Very sad news. The cultural analyst and theatre scholar Dragan Klaic has passed away at age 61. I knew him as a host with the most. He was also perhaps the most freakishly productive person I ever met. Yet he always had time to answer any silly questions that this Canadian boy had about ‘Europe’. During his memorial at Amsterdam’s Felix Meritis this past Sunday, a video compilation was screened. In one clip, he was particularly hilarious as he mocked populist politicians who imagine a loss of national identity through outside forces. ‘Identity is not something you can lose! It’s not like a wallet or a shoe!’ Below is an interview I did with him a few years back that aspired to capture his bouncy brain in action. It doesn’t do him justice.
The FSTVLisation of everyday life Amsterdam Weekly, 31 May 2007
By Steve Korver, Illustration by Robin van der Kaa
There’s one incontrovertible explanation for the explosion in the number of festivals over recent years: festivals can be fun and people like to have fun.
Amsterdam-based cultural analyst and theatre scholar Dragan Klaic, however, has a deeper view. Among his many activities as a Central European intellectual type — lecturing here, leading discussion groups there — he is chairman of the European Festival Research Project (EFRP), and plans to lead a workgroup at the University of Leiden’s Faculty of Creative and Performing Arts to research what he calls the ‘festivalisation of everyday life’.
Unfold Amsterdam has officially hit the streets. Every two weeks, Amsterdammers will be able to pick up this free English-language poster/mag highlighting the work of local artists/designers and covering the best of what’s going down around town. Hopefully it will fill the gap left since the demise of alternative weekly Amsterdam Weekly. In fact, Unfold Amsterdam arises from the luminous efforts of some of the more luminary ex-Weekly staff and freelancers. So I dig it indeed. Especially this edition’s poster by Simon Wald-Lasowski. So check, check, check it out — or at least put your finger on the pulse by checking regularly at their sweet-looking website.
Also keep your eyes out for the Unfold special edition covering the mighty Klik Amsterdam animation festival coming up on 15-19 September.
According to octogenarian poet, writer and inspired wild child Simon Vinkenoog, the trick is to keep breathing.
By Steve Korver, 15-05-2008, Amsterdam Weekly
So how does one live a long, healthy and balanced life?
‘Just feel good. That’s the secret,’ answers the poet, writer and inspired child Simon Vinkenoog over coffee and joints on a Monday morning at his garden house in Amsterdam Noord.
‘Oh, and try breathing.’ We both inhale, then exhale. I feel better already.
Turning 80 on 18 July, Vinkenoog starts celebrating this week at the Bimhuis by declaiming his poetry backed by a jazz band. Around the official birthday itself, there will be events organised at OBA public library and much will be published: Vinkenoog’s collected poems, a scrapbook of his memorabilia, his 1951-57 correspondence with the recently deceased writer Hugo Claus and a new collaboration with the musician Spinvis. Yes, the man is still busy. And he even finds time to rate as Amsterdam Weekly’s oldest contributor.
Vinkenoog has lived—and continues to do so. He’s the psychonaut who made it. Born in Amsterdam, he barely survived World War II. During the ‘hunger winter’, he ended up contracting a skin disease which had him covered with a rash, and then scabs. ‘But then a new skin broke through. Maybe that’s why my skin still looks so young,’ he jokes as he rubs his wrinkles.
After the war, he moved to Paris and befriended CoBrA painters like Karel Appel and Corneille, and writers like Hugo Claus and Remco Campert. He started publishing poems, magazines and novels before returning to Amsterdam in 1956. ‘I had become a world citizen and would therefore always be a strange duck here in Holland.’
And it only got stranger when he became an LSD test subject at the Wilhelmina Gasthuis hospital in 1959. His previous main literary theme of ‘hate’ became ‘love’. ‘Before then, I was always busy with hate,’ he says. ‘I had handicaps, insecurities, depressions—of course, I can still burst out in tears if I see something horrible on TV but I’m no longer always busy with it. One person’s nightmare is another’s fairy tale…’
By the 1960s, he had evolved into a full blown shamanic hippie performance poet. And like his friend, the late American poet Allen Ginsberg, he moved with the times. In 1979, he was the ‘priest’ who ‘married’ rocker Herman Brood to the off-her-rocker Nina Hagen. He was also named the ‘poet of the fatherland’ and managed to get married six times.
