Note of the Living Deb

Commuting through Amsterdam

First, an obligatory lichen shot. Some people are bird watchers--I admire plants that can grow on rocks. Though I don't learn their names or have a life list.



Here's an over-the-top light pole.



Here's a broader view of that same bridge.



Because you needed to see a string of those over-the-top lightposts in context with multiple fake ship bows.

Here's a building with a lot of red shutters.



I have a fascination with real shutters. They can be so useful. Even in these windows that are such a silly shape to make real shutters for.

I don't think I'd like lichens on shutters, though. Two great tastes that don't go together.

And here's another fine example of the triple crosses of protection.



Here's a modern building, and I think it's on a street with a street market.



Rembrandt's house

We saw all those things on our way to our first stop of the day: Rembrandt's house. Finally we got to see the inside of one of the tall, skinny houses. And they let us take pictures! (I didn't use a flash, though.)

(I wonder why we call Rembrandt van Rijn "Rembrandt" and Vincent van Gogh "van Gogh.")

Of course I can hardly claim it is a representative Dutch house. Rembrandt bought it at the height of his career, but still couldn't afford it. He never paid the mortgage and ended up in bankruptcy. So, I expect it's a rather finer-than-average place.

At the time of this bankruptcy, many of his things were sold off and records were kept. So they had a clue on how to refurnish the house when it became a museum.

So, shall I show you inside?

Here is the center stairwell.



Robin really liked the hand rail because couldn't fit his whole foot on the step. I think I could have, but I actually walked up it sideways myself. You can see from the wear pattern that no one uses the inside part.

Each floor had two to three rooms. Maybe they all had three rooms, but we were always allowed into the front and rear rooms and only sometimes was there a room sticking out one side room into which we were allowed. On the bottom floor were the kitchen and the living room/bedroom. The notes say that the kitchen was the most comfortable room in the house, I'm guessing because it was warm. It's certainly huge.



The cook slept in a "box bed" in one wall.



In the living room was Rembrandt's box bed. I expect that this sort of bed was more protected from drafts than beds out in the middle of the floor.



This room does look a tiny bit fancy.

The next floor up has the entry. Here is where he welcomed visitors. In his chair by the window, he could watch the traffic go by (when the shutter was open).



Then he would take them to the ante room (through that door) to do business. Like many other artists, he was also an art dealer, selling both his own works and those of others.



In back room he kept his favorite works (maybe).



In the back room of the next floor, he stored his collections.





He did his painting in the front room. Here's where the paints were mixed (usually by an apprentice) (notice how there are no tubes of paint here).



Here's a side view of a huge easel. You can see that even with the bottom shutters closed, there's still some good light in here.



He didn't just paint, he also did etchings. I haven't been a fan in the past, but this one of Amsterdam I photographed and later, in the Rijksmuseum gift shop, I bought the refrigerator magnet version to take home.



Here's a view of his courtyard.



And another view.



Here's the front.



Mmm. Green shutters.

Commuting through Amsterdam some more

Here's a silly cafe next door to Rembrandt's house.



Here is a view of another modern building taken from a bridge. I remember that a guy was blowing bubbles here, making people smile, but soap on the wet surface was very, very slick.



After this visit, we dropped some stuff off at home and returned to the Rijksmuseum. So I got some more shots from our neighborhood.

The flamingos were out.



Here's my old pal the stegosaurus again.



And here's the other dinosaur looking very fierce.



"Don't think I don't see you there."

Then I tried to capture the way they do their roads.



You can see the tram lane in the middle, then the car lane, then the car parking, then the bike lane (brick color), then the sidewalk (grey color). Notice how you can park your car without entering the bike lane. My city's method of just making the bike lanes extra wide to fit parallel parking in them seems barbarian by comparison.

Here's a shot of some traffic lights.



You can't see the light for cars from here, but I had perfect timing so the other three were all different colors. The small tram light is red, the bicycle light is yellow, and the pedestrian light is green. Cool, eh?

Night Watch

They did let us take a picture of the outside of the Rijksmuseum. This side is not under construction.



Robin really likes Rembrandt's Night Watch, so we went back to look at that for a while. Back in those days it was common to paint a portrait of a company of men, but you generally posed them standing in rows. In this painting, he caught them all in action, much more fun.

The most shocking thing I learned about it was that the edges were cut off so that it could be fitted into the spot made for it in a (different) museum. Unbelievable.

I actually preferred the painting on the other end of the room from Night Watch, Frans Hals and Pieter Codde's The Meagre Company. It is also a painting of a bunch of guys, but these guys, although kind of standing in rows, are gesturing and talking and doing other small things and so it's still interesting and you can see more of their personalities than in a regular painting. The other fascinating thing was that they were so clearly real people. For example, one was Nicolas Cage. Another was Robin Williams.

