Raclette

I suppose you are all familiar with that Swiss cheese dish called raclette? The funny thing about raclette is that it is one of those foods like sprouts or peanut butter. Either you love it, or you hate it.

And boy, do I hate raclette!

For me, it’s probably the worst food in the world, or at least a very close second to ambergris. Now there’s two ways to have raclette: one was handed down to us in a direct line from the Cro-Magnon-people, and the other is woosier than wearing Speedos.

Option one: you take half a ball of cheese, you slice it in half with a sword, and cook it on a flat stone in front of a open fire (brought to you since 30.000 BC).

Option two: you go buy prefabricated slices of seventeen different kinds of perfumed raclette-cheese and everyone at the dinner table gets to cook them themself, in weird looking little pans.

But what is it about heating up the cheese that is supposed to make it better? I’m perfectly happy with having a slice of cheese on toast. But when it comes to scooping up boiling yellow stuff from what looks like a pan a three-year-old would cook plastic vegetables in, I’m out.

Anyway, I'm telling you this because a few days ago I was having dinner at a friend’s house, a good friend whom I hadn’t seen in a very long time. And immediately when I went in, I saw the bad news. There it was on the dinner table in shiny chrome: a raclette stove, which looked to me like a restaurant kitchen for Leprichauns after Xzibit just came by to pimp it.

Anyhow, I knew what was coming and already started making excuses: “Errm, I’m actually not that hungry, you known?”. But of course, to no avail. I was sat down at the table and started the slow, labourious task of eating pan after pan after fucking little pan of this horrible melted cheese. Because having raclette is like getting crucified: it takes hours. And when finally it has become socially acceptable to stop, people do that retarded polite thing, where they say (tough man voice): “Come on, don’t tell me you’re full, Fred! Come on, mate. I don’t recognize you!”.

And I want to yell: “Don’t recognize me? I don’t blame you! I’ve had twenty seven of those little pans! I probably look like throwing up! Tomorrow I’ll be crapping out Gruyère scented candles! Hell, I wouldn’t be surpised to find horny mice trying to French kiss me tonight!”

(sigh) But you know how it is. I’m a polite person, so I pulled a stiff upper lip (it was literally stiff with cheese) and reluctantly shoved another one of those Barbie-doll pans under the heater. And then, oh then, at that exact moment the guy’s wife came with a digital camera, and she pointed it at the two of us and yelled…

…right. And then I lost it.

Guess that’s one less Christmas card this year.

EPC (2)

"Curious, arrrrrr you?"

"Aye, scroll to 2:00."

Thought-terminating clichés

If your job involves attending the odd meeting once in a while, you’ll be quite familiar with my topic of today. Lately it seems conversations in meetings are filled with nothing but clichés.

For instance. You’ll suggest a valuable addition to a proposal and the chair might say: Thank you. This is, of course, a work in progress. And you’ll be quiet again. Mind you, they did not say, Thank you. You are right. We will do that too. No, they managed to shut you up, without any guarantee that your suggestion will be implemented in the proposal.

This is an example of the use of what psychologists call a thought-terminating cliché - or Totschlagargument as our German friends put it - a commonly used phrase, used to quell disagreement. Though the phrase in itself may be valid in certain contexts, its application as a means of dismissing dissent or justifying fallacious logic is what makes it thought-terminating. The notion was suggested by Robert Lifton, a professor of psychology, in his book Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of "Brainwashing" in China from the 50s.

If you browse the net a bit, or just pay attention in dialogue all around you, you’ll be shocked to discover how many such thought-terminating clichés are in vogue. On this website, I found some very good ones, such as:

That’s a no-brainer.
You don’t always get what you want.
What goes around comes around.
You win some, you lose some.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
It’s just common sense.
Easy come, easy go.
That’s life.
It is what it is.
Whatever.
Meh.

Only just now, I’m shocked to discover that I probably use the last one several times a day!

But the best one is nowhere to be found. I didn’t come up with it myself (yes, I’m a bit lazy today), it’s courtesy of one Adam Carolla, an American comedian I really have to blog about one day soon.

His favourite thought-terminating cliché is simply…

Yeah, but still…

Just try it in your next meeting. When someone states an opinion you disagree with, just reply with an uninterested Yeah, but still…. It will always work.

Come to think of it, I can only hope no one who will be attending my lecture on Friday reads this blog! Just imagine the discussion afterwards:

Fred: I do think the functionalist approach works better than the philological one.
random dude: Yeah, but still.
Fred: Of course, this is a work in progress.
random dude: Yeah, but still.
Fred: ...and everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
random dude: Yeah, but still.
Fred: Meh
random dude: Yeah, but still.
Fred: Meh
…

(the sound of the audience leaving the room)

Standard questions

Some things are just harder to explain to people than others. One of the challenges that we - Fred the mathematician and Fred the philologist - are often facing, is how to explain to people what 'doing current research' actually means. For it seems that many people genuinely believe that 'everything has already been done' in our areas. When it comes to swallowing strange objects (lamb bulbs, hairy spiders the size of a triple Whopper pizza burger, pointy objects in all sizes and shapes), walking on things that were not really meant to be walked upon (burning ropes, hot coals, hungry alligators, sidewalks in London's shopping streets during Christmas time) or doing plainly weird shit with your body (having coral implants in your forehead, eating nothing but raspberry yoghurt for 5 years, throwing yourself out of an airplane wearing nothing but a flashy jumpsuit), you do have a point: these things have all been done, either by a bunch of idiots making late-night television shows (there used to be a time 'Jackass' was nothing but a male donkey) or, more than often, by some random Asian guy. Most likely a five-year-old Chinese kid, who will still beat you blindfolded, balancing seven bowling balls on the head.

