Rotterdam: the armpit of Benelux
March 20th
Amsterdam is a darling of a city, tinged with the sinister glowing red lights, women hawking their wares, bouncing on their plastic chairs, sanitary spray nearby, coffee in hand...another day in the office.
There are things sticking out of every which corner, sculptures, iguanas, faces, hanging stuff, colours...and I did it sober this time - imagine that. The buildings are actually crooked. Everything is so random and I LOVE the random. Amsterdam is really a special place. Will write more about it.
Here in the port of Rotterdam - meeting eccentric people - drinking wine I cant afford, reading about Van Gogh and somehow, perhaps completely selfishly and in my own imagination, feeling a connection to him. He was born in this grey, wet, northern European clime (where I am now). He escaped down to the south of France to find clarity , colours, intensity, sunshine. Fresh herbs and burning wood tinging the air, lending it a distinct aroma. Hearing the magpies squeak on a crisp winter day (as I did when I lived in Aix-en-Provence, wandering the cobblestones and trying to absorb the beauty around me when inside was so dark). He was depressed and mentally ill. Not that I am, all the time anyways. He started his career relatively late in life, was about 26.
The Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam is a dreary place. Its grey and cold. Van Goghs paintings are often beautiful and colourful and do radiate a certain amount of warmth, at their most inspired. But there are also many uninspired works, placed in the museum because of who made them and not the quality of the art itself. Whatever, art is subjective I guess. In any case, its a sad place and Van Gogh had a pretty tragic existence, the voices in his head plaguing him, the visions scaring him when nothing was really wrong. And then you read about him, see his sensitive, beautiful and vulnerable images...I was actually feeling really emotional trying to imagine his life...and now....throngs of people cramming into this building to see his uninspired discards...just because it was him. Imagine if he were to know. He'd probably be dissapointed that the building is such a cold and dreary place.
Amsterdam is absolutely fabulous.
Amsterdam is a darling of a city, tinged with the sinister glowing red lights, women hawking their wares, bouncing on their plastic chairs, sanitary spray nearby, coffee in hand...another day in the office.
There are things sticking out of every which corner, sculptures, iguanas, faces, hanging stuff, colours...and I did it sober this time - imagine that. The buildings are actually crooked. Everything is so random and I LOVE the random. Amsterdam is really a special place. Will write more about it.
Here in the port of Rotterdam - meeting eccentric people - drinking wine I cant afford, reading about Van Gogh and somehow, perhaps completely selfishly and in my own imagination, feeling a connection to him. He was born in this grey, wet, northern European clime (where I am now). He escaped down to the south of France to find clarity , colours, intensity, sunshine. Fresh herbs and burning wood tinging the air, lending it a distinct aroma. Hearing the magpies squeak on a crisp winter day (as I did when I lived in Aix-en-Provence, wandering the cobblestones and trying to absorb the beauty around me when inside was so dark). He was depressed and mentally ill. Not that I am, all the time anyways. He started his career relatively late in life, was about 26.
The Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam is a dreary place. Its grey and cold. Van Goghs paintings are often beautiful and colourful and do radiate a certain amount of warmth, at their most inspired. But there are also many uninspired works, placed in the museum because of who made them and not the quality of the art itself. Whatever, art is subjective I guess. In any case, its a sad place and Van Gogh had a pretty tragic existence, the voices in his head plaguing him, the visions scaring him when nothing was really wrong. And then you read about him, see his sensitive, beautiful and vulnerable images...I was actually feeling really emotional trying to imagine his life...and now....throngs of people cramming into this building to see his uninspired discards...just because it was him. Imagine if he were to know. He'd probably be dissapointed that the building is such a cold and dreary place.
Amsterdam is absolutely fabulous.
posted by Plutoplazm at 12:26 AM
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