Movie of your life

I had a near-death experience the other week. Not in the true sense of the word, as I wasn't actually floating through the peaceful passageway usually mentioned by people who were clinically death for a while. I didn't see the blinding white lights, nor was I weightlessly hovering towards an eternity of rice pudding in golden bowls with matching spoons (which never appealed to me anyway: I'd rather settle for more copious portions of food, even if these are served in dog bowls and meant to be eaten with my hands tied behind the back). 

So what happened? I wanted to cross the street, one of these streets that doesn't have a traffic light telling you when to go, but for some strange reason my brain told me not to do so. Luckily enough, because the next thing I knew a crazy bad-ass wanna-be rally-driving nutcase raced past my nose. Leaving me gasping, and wondering what could have been no longer. This wasn't the first time something like this happened to me, and the same interesting question crossed my mind: exactly which part of the brain is it, that does this useful trick? I don't know the answer to this riddle (intuition? pre-historic instincts?), but I do know that I felt happy to (still) be alive. Because despite the fact that I am looking forward to seeing the movie of my life (Who will play me? What genre will it be?), I'm not ready for it yet. 

The incident also made me wonder: what did people expect to see when they passed away before the advent of moving images? The play of their life? Just imagine watching the story of your life in a Shakespearian version. Or as a traditional Indian Sanskrit drama performance - the horror... Nothing against drama obviously, but I'd prefer to be able to press pause every once in a while (getting more beer from the fridge, cutting more cheese cubes, going for a little wee), or skip certain passages forward. And backwards, for that matter. 

At least this explains why people claiming that eternal life awaits after we die, are actually right: after all, we will end up watching ourselves, watching ourselves. Ad infinitum. 

Why I don’t like pie

This morning, as I was fumbling with the three digit number lock for my bike and as I later read some tweets about Valentine cancelling itself out this year (14-2-12=0), I was reminded how much numbers matter in our lives.

For me, however, this has always been the source of much frustration. Indeed, if it had been invented back then, I’m sure I would have been diagnosed as a child with at least a mild form of dyscalculia. I remember having to sit through hours and hours of extra math lessons just to be able to do basic sums and even today I struggle. Honestly, I cannot do something like 15+7 immediately. I have to split it up in 15+5 and 20+2. I’m also notoriously bad at mixing up stuff like 97 and 79, thanks partly to the confusing Dutch system of saying zevenennegentig and negenenzeventig. (Even as I wrote this down I noticed that I had confused them).

Later on my dyscalculia developed into a very apathetic relationship to numbers in general. For instance, for someone who likes history it didn’t help, I’m profoundly uninterested in dates. I always needed a little trick just to remember them, like 1798 for the French Revolution. But the Battle of Marathon (490 BC) or the one at Actium (31 BC), two of the most iconic dates of Ancient History – a subject I took at university –, will be forgotten almost as I’m writing this down.

The trouble is numbers don’t mean anything to me. Which is a pain in the ass. I mean, there are phone numbers to remember, credit card codes, locks, birthdays, licence plates (I think mine ends in 927 but honestly, I’m not sure), and so forth. So every so often I get into trouble. Like that morning this summer when I woke up, turned on my cell phone and realised I had suddenly forgotten my PIN code. So I tried once, I tried twice and I tried three times… And then you need a PUK code, in the middle of France, in a hotel, at 6 o’clock in the morning. At which point you yell something that rhymes with PUK…

It has always puzzled me why I am so bad with numbers. The only explanation I can think of is that there are too few numbers. Indeed, there’s only 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 and all the rest are combinations of those signs (I have no place in my life for i, e, or π). At least with things and feelings and places and people there are loads of words! And I’ve never had any trouble remember those.

But with numbers, it’s all the same to me. When I use words there is a certain darkness to black and a certain brightness to white (try it, don’t you agree?), but there’s no Constantinopleness to 1453 (The Fall of Constantinople, in my world also dated 1345 or 1354) and 3,14 has nothing to do with pie for me.

Which reminds me. When I was thirteen, I went to a summer camp in Switzerland where one of the guides was an engineer. He was fascinated with numbers and one day even boasted: ‘I can recite π up to 100 digits after the 3!’. At which point a friend of mine, nowadays a paratrooper and in the army’s special forces, replied: ‘So?’.

Quite.

One gozer, more geezers...

Yesterday, I went to the latest show of whom I consider to be Belgium's finest stand-up comedian: Bart Cannaerts ('Waar is Barry'). With his mix of clever puns, funny observations describing the connection between our language and everyday life, neurotic stories and a sheer amount of visual humour, he had me going through the complete spectrum: from chuckling over smiling to laughing out loud. One of the nice things about his show was the fact that it actually carried a message. Without giving too much away, as I do recommend you to check him out yourself, I can share a particularly interesting reflection of his, concerning photographs. "Photographs", he said, "are usually taken under the pretext of giving you the opportunity to live the moment again, at home. This is bullshit, as you didn't actually live the moment, since you were too busy taking the picture in the first place."

This reminded me of a particular experience I had this weekend, not to mention all the previous times (notably whilst traveling). I had one of these moments that will sound quite familiar to keen photographers, in which the only thing you can think is "Damned, where's my camera when I need it?". On my way home, cycling along a riverbank in Ghent, I noticed a flock of birds (geese, I suppose) flying in what can safely be described as a fractal formation. You are probably familiar with the typical V-shaped form, but this was different, almost like a binary tree - if that makes sense to you. Halfway one of the legs of the bigger V, another leg branched off, generating a smaller version of the original shape. This repeated itself at several places, including the smaller branches, generating something which essentially resembled a river delta. Quite fitting, I thought, as they are probably on their way to a river delta, somewhere near the equator. 

