Deef hitting a road

Are polar bears colour blind?

2011-04-20T21:54:00.001+02:00

Since a few weeks, the Northern Hemisphere is in tanning mode again. Finally, I would dare to add, because my winter jacket was starting to get on my nerves. Since you are probably wondering how something as fluffy and huggable as a winter jacket can get on one's nerves, let me share my thoughts with you...

One of my mottos in life - which applies to anything but beer and empty train seats - is 'quality over quantity'. So last time I wanted to buy myself a decent winter jacket, I decided to get one from these outdoor clothing and equipment specialist shops. Little did I know that when it comes to value for money, the jackets you can buy in these stores barely beat a Justin Bieber concert ticket you got for free with a sixpack of beer wrapped in a porn mag.

First of all, there is the jacket that can only be described as a crossing between a piece of clothing and an inflatable swimming pool for kids. These might come in very handy when your boat is capsizing on the Baltic Sea, but my Fashion Bible says "thou shalt not wear anything that looks like a fake plastic igloo, for it makes you look like a complete dumb-ass". As a small side-remark: in case you are a white male and you happened to loose your Fashion Bible somewhere during the last 300 years, let me kindly remind you that thou shalt also not wear white socks and sandals underneath your shorts.

Secondly, there is the jacket they call a wind-stopper. Don't get me wrong, I have no doubt that it is capable of stopping wind. As a matter of fact, these jackets often look like they are capable of stopping 75% of all deadly viruses known to men and Egyptian taxi drivers. Which doesn't mean that I encourage you to wear a wind-stopper next time you want to cross the street in Cairo, as you are very likely to sweat yourself to death. But until that glorious day someone announces he invented a jacket capable of stopping people from plastering my mailbox with flyers advertising cheap pizza, they can all go to hell. The jackets and the pizza deliverers.

Anyway, it's dogged as does it. There is a slim chance that you will find a decent jacket in an outdoor shop. Unfortunately, that more or less implies that you are colour blind. Seriously, can someone please explain to me why companies like Jack Wolfskin and The North Face spend thousands of dollars to have a team of engineers design a jacket in which you can survive anything from heavy blizzards to blazing hellfire, but fail to understand that when it comes to buying clothes - and we are talking about the variety that is to be worn outside, where others can actually see you - colour is a crucial criterion for purchase?

Not that you don't have a choice though: on the one hand there are what I would stereotypically call gay colour varieties, the ones you associate with loosely from the shoulders dangling cotton sweaters for late, chilly spring evenings. On the other hand, you have the colours that are so flashy that you could walk into a darkroom and spoil a photographer's working day. Just in case you are colour blind: this is more or less the equivalent of having to choose between reincarnating as a laboratory animal in a company where oddly-shaped butt plugs are tested, or as a desert rat suffering from sand allergy.

To me, it is obvious: winter jackets are so expensive because the whiz kids designing them are over-paid. Do you think they ever bothered contacting an expert of some sort to gain advice? Listen, it's not like I'm wearing them to pick up girls, but just imagine it's you preparing a PhD in observational biology: "Are polar bears colour blind?". I'd rather wear my thick fluorescent hyper-expensive jacket on a first date than on a last field trip, because I'm pretty sure that 'flashy jacket' means 'I am here' in basically any predator's language system - especially when they're bigger and meaner than you.

Unless of course - and I'll stick to typing the paper - the conjecture turns out to be true...

Smells like something

2011-04-09T17:40:00.037+02:00

The act of blogging sometimes feels like having sex: it takes a bit longer to produce output when you're drunk, and it tends to get awkward once you realize people are actually watching you. Which is probably why it took me so long to muster the energy to drop a few new lines, despite the fact that some people encouraged me to write more blog entries.

But here I am now, ready to entertain you.

And this brings me to what happened a little more than 17 years ago, on April the fifth 1994, when Kurt Cobain decided to went as he was and prove that he did have a gun. I still remember that day as if it was only yesterday that the Godfather of Grunge made his passage to erhm... Nirvana. I was 15 years old: the age of increased paper tissue consumption, being misunderstood by more or less the complete universe and having a crush on the English substitute teacher (in a time where the concept of a milf was yet to be added to our vocabulary, mind you). Not that his death shook my world - ever since what happened in Sendai, I think this expression can only be used for inappropriate comparisons - but I did realize that Kurt Cobain would become the hoarse voice of a whole generation. My generation, that is. The one marked with an X.

And although the album with the swimming baby on the blue cover wouldn't be my answer to the question "Which album would you take to a deserted island?", it is only fair to say that the battle against the final winner (Panopticon by Isis) would be nothing less than heroic. As a small side remark, it might be useful to underline the sheer stupidity of the aforementioned question: as far as I know, deserted islands have not yet been reported as natural breeding places for sockets. Let alone CD players... And now that we are at it: I am by no means an expert, but I have always found that the baby had a weird-looking penis.

On the other hand, I do have an emotional bond with my original "Nevermind" tape. For those of you who grew up with iTunes, tape stands to wav-files like standard English stands to your gibberish chatspeak: you may have heard about it, but you probably don't believe people actually used it - right? And although my cassette deck has been gathering more dust than a mysophobic's wipe cloth lately, I do preserve a special place for this particular tape as it marks the official start of the ongoing musical discovery tour which has already lead me to festival grounds, concert venues, basement parties and - more than anything else - record stores all over the planet. If there is one music video that changed my life, it is the one which featured a bunch of cheerleaders, an old man playing air guitar on a broom and a gang of headbanging kids. Seriously, I am not sure whether my English vocabulary already included the gentle words you are about to read, but after those defining 4 minutes and 38 seconds I thought: *what the fuck was that?*. So did my mom, by the way, but the analogy stops here. I still remember going to bed that night, promising myself to save all the money I could to buy that album.

When I enter a record store nowadays, I feel nostalgic about my being 15 and having to think about each single cent to spend. Because ever since 'the start of a month' got a financial connotation, buying CD's became different: more than once I entered the store with one particular album on my mind, and left it with a pile of them in my hands. Often ending up - after a negligent listening session - as a pile of digital litter on the coffee table. Half a life ago however, buying music meant solving a complex mathematical optimization problem: getting the equivalent of 1 lousy euro a week, one bag of candy (later to be replaced by an entrance fee to the local party and a jar of hair gel + three beers in rather quick succession to enter the "please-notice-how-cool-I-am"-mode) was equal to waiting one more week before you could even start thinking about the next problem: an Iron Maiden album to work on the classics, a Slayer album which would never pass your mother's censorship or the latest album by the Sisters of Mercy to impress that mysterious chick in black? It goes without saying that as a teenager, I've spent several hours in the listening booth at record stores, deciding whether or not to buy this or that album. The result is a particularly interesting collection of records and brains cells: the former are not so silent witnesses of my puberty, the latter (still!) seem to be capable of reciting all the lyrics of songs I used to listen to - for at least 27 times a week.

Not skipping tracks, mind you, because using the fast forward button is like erhm... like ... whatever.

Nevermind.

The Bus

2010-08-24T19:16:00.004+02:00

It's not always easy...

Sometimes you end up on a bus and it seems like there's simply no place for you. Playful little kids, chattering teenagers and older people lost in thought: they all dismissively wave their hands to let you know that you are not welcome. So you wander through the bus, avoiding scornful looks, hoping to find that unappealing corner where you can be yourself.
Different, that is.
And tiny.

Wedged into a crack between bags and boxes, you start to think about the shit you left behind. You start to feel lonely, as it was not your intention to end up here. Nor there. You don't even know where you are going.
Will you meet someone you like?
Or someone like you?

You start looking outside, through the window. As landscapes slide by, you start to wish you had more eyes. And a bigger brain. Oodles of new colours and unfamiliar shapes, all begging to be seen. And remembered.
Animals you have never seen before.
People you will never see again.

Somehow, this makes you think of watching television: a reality show in the true sense of the word. And the world. Some of the main characters are staring back though, through the moving frame. This makes you wonder.
Would they even notice you? Envy you?
Would they want to be like you?

Different, that is.
And tiny.

Probably not.

Who wants to be a fly anyway?

Home- sweet homework

2010-08-21T17:09:00.006+02:00

There are lessons to be extracted from everything.

Even from these moments you wake up in the middle of the night, wondering whether patience is a part of your bladder's vocabulary. 'To pee or not to pee' might be a fairly simple question, it took me a few times to realize that 'get out of the bed and relieve yourself as quick as possible' is the corresponding lesson.

Some situations will obviously not induce life-altering insights: staring at a strangled chihuahua (or, for that matter, the eyebrows of some old women) can definitely help you to understand that not everything looks good in purple, but that will more or less be the only relevant thing to be retained. Others however, do have the power to change you as a human being. Ask Otto the Simpson Rohwedder, the attentive engineer who suggested adding a red panic button to bread slicers - only after he found out that a stubborn bread is not worth the helping hand...

The most valuable source of lessons for me is travelling, and my latest trip to Asia (from Thailand into Cambodia) was no exception. Sadly enough, one of the first things that has struck us during this last month was the fact that apparently not everyone shares this opinion. This became pretty obvious during our passage in Sihanoukville, Cambodia's answer to the ever-growing demand for places where young 'adventurous' people tend to hang out. This rather young city - founded in the late 1950s as Cambodia's first (and only) international trading port - seems to be very popular with the mindless party crowd: well-tanned teenagers, spending their money (or, as is often the case, mom and dad's financial support for what they think is their child's attempt to discover the world) on cheap beer, vodka cocktails in buckets and everlasting parties on an ugly stretch of beach.

Don't get me wrong: I do like the occasional hang-over after an intoxicating night of beats, alcohol and late-night French fries, but when it comes to finding reasons to fly to Cambodia, I would rather settle for 'I went to Burundi last year, and that exhausted the list of countries starting with the letter B'. Needless to say that we were completely flabbergasted when we met 3 Dutch girls in our hostel who didn't understand that we did not fly to the other side of the world to party our asses off. That we came to this part of Indochina to meet the local people, to get an introduction to its national history, to sample the food from the street, to see some wild-life and discover its natural beauty.

I would actually dare to believe that this is what they learned that night...

Cardboard boxes

2010-06-08T20:35:00.003+02:00

Mister Nice Guy lives very near to me. At least that is one option... The other option is of course that he lives miles and miles away, and commutes every morning - just like Mr. X and Mr. Y, my anonymous fellow travelers on the daily exception to punctuality formally referred to as the train.

Speaking about trains: a little less than two years, that is all it took me to understand that Albert Einstein - who often used trains to explain his celebrated theory of Special Relativity in terms of easy thought experiments (well, easy, not as easy as my exams obviously) - probably meant relatively late, when he uttered his famous conclusion that everything is relative. As a matter - or, hereby referring to the only equation in physics everyone knows, energy - of irrelevant fact, the train I usually take to work is so often late that it becomes a punctuality again. My glass is like Justine Henin's bra, always half full: the trains I take are not delayed, they merely arrive too early every once in a while.

Anyway, as Alfred Wegener - father of the Kontinentalverschiebung - would say: I'm drifting away...

I wanted to tell you all about Mr. Nice Guy: the young, cheerful West-Flemish combination of pure friendliness and never-ending enthousiasm who actually works in the supermarket behind the corner. If only I knew where he finds the energy to turn my shopping duties into relaxation sessions: I would beg his dealer for a big bucket of this mysterious substance and carry it around, secretely spraying it on Mr. Bitter and Mrs. Sour - who seem to have taken over our counters, all across the nation.

Seriously, sometimes I cannot but conclude that the average cashier's job interview goes like this:

- And your name is...
- Mrs. Sour.
- Working experience?
- Not really, but I recently got a degree in Barking at Customers.
- Hmmm, interesting. But why would we choose you?
- Because I can simultaneously scan items and make a face like someone who just swallowed a bowl of whale sperm.
- Perfect, when can you start?

This guy however, together with a handful of other exceptions, is everything the Others are not. In order to describe him, you need adjectives from the positive part of the dictionary (from amicable to zealful). Now either he was actually genetically programmed to survive on a diet of Moby Dick's milky substances - no need to make a face, just swallow another bowl - or someone at the JICSFC (the Job Interview Centre for Sour-faced Cashiers) must have had a very rough night when this bearer of positive facial expressions entered the office, and smiled its way through the selection procedures... Or, since options always come in trios (and this statement is a: true, b: false) he is an Other but unable to behave like one because he prefers to get paid in XTC tablets.

- I never see you wearing fancy clothes, Mr. Nice Guy, how come?
- Just saving money for my trip this summer...

Speaking about raver's candy and funny thoughts: the other day, it must have been somewhere halfway between Arugula and Cambozola, I was pondering something. I happen to ponder things quite often - saying that this is an understatement is actually an understatement - only this time I wasn't digesting my daily dosis of algebra. I can't tell you where this particular thought came from - where do thoughts come from, by the way - but it made me look like a complete idiot (next page in the Story of my Life): there is a time and a place for everything, but 17:34-the dairy rack-philosophizing is not your standard combination...

The thing is, I suddenly realized that life would have been very different had the inventor of the cardboard box been allergic to objects with right angles. Imagine him: an old, bald'ish guy - up to a few white tufts adorning his somehow larger than average crown - seeing the world (differently) through his round spectacles, constantly caressing his long grey beard as if that would invoke the Ultimate Flash of Genius and wearing a suit that would probably be dated as "prehistoric" by the local fashionables.

Imagine his study: a round hybrid between a paper container, an abandoned coffee stand at the Annual Insomnia Fair (think lots and lots of coffee) and a cemetery for paper handkerchiefs, toilet rolls and empty bottles of cough syrup (when I say allergic to right angles, I do mean the kind of disorder that comes with increased mucus production, coughing, sneezing, diarrhea, itchy rash, vomiting and the occasional hallucination).

Imagine his plans: huge round sheets of paper, mental pictures of the trips through his brain, scattered across his desk like unfortunate victims on a Medieval battlefield - and, most of all, imagine his conclusion: spherical boxes.

Life would have been quite different, don't you think? Less people would smoke, if matchboxes kept rolling away... Driving the deceased to their final resting place would be a lot more challenging... Women would buy less shoes, as their shoe boxes wouldn't stack so easily. But despite the fact that these innocent examples may strike you as funny by-products, it made me understand that this seemingly irrelevant historical detail would cause a dramatic shift in Mr. Nice Guy's life - and hence in my own life too!

I mean, stacking a few shoe boxes in that cheap second-hand cupboard in the entrance hall is one thing, but stacking up boxes of dried chick peas, red beans or green lentils, piling up boxes of crunchy chocolate flakes, Bolivian fair-trade cereal, oatmeal bars and caramelized rice petals possibly containing traces of nuts, arranging boxes of tomato juice, tomato sauce, tomato chutney and tomato paste, heaping boxes of cookies, cakes, crisps and chips: that would be a damned shit-load of misery, wouldn't it?

With all due respect for people working in the supermarket - anyone who survives five days of elevator music in a row deserves a state funeral hosting at least 12 Bolivian pan flute players covering Sinatra's My way - but this job would no longer be an option if you don't have a Bachelor in Stackology or a Master in Sphere Packing from the Johannes Kepler Institute. Job interviews would suddenly be centered around questions like

- Have you read Wu-Yi's paper "On the sphere packing problem and the proof of Kepler's conjecture" from 1993?

and

- Are you willing to attend the annual International Conference on Optimizing Cardboard Configurations in the Spatial Continuum?

(which, by the way, would be less attractive than it sounds: ever thought about packing a spherical suitcase?)

What now seems like a brainless job, very often entrusted to students eager to earn a few extra extra euro's to fund their weekly Bacchanal Eruptions, would suddenly be one of the most under-estimated jobs on earth. Supermarket chains would inveigle freshly graduated shopping engineers, the newest branch in civil engineering, into well paid positions at our grocery paradises - their labaratories. Balancing our food would be their concern, designing the Warehouse of the Future their mission...

And what would happen to Mister Nice Guy, my local hero?

He would undoubtedly end up as face of the year in Time Magazine: the headlines and the future would smile at us, just like he does, and the world would love him, just like I do. My favourite cashier, the perfect son-in-law.

Despite my sincere desire to accord him this honour, I feel obliged to add a few side-thoughts here. Remarks of uttermost importance, which may shed another light upon my previous accounts. In case you are reading this, Mr. Nice Guy, I wish to apologize in advance: please understand that what follows here is by no means a vile attempt to deny you what you deserve, more than anything else. It is a pleading, solely meant to protect the weakest of the weak - and I am pretty sure that you would understand my cause...

Let's think a bit further this time: who would be the biggest victim of the spherical cardboard box? Who can be found at the entrance of subway stations, curled up inside their own beard in a paper-based shelter, accumulating second-hand heat, fast-food left-overs and looks of disdain? Who can be found outside, on the street, wound up inside a disposable hiding place, trying to make it through the night?

Yes: the homeless dwarf. Humiliamanus peregrinus, the unfortunate pointy eared fellows who cannot afford their own place to sleep. Let's not forget that the Chinese, officially known as the world's greatest mushroom hunters, are everywhere. And unless my vocabulary has forsaken me, 'everywhere' includes forests, woods, and any other collective noun describing a bunch of trees... No wonder that the prices of puffballs, stinkhorns, boletes, chanterelles, toadstools and amanitas have dramatically increased over the years: the bird's nest soup eating part of the world is essentially inflicting on dwarves what we - the carbon dioxide emitting beings we have become - are inflicting on icebears: destroying their natural habitat... And before we stigmatize them again - they need some time to recover from the Copenhagen Follies - let us not forget that we are as guilty as the Chinese. Yes, it is them preparing their numbers 8, 23 and 57 (chicken and mushroom soup, roast duck with mushrooms and shredded sichuan beef with black beans and Chinese mushrooms), but it is the rest of the world that came up with shiitake soup, mushroom tikka masala , pizza funghi, oyster burgers and crêpes aux champignons de Paris.

Home sweet (salty, sour, pickled or even spicy) home.

Keep that in mind, next time you see a homeless dwarf: the source of potassium, selenium and riboflavin on your sandwich might have been the reason for his expropriation! We cannot blame them, these poor creatures, seeking refuge in our cities. Neither can I blame us, the inhabitants of these cities, for the cruelties happening to those little vagrants on a daily basis...

Let me explain what I mean, and let me first of all admit that it happens to me too: shitty days at work. We all know how it starts, don't we? The alarm clock says something which sounds too loud, too early and too repetitive, the brain says categorically 'no' and the person next to you says nothing because someone has a day off - it's just not you... Fair enough, you'll have an off-day then. Or at least a bad hair day - your mirror image's way of telling you that today is not the only thing that needs a shortcut. And of course, on days like these Mr. Cereal and Mrs. Soy Milk are part of the Great Breakfast Conspiracy: the former has nothing but his last spoonful to offer, the latter simply ran out. No big deal, were it not for the fact that the standard emergency option - a quick visit to the bakery for a few comforting pastries - becomes the next link in a chain of unlucky events: "Due to unforeseen circumstances, we're not open today. Thanks for your understanding". The understanding comes much later though, when you find out that 'dacnomania' means 'obsessed with killing' and that a narcistic dwarf suffering from extreme dacnomania hid inside the industrial dough mixer, hoping to end up as the most downloaded item on www.weirdsuicides.com...

So by the time you arrive at work and open your inbox, the first thing you have to digest is a shitload of bad news:

i) Despite previous financial efforts, your good friend Mr. Nanuan Doago - who used to be a first year law student in the University of Dobiwada before the killing of his parents by the rebels, who is presently living in the refugee camp in Dakar where he is fasting and praying to his God Who personally revealed to him that you are the right person to help him out from that horrible place, and to assist him in finding a sustainable solution for the political instabilities in his home country - has once again sent you, his dear entrusted friend, an email to ask for money. To be deposited on the Equatorial Trust Bank.

ii) Also - despite your previous prolongation investments - it appears that some people still believe that you should give your manhood a natural enlarging treatment (who doesn't want to be hung like a horse?). Admittedly, you have no clue how they actually know that you could use a few more inches to turn your personal masturbation unit into an indefatigable satisfaction kit for women, but 214 messages a week can't be wrong. Can they?

iii) Your mother apparently added you as a friend on Facebook, and they need to confirm that you know her in order for you to be friends on Facebook. Bugger. Every end has a start, and this is probably the end of your virtual social outlet.

Well, whatever, luckily enough there still is that Black Liquid Gold known as Ethiopian kaffa, Kenyan kahawa, Portugese café, Italian cappuccino, Moroccan kahwah, Venezuelan marron oscuro grande fuerte, Columbian negro claro or American bottomless crap. Not today though - you saw that one coming, didn't you: the coffee machine at work decided it was time for the annual breakdown.

This simple fact, and my experience has taken over control at this point, is more than often the official confirmation of what should have been pretty obvious by now: if you're ever going to watch the movie of your life (I do hope that Jennifer Aniston will be playing me - hey, I am in touch with my feminine side - or at least Edward Norton), this is probably the moment where you will decide to use the skip button. Or even better, the moment you wish to be added to the deleted scenes on the DVD...

So yes, by the time you get back from work - be it by train, subway or any other means of transportation not respecting the time table - you are the embodiment of frustration. Bearer of facial expressions defying most of the entries in the Dictionary of Words to Describe Moderately Angry People. A ruthless piece of fury, with a vocabulary containing mostly four-letter words, ready to reduce the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull to a simple crossing between a fairly sized fart and an attempt to break the World Record in Synchronized Sprained Tongues. This being your frame of mind, you being on the way to your fridge (beer, the answer to questions you tend to forget after a few bottles), imagine now that somewhere along the way there is a cardboard ball blocking your path.

A cardboard box, that is, invented by some genius suffering from an allergy to right angles.

A cardboard home, that is, to the unfortunate little creature blocking the shortest path between you and the light that never goes out - unless you close the door.

Even I - creator of the Support Local Homeless Dwarves Page on facebook - cannot resist, on those rare occasions, the burning temptation to kick their little boxes. Wham! One well-aimed shot: sayonara tension, bye-bye Mr. Dwarf.

[by the way, are you still reading this?]

Now, I do realize this is a bit of a mind-stretch (well, not only that, a stretch of skin too I am afraid), but try to put yourself in the unfortunate victim's shoes: what would you do? How would you avoid avoid being kicked out of your house, which is - considering the fact that we are dealing with homeless dwarves here - rather paradoxical? We all know the answer, don't we?

You would start climbing walls.

And can you imagine how downright ugly that would be? Marginal concentrations of pure dwarfiness, stuck to our houses like pieces of snot underneath your chair?

This, by the way, reminds me of that disastrous day at primary school: due to unforeseen circumstances, we had to attend classes in a room without chairs. "No big deal", I hear you thinking. (enter ironic mode) Right (exit ironic mode). Think twice: you are 7 years old, hence still picking your nose on a regular basis. One of those little jelly green friends just landed on your index finger, where do you put it? No big deal? I rest my case...