Anyway, doing research.

I usually compare this facet of our jobs with what artists are doing. Replace the free drugs and wild nights shagging groupies by slurping down liters of coffee and friendly winks from the cute librarian, replace festival grounds with 60,000 ecstatic youngsters by lecture halls housing a handful of old professors dozing off and young PhD students staring at our presentation like squirrels staring at coconuts ('What the hell is this?') and replace 'most popular download on iTunes' by a bunch of papers read by a select group of self-proclaimed connoisseurs, and there you have it: the perfect analogy.

That's right, we are artists. Because we create, hoping to be original, and basically depend on that thing called 'inspiration'. Which is a bit like a wet dream, if you'd ask me: every once in a while, it just happens. Out of nowhere. A lightning flash of materialized concentration. And surely, it helps if we read some related material or hear other people talk about it (just don't push the analogy beyond its boundaries, ok?), but in the end we can't control it. Well, there is of course a proverbial helping hand, but my experience is that this seldom leads to the same satisfactory feeling. Because true inspiration contains enough seeds for a few fruitful ideas, and reduces the rest of our time behind the desk to cleaning up the details.

The undersigned Fred did not have a fruitful day. Mark my words, 'doing current research' is more about the research than it is about the doing...

And how was your day today?

Quotes from the book (8)

I’m glad to see that Fred finally added a Dutch book to our currently reading section, because I was beginning to think I was the only one still reading Dutch books! True, I’m fonder of English fiction too, but I definitely enjoy reading in my mother tongue as well. Especially if it’s a book like Lijmen / Het Been, written by arguably Flanders’ most ill known writer, Willem Elsschot (1882-1960).

In fact, Lijmen (1924) and Het Been (1938) are two novellas that together make one novel (hence the strange / in the title) about the entrepreneur Boorman who employs Frans Laarmans (a name you might know as the protagonist of Elsschot’s most famous book Kaas) to help him sell copies of a magazine that doesn’t really exist.

One of the things I enjoyed immensely in this book that dates back to the interbellum, is it’s highly archaic language. It coats the work in a grandiloquent style, which then contrasts acutely with the dry cynicism of the story. Or what else do you make of a sentence like this one?

Zij hadden een hoed op en een boordje aan, maar ze stonken naar drank en voerden een taaltje om van te ijzen. Toen ik zei wat die kerel zich vermeten had mij toe te voegen, toen lachten zij en beweerden dat zoiets in een werkmansmond niets te betekenen had.

English translation, anyone? (ijzen = ‘to shiver’, zich vermeten = ‘to dare’, toevoegen = ‘to say’)

Or, for a more substantial specimen:

Het was een smokerige loods met glazen dak. In een hoek stonden een paar smeden, die een leven maakten als een laatste oordeel; in ’t midden lag een voorraad hoek- en plaatijzer op de vloer, terwijl zes of zeven bankwerkers, draaiers en monteurs zich tegen de muren een plaats hadden uitgekozen. Toen wij plechtig aantraden en Boorman aanstalten maakte om de centrale stapel te beklimmen, verstomde plotseling het geraas en tien gezichten keerden zich naar ons toe.
Wij werkten onszelf behoedzaam over het ijzer heen en stonden nu voor een houten schot, met een deur en twee kleine vensters, waardoor een schrijftafel met kopieerpers zichtbaar was, en diverse andere voorwerpen die op kantoren in gebruik zijn.
Terwijl mijn patroon even naar binnen loerde, kwam een oudachtig man achter zijn werkbank uit, stapte op Boorman toe, nam zijn pet af en zei gemoedelijk, “dat ze dadelijk zou komen”.
Het was een vervallen mannetje, enigszins gekromd en met vermoeide ogen. Zijn ouderdom kon ik niet schatten, want zijn gezicht zag te zwart.
“Vriend,” zei Boorman, “ik zou meester Lauwereyssen willen spreken. Geef hem dit kaartje en zorg hij eens dat hij dadelijk hier komt.” En hij stopte de man een naamkaartje en een royale fooi in de hand.
De monteur stak beide dingen aarzelend in zijn zak en keek door zijn Bril tegen Boorman op, als had hij gaarne nog iets gezegd. De beschroomdheid snoerde hem echter de mond, want hij draaide zijn pet om, vertrok zijn gezicht en bewoog de lippen, doch bracht generlei geluid uit.
“Piet!” riep van op een afstand een basstem, “zou ik er geen U-ijzertje tegenaan klinken, liever dan die slappe bulb-hoek?”
“Ik kom direct,” antwoordde de man met de bril.
“Jawel,” zei Boorman, “maar roep eerst meester Lauwereyssen, alsjeblieft.”
“Mijnheer,” zei het mannetje verontschuldigend, “ik ben Lauwereyssen. Gaat u maar in ’t kantoor en wacht even. Mijn zuster zal zo meteen beneden komen.”
“Aangename kennismaking,” was alles wat Boorman kon uitbrengen.