This particular view of the sky was mesmerizing: the mathematical pattern, the actual colour of the sky, the birds following each other; it made me realize that I was missing a perfect shot. And yet, in retrospect, I feel quite happy that I did not have the opportunity to capture it on film, as this might have ruined my recollection. The mental image is firmly etched into my mind now, making it way stronger than the 4.6Mb image I could have extracted with my camera. As cheesy as it sounds, I really enjoyed riding my bike whilst looking upwards, seeing these magnificent creatures head towards their friends in the South. They were probably completely in panic "What the duck is going on here? Weren't we supposed to leave like... I don't know, a month or two ago?". I envisioned families of geese, switching heads from thermometer to calender, staring at the not so freezing temperatures in utter disbelief, fearing that the annual barbeque party in the backyard of their African friends would no longer be an option. 

But look, it's one week later and the situation drastically changed. Hundreds of people frozen to death as temperatures keep plunging (reasons to stop complaining about trivial shit: plus one), political turmoil over the fact that homeless people have to spend the night outside, and there is more to come. I am safely inside now: nicely warm on the outside - thank your local deity for sweaters and heaters, nicely warm on the inside. Because I saw them geezers on their way to normality, minding their own aviary business. I wished them good luck, I do hope they'll drop me a postcard... 

Quotes from the book (9)

… or rather: ‘Quotes from the books’, double plural.

Indeed, it seems I have grossly neglected, dear reader, to keep you posted about my reading habits. Instead, for a long time I let on (in the box on the right) that I had been reading Dave Eggers’ complex novel A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, but that was far from the truth.

So while I may have given the impression that I was knee-deep in a bulky book of high-brow literature, I was in fact reading some pretty pulpy stuff. Common cultural practice dictates that I should now start to justify this, by saying, for instance, that I’m doing this as a kind of experiment, in order to ‘contextualize my reading praxis through an explicit anti-canonism’ or some academic mumbo-jumbo. However, the truth is that I just like reading pulp too, plain and simple. In my case, that means things like glossy magazines (OK magazine! Dag allemaal!), gossip websites about Hollywood celebrities (TMZ! Perez Hilton!), autobiographies of sports’ or TV personalities, adventure tales, vulgarizing history, and of course fantasy literature. Aside from anything else it also makes me quite good at knowing all types of strange stuff at quizzes!

So, instead of offering you quotes from a Dutch classic like Lijmen / Het Been, or an impressionistic English novel like Eclipse, as I did in the past, today I’ll offer you some citations from stuff I’ve read in the past year with just as much lip-licking pleasure as the other high-faluting books. Enjoy (I certainly did!)

1) Bear Grylls, Mud, Sweat and Tears:

(or how the adage ‘know thyself’ is important even for hosts of TV survival shows)

Climbing. Hanging. Escaping. I loved them all.
Mum, still to this day, says that growing up I seemed destined to be a mix of Robin Hood, Harry Houdini, John the Baptist and an assasin. I took it as a great compliment.*

           (* not sure that was really wise, Bear)

2) Dave Eddings, The Redemption of Althalus

(or how 900 pages of previous story can prepare you for even the worst of melodrama)

‘Are you serious?’ he exclaimed.

She stroked her tummy again. ‘If I’m not, this is. We’re going to have a baby, Althalus’.

He stared at her in absolute astonishment. Then he suddenly felt his eyes fill with tears.

‘Are you crying, Althalus? I didn’t think you knew how.’

He took her in his arms then and held her with tears of joy streaming down his face. ‘Oh, I do love you, Em!’*, was all he could say.

(* When the story starts, Em or Emmy or Emerald is a cat. No kidding.)

3) Sean Michael Wilson, Hagakure. The Code of the Samurai

           

            (or how I know that even samurai can be pussies)

It’s good to carry some powdered rouge in one’s sleeve. It may happen that when one is sobering up or waking from sleep, his complexion may be poor. At such a time it is good to take out and apply some powdered rouge.*

(* Bought this one together with Fred at Narita airport with our last 1000 yen. Money well spent.)

Pissed off

Ah, the news. Always new opportunities to get irritated, frustrated or downright angry. During the past few days, a particular article had me raise my eyebrows...

You might have seen the video featuring American soldiers urinating on dead Afghan bodies. The 40-second clip, showing four men in combat gear exposing their genitals and relieving themselves whilst making bad jokes ("Have a great day buddy, golden like a shower!"), went around the world quickly and sparked outrage and a possible diplomatic row between Washington and Kabul. Even the Pentagon spokesman said the video was deeply troubling, and added "Whoever it was, and whatever the circumstances, it is egregious behaviour." Understandable, right? 

In a sense - a very weird one, that is, because the comparison I am about to make is more farfetched than a massive cruise ship running aground off the Italian coast, because the captain felt like waving his family (and a few other people, may they rest in peace) goodbye - this all reminds me of a discussion I had when I was 21 years old. I used to be a member of WINA at that time, the student organization associated to our mathematics department. As a matter of fact, I was in charge of taming the freshmen at our cantus activities (schachtentemmer, if that makes sense to you). 

To be more precise, this also implied that I had the final responsibilities over the student initiation ceremony (for those of you who are not familiar with this: it's a kind of passage rite, involving lots of beer, some nudity, oodles of ingredients to make pancakes and, of course, even more beer). Even today, I can still clearly recall that one particular moment when some of my fellow WINA members asked me whether they were allowed to 'wash' the students that very night. When I asked them what they meant by that, they gave me a 'you-idiot, isn't-that-plain-obvious'-look and added "Spit on them, of course!". I wasn't shocked, I knew far worse stories from other student organizations, but I obviously answered that they weren't. Because to me, student initiations were (and still are) all about recruiting people, engaging them in social activities and offering them a night of fun to remember for the rest of their lives - despite the alcohol. As opposed to what some people believe, it is not about humiliating people. 

