Thursday, May 30, 2013

Abroad in Amsterdam



April 26

Today we got to see something very cool indeed. We had seen signs pointing the direction to it, but didn’t know what it was: O.L.H. de Solder. I kept reading it as something maybe having to do with soldiers.

Then Larry told us about it the other day. It claims to be the oldest museum in Amsterdam, a 17th century town house with a Catholic church in the attic. “Ons’ Lieve Herr op Solder” translates into English as “Our Lord in the Attic.”

When Joanna and I were going up the steps in the old house to see the hidden church, I expected to see an improvised altar and maybe a priest hole–one of those hiding places where the priest could duck, like they had to do in England.

But not so.

Jan Hartman, a German businessman living in Amsterdam, was part of the underground Catholic community here. Catholic services were forbidden. The churches had been seized in the late 1500s and converted to Protestant uses. Much of the old iconography was removed, and the pulpit and sermon became the focus of services. 

Technically it was illegal to conduct a Catholic service in the Netherlands. But Amsterdam had some of its current character even then. As long as you were discreet (and especially if you were a merchant bringing business into the city), the authorities would look the other way and pretend not to know what was going on. Sort of like rolling joints today.

Hartman bought a townhouse during the 1660s on the canal now known as Oudezijds Voorburgwal. I don’t know exactly what that means. Maybe there was an old city wall there. Or maybe the canal served the role of a wall, as a barrier to keep aggressors out.

Hartman eventually bought three connected townhouses. He had the top three floors of the three houses converted into a church nave. The upper two floors have been partly cut away to form galleries. Iron cross ties hold the two halves of each floor together. 

No photos permitted, but that's all right. You can see good ones online at the museum's website, http://www.opsolder.nl.

People could enter Hartman’s house through a side door in the alley.

Ons’ Lieve Herr served as a parish church for more than 200 years. It has been restored and is believed to look much as it would have done in the late 18th or early 19th century. The altar has baroque cherubs and wooden pillars painted to look like green marble. The altarpiece fills the three-story wall. Much of the interior is a color they call cardinal purple.

There is even a pipe organ, which was installed sometime in the 1800s. 

I don’t think this was all that secret. More likely it’s another example of a basic willingness to live and let live, which pretty much characterizes Amsterdam (and maybe all the Netherlands, but I haven’t seen all the Netherlands).

There is now a Roman Catholic basilica dedicated to St. Nicholas not far from Ons’ Lieve Herr. The basilica opened in 1886, and two years later, the church in the attic became a museum, when a group of concerned citizens bought it to keep the buildings from being demolished. Masses are still celebrated there on occasion.

After Ons’ Lieve Herr, we walked through a couple of alleys looking for a place to eat and stumbled onto Chinatown. We shared an appetizer of duck pancakes—savory duck and vegetables served with mu shu wraps.  Then we split a plate of rice topped with soy chicken, crispy pork, and more duck. I am in Amsterdam, but I had a Tsingtao to go with the food.

After lunch we crossed the street to show our respects to Gun Yum, the lady buddha. The central figure in the temple was Gun Yum of the Thousand Arms.

I didn’t count them. Joanna told me. Each of Gun Yum’s many arms radiating from her back carries a different symbolic object. I don’t remember most of them. There was a disc, maybe lightning and food, and a skull. This is the sacred mother who is the source of all things in life. Reminiscent, then, of Kali, Eve, the Virgin Mary, Hera, and gheir sisters.

We lit incense as we did in Hong Kong, and I said a Hail Mary for good measure.

The Old Church, Oudekerk in Dutch, is not far from there, and it was open. As it turns out, it is no longer an active church, but was sold to a private foundation some years ago for a guilder, before the euro.

There was an exhibition called World Press Photo when we got there. That was OK, but not what I came to see. The floor is covered with tombstones, like all old European churches. Important people wanted you to walk on their graves and paid for the privilege.

A sign said the remains have been removed from the tombs during restoration after the church passed into secular hands. So step where you please.

I remember my first experience with that, more than 15 years ago in London. As an American, I was taught not to step on anybody’s grave. So there I was in Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s, and St. Giles Cripplegate lurching around trying not to step on any poor soul’s resting place.

The Oudekerk nave consists of three long vaulted aisles, with woodwork on the ceilings. All of which I would have captured in an extraordinarily masterful photo composition, except that the battery for my camera ran out. So you’ll just have to take my word for it that my video was going to be a masterpiece. 

Most of the windows are white glass, like those at Utrecht. But a few large stained glass windows remain. One double window depicting the Annunciation and the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth has a mid-16th century date in one of the glass panels, but I don’t know that the window is in fact that old. Another shows burghers in Dutch breeches and hats with plumes. It’s a clearly 17th century theme, but again, I don’t know that the window is that old.

