3 op Reis: Go fishing in Finland | Learn how the Portuguese work cork oak

It ain't bad this '3 op Reis' Dutch TV program they do. They have an episode about Portugal and Finland that I thought was really interesting.

http://www.npo.nl/3-op-reis/21-06-2015/BNN_101374531

It also shows that the Dutch love doing stuff even whilst they are on holiday. The average Italian going on the average vacation in the country do a maximum of 4 trips of no more than 2 km in total in one day.

1. From the house to the beach
2. From the beach to the kitchen 
3. From the kitchen to the beach with a dip after strictly 2 hours 
4. Back from the beach to the dinner table and an after dinner stroll to the same street where everybody goes.*

*The so-called 'la vasca'

Mark Rothko at Gemeentemusum in The Hague

unexpected #MuseumSelfie gazing a wonderful painting by Mark Rothko @gemeentemuseum

A Glass Music Hall is looking for a new home

A Glass Music Hall in the Beurs van Berlage building in Amsterdam will be given away for free or destroyed. The centrally located building needs more conference space and therefore took the decision to dismantle the structure that was built 25 years ago and that was used a rehearsal space by the Dutch Philarmonic Orchestra.

Io Sono Li

I perceived Io Sono Li, a film by documentary maker Andrea Segre, like a piece of conceptual art. That type of conceptual art that twists an ordinary object into something different, showing you a new angle, maybe a more poetic side, or a deeper meaning. Italy in the last two decades has been a point of arrival for many low skilled foreign workers, including Chinese. Shun Li is one of them, sent first to Rome, and then moved to Chioggia (La Petite Venise), by an undefined Chinese organisation. She starts working in an "osteria" in the dock area where local fishermen and pensioners meet for a drink, a game of cards, a celebration for the end of one's working life. One of them, himself an immigrant from Yugoslavia who arrived 30 years earlier, feels a connection with the new barista who speaks few words of Italian, let alone the local dialect. Bepi, who calls his real home a shack on the water of the laguna, is locally known as "the poet" and is the type of man that sees things with eyes wide open, a cut above the rest of the group, a simple wise man that is curious and understanding. The two characters break walls and boundaries that are normally very high in the everyday experiences of Europeans rubbing shoulders with Chinese. And this is what is most interesting about this film for me, learning that no matter what differences and hardships people experience they can learn to connect. This is what makes popular culture alive (and in fact Chinese and Italian cultural references feature in the background, becoming universal). We can be affected by macro economic theories, social policies, geopolitics, criminal organisations activities and all of that, but in the end it's up to us to find ways to learn about each other and see things from a perspective which is closer to us than we think.

This film is a true gem that can hardly be seen in the mainstream. Hopefully, having won the European Parliament Lux Prize, it will be distributed at a cinema near you. Do not miss its bittersweet taste.

The Impact of Wiki Loves Monuments

The recent Wiki Loves Monuments contest across Europe was a very interesting example of how you can mobilise citizens to donate time and free images, for other people to use using the Creative Commons licenses. More than 170.000 uploads and a final selection of beautiful pictures that were rewarded with a prize. Now it is up to local communities to start using that material to show their local treasures to the world. The video above is such an example on the positive impact of such a contest.

Using a subtitling collaborative platform the video above is also available with subtitles in many languages including English and Italian.

Picasso in Paris, Van Gogh Museum

This was an exhibition on Picasso as an artist moving to Paris in 1900 when he was 19. He lived on top of a laundry shop in Montmartre, le bateau lavoir. From the paintings of that period that I saw at the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam I felt like being transported to Paris.

I could see he had a really broad eye for what was happening around him, from the upper class party goers of the Exposition universelle crowd type to subjects of despair. He was then so emotionally touched from the suicide death of his fellow Spaniard Casagemas, and you can see that in his blue period paintings. They guy, a writer, broke up with his French girlfriend apparently. You can just imagine the mixing of people and a stool of chancers observing life. There he saw the work of Gaugain, Toulouse-Lautrec, Swiss painters and what the critics will tell you.