Anyway, it seems this post got a bit longer than expected, but my point is the following: we should all be thankful that the inventor of the cardboard box was in fact not allergic to right angles, because the picture underneath is a purely imaginary illustration of the horror that might have been:

Brrr...

Energy supplies

2010-05-01T11:58:00.006+02:00

Most people simply don't care. And why would they, choosing a fucking big television, washing machines, cars, compact disc players, electrical tin openers and the energy it takes to keep these modern age slaves buzzing around the clock, most likely the latest I-can-pay-my-mortgage-with-this-money Rolex?

Others apparently think we have too much. How else can you explain the hordes of happy housewives driving to the grocery store - around the corner, mind you - in their ridiculously massive SUV's, to buy apples from New-Zealand and green beans from Kenya? How else can you justify the mushroom-shaped heaters guarding your terrace table during winter times, designed to keep you warm and cosy - when it's fucking freezing outside? For God's sake, how else can you grasp the idea of billions of gallons of oil leaking into the Ocean, the mother of all life on this Precious Marble?

Some, though, claim we haven't got - or will not have - enough, and at least try to spread the urgent message that we should be a little more careful with our planet's energy supplies and the way they are exploited. Not that the liberal majority (well, let's see about that soon) seems to care - my humble conclusion based on the daily ecological indifferences surrounding me - but I do believe that we can all make a difference. Probably the remnants of what once was a straight-edge vegan diet on positive hardcore lyrics - who would have thought that pointing fingers and singing along could have such a profound impact - but if not we, then who?

I am merely a mathematician, not an engineer - a nerd and a nerd equals zero nerds modulo two - but it seems I have discovered a new source of energy. Yesterday, in Diksmuide, on stage in the 4AD: Dick Dale, the perfect proof for the fact that you can grow old and grey, and still have the wits and guts to entertain an eclectic audience (never seen such a homogeneous blend of rockabilly quiffs and their - piping hot - stylish chicks, rejuvenating fathers, open-minded youngsters, beer-guzzling bikers and trendy geeks). Imagine Bill from Tarantino's saga, add a bunch of guitars and a battery of Fender amplifiers and stir in 20 years of rock and roll history.
Shake well.
Undergo.

Every self-respecting rock fanatic should have been there, watching this energetic geriatric - I don't get to use oxymorons on a daily base - playing timeless music. I recognized the Ventures, the Shadows, Johnny Cash, Louis Armstrong, the Kinks, Deep Purple, the Beatles, Peggy Lee, the Beach Boys and of course his very own hits. At some point he even covered the Black Eyed Peas, imagine that! It wasn't unplugged, but it left me bursting with energy. The man is a genius, go watch him if you ever get a chance...

In the cold, cold night...

2009-12-22T09:22:00.012+01:00

Christmas is in the air. Quite literally in fact, since I had snowflakes for breakfast this morning. But despite the fact that this period of the year is one of those rare, isolated (erhm, think hats and scarves) space-time singularities during which I finally find some time to catch up with myself, I despise these days...

Everybody seems to be in a "let's-buy-too-much-decadent-food"-mood: just read Jonathan Safran Foer's latest brainchild and formulate your own questions on (Christ)mass consumption.

It always reminds me of one particular Christmas Evening, a few years ago: I was invited somewhere in Ghent for dinner with (rather newly acquired) friends, and I was supposed to bring the starter (aka the hors d'oeuvre, the festive synonym). I don't exactly remember what I prepared, after all this was the pre-tofu-based-fake-shrimp-era, but I do remember that on my way to the warm living room where we were to spend the evening I bumped into a guy with a beard. And a few plastic bags, containing the essence of his life. Nope, it wasn't Santa: it was a homeless guy, prepared to spend another night out there.

I saw you standing in the corner
On the edge of a burning light
I saw you standing in the corner
in the cold,cold night
(J. White).

At first I was able to ignore my pity. But when I was confronted with all the smiling, happy faces behind the illuminated windows of the big houses along the road, like warm chunks of cosiness on a party plate, I was overpowered by an immense feeling of sadness and injustice. I couldn't help but turn around, and I gave my food to this guy. Together with a bottle of wine, although I don't know whether he ever managed to open it - I guess homeless people don't carry around corkscrews?

I'll never forget his reaction: the man mustered the warmest smile he could. Taking into account that we were out there, in the cold, cold night, it does sound like a contradiction but he made me melt somehow.

I'll never ever forget the reaction of my friends when I told them, proud as I was, what happened to the starter: they were angry. 'Defriending' still had to be invented those days...

How do you mean, there's no starter?

I wonder whether the homeless guy had friends, newly acquired ones included. And how they would have reacted:

How do you mean, there's a starter?

Erhm, guys, does anyone have a corkscrew?

Beats of love, and all that

2009-08-23T19:13:00.010+02:00

Let's do what most of us do, (nearly?) every morning, with our mirror image: face it. If lentils, chick peas, organically grown vegetables and seitan burgers are the main characters of the Daily Food Show in your kitchen pot, you have to go to a local health store for groceries: as simple as that.

If that funny Asian language which is pronounced as if it was devised for the sole purpose of delivering mortal threats, raw fish dipped in that delicious mixture of soy sauce and wasabi - the green spicy paste from hell (another mortal threat, when badly dosed), electronic gadgets approved by the Commission for Preservation of Human Stupidity Standards in Production and Design (anyone in desperate need of a transparent toaster?) and cartoons that could turn the most passive couch potato into a hyperkinetic dragonball are on top of your fetish-list, you have to go to Japan: as simple as that.

And - like even the longest sentences, I am coming to my point here: if you are into music in all its contemporary flavours - from tender and juicy over crispy to hot and raw, into young-hearted people celebrating the (actually not so) good things in life - 'sex, drugs and rock 'n roll' is not just a catchy phrase: it is very likely also the explanation for that dizzying mental fatigue characterizing the aftermath, into trying to get some sleep in a shabby tent on a not necessarily undercrowded camp site and into ridiculously expensive (but damned tasty) portions of fast-food coming into cardboard containers the size of an anorectic survival kit, Pukkelpop should be one of the highlights on the list of things-to-do in August: as simple as that.

So yes, the undersigned was in Kiewit last week - together with two dear friends. And oh boy, we loved it. The weather was nice, to standards more general than just Belgian, the beers were cold (enough) and the music was loud and good. Very good, indeed: I saw a few amazing shows and the next CD's I am about to buy (sigh, I am very afraid that the sobriety mentioned in the previous post is of a rather selective nature - can somebody please help me to get rid of this urge to spend money on digital data carriers?) will undoubtedly be from bands that blew me away that weekend - to a greater or lesser extent (Madensuyu - noisy rock from Ghent that made me shake my boney ass like there was no tomorrow, Moderat - brainy bleeps and beats from Berlin, And So I Watch You From Afar - instrume(n)tal music from Ireland to bang the dreamy heads on, and much more).

However, this post would be useless without a paragraph devoted to the Show of the Shows. A few words of praise for the Band that came to Hasselt, saw an unfortunate roadie dive a stage which was (not just) too far from the anticipating audience (ask your local tele-you-tubby) and conquered my heart - forever. Faith No More, in one word, was divine. During my own 30 (gosh) years on this stage, I have seen many shows already. Bad shows, good shows and shows I will never ever forget (the Youngblood Brass Band on Pukkelpop in 2003, Red Sparowes and Isis in Prague in 2007, Illyrian in the AB in Brussels in 2002): thou shalleth add FNM to that list...

Sometimes I wonder how it feels like to be blind.

Sometimes I wonder how it feels like to be a woman.

Lately I started to wonder how it feels like to be Mike Patton: if there really is someone out there that knows how to use his or her voice in a more versatile way than the frontman of Faith No More (and Tomahawk, and Mr. Bungle, and Peeping Tom, and The Dillinger Escape Plan) does, then please let that person stand up and chant, sing, scream, rap, howl, whisper, grunt, sing, speak, shout and scat - or shut up forever. Blind idolatry is nothing for me - and it will never be - but what I have seen that Thursday night clearly shows (pun not-intended) that there are other reasons to send your devotion to the optician... It wasn't a perfect set - my silent wishes for "Digging the grave" remained unanswered - but maybe that was a good thing: who knows what I would have written otherwise!

And now all together, thank you Mike :D

There's a first time for everything

2009-08-12T03:45:00.020+02:00

Ever since good old Pangea concluded that it was no longer able to live with itself, there has been a tantalizing amount of countries I still want to visit. Either in this life, or the next - and in order to make things a bit easier I am trying to save all my Karma so that I can return as a feathery creature. For those of you who prefer their 'Pun of the Day' a bit (too?) far-fetched: I guess you could argue that I want to be reincarnated as a bird of pray...

Having chosen Asian travel destinations for seven years in a row now, I was 23 when I first set foot in Tokyo - my first encounter with this marvelous continent, I decided to turn my attention on the world's second largest piece of former Pangea this year. Et ecce, filed under the letter 'N' in the ever-growing list of countries I want to visit again at some point: Namibia, a deserted stretch of land along the West coast of Africa, home to some of the nicest features on the Third Rock from the Sun. Wildlife in the purest sense of the word (spying on a pride of lions while they are hunting, literally 3 meters away from your car - without any form of fencing separating you from these feline creatures, is a unique experience), enough scenic views to serve as subjects for a whole warehouse stacked with postcards, some of the friendliest and sweetest smiling faces I have ever seen (notwithstanding the rather harsh truth that Misery seems to favour Black Company) and absolute silence...

And yes, for someone like me - hopelessly in love with Euterpe and her descendants (ah, subgenres in modern music: anyone in the mood for another ridiculously long list?) - this is probably a rather unexpected finale. But believe me, there is a rather unmatched pleasure to be found in walking through rugged nothingness, listening to what turned Simon and Garfunkel into the Godfathers of panflute-remix-material... Simply put: there is no such thing to be found in Europe, unless your favourite travel destination is an airtight container.

Trying to write a story about all that happened during this trip is a bit like trying to see all the bands playing at Pukkelpop this year: rather undoable. However, let me at least try to sketch a few of the insights and impressions I had during my first (but definitely not last) trip to Africa...

First of all, I firmly believe that the blood running through my veins is of anthropological rather than biological (as in 'from a biologist') nature: despite the fact that I enjoyed observing some of the most astonishing animals on earth from up close (a herd of elephants making its way to the pool - for a drink and a bath, black rhinos and their white-faced colleagues in a rare moment of much appreciated self-exposure, jackals and vultures feasting on the carcass of a wildebeest, almost too many zebra's and springbok, a huge variety of birds in every possible size and colour, and so much more), my most memorable moments (ah, the gentle art of alliterating) still involved locals.

There is no such thing as arriving in Opuwo, the capital of the Kunene Region in the North-West, finding yourself to be one of the few vanilla faces amongst an almost surreal mixture of Himba and Herero women, San people and rather hip youngsters who'd not be out of tune in an average American hip-hop music video (aight). In the very same street, going to the very same supermarkt to buy the very same stuff ("funnily" enough - if you've got a bad taste of humour, that is - mostly German, since Namibia used to be a German colony, and of course South-African, which is - to African standards - just around the corner): rather unappealing sausages - erhm, do not rely on a vegetarian here - and things to braai.

For me, this is what makes travelling so interesting: getting to know how other people, with whom I share this Blue Biosphere, live - without having to download something, except for maybe an e-ticket. And yes, walking around a Himba village carrying a fancy camera to capture this unique visit to the Human Zoo on erhm... memory card does feel a bit uncomfortable. So does visiting San People (aka the Bushmen) wearing fancy clothes - as far as an old shirt and dirty trousers fit (pun-intended) this description - and carrying an actual bottle of water (in a country where rainfall is as rare as a skinhead in a specialized store for hairpins and creamy shampoos - except for a short rainy season lasting two months - you start to notice these things).

Secondly, and more or less related to the previous item: travelling through poor and/or remote parts of the world (although, as an immediate side-remark: Namibia and some of its neighbours - like Botswana and South Africa - are actually not the poorest countries in Africa, at all) and using these opportunities to visit indigenous people having a totally different life-style (erhm, make that survive-style) induces a rather uncomfortable paradox inside my head. The confrontation with people living on the same planet but in much harder conditions always makes me realize that Albert Einstein was wrong: God does play dice with the universe after all, and I was lucky enough to roll a six. Yes: I ended up in a wealthy piece of industrialized paradise (aka the Western World), and this seemingly irrelevant geographical detail is the main reason why my standard of living is way better than that from the man who was born in the wrong part of the world (or, let's not forget them again: the wrong part of the street)...

But what confuses me about this, aka the aforementioned paradox, is the following: how to live up to this realization? Sometimes, the ball ends up in the court of the people seizing the day: these are the moments I firmly believe that my attitude in life should be a delicate mixture of unconditional gratitude - towards my position in life - and a mild form of hedonism. Carpe diem, simply because you have the means to do so. At other times, however, the ball ends up in the court on the opposite side: isn't it better to adopt a state of sobriety, in more or less everything you do, hence trying to pay respect to those who cannot make this choice for themselves? I am still pondering this Question (mind the capital), not in the least because - as so often in life - I have difficulties in finding the Golden Mean.

A final remark: note that I have deliberately used the words 'using these opportunities' in the previous paragraphs (as in 'grabbing them with both hands') and not having them: it is sad (and true) but there always seems to be a path of least resistance when it comes to traveling. A path - actually more a highway, paved in smooth concrete enabling you to cruise at maximal speed - which connects fake copies of fake chain hostels where real people serve you (with) fake smiles. A path running through vast shopping centres selling tons of things that you don't really need, unless of course you are afraid that the 37 pairs of shoes in your closet feel lonely. A path along which everything between fancy French restaurants and omni-present fast-food palaces (the capital M seems to be the most universal member of the Roman alphabet) is trying to cater tourists with the type of food that tastes like home. Abdominal homesickness is easily cured, it seems. Not that this is my (fair-trade) business, I can easily choose not to choose (this) life and choose something else, but what upsets me about this is the following: this path does not provide any chance to understand the differences between having and not having. Pens for example. Between luxury and the lack thereof. Between here and there. Between you and them. And, frankly, this is precisely the reason why some people should consider this kind of trip...

Anyway, nuff'said - and still so much to say. Time to have a drink I'd say. The ball switched courts again ;)

If this was static, turn up the noise...

2009-05-08T07:59:00.003+02:00

Yesterday, I went to an amazing show with my buddy Nick and my student Liesbet: 65daysofstatic in 'het Depot' (Leuven). It was utterly fantastic. I wrote about these guys before, see 'Bert from the Concert: Part I' - which was a review of their gig in Prague 2 years ago, and I can only agree with what I wrote back then...

Do you know that feeling, at the beginning of a relationship, where you are heavily in love but you cannot actually recall your newly acquired lover's face too well? Are you familiar with this rather frightening realization, as you are on the way to her (or his) place, that you don't really remember how she (or he) looks like? I mean, you do remember that (s)he's cute and handsome - you're not really expecting someone that could be the inspiration for Tim Burton's next movie (which wouldn't really be that much of an insult, would it?) - but you're still a tiny bit afraid that you are heading towards the result of your internal aesthatic-o-meter's first serious crash...

The good thing is that this fear always turns out to be like 'i', 'e', 'pi' and their never-ending friends: completely irrational. In the end, when you're facing that lovely face of your desire, it always turns out to be even better than what you were hoping for.

I had a similar experience with 65daysofstatic: when I heard them for the first time, when I saw them for the first time, I fell in love. An instant crush, a lightning hitting me with the speed of sound. And yes, I was a bit afraid that I was idealizing their musical exploits. But in the end, yesterday, they once again proved that when I fall in love, I do have a very good reason to do so.

I mean, anyone who can mix the mathematical craziness of Tom Jenkinson with the emotional outbursts of Mogwai, Isis and the like deserves my eternal respect. Frantically dancing to broken beats while weeping from the inside, because there is an ocean of intensity underneath those layers of stuttering noise: faut-le-faire. Most of our emotions do have edges, and the crispy sound of 65days is the perfect translation of this elementary truth into something which moves me. My legs, my head and my heart. If the future has a soundtrack, this should be it.

I'm in love.
And I have the t-shirt...

Meteorological considerations...

2009-05-03T12:45:00.002+02:00

A grey'ish sunday afternoon: Nature's perfect read on that emotional state of mind which seems to come with the slipstream of a vibrant weekend. Is there a name for people embodying that meteorological chaos called 'weather' - you have to admit, given the fact that it is more likely to find the cure for cancer in a chocolate egg than predicting tomorrow's state of the horizon correctly, choosing the suffix logical does seem a bit strange in this context, doesn't it? And if not a name, then probably at least a facebook-group, "weather or not we are, that's the question"?

Anyway, it's possible that I am just a bit tired. And that all the impressions of the last few weeks are slowly cristallizing into glowing gems of mental expressions, like tiny stars scattered across the vast expanses of my tiny brain. Precious pearls of recollection people tend to refer to as memories.

Imagine how dull life would be if we were to be reset every monday morning, or that all the spam was automatically removed by some massive filter turning our lives into well-ordered lists of things to do... Ok, let's face it: life is a thing to do, but there's also a little think to do (even if it's just underneath the surface of our stream of consciousness)...

And I am convinced that this is precisely were our recollections come into the picture: what lies ahead of us is a giant question mark, having the unmatched quality of being able to make us long for more more and less less at the same time, but what lies behind each one of us is an even bigger exclamation mark: a collection of (not always too) subtle landmarks making the way we are (or are not) strolling, walking or rushing along unique, providing us with the rocks on which we sit down and rest if the going gets tough, allowing us to look back at the other side of The Road, known better as Memory Lane.

Dying can be fun

2009-04-09T12:52:00.003+02:00

Yesterday, I had my first gig ever as a (wanna-be) stand-up. The place to be, or not to be - how obvious can it get, was the Joker in Antwerp, a cosy little pub - home to a strange mixture of nerds and metal freaks (or was it freaks and metal nerds?). I deliberately chose to start - well, after a very brave introduction by our Guru 'Henk' Himself (warming up an audience is never easy) - and that might have cost me a few extra laughs, but I was rather pleased with my own performance... Which doesn't contradict the fact that it did feel a tiny bit like dying, in front of 50 people - or something - amongst which some guys who do this for a living.

To say that there is room for improvement is like kicking in an open door the size of a Medieval Gate, but at least I felt some waves of laughter making it to the shores of the little stage in there. There was also a fair amount of positive feedback after the show, and that has encouraged me to continue this nerve-racking new Project of the Year. So yes, I am delving deeper and deeper in that sick twisted mushy brain of mine, looking for better jokes and funnier associations...

Hopefully in front of you on stage, sooner or later!

...yet without the eggs...

2009-03-29T14:20:00.003+02:00

Given the time of the year, it's just a bit too early for a resurrection. But I am back. Alive - not just breathing, kicking, stumbling, scratching the head and grabbing every pen I can find along the way to write between the lines: literally back (and then again, not really - it is a pun after all).

While the time was mean (and it still is, luckily enough), some things changed: I broke up with some people and I started my decent job as an Academic Outlander (and found out how hard one of my faces likes to be in front of youngsters, trying to arouse some interest in what Newton and Leibniz left behind - well, as 'a scientific heritage' of course, not as in 'after the consumption of two cauliflowers and a bottle of laxative'). I (re)discovered some hobbies: making mixtapes (with a true partner in music and - now that we are putting things together - crime) and trying to be funny.

Yups, trying to be funny: I enrolled in a workshop on stand-up comedy, the only class were you are actually encouraged to laugh at your fellow students (orchestrated by the guy from no prime time to waste). Lately I therefore tend to find things funnier than ever - hey, 'pain in the ass' is meant as a joke, isn't it? - and I find myself more then often laughing at myself. We'll see where this path takes us, maybe over a few stages and fewer failures on them, probably along more dry puns than that spongy, weak collection of neurons and dendrites under the roof of your top can absorb in seven days.

What else?

Being a bit puzzled by the way things go sometimes, but putting some of the pieces together. Well, "a bit", let's make that enough bytes to encode the resulting picture in at least 765 languages - including Belhare, Kimatuumbi (learn to impress) and West Flemish. But despite these unexpected (but, let' be honest, highly appreciated) Twists of Fate - do you think the Fortune Lady also masters the tango; I know at least from experience that She knows how to mosh Herself through an average circle pit - I can't stop thinking that the Easterbunnies were too slow for me this year...

I owe you a chocolate.
Well, make that two: I had one already, this morning.

Kim and co

2008-08-19T21:43:00.004+02:00

Last week of july - after two busy weeks of writing course notes and a fairly sunny, loud Pukkelpop (as Hetfield said, "poekelpop") - I was at the 16th ICFIDCAA, the place to be for complex (and Clifford) analysts who don't mind sitting 10 hours on an airplane to attend a wide variety of lectures (from rather sloppy over mindnumbingly boring to amazingly interesting) in the soggy hot Asian climate. The 16th International Conference on Finite- and Infinitedimensional Complex Analysis and Applications - as Linda Lovelace would say "that is a mouthful" - my fourth edition after having visited Tokyo (2004), Hanoi (2005), Osaka (2007) and this year's location: Gyeongju. This beautiful city, the ancient capital of the Silla dynasty, lies on a one-hour busdrive from South-Korea's gateway to the Japanese Sea, the Port of Busan.

Despite the fact that Korea doesn't seem to have the touristic magnetization properties shared by destinations such as the Holy Backpacker Triangle (Vietnam - Laos - Cambodia), the Chinese Axis of Mass Tourism (Beijing - Xi'an - Shanghai), or the Spiritually Elevated (pun-intended) Hiker's Wet Dream (Tibet - Nepal), it should have its place on the itinerary of any self-respecting admirer of Asian culture in all its senses. I have to admit, at first sight it does feel a bit like being in Japan (which is a historically loaded insult in the category of "Poland feels a bit like Germany"), but a closer look reveals this country's own identity. What probably confused me is the high-tech decor in which the Korean society slides from today to tomorrow. Also the Hangeul, the Korean language, sounds a bit like Japanese at first (not tonal, and very often pronounced - especially by men - as if you could expect a mortal fight, any minute now)...

But after a while you start to understand that Koreans are more open than Japanese people, although they both offer friendliness to an extent which can only be expressed in units of lightcenturies, and easier to communicate with. Their food is also very different (with names like 'bibimbap', 'kimchi' and 'jeonbokjuk') - although not as spicy as our Lonely Planet warned us for - and their temples and overall landscapes are still a bit different from other parts of Asia. And this is of course what makes travelling so interesting: what once seemed like all the same to me, 'noodles' and 'temples', now clearly unravels each of its own faces.

It was also quite an honour to travel to Asia with my first PhD-student, hopefully in a long row (of both trips and students, for that matter). Seeing my (scientific) daughter give a good lecture was very satisfying; it also gave me the energy to go for the challenge I am facing now...

"I am confused...
No, wait!
I am not..."