I highly recommend Lijmen / Het Been. It’s one of those books you’ll remember. While reading it, three people on the train spontaneously made comments to me about how much they enjoyed it, even though it was compulsory school reading in their time.

Can you blame them?

Ik ben mij gaan afvragen of al onze daden en gedachten niet achter ons aan wandelen, of zij niet een deel van ons zijn, ons gevolg, onze hovelingen, waarvan de stoet aangroeit naargelang wij zelf slinken, die wij evenmin negeren kunnen als onze vleselijke kinderen en die misschien fluisterend nablijven, lang nadat wij zelf tot stilte zijn gebracht…

Dear Photograph

I don't really like the unpacking phase after moving into a new house. Although the first few boxes can be quite pleasurable - especially when it comes to arranging my collection of books into their new shelter, an act which almost gives me the same warm feeling I got as a child when my brothers and I made a little nest for the new kitty or puppy - it does get pretty tiresome once I reach the boxes with random stuff. Posters and crumpled city maps, letters and postcards, souvenirs and old coins, scarfs and t-shirts - united by their rather sad fate of having to spend the rest of eternity in a box which is never really unpacked.

However, there is always one particular collection of objects which is excavated from the fearful depths of dark cardboard and studied from up close for more than just a moment. The shoebox containing my pictures from various occasions. Gently holding my hand while I slowly saunter down Memory Lane, almost letting me browse through my own life, sometimes even infusing me with the idea that things looked better in the past. Except for the haircut of course.

Maybe this is the reason why people decide to move to new places. Because these make you realize that things can look even better in the future...

Pod-heads (3)

[Press play before reading]

The day before yesterday I got a late birthday gift (thank you, N!) and was lucky enough to see Leslie Feist perform her new album at a gig in Brussels.

Unlike most newspapers, who thought the show was charming but a bit sloppy, I was completely blown away. I don’t care if the guitar was rudimentary or the drum section savage, any performer who can get two nineteen-year olds to slow dance on stage and have two thousand people revel in the syrupy awkwardness of the moment, played a great concert.

But perhaps the main reason I enjoyed the show so much, was that Feist played many songs from her new album Metals. After hearing them for the first time on Tuesday and listening to them over and over again on my iPod, I’ve had non-stop goose bumps.

Why?

You know how certain songs remind you of something? How the intro of an old track can take you right back to some special time in the past? And make you happy because you remember the smells, the sounds, and life as it was then?

Well, it’s strange to say, but when I listen to songs like the one playing, I have the same feeling. It feels like I have known songs like Anti-Pioneer or Graveyard for years, like they’re already full of fond memories that put a smile on your face, no matter what.

Only these are not memories of past happiness. They’re memories of hope and the fantastic future.

Get it right. You bet I will, Leslie.

Googolplexiglass

Every once in a while, we all need big numbers to properly express ourselves - right? Because you have to repeat yourself for the gazillionth time, because you don't feel like packing the whole fucking shitload of stuff into boxes, because someone has been working on your nerves for you don't know how long.

Next time, you may want to use the word 'googolplex', which is a really big number. Interestingly big in fact, which is why I will devote a rather nerdy blurb to it. The term was cornered by a nine-year-old (Milton Sirotta), who meant to define 'a number which is equal to one, followed by writing zeroes until you get tired'. His uncle, Edward Kasner, then formalized this definition, 'because different people get tired at different moments'. No shit, Sherlock.

But how do you define googolplex? Let us first consider an analogy: we all learned at kindergarten that 10 to the power 2 is 100. Which can be written as the number 1 followed by 2 zeroes. Which is not that much, unless you feel like using it as the number of times you had to read the previous sentence before it made sense to you. However, if we would consider the number 10 to the power 100, that would already be much more. Although you could still write this number explicitly. Agreed, it's not exactly the most exciting thing to do, but one could easily do this in less than a minute. Or write it in words, because 10 to the power 100 is called googol.

Now imagine writing down a number which is defined as 10 to the power googol. That means: the number 1 followed by googol zeroes. For some strange reason, this sounds doable, doesn't it? Boring as hell, surely, but doable. The thing is, this number is so huge that it is physically impossible to write down. First of all, assuming that you can write two digits per second, it would take you more than 10 to the power 92 years. Which is way more than the estimated age of our universe. Secondly, assuming that you would write one digit per atom - too small to read, by the way - you wouldn't even have enough space to write the zeroes down. Even if you would zoom down to Planck spaces - the smallest physically measurable volumes - you would still not have enough space for all the digits. Leave alone ink and pens...

So next time you need a really big number to express yourself, I've got one word for you: googolplex. Always nice to get a blank stare from people, politely nodding and checking their iPhone's Wiki-page when you proudly walk away.

The glass is...

