Amsterdamage Control

Still Not Arrested…

August 16

… except, of course, in emotional development.

I finally had the Dutch national dish, a pancake, for breakfast. It’s a thick crepe with stuff in it. In my case, cheese, ham, and pineapple, which I ate around one this afternoon with a beer. I also had a remnant of space cake bought day before yesterday from Paradox.

While we were at the Dutch house of pancakes, which is of course on a canal, a boat pulled up with four guys and no space to tie up. So they sat out there and passed menus, drinks, and pancakes over the roof of a houseboat.

It was time to get more culture, and there I was, on the Prinsengracht, not far from the Hermitage Amsterdam. This is a branch of the museum in St. Petersburg, which mounts exhibits here from its collection. Maybe it’s a criminal post-Marxist conspiracy to take over the Netherlands and bring the country into the post-Soviet bloc.

The current exhibition is on Impressionism. I am not as fond of Impressionism as I am of the Dutch masters, but hey, I was high.

On the way I passed one of the principal churches of the city,  Westerkerk, which looms over the Prinsengracht. 

It’s an austere interior with several pulpits for speakers, the lectors, and perhaps armed chaperones.

One of the most elaborate features is a huge brass candelabrum that sits on the floor. 

This, I learned later, is the Burning Bush, and was installed in 2007. The bush is one of the symbols that is held in common by the Christians, Jews, and Moslems. It may be an optimistic token of the hope that one day in the future religion will stop being destructive.

I lit a candle. The middle one is mine.

The exhibit at the Hermitage contrasts the Impressionists with the art establishment controlled by the French Academy, whose members determined whose work would be displayed in the Salon. The Impressionists set up alternative art shows of their own.

There were timelines following major events that influenced culture: the invention of photography, the Franco-Prussian War, etc. 

Some of the paintings typified the prevailing taste of the Academy. They were contrasted with work by the Impressionists, Renoir, Cezanne, Gauguin, Monet, etc. A full-length portrait by Renoir of an actress named Jeanne Samary was fantastic. This sweet little lady, whom the snobs of the time regarded as a degenerate for working on the stage, was standing there with her gloves on looking up at the painter, and so at me, too. I’d have bought her a drink, but she has probably been dead for a hundred years.

There were also Monet’s abstracts, the paintings of water and flowers that are always pastel pink and blue.

I am going though all this detail to show that, yes, I did absorb some of it.

Although the Impressionists were commonly mocked by reviewers, they apparently influenced work by Academy painters nonetheless. One portrait in the museum was a fairly conventional treatment of a lady holding a pink rose. Although the rendering of the woman followed academy rules and standards, the rose in her hand was done in thick, quick strokes of paint, which according to the notes was in the Impressionist style. There was also something about her informal or relaxed pose, but she looked pretty stiff to me.

After an hour or so gathering these random impressions, I headed back to apartment because it occurred to me that I hadn’t taken my meds in a couple of days. I’m not sure that I need them, but they don’t give me any bad reactions and the scores on my blood tests have been so consistently good for the past couple of years that I have earned a scholarship to blood college.

I had arranged to meet Larry at the Bush Docter at 5:30. The best way to get to central Amsterdam from the apartment is to go past the windmill and turn left. So I did that, and passed the stretch where the tramline runs down the middle of the road through grass.

I turned right at the Amstel and pedaled to the Herengracht. The Thorbeckeplein, where Bush Docter is, sits where the Reguliersgracht runs into the Herengracht. 

We had originally planned to have dinner at an upscale Indonesian place but it was just too damned expensive--70 or 80 bucks a head for rijstaffel. So we went to Leidseplein (I think) and had sashimi instead. 

As the sun set we were back on the plaza outside the Bush Docter. I think there is a strip club next door. The Thorbeckeplein was alive with light and music, stoned kids and plane trees. Some kids brought beer and were chased off because you can’t drink beer at a coffeshop. The neon from the bar fronts glittered on the parked bicycles. You just don’t see this everywhere, so I remembered once again that I was traveling.

Be well, all.