By the way, the waffles here are great. We stopped for a snack on the way back from the Oudekerk. Joanna is not big on sweets. That’s clear. She hangs around with me, right? She does like the Euro style hot chocolate because it isn’t quite as sweet as they make the chocolate back home. 

I had a waffle with vanilla ice cream. That was too sweet for her tooth. She had a plain waffle with the slightly sweetened chocolate, and that was just enough.

I call the photo of the day "Welcome to Amsterdam."

Be well, all.

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Back to (Artificial) Nature




April 25

We took another trip out of town today, and saw something we had only known from photographs.

We rode a train to the airport and boarded a bus for Keukenhof (pronounced more or less like “KOOK-in-hawf”), a vast series of flower gardens in the town of Lisse. Its advertisements say there are more than 7 million daffodils and tulips there. Not all of them were in bloom today, but enough to be impressive.

There are formal gardens, espaliers, and whatnot. Everything is growing and everything is the result of artifice. A very strange feeling.

The house of pebbles was fun.


And so were the dueling birds.


In the distance, the tulip fields were in bloom. You can see bands of color and people walking in them. There is a bike rental outside the entrance to the gardens so people can pedal to the flower fields.


Needless to say, I took as many photos of that as I could hoping to get the best perspective. There was a windmill that had been brought in and reconstructed in part of the garden that edged the fields.


The gallery of the windmill was probably best view. There are fields in bright yellow, shades of red, and dark blue. The blue may be hyacinths. The gardens have a lot of them in that shade.


My camera didn’t get the colors right, but today’s photo will give you an idea of what they looked like. This is one of the things I have hoped to see. It’s the main reason that I am in the Netherlands in April.

The windmill isn’t functional but the sails go round. The slowly sweeping shadows as they turned put me in mind of the effigy of Colin Clive hitting one after being thrown off the roof by the monster.  


We spent a good three hours or so wandering the garden paths but didn’t see half of it. But that’s all right. Three million bulbs is enough for one day.

There are pavilions named for Dutch Royalty: Oranje-Nassau, Willem Alexander, Wilhelmina, Beatrix. Willem Alexander is like a flower show—small beds of specimens, most of them in bloom because it was indoors. One highlight was a tree with black hats hanging on it. A lady suggested we add ours.


A concession sells bottles of Heineken there, and I was ready for that.

There is a walk of fame near the Oranje-Nassau building. It consists of small beds of tulips with a photo of a celebrity to which the plot is dedicated. I guess when the idea was originally floated, nobody mentioned that they look like grave plots.

Celebrities include Willem Alexander, who becomes king on Tuesday. God, everybody here is wrapped up in Orange and excited about that. 

The walk has plots for other celebrities, many of which may be Dutch, whom I don’t know. Rutger Hauer is not represented, although Pink Floyd is. So are a pink pig puppet named Purk, and several Disney characters including Aladdin and the Lion King. Spongebob Squarepants also makes the cut.

Next to the walk of fame is a platform that was drawing a crowd, so I had to go see what that was about. Last year, on the occasion of Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee (I think that means she’s been queen long enough to turn into stone, but I’m not sure) the U.K. gave Holland a representation in tulips and hyacinths of London's Tower Bridge and the Big Ben tower. I am again unsure, but that tower may have been renamed Elizabeth Tower last year. She’s been around so long, they seem to be naming all kinds of stuff for her.


On the way back the bus took a detour that came close to the flower fields. The shots out the window of the bus were not as good as the ones from the windmill.

We got back to Amsterdam craving red meat, so we went to a steakhouse. Right now it is popular here to style a steakhouse as Argentine. We went to the Global Kitchen, a little more ecumenical. Besides, we were so damned hungry anything looked good and this was the first decent-looking place we passed.

We walked down to the Dam and continued past there onto a street called Rokin.

We found a bar there called Bier Fabriek. And yes, they make the beer there and sell it only there. They had three taps, so I ordered half-pints to give me chance to sample all three and still walk straight.

Bier Fabriek has one of the best red ales I’ve ever tasted. It has the nutty red malt flavor but lots of hops for a surprisingly sharp edge. The black ale was also good. Some stouts are sweet and this one was on the dry side—or it seemed so at the time—closer to Guinness, for instance, than to Samuel Smith.

The blond ale was cloudy and rich. 

Of course, taste is so subjective and fickle. I may have to go back in a few days to confirm these impressions.

We wandered some more, and eventually wound up navigating curious byways between Singel and Spuistraat. This is a great town.

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Candles for Rembrandt




April 24

Hello, all.

