Nineteen Snapshots From the Annual Japanese Market in Leiden

Every May, the SieboldHuis Museum hosts a market in downtown Leiden devoted to all things Nihongo. Here’s some photos from this year’s edition…

15 Snapshots From Rollende Keukens 2013

This past weekend marked Rollende Keukens (“Rolling Kitchens”), one of the most popular annual festivals in Amsterdam. In fact, it’s become so popular that the place was jam-packed on Thursday night. I’m talking “Walmart on Black Friday at Midnight” packed.

Fortunately, the crowds and lines shrunk as the sun dipped closer to the horizon. My pick for this year’s best cart = The Cream Cheese Brothers. While the concept (The Blues Brothers + cheese = yum) was definitely, well, cheesy, their creations were actually pretty tasty. In addition to a Blues Mobile with a plaster cow attached to the roof, they also had a peculiar machine that spat out taco-like shells at a high velocity. It was a weapon…a WEAPON OF MASS DELICIOUSNESS.

Anyway, here’s some snapshots from the fest…

 

Another Perspective on the Dutch Monarchy

Tomorrow, April 30th, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands will abdicate and turn over her throne to her son, Willem-Alexander. Since announcing her decision back in January, there’s been, roughly, 10 thousand articles in the Dutch media about it and no less than 10 million cheesy tie-ins. Walk into any supermarket in the country right now and you’ll find dozens upon dozens of products bearing images of Beatrix, Willem-Alexander and his wife Maxima. Albert Heijn has gone so far as to plan out an entire day’s worth of festivities for its customers. Even Donald Duck is getting in on the action.

If you currently reside anywhere that *isn’t* the Netherlands, there’s a good chance you have no clue who these people are and probably assume that the country sent all of its monarchs off to the guillotine in the 18th century. Nope. According to recent polls, the Dutch royals are still incredibly popular. Supposedly, 74% of the Dutch public describe themselves as supporters.

I spent yesterday afternoon up in Amsterdam and found myself in a crowd of thousands of tourists and overly-enthusiastic locals in Dam Square, all of them snapping photos of the gigantic, inflatable crown perched high atop the Bijenkorf department store across the way. The entire city is decked out for tomorrow’s big day and even the Erotic Museum in the Red Light District has a crown over its front doors, hung with loving care. I can’t think of another image that better represents “orange fever,” as some are calling it, than this photo of, yep, a Dutchie with a fresh tattoo of Willem and Maxima on their back.

It’s all a bit mystifying to witness, especially for someone from the US. If you log into Twitter right now and run a search on “Expats in the Netherlands,” you’re sure to find plenty of them complaining about the price-tag for Beatrix’s abdication (50 million Euros in public funding and growing!) or launching snarky one-liners about the royals, comparing them to everyone from the pigs in Animal Farm to Marie Antoinette.

But if you think that the Dutch really care about what anyone from outside the Netherlands thinks about their culture and customs, well, you’ve probably never heard the name “Zwarte Piet.” Still, as many have asked over the past few months, why are the Dutch still soooo infatuated with a monarchy, especially in the year 2013? 

Mutant Minnie Mouses, Strange Clowns and Songs About Blood – Eels @ the Paradiso, April 1st, 2013

What defines a great rock show? For me, it’s not so much the music as it is the enthusiasm and passion of the band on stage. I’ve seen some shows that have been brilliant, on the musical level, but completely boring otherwise. The Pixies immediately spring to mind. I caught them during their reunion tour in the mid-2000s in Portland. The entire band looked weary and bored on stage while their sweat-soaked front man, Black Francis, became repeatedly overwhelmed by his own girth and had to sit down next to the drum stand a few times. But musically? They sounded just as great as they did on their old live album, Death to the Pixies.

So, yeah, give me the Pete Townshend-style windmills, the bunny hops, the waving of the hands in the air while everybody collectively acts like they just don’t care and all that stuff. Oh, and banter. I love me some stage banter.

I went into Amsterdam’s always wonderful, always fantastic Paradiso last night not knowing what to expect from Eels, the mid-’90s one-hit wonder turned fiery cult band. On the band’s albums, lead singer Mark Oliver Everett (AKA “E”) sounds like a Louisiana street preacher with rabies. He deviates between world-weary ballads and bloodthirsty cries for blood at the drop of a dusty fedora. While listening to their albums, I’d always pictured a very-hairy dude screaming his lungs out on top of a plywood stage in the sort of smoky Cajun honky-tonk that no longer exists, if it ever did.

But instead of that, the guy who came bounding out onto the Paradiso’s stage last night looked and acted more like a coked-up Zach Galifianakis. He and the band were all dressed in Addidas tracksuits and seemed genuinely overjoyed to be there. They stopped to chat and hug one another when they weren’t pounding the living hell out of their instruments and when Everett wasn’t howling like a demon or acting like the monster reincarnation of Jake Blues.

The Furballs of Leiden

There’s plenty of familiar faces in the historic center of Leiden. The butcher, the baker and the…yeah, there’s probably a candlestick maker around here somewhere. There’s also plenty of furry faces that are always hanging around. Here’s just a few of them:

This window cat lives near De Cafe Jantje van Leiden and can often be found sitting on one of the front windowsills. I don’t know who came up with the term “window cat” but it describes all the felines around town who spend a good chunk of their free time watching the world go by while stuck indoors. As you can tell, she isn’t too terribly happy with whichever cyclist couldn’t be bothered to read the sign in her window.

This one’s the “cafe cat” at ’t Suppiershuysinghe, a cafe near the Pieterskerk. No, she’d rather not be petted, thank you very much. Now drink your coffee. Hands off.

Oscar Predictions, 2013 Edition

This is my third straight winter in the Netherlands and the third straight winter that I won’t be able to watch the telecast of The Academy Awards. If there’s a station that airs it live over here, the show won’t even begin until 1 AM Dutch time. Nevertheless, here’s how I think things will play out tonight….

A Video and Eight More Snapshots From the Amsterdam Light Festival

Will the festival become an annual tradition in Mokum Alef? We can only hope.

My favorite installation at the fest was this first one, “Wishing Well.” Dropping a coin in a slot mounted on a bridge over one of the city’s canals activated a display that looked ripples in a pool of water. Very nifty.