Recently I was struck by how very different we can feel. You know what they say, some days the glass is half-full, some days it's half-empty. And since I don't really know what kind of day you're having, I thought I might give you the option today:

...half-empty Some days you'll wake up to an annoying song on your clock radio, throw your underwear on a massive pile of dirty laundry before getting into the shower, spill coffee powder all over the side of the machine and think: "Goddammit, how on earth am I going to get through this day?". Half an hour later, you'll be staring blankly into the morning air on the train platform, until all of a sudden one of your fellow commuters will pass you by so closely, as some of them do, that you can actually see inside their ear. And you'll think: "Goddammit, I hate other people". In the afternoon your boss will tell you to work on a random Saturday in December and you'll check your agenda and see it's the only one in November you had made plans for. And you'll think: "Goddammit, I hate my job". In the evening, you'll get home, try to make yourself feel better by getting some take-away or fries perhaps. But after wolfing them down, you'll only think: "Goddammit, I feel disgusted". And before you go to sleep, you'll be tossing and turning, and kicking yourself for that stupid comment you made over lunch to someone and you'll think, over and over again: "Goddammit, I'm a wanker". And all you can do is trust, with everything you’ve got in you, that tomorrow …

…half-full Some days you’ll wake up humming along with your clock radio, get into your shower and laugh out loud when you find yourself making a mohawk in your shampooed hair. You’ll think of the smell of coffee that’ll hit your nostrils in a few minutes and you think: “God, I feel alive.”. Half an hour later, you’ll be waiting on the train platform, not even caring that there’s a twenty minute delay, because the sun is out and even though it’s autumn, it feels warm on your face. You’ll see an eighty-year old on a bench doing the same and you’ll think: “God, I love people.” In the afternoon your boss will tell you to work on a random Saturday in December, because frankly he really wants you there because this is an important issue. And you’ll think: “Goddammit, I’m good at my job.” In the evening, you’ll get a machine-full of dirty laundry going, go for a five-mile run and afterwards fix yourself a salad with tuna and chickpeas. And you’ll think: “God I feel healthy.” And before you go to sleep, you’ll be reading that book you’ve always wanted to read and you’ll get a text message from someone. It’ll say: “Hey, I was just thinking about you…” And you’ll suddenly understand, with everything you’ve got in you, that no matter what…

… everything is going to be alright.

There's no word for it

Last month, Fred elected to write about the English language, claiming that it is so rich and well-endowed that there are beautiful words for everything. He even provided us with a few new words to spice up dinner parties, remember?

Today, I would like to point out that the English language is actually not that rich. Every once in a while, I find myself in a situation where I end up making ridiculously long sentences and awkward comparisons, sometimes even drawing pictures, in order to convey a message, an experience or an emotion which turns out to be quite familiar. Which leads me to the question: why is there no word for it?

For example, anyone who has ever bitten his nails has probably experienced the pain induced by that little stubborn piece of nail shown on the picture above. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this particular (disproportionally) uncomfortable feeling seems to be more common than being afraid to read out loud - isn't it? And yet, there is a word for the latter (alourophobia), and not for the little buggers attached to your finger? All we're asking for, is a noun...

I would also like to advocate the introduction of a word to describe that special feeling you experience when you wipe your butt, after a more than average number two, and you notice that the piece of toilet paper is still perfectly white. Somewhere between being proud of yourself and feeling slightly worried ("Did I forget how to do it?"), between feeling the urge to share this with the world (Fred has updated his status using his iPhone) and not trusting your own senses anymore (has anyone ever stopped wiping after exactly one white sheet of toilet paper?). I once read a word for the end product ('the mystery poo'), but as far as I know there is no word for the emotional state in which you return from the toilet. And all we're asking for, is an adjective...

- Are you okay Fred? You look like you're having a [insert noun].

- Oh no, don't worry, I just feel a bit [insert adjective].

EPC

"Curious, arrrrrr you?"
"Patience, me matey!"

Strange jobs...

When it comes to people having strange jobs, nothing beats the bailiff (aka de gerechtsdeurwaarder). Seriously, what exactly is it that these so-called legal officers do for a living? Break into your house and sell your stuff on the street? Sorry, some Eastern Europeans do that too. Faster, better and they don't get paid for it.

Bailiffs also need to be present at national lottery drawings, to make sure that nothing goes wrong. Erhm, excuse me? As far as I understood, a lottery drawing involves drawing a fixed number of coloured balls from an automated shuffling machine. Can somebody please explain to me what can go wrong with that? Look, I'll make an official promise: next time I come anywhere near that lottery machine, I'll throw a dead Smurf into it. I can't wait to see that bailiff's face.

- Hello boss, you've got a minute there?

- Uh, yes? What's going on?

- The lottery machine spit out this strange thing tonight.

- I don't know what it is, but it's definitely not a ball.

- What? Can you describe it for me?

- Eh, it's blue...ish, and it smells like the past tense conjugation of an animal. You've got any idea boss?

- Hm. Doesn't sound like tofu then...

On the other hand, I do envy the bailiff's job, because they get the opportunity to attend all kinds of world record attempts. The first time I saw the Guinness Book of World Records, I thought someone had compiled an encyclopedia on exemplary acts of human stupidity. I mean, precisely how deranged was your childhood when your life goal is to obtain a world record title for having the longest fingernails on earth? Or how about being recognized as our planet's fastest hot dog eater? Some nouns are just not meant to be combined with a superlative, right?