Beautiful day today, sunny in the low 60s. We’re about 12 degrees farther north than home, but the season is only a week or two behind North Jersey.

The highlights yesterday were a visit to the Westerkerk while the organist rehearsed. It is an austere, largely white Protestant interior with a few figures over the door, but they are more civic-political iconography than religious, putting me in mind of the phrase the docent used in the Utrecht Dom, “new idolatry.” Well, I guess everybody has it.

We lit more candles for the Burning Bush. (There’s a photo of the bush in the “Harry Travels” entry posted August 30 last year.)

This time, I got some video of the interior while the organist worked. 


The congregation focuses on a table and lectern and all around the church at every pillar is a raised, enclosed platform. I don’t know how these were used. They may be boxed seats for distinguished parishioners, like the vestry or benefactors. Or they could be outposts for armed guards making sure everyone behaves.

After the Westerkerk, Joanna got to see my favorite place in Amsterdam that doesn’t sell beer, Rembrandt’s House. It is where he lived for two or three decades. He was a very prosperous artist and art dealer. The walls in the first floor of the house are covered with paintings including one that was discovered after restoration to be a genuine Rembrandt. Others are by unknown artists, probably students of Rembrandt. Many of those are copies of original works by older masters and by Rembrandt himself. Some of the paintings are by Rembrandt’s master, Pieter Lastman.


It’s what the place would have looked like when Rembrandt lived there because all of these paintings would have been for sale. 

There is an audio tour that details each one, so were were on the first floor for a while.

The second floor bedroom has even more paintings. The entire house is furnished based on the inventory of goods that were sold after Rembrandt’s bankruptcy. He made a lot of money, especially for an artist, all through his career. But he spent more. 

His house, on Jodenbreestaat, cost a lot of money. He failed to keep up with the mortgage and had to sell it and the furnishings. The inventory included his collection of props, which ranged from stuffed armadillos (at least, we saw a few strewn around the attic) to plaster busts of Greek and Roman figures.



The bedroom is particularly interesting because the position and orientation of the box bed are taken directly from a Rembrandt etching, which shows his wife, Saskia, in bed talking to her maid. There used to be a copy of that print in the room, hanging on the side of the fireplace mantel, but it has been taken down.

There were two demonstrations while we were there. One was a recap of the process of print-making, explaining how the metal could be etched by acid or directly cut by different tools to make a plate. Different methods get different effects, and Rembrandt was unusual, if not unique, in using them all in a single plate.

The second demonstration was in the attic, where a lady discussed mixing paints. Unless you had a pig bladder (she passed around one of those) to store the paint, you used the paint the day you mixed it. She said an artist might have several canvases going and might mix colors for skin tones and so would do hands and faces that day.

I never thought of painting like that before. But then, I don’t put a brush to the walls of my house. I paint by telephone.

The lady asked for a volunteer to help mix the red pigment into the oil. Today’s photo is a Harry original, Joanna Mixes Paint at Rembrandt’s House.


We sat in the sunshine outside a cafe facing Rembrandt’s house across the street, where I had a La Chouffe and we watched the people go by. We listened to the bells of the Zuiderkerk toll the quarter hours.

We met Larry at 7 in Barney’s Uptown and had pizza and a variety of wines at de Pizza Bakkers on Haarlemerstraat.

Very tasty, very filling. Time for bed.



April 25

Great dining with you and Joanna last night, and thank Joanna for not being able to finish her pizza. It was delicious!

I was sharing stories at the Hemp of your good behavior with Joanna, and how you've avoided space cakes since you arrived. They were most impressed. Said Barry: "Now I'd like to meet him again!"

Larry


April 26

I remember now that I met Barry after my extended visit to Wynand Fockink. That was the afternoon when I fell asleep in the lobby of the Hemp. When I took Joanna there the other day, she recorded a reenactment, which is attached. (I was probably wearing the same suit.) 


I need to rent a bike. Where should I go to do that? I may be able to find the place we used last time, What was it, Star Bikes? That's right behind the rail yards. I should be able to make it to Barney's Uptown by 5 or 5:30.


Harry

April 26

Love the photo, Grasshopper!

And yes, despite years of alcohol abuse, your memory is not completely shot.


I trust you're having fun, but the space cakes await!

Larry



Saturday, May 18, 2013

Behaving (More or Less) in Amsterdam


Nieuwendijk, around the corner.


April 23

This is a novelty. I have been in Amsterdam for four days and haven't had a single space cake and haven't even gotten loaded. 

Joanna and I met Larry at Barney’s Uptown, one of three Barney’s franchises on Haarlemmerstraat, a few minutes’ walk from the hotel. Besides Uptown, there is Barney’s, which is a head shop, and Barney’s Farm, which sells seeds. 