So why am I telling you this? What does it have to do with US soldiers urinating on Afghan war victims, facing severe punishment because of (and I quote) this apparent desecration of the dead as a violation of our nation's military regulations and of international laws of war prohibiting such disgusting and immoral actions? I will tell you why: because this reasoning pisses me off badly. I find it very ironic - in a bad sense of the word - that people are judged as immoral because of something they did during a fucking war. It wasn't a cantus, nor a social activity meant to bring people closer together or to offer them an experience to remember forever (I am afraid that soldiers are returning with enough experiences they'd rather not remember). It happened during a conflict which, by its very definition, leads to mortality and human behaviour defying what we consider to be 'right'.

I am no expert, nor a philosopher - merely a pacifist with a humble opinion I feel like sharing - but according to me it doesn't make sense to make rules about what is okay and what is not during a war. Because the act of declaring and fighting a war itself is not okay. Period. Who are we to judge people who were actually trained to kill other people, from behind our desks or the comfort zones we tend to call 'houses'? Do not get me wrong (repeat twice!), I am by no means saying that what these soldiers did is morally right, but I am questioning the very concept of making rules about something that should not be in the first place. Amen. 

Bo-ring!

I'm having exams today, which means another fight against boredom. And then again, this might be me finally getting what I was craving for: a few weeks ago, I told Fred that I honestly can't remember how it feels to be bored. As always, this ignited a lively discussion (this time, on the very nature of boredom - nomen est omen) and after a while we even started longing for that obnoxious feeling we remembered from our childhood, sharing a yearning to taste the boredom we so often did as a kid. I must have driven my parents crazy, whenever I started nagging because I didn't know what to do. Yes, I had plenty of crayons, enough lego  to build a colourful container in which I could easily store the rest of my toys (taking certain codes into account, mind you!), a library card and access to what would later become the Cartoon Network. And yet, I sometimes felt bored. Little did I know that time would become such a precious thing to have in abundance. 

This is obviously the reason why the persistent desire to feel bored is haunting me: at this very point in my life, I cannot even find the time to make the list of things I would like to do, let alone the time to actually do them. Even if you would have taken the time and somehow mustered the energy to explain this to me when I was seven years old; a most stupefied look would have been my only, but utterly sincere answer. Now, 25 years later, I finally came to understand that having the opportunity to feel bored is actually a sign of luxury. So here I am, overlooking 30 students dueling with the hideous creature called 'algebra', enjoying my short moment of boredom, indulging myself with a few moments of doing nothing (but typing down these words), trying to ignore the fact that I have things to do. 

Just in case you somehow started feeling bored, please repeat after me: it is a sign of luxury...

The cold night (recycled)

Some of you probably know that I had another blog in a previous life, back in the days when Fred and I were still minding our own business. I've written a fair amount of things during that period, spanning more or less 4 years of my life, but I recently stumbled upon one particular post that I wanted to recycle here. For a particular reason, which will become clear once you read it...

Bear in mind that I wrote this during the Christmas period a few years ago, when snow and cold weather were still on the winter menu. I should have posted it a few weeks ago, but Fred and Fred were having a break in the Ardennes - having no access to the internet.

***

Christmas is in the air. Quite literally in fact, since I had snowflakes for breakfast this morning. But despite the fact that this period of the year is one of those rare, isolated (erhm, think hats and scarves) space-time singularities during which I finally find some time to catch up with myself, I often despise these days... Everybody seems to be in a "let's-buy-too-much-decadent-food"-mood: just read Jonathan Safran Foer's brainchild and formulate your own questions on (Christ)mass consumption.

It always reminds me of one particular Christmas Evening, a few years ago: I was invited somewhere in Ghent for dinner with (rather newly acquired) friends, and I was supposed to bring the starter (aka the hors d'oeuvre, the festive synonym). I don't exactly remember what I prepared, after all this was the pre-tofu-based-fake-shrimp-era, but I do remember that on my way to the warm living room where we were to spend the evening I bumped into a guy with a beard. And a few plastic bags, containing the essence of his life. Nope, it wasn't Santa: it was a homeless guy, prepared to spend another night out there.

I saw you standing in the corner

On the edge of a burning light

I saw you standing in the corner

in the cold, cold night

(J. White).

At first I was able to ignore my pity. But when I was confronted with all the smiling, happy faces behind the illuminated windows of the big houses along the road, like warm chunks of cosiness on a party plate, I was overpowered by an immense feeling of sadness and injustice. I couldn't help but turn around, and I gave my food to this guy. Together with a bottle of wine, although I don't know whether he ever managed to open it - I guess homeless people don't carry around corkscrews?

I'll never forget his reaction: the man mustered the warmest smile he could. Taking into account that we were out there, in the cold, cold night, it does sound like a contradiction but he made me melt somehow.

I'll never ever forget the reaction of my friends when I told them, proud as I was, what happened to the starter: they were angry. 'Defriending' still had to be invented those days...

How do you mean, there's no starter?

I wonder whether the homeless guy had friends, newly acquired ones included. And how they would have reacted:

How do you mean, there's a starter?

Erhm, guys, does anyone have a corkscrew?

Year-End Questions (2)

Yesterday, Fred listed his answers to a bunch of questions which he drafted as an alternative to the regular format. I'll just answer these questions as well, since they are too nice to ignore...