Youth of Today

2008-07-19T12:36:00.003+02:00

Today is the first day of our Little Town's "National" Pride: the Gentse Feesten, ten days of (way too expensive) beer in plastic cups, lukewarm hamburgers and kebabs from the land of the Samurai - even for the vegetarian exceptions to the bloody red rule, free concerts on several stages scattered between our majestic Three Towers, drunk people roaming the streets - this time under the endorsing eye of Mijnheer de Flik (aka Mister da Cop) exhibiting a certain 'air de laisser-faire'; ten days of partying for ravers, hippies, rockers, stoners, clubbers, metalheads, folklads and alterno's, ten days of culture (both capitalized or in the tiny contract alphabet at the end of what often turn out to be the most important pages in your life), ten days of meeting people from all over your life - family, friends, more friends, ex-friends and friends in becoming, people you forgot, people you'll never forget, people you wanted to forget and people who forgot you - ten days of walking around in this Medieval Hub called Ghent, albeit a bit slower than during those 355 other days between two editions of the Gentse Feesten, having time to realize that Ghent is an amazing place to live. Gosh, I wish I could become a professor here! (evil grin)

Anyway, yesterday was the first (unofficial) night of the Gentse Feesten and we went to the Charlatan for a concert. And oh boy, we saw a brilliant show. For those of you who followed Humo's Rock Rally this year: Steak Number Eight, the winners of the 2008 edition. A band in the vein of Isis, Pelican and Mogwai on Speed: post-metal in the sweeter sense of the word, musical intensity embodied by four guys with an average age of 15 years. Not kidding, 15 years. That's the age of listening to Offspring and the Pixies, remember?

We stood in awe for these kids, silenced by the maturity of their music, simply moved by the intensity of their performance. I bought their CD a few days ago, and I am listening to it day in day out... Sometimes, people are complaining about the Youth of Today. Having heard this band, I am inclined to think that there is no need to mistrust the financial foundations of your future healthcare: the Youth has a good taste, and knows God damned well what they are doing.

I hope my son will play Isis at the age of 15, gosh...

Californipicture

2008-05-19T20:11:00.006+02:00

(Jollywood! - although almost invisible in the far distance...)

(Welcome to Vegas!)

(Find the Fruits...)

(Vanessa and me, having a nap in San Diego zoo)

( Palm Springs, looking out over the Mojave Desert...)

(... and standing in the Mojave Desert, in front of an old U2-album)

Roadtrippin'

2008-05-14T21:51:00.002+02:00

Our trip in the States, last week of March - first week of April, was simply awesome...

And, this reminds me of something I already asked myself several times: how much 'awe' do you really need to be good? I mean, where's the difference between 'awful' and 'awesome', and would the best thing be 'awless'?

Anyway, we've been in the Southern part of California (the State of Nuts and Fruits - sic - is huge, mind you) and I dare to add that we saw a fairly big deal of what there was to see (which is a lot!). Nope, we haven't been in Frisco (now that's a reason to come back one day, isn't it?), we haven't seen Death Valley and we haven't been in Yosemite. However, we did go to Los Angeles and San Diego (and we definitely preferred the latter, which has a more relaxed feel to it than the former - not to mention its fabulous zoo), we went from desert (Yoshua National Tree Park and the Mojave Desert - stretching out between CA and Nevada) over mountains (King's Canyon and Sequoia National Park, home of the biggest trees in the world) to some of the prettiest beaches in the world, and we went to one of the craziest places on Earth: LAS VEGAS! Not kidding, this neon-lit gambling paradise set in the middle of absolutely nowhere is at the same time one of the saddest and funniest places I have ever seen. The dichotomy between the fake, completely over-the-top buildings and luxury on the one hand, and the obviously addicted people playing their life away on a gang of one-armed thiefs, working 24/7/365... I did want to play a game of Texas Hold'em, but let's say that I wasn't prepared for a big blind of 250$. Minimum, mind you!

I will add some pictures later, I guess that will be easier than trying to describe the natural wonders we've seen and the marvels of this part of the States we've visited. It's a long flight to get there, but it is SO worth it...

Californication

2008-03-12T12:48:00.003+01:00

Within less than two weeks, on Easter Sunday in fact, we are finally leaving the last windy days of our mild European winter for a visit to my good friend Alberto - the gorgeous Italian mathematician with whom I've spent my year in Prague. And if that doesn't sound exciting enough: yes, the same guy is spending his life in Orange (California) nowadays! A trip to the sunny outskirts of the American Westcoast thus, and that is something we both need: Vanessa made a kind of promotion recently - unfortunately I cannot go into detail now - and I have been working like the complete cast of the 101 Dalmatians lately.

Nil nove sub sole, I started to accept that this is the nature of my animal, but it has quite a distinct reason this time: there's a full-time vancancy for 'Professor in Mathematical Analysis ' at Ghent University and I am trying to prove (pun-intended) myself worth. Well, that is to say, as long as the not-só-determined gloomy pessimist in me is not asking erhm... ourselves whether this is really what we want. Which is in some sense like doubting between a trip to New-Zealand or one to Patagonia: a serious issue of luxury. Since I also applied for yet another FWO-grant, which would give new opportunities to spend a year abroad, and since I still have a standing invitation to teach mathematics at another university, I am getting a bit confused here... It's not just windy outside, turmoil went cranial as well this time. Lol, "this time"...

Well, anyway, let's say we're hoping for a few relaxing nights in Sequoia National Park, for a lucky evening in Las Vegas and a gorgeous trip to Los Angeles: maybe that will lead to Zennnnn...

Gems of the Year

2007-12-21T15:50:00.000+01:00

I seriously doubt whether other drug addicts list their favourites of the year ("the new Northern Light was an absolute blast, but I liked what the Afghans did this year"), but that will not prevent me from giving you what I think were the best records I bought last year. Note that the following records were not necessarily released during one of the past twelve months, but at least they were added to my collection in 2007...

In alphabetical order, because ordering them according to their impact on the inhabitants of planet Zork would be the equivalent of asking an anorexic patient to enjoy the Choice of the Chef at "Hof van Cleve":

Beirut (The flying club)

Burial (Untrue)

Cinematic Orchestra (Ma Fleur)

Disrupt (Foundation Bit)

Ignite (Our darkest days)

Red Sparowes (Every red heart shines towards the sun)

Russian Circles (Enter)

Thurston Moore (Trees outside the academy)

V/A: Warrior Dubz

Venetian Snares (My downfall)

The subgenre of the year, for me, was without a doubt dubstep. Wobby basses and skanky accents, a perfect soundtrack for the after-hours... And the tracks of the year were Burial's "Archangel" and Thurston Moore's "Wonderful witches + Language meanies". Amen.

Moshimoshi part I

2007-08-26T09:35:00.000+02:00

It must have been three years ago. I was barely 25, on my way to Tokyo for a conference on complex analysis (the 12th ICFIDCAA) and – most importantly - I had never been to Asia before. In fact, I was still arrogant enough to think that the Asian continent was an underdeveloped string of smelly, dirty beads where cheap clothes, Nike shoes and lousy toys were being made by underpaid children in a damp factory...

Oh boy, was I wrong? We're three years later now, and - having seen (nothing but) a tiny glimpse of the beauty in Japan, China, Vietnam, Tibet and India - I just love Asia: its food (nothing beats Asian cuisine but different Asian cuisine - please don't make me choose between Japanese tempura with soba noodles, an Indian curry with alloo paratha or Chinese yuxiang qiezi and a sesame rice ball), its odours (the full range, from the foul stench swirling up from the streets to the delicious perfumes turning a visit to the local market into an olfactory feast) and colours (I wish their combinations wouldn't be prohibited by the Western Fashion Police), its astounding cultural heritage (the language, the temples and pagoda's, their philosophy and the way it is reflected in their collective way of thinking or behaving), its nature and landscapes, its mountain ranges (the Himalaya is still one of the most mysterious, deeply inspiring and eery places I have ever been), its diversity, etc...

Last summer, I went to Japan for the second time – together with Vanessa this time: back to the place where my attitude towards Asia changed in a blink of a somewhat narrowed eye... We started our trip in Tokyo again, both with our own distinguished mission: I met my colleague Prof. Yoshino from the Masushi Institute of Technology, where I also gave a lecture, and Vanessa met her friend Tomomi (after 10 years of sparse email contact) with whom she spent a year in China when she was studying there. I had been in Tokyo before, so I more or less knew what to expect (Tsujiki Fish Market: the richness of the Big Blue on display in a giant hall, Yoyogi Koen: gathering place for the Gothic Youth in Japan and of course the Neon Cities in Shibuya and Shinjuku), but our accomodation turned out to be the biggest surprise: for the first time in our lives, and probably not the last time, we used the Hospitality Club to be hosted. In a nutshell: you register online, and you let the world know that you have a couch/mattress/bed to offer. For free. We had a Dutch guest during the Gentse Feesten ourselves, and in Tokyo we kindly accepted the hospitality of Masa and Kay. He was a professor in biology, she used to be his secretary, and together they were a lovely old(!) couple offering us their spare bedroom, their modern – and yet typically Japanese – toilet (equipped with a remote control that could easily beat the one that you use to switch between the various sources of crap on your television: there are several types of automatic flushes wiping your buttocks, there's a switch to manage the temperature of the toilet seat and sometimes there's even a switch to adjust the volume and/or type of sound when the toilet flushes itself) and an excellent nabe (a kind of soup with shiitake, Japanese pumpkin and ramen noodles). Despite the evening clock (back at 10pm) and the early bird regime (breakfast at 7am), we really enjoyed staying at their place: the conversations we had with our hosts gave us a unique insight in the daily life of Japanese people, another advantage in comparison with the clinical treatment in the local version of the Holiday Inn... Luckily enough, we had brought a few calendars from Ghent – so that we could show the people we met along the way how home looks like – and we were more than happy to leave them a calendar.

Another highlight was my encounter with Japan's Culinary Daredevil Dish. The pufferfish or blowfish (make your own orally frustrated joke) aka fugu (note that the 'f' is barely pronounced in Japanese, it sound a bit like a shy 'v' whistled between your teeth): the kind of fish that has to be prepared by trained cooks, in order to avoid (lethal) poisoning. I would never go to a fugu restaurant myself, but I was lured into one of these (very expensive) places by my colleagues. The meal itself is surprisingly delicious, at least for those with an adventurous palate... Some of the food was raw (strings of raw skin in a mild soy sauce and a few slices of sashimi), some of it was cooked (the cooked pieces of bone were added to a heated cup of sake for a rather fishy cocktail, while the rest of the fish was added to a bowl with boiling water and vegetables to make yet another variation of the nabe described earlier), but it all turned out to be harmless. And delicious, although the taste was less distinct than other types of sushi and sashimi...

Next post, Kyoto!

Give up the ghost

2007-06-29T08:52:00.000+02:00

Joining me today for our weekly session 'Shoot the ghosts', may I introduce you to David Eelbode (28, Belgian) : a former cogwheel of the Geometrical Bulldozer in Prague, paving scientific ways since 1348.

David, are you ready to leave Prague?

Yes and no... In some sense, I do feel like finally going home but this desire is slightly overruled by the idea that I don't know where 'home' is, at this point. A good friend of mine, whom I've met while travelling through Kyrgyzstan, used to say that "home is where you spend the night". Lately I am not really 'spending' the nights though; I am rather floundering through a restless darkness seperating dusk from dawn. And I don't know whether that will change soon.

Why is that, are you afraid for something? Or are you just having the jitters?

Well, yes, I guess 'fear' is a key word. I am a bit afraid to return to Ghent and jump back into that pool of mediocrity, especially after spending a year in a sparkling environment like Prague. Don't get me wrong though : I do love the place where I was born and bred, and I am looking forward to meeting the people that thaught me the true meaning behind the verb 'to miss someone'. However, I cannot but think that this step forward in time will be a step backward as well. Also - although this may sound a bit ironic from someone who had to draw a social circle from scratch : I am a bit frightened to be overwhelmed by people I know. And love. There is a fundamental difference between new friends with whom you shared not just time but mostly similar wavelengths - and that on a very short timescale, and the people that have grown up with you and carry a part of your own history. The transition between these equally valuable sets of people will probably take some time and effort, which - I have to admit - I tend to confuse with an uproar of Fear's ugly head. I had ten whole months to do whatever I felt like, I had a chance to let the Sinatra deep inside of me tune my year and that induced a state of mind which came closer to the notion of 'freedom' than the sweetest and most positive dreams in Guantanamo's cells will ever do. Frankly, I am not ready yet to give up this ghost...

Interesting thoughts, albeit a bit gloomy. Is there something else you will miss from Prague, besides this sense of freedom?

My roommate. He was the embodiment of the wise words that my girlfriend once confided me : 'you meet the right people at the right time'. And, his ambition has no boundaries - even literally : he was the person about whom the woman in Iceland, who read my future in a cup of coffee, was talking...

Anything else? Culinary discoveries? Favourite venues? Czech peculiarities?

Culinary discoveries? I went to Czech Republic, remember? Not really, although there were enough restaurants offering international cuisine to ease the pain of not finding a decent jar of seitan. Even Afghan restaurants, how about that? Favourite venues, well yeah... The thing I noticed here is that concerts start early and end on time. That is nice, because it enables you to go home rather early and go to work the day afterwards in a state which is not bordering Zombie Land, even if you still need to catch a train. And since I lived in a capital, I saw a lot of bands just around the corner for which I would have to go to Brussels at home. Czech peculiarities? Hmmm, that's a tough one. I will miss the way dogs are treated here : the Czech Republic must be the friendliest place for dogs I have ever been to. Packs of domesticated dogs roam around the parks and streets as if they were a bunch of friends hanging out together, and so do their owners in the pivnice, and I can barely remember a single dog being aggressive or barking at the other dogs - as if they all realize they are granted a kind of freedom other dogs are not. Speaking of these parks, I will surely miss the green spots in Prague : the parks they have here are simply huge, and can by no means be compared with the lousy stretches of grass in Ghent. They are lively gathering places for all the good things life here has to offer, including a nice Staropramen...

There is probably a bright light waiting for you at the end of the ride, isn't it?

Oh yes, I am moving in with my girlfriend and that will hopefully be the seed from which the continuity we are both craving for, will finally sprout. I will probably treat myself with an Apple MacBook - Nathaniel, Rest in Peace - and then finally tweak the knobs and abuse the hard- and software in my music studio again. Also, there is a Chinese student from Wuhan Daxue coming to Ghent for a year, and I was asked to be his tutor in preparation of a PhD. That sounds like an excellent opportunity to practice my Chinese intensively, and a perfect way to share my newly acquired knowledge with a motivated youngster.

Do you have travel plans for this summer too?

More or less : my girlfriend and I are going to Japan this summer : I am meeting a colleague in Tokyo, whom I've met three years ago during a conference there, we will be absorbing a bit of Japanese history and lots of soba noodles in Kyoto and I - or should I say we - will attend a conference in Osaka during the first week of August. Apart from that, we will probably have a proper week of holiday during the last week of August. We were thinking sun, sea, good food, tasty wine, tanned bodies, too many Germans, enthousiastic children running across the beach and creating a cloud of sand neatly landing on our freshly oiled backs, overpriced cappucino's keeping us up all night - competing with the loud beats from the flashy discotheque around the corner where drunk british lads are yelling themselves through yet another night of binging and annoying locals - or not - harassing us with an uninspired collection of incredibly ugly handcrafted souvenirs.

Dear David, thank you for your time, I wish you good luck back in Belgium and the strength to make the step forward!

And to our listeners, this young piece of energy has a blog on which he tries to describe his adventures. Don't give up that ghost!

Watch out for the bunnies!

2007-06-26T12:35:00.001+02:00

Birthday BBQ : a burning beacon.

Beer, booze and beverage,

bacchanal business.

Barbate and barefoot,

but badly balanced :

bathing, being bedraggled,

bubbling bait in the basin...

A bevy of bargames with befriended bunnies,

battle in the backyard!

Bless this blunder of boredom.

Boy and beauty beginning a bond,

but not becoming bride-to-be...

Beloved,

Belgian bye-bye,

baise-mains...

Been beautiful,

and basta?

Be back!

And Bert left the concert...

2007-06-25T10:15:00.000+02:00

Last Friday, I ended my concert season here in Prague. I went to an incredible show, marking the end of my Musical adventures with a worthy period - well, more like an exclamation point...

Boris - the band, not the former Russian president nor the owner of the rehearsal rooms in Wondelgem where Illyrian practiced their sonic assaults that would launch them into the blackish history of Belgian Metalcore (Humo's Rock Rally, anyone?) - was sheer Japanese craziness. Originating from a country where raw fish with wasabi (Tierenteyn, eat your heart out), venomous fugu, sumo-wrestlers and manga comics containing enough violence to make Tarantino's movies look like the type of romantic comedies Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks would sign for, this was of course to be somehow expected. And yet; the wall of noise these three tiny people erected made the one in China look like the bar along which Hobbits line up when Gandalf announces anouther free round of Frodo-beer. And if not visible from outer space, then at least audible! At some point I was convinced that even deaf people would have been able to make something out of it. Well, that is to say, if there actually was something to recognize : this band blends plain heavy metal-riffs, slow sludge, an authentic gong the size of a table for ten in a teriyaki restaurant and lots of feedback into a relentlessly reverbing, ruthlessly roaring drone, reducing Sonic Youth's experiments to a rehearsal of the Wiener Sangerknaben. Utterly insane, highly entertaining, balancing on the unexpectedly fine line between funny and painful. 'Another box ticked', that's what the zoologist in me was thinking - after all, "man is a classifying animal".

Isis was... was... intense. In terms of chocolate : the intensity you get when Magnum, Brownie and Chocomousse combine their charms. Four (!) guitarists, torturing their strings as if it was the only way to prevent the fourth planet from the sun to go down into oblivion - reducing it to a footnote in "Stardust II : Creative with Elements", a highly concentrated drummer hitting his tools as if he was Cassius Clay during his famous fight in Zaire (the Rumble in the Jungle) - beating the shit out of his opponent, and one angry leadsinger, screaming into the mic as if he was trying to define the term 'emotional grunt'. It left me behind in awe and admiration, again, giving me enough goose bumps to help Old MacDonald's farm through Disney's Legacy in an Icelandic drive-in cinema. Describing their music is a bit like reciting pi's decimal expansion - no matter how hard you try, it will always be an approximation - but the hospital in Neologism Street has a busy maternity department : 'post-metal' is the name of this sibbling. Having passed the Rock Academy Graduate Years (hence mastering, pun-intended, elementary topics in Metal and Hardcore) and understanding at least the basics of post-rock, chewing yourself through this Masters Course ("I'd go for three layers here", which is precisely what I answered the monk at Rongbuk Monastery when he asked me how many blankets I would fancy to get myself through the night at the highest place I have been so far, taking my trip - no comments - to Mrs. E's Mansion into account) should be relatively easy... Already one of my favourite bands ever, a massive recommendation!

At this point I would like to erhm... point (there goes my belief that my vocabulary reaches further than the consequences for your sobriety when throwing three bottles of vodka and some Red Cattle into a mix Jeff Mills and Carl Cox could be jealous of) out that some people started to

a) wonder whether I did something else in Prague than attending concerts, and

b) ask themselves whether my blog is not just a page of Reviews in Disguise.

Yes and no, the thing is that Music simply rocks my vessel - still desperately scanning the Seven Seas for anything that vaguely resembles the Promised Lands. If life really is a box of chocolates, Music is that pinkish sugary strawberry-shaped ball of marzipan. Lately, in the aftermath (my visit to the Punica Oasis clearly inspired me) of my stay in Prague, I again started to bend some exclamation points into their more elegant, curved family members. "Why?", "What?", "When?" and even the occasional "Who?"... The future is a deck of cards - I can perfectly live with that, but every once in a while I ask myself whether I shouldn't just fold, replenish my hand and go all in on the next bet. Anyway, I am drifting : I just wanted to write that no matter how gloomy my mood, Music allways soothes the growing pains.

No matter how lucky I feel planting my US10-UK9-EU43 all over the earth, Music allways succeeds in spicing it up just perfectly.

No matter what or how, Music is and does.

And this is the simple reason why I keep exploring the vast expanse of Her Universe, with the enthousiasm of NASA's newest piece of advanced technology : it is nothing but a continuous celebration of our harmonic bond. Some would call it an addiction - and if you'd see the piles of records popping up in our house, as if it were clouds of mushrooms invading a moist cold cellar, you would probably agree - but I refuse to go into therapy. Unless, of course, it's guided by Andy Cairns.

Because it is not an addiction, it is a Passion.

A special topic

2007-06-19T09:57:00.000+02:00

Some parents probably feed their literately starving children some well-written cult-classics in a feeble attempt to chase King Television out of their territory. I actually started watching more television this week (German MTV, which - to my great surprise - has nothing to do with music anymore : nowadays the 'M' stands for 'mind-numbing', 'moronic' and 'massively entertaining if you are looking for a program with the intellectual content of a battered piece of cauliflower' - which, by the way, is by no means an insult nor a judgement : nothing can be more soothing for my overheated brain than a perfectly prepared, prepackaged and preferably prechewed portion of pulp) in order not to take the 'unputdownable' description for the book I am reading now too seriously. Reading a book can be like getting to know someone : it all starts with spending some time together (having a good laugh in the park while sharing your favourite soda, listening to the story of each other's life and being grateful for the fact that your Paths of Life were getting sick of that straightforward parallelism, fine-tuning the bladder-management and going to the toilet together) but before you know you are asking yourself what you would do and be without the other - which is briefly summarized the main line of thought behind Eng Bunker's frequent philosophical ponderings...

Ladies and Gentlemen, let me introduce you to a good friend of mine : Marisha Pessl's 'Special topics in calamity physics' (ofte 'Calamiteitenleer voor gevorderen'). If Newton, Maxwell and Einstein are still starring your reoccurring nightmares : don't worry, this novel has as much to do with Nature's Legislation as Marilyn Manson with Disney's latest production...

Although this book is sold as a crime story - it is centred around a murder, I found myself more than often laughing out loud because of the hilarious metaphors, the brilliant characterizations (you just have to love Blue Van Meer, imagine what Lisa Simpson would have become if Homer were an intellectual professor teaching political sciences at some of the most prestigious American universities) and the witty use of lengthy annotations and disgressions - I sometimes felt a bit like the unfortunate bookworm who got caught between one of the victims of the Big Flood in Prague when it made its way through the Library at Karlin : drowning between the units of our alphabet... Anyways, I would highly recommend this book : summer's (for the lucky ones Down Under : winter, for the confused ones not really knowing how to interpret our Ecosystem's latest moves : choose the season of the moment) on its way, time to grab a read!

