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I’m not a collector at all (I actually enjoy throwing things away as I hate clutter) but the one thing I have always kept diligently since I was 15 are tickets of things I have visited and done. Think tickets from concerts, theatre, opera, movies, restaurants cards, boarding passes etc. Earlier this year I decided to give them a better place than an old box so I bought a Moleskine book. Had to work today (yes, I know it’s Sunday) but as a little distraction I put all tickets in the book . Few more pages to be filled before it’s full, making it a great overview of all the cool things I have seen and done the past 10 years.
Moleskine book 1999-2009 (here tickets from last three months)
Highlights: Pinkpop in 2000 (my very first festival), ISH Skate Event in 2001 (a ramp in a theatre, that’s cool), all my boarding passes to Copenhagen and back since 2005 (did an exchange there twice and it feels like home), Lux Debate U.S. ‘04 elections with Maarten van Rossem (very exciting times), my BahnCards 50 since 2005 (studied in and love Germany and went there numerous times with this travel card), Tina Dickow in 2008 (brilliant concert in New York City) and Kings of Leon in 2009 (first time seeing them live). Hope my next Moleskine book will fill itself with great memories as well!
I heart my friends. That’s why I always look forward to the yearly get together with my best high school friends. The deal is that we pick the most boring place (this year it was Ruy, Belgium) so there won’t be distractions of any kind. For me it meant a weekend without any media: so no books, internet, magazines, tv etc. Ok, I cheated a little bit by sending two text messages, but besides that it’s pretty cold turkey for a news/internet addict like me. It was good to be cut off for a bit and being able to focus on great people and good conversations. Besides that I can’t remember laughing like a crazy 15-year-old as much as I did last weekend :-) I needed it. Who knows it might work for you too?
- The cottage where we spent our weekend
Around two years ago I wrote about affordable art at the Secret Show of Royal College of Art in London. Little did I know Amsterdam had it’s own initiative of bringing the (modern) arts to a larger group of people. It’s called ‘The Affordable Art Fair Amsterdam‘ and it shows contemporary art at a beautiful location. Most important aspect though is the fact that all art displayed ranges between 100 and 5000 EUR.
Last year I couldn’t go, but when a photographer friend invited me to join him last Thursday I of course couldn’t say no. It was incredibly busy, so the whole experience of checking out some fantastic work was made difficult. I also have to say that not all stands were as impressing. Work of some people that were worth noting down (personal opinion all the way) were Ronald Ceuppens (BE, graphic artist, very scenic), Marcel Hoes (NL, photographer, unfortunately his fantastic Amsterdam pictures ar not on his website), Russel West (UK, love the technique, colours and texture) and Fiona Morley (UK, great combination of wire and canvas, hard to capture on picture).
SOHO VI by ©Russell West (45cm x 75cm Oil on Wire on Board)
'Untitled' by ©Fiona Morley (100cm x 100cm, Wire and Emulsion on Canvas)
Main question remains of course whether I brought a piece of art back home? Unfortunately I didn’t, but I will go back next year and look for something that fits both my taste and budget :-)
Last week I finally went to London again. Shopping was of course on my list and a visit to my favourite bookstore Waterstones was on it too. I came across a little book with a well-known cover (see picture below) with the famous quote: “Keep Calm and Carry On”. The history of this brilliant quote is pretty cool: it was originally designed as a motivational poster during World War II but never used, only to be discovered 60 years later it turned into an icon.
The book is full with similarly motivational and cheering quotes, proverbs, mantras and wry truths to help us through the recession (instead of WW II). I wanted to share some quotes yesterday already, but then I took one advise to heart (“If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live” – Lin Yutang). Some others worth sharing:
“There is more to life than increasing its speed” – Mahatma Gandhi – I’m sometimes guilty of wanting too much too quickly, often blame it on my enthusiasm and getting things done NOW. Some patience never hurt anyone though.
“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how” – Friedrich Nietzsche – Luckily I have a lot of things going for me so I never had to ask the question ‘why?’ yet.
“It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it” – John Steinbeck – True all the way.
“Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy” – Guillaume Apollinaire – Have been getting better at this lately, feels good. Hope you do too!
Cliche, but so true! This idea has inspired Justin McMurray to start pixtories: a website where people can submit their own picture with that special story behind it. There’s only one restriction, the one-liner that accompanies the picture shouldn’t be longer than 140 characters. This is what Justin has to say about it on his weblog:
“It’s based on the idea that everyone has their favourite photos but often the context of a photo – why it’s important or significant – is hidden. It might be a special moment, bring back a certain memory, have personal meaning or just be something you love for some reason. Pixtories is about revealing these stories which are limited to 140 characters to help sharpen your storytelling focus.”