The cosmopolitanism of Europe was there already as the art world always anticipates trends. If you had to choose now where to go it would be much harder. That's because artists embark on global tours, people can follow developments on twitter as revolution unfolds in whatever part of the world and the feeling of satisfaction to be in one place is often transient, as something else more interesting could be happening somewhere else, literally as we speak.

Melancholia by Lars von Trier

I'm making a bold statement here but Melancholia could be the film of the decade.

Stunning photography to such a level that it almost resembles a Dali painting, for its composition and surreality. You are really drawn into the story and the trailer was pretty clever in not giving away too many details, and I don't want to do that either.

A depressed woman is getting married and an extremely expensive party is thrown at this breathtaking mansion immersed in nature. Family ties come to the fore and your attention span moves from depressed Justine, interpreted by Kirsten Dunst, to scared Claire, interpreted by Charlotte Gainsbourg as the film is divided into two parts, introduced by a bizarre prologue. Claire's husband, a scientist epitomising rationality, is busy calculating the advancement of planet Melancholia towards the earth. Characters are well portrayed by good acting, and that's quite important when you have an existentialist epic drama like this one.

Kirsten won best actress in Cannes for her role and let me mention two taglines from her dialogues: "I know things" and "the earth is evil". Certainly Lars speaks his mind, but we already know this from his awful Cannes gaffe. Or did he just do that to draw attention to his film?

London riots, financial crisis, capitalism and new authoritarian regimes

Here are a few links to videos I've been watching online. First of all, the London riots. The first link is a sound byte whilst the second is a more organic documentary claiming that severe government cuts brought chaos to the streets of London.






After you have watched the above go check out the Flickr set the Metropolitian Police has uploaded with photos and footage from CCTV cameras. You can see a passer by trying to stop looting, a gang stealing a bike pushing the cyclist to the floor, another group entering an arcade and stealing from the employees' bags, cops getting run over by a car.

To finish off Zizek gets bombarded with images and comments upon them, ending his reasoning with the bleak prospect of the spread of Berlusconi like regimes. He argues for a radicalisation of the left for liberalism to be saved by the growth of a populist right wing

Well, enough food for thought. I need a video of a runnig cat, maybe with a Coldplay song, oh I have found one. I won't embed it so you can get lost in the world of You Tube. Kittens running on cat exercise wheel part 1

Animal Collective live @ Paradiso, Amsterdam 17/5/2011

Spectacural visual fields were constructed, jointly progressing with sound, vocals used as an instrument and light guiding the intake of this empowering experience.

We were left begging for more: watching another band will never be the same again, as the visual part is so strong you wonder why it has played a relatively minor role in the presentation of music so far.

Having sound and music presented in such a way really helps to focus your attention on trying to decode such an abstract body of work. This isn't just music, it's art.

I really enjoyed it.

P.S. I made some videos but the quality of the sound it's so bad I feel a bit sorry to upload it, but it's just to give you an idea.







If you are new to Animal Collective maybe start with My Girls (2009)

GREENPEACE IN AZIONE: IL LIDO DI VENEZIA DIVENTA ANTI-NUCLEARE!

Watch and Share This Please. It's about a Greenpeace campaign to remind Luca Zaia (Northern League) about his promises when he was running for President of the Veneto Region in Italy

Walking Europe

Dr. Paul Gardner, a PhD graduate from Oxford, set off on a journey between London and Istanbul by walking the entire distance of 3280 km, in order to raise money and awarenes about Europe's cultural heritage. Inspired by the Grand Tour, the journey taken by European elites to find out about the great historical and cultural heritage of Europe, as well as two walkers of the 20th Century, he pushed himself into this great effort and ran a blog along the way. This is certainly a different way to experience places as opposed to more immediate forms of travelling that often times make the world a much flatter place. The chance to speak to local communities and spending 137 days to complete the journey made this a life-changing event. Paul raised money by generating interest and made a donation to Europa Nostra, the pan European federation for Cultural Heritage. He experienced various difficulties and harsh conditions. He visited important historical hallmarks in Austria, Serbia, Bulgaria before reaching Istanbul, the ancient capital of two major empires. (source: Europa Nostra magazine)