1) Most absurd moment?

Standing at the check-in counter in Zaventem - together with Fred, ready to board our flight to Tokio - and hearing the unsettling words: "I am not sure whether you can actually board this flight, as it seems that your first and family names were entered wrongly upon reservation of these tickets. When the names on my list don't match the ones mentioned in the passport, this could technically speaking jeopardize your trip." We still thank the assistant for her efforts...

2) Best personal insight?

"It is never too late to start something new, no matter how old or insecure you feel." One obvious manifestation? Me (finally) buying a guitar. That, and "Antwerp is a fantastic place to live".

3) Best unforeseen event?

I can't choose between two events, so I'll just mention both of them.

The first one was spending a day in Kuala Lumpur with 3 lovely people (Michelle, Ainsley and Jakob: just in case you're reading this, thanks again!) whom I'd met earlier that day while brushing my teeth in the common bathroom of a fantastic Backpacker's in KL. Dental hygiene for the win!

The second one was being invited to a cheese fondue at a friend's place whom I hadn't seen in a very long time, which led to the funniest first date I ever had. Lactose tolerance for the win!

4) Biggest crying-but-in-a-good-way moment?

Seeing three of my favourite Belgian bands (Amenra, Kingdom and the Black Heart Rebellion) in an old church in Ghent. Playing heads up poker with Fred. Being smiled at by random people. Being smiled at by students. Going to a cantus with a colleague of mine. Getting a text message from friend at Pukkelpop saying they were okay.

5) What I would most like to do in 2012, if it were not so embarrassing because I’m not a teenager anymore?

Buy a skateboard and ride to work. And, obviously, go on a survival weekend with Fred.

6) Most heartbreaking moment?

Seeing my grandmother for the last time, lying in her hospital bed. Technically speaking, she was still alive, but I am not sure she ever heard the words I shared with her.

7) Most annoying physical feature?

Not being able to lick my own elbow.

8) Best food discovery?

Penang, a state in Malaysia and the name of the constituent island on the northwest coast of this fantastic country. My love for Asian food is not new, but the concentration of delicious restaurants - from vegan to not so vegetarian - on this particular island was. Had the best Indian curries in years here...

9) Best question?

(for this to make sense, you need to watch Ricky Gervais' comedy act on animals and gay sexuality - see also here, around 3:33)

You allright? Anything? Do you want to swap? Better?

10) Best thing I used my computer for?

Order tickets for all the concerts I've been to. And starting Fred and Fred, duh!

Year-End Questions

If you tend to follow the media a bit (and you do, because you’re reading a blog at the moment), there’s no way of escaping the annually recurring lists of year-end questions that magazines, news papers and such invariably publish. The usual format is to get some celebrities to fill in a bunch of questions, such as Best CD?, Best book?, Best movie? etcetera.

However, I don’t know about you, but I’ve never enjoyed reading such lists. In fact, I find the whole thing a bit pointless. I mean: these lists are obviously meant to be a cute way to have the public discover some of last year’s best CDs, books and movies. However, most of the time I either haven’t the slightest idea which CD/book/movie people are talking about or I do know the cd/book/movie in question and then the suggestion doesn’t matter anymore!

So, for this year I decided to draft an alternative list of questions that unlike all the others you might actually recognize and/or enjoy. So here you have ten year-end questions about 2011, Fred and Fred-style. Hope you like them!

And by the way, let’s all agree to enjoy 2012, shall we? It’ll make things so much easier!

1) Most absurd moment?

Sitting with Fred in a restaurant in Tokyo, realising that the waitress is actually Chinese, not Japanese, listening to their conversation in Chinese, and later on in the same restaurant being addressed as Supama, Supama! Crah Keh, Crah Keh! (‘Superman, Superman! Clark Kent, Clark Kent!’) Apparently, I look like Clark Kent to Japanese people. (Must be the glasses, I suppose).

2) Best personal insight?

Realizing that not everything that happens in life is my responsibility or fault. (I tend to take stuff way too seriously, I suppose)

3) Best unforeseen event?

Gaining at least four, possibly five female friends. (I never used to have those in the past, you know!)

4) Biggest crying-but-in-a-good-way moment?

Lots of stuff. Watching the movie Up, talking with Fred about Derrida, visiting new born babies, realising what Elbow’s song Lippy Kids is about. (Very much in touch with my feminine side in 2011, I suppose)

5) What I would most like to do in 2012, if it were not so embarrassing because I’m not a teenager anymore?

Go on a survival weekend.

6) Most heartbreaking moment?

Opening the door for a six-year-old trick-or-treater at Halloween, not realising what she was doing, then awkwardly stammering that I had no candy in the house (not even a bar of chocolate, really!) and then closing the door again. Afterwards wondering whether a pear or €2 could have made the situation better or possibly worse.

7) Most annoying physical feature?

Discovering that my secret wish of being an old man (see here), has manifested itself in a definite increase of hair in my nose and on my shoulders. (Seriously, I now shave the inside of my nostrils and my shoulders every week – also a candidate for question #1)

8) Best food discovery?

Pumpkins of all sizes, shapes and colours. (Just love them)

9) Best question?

If you were a tree, which tree would you be? (My answer: ‘Officer Crabtree!’)

10) Best thing I used my computer for?

Starting Fred and Fred, duh!

You are what you eat

A few months ago, Fred wrote a blogpost on Michel Lotito, a man who became famous for eating indigestible objects. Like airplanes, duh. Recently, I realized that there actually exists an official term for people eating things like clay, paper or stone: these people are said to suffer from pica, a medical disorder which is characterized by an unnatural appetite for largely non-nutritive substances. You might feel tempted to conclude that a rather substantial part of the world population suffers from pica, so let me set this straight: burgers from MacDonald's are nòt included.

