a cheat for wearing it. I found out where the store was located and after getting a little bit lost in a pleasant kind of way, I found the record store, close to the space needle.

I already bought some CDs yesterday, but decided to splurge a bit and buy some more. I haven't been buying CDs for a while, and have mainly been buying music through Itunes, but I am sick and tired of all the Digital Rights Management restrictions: I am switching back to CDs. I bought 2 CDs from local bands, "Stars of Track and Field" and "The Decemberists," the best of Suzanne Vega (5$ in the used CDs section) and a posthumous album by the late Elliott Smith (New Moon). It seemed fitting because Elliott Smith hailed from Portland, where I have been hanging out quite a bit during this trip. I had been talking with someone in Portland about him, and that person had spoken in a heartfealt manner about the shock that had gone through the city when Smith had -apparently- stabbed himself in the heart a few years ago. Now being in Seattle, I started to ponder about that other icon whose suicide had sent shockwaves through the world. When Kurt Cobain shot himself in the head thirteen years ago, I was hardly a Nirvana fan. I was in full blown Smiths and Morrissey fandom mode, and found Morrissey's take on the themes of teenage angst, longing and alienation endlessly more sophisticated than Nirvana's raw emotion. Still, I was a child of my time and have had my Nirvana moments. When "Smells Like Teen Spirit" made it big, I was 16 and in my fifth year of high school (junior). The Christmas examinations that year were all in the afternoon, the mornings I spent in study hall, preparing my tests. Most students would come straight from home to school in the afternoon, but a few of us had to come to school in the morning for transportation or other purposes. I was supposed to have lunch at school, but somehow there was a loophole, and we found out that school administrators did not know who was supposed to be at school and who had permission to go home. As a result, a handful of us would end up having lunch in a local bar not too far from school, eat some soup and sandwiches, have one or two beers, get light headed on a cigarette and go through our notes one more time. Before we would head back over to school, we would always ask for "Smells Like Teen Spirit" to be played, and it always made those exams seem so unimportant compared to the urgency of youth that song expresses so powerfully. I can still remember walking out in the cold December air, a titch light headed and with a subdued feeling of euphoria, not worrying too much about the upcoming test. My results were actually quite good that year, the last time in high school I was not called an underachiever when I received my score card. Somehow, I have always remembered with fondness those pre-exam lunches in bar "Plectrum" in Kortrijk in december of 1991, to which Nirvana provided the sound track.

Being in a record store in Seattle, I thought that I should therefore also buy a Nirvana album, so I added an album with remastered versions of Nirvana songs to my pile and checked out (63$). As I walked to my car, I decided to go look for the house where Kurt Cobain shot himself. I pulled over,
got out my laptop, found a free wireless signal and after a couple of minutes on google I was on my way to the unofficial Cobain shrine, located in a small park in Eastern Seattle. I did not quite know what to expect when I entered the small Viretta park.

There was a bench on which fans had scribbled all kinds of notes and which had been transformed into some kind of makeshift shrine.

I found and photographed what -based on my google research- was the Cobain house and sat down on the bench.

Of course, the whole scenery is kind of mundane. Cars and people pass by, roaring, honking, swearing
and laughing. This is just a park in a neighborhood where a junkie with talent did not see a way out and put a shotgun to his head. I see some young kids walking across the street, they look about the same age like my younger students; 18 or 19. I do the math. When Kurt Cobain committed suicide they were the same age I was when John Lennon was killed. I don't remember John Lennon getting shot.

I get out my laptop, put in the CD I bought earlier, and listen to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" a couple of times, thinking back about those December lunches in 1991. I opened a left over can of beer from my camping escapades. I don't think that drinking is allowed in public parks in Seattle, but I know that Kurt is watching over me. Because of my light breakfast and lack of water drinking, I have a nice buzz going in no time, just like sixteen years ago. No scary exam to go to this time, only a scary job, a scary move to another city and the other complexities of life. I wished the buzz of alcohol and superficial sense of youthful invincibility would carry me across these obstacles as they guided me past my exams back then. But I am afraid the buzz may wear off long before that time.