Haarlemmerstraat

You can buy a beer at the Farm and at Uptown, but not at plain Barney’s. The law forbids the sale of cannabis and alcohol in the same establishment.  You can’t even take hour own bottle to a head shop. But you’re welcome to smoke joints or eat space cake in any of the places.

Larry had some hashish that he had bought in another part of town. I have been there on previous trips to Amsterdam but can’t remember where it is.

Joanna was fascinated by the spicy aroma. She was joking that smelling it would make her high. 

Larry said this must be a first for her. I reminded him that, when she was a toddler in Canton, Joanna used to load the opium pipes for her father and his guests. She used to sit with them while they smoked and then drop off to sleep.

I had a couple of half pints of Hartog Jan, a Pilsner, which is light, low-alcohol (4-5 percent) and good for early in the day.

We had lunch and took the No. 5 tram to Museumplein. We rode through Dam Square and Leidseplein (another plaza I had intended to visit) to the Rijksmuseum.

The Rijksmuseum has been undergoing renovation and expansion for 10 years. I went there twice in that time, and saw a token collection of highlights. 

There were three things I wanted to share with Joanna. The first one I found right away, the Grandfather Clock. It is at the lower entrance to the exhibits just before you get to the medieval and Renaissance collections.

Maybe this is how clocks worked before there were mechanical movements. The clock is a tall wooden box with a glass face. On the other side of the glass you see a man, out of focus. Every minute, he erases the long hand and draws a new one at the correct time. Once in a while, he advances the short hand the same way.

Here’s a shot of it that I took last August. I'll repeat it here so you don’t have to go back to last summer’s entries to see what it looks like.


Sometimes he steps away when he is done. This time, he stood behind the face and ate his lunch.

We could have spent the afternoon in the lower floor. But the Dutch masters were waiting upstairs.

The wall with five Vermeers (possibly the largest collection of Vermeers in the world) was very popular, but we got so close to the Milkmaid you could hear her breathe, except it is a sublime moment caught in time and a strange light. There is something otherworldly about that painting.

That was the second highlight.

Third, a little farther along, was the Night Watch. Joanna had joined the Night Watch two days earlier, and she needed to meet the original crew. All these guys talking and stumbling around, an amateur troop trying to get ready to march. 

Like Dogberry: “You are thought here to be the most senseless and fit man for the constable of the watch, therefore bear you the lantern.” Only these guys had guns and pikes, and clearly were leading citizens. There’s one bewildered man whose musket appears to be going off by accident. There are also a dog, a little girl (maybe the troop’s mascot), and a largely obscured face—just an eye and a cap—which some people have suggested may be a representation of Rembrandt himself looking over the shoulder of a citizen soldier.

It does resemble an early self-portrait, an etching of the artist looking very surprised indeed. You can find all these images and with a lot more information than I know on the Internet.

Larry had some errands, so he left around half past four. The museum closed at 5 so we got kicked out along with everybody else, and walked back to Leidseplein.

It was rush hour, The bicyclists and worse, the motor bikers, were incredibly aggressive. Everybody on wheels here seems to lose that sense of laid-back civility that the Dutch are known for. We had a guy run a stop sign in his car to cut us off. 

Tourists were unpacking a bus and the cyclists were plowing through the crowd. One smug fool was going “bup-bup-bup” telling people they were being naughty and he should not have to stop. Bup-bup-bup your ass. One dumb fuck actually clipped my elbow, and I was on the sidewalk.

Don’t these people know how vulnerable they are? One quick stroke of a walking stick could send them over the handlebars.

Leidseplein is a place where they sometimes sell tickets to a boat tour run by a comedy troupe called Boom Chicago. Most or all American ex-pats, they have been making a living here putting on shows and special events for people and companies. Larry and I took the ride last August. It’s a small boat and can go into canals where the larger tour boats won’t fit.

The guy at the place didn’t know anything, but said he would check. Maybe I’ll drop by there later today. There is another place to buy tickets, near the Anne Frank house, and I may try there instead.

We wandered a bit, which is the best thing to do in Amsterdam. We went into Chinatown and I practiced reading Han characters. 

We ate at a very non-Dutch place, Pieminister. Joanna had a chicken and leek pie. I had one made of beef and real ale. 


Then we worked our way back to the hotel through a very old part of the city. At least, this is what Larry told me. The buildings that face the canals come right to the water, as they do in Venice. You would step or hand goods, right from the boat to the door. 


I was feeling a little under the weather, so it was time to head back. 

I’m much better now. A dozen hours of sleep can do wonders.

So, here’s wishing you wonders.