Tuesday, May 30, 2000

00:28 New nature
Layer by layer, the Dutch pavillion (under construction) designed by MVRDV for the Expo 2000 in Hannover.

roof

4

3

2

1

0

Videogame weekend
It was fun, but it wasn't easy. A marathon of small obstacles and difficulties, and I guess I now know enough to write a comprehensive list of the Ways of Getting Lost. No conclusions.


Amazing building.
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Friday, May 26, 2000

11:50 Small scale
All excited about the weekend. I rented a car and will do a 'driving retreat'. I do that as often as possible (well, barely once a year). It starts with one appointment or event - in this case Fred Inklaar inviting me to go visit the Dutch pavillion at the Expo 2000 in Hannover - that triggers several other ideas. Things you always plan to do but never find the chance to.

I try to keep plans sort of loose so that I can actually figure out where to go and what to do as I drive. The small driving distances are one of my favourite features of Europe. In Brazil the same kilometers wouldn't bring me out of my home state.

This time I will drive to Antwerp and meet my friend Peter Ong, and maybe Sushannah and Peter (two Peters so far) if I manage to reach them on time. I will also try to pass by the open days at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht. And on Sunday I will pick Fred up in Utrecht and drive to Hannover and back.

It doesn't sound like much of a retreat with all these places to go and people to see. But what I look forward to is the way, the in-between. The fact that I don't know what unexpected information I will come across, which way to go, or where to sleep. This is no year-long trip to Asia. It's a sample-adventure. But you never know.

Data
Amsterdam - Antwerp: ca. 160 km
Amsterdam - Hannover: ca. 329 km
thanks, Stefan.

Big scale
Dream trips still to come"

1. Six-month driving trip São Paulo - Montréal
(used to be São Paulo-New York).

2. Stop - on my way to somewhere else - at Schiphol station and go on an unscheduled, luggageless trip.

The last being a sort of gauge for freedom, detachment and money. Things that seem quite difficult to combine.
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11:19 Methods of Personal Evolution
Adding to the series of variety lists recently published in Alamut (Ways of Knowing, Types or Learning, Varieties of Techno), here's a list of methods of personal evolution I was told about some years ago. The numbers are supposed to be directly proportional to the speed of progress.

1. evolution through suffering

2. evolution through service

3. evolution through consciousness

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Thursday, May 25, 2000

02:19 Lively Wednesday at the Oude Braak - the long awaited debut of Irma :-) plus visits from André and Madelinde. And coffee, coffee, coffee. And banana-nut bread. And bagels. And won-ton soup. And I am all hyper, still now.
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02:06 picture this
Riding my bicycle through the Dam in the morning (without my camera). As I cross the Damrak I see in a flash some city workers unloading from a truck the equipment to paint new markings on the asphalt. Out came three huge stencil letters that were laid in the middle of the road.
They read USB.
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01:56 da cidade
Still part of the setup process, I changed yesterday the name of the Amsterdam log to 'da cidade'. First: I wanted a name that hinted to the fact that the page is written in Portuguese. Second: the page is about the public space and the lifestyle of cities, Amsterdam being one of them ('da cidade' means 'of the city').
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Monday, May 22, 2000

11:34 Isn't she lovely



The innocent-looking toolkit of overSPOKEN & underHEARD, Gabrielle's eavesdropping travel project. Not to be missed: the two recordings of May 16th with the different sorts of chirping.
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Saturday, May 20, 2000

16:03 O where could it be?



