Oh Rose, thou art sick

samedi, janvier 18, 2014

Festive season comes around again


Keeping in line with last years' theme (although admittedly I have not read 'the Stations of the Sun' yet) I have once again given myself a Ronald Hutton book. His latest is called 'Pagan Britain'. It sounded too good not to buy. Professor Hutton is constantly on the BBC as an expert these days, I have seen him in Tudor Monastery Farm and Sacred Wonders of Britain, and he is amazing. Unfortunately I had to leave the book in the Flat Land, due to aeroplane weight restrictions, but I really should read the other one first so no harm done.


Also, I was given 'Vampires in the Lemon Grove', a book of short stories, by Ze Wise One's partner (I can't think of a good nickname for her at the moment). So far I really like the story about the human silkworms!


Hipster Chef got a book on cooking with Offal (whatever one fancies..), and Ze Wise One refused any books this year, and instead got himself some whiskey glasses (might need to change his name into Less Wise One if he uses them too often!).

mardi, décembre 04, 2012

Holy days


This year, I am getting:

        
After discovering Watkins books in London.
Good-oh

vendredi, février 06, 2009

Paris in pictures

samedi, janvier 03, 2009

Concerts from the year past

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Tuesday 26th of Febuary ~ Jens Lekman, Paradiso Amsterdam
With Chef and Wacko, Chef's thing.

Thursday 27th of March ~ Giovanca, Paradiso Amsterdam
With Chef, presentation of her new CD in the small hall. Chef's thing.

Sunday 20th of April ~ Roadburn festival curated by David Tibet, 013 Tilburg
Sadly, Rickee Lee Jones canceled. She was supposed to be there, she made friends with David since he was so lyrical about her, but her supporting Current's tour fell through completely. Same with OM.
Still, there were others. Baby Dee was lovely as ever, and she had a band this time! Hush Arbors reminded me a bit of Wacko. His style was more background music, not amazing but nice. There was some noisy music, either Skitliv or Aethenor, during which I got some dinner. Ze Wise One went some days ago in Berlin, and said neither Maya Elliot nor Joolie Wood were there, I was feeling a bit disappointed about that, so imagine my joy when they both came on stage! David, however, didn't seem very happy this night. He said they were gonna play a longer set because of the cancellations, but it still seemed really short. He was kind of distant, unfortunately. Still, great music. I left after Current. Bought Birth Canal Blues and this lovely bird whistle thingy saying: Hooray for Baby Dee!

Monday 21st of April ~ The Breeders, Melkweg Amsterdam
With Chef, my thing! Hmm nice Breeders, comeback tour. Small Hall, stood on the balcony, great location to see in this place. Yay for Cannonball!

Thursday 24th of April ~ The Legendary Pink Dots, Patronaat Haarlem
First time ever Pink Dots, wore my red Victorian dress. Tiny space, not many people. The first band was called Kiss the Anus of a Black Cat, they were from Belgium and played very nice music. The Pink Dots were great! Both hellsville and I love you in your tragic beauty, Saxophonist had scary lips and a light bulb in his instrument with which he walked through the audience. Edward Ka Spell wore a long black robe, sunglasses and had a bit of a tummy. Still very prophetically funny.

Monday 28th of April ~ Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, HMH Amsterdam
With Chef and some of his friends, both our thing. First time, we sat on the balcony, not such a good view, but still. Bad music to start with, then came Mr Cave, who was great, except he kept doing stupid songs like Tupelo. His encores made up for it though, The Lyre of Orpheus and Stagger Lee.

Tuesday 29th of April ~ CocoRosie and KCO - Concertgebouw Amsterdam
Koninginnenacht. Amazing! Fantastic! More more more please! You have to watch the videos. I was on the balcony on the right, and could see the classical sister wearing sneakers underneath her long dress.. The mix of the orchestra with modern classical pieces and the band with their poppy tunes was enlightnening.

Friday 2nd of May ~ Nicole Atkins, Bitterzoet Amsterdam
With Torifan and her sister. Cute! And she has large hips. Wite dress with black dots. Stood on the balcony once again. Great audience, everybody sang 4'th of July, Brooklyn's on Fire!

Thursday 15th of May ~ Peaches DJ set, Paradiso Amsterdam
With Chef, cooked Indian food before with Chef and the Foodgoddess.
Paradiso was extremely gross, the floor was sticky everywhere and I wore sandals. Some drunken guy tried to flirt with me, yuck. Peaches was a bit upset about the soundsystem, which was good for us cause it probably ment she sang more! Two guys (for every girl)!!

