Thursday, April 06, 2006
Touring '06
So Ellen came last weekend, and we had a lovely time doing some of the major tourist attractions. As is my wont, bullet points are called for.
- On Friday, hit the Rijksmuseum. Certainly one of the great museums in the world, and I have enjoyed myself there tremendously, though at the moment about 75% is closed for restoration, and yet they still charge you the same price. Nonetheless, some good Hals and Vermeer, and the famous big Rembrandts - Nightwatch and Syndics. Great paintings, and they have very nice laminated guides to the paintings pointing out various things to focus on. V helpful to me, who finds just looking at a painting, even a great one, can get old pretty soon. Also, a very enjoyable room with a number of paintings that are the subject of debate as to whether they're by Rembrandt or not (the ultimate arbiter being the very imposing Rembrandt Research Project). Some they know aren't, some they now know are, some they're not sure about. Beneath are three for you to judge whether they're by the great man or not.
- Then a reprise of what I did with my mama - drinks at the very cool bar above the Stedelijke Museum, and another excellent meal at Centra, the Spanish restaurant on Lange Kniezel in the Red Light District. (That's a food recommendation, by the way.)
- Saturday we went to the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague again. I've described it in a previous post, so won't repeat that, but they had a very good exhibition on of Courbet and the 19th Century Nude (called, with great originality, "De Naakte Waarheid" - The Naked Truth). Courbet really was revolutionary; his paintings have so much more life, vitality and realism to them. Apparently, he had a vast collection of pornographic photos, which were unfortunately destroyed after his death. There were some very interesting non-pornographic nude photos. Here's a Courbet nude (it's art, trust me).
- Then we went to the beach at Scheveningen (a placename the Dutch used in WWII to check if people were German spies or not - you need to have been born here to say it right). Lovely beach, long, clean, wide, with many people there already despite a gale-force wind (OK, Beaufort Scale says only fresh breeze, but I don't buy it). Should be v nice in summer.
- On Sunday, we went to the famous Keukenhof gardens. The Dutch, as we all know, are really into their flowers. Keukenhof wasn't fully in bloom, and I imagine it will be extremely impressive when it is, but it was still great. The indoor displays of flowers were incredible -- the variety of flowers people have bred is quite amazing - also, a little scary, all this improving on nature. I also enjoyed the 7 "fantasy gardens", which were set up by purveyors of garden furniture and the like. Will try go back when in fuller bloom.
- The evening was capped off with a short visit to Haarlem, where we were too late to do anything but see the nice church in the middle of town and have a good meal. May go back, but after a while the small Dutch towns start to feel a little same-y.
- And, er, that's that.
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I could put that question to my Mom. It reminds me of a hilarious speech from Arcadia, which I had the privilege to perform at Georgetown:
Bernard: One of my colleagues believed he had found an unattributed short story by DH Lawrence and he analysed it on his home computer, most interesting, perhaps you remember the paper?
Valentine: Not really. But I often sit with my eyes closed and it doesn't necessarily mean I'm awake.
Bernard: Well, by comparing sentence structures and so forth, this chap showed that there was a ninety per cent chance that the story had indeed been written by the same person as Women in Love. To my inexpressible joy, one of your maths mob was able to show that on the same statistical basis there was a ninety per cent chance that Lawrence also wrote the Just William books and much of the previous day's Brighton and Hove Argus.
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Bernard: One of my colleagues believed he had found an unattributed short story by DH Lawrence and he analysed it on his home computer, most interesting, perhaps you remember the paper?
Valentine: Not really. But I often sit with my eyes closed and it doesn't necessarily mean I'm awake.
Bernard: Well, by comparing sentence structures and so forth, this chap showed that there was a ninety per cent chance that the story had indeed been written by the same person as Women in Love. To my inexpressible joy, one of your maths mob was able to show that on the same statistical basis there was a ninety per cent chance that Lawrence also wrote the Just William books and much of the previous day's Brighton and Hove Argus.
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