Thanks to my good old GPS I just calculated - and added to the 'about' page - the most likely coordinates of the pool:

14º 58' 07" N
18º 32' 23'' W

(floating between Senegal and Cape Verde)
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Wednesday, May 17, 2000

08:45 Weather and memory (I)
After almost two weeks of incredible (and dry) weather, Amsterdam had yesterday one of its rare thunderstorms. It had a slow and powerful build-up, stormy sounds and smells getting thicker and engulfing everything. And then it came. It was breathtaking. The strange thing was that it started triggering old memories in a way I hadn't experienced yet since I'm in Holland. Little sounds from the street below, just behind my desk, were suddenly similar to ones from my childhood or teenage days, little bursts of memory, startling me, all very subtle and quick. You see, thunderstorms are quite normal in Brazil. You're reminded of this thing that is bigger, stronger than all that has been built around you. It is bigger than civilization (definitely bigger than Brazilian civilization - our cities are often totally helpless when confronted with it). In The Netherlands the experience of civilization is stronger than that of nature. Right now I find that a pity.


The Naturalist Intelligence
Dutch culture is remarkably rational. It's a feature. What music is for Brazil, rational thought is for The Netherlands. No wonder things are going so well here. Human culture focuses almost exclusively on rational issues. As in this definition of Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences:

The Theory of Multiple Intelligences suggests that our culture and school systems that reflect our culture teach, test, reinforce and reward primarily two kinds of intelligence: verbal/linguistic and logical/mathematical. His theory proposes that there are at least seven other kinds of intelligence that are equally important. They are "languages" that most people speak, and that cut through cultural, educational, and ability differences. They include visual/spatial, bodily/kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, and intrapersonal intelligence.

Gardner's theory started with seven different varieties of intelligence. He later on added an eighth definition: the Naturalist Intelligence.

Weather and Memory (II)
Here's my favourite bit of J.G. Ballard, from The Drowned World - when Colonel Bodkin reveals to Robert Kerans (a scientist) what was behind his sudden haunting dreams:

That wasn't a true dream, Robert, but an ancient organic memory millions of years old."
He pointed to the ascending rim of the sun through the groves of the gymnosperms. "The innate releasing mechanisms laid down in your cytoplasm millions of years ago have been awakened, the expanding sun and the rising temperature are driving you back down the spinal levels into the drowned seas submerged beneath the lowest layers of your unconscious, into the entirely new zone of the neuronic psyche. This is the lumbar transfer, total biopsychic recall. We really remember these swamps and lagoons. After a few nights you won't be frightened of the dreams, despite their superficial horror..."
...
After a few minutes he ignored the Colonel completely and listened to the subliminal drumming in his years, half-closed his eyes so that he could see the glimmering surface of the lake dapple across the dark underhang of the table. Opposite him Bodkin appeared to be doing the same, his hands folded over his navel.

It's in the sky
As I write I am listening to Otto, a hip Brazilian who has a fine mix of electronic and traditional local music from the northeast of Brazil.The lyrics go:

o celular de Naná é a lua
a lua é o celular de Naná

which translates:

the cellphone of Naná is the moon
the moon is the cellphone of Naná"

(Naná being most likely a girl)
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Monday, May 15, 2000

11:02 Discouraging:
Browser crashed two times in the middle of writing down long entries, two days in a row, late at night (for both the pool and the Amsterdam log).

100% Sunday
We are now entering the second week of excellent summer weather. Amsterdam becomes a total different place, and people open up like flowers. Amazing.

Yesterday I biked the whole morning around non-explored parts of the city. I lied in the sun a bit and then came to the studio to call my mom (mother's day). She was in very good spirits and we had a nice talk about which features I have inherited from her, which from my dad. And as an extra I learned several interesting character features of my grandfather (father's side). He died when I was still a child and I have only a vague memory of him. But he was a very interesting guy. I'll sure be writing about him.

I then did some organization work and planned a bit the work for the coming week. And went to the movies to see Stigmata (not impressed). The director has the unfortunate skill to make all shots overly esthetic and seemed to be unable to stop trying different image treatments. I felt the story or the religious issues barely came to the surface under all that gloss. You kept noticing the film. There was also some shots made in a Brazilian church (with Portuguese, although correct, spoken with a very weird accent).

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Thursday, May 11, 2000

11:29 Quiet morning at the Oude Braak - Joost in Rotterdam, Gabriëlle in New York and the remaining Nerds probably all sleeping and dreaming lines of code after the 9nerds.com relaunch party of last night.