Friday 23rd of May ~ Tift Merritt, Paradiso Amsterdam
With the Hunting couple, their first time in Paradiso, saw a bit of Kimya Dawson before going up to the small hall to watch Tift rock out without a band. She has such a full voice, and amazing spirit! On guitar, keyboard and harmonica. I liked her better alone, but that was just cause the band sucked last time.

Saturday 24th of May ~ Feist, Paradiso Amsterdam
With Wacko. Nice lightshow on stage this time, which deffinately made it more interesting. Feist was more enthousiastic too, compared to last time in the Melkweg. Very enjoyable.

Saturday 24th of May ~ Sharon Krauss and Meg Baird, Paradiso Amsterdam
Found them in the basement after seeing Feist, Wacko came with me for a bit but left to meet a friend later on. I stayed, they were wonderfull, and very brave. Upstairs was a racket, and in the hallway as well. Their music was so quiet that you had to strain yourself to hear, but everybody was concentrating very hard in there, except the cleaner who changed the garbagebags right in the middle of a song! That idiot. I bought a CD from both of them, and talked a bit to Sharon Krauss. When I looked at her CD later at home, it turned out she's on Durtro!

Monday 2nd of June ~ Cat Power, Paradiso Amsterdam
With Chef. Both our thing. Sat on the balcony on the left side. We were disappointed. Not nearly as good as last time, when she was shy and almost drowned out by the big band. We left before the encore. And I hate her cover of Blue.

Monday 7th of July ~ Nicole Atkins, Melkweg Amsterdam
It was pooring with rain that night, still people came out. The Gardenlady was there too, weirdly enough. Nicole wore exactly the same dress as last time, and the audience was less enthousiastic (hardly anyone shouted along the chorus on Brooklyn's on Fire) - still good, I'd go again if she came.

Saturday 26th of July ~ Room Eleven, Concertgebouw Amsterdam
With the Foodgoddess. She tipped me on this membership of the Concertgebouw for young people (under 27), where you can buy tickets very cheaply. That's how we went to this concert for just 5 euros each. I started to go to a lot of other classical concerts too, and other things in the Concertgebouw. It was quite nice, I used to just put this on as backgroundmusic but they can hold their own.

Saturday 13th of September ~ The Legendary Pink Dots, Paard van Troje Den Haag
It was open monument day as well, so I checked out the governmentbuildings and some other monumental spaces in The Hague first. Not as good as last time, because I knew the show already, but still very good.

Sunday 12th of October ~ Emiliana Torrini, Paradiso Amsterdam
it's time, meet me, on the sunny road
I love her! Thought she'd be very serious, but she wasn't. And so very Icelandic! Hmm I should listen to her more really. Might go to see her again in Febuary 2009.

Monday 27th of October ~ Ani DiFranco, Paradiso Amsterdam
Mediaeval Irish girl and her boyfriend were there as well, they came for Anaïs Mitchell but stayed to listen to Ani's awsomeness. Hamell on Trial was there again too. This time in the big hall, and quite packed. We sat on the balcony at the back. All on Fabchanell BTW! And she did Swim! I adore her.

Tuesday 28th of October ~ Amanda Palmer, Melkweg Amsterdam
Chef and Serious Altgirl, who is my roommate. In the small hall. First whe had some lunatics in the small hall making music, the Army of BrokenToys, very interesting, Serious Altgirl bought their CD. Then came Jason Webley, the drunken accordeonist tramp, who made the evening exeedingly enjoyable. Gladd they opened the balcony up, otherwise we'd have had to spin around a lot to get "drunk". Amanda and the Danger Ensemble from Australia entertained us beautifully, and I love her rendition of Creep. She and Jason also seem to be Chinese siamese twins..

Friday 7th of November ~ Cansei de Ser Sexy, Melkweg Amsterdam
With Serious Altgirl and Wacko. Though Chef bought the tickets, he had to give his away because he'd forgotten about the concert and had to cook. We went there after Princess' birthday, and we could go back there afterwards because it was extremely short. No other band, and their own program not worth the money timewise. Otherwise OK, although their new CD isn't as good as the old one..

Saturday 8th of November ~ Ladytron, Melkweg Amsterdam
I realized I only like half of this band, because only half can really sing. That half is great though!

Weinachtsbücher

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So as to remember this for next year:

Chef got the bible of the Italian kitchen: De Zilveren Lepel (the silver spoon)








Ze Wise One got
Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century.



I got Oranges are not the only fruit by Jeannette Winterson, which I'd been wanting to read for ages and ages (there's also a miniseries done in the 1990's, which I promptly watched after reading the book, great actress, sadly she died of an asthma attack aged 33..). The book was lovely, can't believe she wrote that when she was 24 :o

I also got Onze Oom by Arnon Grunberg, my favourite Dutch writer. It's his newest book, I still have to read it though, too much studying to do to start on it just yet (+ my master thesis..)