Christmas shopping

This year’s special Albert Heijn‘s special Christmas shopping booklet with all the Christmas dishes you can buy. Some things do appeal, especially the vegetables and vegetable mixes for soups. Most things though i don’t like at all. The ready made dishes. The chocolate milks. The puddings. I’m not saying i won’t buy anything in the Albert Heijn. But not that much. These dishes are of course meant for the largest crowd in the Netherlands. The people with not that much time, simply wanting to celebrate Christmas together. Nothing wrong with that.

I won’t be spending Christmas with my family this year. I will ask around if other people are spending Christmas alone, maybe there is something we can organize. A dinner. With sauerkraut and mashed potatoes perhaps. A self made cake for dessert. And whipped cream. Pumpkin soup. Or parsnip soup. Simple dishes. But i’ll see what comes around. Still plenty of time to organize something.

Aah, and today i donated five euros to the Kraut Fund Fest Rotterdam. On 16 December i will go to the Rotterdamse Oogst Markt and make my own sauerkraut. With a special bucket and a water seal. My own experiment a year ago failed horribly. Or was it two years ago? Anyway, looking forward to that!

Published on December 8, 2017 at 6:00 by
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Traveling

Traveling today. With the train. Listening to music. Moving quietly with it. Happy. As someone said, while i waited for the bus in Amersfoort.

I did check if the music i listened to today was recorded in last.fm or spotify, but no. I don’t have internet access on my phone, so nothing there. Too bad, i would have loved to post a playlist of the music listened to today.

I visited my mum. Talked with her about my house and the events in my life the past few months. It was alright. A bit scary, but i felt really really happy. Like, over the moon. I love my mum.

That is it for today. I will try to quiet down. Watch some Buffy. Try to get a bit more sleep tonight. Hopefully.

Salute!

Published on December 7, 2017 at 6:00 by
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Talks

There were intensive talks in the gardens the past weeks. Last Friday i had a talk with Ronald about capitalism. He came along with a friend of him, Carl. And a piece of speculaas. We talked about how long capitalism exists. Since the late middle ages according to Ronald. The week before i said that i was a genius. Ho ho! Such a brazen expression. Hollow. Not that i’m not intelligent, but i still need to learn so many things about so many different areas. Today we talked about the bitcoin economy. It is becoming a bit clearer to me, but i still need to read more about it. I did bring up the war against the current leaders of our financial industrial economy. The banks. The investors. People making money from money. I am learning that discussions have their own momentum and direction. I am learning to adapt to that and not trying to pull into another direction.

I love all the many more talks we have in the garden, varying from the fun and frivolous to deeply serious. I can not contribute to every talk. I don’t know enough about every single subject, i’m afraid to say. But that is not the most important thing. I love this aspect of our garden. I love the brightness and interest and passion from each person participating. I don’t agree with everybody. Of course not. I remember the talks about Mars and terraforming it and the plans of Elon Musk to get people to go to Mars, a plan ludricous to me. We talk. And thoroughly enjoy it.

As for me, my situation. I am selling my house. And i plan to do something with the money i will get. The quite large amount of overvalue in my house. To make it work. The next two years will be important to me. As were the the past three years. And well, to be honest, the past fifty three years of my life. Which i love so much.

Salute!

Published on December 6, 2017 at 6:00 by
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James Baldwin

James Baldwin – (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987)

It has always been much easier (because it has always seemed much safer) to give a name to the evil without than to locate the terror within. And yet, the terror within is far truer and far more powerful than any of our labels: the labels change, the terror is constant. And this terror has something to do with that irreducible gap between the self one invents — the self one takes oneself as being, which is, however, and by definition, a provisional self — and the undiscoverable self which always has the power to blow the provisional self to bits.

Source: The Terror Within and the Evil Without: James Baldwin on Our Capacity for Transformation as Individuals and Nations

Freedom is not something that anybody can be given; freedom is something people take and people are as free as they want to be. One hasn’t got to have an enormous military machine in order to be un-free when it’s simpler to be asleep, when it’s simpler to be apathetic, when it’s simpler, in fact, not to want to be free, to think that something else is more important.

Source: James Baldwin on Freedom and How We Imprison Ourselves

An artist is a sort of emotional or spiritual historian. His role is to make you realize the doom and glory of knowing who you are and what you are. He has to tell, because nobody else in the world can tell, what it is like to be alive. All I’ve ever wanted to do is tell that, I’m not trying to solve anybody’s problems, not even my own. I’m just trying to outline what the problems are.

I want to be stretched, shook up, to overreach myself, and to make you feel that way too.

Source: The Doom and Glory of Knowing Who You Are: James Baldwin on the Empathic Rewards of Reading and What It Means to Be an Artist

Art has a social purpose [and] art belongs to the people. It’s not something that is hanging out there that has no connection with the needs of man. And art is unashamedly, unembarrassingly, if there is such a word, social. It is political; it is economic. The total life of man is reflected in his art.

Source: James Baldwin and Chinua Achebe’s Forgotten Conversation About Beauty, Morality, and the Political Power of Art

Published on December 5, 2017 at 6:00 by
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Drizzle

Nasturtium flowers - still going in December!
Chicorei
Amsoy, an Asian mustard leave vegetable
Beetroot and scorzonera
Chervil
Spring onions
Winter radish - rammenas in Dutch
Endive and parsley
Parsnips
No idea!
But still lovely 🙂
Lettuce
Swiss chard
The courgette beds of this year covered with straw
Kale
Rhubarb plants we planted last Friday
Cavolo nero
Looks like red cabbage - not sure though
Published on December 4, 2017 at 6:00 by
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Market

A Harvest Market on the Peace Garden today. I sold the coffee, tea, lemonade, cakes and chocolate chip coookies. It felt busy. It wasn’t really, but with all the people we knew who came by it still felt busy. Tomorrow morning i’ll be going back to clean up, together with other people. For now, i’m tired. Really tired.

Salute!

Published on November 27, 2017 at 6:00 by
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