"Ibiza. I was looking for a broom and I found a wedding dress. I couldn't stop laughing. It was a perfect day." Submitted by @saradotdub
The picture above is my favourite entry so far. Since I love the project I gave it a go myself. Want to add yours too? You can check the instructions here or send the photo + short story to pixtories@gmail.com.
I’ve mentioned previously that I believe in the statement ‘What Goes Around Comes Around’. Well, I believe in it so much that I decided to get a WGACA tattoo. I got the font Soraya (by Jakob Nylund) through the great Copenhagen Bitchslap Magazine.
What Goes Around Comes Around ftw
Photography + Blogs + Biking + Amsterdam + Fashion = a perfect combination of things I like! I’m an avid reader of fashion blogs such as The Sartorialist, Facehunter and Copenhagen Street Style. It becomes even better when biking is involved, for example Copenhagen Cycle Chic. That’s why it was great to see Garance Dore photographed lots of Amsterdam women, many with bikes, during her stay at the Amsterdam International Fashion Week (later all exhibitioned in Foam Photography Museum). Two weeks ago The Sartorialist also posted a series of pictures of NYC women with bikes, comparing them to the Amsterdam women on Garance’s blog. He is wisely not going into which style he likes more and I’m pretty biased, so what do you think?
Amsterdam lady photographed by ©Garance Dore
‘Fuck you very much’ is more than just an annoying song by Lily Allen, it’s actually one of my favourite blogs at the moment. It’s a relatively young tumblr-blog (April ‘09) that can be described as a visual diary. Basically they post a few stunning pictures a day which are accompanied by mostly great one-liners. Simple but nevertheless funny, cool or touching. I loved the following pic they put up today, been there and hated it too…
we hate goodbyes - by fyvm
It’s is kind of mysterious who is behind the blog (“a boy and a girl”) but given some of their posts I can at least tell they are from my favourite city, Copenhagen (Denmark). FYVM has a twitter account too, you can follow them here.
Update (Sept 17th): They have reveiled a bit more information on their website, it’s a girl living in New York and a boy living in London (still think they are Danish though).
The picture above is a scene you will find at Pluk de Nacht (carpe noctem in Latin). It is already the sixth year that this free, open air film festival is organised in Amsterdam. Besides the fact that it is outside, the unique selection of unreleased independent arthouse cinema, documentary, animation and shorts that are shown is quite remarkable.
I was there on the 9th, when a retrospective of Ze Frank was shown. Ze Frank gained fame with his daily video blog ‘The Show‘ and has also been a speaker at TED. I actually didn’t know him before, but his work that I have seen was pretty hilarious! Gotta love the typical, dry type of humor though (also referred to as ‘nerdcore comedy’), so it might not be for everyone. Curious whether you would like it? You have one last chance to see his work since he will be giving a live performance tomorrow at Timorplein!
This week I’ve read two interesting pieces about one topic from two very successful people, namely the New York bestseller author Malcolm Gladwell and marketing guru Seth Godin.They talked about something that interests me greatly: what is it that makes people stand out and be successful?
Malcolm Gladwell´s new book Outliers
First, let’s talk about Malcolm Gladwell (writer of one of my favourite books called Blink). His new book Outliers, which will be released November 18th, is a book about success. “It starts with a very simple question: what is the difference between those who do something special with their lives and everyone else?” According to Social Capital Blog, “Gladwell thinks success in the 21st century is going to be less about sheer intelligence and more about collaboration and hard work to get to the level of mastery in a topic (which he says typically takes 10,000 hours)”.
Seth Godin discusses the relationship between effort and success on his blog. He states the following: “Delete the outliers–the people who are hit by a bus or win the lottery, the people who luck out in a big way, and we’re left with everyone else. And for everyone else, effort is directly related to success.” He continues with statements that I couldn´t agree more with:
Effort takes many forms. Showing up, certainly. Knowing stuff (being smart might be luck of the draw, but knowing stuff is the result of effort). Being kind when it’s more fun not to. Paying forward when there’s no hope of tangible reward. Doing the right thing.
Although Seth and Malcolm discuss the topic from a different perspective, they come to a similar conclusion: reaching success is merely hard work. Although this can be hopeful for some people (success is in reach for all of us), it also implies that the less successful just haven´t worked hard enough. That one is a tougher cookie than just blaming it on others or circumstances. For the latter, just don´t read Malcolm Gladwell´s new book :-)