Bert from the Concert Part III

2007-06-18T10:01:00.000+02:00

I have to admit : I did not really know what to expect from my stay in Prague, musicwise, when I left the confined borders of my sparkling concert- and bubbling nightlife in Ghent, seasoned with the occasional festival somewhere in the diminutive equivalent of Flemish Nowhere or the well-planned trip to our own Capital... In view of the simple fact that wild expectations and sheer disappointment are directly proportional to each other, my little Czech adventure turned out to be the 'Green Card'-type of surprise : very unlikely but highly appreciated. I have seen some amazing bands this year, both famous ones as (formerly) unknown ones, I have discovered quite a few musical gems that will be added to my ever-growing record-collection and the list of sub-subgenres which can hold my attention just a bit longer than the average anesthetizing synonym for a scientific lecture, did like my hair : it got a bit longer, and started to curl at the corners.

One of these newly appreciated genres is Klezmer. I started listening to this style of music almost a year ago and I am quite keen on my monthly portion of weeping clarinets, whining violins and wailing accordions. This is most likely due to the delicate piece of melancholy which lives inside of me, the elusive combination of sadness and sorrow - characterized by a subtle fragrance of 'Weltschmerz', acting as the black yin dot in the white yang part of my own personal dichotomy : when listening to Yiddish music, these sometimes underrated emotions get their chance to roam around my brain - like my roommate and I through the kitchen before watching a new 'Six Feet Under'-episode, looking for anything that even remotely resembles a piece of decent cheese...

And so I went to the Cracow Klezmer Band last week, in what must have been one of the most beautiful religiously inspired places I have seen so far (although absolutely nothing beats the Jokhang in Lhasa and Durbar Square in Kathmandu) : the Spanish Synagogue in Prague.

The concert was rather advanced in my opinion, sometimes crossing the boarders with jazz and avant-gardism (i.e. sounding as if their capricious children, always in for some kosher comedy, had been shuffling their study scores). And although I liked the band, I couldn't stand the accordionist : he was the kind of artist that probably started his early career as a fruit picker on Mime Square, collecting the ripened prunes from his imaginary tree and obviously preferring to eat them instead of just throwing them away because his agonized facial expressions clearly indicated a chronicle diarrhea... Or he was sitting on a fully-grown member of the Cactaceae Family, probably the rebelling spiky 16-year old son going through his 'Punk's not dead'-period.

Was this the end of my musical explorations in Prague? Well, not quite yet : next Friday I will expose myself to the brutal noise and sonic sludge of the Japanese band Boris (ever heard of the drone metal-tag?), touring with the LA-based band Isis. Crossing more boundaries than a globe-trotter, it is probably easier to contribute to Goldbach's conjecture than to pigeonhole this band. Sounds like my cup of tea : the Great Blend...

Bert from the Concert Part II

2007-06-13T09:43:00.000+02:00

We all have our own qualifications to play in Darth Vader's Team, don't we? Some people pour ketchup on their perfectly prepared spaghetti Bolognese (and people, if you are sinner : do it at least the proper way...), some people leave a Japanese restaurant and a full plate of sushi without asking for Man's Best Friend's own Gucci (and this is the origin of a funny story that happened to me when my friend Nick was here - don't hesitate to ask). Some people still claim electronic music could be made by monkeys (so does Chris Cunningham, see here or check the You Tube archives), others vote for right-wing parties.

One of the sides on my Dark Polygon? I happen to like Linkin Park. I know, I am twice as old as their average fan (although I saw enough mums and dads, taking their own Mucus Monkey - and I am pleased with this improvised translation for the guy on the tram behaving like one of my tightest features - to their son's favourite band), but technically speaking the child in me still needs to grow out of its puberty so that makes the shame at least bearable. When I had the age it was still ok, and perfectly normal, to think the whole f***ing world misunderstood me (I am now at the age where I am sure about this), you either listened to 'the Cure', 'the Sisters of Mercy', 'the Pixies', 'Pearl Jam' and 'Nirvana' or you learned how to count simply buying Cherry Moon Compilation CD's; nowadays, you have to decide on which of the 7 gazillion sub-sub-subgenres you are going to spend your hard-earned pocket money. So yes, I do have some sympathy for the Youth of Today (hardcore-pun intended, the SxE-vegan in me is a bit underfed but not dead - Sarah, dear, rofl?) : bands like LP make it a bit easier on them. Blending two or three genres into a blurry mixture, writing simple (read : plain stupid) lyrics in which one easily recognizes all the agonies of being just not old enough to buy your own Sylvia Saint DVD, and creating a musical hybrid on which you can both wiggle, jump and type a text message. The latter being a major advantage, as I have noticed yesterday : at some point I felt like a complete freak because I was actually watching the stage, and not the illuminated screen of my mobile. Which reminds me, do you remember the time the band asked you to hold up a lighter? When things got cosy, lyrics got a bit (too) mellifluous and you could finally risk your move on your Date of the Day? Welcome to the Future people, nowadays bands actually ask you to hold up the phone?! Imagine how easy life would be in Cartoon World... ("Hey dude, what happened to your pictures?" - "Yeah well, I know, I just had this brilliant idea in the darkroom")

Anyway, second stop along the Concert Express Track : Linkin Park in Sazka Arena. The same place I attended the Sensation White Party, albeit a bit darker this time. For some strange reason your favourite band's name looks better on black, isn't it? It wasn't as refined as the other concerts I usually attend (somebody seeing the Chandler reference in here?), and that is an understatement with which I am planning to crush my opponents at the Annual Understatement Games in the United Understates of America, but it was definitely a nice investment in Puberal Entertainment. Playstation, eat your heart out!

All aboard the Concert Express, we're on the road again!
Final destination : Cracow Klezmer Band.

Bert from the concert, Part I

2007-06-10T23:23:00.000+02:00

I bought a ticket for the Concert Express this week. First stop : 65daysofstatic, in Palac Akropolis. I just come back from their concert, and it was utterly amazing... AND LOUD. Four musicians from Sheffield (UK) - a frantic drummer, two energetic guitarists (one of which was also handling the samplers, synthesizers and all the other toys involving midi : my fetish-muscle reared its ugly head) and a tall, silent bass player : that is all you need to create a wall of sound that could host three nations getting rid of all their grief, sadness, joy and all emotions inbetween. Yes, as the baffled astronomer behind the spectrometer would say : "from red to violet" : listening to their music, I went from tears welling up to feeling like I could handle the Universe and Beyond. This band plays a mixture of idm, post-rock, drum'n'bass and shoegazer (believe it or not : some people put the label 'mathrock' on this box) : it sounds as far-fetched as a vegeterian having its birthday party in an Argentinian Steak House, but it is actually true. And they left a massive impression on me; Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles and Mister Louis 'Goosebumps' Braille itself could read the emotions on my arm... If Pandora's Box was a music box, it contained this band's soundtrack. IMHO.

I had to think a lot about Laurent tonight : it was essentially my brother who introduced me to this band (he saw them supporting Mogwai in Brussels). For that (and - Nick, I know you are out there - a googolplex other reasons) : I love him. Also, the midi-guy (from the picture) dedicated one of the songs to his brother (who was doing the commercial stand, and handed me a copy of one of their CD's). It made me think of the days Illyrian was spreading its filthy metalcore across our Little Triangle. After the concert, I went to the guy and said : 'you are the brother of the guy on stage, right? You should be proud of him...'

I am still proud of mine. Both of them...

Sensation white

2007-06-04T18:50:00.000+02:00

Anyone familiar with this? According to the flyers "The world's leading dance event", and despite all the hyperbolas : it was a freakingly amazing party. The concept is simple : book a huge location (genre Flanders Expo in Ghent), invite 6 famous DJ's (for those who like to shake their ass, I suggest checking David Guetta out : mixing the Prodigy and the Red Hot Chili Peppers into something danceable, massive respect from the Dewaele's masterclass) and let 20.000 people show up. In white. Completely in white (H&M must have had a deal with the people behind this concept), except for maybe the shoes...

Speaking of which - these people, not the store nor the shoes : one of my (Belgian) friends here in Prague knows the organizers of the Belgian edition of 'Sensation White'. And that was our (free) gateway to the VIP-lounge, where we got free food (massive buffet) and free drinks. It was a long night, or a short day after (don't know how you prefer the contents of your glass), and the new pants were not that white anymore (where are the Proctors and Gamblers if you need them), but it was worth every minute.

Thanks Tom, Darren and Ilse ;)

Bugged.

2007-05-28T08:43:00.000+02:00

Een lege pagina staarde hem aan.
Hij observeerde zichzelf
in een rimpelloze bladspiegel...

Een ondoorgrondbare droefheid
keek diep in zijn waterige ogen.

Met een welgemikte worp
keilde hij
de reflectie aan diggelen.

Het gevoel ebde
weg
en de steen werd de eenzame getuige
van een verzonken gedachte.

De rimpelloze bladspiegel
lachte hem dankbaar toe,
een beschreven pagina werd omgeslagen.

(Uhelny, 21/05)

Europe. Their greatest hits.

2007-05-21T10:36:00.001+02:00

Sorry guys, the English translation will follow a bit later. "Translating" poetry is not easy... Picture was taken in Vinohrady Park, where I shared this beautiful moment with Alberto, Clare and Nick (who visited me for the weekend, and I will write about that later).

Een moment

een paar minuten.

Drie vrienden

samen vieren.

Vijf klikjes later

slechts zes weken te gaan...

Zeven dagen op zeven

vol verwachting.

Een jaar vol genegenheid,

en een verrijkte blik.

Ik hou van mijn telraam...

My favourite colour [updated]

2007-05-12T11:09:00.000+02:00

Red Sparowes (Neurot Records)

According to the people from the Boxes Factory : 'post-rock' or 'shoegazer'.

Red Sparowes is epic without bombast and heavy without a single bar-chord riff. Its attack is syrupy and serpentine; subtle but frighteningly deliberate (taken from their website).

Yesterday, Clare and I went to their concert here in Prague (Palac Akropolis). Supported by the Czech answer to the question 'is there Czech metalcore', Thema Eleven, which was -according to me - not the best choice in view of what followed... But who cares, Red Sparowes were amazing. I guess not too many people reading my blog are into Grails, Silver Mt. Zion, Pelican, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Isis and the likes, but give this band a try if you'd like to discover the Realms of Post-rock. Their music is an intense, thick-layered instrumental assault to your senses. From quiet to loud and back to quiet in long-stretched songs, never clocking off under 6 minutes, leaving you with all the colours of the rainbow.

Including Red.

May 30 in Brugge, Cactus Club. I'm not there, how about you?

Woow, had to share this... Just read where this band got the concept behind their album. History, you've got to love it.

May 23, 1958: Mao Tse Tung initiates the “Great Leap Forward,” his second five-year plan for the People's Republic of China. In addition to imposing impossibly high quotas on mainland farmers (to produce both grain in their fields and shoddy steel in their backyard furnaces) the Chairman insists that the country’s “four greatest evils”—rats, mosquitoes, flies and sparrows—must be exterminated in order to maximize production. Villagers are instructed to scream and bang pots and pans to keep the sparrows in flight until the birds die of exhaustion. Soon, the sparrow population is drastically reduced, leaving no natural predator for the country’s locusts—which proceed to decimate China’s crops. The result is possibly the worst famine in human history. Between 1958 and 1961, as many as 43 million Chinese die of starvation. Meanwhile, local government authorities falsify agricultural reports in order to avoid Mao’s often senseless wrath. Soldiers are dispatched to villages to find grain that the peasants are accused of hiding. Thousands of villagers are tortured and murdered in the search for grain stores that never existed. When they run out of bark and grass to eat, peasants in some provinces resort to cannibalism.

Warsaw = War Show?

2007-05-10T20:59:00.000+02:00

Two weeks ago, I went to Warsaw for a weekend. I left on a Sunday evening, taking the Eurolines bus that brought me to Poland's capital, under miserable circumstances - I have to admit... It started quite nice though : I had unexpected visitors from Belgium (my brother's friend Bio, his girlfriend Karen and his brother Mich were in Prague for the weekend) during one of the sunniest weeks ever. It was very warm here, over 30 degrees, and strolling from park to park and terrace to terrace was the only thing one could do. And we did.

The following piece of advice is thus based on empirical proof : it is not a good idea to go from Czech beer over Bohemia sekt to absinth. Oh yes, absinth, the liquid that is said to be the driving force behind some of the most well-known impressionistic pieces of art. The liquid which doesn't mix that well with sitting on the bus for 11 hours...

But hey, I arrived in Warsaw that morning. Still a bit sick, but ready for three days in the company of my friend Dorota - whom I've met in Prague last year - and her brother Marek, at who's apartment we were staying. Dorota gave me a superb guided tour in Warsaw, which is one of the weirdest places I have ever been... On the one hand, this city is a bit depressing and grey. On the other hand, it is blossoming and growing. On the one hand, the city breathes history. On the other hand, everything is new and modern. Young and old, sad and happy. Huge (communist) buildings, oodles of skycrapers and wide streets connecting widely separated quarters : sometimes it reminded me a bit of what I have seen in Beijing last year. In fact, when taking ths picture on the right, I felt like walking on Tian An Men square...

I don't know how well you all remember basic classes in modern history - WWII anyone? - but Warsaw is definitely a place to go to when your mind needs to be a bit refreshed... The whole city was destroyed by the Germans in 1944, which is why all what you see is new or under construction, but there are still many signs reminding the world of the horrors that took place in this city. And the rest of the country... Top of the bill being the 'Museum of the Warsaw Uprising', without a doubt one of the best musea I have ever been to : entertaining, interesting, original and leaving me with something to digest. Which is more or less what the whole trip to Poland invoked : the feeling that I had to digest something...

The point is that I had never been to Eastern Europe before moving to Prague. And although spending a year in the Czech Republic sounded pretty Eastern European to me, I know realize that the frustration of native Czech people when they throw a 'this is Central Europe, not Eastern Europe' at you, does make sense. Prague is so 'Westernized', and - above all - beautiful. To quote Marek, whom according to Dorota sounds like a typical Polish man : yeah, the Czechs... They may have a beautiful city, but they surrendered.

For me, it is hard to grasp : nationalism and pride intertwined with patriotism. When I hear Polish people, when I see how these people are attached to their country, their history and their pope (JPII is still in these people's mind and soul), I realize that 'being Belgian' doesn't mean a brown stinky thing to me. Hell yeah, that's an exaggeration :)

But I feel like erhm... myself. And that's it...

What else? Well, communism... I have witnessed the First of May-celebrations in Warsaw, and it simply left me baffled and in awe. Young people and old people, still united under the red flag, shouting "capitalism is cannibalism" and marching through the fanciest street of the city : it had a sad and yet an ironic flavour to it. Don't get me wrong, the socialist point of view is definitely something I can relate to, to some extent, but this was simply archaic and unrealistic. To someone who grew up in Belgium at least... And then again, it is an undeniable part of this country's history and it was yet another chapter in an interesting history class. Next time however, I'd go for the beauty of Krakow...

Cut the crap...

2007-05-10T18:03:00.000+02:00

David Eelbode

(Belgian mathematician)

Anthony Kiedis

(frontman of RHCP, male sex symbol)

In Memoriam II

2007-05-07T09:53:00.000+02:00

Nathaniel (2003 - 2007)

Laptop got stolen yesterday.

Bugger.

I am somewhere halfway between shrugging the shoulders and weeping for the loss of yet another good friend...

If communication (mail - skype - blog) goes slower, you know why...

david

Mixed... (pun-intended)

2007-05-06T09:52:00.000+02:00

It's just a dog, that must have been my main thought yesterday...
And then again, Benji was not just a dog : he was our dog.
And he passed away.

What bothers me a bit is that I did not have the chance to say goodbye to him, I can barely remember the last time I've seen Benji. And so I felt a bit weird yesterday : sad on the one hand, trying to enjoy my day on the other hand. And although finding joy was - theoretically speaking - not really that much of a problem, since there was a huge open air party (more or less a fstival) here in the Letna Park in Prague (should at least ring a bell for some of you), it feels very ambiguous to go out and dance when part of your heart is struggling with the loss of a good friend.

And then again, attending the party felt super. To situate the things a bit : "Million Marihuana March 2007" was the name of the game, and the name says it all (http://www.globalmarijuanamarch.org/). I don't precisely know how many people, estimating crowds is not listed amongst my talents, but we were with a lot... We all gathered at the Old Town Square around 1pm, and from there the whole crowd (people carrying flags and posters, shouting for legalization) marched through Parizska (without blowing it out of proportions : the fanciest street in Prague, home of the Luis Vuitton - Cartier - Dolce e Gabbana) up into the Letna Park. Don't get me wrong, I was not actively supporting the cause, but I did have a point to make : I know lots of people smoking weed - from regularly to very occasionally - and these people lead normal lives. And as opposed to drunk people, who tend to get agressive (British stag parties, I rest my case), they are easy to go out with. So for me, walking through Parizska, while fancy upper class fashion-addicts were taking pictures of 'those people in red, yellow and green', was a message to all those who still think that people smoking weed are addicts, criminals and low-life... And it was ironic of course, and unique : I have never seen so many policemen and stoned people together, in perfect harmony :)

Around 2pm, the whole crowd then gathered up in Letna Park - just next to the arena where Sparta Praha is playing its games - for an open air, free festival until 10pm. More or less 6 "stages" : two big stages (worth that name) with Czech hardcore and punk (oi-oi-oi), and ska and hiphop. And then a whole string of soundsystems with goa, techno, drum'n'bass and rock music. Quite primitive if you think about it : dj's spinning the wheels in a van, under an awning, and people dancing right in front of the speakers in order not to get lost in the cacophonous mixture of beats and pieces coming from all around the park. But it was the best possible way to forget the sadness for a moment : velky pivo and pounding goa in broad day light open air Prague, jugglers, people kicking the hacky sack, dogs running and erhm... screwing around (welcome to the Czech Republic : must be the friendliest place for dogs I have ever been) and happy faces all around you : what else does a man need?

[added later that week : a new laptop]

In Memoriam

2007-05-06T09:45:00.000+02:00

Benji Eelbode (1994 -2007)

Vegetables are good for you...

2007-05-04T10:33:00.000+02:00

Prague Fringe Festival, anyone? Early June, there is this annual festival here in Prague, offering music nights, theatre plays and comedy performances. And, those of you who read the earlier posts should know them by now, another reading by the Ancient Geeks (btw, dad : we are going to see them together when you come over).

There is a competition going on in Prague as well, called "Find the Aubergine". For 5 weeks in a row, until the start of the festival, the organizers of the Fringe post a riddle on a website describing the secret hiding place of an aubergine. Yes, an aubergine, the best friend of M. Oussaka and Baba Ganoush... The one who finds the aubergine gets 10 free tickets for the festival. And yes, you saw that coming - didn't you : I have found the first aubergine :)

Those vegetarians, always excited when vegetables are involved...

Children are the future...

2007-04-22T21:10:00.000+02:00

... of poetry.

Let me introduce you to Clare Wigfall, one of my friends here in Prague, a British writer whose first book The Loudest Sound and Nothing will be published later this year (Faber and Faber, August 2007). I met her during a yogaclass, and as she was looking for people helping her out with the 'Little Clown Project' she has here in Prague (see http://www.littleclown.com/), I introduced myself and volunteered for the project. This basically means that I was willing to join her in entertaining birthday parties for children, which seemed to be a nice way to get rid of the remaining "boyscout leader"-feelings deep inside of me. Unfortunately the travelling back and forth often prevented me from joining her - somehow there was always coming something inbetween - until very recently : I went to an Egyptian birthday party with her, expats come from everywhere you see, and I had a wonderful afternoon playing games with all these French-speaking wonders of life.

Apart from that, Clare also organizes creative workshops for children who want to write poetry and novels : they share techniques, stories, emotions and a whole lot of laughter. The Ancient Geeks (sic) and The Junior Shakespeares are the names of the flocks of young artists she has under her wings, and tonight Alberto and I went to a public reading by these little boys and girls.

What a performance! Funny, literate, deep, moving, hilarious and entertaining at the same time. Children are great : seeing these young people read their own writings out loud on stage, as if they were professional poets, deeply inspired me. And yes, that sounds as cheesy as a piece of camembert in a romantic comedy, but I cannot formulate it in another way.

If children are the future - one more cliché and I'll stop - it looks bright.

Or at least poetic.
Big up for Clare, I would say...

Metropoles : from north to south...

2007-04-17T22:49:00.000+02:00

One of the main advantages of living in a metropole is its erhm... metropolitan character. Within walking distance, there is a microscopic version of all the good things this globe has to offer. Take for example last week, when Vanessa was here : we had yoga in the morning, Indian vegetarian curry with the Hare Krishnas for lunch, Japanese tempura and sushi for dinner, Thai massage in the evening and a Chinese movie to end our little trip through Asia.

And while enjoying the excellent coconut chutney that afternoon, we were wondering about the following simple question : "is it only in Asian cultures that the harmony between body and mind plays such a crucial role in the way a society thinks and lives?" Not that the average Asian person is by definition in better shape (both mentally and physically) or healthier than you, for example, but it dawned on us that most activities in which you try to balance body and mind are in fact Asian (think of yoga, Tai Ji, martial arts, meditation, ...).

Another thing is the food : the only examples of diets which have a philosophy of duality behind that we could think of, were again Asian. Think for example about macrobiotics, having Japanese roots, which essentially translates the Yin-Yang principle into what you eat. Think about vegetarianism and its relation to Buddhism. One could argue that this is a religious connection, which you also have for example in the Islam, but the point is that (Buddhist) vegetarianism is again based on the harmony between your body and the world around you.

And finally, think about massages : I only had Asian treatments so far (Japanese shiyatsu, the Thai bone-breaking muscle-stretching massages, the Indian Ayurvedic treatment, Chinese massage, ...). I honestly do not know enough about this to draw any conclusion, but it comes as no surprise to me that it is again purely Asian...

And then came last weekend : a partial answer to my question, the mathematician calls it a counterexample disproving the conjecture. I spent a lovely sunny summerday outside Prague, in a small village approximately 50 kilometers from Prague, in the company of my local friend Tereza. We went to the sweatlodge (aka "de zweethut"), which is the Native American answer to our question from above.

(picture and explanation taken from the internet)

The Sweatlodge is a purification technique to align body, mind and spirit that is used in many indigenous cultures. Stones are heated in a ritual fire for many hours and then placed in a pit that is in the middle of the lodge. The lodge itself is usually made of saplings or bamboo - some kind of framework in a dome shape that is covered by blankets, tarps, canvas or animal skins to keep the heat in. Water is then poured on the rocks, creating steam. It is an honoring and utilization of the four elements and is usually done in four "rounds" corresponding to the four directions - four times stones are added, making the lodge progressively hotter. The process is one of returning to the "womb" and of being "reborn" . . . freer and clearer than before... Journeying deep into your own awareness of Self and finding the answers to questions long sought . . .