August 20

I've been out of it for a couple of days, so this is a belated confirmation that I'm back safe, sound, and getting rested for somewhere else—albeit with fewer chemicals—when I'm ready for it.

The plane landed at Newark a little after three on Saturday.

This excursion wasn't by any means a vacation. I needed to go to an appropriate place where I could conduct a serious experiment: finding how many days Harry could behave like a teenager and survive largely on beer and space cake.

The answer is eight days. Here is some evidence of my condition

I don't remember the exact chronology of Friday. I know we went to the Arends Nest for more great Dutch craft brew. I think we stopped at the Brouwerij 't Ij, too, because that is where I took that picture of myself. Here is the ostrich.

At some point, we wound up in the packed tourist attraction of Dam Square, because Larry needed to buy a souvenir for the baby of a co-worker back in Thailand. There was a store full of souvenir wooden shoes.

I know we went back to Paradox. Larry had to lead me there because the shop is on a narrow side street near a little canal called the Bloemgracht. Even the sign is small. I never would have found it even if I was sober. I bought two space cakes.

We stopped at Barney's to use a vaporizer. I think we used a strain of marijuana called Dr. Groenspoen, but wasn't sure of the spelling, or much else by that time.

I ate half a space cake an hour or two later—half because I remember the words of the thief to Conan the Barbarian, “Chew slowly. this is the good stuff.” And good it is, and strong, 1.25 gram of active ingredient.

We returned the bicycle to Star Bikes before six. One of Larry's friends named Sannah operates a bicycle rickshaw, so he arranged to have her pick me up. The power is provided by pedaling, but the vehicle has an electric motor to assist the driver.

I still felt a little bit bad because a 90-pound woman was pedaling me around while I sat in the back. Or maybe it was because I didn't have a pith helmet.

Anyhow, we were taking a long way round to a bar where we would have dinner, when she stopped the bike in the middle of a bridge and jumped out. She had found a 10-euro note. According to Sannah, finding money on the ground is one of the perks of her job.

We eventually wound up at the Hemp, where I may have eaten the second part of the space cake. I crossed the park, Frederiksplein, and took a cab home from there some time later.

The Muiderpoort rail station is about 10 minutes from the apartment, so I was able to walk there Saturday morning and buy a ticket to the airport. After commuting for so many years, I never expect trains to be on time. This one was, and so was the connection a couple of tracks over at the central station. 

I ordered a pancake at the Dutch Kitchen in Schiphol, but they gave me an omelette instead. I was still high, and I ate it with a Palm.

As strong as they are, the space cakes of Paradox are very thin slices of pound cake that fit neatly into your breast pocket behind your pocket square.

After my omelette, I ate half of my remaining space cake and headed for the gate.

Eight days to collapse, and this was day nine. I was sitting for an hour or so at the gate trying to stay awake. I may have felt like Hunter Thompson, but I'm not sure. I got onto the plane and wound up sleeping through most of the flight. I woke up every once in a while, including about half way across, when I ate the other half of space cake.

That was Saturday. This is Monday, and I'm still high.

When you get to Newark, after passport check-in you come down a set of steps to baggage pickup. That’s where you meet Miss Libby. Oh boy, as the Beatles once said.

I had read about this in the local paper, so I was almost prepared. It’s a projection on some kind of clear material. Probably plastic, which would be appropriate.

I don’t know if this is a video image of a model or a computer simulation made of composite images.

She was wrapping up her speech as I was coming off the escalator. By the time I got there she was waiting, with uncanny patience. She smiles, she blinks, she shifts her weight from foot to foot. But she doesn’t talk to me.

I walk past and come back. I step in front, trying to trigger the motion sensor. Then she kicks in.

I have no idea what she said. The newspaper story hadn’t prepared me for something as creepy as this. You can even see through the figure, like a ghost. Maybe she casts no reflection, like a vampire. I don’t know because I left Dr. van Helsing’s cigarette box at home.

You know about the hairs rising on the back of your neck. I was about four hours into space cake—prime time—so this almost lifted my pony tail.

But why should I tell you? Let me show you what it's like.

In order to make this a truly scientific study, this experiment will have to be replicated. I'm going to see if I can get a grant next time.

Love to all.