Tuesday, November 29, 2011

black peter

There's a lot of things us Dutch can be proud of -Mondriaan, Vermeer, Cruijff, my dad, Rembrandt, interesting legal herbs, enormous skies- and some we're rightfully ashamed of (apartheid, Indonesia, 2Unlimited), and then there's some questionable stuff. I've had to explain the concept of 'Zwarte Piet' (Black Peter) more often than i care to, but pictures say a lot:

zwarte piet plus trompet

I don't know if it's racist or not. I'm inclined to think not -it's a holiday thing for the kids- but i've had black friends visiting and raising an eyebrow. It's a little close to golliwog. I hope it's more innocent than that

zwarte piet plus drum

But sometimes it looks just plain wrong

zwarte piet plus smoke

It reminds me of a story my dad was fond of telling me. He had an African colleague at school, and when i first saw the man -i must've been around 4 years old- i went up to him and asked him: "You're Black Peter, aren't you?" He asked: "How can you tell?" I got shy and said: "By your curly hair."

Monday, November 21, 2011

November abstracts

November is turning abstract on me. For example, the Peace Lilly in the bedroom decided to first go all wayang

peace lilly wayang

then it turned into ET phone home

peace lilly phone home

the smoke tree -normally a stable favorite- became kinda Rothko meets Pollock when mist dropped drops on it

cotinus drops

and the mist, THE MIST, it makes everything ghostly, say Hopper meets Stephen King

ghost in the mist

and when the mist is gone, the dusk is kinda rushed, like an O'Keefe in 2 minutes

dusk

So schizo lilly's, mixed mists, rushed dusks -it's a challenge to keep up with november.

Friday, November 18, 2011

kitty on bed

His royal highness Emperor Johnston was not pleased with all the attention given to the canine kind last weekend, so in order to make up i did a session with him this week. First he was all coy

black cat purple bed IV

but eventually he came round and let me take a portrait -though of course he refused to leave the bed for it

black cat purple bed VIII

The Romans were right, purple suits emperors.


Monday, November 14, 2011

doggie in the window

the puppy in the window is intolerably adorable

lottie window looking up

lottie

but the one below the window begs to be checked out as well

pippin beggin' 2

but neither of them is for sale. Woof woof.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

figs

They're everywhere

the fig lantern

because we got figloads of 'm

figload

Monday, November 7, 2011

Liv Philip attempts UK record DNF

This weekend Liv Philip, 2010's best overall female freediver, innit, attempted to break the UK record DNF. Here's what happened:



Liv broke the record previously held by, well, Liv.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

cotinus fell

cotinus fell

for a bigger version click here