Etching

We also learned a little about etching. First you cover a sheet of copper with a thin layer of a wax mixture. Then you carve through this (and maybe sometimes through the copper as well, for bolder lines). Then put the whole thing in a mildly acidic solution to etch the copper in all the places where the wax mixture was scraped away. Then wipe off the coating and cover the whole thing with ink (the consistency of oil paint) kind of like silk screening. Then scrape it off the surface (leaving some behind in the etched areas). Then wipe more ink off with gauze. Then wipe even more off by rubbing it with chalk dust with the side of your hand. Then finally put it on one of those big printing press machines, lay a piece of paper over it and roll a weight across it. Ta da!

I learned that I like how Rembrandt etched curly hair (as well as how he etched windmills and tall skinny buildings).

Bye-bye Rijksmuseum.





Canal Cruise

We went on a lovely, romantic evening canal cruise, since taking a canal cruise is a must-do according to all the tour books. The tour guide was rather terrible, though. He sure liked to go on and on about a lot of boring things. And since most of the few people on the boat were ignoring him, he looked to me as his audience, thus pressuring me to not roll my eyes that much.

I now think (based on these two data points, plus one from Jamaica) that the best tour guides are outsiders who love the place and then move there. (Our bike tour guide was from England, and our Jamaica tour guide was an outsider, too.)

He did teach me the name for bell gables (which must be the ones that look like singing sisters to me). And step gables (the most common kind in Belgium). And I noticed for the first time that bell gables are semi-false fronts--the roofs behind them are just regular pointed roofs.

On gables you might find gable hooks for hauling things up to the top floor. And you might find gable stones with address-like things such as the profession of the resident. (There were no house numbers (or family names) until Napoleon.) Many gable stones have gone missing, but it's fashionable to replace them now.

We saw a one-window-wide house (less than two meters wide). But it's not the narrowest house. In one area, regular lots are seven meters wide, but double lots (14 meters) were sold for a while. Those houses were 40 meters deep. So each floor of the regular lot was a little smaller than my house, but there are several floors.

I noticed some houses with parallelogram floorplans. I first noticed this when I saw ceiling beams at a 45-degree angle from what I expected considering they were going from one side of the room to the other. Normally such beams would be parallel to the front wall.

This guide is the one who told us that the vibrations from modern cars (and, fairly recently, trucks) are part of what causes the foundation troubles for buildings these days. Modern foundations are concrete and are 30 - 40 meters high.

He said Holland was the richest of the seven provinces of the Netherlands, and so the only one most foreigners cared about, so that's why people sometimes refer to the Netherlands as Holland.

He also said that the Calvinist rulers required the rich (in guilds) to finance welfare such as almshouses and orphanages. He said the Palace of Justice (to be replaced in two years) used to be an orphan house. And the Hermitage had old ladies living in it as late as three years ago.

He showed us hand-holds (handles) on the under side of some of the bridges. The canals are only three meters deep, so barges can be poled through them except under low bridges. So the hand-holds let them pull their barge through.

We also saw a Mennonite church which looked to me to be straight out of the American West, a white wood church building , right between all the Amsterdam-looking buildings.

Commuting in the dark

On the way back we saw this car.



Robin says it's quite rare, since it was built in the days before rustproofing, so enjoy!

In Phoenix, we got to tour Taliesin West, a complex designed by and built for Frank Lloyd Wright.

The walls were built with local stone. Just build a form, set in the stone so that the flat side faces out, and fill with concrete.



Here is a pathway.



Here is another view of that same pathway.



Here's a very interesting exterior wall.



Here is a view.



Rumor has it that one day Wright saw a light on Camelback Mountain (you can probably guess which one that is) and decided it was time to move. The neighbors were getting too close. But his wife said it's one thing to pull up stakes and start over in your seventies, and quite another in your eighties. And so she talked him into staying, but he closed up all the windows facing this direction. (I don't actually believe this story is true, but it's a fun story.)

Here's where that view is from.



Here's another nice little spot.



Here's a dining room. At that time, metal-framed chairs were rare.



Here is a gift.



Originally this is said to have been designed to spit water. But no self-respecting dragon would ever do such a thing. So it was retrofitted with gas so it could spew fire instead.

Here is an admired petroglyph moved to the site of Taliesin West.



The spiral-looking one was particularly admired. Our tour guide said he thought it looked like two hands clasping. He said this was the inspiration for the Taliesin West symbol, which you can see here.



Here is an entry way.



And the theatre inside, the last building here designed in Wright's lifetime.



And here is a sculpture.



Quote of the Day - One person read from the label on a bottle of fruit punch: "Contains 0% juice." Other person responds, "It's made of nothing but science."

Sunday we drove to Stillwater, a college town that seemed like it might be a good place to live. Note to self: when fantasizing about a college town, make sure to find out whether it's a good college or a party college. We didn't find any signs of anything fun to do there.