To me, one of the funniest world record titles is the one in barbecuing. I'm not joking: there exists a World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest. Often won by the Germans by the way. I have to be honest with you, I don't see the point in this. Man has been grilling meat ever since the Big Bang. And since when did we decide to crown world champions in disciplines that are basically evolutionary instincts? If that is the line of thought, I would like to see a World Championship Fruit Picking Contest for Woman. Which would probably be won by the Germans too, they're more or less trained to stretch their arms, remember? Or how about the annual World Championship in Running Away from Dangerous Situations? This could be the only one in which the Germans consistently end up in second place.

- Scheisse, we're running out of beer!

And then, with a small lead, the Jewish world champion, anxiously looking over his shoulder:

- Ya ben shel kah-ba, the Germans!

LinkedIn: Dearblank...

Dear website,

unlike those pieces of glass on the bicycle lane, the blaring alarm clock interrupting my sex dream this morning, the promising box of cookies in the kitchen cupboard which turned out to be empty, the rejected paper I wrote last month, the discovery of a black mushy thing in my backpack which used to be a banana and the bad hair days slowly becoming weeks, you really made me smile today. Thanks.

Sincerely, Fred

Gym poetics

You may recall that a while ago I talked about the tendency in literary theory to ‘be difficult’. Today’s topic is something related: the ubiquitous use of the word poetics. Bear with me for a moment, if you will.

We all know poetics as ‘the rules of poetry’. However, nowadays it has become bon ton to use it in all sorts of contexts. Poetics of ageing, poetics of resistance, poetics of transactivated space, you name it. People who do so, were probably inspired by American critic Stephen Greenblatt (° 1943), whose theory of cultural poetics of Renaissance society is very famous. However, Greenblatt’s cultural poetics is more than mere jargon. By using this expression instead of just culture, Greenblatt wants to recuperate the double meaning of poetics. I mean: in poetry, we can say that its system of rules (its poetics) not only influences the way people write, but is itself also influenced by the way people write. And the same is true for culture. Culture is both shaped by people’s behaviour and shapes their behaviour. Hence cultural poetics.

But why am I telling you this?

Well, I was thinking about all this yesterday when I was in the gym on the treadmill (yes, I am a strange man). And while I was running along at exactly 10.5 km/h for exactly 15:00 min. (the machine is very clear about such things), it dawned on me that actually the gym is a pretty good illustration of the aforementioned concept of poetics. Indeed, in every gym there is a certain set of unpronounced, but very real rules, which determine your behaviour, but were also created by the users of the gym. A gym poetics, if you want.

Let me explain.

A first rule that seems in place, but is only there because of people’s behaviour, is the following. In general, there are only three kinds of people visit the gym: those who look like they need it (59,5%), those who look like they don’t need it (39,5%) and those who are in-between (1%). Just to be clear, I’m part of the one percent. In fact, in my gym, I am the one percent, running on the treadmill with a fat dude on one side and an aspiring supermodel on the other.

Secondly, gym visitors seem to have created a rule concerning one’s workout kit, ‘What (not) to wear’ for the gym. Apart from oddities, such as ‘extremely short and tight shorts are allowed’, the main rule concerns men’s T-shirts. Apparently, you can only wear sleeveless T-shirts or a wife beater if your arms look like a young Arnold Schwarzenegger’s. If you do wear such an item of clothing without the proper guns to show off, you will be stared at by the rightful wearers. An additional rule is that only the sleeveless people may enter the Pure Strength part of the gym, you know, the one with the dumbbells and the mirror to look into while you lift weights.

Thirdly, it seems to be taboo in the gym which setting you use on the workout machines. It took me a while before figuring this one out, but eventually I got it. When I first started going to the gym, I was always surprised to sit down at a machine and find its setting to be way too hard for me. A biceps machine would have settings ranging from 5 to 50 kgs, and I found the setting it was on, usually 40 or 45 kgs, far too heavy. After a while, however, I noticed that it is apparently a part of the gym poetics to put the setting to 40 or 45 kgs after you’ve finished, no matter what weight you yourself pull. As to the reason for this, one can only guess.

Yet perhaps most puzzlingly, gym poetics involve a certain degree bisexuality, which apparently only applies to the male members of the gym. Indeed, on the one hand it is very accepted to marvel at each other’s bulky biceps, tough triceps or quivering quadriceps. Hell, yesterday I even saw two guys feeling each other’s biceps and making what appeared to be laudatory comments about it. Still, I had no choice but to interpret this as a curious form of bisexuality, because not a moment later, when the aforementioned supermodel walked in, the very same guys all of a sudden had some business on a machine closeby and began walking towards her as if they had a vuvuzela between their legs.

Perhaps I should go over to them one day and applaud them for their openness regarding their sexuality?

Assholes.