bijna terug

De roadtrip nadert zijn eind. Vanadaag rijd ik terug naar Seattle vanuit Portland waar ik een vriend ga bezoeken, en woensdagavond laat vlieg ik terug naar Seattle. Oregon was a-dembenemend mooi en indrukwekkend. Er staan wat nieuwe foto's online.

still trippin'

new pics online, flickr link

rap rap

Heb een paar foto's op Flickr gezet:

effe klikken

more to come later

Travel

I arrived in Seattle, the day before yesterday where I met Penny, a grad student friend who moved to Seattle to do her PhD. We had good but not great pasta (lacked seasoning or garlic) in a pretty, bohemian trendy neighborhood of Seattle. The drive to Portland was kind of a drag because of holiday traffic, the 170 miles took me over 4 hours. I saw a lot of crosses and churches along the way and there was a quite a bit of religious programming on the radio, which surprised me. One dude was arguing that the wall between church and state was meant to protect religions from being persecuted, but did not mean that religion could not be infused in public life. So it is a one-way wall. He might pick a different metaphor. What a bunch of nutters...

Yesterday, Wednesday I ran a half marathon on Sauvie Island. My knee which I sprained during soccer two weeks ago held up fine, which was reassuring. The race itself was ok. The scenery was pretty, but got boring after a while. I really prefer city races. It was also really hot, which i hate. My time was a rather underwhelming 1'.58'. Not a great time, but I did not prepare really and considered it more as a training run.

More later

reisvaardig

Niet veel tijd om te bloggen, straks neem ik het vliegtuig richting Seattle en rij dan meteen door naar Portland waar ik morgen misschien een fourth of July halve marathon zal lopen. Daarna trek ik verder Oregon in om het natuurschoon even te verkennen.....

Doe Maar

Dit weekend heb ik "De Nacht," een album van ex-doe maar frontman Henny Vrienten en 13 andere artiesten (The Lau, Tom Barman,...) gekocht via Itunes. Bijzonder geschikt voor zondagavonden. Ondertussen ook nog eens naar oude Doe Maar nummers geluisterd, muziek die volgens mij de tand des tijds bijzonder goed dooerstaan heeft. Als acht of negen jarig ukkie was ik destijds ook gek op Doe Maar. Mijn beste vriend van toen en ikzelf maakten er een erezaak van om in elke tekening op school de Doe Maar kleuren -fluo groen en fluo roze- te verwerken. Niet gemakkelijk als je een bos moest tekenen. Maar dat was natuurlijk de tragedie van Doe Maar, dat acht jarige jochies in de Ginste hun nummers van voor naar achter konden meezingen zonder er veel van te begrijpen: "We komen niets te kort, we hebben alles, een kind een huis een auto en elkaar, maar weet je lieve schat wat het geval is, ik zoek iets meer ik weet alleen niet waar..... is dit alles? is dit alles wat er is ?...... we leven trouw het leven van zovelen, ik wil iets meer ik wil een beetje los.... " Existentiele levensvragen die meegebruld op het speelplein van de Ginste toch wat aan diepgang inboetten. Ik weet nog dat mijn lievelingsnummer destijds "Je loopt je lul achterna" heette. Ik vond dat eigenlijk nogal wiedes, je kan anatomisch gezien namelijk niet "voor" je lul lopen, maar dat was allicht niet wat werd bedoeld. Ik meen me ook te herinneren dat ik een discussie had met mijn virend over de leeftijd van Henny Vrienten, een van de bekendere Doe Maar nummers heet namelijk sinds een dag of twee/32 jaar (het lied heeft twee verschillende titels) en ik vond het niet te geloven dat mijn idool een oude zak van 32 jaar was. Nu, bijna een kwarteeuw later heb ik zelf al een tijdje de kaap van de 32 gerond, en ben ik iets milder geworden wat betreft de leeftijd van de artiesten naar wie ik luister. Henny Vrienten moet ondertussen al tegen de 60 aan lopen te schurken en wordt waardig ouder met "De Nacht." Maar als ik eerlijk ben, verkies ik toch de reggae-ska van Doe Maar uit die vroege jaren 80.