and again

a new season.
A lot chillier, less light, but still fun. a great excuse for drinking strong beer and staying in pubs/cafes (though i don't often need kinda excuses).
Had a great day in that kinda vein yesterday, hired some bikes, and went round amsterdam. i went to the most amazing paper shop;
all different kinds of paper, colours, textures and sizes.
Then a couple of duvels and a game of scrabble. (whcih i was cheated out of, but i'm man enough for it not to hurt (much) 24 hrs later)
we also watched before sunset and before sunrise. i had never seen "before sunrise" before, and i thought it was wanky, a little too unscripted and painful. it did remind me of young love though, so maybe it evokes a thought.
anyway...

the last month

has been hectic...
the summer is madness etc.
our pal emme was here after bennicassim and made us drink a lot, stay up late and do fun stuff. then my sister came and forced more of the same on us, as well as eating more (i am tubbing up nicely). we went and camped on texel (a wierd little island), went to antwerp to mooch around, and the hoge veluwe national park to hire bikes and look at art. next week we're headed to paris and the weekend after dublin again. how nice...

and the sun came out this weekend. i am now not as scared of the winter.

we made unbelievable ravioli with our pasta machine last night; prawn, leek and ricotta in a herbed lemon buttr sauce. sensational (though my sister says that word is the preserve of the homosexual, and i'm not allowed to use it)

FIB

Sorry this has been sitting around while i haven't
Wow, what a great festival..
Jamon serrano, beach, lots of beer, and some great acts. it is the perfect summer holiday condensed into 5 days including the exotic locale and cheaper prices.
highlights for me were hot chip, four tet, basement jaxx, devendra and yo la tengo. but it was all great

sunburn and ravioli

the lack of posting has to do with no wireless at home. pisspoor excuse i know, but someone has to use them...
so, we had some friends over for the weekend, and got lots of (unexpected) engagement presents, the most exciting being a pasta machine. now my dreams of fresh pasta will no longer be sated by dry shop bought pasta, it's an all new epoch in my life. to celebrate we made some excellent big raviolis filled with spinach, ricotta and pinenuts. i hate to say it, but they were sensational. really..
in other (more exciting) news i'm off to bennicassim in spain and fiberib festival this weekend, it's going to be great. sun, jamon serrano, cool bands, the beach, wakka...
i'll report back on sunburn and raving...

whores

i have had a recurring theme of whores over the last day. my brother sent me this cool book called "man bitch" by this professor of african studies called johan van wyk; http://literature.kzn.org.za/lit/44.xml
he was really interesting; the first conscientious objector and a celebrated afrikaans poet who left his dying wife to hang out with low rent prostitutes in a scummy area of durban. the story tells of his escapades with these ladies, in a flat unromanticised way. it's kinda racy and grimy too, like bukowski meets henry miller on the esplanade, to drink a castle and tell war stories. kind of.

and, the second part of my hooker story was when i went for a run today along the canal. lots of guys in cars leering at women on boats. large dildo's and strap ons in the window (and promises of aircon). wierd vibe, lust hangs like a cloud, and because of the cars it's stranger.

anyway, my salmon steaks were great, no pictures, next time..

A new ideal

I was reading tony pierce's blog the other day about the rules of good blogging ( http://www.tonypierce.com/blog/2004/06/how-to-blog-by-tony-pierce-110-1.htm), and it said that you have to post every day, so I'm going to try and get some archive up here. I think a good plan is to try and make each posting a little bit more of my manifesto, so I can dictate how other people should live their lives (because I definitely know better). The rest of the shit I was talking about in my first post will flow as a direct result. So tomorrow, if you're lucky you'll get my recipe for grilled salmon steaks (if the Eindhoeven fish market has them)...

Version 2

The Metropolis festival was pretty cool, great weather and a lot of water and trees around (very sedate for a festival). Black Mountain were a little disappointing for me though, a little too out of tune and sludgy. I thought the Dears were pretty cool, at least one of their songs lived up to their hype.
Spektrum were the standout for me though; tight, dancey bass lines, live elctronic drumming and a feisty singer.

the beginning stages of max nolte

ok, well this is an experiment into how sustainable my ego is (be prepared for reruns in 2040). i'd like to put up a couple of mp3 tracks, some photos and some food-related things (food and the music are passions of mine). .other exciting news is that' i just watched jim jarmusch's coffe & cigarrettes (a bit more aimless than i was expecting) and another slow german movie called "schultze gets the blues", which was sweet but didn't got anywhere.
i am going to the metropolis festival tomorrow in rotterdam (http://www.metropolisfestival.nl/2005/index.php ), hopefully the weather holds up. i'm really looking forward to seeing black mountain and stars, in fact all the bands seem great. i thought i'd post black mountain "druganaut", it's a great sabbathy rock track which i've been enjoying, checkit;
http://www.scjag.com/mp3/jag/druganaut.mp3