Unfortunately, I have no pictures from the campsite I have been to, because it felt horribly wrong to reduce this whole unique experience to something I could capture on a memory disk. And yet, I had one of the best moments in Prague so far... Probably the combination of being outside in the sun all day, helping to build the sweatlodge (i.e. cover the wooden framework with blankets) and make the fire - which is done according to old Indian rituals, prescribing the way in which the fire needs to be lit, seeing a deer (which was by the way the totem of the community, imagine my sheer excitement) crossing the meadows while I was having a walk on the domain, sharing the tiny hut with lovely people and having the most intense spiritual experience in years. Describing the whole thing from A to Z would take too long, but when I came out of that improvised sauna that afternoon, I felt reborn.

Ready to enjoy those last months in Prague, slowly ticking away...

Czech Cuisine...

2007-04-16T17:44:00.000+02:00

... tricky business...

Prague Spring

2007-04-06T07:48:00.000+02:00

Yes. It has arrived, Prague Spring! Since recently, we mostly have warm sunny days and that induces heated thoughts in my head...Strangely enough, not really what you would think : lately I have been wondering how bad it would be to stay another year. I guess it is something very familiar to people who spent a long time abroad (Kim, Koen, Michiel?), but at this very moment I am starting to realize that the end is near. And that comes with a weird cocktail of both sadness and relief. I do have another three months to go - I know - but time flies when you're having fun, isn't it? And what I describe as 'sadness' is probably a cristallization of the awareness that I will leave new friends behind, that I will leave opportunities behind, that I leave behind what I was (succesfully) constructing in a new habitat. That I had a brilliant time here! People have warned me for the dark gravitational singularity awaiting upon my return, and I think I know what they mean...

And then again, we do have sunny days lately : I am looking forward to what lies ahead as well, which is nothing but good things. Another visit from Vanessa next week, a wet dream coming true in June (yes, me going to see Linkin Park in Prague, the 15 years old in me is back!), a trip to Japan this summer, seeing old friends back, moving in with Vanessa and - the other end of the spectrum - going home...

Italia, fermata Italia (and beyond)

2007-03-21T20:08:00.000+01:00

Disclaimer : my bloody camera refused to coöperate during this last trip. Sorry people, no pictures this time...

Big Bloggers and Sisters, as you have probably noticed : I have been busy lately... I did a mini-tour through Europe : visiting Milano, San Remo, Amsterdam and Gent before heading back to Praha. Each for its own reasons...

First of all, Alberto and I visited our colleague Irene Sabadini at the Politecnico di Milano. Irene is one of the people who made my stay in Prague possible, in the sense that she was one of the referees for my FWO-project, and from this point of view the stay in Milano was extremely rewarding and satisfying : we went to Milano to solve a problem Irene had stumbled upon in recent research, and using the things we have learned from Vladimir in Prague we were able to tackle the problem. For the first time in my mathematical life, I actually spent long hours thinking together with other people, succeeding in putting pieces of a puzzle together. As a mathematician (and I guess as a scientist in general), you have to learn to get your energy and motivation from rare, exceptional moments and occasions. An accepted paper, the spark in someone's eyes when (s)he gets your point, or – recently discovered – the satisfaction of realizing that joining the forces made you solve a problem.

Did we do anything special in Milano? Well, erhm... no. We worked. We spent the nights in the tiny (and amazingly expensive – welcome to Milano aka Italian Hiptown where outer appearance and 'who you know' is what determines your position in society) appartment of Stefania, Alberto's friend living there, and in the evening we cooked and ate superb Italian cheese and pasta. And that's it... I don't even feel bad about that, despite the Milanese beauty I did not (bother to) see. Throughout the years, I have learned to focus on work when I have to, and this was one of these moments in which I realized that intensity would keep me going. Afterwards, I can only be happy with that choice : if all goes well, we will write another three papers. Not that I am too obsessed with those, but in the end it is my curriculum and the amount of papers that pays off...

We of course did do some sightseeing during the weekend : we visited Irene's house in Monza (some people might know this town from its race track – Sarah, you still there?), and we saw the splendid Medieval town of Bergamo - which reminded me a little bit of Carcassone. Focaccia and Italian icecream in the sun on a not-even-that-crowded square, there's worse ways to spend an afternoon... However, the real treatment came later : a visit to San Remo, Alberto's place of birth. For those of you who want to know how this coastal city near the French border looks like : palmtrees, beaches, sunshine, fresh artichokes and juicy tomatoes on a bustling Italian market, an Italian landlady making excellent fish and gnocchi - grazie a la Mama di Alberto, and lots of old people spending the end of their lives in what looks like a far less artificial, Italian version of that Hibernation Camp called 'Benidorm'. I spent only one day there, life's like my favourite piece of clothing : short, but even those few hours of sunshine were enough to revitalize after the busy week in Milano. And seeing the place Alberto grew up, the very same place some people spend their Club Med holidays, was a nice way to get to know him even better...

From Milano, I went to Amsterdam. Alberto drove me to Nice on Thursday morning, "all the way" through Monte Carlo, where I took a plane to Holland's finest. I went to the Netherlands to support Michiel, one of my friends, during his PhD. As opposed to the PhD-defences in Belgium, the ones in the Netherlands are still very traditional and formal. And one of those traditions is the following : a doctorandus is allowed to have two paranymphs during his defence, sitting next to him in front of the jury aka the highly esteemed opponents (sic). Think of the 'best men' at a wedding, but then for scientific purposes : whenever Michiel could not answer a question from the jury, about (experimental) elementary particle physics for those who are familiar with the Lego of the Universe, he could technically speaking ask us to answer the question instead. Not that it was necessary : Michiel came, saw and conquered. And I felt proud and honoured being there on stage, next to him.

(pictures taken by a friend of Michiel)

Did I see anything in Amsterdam? Well, erhm... Not really... I arrived on Thursday afternoon, and I left the day after together with Michiel. I had a walk in town of course, and Amsterdam really looked like a nice place to spend a weekend, but I had no time for in-depth explorations. Maybe next time... I didn't really mind of course : I went home with Michiel, back to Vanessa's place. I was on the road for merely a week, but I was exhausted.

Travelling makes you tired, and that's what I felt. Sheer tiredness and exhaustion... And satisfaction : travelling around always induces experiences and memories for the rest of your life.

This was no exception.

Four season-school in the S-word

2007-01-20T13:47:00.000+01:00

And (t)here we are, again. Nathaniel- that's how I baptized my updated son - is back, alive and kicking. And so am I, I guess... After a lovely Christmas holiday with Vanessa here in Prague, I am still trying to accept the fact that our life can only continue from July onwards. It hurts a bit, a lot in fact, and part of me has enough of the whole expat experience. Maybe this will all be over once I recover that frame of mind that guided me through the first four months, but at this moment it feels like I am counting down. Days. And that does not particularly make it easier... Luckily enough I still have that lovely flatmate of mine, every once in a while I already feel how hard I will miss him next year.

Anyway, what happened in the meantime? Well, apart from two weeks of indulging ourselves (Vanessa and me) with classical concerts (Smetana, Ravel and Dvorak), opera (Rigoletto), acting like a tourist (Mucha's Museum - big disappointments in cultural life : plus one, Vysehrad, Prague Castle, Petrin, the dancing building, etc...) and going to restaurants (yès, the sushi in Prague is just delicious), I went to Srni last week. Where? Yes indeed, Srni, the Czech equivalent of what my grandmother in all her subtlety calls 'Pluto's Arse'. Located somewhere in the Sumava Mountains, along the southwestern borders of Bohemia, very close to Germany.

We (Alberto, me and approximately 100 geometers) attended the 27th Winterschool in Geometry and Physics there. Well, "winter", we actually got the full four seasons. And unfortunately enough not on a crusty pizza... I don't really know why, (apart from being a dull place, feeling the odd duck in the pond - filled with brilliant geometers speaking in a language that I apparently don't master yet, forgetting my glasses and hence not being able to read a single slide, having to eat that tasty Czech food for a whole week and not really wanting to spend a week in a prison), but I didn't like it. At all... Ok, I made some nice walks with Alberto during spring- and summerschool (Sunday and Monday) - imagine this : exactly a year ago people were skying in temperatures of minus 20 degrees, we were lying in the sun and enjoying a welcome plus 15 degrees on our white faces, but that must have been the highlight of the trip. Speaking of lights, Thursday and Friday (that must have been late autumn- and winterschool) were mostly covered in darkness. Pitch black. Apparently the warmest January period ever recorded in the Czech Republic (and even before the Republic, obviously) was followed by the fastest speeds of wind ever recorded. Some people even spoke about a hurricane, and that was what it was... The electricity fell out Thursday night, and since that moment we had to help ourselves with candles. We even had lectures around a tiny blackboard lit by candles (and no, that is not really my idea of being romantic), I do think there are limits for that enthousiasm...

On the way back to Prague, it was clear that nature had reared its beautiful head : dozens of trees on the road, as if the Ents had decided to have a massive sit-in in remembrance of their friends run over by drunk drivers all over the world. Once again, it made me realize that our ecosystem is just fucked. Well, of course : storms just rage, that's their job, but it is not right that we were having no snow and warm temperatures. Make that positive temperatures...

However, one week later (it's Friday january 26 today) and I regret having had those thoughts : Prague is hidden under a thick layer of snow. Air traffic was cancelled a few days ago, and delayed ever since, and this bothers me a bit : I am planning to return to Ghent for a week (Vladimir is going to Sydney for a conference) and I don't really want to miss this... Or her.

Reboot

2007-01-06T17:22:00.000+01:00

Dear all, my laptop crashed last night.

Choose your favourite synonym for 'make love' and add 'windows'...

Until the day I recover my valuable friend, and the precious data he is carrying for me, there will not be too many emails.

david
(crossing fingers)

Listitis

2006-12-09T14:52:00.000+01:00

It's Saturday today and a grey, rainy veil covers Europe's finest. It should be cold and white outside, we're December for God's Japanese non-accentuated liquor, but instead it's surprisingly warm and wet. Temperature is definitely too high for the time of the year, above zero : du-uh, although the question is whether I should complain about that. Judging from the locals' stories, I will probably regret having said this when our well-formed asses (oh yes, my roommate and I have something in common) will start freezing off...

Anyway, it's the type of weather that makes you stay inside with a cup of coffee, a tasty lazenske oplatky (looks a bit like a giant catholic wafer - hey, do you know how to translate 'hostie' in English - filled with chocolate or hazelnut cream) and nostalgic considerations about the past year. In some sense, I hate the end of the year... It is often nothing more than a commercial, artificially created celebration of fake happiness - for some horribly wrong reason embedded in an atmosphere of money, bling-bling and cash. On the other hand though, I like looking back, I love spending time with the beloved ones, and I like having some time off. And oh boy, I am so in need of a break. Not that I have enough of the spinors, Lie algebras and invariant operators - on the contrary, I finally get to know my new friends a bit (the 1, not the 0) better - but I want to step out of the race for a moment.

Which race?

I know, I am inflicting this terribly high tempo on myself, but there is a simple reason for that. Look, I am - loosely speaking - a lucky bastard. I have a beautiful caring girlfriend, I have the greatest job in the world, I am offered opportunities the average person can only dream about (although it might be a nightmare for some), I have two adorable brothers, I know a good deal of inspiring people, and - let's not forget - I am in Prague. Every once in a while, I sit back and ask myself 'why'?
'Weishenme'?
'Pourquoi'?
Did I really loook deeper in Fortuna's eyes than you, for example? Am I using all my good-fortune credits now? Might sound like a stupid question, but yes : I sometimes think about that. And although I don't know the answer, I do know how to deal with it : I take things seriously. I guess I am writing a bit off-topic now, and probably too philosophic for the mood you're in, but this is essentially the force that keeps me going. The power of awareness, it sounds more like a best-seller in the new-age section than an actual sentence on my blog, but there is a truth in it...

Good, what did I want to say? Well, I need some rest... I need some time to digest the last months, to stand still and think about what lies ahead and behind. And that means that I am very happy to return to Europe's Second Finest (Ghent, of course) for a week - I will be home between 15/12 and 24/12. Meet some friends, walk around in Ghent, buy enough jars of Greek-style black olives to forget the fact that I cannot find them here (anymore), see some family people and kidnap my love. Yes, the two of us will spend New Year in Prague, and I am so eager to show her my new world. Bought some tickets for the opera and classical ballet - all visitors get a cultural program, ask Bram and Hendrik for confirmation - and I have plans to do some fine dining. Treat and relax, time to add some words to my dictionary...

Oh yes, whence the name of the post?

Listitis : let's not forget some of this year's pearls...

Mogwai ('Zidane'), Murcof ('Rememberanza'), Black Ox Orkestar ('Ver Tanzt?'), Coldcut ('Sound Mirrors'), Antony and the Johnsons ('I am a bird now' : yes, late discovery), Johnny Cash (one of these cheap Best Of collections), Aphex Twin ('Choosen Lords' : instant love, one of my favourites), American Nightmare ('Year one' : again and again, favourite hardcore album ever), 65DaysOfStatic ('One time for all time' : thanks Laurent, excellent discovery), Youngblood Brassband ('Is that a riot'), Tara Fuki ('Piosenki do snu' : discovered this here in Prague, *brilliant*), 'Rumo' (by Walter Moers), 'Round Ireland with a Fridge' (by Tony Hawks), 'The Shadow of the Wind' (by C.R. Zafon), 'Representation Theory : A first course' (by Fulton and Harris).

Sucking Diesel

2006-12-02T08:47:00.000+01:00

December : three months down. Another seven to go! And I am looking forward to every single second of them, although that was not really what I would have written yesterday. I was in a bad mood, a bit disappointed in this whole academic thing. I could have been just too tired, and hence easily offended, but it is not motivating to work on something for three weeks if you don't get (even the slightest form of) recognition for the efforts from the people that could be called the experts. I very often feel like I have to defend (my) ideas, and that I am part of a harsh male world revolving around a rather commercial approach to science : selling ideas, improving strategies to present and spying on others. Call me young, naieve, in touch with the woman in me - whatever - but I am doing this because I like the game. Because I still believe in the fact that we are solving a giant puzzle and that there should not necessarily be such a thing as 'relevance' in what we do. Society apparently pays mathematicians to think about math, but please don't put restrictions on results and output... I guess it is normal (as my love pointed out to me) that I took it somehow personal, because my life here revolves around trying to develop mathematics, so questioning the purpose of generalizing Hermitean analysis to the symplectic setting (hey, don't we all give our children a name?) sounded a bit like "why leave your girlfriend, brothers, family and friends behind for a year". However, she inspired me (again) and more or less reset my mood into the battle-mode. A healthy form of "I don't give a pleasant baby-making, this is me and what I like".

Anyway, Prague after three months. Damned, (still) in love with all it has the offer. I do miss home or at least what that means for me, but I am so happy about these last months that I wouldn't change it for anything else in the world. Living and working in that vibrant, challenging setting that people call "abroad" has (already had) such a good influence on my personality, that I feel stronger and even more determined to live the rest (of my life). And that sounds cheesier than the counter of the French Gourmand store in Dlouha, but it is true. And although the title is referring to something completely different, I'll let you g'n'g (guess and google), it feels like I am sucking Diesel.

My tricks? Spending time with people - gosh, you've got to love people when you live abroad (and yes, I am a lucky bastard : I have met some lovely people so far) - going to concerts (in the meantime I have seen the noisy duo Pan Sonic, and together with Bram and Hendrik I went to an incredible concert of the Cinematic Orchestra), laughing out loud (and I have to say, seeing Borat from Kazachstan really boosted that : long live politically incorrect humor) and enjoying my work.

Christmas is coming, wooden stalls are popping up like mushrooms in a moisty forest, fancy people are spending hard earned euro's on useless stuff in commercial Prague and I am looking forward to investing my hard-earned time in the useful company of my sweetheart.

Take care, and have a smile.
I buy.

Reader's Ball

2006-11-16T09:36:00.000+01:00

Would that be the exact opposite of a writer's block?

Dear people, sorry.

I am neglecting you, it's been ages since I've sent some emails and I am not really regularly updating this thing - am I? There are plenty of people out there asking me how I am doing, even being a bit worried, but the point is that I am so terribly involved in my work lately...

I came back from the States with tons and tons of inspiration, I am literally writing 4 papers at the same time (with Vladimir, with Alberto, on myself) and in the meantime I am inventing new things to write even more papers. And, more or less inspired by my sweet roommate, thinking about writing a book. For mathematicians, that is.

Of course, that is no excuse to be so "lame" (mind the correct use of the word here) when it comes to communication. However, there are colleagues coming over this weekend (Bram and Hendrik : looking forward to seeing you guys) and that will probably force me to slow down a bit.

So, to Nick (thanks for being there), Lin (love your kind words), Gyda (sorry for waiting so long), Joel (big up for you know what), Dorota (thankzzz bzzz you), Mathieu (hope to see you next time) and all the others : I hereby declare sending you some news later this week.

The land of the free

2006-11-03T01:38:00.000+01:00

I was in Fayetteville (Arkansas state, north of Louisiana) last week, for a conference - the 1022'nd AMS meeting if you really want to know. I arrived on Thursday, november 1st, after what can only be described as Kafka's nightmare. The security procedures for flights to the US are so severe, you can't believe. In some sense, I even wonder whether they are still legal : the part of the terminal in Brussels from where flights to the States are leaving, seems to be American territory already. It is separated from all the other gates, and - as opposed to flights to any other part of the world - you are checked again (and again) immediately after the standard check. Also, as Fred (my colleague) pointed out : visum requirements are usually completely symmetric. Guess what : the USA more or less violates this principle, in the sense that you are forced to apply for a visum once you are on the plane. As opposed to Americans coming to Belgium, of course. When entering the States, you are then officially registered by Big Brother : your finger prints are taken and a picture from your face is added to the list (of possible terrorists, I guess)...

However, we arrived safely. In Arkansas, according to the guides the so-called natural state. Autumn kicked in there - the colours in the trees (and there are lots of forests there) were stunningly beautiful, squirrels were hopping around with their nuts and fruits for the winter, days were getting shorter and thick jackets and hats were replacing flip-flops and short pants because it was damned cold there. Blue sky though, not a single cloud, but damned cold.

And damned American as well... I guess that this is something all people who ever visited the US will recognize : walking around there feels like co-starring in a movie. Every tiny detail seems to come straight from the script : the mailboxes along the road, the (huge) cars roaring around, the ranches with those typical windmills, the deserted eateries with flashy neon-lights (where pumpkin and hunnybunny are planning their robberies), the food - which seems to consist mainly of additives and sugar : even a jar of plain yoghurt has a list of ingredients length'wisely' encompassing an average fairytale, the people there - speaking with such a greasy American accent that even the French would probably prefer the Anglosaxon, the yellow busses - I often expected to catch a glimpse of Otto (Simpsons, anyone?) , etc...

However, there was no time to visit the place. I have been there for 4 days only, and I basically worked from morning to evening. I gave two lectures (on conformally invariant powers of the Dirac operator on the sphere, for the records) and apparently I left a good impression : lots of people told me they liked the lecture. Compliments nourish self-confidence. I came back with lots of ideas, in the end I have to write (as many) papers (as possible) and this requires some inspiration, and I am ready to go back "home", back to Prague.

Although this is actually more difficult than I would have thought... I spent five intense days with my love before I left to the States - 'my love' being my girlfriend, not maths, mind you - and in some sense it was actually easier to leave her than it was to leave her again. People sometimes say that you only realize what you're missing once you don't have it anymore. That's only half of the truth : I think you only truly realize what you are missing when you have it back after a long while and then you have to leave it again. On the other hand however, luckily enough I would say, I have already learned to turn the switch. And those few days with my girlfriend gave me enough energy to plunge into work again, guided by that simple idea that we are doing well. Damned, I love her...

Walk a mile in my shoes...

2006-10-14T09:41:00.000+02:00

... I'm sure you would enjoy.

I had a thrilling week. One of those weeks that makes you realize that you are doing what had to be done. I am bursting with energy, and I feel like having enough positivity to be the soul rebel at the Negative Sign Convention. Oh yes baby, life is good for you.

It all started on Monday. In view of the fact that there is not too much geometry on the program for first and second year students at Charles University, whence there aren't many students in the advanced Master courses either - let alone candidates for a PhD, Vladimir (always looking for new disciples) had the idea of starting a series of 'teasing' seminars for students. Luckily enough, the 'Variations on Invariance'-seminar - a small guided tour behind the curtains of some of the most interesting topics - is taught in English, which means that Alberto and I could also pick a subject from the list. And this guy 'bit the attacker' (not thàt farfetched, is it?) with a seminar on (just for the Annals) 'the Euler function and Lie algebras', last monday, 8:10 am. Earliest show I ever did, but boy : I loved it. Teaching is so good for me, it puts relevance in all I'm doing. Could be just me, but the idea of passing knowledge to young people, to idea of spreading my passion for what I am doing, the idea of radiating enthousiasm for mathematics : it just thrills me. And the sheer excitement and joy flowing through my veins after the lecture said enough : I am so going to teach when I am a grown-up...

Tuesday then : 'Beats and Pieces'. Don't know how many people know Coldcut - the British Pioneers of Sampling, Cutting, Pasting and Scratching with DVD's (oh yes, "what you hear is what you see") - but they were in Prague and they were amazing. Brilliant concert, music is so good for me. And dancing too, and having a lovely friend to share these moments with.

[Ok, you're probably wondering what is going on what that "... is good for you"? Alberto and I are keeping a list on the fridge, with things that are good for you, and this has more or less become our catchphrase.]

Yesterday, I was in Brno. The Prague Group is more or less part of a scientific marriage between the research centres of 3 universities here (Praha, Brno and Telc), and every month there's a whole day of lectures at one of the institutes. So yesterday we got up at 5pm to have the earliest (three hour drive) train to Brno, where I essentially spent a whole day learning new things. The seminar can at best be described as "stand-up science" : whoever feels like telling something, does so. And from what Vladimir was suggesting, next time is my turn. I have to admit, I feel very nervous about this, but hey : giving seminars is like teaching (people knowing more about the subject than yourself), so why worry? Besides, he was explaining me things from dusk 'til dawn with his never-ending enthousiasm (he really did : no matter whén you ask this man a question, he's there. And you can see from his face that he actually enjoys this, which is very inspiring), so why would I not do so?

Later that evening I went to an absynth-bar with 2 (Belgian) friends, Ilse and Tom, and Ilse's boyfriend Darren (an Englishman, speaking more than four languages - eat that). Yups, absynth. The strong one :) I am not claiming it is good for you, but seeing people definitely is. I went to sleep rather late, or early - just a temporal convention, but with a smile from left to right. I had a thrilling week, and there's probably more where that came from.

Bring it on darling.

Take your favourite element from the symmetric permutation group acting on 5 elements, and create your own positive message for the weekend :
is - you - good - for - life.

If not now, then when?