I like to move it! (4x)

Technically speaking, Fred and Fred are no longer two guys from Ghent who think a lot about stuff. First of all, ever since the idea to start this blog, the little Fred in us has been thinking more than a lot about things. Newspaper articles, random quotes in books, snippets of conversation overheard on the street - even the vast amount of text messages you have been sending us: our mental notebooks have become flourishing collections of hastily scrawled notes and ideas, simmering to (near) perfection underneath our crania.

Secondly, one of the Freds moved out this weekend. From Ghent to Antwerp, exchanging one university town along the banks of the river Scheldt for another one. When telling people I now live in Antwerp, I sometimes get the following reaction: "Why would you move so far away, don't you like it here?". Not only does the latter question bother me - it's not like you insult the chocolate cake when you order a fruit salad for dessert, right? - but the former one also puzzles me. For many people, the distance between Antwerp and Ghent sounds as insurmountable as a drunk rodeo bull who had a 3d-jigsaw puzzle shoved up the ass. I have colleagues in Japan, living and working in Tokyo, spending more than two hours a day on a densely crowded subway. I've met people in the States, who picked me up from the airport by car "because that is basically around the corner from where we live". It turned out to be a seven hour drive. And I know the scales are different - you can randomly hit a golfball in Brussels and it will land in a neighbouring country, but that doesn't change the simple truth: Antwerp is not far from Ghent.

It was also this weekend, crammed in our rental van, that I realized that some places are easier to leave behind than others. Ranging from very hard (tropical islands inhabited by fluffy rodents serving you food and drinks in large quantities) over moderately difficult (your bed on a rainy Monday morning) to relatively easy (a public toilet which smells like a urine factory). However, one of the most rewarding places to leave behind must be the waste recovery park. People arriving from everywhere - neatly pruned gardens, newly acquired houses and empty attics no longer housing the tons of paraphernalia the previous owners were gathering - throwing all kinds of stuff in appropriate containers, like toddlers figuring out that the star-shaped block does not fit the round hole. And afterwards, everybody goes back home with that same glorious feeling: relief. Ready for a new round of gathering.

I hope they have waste recovery parks in Antwerp...

Old boy

I recently bought a cap. Not a Yankees’ or NBA cap, an old guy’s flat cap. Like this:

And I must say, reactions have not been unequivocally positive, to say the least. One of the most heard criticisms is that it makes me look old. However, I don’t mind. Being a man I have the good fortune that looking older isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Also, I like the cap. It keeps me from getting wet and keeps my ears warm when it’s nippy at 6 o’clock in the morning. But there’s another reason why I like my old guy’s cap, a deeper, more secret desire. To be honest, sometimes I can’t wait to be, let’s say, seventy. They say there’s a boy in every man, but in me there’s an old boy as well. I’m serious; being seventy must make life so much easier! Let me explain.

Primo it would solve my ongoing problems with hair. Obviously the hair on your head is hidden safely under the cap, so you needn’t worry about getting the correct style anymore! Also, when you’re a seventy-year-old guy, that means you can shave in patches and for instance leave long hairs on your Adam's apple. In fact, you needn’t worry about any facial hair whatsoever and can just ignore those hairs protruding from your nostrils or your ears, and start sporting Gandalf-like bushy eyebrows.

Secondo when you’re a seventy-year-old guy, you don’t need to think about what to wear anymore. You can just sit around all day with a wife beater on and old (preferably stained) trousers. Also very much on the plus side: you never need to take off your slippers anymore and you can even wear your hat inside on account of the stupid excuse that ‘There’s a mean draught in here!’, regardless of whether it’s November or July.

Terzo you don’t need to be polite anymore. You’re now allowed to wave your fist at noisy youths in the street shouting a hoarse ‘Goddammit!’, without them considering beating you up. Also you’re not obliged anymore to participate in conversations about stuff you’re not interested in, but you can either dose off in the middle of them, or just change the subject whenever you want without offending anyone.

Quarto you can completely indulge in strange eating habits like having the same sandwich every day, cutting sausage through the plastic wrapper, wolfing down stuff from tins others wouldn’t feed their cat, or proclaiming that ‘There’s nothing wrong with having a beer or two, look at me, I’m seventy and I never felt better!’.

Quinto you don’t need to be au courant anymore. No more ploughing through newspapers or diligently watching the news to get the latest in politics or global economy. You can just rely on the old cliché that in your time 'prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders', to quote Mary Schmich again. Moreover you are now allowed to get completely out of touch with technology and just stare at a cell phone, DVD player or even microwave oven until one of your grandkids programs it for you.

All in all, for me, being a seventy-year-old guy equals being able to do exactly what you want: use obsolete words, hum strange songs no one knows anymore, watch TV all goddamn day while complaining about it, sit around listening to the sound of your nose growing into a freakishly big size, and most of all, wear a flat cap without anyone thinking anything of it!

Take that, flat cap-haters!

Animals in Advertisements. Part Two…

…Roosters, Tigers, Monkeys and even more Frogs

When I complained earlier about the nonsensical use of animals in advertisements, I didn’t even mention the worst of them all: cereal. Indeed the Kellogg’s company seems the absolute champion of animal (and consumer) abuse in their advertisements.