Then we went to Tulsa. As we had been warned, Tulsa does not have access roads. For those of you who are used to not having access roads and don't know what you are missing, these are roads that parallel the highway and do not have a separate name. They are usually one-way roads, though in small towns, they might be two-way roads. So, if you don't want to get on the freeway because you don't want to pay tolls or because you're afraid to merge, you can just stay on the access road. If you miss your exit, you just get off the next exit and make a U-turn.

Suddenly, I no longer knew how to drive. You can't make a mistake because you can't make a U-turn; the exits just lead you down other roads. You can't pull off and get your bearings. You can see things next to the highway, but not be able to get to them. And when you want to get on a highway, you should not ignore that creepy one-way road to nowhere near where the sign says to go, because that probably leads to the access ramp.

That's how we ended up at the Gilcrease Museum. I didn't really want to go there, but I ended up doing things just as if that were my plan, so I gave in to fate. This is just outside the museum:



Fortunately for Robin, there was a gigantic Ansel Adams exhibit. I'm not the biggest Ansel Adams fan because although many or most of his pictures are exactly the kind of pictures I like to take, I really like color. According to him, that makes me take the "obvious" shots rather than focusing on the underlying drama and textures. That's okay; I love the obvious shots.

I learned that Ansel Adams was kicked out of several schools when he was a kid apparently because he was hyperactive. And his first profession was music, but finally he decided to make the switch to photography. It really helped him make some money when he got a public relations guy to market him.

Throughout the remainder of the trip, we would find times to tell ourselves, "Ansel Adams wouldn't respect this picture I'm taking." It was fun.

Outside the museum is Stuart Park, a hilly scrubby place where, among other things, you are not allowed to play golf. Golf must be very popular in that area!



Where our hotel was, there was a fake access road. So instead of getting off the freeway, driving past the intersection to the hotel and then turning right into the hotel parking lot, the road just takes you right back onto the freeway. Instead you have to turn right at the intersection, then turn left at the fake access road, and then turn right from there into the hotel parking lot.

Today we got to hear David Mamet, the director, playwright, etc., speak. The first thing I learned is that his last name rhymes with gamut, not Camay.

He's funny, probably more funny than truthful, but he was kind of mumbly, so it's hard to say.

As with all artistic types, many of the questions were about how he does what he does and what he recommends that other people do if they want to do what he does.

He says theory is all good and fine, but you need to test things with an audience. They don't care about you or your theories, they just want to be entertained. He says watching audience reactions are how he learned to edit his work so mercilessly.

He says school seems like a good idea, but you can argue back to your professors and classmates. It's important to get out there where your future is on the line.

LiveJournal Topic - If you could create anything artistic, what would it be?

LiveJournal has a thing called "Writer's Block" on their home page where you can find a question like this each day to write about. This was yesterday's question.

One of my answers is that I would like to make life-size sculptures, from something clear, of two people cuddling. They would show all different ways to solve the extra-arm problem--that's why they would be made of something clear. No hiding the third arm problem on the back side of opaque sculptures; that would be missing the whole point.

There would be a huge set of them, at least 20, maybe 50: as many as I could think up.

Today I went to a talk by Marie Cosindas, a successful photographer. She does portraits and still lifes.

The talk consisted of a slide show of her photographs with commentary which is the absolute best way to have a talk on your photography. She talked about all kinds of topics like how she likes color, how she likes to go around the site to collect things to include in the photograph, how sometimes she has to dress people in her own clothes because they insist on wearing black, how Lawrence Olivier let her touch him, how a war movie she was photographing was exploding all over her, how she would stand on ladders or drape things over screens or re-use cool artifacts, and how a company that hired her to photograph asparagus told her after the fact that they had expected her to cook it first.

After a while, you could really start to know a few things about her. For example, when she said the word "kimono," I knew she would love them. She likes to put people in big interesting coats and she likes color, so of course she would like kimonos! She bought a bunch as gifts, but then she just couldn't part with a single one of them. It was an enjoyable talk.

Unlike me, she poses people and sets things up to photograph. Someone once gave her 15 minutes to photograph someone, saying "How long can it take to snap a photo?" By the time she told us that story, I knew how it could take more than 15 minutes. For a still life, she likes to collect things and arrange them artfully as if you she going to paint them, only she can't paint it better--it has to already look perfect in real life.

And for portraits, she takes the person and some favorite items and drags them all to the area with the best light, shoving everything else out of the way if necessary.

I still don't like the idea of making people pose, but I may try asking my favorite people if I get inspired. And I may start thinking of arranging artifacts that I think would look good together and bringing them to the good light rather than just capturing everything as it already is.

So, the talk was a little inspiring as well as interesting.

I never would have gone to this talk on my own. I found out about it yesterday and it sounded like something that might interest R. so I told him. He wanted to go and I went with him because I am a good girlfriend. I saved him a seat and he gave me a ride home. This is the kind of teamwork I really like--neither of us would have been there if it weren't for the other of us and we both enjoyed the talk.