A bit of last night's webcam action:
1.Rijk (Groningen) 2.Eva (NY) 3.Gabriëlle (NY) 4. Stefan, Aldje (Amsterdam)

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Sunday, May 07, 2000

02:12 If the studio at the Oude Braak were an animal, which one would it be?
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01:04 This weekend I am painting the floor of the studio. As with many of these renovation tasks, it starts as a big effort and ends up being a lot of pleasure.

I especially like the feeling of intimacy towards the room or building that develops in these occasions. You get to know every single corner, to find hidden markings and scars that seem to be invisible most of the time. I felt like I was grooming a very large animal. An animal so big my partners and I can actually spend our days inside of it.

The sound of the wet paint roll over the old, porous MDF made me think I was scrubbing or massaging the back of an elephant (and the synchronicity week goes on: ten minutes later Stefan comes in and casually mentions that the sort of primer I was using is called in German "elephant skin").


epoxy layer / primer layer / raw mdf

Since epoxy is not something I know much about, I gathered (or was offered) some information before I started to really do the painting.
I was told that I should mechanically mix the two components with a special drill bit. I learned to be aware of the speed with which the two components react (hurry, hurry). I got a warning that adding water too early would alter the final colour. That the layers need ca. 12 hours to dry. And I was reminded of the fact that I'd have to leave my bag, phone etc in the corridor since I had to paint my way out of the place.

I find myself thinking of other painted rooms generating this information to the ones who now share it with me.

Next to the all the facts that came up there's the information I see being erased as I paint. It was a very dirty floor of untreated MDF, with more than 10 years of heavy use written into it. According to Charles (the previous renter) a French guy used to live there, and he ate lots of oil-dripping cheese croissants (?!?). A lower area of the ceiling marks the former location of his tiny, triangular bedroom walls. Many many oil drops around that corner.


a Frenchman's home

I planned to do the whole thing by myself, as in a sort of retreat. Still I did need some extra help his afternoon - so, in spite of the very short notice, Radboud (and our friend Dan, the broker) came briefly by to help me carry the heavy items around. And that was very nice.

Tomorrow night I'll be done with the last layer.
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Wednesday, May 03, 2000

00:11 The book of dreams
I used to keep a book of dreams next to my bed when I still was in Brasil. Once in a while (very rarely, actually) I would wake up all groggy and write down the dream I just had. I also had the habit of reading some of the previous dreams after writing a new one. That was always very interesting: lots of strange details available again, and by my own wobbly handwriting.

One morning, around May 1994 (a few weeks before my departure to Asia) I woke up from a dream but didn't write it down immediately. As I was leaving the apartment I grabbed the little notebook, knowing I would have time to write during the day. Later on I went to the movies but arrived too early - so I got my ticket, sat down for a coffee and started to write down that night's dream. As usual, I also read some of the previous pages. But this time I was particularly impressed with a detail from a dream I had written down some time before: an old black man sitting on the floor with lots of red peppers arranged around him in a special pattern. I was very impressed with that image and mentioned it in a phonecall to my friend Raquel, just before the movie started.
The film was Bertolucci's Little Buddha. It wasn't a great movie. At one point of the story a buddhist monk, knowing he has accomplished his most important mission, calmly prepares himself to die. He sits on the floor of a quiet room, dimly lit, and he has red peppers scatttered all around him.

No need to say I was breathless when I saw that. And how that added a strange level of significance to the pepper-pattern detail of my dream.

Another phonecall, another film
The story above came back to my attention this week when I got a call from Paul Perry, who was leaving the cinema after watching Magnolia. He was shaken by another uncanny experience involving a movie and his weblog. See also his earlier entry about Synchronicity.

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Monday, May 01, 2000

01:52 I am happy: every entry is now linkable on both the Pool and the Amsterdam pages. I also set up the archive pages and made a simple navigation between both weblogs. That means I can now concentrate on writing. Great.
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