As with most medical disorders – well, maybe with the exception of an obsession with cleaning – this is not really something that you would want your child to suffer from, is it? Not at first sight, I admit. But once you start thinking it through, it becomes clear that it would in fact be a very convenient way to raise a child. Nothing easier than throwing a birthday party for a bunch of kids suffering from pica, for example: first you play rock-paper-scissors, and then you just eat them.

When I was a kid, there was actually a guy suffering from pica in my class: James, aka the Desert Dude; he lived on a diet of sand. I mean, my lunch was wrapped in a brown paper bag, he brought his in one of these blue, plastic starfishes. I liked him very much, and he often visited our place. My mom used to serve me lasagna when he came over: she put the thing in the microwave, and three minutes later – ping – my food was ready. For James, she merely turned the hourglass: three minutes later, his food was done too. Unlike me, James was very fond of school trips. I still remember the third grade trip, a visit to the seaside: 'Yay, all-you-can-eat!'. Or the fifth grade trip, one week in Egypt: 'Yay, the food pyramids!'.

Unfortunately, James passed away last week. I went to his funeral; they cremated him. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

I guess in the end it makes sense.

You are what you eat...

The MJ conspiracy

Today I read a story in the papers that reminded me of a very distinct childhood memory. I think I must have been about eight or maybe nine and on holiday in Spain. I was playing in the pool with some newly made Dutch friends, when all of a sudden they introduced a new kid. And the new kid was black. That’s right. It may strike you as funny but at that age (late 80s) I had never seen a black person in person. I remember going up to the kid, who was about my age, and asking him in all my childish naiveté if I could touch his skin. I guess I just wanted to know what black skin felt like. He said yes and so I stuck out a little finger and poked him in the forearm. I remember clearly that I was very surprised. I had expected the skin to feel different, perhaps more coarse I don’t know, but I was astonished to find that his skin felt just like mine. ‘Well what do you know,’ I told my parents that afternoon, ‘they’re just like we are!’.

I’m never quite sure whether this story means that at age eight I was essentially a racist or not. Sure, my conclusion was that we were no different from each other, but still I had expected that there would be a difference and I based that assumption (perhaps ‘prejudice’ is a better word?) on racial grounds. However, in the end I guess that whatever my basic attitude, I learned the correct lesson: that although there is an undeniable difference in appearance between races, appearance is as far as the difference goes…

At the same time, there is that difference, but even as I’m typing this I feel that we’re not really comfortable discussing that. After all, why discuss it, if it doesn’t matter, right?

Well, let’s go back to the newspaper article I mentioned earlier. It’s about Michael Jackson’s daughter, Paris Katherine Jackson (°1998), who is going into acting. In the article she is just called his daughter, but you see, I have a theory about MJ’s kids – at least about the first two, the oldest is known as ‘Prince’ (°1997) – and it’s quite simple: I’m not really convinced they’re his.

My reasons? Simple observation, really.

Here’s a picture of Michael with his father (Joseph Walter "Joe" Jackson) and his mother (Katherine Esther Scruse):

They are both black people (they’re not of mixed heritage, which could explain things further down the family tree), and therefore their child, Michael, was a black person too:

Now we all know that somewhere along the way Michael turned himself from a handsome black man into a scary white woman. You know what I mean, but here’s a pic anyway.

Bear in mind, though, that these changes were done with plastic surgery, i.e. skin transplants and skin products. They are not genetic. Michael’s DNA is what it always was, that of a negroid man.

Now, have a look at Michael’s partner, Debbie Rowe, who was MJ’s partner from 1996 to 1999, and who is Prince’s and Paris’ mother:

Now genetics dictate that MJ and Rowe’s children should be of mixed heritage. Someone like Halle Berry, for instance, whose mother is of European descent and whose father is African-American, or like Barack Obama, who is the son of a father from Kenya and a European American mother.

So we should expect MJ’s children to look something like that. Instead this is what his daughter and son look like:

Now does that seem right to you? Indeed, there have been persistent rumours, especially about Prince’s father being someone else. (By the way, there are no Wikipedia pages with detailed information on any of the Jackson children!) And let’s be honest, who would be surprised to find out that Wacko Jacko’s kids were really someone else’s? Isn’t it quite possible that a person who obviously had a pathological wish to be a white person, faked having white children?

So is our culture just too politically correct to ask these questions, or am I still, after all these years, being racist when I’m surprised that a black person’s kids don’t look black enough?

I wonder.

Les autres

Today I was at the baker’s at exactly 11:39 am. It might seem a pretty random or average time, but when you know the area I live in, it’s not. You see, it’s a pretty bad idea to go to the baker’s or the grocery store here between the hours of 12 and 1 pm, and between 4 and 5 pm. The reason is that I live pretty close to several schools and at those times these shops are swamped with children getting sandwiches, potato chips, sodas, etcetera.

So imagine my surprise when I found that today at 11:39 the baker’s was already swamped with cackling teenage girls and boasty schoolboys. Crap. I knew they would all be ordering those very time-consuming baguettes with chicken-curry spread and stuff like that, but on the other hand I needed to eat too, didn't I? So there was nothing for it. I had to wait. About 15 minutes to be exact.

Which, of course, is not a disaster. After all, this is supposed to be my day off. Still, I was pretty annoyed. I kept wondering where those kids came from. I mean, when we were young, school wasn’t out until about 12 (11.50, I think), so what were they doing here? However, with some of them, I couldn’t tell whether they might be university students or not. I mean, nowadays (oh yes, grandpa Fred is back!) I can’t honestly tell whether some of these girls are 15 or 20.