2006-10-07T18:22:00.000+02:00

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

This morning I woke up stronger. After the weirdest Friday in a long time... Someone taught me a lesson in life, and although it looked like a poisoned gift from the Pandora-Cubed-Cupboard-Wrapping-Store at first sight, it was the best thing that could happen to me. Let me give you my small guide for living abroad, after five weeks of experience (lol, merely five weeks) :

1. Believe in yourself.
2. Find yourself a nice roommate (preferably one that knows how to cook).
3. Focus your passions, don't waste your energy.
4. Get to know people (preferably people staying longer than yourself, I will miss you Dorota).

I guess the problem was number 3... I would describe myself as a passionate person, driven by good intentions and a good amount of willpower, but I was more or less wasting energy. Negative flux, as the physicists say... Output without input. Essentially, I was hiding from an essential truth : when you leave the confinements of your every-day life for a long period, when you step into the void, when you have to reset nearly everything you were used to, you are left with yourself. For the sake of clarity, I am not talking about being alone here : I do realize that I have very valuable friends (and I am lucky enough to state that they are spread around the world), I do realize that many people care about what I do and support me, I know that many people also believe in me - and yes, I thank you all for (still) being there. Besides, how can you feel lonely in a city full with friends whose names you just don't know yet?

However, in the end, I have to do it myself. What used to bother me about this statement is the undeniable touch of individualism it carries. This is why I was not very keen on letting home go, this is why I denied the fact that the proper focus of my love and passion should be here. What I did not fully understand is the (subtle) difference between self-determination and indifference with respect to others. Basically, I didn't fully grasp Orpheus' story...

However, this morning I woke up with the courage to let things go. Yesterday's reflections evoked lots of energy, I even feel reborn. I feel inspired to tackle another nine months, ready to do what I have to do : take the future as it comes. Because if not now, then when? Yesterday's lesson had an utterly positive effect, it reoriented my frame of mind. People, read my lips : I am doing fine.

To end this post, I suppose some people had a different idea about my adventures in Prague? Maybe you expected city-tour descriptions, and wild stories about Bohemian excursions? The truth is that I am travelling, and that you are reading about my trip through a fascinating landscape : my own personality. And you are still welcome to explore it.

And Prague too :)

Humble reflections...

2006-10-05T11:51:00.000+02:00

Jarolim Bures aka Mita (pronounced as Mitia, his name has one of the many accents in Czech language) is no longer. Hopefully resting in peace from today onwards...

Today I went to his funeral. I stood still for a while, and thought about life. My life, his life, other people's life. This life, next life. ..

For me, Jarolim and Vladimir were two great Czech friends doing mathematics (and many other things) together. I have always seen them together - except perhaps during my PhD defense, when only the latter was present - and I will always remember them as a mathematical tandem. I came to Prague with the idea (and desire) of working with them together, but unfortunately I haven't seen Mita anymore... He has been seriously ill since last spring, and I guess it is only fair to say that death brought relief. Relief for his wife and family, for his relatives, relief for Vladimir.

And although the funeral was short, it made me think. Eruptions of emotions and manifestations of the human aspects interfering with everything we do always induces a strange mixture of joy and sadness in my mind. I was sad because I saw people saying goodbye to their husband, their father, their friend and colleague. I was particularly sad because the tandem has become a monocycle, which is probably due to the fact that Vladimir was my true connection with the late Mita. But I was also happy in some sense. Things like this help me to see everything from a different perspective. On days like these I feel very vivid inside, almost bursting with energy, lust for life, and love. For what I do, for the angel in my life, for my brothers, for my friends (and you damn well know who you are) and family, for this world I am living in. Probably I had too much cheese yesterday (oh yes, polenta with gorgonzola - hurray for the Italian chef), but frankly - my dears - I don't give an act of procreation.

Life is good you know, despite the fact that for some people it ends too sudden. So is love, despite the fact that some people seem to have difficulties with it...

Sun is shining, there is soup in the fridge, yesterday I explained Alberto how the nullcone can be seen as a bundle of representatives of the conformal class, tuesday I have seen 'the Legendary Pink Dots' (spacy krautrock for those of you who are real classifying animals) with a friend a made here, I saw a nice girl who gave me a big smile this morning, my roommate is playing the piano as I am writing and bananas are cheap here - unlike in Australia, where you pay more or less 12 euros for a kilo (at least that is what my Ozzie connections Kim en Koen told me).

Life is good.
So are bananas...

Thinking, not overthinking...

2006-09-30T09:45:00.000+02:00

Again a quote, this time from Duro - my 62 year old American Tai Ji Quan teacher, who looks like a 45 year old crossing between a martial artist and an eastern guru, speaking in terms of lessons in life only. When he was explaining me what Tai Ji is all about, he told me "It's a thinking person's exercise, David. Thinking, not overthinking..."

And so indeed, I am following the Chinese shadowboxing-classes (which is how Tai Ji is sometimes called). It is great fun, it is an elegant mixture of dancing, fighting and work-out and it helps me to turn of the mental switch : the moment you stop thinking about the moves - which are to be performed in a specific way, paying attention for example to the way you hold your fingers so that the qi (vital energy) can get through the body - you get lost... We (Duro, Paul - an English teacher, Linda - a Czech woman running a company here and me - the oddball of the crew) do it twice a week, in the Letna park (very close to where I live). I have to admit, when we are warming up (read : waving arms in all directions, as if the local bunch of morons has a day off in the park) it looks a bit weird, but once we start practicing the movements it feels very special.

And I like Duro... We had a beer and a chat last weekend, in the Beer Garden (basically a terrace on top of the Letna park, looking out over Prague and hence a must-bring-you-there when you come and visit me), and that turned out to be one of my most enjoyable moments so far : he inspired me, he made me think and - most of all - he made me less afraid about growing a bit older.

So, how about the cultural exploits I promised you? Sorry people, maybe next time... I am very tired. It is my own stupid mistake though, I work too hard. That sounds so ridiculous, I know, but there is a truth in it. Doing mathematics is a lonely job, despite the discussions you have with fellow researchers (thank you Alberto), and it is essentially a personal quest for a non-existing grail.

The deeper I descend the Dungeon of Maths, the more I like it (that's the nice part, the part that keeps me going in fact) but also the further I get from daily life (which is why a choose a 'dungeon' as a metaphore, and not 'a fluffy bed carried around by my beloved ones, offering me fresh ginger-apple-carrot shakes and singing me my favourite Aphex-tune'). That sounds dramatic, and it is definitely not that bad - this guy is still able to run his life - but it just makes me very tired sometimes. And tiredness is what nourishes doubts. Tiredness is what makes you look behind the curtains, wondering whether you are not pursueing a hollow ideal. Tiredness is not good for you...

And still, I guess you all know me : unturned stones are there to be turned, adventures are there to be undertaken and thoughts are there to be analyzed... But, as my valuable friend Nick would say : I thought I thought wrong and I thought right.

Thinking, not overthinking.

Prague, first month

2006-09-16T19:03:00.000+02:00

"First time in Prague, inspiring place" were the first words of Yinon Muallem, the percussionist and leader of the klezmer annex gipsy band I saw tonight, at Prague's 'Archa Theatre' - my local 'Vooruit' so to speak - playing Turkish, Jewish and Greek songs. He couldn't have put it better...

I am here for three weeks now, sometimes it seems like ages though, and I essentially live on inspiration. First of all, at work : I am here to plunge into the geometrical pool of Charles University, and that is what I do. I am working myself through piles and piles of books and papers, in a (mathematical) language that we (the people at our Clifford Research Group in Ghent) are not really familiar with. And although it frightened me at first, I am more or less getting familiar with the local way of doing maths. And, isn't that beautiful : I love it. Representation theory, the name of the local game, is a very interesting subject and each day again I realize that I am actually getting paid to think and learn about this abstract product of mental activity. Let's not forget to honour the local source of knowledge and inspiration though : Vladimir. This man, whom some of you might have seen at my PhD-defense, is Prague's Richard : someone who succeeds in making me do that extra effort, someone who shows me that big mathematicians are in essence modest scientist, nice people in the broadest sense of the word. The latter became obvious when I was invited to his place during my first week here, when two of my colleagues were still here : seeing him together with his wife and children really made me feel warm inside.
Another source of inspiration is undoubtedly my roommate, Alberto Damiano. He's the handsome guy on the picture, taken before we went to see Verdi's Nabucco at the Prague State Opera (and yes, this must have been the first time since I was 10 that my shirt was actually in my pants)

He is a mathematician too, in fact we share the office, and he is a perfect example of what my love once told me : you meet the right people at the right moment. We are often discussing maths between two dishes - we both adore cooking (and eating) and the transmission of culinary experience and techniques is mutual - and that is a very nice way to digest (pun-intended) the insight of the day. We even bought a white-board for in the kitchen, and we do give seminars at home :)

Apart from this rather professional exchange of information, he is also a very nice person to chat with. Really, as I have put it earlier, I fell with my butt in the kitchen's most greasy friend... Speaking about friends, that is the most difficult thing so far : finding a good balance between working hard and meeting new people. I am part of a working environment here, I do have my tasks and duties (will tell you later about the seminars I am to give here), and it is easier to flee into yet another paper than to do some social networking and find people with whom I connect... The difference between 'alone' and 'lonely' is not as subtle as it might seem. But, so far, the best way to (try to) deal with this issue is yoga : I meet nice people during the classes, and it helps me to create an atmosphere in which I more or less forget my daily mental obstructions. I practice it once a week in a studio in Prague, see also http://www.pragueyoga.cz/, and I do it at home to keep in good condition. Because, as opposed to what many people think, yoga is not all about meditation : there is a good deal of muscles involved, believe me... However, it does not always help me to turn of my mental switch - despite my motivation - and that is why I will start a Tai Ji-class this week. I'll tell you later how that was...

So, that was it for this first post from my new home, next time some pictures from Prague, some cultural explorations and culinary reviews. Time to work now...

The truth in a cup of coffee...

2006-08-25T09:52:00.000+02:00

The last two weeks in Ghent are/were a bit strange...

A mixture between getting nervous, realising how many good friends (in the broadest sense) I leave behind for a while, (still) having to clean the appartment, running from one place to the other to arrange things that I never would have listed under "to-be-arranged", asking myself the question 'how many clothes do you pack when you move for ten months?', already starting to miss my girlfriend a bit, looking forward with the greatest expectation to move in with Alberto, being excited about going to what everybody I spoke with describes as one of Europe's nicest cities, ...

And why make a fuzz about it? Two weeks ago, in Iceland, an old friendly woman read my future in a cup of coffee (see the picture, where she is reading Gyða's future). When it comes to "supernatural things", I consider myself quite open-minded : as opposed to many of my fellow science-and-math-practitioners, I do not live by the rules we use to play our mind-game. Maths is a way of life in some sense, not in the common sense... When it comes to fortune tellers however, I usually adopt the following point of view : someone tells you a vague story, and between the lines you then read whatever you (don't) want to read.

But that very afternoon, I had a mindblowing experience. This lady, whom I had never met before and who had never heard about me (I am not everywhere so famous, you know), told me the following :

I see two countries. Iceland not included, two other countries. And I see that you will soon move, to a new place, where you will be surrounded by inspiring people. You are involved in a creative process, aren't you? It looks like you are writing something. Don't worry, your cup looks bright, and you will be motivated by interesting people surrounding you. Just make sure you also take some rest, and relax. Don't do too much, you know. I also see a very coulourful person, probably a she but I am not sure. Don't know why I see those colours, maybe she dyes the hair? But you will get along well, and might become friends for life...

Me, rather puzzled : She won't harm my relation with my girlfriend, will she?

She, still gazing at my empty cup of coffee : I am telling you, your cup looks very bright. Don't worry about your relation, everything looks fine.

So, dear readers : I am leaving Ghent, my favourite city in the world (sorry about that New York, but size really doesn't matter), with the blessing of someone who interpreted the leftovers of my black cup of friend-in-the-morning. For what it's worth, it only strengthens my belief that I will start one of the most exciting periods in my life so far. Actually, that means nothing : my life has always been an exciting path so far, and I hope it will always be that way. Prague is merely a stop-over on my everlasting discovery tour, the next chapter in a coulourful book, the subject of a few new entries on my blog...

Bear with me, and stay in touch.

I will miss you all...

-david-

Land of Ice, Fire and Foul Eggs

2006-08-17T12:34:00.000+02:00

Is there a bigger contrast than this : going from India - the cheapest place I have ever been to, where it was warm and humid, where there are approximately one billion (read : too many) people - to Iceland, one of the least inhabited regions on earth, where it was rather cold and windy, and - apart from Tokyo - one of the most expensive places I have ever been to [apparently, the top 3 is as follows : Oslo, Tokyo, Reykjavik]?

I don't think so...
And still : last week, I was in Iceland. I went there for a week, to visit some friends that I met last year on my trip from Kyrgyzstan over Tibet into Nepal. I stayed at Gyða's place [note : the ð is pronounced as the soft version of the 'th' in for example 'to think'], the woman with the red jacket on the picture [flanked by the Evil Twin Sisters Erðna and Asti], who lives with her boyfriend in a nice wooden house in the countryside - not far from the capital Reykjavik - where I spent five lovely nights in what felt like a Mountain Resort for People-needing-a-break.

Reykjavik houses approximately 80% of the Icelandic population, counting 300.000 (mostly blond) heads only, and in view of the fact that I witnessed the Gay Pride Parade there (on Saturday 12/08/2006), I probably saw nearly everyone in Iceland - gathering together for a colourful tribute to Icelandic homosexuality. And they have their reasons to do so : gay and lesbian people in Iceland are allowed to marry and adopt children, a world apart from the conservative way in which some countries still grant these people no rights whatsoever... I must say though, if all people participating in the Parade are really gay or lesbian, the country's future might be in danger!

So what did we do in Iceland? Well, we made some beautiful hikes, one of those leading to what seems to be the highest waterfall in Iceland (200m). The following picture - featuring the waterproof pants that my brother (a postman in Ghent, see the red label?) gave me before I left - does seem like a commercial for the Belgian Post : "wherever you live, we deliver", doesn't it?

Unlike the natural beauty that sometimes reminded me a bit of what I have seen in Scotland - spectacular waterfalls, rivers making their way through green highlands, lots of birds flying between the canyons and ridges to feed their hungry fluffy offspring, flowers giving the green hills a colourful touch, pure Icelandic refreshing water bubbling up between the rocks - there is of course the one thing that sets this island of lava apart from anything else I have ever seen in Europe : its geothermical activity... Anyone who ever wondered how a country covered in thick snow during a harsh, cold, everlasting, dark winter succeeds in keeping itself warm, should realize that Iceland is floating on top of a central heating. Spread around the country, there are several volcanoes, reminding of that one simple fact : Iceland is geothermically speaking very active. The island is situated on the Atlantic Ridge (I visited the place where the American and the European plate collided, long ago) and is mainly composed of cooled lava (basalt). This turns the main landscape into a black (read : green, it is covered by moss), moonlike, alienated collection of strangely shaped rocks. Gyða told me that the Icelandic landscape has been used in films, to shoot scenes supposed to take place on the moon, and that is really no wonder...
And although I did not visit Iceland's most famous geothermal spot, Geysir (from which of course the word geyser is derived), I went to a place called Reykjanes where I could experience this marvel of nature. Above all, by smell : these places where steam escapes from the depths of hell smell like foul eggs, like a legion of freshly striked matches making its way to the surface, like clouds of sulphur evaporating from Lucifer's Northern Holiday House. Apparently, my Icelandic friends already got used to this, but I did not really feel like having omlets in Iceland anymore - hehe... I saw muddy puddles, bubbling and boiling, steamy plumes of heat and piles of molten rock : nature in the hot spot. And, this is the best part : it's not just great fun to watch. People use this water to heat their houses, to create energy and - the cherry on top of the layered cake - to have a relaxing bath... I went to one of Iceland's most famous outdoor pools, the Blue Lagoon (www.bluelagoon.com) : a strange cocktail of Center Parks, a nuclear power plant and a nature reserve... Surrounded by hills of lava (and ultra-modern, albeit damned ugly hotels), you can have a bath in frosty blue water of 40 degree Celcius : a must-do!

Well, Iceland is one of these places where I hope to get back one day... With more time, preferably more money (I can't complain : the hospitality of my friends was divine) and a good back-pack : this is Viking erhm... I mean Hiking Heaven.

Some pictures!

2006-08-03T13:24:00.000+02:00

On the left, you see a white man trying hard to eat a thali according to the local rules. This is a steel plate, covered with a banana leaf, together with a collection of several small cups filled with various curries and dhals, with sambars and raithas. A waiter constantly supplies you with rice, until you said you had enough, and the trick is to make little balls using your right hand (NOT the left, that one is used on the toilet) and scoop them fluently into your mouth. Without licking the fingers, which is considered to be impolite... The order of the smaller cups is important, although we never completely understood which one is the right order... Price? About 50 rupees, which is less than 80 eurocents!

This is an elephant from Pondicherry, at the entrance of a temple that was dedicated to Ganeesh. This particular mammal, which I gave a coin of 2 rupees, blessed us with his hairy trunk. Apparently, that did not include the medical part :)
This trunk is definitely one of the funniest features of these creatures, turning it into a curious animal with a very handy long arm, sniffing everything that comes within its reach...

This is me, trying hard to seduce a local beauty at the Lotus Pound in the Sri Maneekshi Temple in Madurai, one of the Dravidian highlights of our trip. Her name was Vanessa, and she is wearing a salwar kameez.
Here, we hired a guide that told us some very interesting things about temples and Hindu religion in general.

This is me, naked on the streets in Mahabalipuram.
But I guess you guessed that already, didn't you?

On the right, you see a part of the Five Rathas, impressive rock sculptures in Mahabalipuram. These ware made from massive rock formations, and the result is a collection of small temples dedicated to Shiva, Vishnu, Brahma and two other Gods whose name I forgot.

Finally, this is Vanessa and me on the train from Villupuram to Madurai. The Indian guys on the picture were a bunch of friends, people from Madurai, who shared the compartment with us for five hours on rather hard wooden benches. They tried to have a conversation with us, but as with many people here, their English is a strange fusion of local words and a dialect that is quite difficult to understand. Friendly people however, just like the majority of the people we met along the way so far.

Kerala

2006-08-03T12:50:00.000+02:00

We are in Kochi now, a collection of islands halfway the green (and wet) province of Kerala - along the west coast of South India. Well, actually, we are on our way home : tonight we are taking the train that brings us back to Chennai - from where we fly back to London on Sunday. Although things turned out a bit differently than planned, we were supposed to be in a wildlife park near Ooty now, the past four days turned out to be very surprising. We met a lovely couple here, Marylinne and Alainna (mother and daughter), and the moments we shared with them were one of the highlights of our trip through Kerala.

This is partially due to the fact that the competition was not too hard : Trivandrum, the capital of Kerala, turned out to be one big dissapointment (apart from those two delicious vegetarian parotha-dishes that were a culinary light at the end of a dark tunnel) and Allepey turned out to be a kind of thriller...

Let me explain by means of the philosophy of the Ayurvedic massages we had here, in which the bottom is said to be the temple of the body (which was the answer of my masseur, when I asked him why most of the movements start from my butt) : our church was flooded. Several days... And it was not just the rush-and-flush, we are talking serious erhm... shit here : I even had to go to a local hospital, with fever and uncontrollable spasms. Things are better now, let me say that the medicine they gave me more or less "fixed" the problem, but due to these medical complications we had to reconsider our plans. And that is how we ended up in Kochi, a strange blend of Dutch, French, Portugese, English and Chinese influences, giving this part of town a very European touch. Also a very cosy touch, I described Fort Kochi (the Island we are staying on) in my diary as a kind of Hobbit-town, without the hobbits. Churches, nice cottages with neat little gardens, paved clean streets (although the litter is still very obvious, as everywhere else in India) and lots of tourists. But with a very relaxed atmosphere, apart from the stubborn rickshaw-drivers, almost turning this place into a huge resort.

Yesterday, we witnessed the Kathakali - the local theatre, a kind of Beijing Opera (for those who know what that is) with beautiful costumes and intensely coloured faces (the make-up session alone, which we also attended, takes more than an hour), involving frantic eye- and lip-movements and enchanting drums and singing, telling some divine gossip (he cheats on her, she gets angry and feels rejected, blablabla - at least that was what I understood) and although it was a bit too long, it was very interesting to witness such a performance.

Today, we got up very early to wash and feed the elephants. Yes, that's right : we drove to a kind of training center for elephants where we were able to wash the massive beasts in a local river (here, that is where they do the dishes, do the laundry, clean themselves, throw their waste - yes, probably also the human waste - and, apparently, clean the Ganeeshes of this earth). Although we were soakingly wet, finally the monsoon is revealing us its true meaning, this was worth the drive! Pictures will be put on later, I will now post some pictures from previous parts of the trip...

Sizzling India

2006-07-25T12:55:00.000+02:00

So this is India...

We are here for a week now, and it already seems like we were here for a month. Which only tells something about the intensity of this vast country. We are travelling through a strange symbiosis between God, man and animal - reflected in the occurrence of Dravidian temples, an enormous variety of people (it would take a topic on its own to describe how the people look like, will do that later) and all kinds of animals on the streets (elephants, monkeys, goats and lots of cows) - interfering with the bewildering traffic as if this is the most normal thing to happen.

India is a melting pot of beautiful colours, penetrant (in good and bad sense) odours and impressions. It is hot here, and very humid, but so far we haven't seen a drop of rain. And yes, we were warned not to come to India during the monsoon season - how about that? However, we are not here for a nice bronzing therapy, and hence we try to adopt the local habits of wearing long sleeves and pants. Vanessa is even wearing the local dress, which looks very nice by the way!

For the moment we are in Madurai, a vibrant city halfway between the east and west coast of the southern part of India, on our way to Trivandrum. We have been in Mahabalipuram, a tourist town in the neighbourhood of Madras (where we arrived from London), and in Pondicherry (a French colony) and so far we are gradually building up : more people, more noise and - above all - more India.

This is a beautiful country, and I promise to describe it in more detail later on!

Tampere FTHD 2006

2006-06-15T10:27:00.000+02:00

Yes, I confess...
My stories from China came to an abrupt end, but so did the trip itself : before I knew, I was back in Ghent, back at work, back in the office and back to lack of time to do all the things I want to do.

This week however, as I am in Finland (if you don't believe me : where else would they have these å ö ä-keys), I feel the urge to continue my stories. I am in Tampere, for a conference "Function theories in higher dimensions". Tampere is the third biggest city in Finland (after Helsinki and another city whose name I forgot) and home to the Nokia-concern. I arrived here on Monday, on what must have been my most frightening flying experience so far : I had a delay in Helsinki due to technical reasons. First 20 minutes, then 40 minutes and after some more apologies it became a one hour delay... In the end however, we could get on the plane for a quick 30 minute-flight to Tampere. Guess what, after (I swear) more or less 15 minutes, we really must have been half-way, the pilot himself announced that we had to return to Helsinki due to technical reasons. And suddenly, turbulence and not-so-stable flying conditions become less funny than usually :)
But, we made it, and after what must have been eternity we were finally put on a bus that took us to Tampere. Five hours later than expected...