Take the regular Kellogg’s Cornflakes, for instance, which has a rooster on the box. Okay, I get it; the rooster is the bird par excellence that wakes people up in the morning. But first of all, why is this one green? Ever seen a green rooster? Surely staring at a green cock (pardon my French) first thing in the morning cannot be conducive for your mental health. But actually this is not my major complaint about Kellogg’s Cornflakes. The thing that puzzles me most is why this particular branch still exists. Surely there’s no worse breakfast imaginable than these flavourless flakes, which by the way look as if someone put an explosive vest on a piece of corn. Frankly, they taste like chicken feed. But wait a minute…


When I was about seven the family breakfast table suddenly had Kellogg’s Frosties as an alternative to regular cornflakes. Which meant that flavourless was now being replaced by something sweeter than a koala bear with a funny hat. From the frying pan into the fire… And it was no improvement in the looks department either. Frosties figures a tiger on the box, and whether we want it or not, this tiger is a fucking celebrity. Not only does every human on the planet know its smiling face, we know his name and even his favourite hobby! He’s called ‘Tony’ and plays basketball. What on earth? I’m trying to have breakfast, not a first date! But the one thing that bugs me most is the red scarf. What kind of artist comes up with giving a tiger a bright red scarf? What possible use can a tiger have for a scarf? Frankly, it looks a bit gay to me.



Nevertheless, it’s actually a fairly general stupidity of artists and cartoonists drawing up animals. Donald Duck, for instance, is famous for wearing only a baret and a vest, and we will all fondly remember Plons (family name: The Crazy Frog), who - rather alarmingly for a persona in a children’s program - only wore very tight Speedo swimming trunks. And sure enough, Kellogg’s got on to the idea of the frog with their brand of Smacks. For some reason, this one wears a cap and a jacket. Which (again) makes zero sense. Why the hell would a frog need a cap or a jacket? To not get wet? If they’d given the cap and the jacket to the one cleaning toilets, I would have understood. But not the one praising the puffy Smacks…

And finally, there’s the chocolaty flavoured Coco Pops, which occasioned the birth of a monkey called 'Coco'. This one clearly is the most pimped out of the cereal animals, as he’s donning a whole wardrobe. Not only does he have a baseball cap on, but he’s also wearing jeans and a T-shirt with his name on it. A casually clad, but slightly self-absorbed monkey, seems to be the image Kellogg’s wanted to portray. The question here, I think, is why does it need to be a monkey? Aha, you’ll deftly reply, because Coco Pops are brown, and so is Coco! But really, think about it. Isn’t that a bit racist?

Beaver bashing, duck and frog hygiene habits, canine scatology, cocky behaviour, tiger-related gender issues, amphibian paedophilia and finally monkey racism, do you now see the complexity of the problem with animals in advertisements?

Thank you.

Quotes from the book (7)

When buying CD's, I adopt certain techniques which are completely different from the ones I adopt when buying books. The former (almost) never happens at random. Either I know the artist, the label or the genre, or I have been reading reviews online or in specialized magazines.

The latter, however, almost always happens at random: most members of my readable collection are the result of brief browsing sessions, in which my attention always ends up being captured by one book or another - for reasons I can't really explain. Could be the title, the words of international acclaim on the first few pages, the picture on the cover or even the first sentence. I seldom deliberately buy a book, unless someone really suggested me giving it a try.

The last book I read, 'Me talk pretty one day' (David Sedaris), drew my attention because of the title. That, and the fact that the London Times described Sedaris as 'possibly the sharpest and funniest observer of human weakness at work today...'.

And yes, it is a funny book. Judge yourself!

Tired of embarrassing myself in front of two-year-olds, I've started referring to everything in the plural, which can get expensive but has solved a lot of my problems. In saying 'a melon', you need to use the masculine article. In saying 'melons', you use the plural article which does not reflect gender and is the same for both the masculine and the feminine. Ask for two or ten or three hundred melons and the number lets you off the hook by replacing the article altogether. A masculine kilo of feminine tomatoes presents a sexual problem easily solved by asking for two kilos of tomatoes. I've started using the plural while shopping and Hugh has started using it in our cramped kitchen, where he stands huddled in the corner, shouting: "What do we need with four pounds of tomatoes?"

I answer I am sure we can use them for something. The only hard part is finding someplace to put them. They won't fit in the refrigerator, as I filled the last remaining shelf with the two chickens I bought from the butcher the night before, forgetting that we were still working our way through a pair of pork roasts the size of Duraflame logs. "We could put them next to the radios," I say, "or grind them for sauce in one of the blenders. Don't get so mad. Having four pounds of tomatoes is better than having no tomatoes at all, isn't it?"

Hugh tells me the market is off-limits until my French improves. He's pretty steamed, but I think he'll get over it when he sees the CD players I got him for his birthday.

Animals in Advertisements. Part One…

…Beavers, Ducks, Frogs and Dogs.

Okay, I know I’ve already talked about this briefly, but after today I’ve really had it. Let me be formal: I hate animals in advertisements. So I’m going to complain about it. At length. At such length even that I’m already announcing a second round of complaining about this topic. So keep your eyes peeled for Thursday’s Animals in Advertisements. Part Two…

But why, you’ll ask, do you object to the smiling polar bear on the coke bottle or the cheery elephant on the pack of paper towels? I’ll tell you why. Because it makes no sense. Zero sense at all.

