Mesechinka oct 27 de X. Leiden

This is
not JUST a cool looking fiddle, or is it a viola like the other not so ordinary one? Brilliant game with the 8shape curved figure and ancient and modern symbolism. I wonder about the effect of looking at it from the players perspective.
This lady's touch and tone on both instruments here made me sit up straight right away. You don't have to be educated in music to recognize what they call ' mastership ' . Your whole being is telling you there's something else resonating in the room.Something beyond skill.

And what a band, what an intricate interaction, 7 people sounding as if speaking with one voice. I'm moonstruck.

IpsYlonized

After last fridaynight I felt a bit ipsi. Why? I'd been shaking my maracas 'till the early hours at the so called IpsYlon Festival at Bar & Boos, Leiden.
On IpsY nights any artist who wants to perform, jam, read poetry,paint, beam visuals,anything, is welcome. People bring instruments and equipment and share them. There are no boundaries between spectators and performers, the band is playing on the dancefloor in between the dancing crowd, and the DJ is playing along with the music from the floor. And with chalk the floor is a canvas too. It sure produced Living Art...
I guess it was kind of like those Merry Prankster Events in the Summer Of Love, '67, but without the spiked punch, so everybody more or less was able to play in tune, and we shared some truly extatic moments. The idea for this event came up in the head of artist Jeroen Keereweer while baking pancakes with a friend. I don't know what was in the pancakes but it worked.

Here we see Jeroen and a guest working on a 'Y' somewhere about a quarter to four, or was it five? IpsYlon is Real. Ipse or whatever the facto!

I Might Be Late But I'm Not In A Hurry

If there ever is a state of mind I'm trying to reach it's this one ( but, obviously it can not be achieved by TRYING too hard of course)
Another purpose in my life is to find ordinary magic and PASS IT ON, wich I hereby happily do

Zeppelin Zone

October 12 we were into the Zeppelin Zone at the X.
Floated so quietly you could hear the breeze,
and people's mobile conversations...

Dusk at the Old City Gate

Every year on october 3 the city of Leiden celebrates its liberation by flooding in fifteensomething after a long siege by the Spaniards.
From one point of view you could say that after being deprived of all resources for a few months, no meat, no grain, no bread or beer, having to drink the dirty canalwater everybody pissed in, it was no small wonder that since then it became a tradition for citizens of Leiden to give each other beers and piss in the canals together on their annual liberation day.



That's one side of the story. The other is one of a town of traders, scientists, of free thinking and religious tolerance, open to all. The people of Leiden refused to bow to the far away catholic colonial King and his fundamentalists, you could say.



The famous Inquisition, the christian brain police, was in the habit of torturing and burning so called 'heretics' and 'infidels', mainly political opponents and people who didn't agree with the earth being flat like the pope said. The sickest joke were the 'witchtrials', where you were thrown in a canal tied to a heavy weight, and if you didn't sink you were considered airy as in 'witch,' and therefore to be BURNED ALIVE, and if you drowned, you were innocent, but dead, BUT, you gained the right to a decent catholic burial and a ticket to the gates of heaven...
No wonder everybody confessed,
or rebelled, if they stood a chance

Anyway, both views are a bit gross and oversimplified, but they do make SOME sense, I think even our local mediaphilosopher and musician Ad Verbrugge would have to ADmit. On last october 3rd, he and his band DUSK appropiately played under the Western City Gate, to celebrate the fact that everybody here is free to think for themselves and say that the world is ROUND like whoever created it

A little late as ever

I've never been good at being organized, so this blog will only be an example of that.

I always seem to have a lot of catching up to do, done in sudden bursts of energetic diarrhea rather than the neat daily diary entries other people seem to be able to come up with. Well, everything makes some sense in it's own way, I always philosophically say. Maybe my way brings a different perspective, if not, it's at best a fine mess...
Here's looking back at some eventful weeks:


On september 29, comedian and musician MANUEL played 'Allene' at the X.
Court Jester,Rain Dog,Brain Trainer,Ironic Entertainer,
Andre Manuel is all of it. Sings, plays,tells stories, and tickles the audience and himself where he can with on the spot improvisation genius. If you think Lenny Bruce was razor sharp, learn Manuel's Diepenheim dialect Eastern Dutch and get spritszhed in a major way. The countryside Carver, the Bukowski of back there, The Tom Waits of Terschelling , Flip Howler of the Cowlands, Manu Elvis, Sancho Panda, no small crosses to bear, but most of all he's the Moonman Of Manuel, and he wears that title well !!! Like hell, he'd probably say...

You can check out his site for his latest album work and giglist.He makes about a solo and a band album every other year and does One Man cabaret shows in the theaters as well as solo and band tours in the club- and festival circuit.
The man works hard and makes sure he's not bored, you could say....

http://www.maneman.nl

Later that night I went to the Ontzettend Leiden Festival in the LVC, where I joined many old friends and Local Loco's in partying until the wee pee hours.
I heard Manuel partied on somewhere back East in a barn...
A big enough one I presume