Life here? Warm. Very warm, around 30 degrees. Light, very light : there's no darkness around this time of the year. And - as always in Finland - enough mosquitos to arrange a blood-transfusion. Damned, these insects here are so f*** agressive... The conference itself is not that spectacular though, I must say that I have been at conferences with better lectures and presentations. But many colleagues from the Ghent group are here, and also my roommate from next autumn onwards (at least if my application for Prague will be approved), which makes the coffee-breaks better than ever.

Yesterday was cool though : we had a sightseeing tour in Tampere, and a boat-trip on of the lakes here, and I spent most of the afternoon with Linda, the 13-year old (if I remember that right) daughter of Sirkka-Liisa (one of the organizers, our Finnish connection). I met her two years ago, and we had lots of fun. I even got compliments for having enough patience with children to be a good father, isn't that a beautiful thing?

Jinan, from spring to autumn and back...

2006-04-17T04:52:00.000+02:00

We arrived in Jinan on Tuesday morning, around 8am. I didn't sleep that well, which probably explained the fact that I felt not that comfortable, but at least there was someone taking care of me ;) Jinan, which lies on the main (railway) road from Shanghai to Beijing, is known as the City of 100 Springs. According to my guide, the reason for this is the fact that in late summer - which indeed means that we didn't witness this - you can find geysers all around town...

As always, after arriving we first headed towards our Kingdom for the Night and a place to eat - from this point of view travelling around seems a bit like exercising primordial surviving techniques. The Kingdom became a simple hotel near the railway station (160 RMB = 16eu), the place to eat became one of these Chinese restaurants that probably hardly ever get European customers : our cook annex waiter couldn't take his eyes of us when bringing the eggs with tomato and eggplant... However, this behaviour didn't really surprise me : after having seen loads of 'white people' in Beijing and Shanghai, it became pretty obvious upon arrival in Jinan that this was not the most popular tourist attraction. From the station to the hotel, we didn't meet a single white person! And still, this town is the gateway to Tai Shan, the most renowned and holiest Taoist Mountain... Hence our plan : we bought tickets for Tai Shan - leaving the day after (Wednesday) and tickets for Beijing (hard seat, only 4 hours to go) leaving on Friday. We wanted to spend one night in Jinan, one night in Tai Shan, and a last night in Jinan (where we would leave the backpacks) before heading back North...

That afternoon, we walked to the 'Wu long gongyuan' (five dragon park). On our way, to the park, we came across a Chinese cinema and to my great surprise they played 'Huo Yuan Jia'. Referring to my post from Fribourg, this is the Kungfu-movie that I saw twice in Switzerland. Since this is the first Chinese subtitled movie I ever saw (and partially understood), and because it always makes me think about Vanessa and her friends in Fribourg, I have a strange connection with this movie - did I already mention that I bought a copy here?

In the park, we enjoyed a faint sun : lying in the grass, observing the (male) 'laoren' (elderly people) playing mahjong - if someone ever understands the rules, and succeeds in explaining them in less then half a day, I am a quick learner - watching the wives of the laoren playing cards, listening to the birds (I suddenly realized that in Belgium we hardly ever hear birds nowadays) and drinking tea in a very cosy 'chaguan' (teahouse). We drank a flowertea (huacha) according to the traditional ceremonial rules (well, that was at least my impression, since I never had a tea like this before) : we got two tiny cups - and I really mean *tiny* : half the size of this cup, pinched with holes, would make a perfect finger guard ('vingerhoed', is that right?) - and a tiny teapot (which probably contained less than the amount of water we put in one cup of coffee), together forming the so-called 'love-set', standing on something which can be described as a small wooden table (the size of a laptop). The table itself was hollow, thus consisting of two wooden layers, and the uppermost layer was pinched with holes in a very neat pattern (damned, describing something can be difficult...).

A friendly girl then served our tea as follows : she first poured two cups of tea from the pot, and emptied the cups onto the table. Indeed, the first two cups thus dissapeared into the table, and made it smell like the tea itself. Then she poured some more water into the pot, and filled the cups again. Gambei (cheers)!

Next morning, we woke up around 7pm, ready to leave for Tai Shan...
However, there was something wrong : wind, rain, freezing cold and something that looked like a storm.

Bad weather, very bad weather, and suddenly climbing a few hundred stairs to reach the Holiest of Taoist Holiness didn't really seem like a good idea anymore. Not only because that meant that we had to walk in that cold rain, on dangerously slippery steps, in a raging wind, but also because my travel companion didn't feel that comfortable... The alternative? Spending a whole day in bed, under three layers of thick blankets, listening to the Winds of (un-) Change(-ing weather). And although this doesn't sound too appealing, we had a marvellous day : talking, chatting, speaking, laughing and conversating with each other. And sleeping the rest of the day away...

That evening, when sun decided to break through the clouds, we went to a simple restaurant (where one of the waiters must have been laughing with us when we entered : we didn't really hear what he said, but it was clear from the fact that it made the others laugh - and when he heard us ordering our food in Chinese, he probably thought that we understood and he dissapeared with red cheeks) and my girlfriend taught me the real meaning of the saying "aan iemands lippen hangen" ("to hang on someone's lips" is that an English saying?). She told me her adventures from a previous trip through China, and I do hope that one day she succeeds in doing what I suggested her to do (it already crossed her own mind several times) : to write a book about this... Again, it made me cry, since some parts of the story were *so* incredibly beautiful that I realized this just couldn't be fiction. Human drama in real life, nothing beats that, isn't it?

We went to bed that night without a plan... Leaving it for the weather to decide :)

Shanghai dao le

2006-04-17T03:42:00.000+02:00

Shangai...
I arrived half an hour late, and in view of the fact that I had been travelling for 19 hours we can still say that this is quite punctually - isn't it? Until 9am, all went well. A little bit of reading, staring out of the window, thinking about life, considering my next moves in China...

And then I reached the point where I wanted to get off the train and give my Love a hug. Especially when this one guy, I don't know where he suddenly came from, launched the Windows Media Player on his laptop and started to play some popular Chinese (and French) music. You must know, the majority of the Chinese people adore what we would describe as soft, mellow, sweet, romantic ballads. Imagine yourself longing for someone you haven't seen for a long time, and suddenly you hear a French woman (I must have been the only one who could understand the lyrics) singing "je cherche mon amour".

Could have been me, but I started to cry...
Suddenly, it all erupted.
Emotional volcano, I was hit by all possible interpretations of "mssing".
My girl, my brothers and parents, home, friends, my music, the things I was used to...
It's strange, I was still very happy to be in China - I didn't even want to get back home - but this emotional cocktail took me by surprise.

And then, a single phone-call : "I am at the South-east exit".
[hangs up the phone]
There she was indeed, my girl.
The South-east exit, between hundreds of (other) Chinese-speaking people.
These emotions that make your trip special, remember?
This was another one... Still makes me feel warm inside, as if something magic happened there.

And then, practical things. How to continue the trip? As I explained in the previous topic, if you want a bed you must book the train a few days in advance, and we only had a week together. Two options, Huang Shan (the Yellow Mountains) of Tai Shan (the first character I don't know, will look that up, the second one is again a mountain). In view of the fact that Tai Shan (near Jinan) was closer to Beijing - where the trip was to end up anyway - we decided to go there. Three days Shanghai, leaving on Monday evening with a night train...

Next, a hotel.
Sounds easier than it was, because Shanghai is more or less a European metropole. Modern, flashy, commercial paradise and - hence(?) - very expensive. However, we decided to spend the nights here in style and thus went to an expensive hotel. Well, "expensive", 540RMB for a night (say 54 eu, to be divided by two persons) . Some might call this still cheap, but the point is that in view of our way of travelling we were inclined to call this rather expensive. Let's say I prefer to spend my money to different things, in my opinion a hotel is just a bed and a toilet. Anyway, that was the least of our concerns :)

We got off the subway (which btw is way more developed than here in Beijing - to give you an idea : in Beijing everything is still done by means of paper tickets bought at the ticket counter, handed over to an official checking them and allowing you to the tracks, whereas in Shanghai you buy credit card-style tickets at an automatic ticket machine, and you pass through an electronic device before entering the tracks) at Nanjing Lu. Misconceptions in China, next episode. I remember Nanjing from history documentaries : 'the Nanjing Massacre, 1936' and I thought this (famous) street would have historical value. Wrong guess, Nanjing Lu is Shanghai's Wall Street. The commercial heart, the local shopping paradise, the street paved with hard cash. From there we made our way to the Bund (for those of you unfamiliar with the Bund, check Google, this is by far the most well-known sight in Shanghai) - still packed with our bags - heading to our Hotel.

Our guides described the Hotel as a "backpackers" (one of these typical youth hostel style hotels), offering doubles as well. However, just as nearly everything else in China, the place changed a lot and became a classy hotel offering luxury suites. The sign in front of the Hotel, apart from the expensive cars and these two typical luggage carriers at the entrance, said it all : "proper dress required". Lol! Btw, apparently even Albert Einstein once stayed at our hotel, and so did Charlie Chaplin and Bertrand Russell.

Anyway, we enjoyed the bed, the bath and the shower. And we enjoyed Shanghai. Although we didn't visit too many things - and then I mean these things that you must have seen according to the average guide - we walked around a lot... Through the old town, where we had an excellent tea (flower tea, they put a potpourri kind of mixture into a cup of water, and you can see a flower opening up) and the first of an endless series of interesting conversations, through the Ren Min Park, where we had a coffee (I had forgotten the existence of this divine brown liquid that Western people use to start the day) and a piece of cheese cake (I had forgotten the existence of this divine edible mellow dairy product that Western people use to enrich a brown sandwich, yet another of these things whose existence slipped my mind) in the Haagen Dazs-cafe, we went to an art exhibition (completely in the vain of how I remember Shanghai : contemporary art, video and photography), we strolled along shops - both the Gucci shops as well as the fruit stalls in the alleys, we bought a qipao (one of these traditional Chinese skirts for woman, sometimes referred to as a cheongsam) for the daughter of a friend, we went to a jazz-concert in a local jazz-club for a cocktail (where we witnessed the presence of a VIP, clearly somenone who was very influential - although we didn't know who he was - because he was surrounded by a whole bunch of "friends" - money is the best way to create friends, isn't it - and constantly filmed), and we ate a box of noodles in bath :)

For those of you who have seen Gummo (Sarah my dear, I know you are out there and reading this!), replace the brown water by crystal clear hotel soap foam, replace the spaghetti by a box of instant noodles and replace the chocolate by some peanut crackers. But keep the childish innocense, and the bright smiles.

We did of course have a classy meal here : our dinner at the "Vegetarian Lifestyle", a stylish restaurant where we had a nice curry, vegetarian dumplings and a meat-substitute-based dish with pumpkin. Very Japanese, very distinguished. I liked the mingpian (this small card with the name of the restaurant), on which there was written (in characters, of course) :

Wu xi Wu jiu Wu dan Wu rou
You qing You yi You zi You wei.

Hard to translate, but if you know that 'wu = doesn't have', 'you = to have', it would sound a bit like "No smoke, no alcohol, no egg, no meat; with nice atmosphere, meaningful, nutritious and tasteful".

Well, so far for Shanghai... A must-see, but not for one particular thing (well, maybe the Bund), you just have to be there to experience the European influences (after all, the French, the Germans and the English had their sayings here) and to get impressed by its grandeur.

And, of course, to remember why you like China : for its mainland, for its nature, for the authentic temples, for the country-side and its people...

Flying heart

2006-04-17T02:41:00.000+02:00

Leaving Wuhan Daxue, it seems ages ago... As far as I remember, long live my diary, it was a sunny Friday afternoon (07/04). After lunch, the last one together with all the others, I was brought to the Railway Station (huochezhan). I don't know whether you can fully grasp this, but in China (at least in the major cities) the average railway station is bigger than our airport! When you enter the railway station, you see hundreds of people - carrying bags from all sizes, pushing boxes with food (not just their portion of noodles to get through the journey, I am talking about giant bags of rice, huge amounts of peanuts, cakes, fish, piles of fruit, ...) and making their way to the frantic, noisy hall where you are to wait for your train.

Let me explain, since taking a train here is quite different from what we are used to. First of all, in China you cannot just go to the railway station to buy a ticket and leave. Most tickets must be bought a few days in advance (that is, if you want a bed - hard or soft - and this is utterly essential because going from one major city to another means that you are bound to sit on a train for at least 12 hours), unless of course you are willing to spend the journey on a seat... Packed between the majority of the people here, who cannot even afford a sleeper. Think about it, although sitting on a train for more than half a day (night) and spending the hours on a hard bed (believe me, "a hard sleeper" is more comfortable than it sounds) doesn't seem the most appealing way to travel, it is still luxurious in comparison with how the majority of the people do it...

Next, you can't even enter the railway station if you don't have a ticket. And when you enter the station, you see why : even when only those people who are there to take a train are allowed, the place is packed. Imagine what would happen if everyone would bring its family to say goodbye :)

Before entering the train, you have to wait in a designated area : rows of seats (think of those orange, uncomfortable plastic chairs from your primary school lunch hall), in front of which is a simple card with the number of your train. "Oh well, I will wait on the track where the train leaves...". Forget it, that's impossible, you have to wait until the name of the train is announced and then everyone jams into the gate, leading to the train. Before entering your car (everyone has a fixed bed/seat), you have to give someone (the official responsible for your car) your ticket and in return you get a kind of credit card. Before leaving the train, this guy collects all the cards from the people who are to get of at this particular stop (wake-up service included), and he gives you back your ticket. Brilliant system, isn't it?

So, around 3pm I got onto the train bringing me to Shanghai.
Where I was to arrive 19 hours later, around 10am on Saturday. A friend from the UK (Rachel, a girl I learned to know on my trip in Tibet) once said "home is where you spend the night". And I will always remember these words, since they express a beautiful truth. Imagine you are on a train, in a small compartment with five other (Chinese) people staring at you (I was the only non-Chinese in my car), in what I would describe as a non-familiar setting. The first moments, you do feel quite uncomfortable, but that one bed - this small confined space - becomes your kingdom for the night. Despite the cockroach making its way across your wall, despite the fact that these people are still staring at you : you have a bed, and you know that you will make it through the night. And before you know, you adjust.

And then you start to observe your environment... And you see a universe of its own. Centred around the "kai shui"-reservoir at the end of the train. Again, let me explain. "Kai shui", which means "boiled water" is the main survival item for Chinese people. They use it to prepare their noodles (they all bring loads of them - and even if you didn't, every half an hour a guy with a trolley makes its way through the hall), they pour it into their tea, they drink it, they use it to brush their teeth. Yes friends, they drink it. If you are ill here, people say "duo he yidianr kai shui", drink some more boiled water. No tea, no coffee, no additives, just boiled water. And indeed, everyone here carries an empty jar (like a yoghurt jar) and fills it up with boiled water. And that is the most natural thing to do... Just like eating noodles, we hadn't even left Wuhan City and the train had already turned into a eating hall. Surrounded by slurping people, nightmare or comedy - I preferred the latter, making their typical eating sounds (yes, the ones we consider to be impolite). And chatting, shouting (which seems to be the standard way of communicating for a majority of people here), yelling, talking and making phonecalls. Oh my god, these phonecalls... Jingles from everwhere, as if you were locked in a computer game. Now that's a nightmare :)

However, you must admire this : around 7pm, after the last portion of noodles for the day, the whole train becomes silent. Most people go to sleep, the most fortunate ones take their MP3-players, newspapers exchange readers and the lights are dimmed... And this guy went to sleep. Not very steadily, because my heart was flying.

"Ni xin fei", was what the guy in bed number 3 told me. He saw me studying my Chinese vocabulary, and he asked me "Women keyi shuo Hanyu hua ma?". "Can we talk some Chinese?". Yes of course, excxellent way to make it through what seemed an endless afternoon at first sight... We had a long conversation, involving two basic years of Chinese, a dictionary, pencil and paper, some misunderstandings, lots of drawing and a good deal of exchange of information. When I told him I was meeting my girlfriend in Shanghai, he smiled and said "ni xin fei" - your heart flies. When he asked me a bit later whether I wanted to eat something (it turned out that he was a vegetarian as well, even someone who tried to incorporate some macro-biotic principles in his life), I answered I was not hungry. This time, the whole compartment smiled, when the friendly lady next to me said "ta xin fei" - his heart flies.

It was true, my heart flew. Actually, still flies (see further)...
I was not hungry, I was nervous. I was to meet my love in Shanghai, and after having seen the frantic hall in Wuhan (not half as big as the place I was heading to) I was afraid that I wouldn't find her... She left Beijing, the same evening, with a high-speed train to arrive in Shanghai 3 hours before me. And I was afraid that we would spend the weekend looking for each other...

My heart flew.
So did Icarus, didn't he?

Under construction

2006-04-14T14:14:00.000+02:00

Dear all, for various reasons, the construction of my blog encountered some problems and delays... I will update very soon, with the latest news.

Don't worry, I am safe here - back in Beijing already - and I have lots of stories to share with you. In the meantime, thanks to all of you for letting me know how things are going with you there!

To be continued,
david

Wuhan, week two

2006-04-03T04:19:00.000+02:00

Second week in Wuhan, and it starts to feel like I've been here for months... I am getting used to daily life here, including the breakfast, and I must say that I am looking forward to go to Shanghai. Tomorrow (Friday 7/04) I will take the train from Wuhan to Shanghai. I leave around 3pm, and I arrive on Saturday around 8am : yes indeed, that is a 17 hour-drive, hopefully between a bunch of (not too noisy) local people :) That's called "do it the hard way" (quite literally, since I took the hard-sleeper), but I think it will be the most interesting way to get there (and probably the only way to know how people here are really travelling around this massive country). Imagine, if you look it up on a map, it seems like Wuhan and Shanghai are neighbours!

Yesterday, Wednesday, I was a happy (and also very fortunate) man : I taught people here some mathematics that I (partially) invented on my own, it was the contents of my PhD-thesis, and afterwards they told me "Ni jiao de hen hao" (you teach very good). Do you know these moments, when you realize that you did something with your life? That you got somewhere, that you are rewarded for hard efforts? Well, then you will understand how it feels to get such a compliment, in a language that is not your own. I walked back to the hotel, and I felt happy... Very happy, a strong emotion...

A few days ago, I had a similar experience. Well, similar, I mean the following : I felt an emotion, again a strong one, invoked by the setting... One of these moments that goes deep, and that makes a trip so special, because it comes out of nowhere... I was walking around, after dinner, to think a bit about the things I had been studying before. Suddenly, I heard the sound of a Chinese flute, somewhere in the distance. Just like in the myth of the Sirenes, I walked towards the sound, which came from a park. I sat down - against a tree in the park, and realized that someone (it must have been a student here) was practising Chinese flute. He was not aware of his one-man-audience, and maybe that made the performance even more intense. Again, just like when we went to Hubei Provincial Museum, I was touched by these melodies. This time however, it went very deep... Being there on my own, under a starry sky, with mathematics on my mind. It all disappeared within a blink of an eye, and it made my realize how lucky I was to be there. It made me put some things into perspective, about my position and about what I want in my life. Probably a moment like that would have come anyway, I guess it is essentially associated to being abroad (far away from daily problems), but I still thank the anonymous musician for having invoked these thoughts...

Geng shang yi ceng lou

2006-04-03T03:39:00.000+02:00

Imagine, during my first year at PCVO (the evening school where I study) we learned a Chinese poem. Written by Li Bai, about a tower near the Yangtse River (or - as it is called here - Jiang). Although we did not completely understand the poem, we simply didn't know enough Chinese, the message was clear : "geng shang yi ceng lou". This is the last sentence of the poem (which consists of four lines, each of them containing five characters) and literally it means something like "climb another floor of the tower" - someone correct me if I am wrong... Not that spectacular, I agree, but the point is that most Chinese people learn this poem at primary school because it refers to the fact that you have to study hard if you want to get to the top. This, I already experienced several times : I once knew the poem by heart, you have to do something if you want to impress your teacher (whatever your motivation for that), but I only remember this very last sentence now. So each time I tell someone (Chinese) that I remember one line of a Chinese poem, they ask me to quote the line and that always induces a big Asian smile and someone telling the whole poem. And each time they are very enthousiastic about the fact that we know this poem, very nice to see this! The name of the tower (quoted in the poem) is "Huang He Lou" (Yellow Crane Tower, referring to a bird : the crane) and this is connected to a legend in which two of these birds, a turtle and a snake play the main roles, since they helped to stop the flooding that was going on here (the Tower stands near the banks of the Yangtse, remember).
Yesterday, I went to the Yellow Crane Tower! One of Wuhan's most important places tot visit, constructed during the Warring States period (this is a dark era in Chinese history, with principalities fighting each other, said to have ended around 221BC), once serving as a military observation post. The tower itself is 51m high, an impressive Chinese building from which you have a nice view on Wuhan and the Yangtse River (in particular on the Chang Jiang big bridge, built by the Russians in the 50's), and the whole complex around the tower (parks, gardens, pavilions) makes it a very nice place to walk around and inhale some local culture. In the tower, you find paintings of the most famous Chinese poets, many of them were inspired by Huang He Lou, and everywhere are Chinese poems. Unreadable, not even because I don't know the words but simply because it is very difficult to recognize characters when they are written in that calligraphic style, but impressive. In the garden, we even saw two famous poems from Mao's hand...

The day before (Saturday), we went to Hubei sheng Bowuguan (Hubei provincial museum). Also a very interesting morning, because the museum houses a large collection of artefacts from Zeng Hou Yi's tomb, unearthed in 1978 near Suizhou (between Xiangfan and Wuhan). The tomb itself dates from 433BC, when this guy was buried with 7000 of his favourite artefacts. This may not sound very interesting, but imagine what was found there : a HUGE musical instrument consisting of 64 bronze bells, attached to a wooden structure with a length of nearly 10m, about 3m high. These bells, varying in size, were played using hammer-like objects (for the smaller ones) and large poles (for the bigger ones) and the sound was divine. Well, the sound on the replica of course :) Apart from this massive bell-like organ (how to call this?), also several other musical instruments were unearthed (Chinese flutes, stone chimes, sitar-like string instruments) and we saw a performance by traditionally dressed people, playing these typically Chinese (pentatonic?) folk songs on these instruments (including that massive thing). One of these songs was the 'bamboo song', apparently a classic amongst the Chinese classics. Very interesting, the pureness of these melodies really touched me... A very warm moment, goosepimple-style (nvdr. kippenvel)...

First week of work

2006-04-01T09:03:00.000+02:00

I finally managed to find an internet bar where I can open my blogspot diary... One of these manic internet bars where hundreds of whizz-kids are defeating armies of orcs and spaceships in probably highly entertaining on-line war games. Most of the people here, red-eyed and deeply involved in their virtual world, look like they were the ones that inspired some clever engineers (I guess chemistry specialists) to invent that divine liquid that we Earthlings (I mean, you Earthlings, I come from a different planet - remember) call Red Bull. I wanted to update these pages sooner, but most of the computers around here are just too slow. In fact, at Wuhan Daxue (Wuhan University) I cannot open it, hence the delay in stories...