So anyway, while I was waiting at the baker’s, I began to think about being annoyed by other people, as it had happened to me a few times the previous days. Last Friday evening, for instance, while I was in my car (carpooling with a friend, mind you) on the ring road where traffic was just awful, I had the same feeling. Or two days later, when I made the very bad decision of checking out the Fnac store on a ‘shopping Sunday’, which was just swarming with people.

At times like that I find myself quite honestly wondering: “What are all these people doing here?” Really, sometimes I want to go up to them and ask them: “What are you doing here? What possible, good reason can you have for being here? Are you sure you’re not here just to annoy me?” As Sartre said: L’enfer c’est les autres.

Of course I’m being a self-centred ass here, but I’m fairly certain most of us feel like this once in a while. Other people can be so annoying. And the strange, even scary, part is that we’re not annoyed because of what these people do (although that doesn’t always help either!). We are annoyed because of the basic fact that they’re there.

Which is not that surprising. Indeed, to a certain extent it's impossible for anyone to come loose from the way we experience reality, which is always opposed to the way everybody else experiences reality. I mean: I’m me, and I may wonder what it’s like to be someone else, but I’ll never know for sure. (When I was a child I sometimes played with the thought that the whole world was an elaborate conspiracy and that only I was real and other people robots or aliens acting the part of people. I was a strange child, mind you).

But the thing is: this is a dangerous emotion, and what’s more (so I thought waiting for yet another kid specifying his order: ‘egg, but no cucumber and carrots instead of lettuce on my spicy-tuna-brown bread baguette please’): it’s illogical. Indeed, if I am an ego, then so is everybody else. And if I divide the world into ‘me’ and ‘other people’, then other people do the same. And in their view, I am other people.

By then it was my turn at the baker’s. I politely asked for a brown loaf and one with raisins (love those). But as I was walking out and passed the school children sitting outside enjoying their sandwiches and baguettes, I was still thinking about my paradoxical conclusion of me being other people. Logic then dictated that if hell is other people, than hell is me too. Or in the words of a T-shirt the biggest bully in our old neighbourhood used to wear: ‘Save the world, kill yourself’. And only then I realise how ironic it is that I often secretly wished he would follow his own advice.

Sleepless at Sinterklaas

I couldn’t sleep a wink last night, is not only a 1943 song by Frank Sinatra, it’s also the God’s honest truth. I’m a pretty bad sleeper and it’s happened to me several times already, but I’m always quite amazed that some nights my body just refuses to go to sleep. And apparently without much reason. I mean: yesterday I went shopping at Ikea, went to the gym, had coffee with a friend in the afternoon, fitted some spotlights in my apartment, and drank a pint of real ale with another friend in the evening. But when I went to bed at 12 p.m. and was still awake by 4 a.m. I knew there wasn’t much use in staying in bed. So I got up and stayed up. And to be honest: I’m not too bothered by it.

In fact, staying up a whole night is something of an interesting experience, at least when you decide not to be annoyed by your insomnia and just get up and go on with your, err, day. For example, there’s something a bit special about being awake at that sweet spot between 3.35 and 4.35 a.m. when the whole world seems asleep. You kind of feel in charge of the universe. Although that could also just be the sleep deprivation talking.

On a less philosophical note, it also quite fun to have an extra meal. I guess, when you don’t sleep, your stomach stays active as well, so somewhere around 4 o’clock you’ll have brinner, that exclusive meal between dinner and breakfast when anything goes down. There’s something deliciously strange to be eating tuna sandwiches with olives in the middle of the night.

However, I mustn’t over-romanticize. All things together, it’s quite a nuisance to skip a night’s sleep. For one, not only your biological clock is confused, even your biological calendar is upset. I mean, for me a new day starts when I wake up in the morning. So if you don’t wake up, there’s no new day-feeling. Hence, it’s still Monday inside me.

But most annoying is the fact that before you finally give up and get out of bed, you will spend about three or four hours tossing and turning under your duvet. And with tossing and turning comes thinking. And there’s no worse thinking than what goes on during a sleepless night. In fact, there are three degrees of such thinking: first degree thinking, about stuff (like your job, life, etc.), second degree thinking, about sleeping (‘Dammit why can’t I sleep?’) and then third degree thinking, about thinking about sleeping. Indeed, once you start telling yourself you need to stop thinking about thinking about sleeping, you’re in for a long night...

Up to yesterday, however, my sleep thinking universe consisted of these three dimensions, but yesterday (it must be Fred with his complex mathematics getting to me) I discovered thinking⁴. And what’s more: the key to the fourth dimension of thinking is Sinterklaas. Now before you call an ambulance because you think I’ve gone insane after a sleepless night, hear me out.

While lying awake, I suddenly realised that last night was the eve before Sinterklaas Day and I couldn’t help but wonder how many excited children shared my fate of staring at the ceiling. All those small boys who were just too anxious to sleep because Sinterklaas might’ve brought them that electric car. Small boys who were also very conscious of being awake. Indeed, when we were children, we were told that Sinterklaas wouldn’t come if you stayed up, for instance, in the hope of seeing him. So all you wanted to do was sleep, and you soon found out that the harder you thought about sleeping, the harder it was to sleep...

And there you have it: Fred thinking about thinking about children thinking about thinking about Sinterklaas, aka thinking to the fourth power, or thinking⁴.

On second thought (pun not intended) it might be time for a little nap. Get that proper experience of going from 5 to 6 December. Who knows, maybe Sinterklaas will visit me after all?

Super-market-man!