This morning I was acutely reminded of this when I noticed a giant billboard poster for an outdoor equipment shop (you know, fleece sweaters, Nordic walking sticks, igloo tents, that sort of thing) that features a beaver in its logo. Instantaneously it ruined my whole day. I mean, think about it. Who comes up with this kind of thing? First of all, beavers are always fat and I’m pretty sure that’s not the image you want to convey. Second, beavers are good swimmers and I doubt you’ll find lots of swimming-related stuff in an outdoor equipment shop. And third, beavers build dams. Which means they’re the exact opposite of going out into the wild and exploring. Surely there’s no worse animal than a beaver to use in the logo of an outdoor equipment shop!

However our friendly beaver (oh how I hate its fucking friendly face!) is only a small example of a much larger scale phenomenon. Indeed, whole industries have come to rely on animals for their commercial imagery. For instance, toilet cleaning products or washing up liquid almost always features ducks or frogs. But why ducks or frogs, for God’s sake? Surely, they’re not known to be cleanly animals? In that respect, a cat (constantly licking itself clean) would have made a much better choice. Alternatively one could claim ducks and frogs make sense because of their link with water. But then again, we all agree that washing up liquid or toilet cubes featuring a fish would be ridiculous, so that’s not it. So why do people use ducks and frogs in these advertisements? And most puzzlingly: why can both be used to advertise products for your toilet and for your dishes? Is their no inherent difference between both?

But the one that pisses me off the most is dogs for toilet paper. Oh yes, we all love the cuddly Labrador puppies dolling around with a roll of soft toilet paper. But again, think about it. Dogs and toilet paper. Do we really think the animal that will happily shit anywhere, anytime is a good way to advertise a product about cleaning up faecal matter?

Do we?

Next time: roosters, tigers and even more frogs. Oh goody…

Blue monday

There used to be a time when jeans were just trousers made from denim. Blue, casual and generally accepted. Nowadays though, buying a new pair of jeans has become a major hit on the long list of good old-fashioned pains in the ass. Still way behind coconuts, cacti and pineapples, but it has definitely overtaken walnuts and bananas.

When I enter a clothing shop, I can't help but feeling watched. No matter where I position myself, at any given moment there are at least four shop assistants keeping an eye on me, not unlike the system of GPS-satellites in orbit around the earth. This could be a personal issue, but I am pretty sure that I'm not the only one supporting the right to browse in private: shopping while someone is looking over my shoulder makes me bloody nervous. Especially because jeans shop assistants are never the ugly fat women whose advice I wouldn't care listening to. No, they are hip and gorgeous, giving me the awkward feeling that I actually need them to make sure that I don't end up with a pair of trousers which is already out of fashion. So, after a few helpless minutes between piles of potential bad buys – through a bizarre physical principle that, sadly enough, only seems to manifest itself in clothing shops – the most attractive lady usually spontaneously walks up to me.

This sounds promising, I know, but in reality it is merely the forebode of an awkward moment: what follows is the perfect combination of honey-draped sweetness and sheer professional persuasiveness, wrapped as an offer to assist you. To buy a jeans, let us keep that in mind. This is usually the point where I can barely resist the temptation to answer “Not now, thanks. But if you give me your business card, I promise you to call upon your assistance within 30 years from now, when I will be drooling my pyjamas and shitting my diaper.” Instead, I usually end up mumbling some sort of excuse, heading for the nearest exit.

Today however, I decided to give the sweet lady in front of me a chance. “Well, yes”, I said, “I would like your assistance”. Little did I know that this would lead to such a series of questions that I suddenly felt compassion for the unshaved Arab, facing the United States Border Security officer.

- What colour of jeans do you have in mind, sir?

That's a no-brainer, right?

- Erhm. Blue.

- Aquamarine blue, Prussian blue, royal blue, peacock blue, medium sky blue, Ukrainian azure, Cerulean, dark powder blue, Delft blue, cyan or midnight blue?

Say what? The 638 terahertz blue would be nice, thank you.

- May it have a slightly worn look, or not? Because we now have a collection of jeans with a used look created by sandblasting. You can choose your trousers to be blasted with Caribbean beach sand, black Greek volcanic sand or Indian quartz beach sand.

No, it may not have a worn look. Let me kindly remind you that I am here to buy a new jeans, because the ones I have at home are erhm... worn out.

- Which fit do you prefer: skinny, tapered, straight or boot-cut?

Skinny jeans, the perfect example of textile innovation gone terribly wrong: why would you even consider wearing a pair of trousers which looks like a piece of a diving suit?

- Do you prefer buttons or a zipper?

Whatever, as long as my pants does not surrender to gravity I don't really care.

It took me more than 10 questions before I was finally allowed into a changing booth, sadly enough the only place in the shop where assistance from the gorgeous fashion police officers is out of the question. And I didn't really feel like turning to the obligatory gay employee, who would obviously have loved to see me in the tightest member of the jeans family.

In the end, I didn't buy anything. Back on the streets, empty-handed. Luckily enough, blue mondays come with exceptional temperatures, sunny terraces and students wearing short jeans...