Well, there aren't so many since I started plunging into my course notes. Yesterday I had to give my first lecture, which was a real adventure. The point is that we are giving lectures for a full class (I guess thirty people), but most of them are just students. Well, no problems with students of course, but in order to give a lecture for them in such a way that they could all go home with the idea that they learned something, I had to reconsider my material a lot. Even the professors here are having a hard time, since most of the stuff we are teaching here is quite different from what they are used to do. Anyhow, as always I heard that I was quite enthousiastic (if I heard that well, the Chinese word is 'rexin' which literally means 'warm heart') while teaching. Could be true, I felt good there on my little stage :)

What else happened last week? Well, not too much... I have been living on the campus for a whole week (everything you need is here, even the hotel, the post office, sports centres and restaurants), I have been studying (both Chinese and maths, although that is one and the some thing for most of the people reading this) and I have been eating. Damned, I have eaten so much this week, you can't imagine... We are constantly invited by the people around here, and that sounds interesting (well, let me be honest : it is) but after a while it makes you dream about a simple wholegrain sandwich with cheese... And those who were in China before probably understand this craving : they just don't seem to have cheese here?

Don't get me wrong, I do like Chinese food a lot; the only thing that I really start to miss is my breakfast. At the hotel, we get this typical Chinese breakfast buffet : noodles (leftovers from the night before), hot and pickled vegetables, dumplings (mostly filled with meat, bugger), breadsticks (well, it can be described as deepfried dough), eggs (boiled) and a kind of rice-porridge (and no, I do not mean the porridge we eat as dessert in Europe, it is more or looks like the water that remains when you have boiled rice). The meals however, these are really delicious : fried shrimps (in all sizes) with garlic and (sometimes too much) pepper, qiezi (yups, those eggplants again), lovely fish (probably from one of the many lakes around here - I would like to mention that Wuhan lies in Hubei province, and 'hu' literally means 'lake' - you indeed find plenty of them, even at the campus), lots of vegetable dishes, heimi - literally 'black rice' (a sweet, reddish kind of rice, often served with lotus seeds), plenty of good noodles, lots of soups (this is already clear for me : my professor eats soup each day, could be a secret trick to become a famous mathematician) and enough melon to feed an army (I always have to think about the poor fellows from Beijing driving them around by bike). One of the best things I ate so far is called 'mijiutang' (literally 'ricewine-soup') : a sweet "soup" made of rice, tastes a bit sweet and has nothing to do with wine (as far as alcohol is concerned)...

Well, hope to write you more later, if it takes a while : you at least know why now :)

Yihou jian,
Da Wei

Wuhan dao le...

2006-03-29T04:14:00.000+02:00

Jintian xingqisan.
Wednesday today...

My third day in Wuhan, and since this is the official start of the work visit I do not have as many stories as in Beijing... We arrived here on Monday, around 6pm, and it was immediately clear that Wuhan lies geographically on the level of North Africa : the weather is warmer (I left a chilly Beijing, due to a terribly cold wind), the air is more humid, and darkness falls in a blink of an eye (almost perpendicular traject of the sun). Don't get me wrong, it is not that hot here - after sunset it is even rather chilly - but during the day it can be very nice : spring is in the air here, and allows for a sweater only.

Yesterday we visited the campus : huge! A strange mixture of traditional Chinese buildings and Western buildings, I could take pictures and make you believe I was in two different universities, and lots of people here visiting the trees. Yes, that is correct : lots of people (tourists, mind you) visiting the trees. The point is that the campus is full of Japanese Cherry Trees (in Japanese these are apparently called 'sakula', and as far as I could interpret the Chinese characters correctly they are called 'yinghua' in Chinese), and these are here because the Japanese gave them as a present, after the War - at least that is what I made up from the stories of the young doctor that guided us around (his English is, let's say, not perfect).
I knew the Japanese did some horrible things in China (Nanjing Massacre, around 1936, anyone?), but I did not realize they came as far as Wuhan (and even much further). In fact, the dormitories here (sushe) were housed by Army People. It struck me : how many Belgian people would travel more than 17hours and more by train (some people came from the other side of the country) to see a flower that has historical value?

Yesterday, we also saw the official program of the lectures. Less than I expected, but that is ok since I brought some course notes as I need to study some mathematics before going to Prague. Apart from the lectures, there will also be some visits to things to see in town (Hubei Museum and the Yellow Crane Tower), and some discussions with the students here. I am particularly looking forward to the latter, since my experience from Macau University (where I attended a conference last winter) is that even I (apart from my sensei, of course) - a simple student from Ghent University, motivated to do some Clifford analysis - can inspire people to do mathematics. Yes, you can call it cheesy, but I really like the idea of helping other people to do maths. My uncle once lit my fire when I was a boy, several people in Ghent nourish this fire every day, and I think it is part of my job to spread this fire around... David, the Maths Monk :)
(yups, if you pronounce that very quickly it becomes the 'Mad Monk')

Moreover, if that is a way to be grateful for the way in which we are treated here : with pleasure. Because I have to say, these people here are too friendly. Sometimes you may even take the word "too" literally. Of course, let me explain ( since I do not want to be rude or insult our guests) : this is just part of the Chinese culture, I am aware of that fact - as a experienced it before, but as a Western person it is sometimes a bit difficult (well, we are just not used to it) to cope with this way of acting towards guests (they made me realize that visiting guests from China most sometimes think we are very rude and impolite). Although I really appreciate this, travelling involves trying to understand other people's way of living and trying to cope with that, I sometimes have to make up stories in order to be alone for a moment. Could be me of course, I got used to figure things out myself :)

Gong Fu

2006-03-27T04:24:00.000+02:00

Did you ever wonder whether there is a mixture between Kung Fu (or, as the Chinese say, Gong Fu), breakdance, acrobatics, Riverdance (that Irish danceshow) and cheesy theatre?

Well, it exists, and for 180RMB (about 20eu) you can see it in Beijing's Hong Juchang (Red Theatre). I went to a Shaolin Monk-performance on Sunday evening, and I witnessed the incredible flexibility of the human body - although I sometimes wondered whether this was still human... The whole performance was incorporated into a rather boring (and predictable) play about a young monk and the story of his life (grows up in a monastery, becomes a splendid warrior, falls in love - yups, there had to be a romantic twist in the story - wants to leave to monastery and start a family, realizes that this is not the right way to give meaning to life, fights his way back into the Temple and becomes the boss of the whole thing), and I was surrounded by tons of people ignoring the warnings "not to use flashlight when taking pictures" (which after a while really started to piss me of), but that did not change the fact that the Kung Fu was just brilliant. Even some 8 year old boys performed there, and they were able to do things that would scare an average mother to death... Imagine, after a short run they launch themselves into the air - into a horizontal position - and spin around 4 times before they land?! Or they do a handstand on 2 fingers?! I also witnessed some heavy metal and hard rock : monks breaking "iron" sticks and large stones with any part of the body you can imagine. Including the head, and I thought I used my head at work... How about monks supported in the air by 3 spears, without any mark of blood? Grrrrreat. Spinning, jumping, kicking, turning : you must see it to believe it!

After all, apart from the crowd and the cheesy play, this was a brilliant evening! It ended in a restaurant along the street, named "nin de pengyou canting" or "your friend restaurant" (this is by the way a superb feeling for a beginner in Chinese language : being able to read the signs on the windows and hence know what happens behind them, although I do realize that it only takes a glimpse inside to convince yourself of the same truth), where I had some tofu with rice (doufa he shucai chaofan) and a nice talk with three waiters. Funny little boys, I did not see any adult in the restaurant - not even in the kitchen, who were very amused with my Chinese. When I left they started to sing for me, I promised them to come back next time in Beijing.

If that hutong still exists...

Next morning I did some mathematics on the table in my youth hostel, and left to Wuhan. After a one hour taxi drive to the airport... Without traffic jams, mind you, Beijing is huge!

Yonghe Gong

2006-03-27T03:50:00.000+02:00

Last Sunday (26/03), I went to the Lama Temple (Yonghe Gong : literally the temple of Harmony and Peace). Since my visit to Tibet last summer, I am very much interested in Buddhism and as this temple is claimed to be the most renowned Tibetan Buddhist temple outside Tibet it was something I just couldn't miss. Same thing can be said about the 55-foot high sandalwood statue of the Maitreya Buddha in one of the pavillions (the Wanfu Pavillion, to be exact).

So I took the subway (ditie) and popped out in a somehow less crowded part of Beijing - my brother once described London as Super Mario Land : you get into a tube, and you get out in a different level, with different creatures and different landscapes; I hereby would like to add that any city with a subway system gives me that feeling...

I paid 25 yuan (for future references, 10 yuan is approximately a euro) entrance fee, and went into another vast complex (referring to Forbidden City) that made me forget that I was actually in the sparkling Chinese capital. Well, "to forget" means : as long as you are not looking over the walls surrounding the complex, otherwise you are looking at skyscrapers, cranes and construction areas... The site offered a very colourful collection of different temples, all dedicated to Buddhas of different kinds (I don't know enough about Buddhism to know the real differences between them), beautiful rooftops (it's all in the details), incredible carpets and paintings and an atmosphere that has a deep impact on me. Every once in a while, when I closed my eyes and heard the Buddhist monks humming their prayers, I could recall the strong emotions I fell in Tibet. The sweet religious scent tickled my nose and feelings of relaxation, inner peace and harmony encompassed everything else. Believe me, it is something you have to find out yourselves... Although I have to add that the real stuff, I guess it is more than ok to refer to Tibet as being the real stuff, had a deeper impact. Less crowded, more intense and - most important - the scenery played a major role. Driving through the Himalaya and only meeting some occasional Tibetan shepherds or taking a subway from the Tian An Men square : it doesn't amount to the same thing...

However, I witnessed one of the most heart-warming moments so far at the Temple : sitting on a bench in the sun, I observed a European mother (Danish, or Sweedish) who was explaining her children why people are spinning the prayer wheels. This little boy of her listened with an amusing mixture of amazement and disbelief (strange choice of word in this context, don't you think?), and when he finally grasped the true meaning of the words he put his hands together in the praying position, he looked upwards and spun the wheel. This 26 year-old fellow was moved by the whole thing and felt happy... Things like this make me realize that I want to take my children to places like Buddhist Temples too. My parents always travelled with us - I still thank them for that - and I guess it gave shape to my desire to absorb what this world has to offer...

Yuxiang Qiezi

2006-03-27T02:57:00.000+02:00

Dining experiences in Beijing? Here's the story :)

My first meal, the evening of 25/03, was supposed to be one of Beijing's bloodless dining experiences that simply could not be skipped (according to my guide, the Lonely Planet) : I went to Gongdelin Sucaiguan (Gongdelin Vegetarian Restaurant). According to the LP, the food was not to be missed and even the carnivores were recommended to visit this place for a meal. It was not bad, not at all, and the idea of getting a Cinese dish without having to worry about the real contents was a reassuring one (because you never know what they put inside, especially animal broth can be an issue) but the meals were not as special as I expected them to be...

I ordered a vegetarian version of spare ribs, don't ask why they always want to give these dishes carnivorous names, and what I got was a plate of light-brownish fried things that tasted like fruit. Yes, I know, "fried things and fruit" : it sounds as strange as the combination "George Bush and PhD in astrophysics' but it did taste fresh and juicy. Anyway, it was not bad and together with a giant portion of eggplant I had my first meal. Besides, after those long days (my last decent meal was a breakfast in Ghent, and the last decent sleep seemed ages ago) my senses were too tired for criticism anyway...

However, apart from those lovely banana pancakes at breakfast (my dragofriends probably know what I am talking about, ain't that right?), my best meal was a portion of yuxiang qiezi in a simple restaurant along the streets, not far from the Lama Temple (see other topic). For those of you not familiar with culinary Chinese : this dish is a perfect marriage between eggplant and a quite hot (soy)sauce with garlic, chilipepper and ginger. Together with some Beijing noodles and a hot pot of green tea : yummie!

Beijing, from hutong to skyscraper

2006-03-26T04:17:00.000+02:00

Day one in Beijing, already overwhelmed : that's what they call a good start...

[Bollocks, multiple bollocks... I was writing an enormous story about my first two days here, and while trying to save what I had been writing so far - I presume that Ctrl+C stands for universal safety language when it comes to computers, isn't it - the whole thing dissapears. Gone with the wind, leaving me staring at a blank template... Multiple bollocks, bollocks...]

Anyway, let me start again : Beijing, the first two days... Unless you are deaf, dumb and blind, the obvious conclusion after walking around for five minutes is that Beijing forces you to absorb China in all possible ways. Everything you hear, smell and see, it's all Chinese. And believe me, for someone falling in love with Chinese culture, that feels like getting lost in a Fun Park, without your name being called out loud because your parents are worried :)

This town is a strange mixture of obvious economic centra, huge avenues - at least five driving lanes at each side of the road - flanked by enormous buildings dating from earlier (communist) days (think Versailles, but don't forget to subtract the nice parts : these buildings are just big, cold, massive and they look like erhm... administrative prisons), vivid labyrinths of smelly narrow streets - crowded by vendors selling boiled, steamed or grilled food that looks as if it could have been a part of an animal long ago (even the parts you probably don't want to eat), smoking Chinese man, spitting and coughing all over the place, and discussing with each other as if they could start a fight any minute, "lookie look"-woman (xiansheng, kan yixia!) hassling you into one of their shops, and trying (hard) to make you buy plenty of fake clothes and all kinds of stuff that would probably end up in your grandmother's closet or on a Sunday Market in the suburbs of your town, huge squares referring to a communist past (?) and China's Red History, bikes everywhere - and the scientist in me discovered that the smaller the bike, the more the driver is trying to move around (and were talking about HUGE piles of melons here, in Belgium these people would earn money in a circus driving whole markets of fruit around the stage) - cabs everywhere (and as in every capital I have been to, more than half of the cars driving around are taxi's), and plenty of Chinese people. What do I say, "plenty of Chinese", millions of Chinese people. Anywhere you look, in front of you, behind you, at the left, at the right and sometimes even above and underneath you : they're everywhere. But, I have to admit : that is less threatening than it sounds : these people are so friendly, you can't imagine. Ok, sometimes it *does* lead to threatening situations, I admit. But apart from these hardcore hasslers, I really enjoy talking to these people. It is true : the only way to practise Chinese is to go to China... I'm just here for two days, and I already feel like I doubled my knowledge. I guess my teacher would be proud of me, wouldn't she? The only problem is that this will all change in the near future, at least before 08/08/2008 if that rings a bell. No? Ok, Olympics are coming (at the Tian An Men you can see a giant clock counting down the seconds to the start of the Olympics) and many of these hutongs (that's how these narrow alleys are called) are in danger because skyscrapers are being built everywhere. Even the people from the hostel where I stay, a youth hostel in a noisy street, asay that there is a possibility that they will have to close and move because of rural expansion. Some of the people on the street (most of them?) are just surviving, they don't give a f*** about the Olympics, and still the government is trying to turn these very characteristic Chinese neighbourhoods into fancy hotels, classy shops and parking spaces. And that's a pity...

What did I do so far? Well, immediately after arriving - and having that first plate of noodles - I decided to start with the obvious attraction in Beijing : Tian An Men square and the Forbidden City (Zijin Cheng). You might have heard of that square, unless you were living on Mars the late 80's and you never heard of the combination students-revolution-protest-army-democracy... It is not a very special place, from the architectural point of view, it'j just a vast square. Paved. With big stones. And, erhm..., did I mention that it is vast? Huge? It is... From the architectural point of view it is not that special, but it is just the vastness that makes it so impressive. The idea that Chairman Mao conceived the square to project the enormity of the Communist Party (he succeeded in that one, my humble opinion) and that he reviewed parades involving millions of people here, the idea that millions of people packed here in 1976 to pay their last respects to Mao, the idea that army tanks and soldiers forced pro-democracy demonstrators out of the square in 1989 : it only adds to the historical feeling that somehow evades the nerves when you walk around here... Also, the square contains some huge buildings with impressive names (Chairman Mao's Mausoleum, the Monument to the People's Heroes, the Great Hall of the People), and it only fits the whole picture. Mao's picture, which hangs at the Gate of Heavenly Peace (one of the four gates leading to the Imperial Grounds of the Forbidden City).

I have to admit, coming straight from Ghent (hmmm, sweet last memories...), and ending up - or should I say "starting up" - on the stairs of the Museum of the Chinese Revolution, overlooking the square and seeing tons of Chinese mainlanders taking the obligatory picture with Mao in the background, seeing the kites colouring the blue sky (very nice wheather here, albeit a bit chilly due to cold winds), seeing funny children running along the straight lines dividing the square into small erhm... squares : a great feeling. Made me realize I just started another Chinese adventure...

Also had lots of conversations with Chinese students at Tian An Men. Hilarious to see their faces when they ask you "Do you speak English?" and you answer in Chinese "Dui bi qi, wo zhi hui shuo yidianr Hanyu, bu hui shuo Yingyu" (sorry, don't speak English, I only speak a bit of Chinese), but an excellent way to start a conversation and practise the language skills!

I also visited the Forbidden City, the largest and best preserved cluster of ancient buildings in China, home to two dynasties of Emperors (Ming and Qing dynasty). It is even bigger than Tian An Men, in fact : the square looks rather small in comparison... It is so big that you can easily spend a whole day there (I spent four hours there)! Palaces (Earthly Tranquility Palace, Palace of Heavenly Purity, ...), ceremonial buildings, giant Halls (such as the Hall of Preserving Harmony, the Hall of Union, the Hall of Military Powers) and a beautiful 7000 squared meter garden at the back : one of the highlights of the complex. Indeed, this garden really impressed me : the fine landscapes, the trees, the ponds, the walkways and pavillions and the rockeries. Especially the rock structures, very nicely done and one of the warning signs in front of these rocks induced a big smile "A single act of carelessness leads to the eternal loss of beauty". (Rudi, remember what you told me about not loosing that special feeling when you found the woman of your life : isn't this the nicest way to put it?)

So far my first afternoon, if I keep writing as much as now I will probably have to do nightshifts... Well, I actually already did my first nightshift : the first day, I went to sleep around 9pm. Completely wasted (tiredness, mind you). I slept until my roommates came back from a Beijing disco (must have been 4am), and after that I couldn't get to sleep again. So I started thinking, I am here for work after all - remember, and I suddenly realized that the duality relation for the Witt basis leads in a natural way to the decomposition of the complex algebra into a direct sum of different spinor representations for the unitary group. Yes, indeed, I do come from another planet. And yes, that doesn't scare my girlfriend : she knows :)

The hero and the boy...

2006-03-25T05:03:00.000+01:00

Beijing. Just arrived in fact, just had my first plate of noodles (and they do like to cook with garlic here, that's for sure), just had my first succesful conversations with the locals... This afternoon I will go to the Forbidden City, and then I hope to have a good sleep. I didn't sleep too much on the airplane, but that's ok : perfect strategy to cope with the jetlag.

The flight was ok, albeit a bit turbulent. But travelling with Richard has already proven to be worthwhile : I have been listening to his stories for hours. Remember I called him my mentor, in the true sense of the word? Well, let me update that information : he is my *mentor*, my sensei, my hero. Imagine the picture, and old wise man staring in the distance while delving memories from his past and a young warrior sitting by his side, absorbing his words as if they were sweet nectar of knowledge and experience.

Wax-on, wax-off.

He told me that one of the reasons he wanted me to accompany him to China was the following : he wants to observe me, he wants to discover the real me, he wants to know who he is really dealing with. Feels like the master will look through the disciple, and tell him who he is. The point is that I am kind of looking forward to what he will say : Richard is and will always be one of the most important people in my life. For those of you who don't know him : he is the one that offered me the opportunity to do a PhD, and I will always be grateful to him for that. It feels as if I am travelling with the embodiment of the mathematical fire in me...

Well, before I get too emotional : let me go out and absorb some Chinese.
Da Wei, woman zou ba!

Fribourg, Chinese Switzerland

2006-03-02T11:04:00.000+01:00

A few weeks ago, I decided to visit some friends in Switzerland. I met some of them in 2004 in Ghent : two footbaggers (for those of you not familiar with this spectacular sport : check the internet and watch a movie) who just attended the European Championships, looking for a place to sleep. That place became our place, the rest is history.

Since then, I visit them every once in a while, and it seems that my list of Swiss connections is growing each year. This year, I stayed at a girlfriend's place (lovely Vanessa), and as she lives with two Chinese people (Cheng and Jian) I was able to practice my language a lot. Tai hao le (wicked)! We watched some Chinese movies ('Tian long ba bu' and 'Huo yuan jia' for those who are interested in some pre-matrix kung fu martial arts stuff) - while having a nice hot Ovomaltine drink (the local drug for coco-addicts) and some tasty Swiss chocolate - I learned to make some Chinese dishes and I absorbed a lot of new words. Feels like doing a language course in fact :) Moreover, as 66.6% of the people in the appartment celebrated Chinese New Year like they would normally do at home (you do know that this is the year of the dog, don't you), the whole place was traditionally decorated and it felt as if I was in China. Brilliant. Well, after travelling for 8 hours (by train) and adding that I got used to travelling by plane, it makes sense to say that this more or less the setting I expected :)

Another superb thing here was the 'Tuesday Night Frison Party'. Frison is the local concert venue, for parties and concerts, and each Tuesday they have an activity which is called "We work, you play". What does that mean? Well, the place is turned into a combination of a sports centre and a party hall. Sometimes they organize a rollerdisco, sometimes a badminton-event, sometimes a pingpong-tournament. Well, "a tournament", not that there was a competition or something. Just a few tables, and lots of people playing pingpong while a DJ played some cool music (at a certain moment, he played a brilliant electronic song - incredible goosepimple factor - with samples from Amelie Poulain's soundtrack. I asked him the name of the artist, and apparently you can download this music from www.sutemos.net. Lots of brilliant free electronica on this site, check it out!). Working out the beers you're having the very same moment, now that's going out responsible, isn't it? And in view of the fact that it was either this sports event or the Carnaval Beer Party, I was actually quite happy with this alternative. Although I have to admit that we dressed up earlier that night. Me as a granny, hope to add the picture soon :)

I must say, if I were to live in another European country, Switzerland would be an option... They have mountains, cheese and lots of friends, what else do you need?
Especially Fribourg ;)

The test...

2006-01-09T13:35:00.000+01:00

Inspired by the blog of two Belgian friends who are in Sydney for the moment, and another friend (from the UK) travelling across Africa, I decided to open a blog myself for future purposes. As I travel quite often (either for work or just for fun), and in view of my plans to live in Prague for nearly a year, I think that this is a good way to stay in contact with anyone interested...