One of my favourite places on this earth? Market places. I just love wandering around markets. Not the second-hand flea markets and art bazaars - although browsing through crates of records can make this Fred happy too, but genuine markets. Be it at home or abroad, nothing beats watching people, sampling food and buying fresh ingredients for a more than decent price. I even enjoy the hours of politely queueing at the vegetable stall - balancing on that fine line between being a gentleman and lacking a healthy form of assertiveness - when I am constantly cut in front by pink-haired older ladies holding a crossing between a rat and a dog wearing a plastic jacket underneath their arm...

Personally, visiting a market place gives me a sense of reality - which comes in quite handy after a tiresome week of exploring the back of my mind, searching for answers to problems which are further from reality than umbrellas made from sponge. It makes me feel relaxed, despite the fact that market places are buzzing with activity. I would even say that it makes me feel connected with real life, as it gives me a chance to blend in with everybody else. Not just real life as it is today, but as it always was and will always be: I find it comforting to know that man has always met at market places.

Speaking about meeting people, last weekend I was at the super version of a market. Which doesn't beat the real market, let that be clear, but wandering around super markets also qualifies as something I like to do. When it's not too crowded, that is. I was scanning my stuff, at one of these little computers that looks a bit like a copier, when the cute supervising shop assistant in charge of the self-scanning devices tapped my shoulder. "Excuse me," she said, "is this yours?". An elegant arm holding canned television sausages was stretched in my direction. "Erhm, not really!", I blurted out - somewhat taken aback by the fact that this lovely woman was addressing me. As a single, being addressed by strangers is good for the confidence - especially when they are of the opposite sex and rather pretty, but not when they are offering you a can of processed meat. Still, my manly mind was racing, and so I added: "Too bad it weren't roses, that would have been nice!". I was cursing myself ("Roses? You dork, that's the biggest cliché ever!" "Yeah, but still, it's your favourite dEUS track, remember?") but she smiled at me and asked "What would it mean, you'd say, if someone left a can of sausages on my desk?".

Classical example of a plan back-firing.

A few milliseconds seemingly turned themselves into silent minutes.

"Hm. You could announce it through the speakers," I suggested, "asking the person who left his sausages at the self-scanning counter to see the cashier." A perfect long-distance pass went over the attacker's heads. We both smiled. Hers was teasingly pinkish, mine stiffly greenish. On the way home, I was thinking about canned sausages and why anyone would leave them behind, having deliberately picked them up from the shelf in the first place. Above all, I was wondering whether or not to go back inside.

They do sell roses in the super market, you know...

Pod-heads (4)

This isn't the first time the word 'Panopticon' is used in a blogpost. And I doubt it will be the last time. Because this is the name of my all-time favourite CD, released by the American band Isis in 2004. There once was a time in which I could safely write "I cannot tell you how many times I listened to this album", but iTunes kept track of that: 'So did we', the opening track, was played at least 114 times from my laptop. Add all the times I have been listening to Panopticon on the train, staring through the windows, or walking through the city, dreaming about other cities...

In case you pressed 'play', chances are that you pressed 'pause' as well - after roughly 15 seconds I presume? And yet: despite the brutal opening featuring Aaron Turner's harsh vocals, this track sums everything up there is to know and appreciate about Isis. Filed under the post-metal flag, they create long, epic tracks (mostly instrumental), combining melodic lead passages with heavily distorted outbursts, fusing eery guitar riffs with repetitive bass lines, blending intense emotions and musical craftsmanship into a massive landscape in which you - the listener - cannot do anything else but wander around and get lost. This description may sound quite abstract and maybe even somewhat grand or sumptuous - after all, I am writing about a CD - but I guess this is what Isis evokes in me. Even at this very moment, as I am listening to what iTunes officially recorded as the 115th time, I get overwhelmed by a strange feeling...

Just in case you're interested in more post-metal bands (good things are there to be shared, a philosophy which applies to more than cheese and beer), try one of the following: Pelican, Russian Circles, Red Sparowes, Neurosis, Amenra and so on.

Have a safe journey back!

Youth of Today

Today is International Student's Day, in commemoration of what happened in Prague in 1939. On October 28, a demonstration was held in Prague to commemorate the anniversary of the independence of the Czechoslovak Republic. During this manifestation, suppressed by Nazi forces, an unfortunate Czech student (Jan Opletal) was shot in the stomach. He died in the hospital on November 11. A few days later, his body was transported from Prague to his home town in Moravia, and the funeral procession (attended by thousands of students) turned into an anti-Nazi demonstration. The Nazi's responded with drastic measures: all Czech higher education institutions were closed down, more than 1,200 students were arrested and sent to concentration camps, and on the 17th of November nine students and professors were executed without trial.

Personally, I can relate to this story because of two reasons. First of all, I have spent one whole year at the Charles University in the beloved city of Prague. Not only is the Czech Republic's ancient capital a captivating and truly fantastic place to live (or wander around as a tourist), I can also say that my year in Prague has given shape to the life I am living now. People that stuck with me, experiences that were etched in my mind, and opportunities that changed the course of my career.

Secondly, I have a job (a.o. because of my stay in Prague) which brings me in contact with students on a daily basis. And 'they' can say what they want, but my impression is that the youth of today still embodies a lot of fire and passion. Of course, it's different from what my father told me, and I guess that even the comparison with my own student years wouldn't make any sense at all - despite my relatively young age, but still: deep down, students will never change. And this is not about the unconditional love for beer, cheap food and fellow students of the opposite (well, you know what I mean) sex, this is about their desire to connect, change and contribute.

For the students!

Keep raising your voices, preferably not during my classes ;)

Lost

When I was about 12, I picked up a book in my father’s library and read its blurb (you know, the text on the back). It simply said: ‘There are only two kinds of people in this world: those that have read this book and those who are meaning to read it’. That book was The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. As my father only had an English copy of it and I was still too young to understand Tolkien’s stately English, he summarised the story for me and gave me the old I guess you’ll just have to wait until you grow up… However, being a rather curious little fellow (both in the sense of curiosity and curiousness), little Fred didn’t wait to grow up. The year after I managed to put my hands on The Hobbit - that rather dull prequel to The Lord of the Rings, but originally meant as a children’s story, so a little easier - and when I turned 15 I bravely started the 1,000 odd pages of TLOR. And I absolutely loved it.

For me it was the beginning of a true obsession with English fantasy literature. I'm talking about those fist thick books with shiny covers with relief lettering about magicians, dragons, ancient tales and heroic quests, that sort of thing. You've seen them. Besides Tolkien’s other work (his philosophical The Silmarillion and his collection of Unfinished Tales), I also devoured the American author Raymond Feist, who wrote (and is still writing) complete sagas, such as The Rift War Saga, including books with ringing names like Silverthorn or A Darkness at Sethanon. I must have read over 5,000 pages of fantasy literature I realise just now, but then, probably somewhere around 2000, just like that, I gave up on it. Until last Saturday that is…

Last Saturday I woke up and realised it wasn’t going to be my day. It had been a somewhat shitty week and it promised to be a similarly shitty weekend. So I had to come up with a plan to make things better. So I went into town, just to get out more that anything else, and sure enough, pretty quickly I ended up at a big bookstore. As I walked through the aisles stacked with the mental offspring of TV chefs, books with athletes’ stories and guides to rearranging your chakras, my attention was suddenly drawn towards the fantasy corner. Indeed, the week before I had happened to talk about fantasy literature with someone who was absolutely in love with the books by Dave and Leigh Eggers, and sure enough, there it was: The Redemption of Althalus. Shiny cover, drawing of a guy carrying an ornate bronze dagger, and close to a thousand pages of that new book smell. I couldn’t resist the temptation.

What happened next was nothing more than a frightful fantasy binge. Since 4 p.m. on Saturday I have already read close to 800 pages of The Redemption of Althalus. It spins a crazed tale of a thief meeting a talking cat who teaches him to read and use a magical book written by Deiwos the God of Creation. Utterly stupid, of course, with its clichéd archaism and pseudo-philosophical narrative, but ah the guilty pleasure of turning page after page after page, and the endless escapism! If you’ve never tried fantasy, I strongly recommend you do at least once. If it works on you, it’s sheer bliss.

Because, you see, fantasy is like the inverse of other literature. Unlike much reading, fantasy literature is not about making sense of the world and your place in it, it’s about losing yourself and the world.

And tell me, don’t you want to get rid of you once in a while?

Karma Chameleon

I am a child of the eighties, which according to the Urban Dictionary means ‘a person born roughly between 1972 and 1984’. For boys, it meant growing up watching cartoons like He-Man or Transformers, playing with GI Joe dolls or Nintendo’s Double Dragon, watching movies like Beverly Hills Cop or Back to the Future, and of course listening to some of the shittiest music ever. Whether it was Genesis, Duran Duran or Bon Jovi that tickled people's fancy, I’m pretty sure they all look back now and think ‘What were we thinking?’.

Still, my parents have often told the story of how as a toddler I went absolutely ballistic every time Culture Club’s Karma Chameleon was on. If you need to be reminded, do press play:

It’s funny that especially this Karma Chameleon should have been my favourite. Indeed, as I grew up and even today, people have told me that in some ways I am indeed like a chameleon. Which, I guess, is sort of true. But then again, aren’t we all? I mean, us modern folk live such varied lives that we are in many like chameleons, shifting shapes as we go. Or is it just me?

I’ll let you decide by the different skins I have put on this week. So far I have been…

(Sunday) …the Italian grandma: making pizza from scratch with fresh dough, home made passata, mozzarella di buffala and 24-month-old Parmigiano Reggiano, wearing a dirty apron, sweating profusely and cursing like an old sailor when chipping my fingernail while chopping the fresh basil.

(Monday) …the Italian twenty-five year old: getting up at 10 o’clock in the morning and wearing pyjamas until 12. Then off to the gym for an easy workout, followed by a long shower. In the afternoon espressos with a friend and complaining about how hard work has been lately. And in the evening frozen margaritas with the boys and going to a groovy funk gig (Ben Westbeech rules!).

(Tuesday/1) …the Englishman in tweed jacket: discussing the interdisciplinary possibilities of rhetorical theory and mathematics with two of my colleagues from academia, sipping sweet Manzanilla sherry, munching cheddar cheese and saying things like: Yes, I do believe persuasive strategies of both individual speech and communal discourse could be formalised in a mathematical decision model, but obviously specific values will have to be substituted by general proportions.

(Tuesday/2) …the fat American guy: sitting at the poker table with my head between my elbows at one o’clock at night, trying to decide whether a flop bet of four 20¢ chips instead of three chips (one 50¢, one 20¢ and one 10¢) is a sign of strength or weakness after having too many beers, all the while trying to pick one of those damn Duyvis-nuts from between my teeth.

Which of course, begs the question. What will Wednesday bring?

Tormented writer guy? (trying to finish that short story that’s in my drawer) Marathon man? (going for a long run later today) DIY handy man? (finally replacing my name tag on the doorbell) TV dude? (catching up on stuff I taped)

Or all of the above?

Karma karma karma karma karma chameleon,
you come and go, you come and go.

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.