But now he’s been married to his constant companion Edith for over 20 years. ‘Partnership is happiness. It’s about balance, like summer and winter,’ says Vinkenoog. And indeed, the couple still come across as a pair of crazy kids in love.
‘The garden is our child,’ says Edith. ‘And on 13 April 2004, we had a second child. That was the day we discovered the internet.’ They laugh.
Once motivated, Vinkenoog just can’t stop giving advice on how to live—or maybe he’s just generating another poem. ‘Enjoy! Be entertained by the social games you play! Look 360 degrees around you! Learn! Then unlearn! Yoga’s good: it brightens up every cell! There are no endings, just etceteras! Always be in a process! Stay curious! Smell the mutation in the air! Be a generalist, not a specialist! Enter new houses! Stay surprised! Be in wonder! Everything is allowed! Don’t kill time, make time! Keep your own street clean! Regard every pain as a growing pain! Stay flexible! Read Walt Whitman—he’s the opa of hip! Trust life!…’ Vinkenoog pauses.
‘Actually trust is good but it’s also good to stay a bit suspicious, since it’s just getting more and more about the survival of the fittest out there,’ says Vinkenoog as he motions towards the outside world beyond their self-made Eden.
Vinkenoog takes me on a tour of the garden, one in which even gnomes would have trouble getting around, but not Vinkenoog. He shows me his latest project: reclaiming a path through the rose bushes to the second cabin where he keeps his books. The emerging path has a sign: ‘Terra Incognito: Fun in progress.’
So is hyperactivity the secret to a long and healthy life? ‘Well I’ve always danced like a fool! Sure, maybe it’s just about exhibitionism or narcissism but, nonetheless, at least you’re stretching!’
‘When you mentioned that you wanted to talk about healthy-living, I dug up a few books,’ says Vinkenoog when we return to the table. These few books form a metre-high pile, but the one he really wants to show me is called Live to be 100 by a certain S Sage. He points out something he’s underlined: ‘Maintain a consistently optimistic, positive and constructive mental attitude’.
‘Really it’s just about getting away from conditioning and all that Victorian moral nonsense,’ says Vinkenoog. ‘That whole Christian-Judaic idea of “one god” is the most dangerous of things. Our neighbour over there describes it best: “God is a garden”.’
While Vinkenoog takes a moment to admire God, I notice he had been reading last Saturday’s Volkskrant magazine. Under the headline for an interview with cabaretier Mike Bodde about his long and crippling depression, Vinkenoog had scrawled in large letters: ‘Learn to live with the chaos, young man!’
Learn to live with the chaos. I think I can do that. But first I’m going to sit here for just a while longer.
Amsterdammers are from Mars, Utrechters from Venus.
By Steve Korver, 20-10-2004, Amsterdam Weekly
I am not a student at the University of Amsterdam. I am a student of Amsterdam. So I don’t usually have a lot of time for “wisdom”. I’m just after a certain street savvy.
So at first I wasn’t quite sure what to make of Amsterdamse Wijsheden compiled by Hans Vermaak and illustrated with “vele prachtige illustraties” by Bert Witte. It’s a small book. It’s nice, new and blue. It’s also nice and cheap – for less than €5 at your better local bookshop – and therefore the perfect small gift idea. It’s also part of the series so once you have sucked back the wisdom of this city through its historical sayings and aphorisms you can move on to absorb the nuggets from other such worlds as Zen, Money, Farmers and Brabant.
But soon after I clutched it with my greedy little monkey paws, I was entertained. I even felt as if I was learning something. But mostly, it just spoke my language: Beter een buik van ’t suipe as een bult van hard werke (“Better a belly from the beer than a bump from hard work”). And indeed, while it may be worth translating this book wholly into English, such a project may quickly prove to be too much hard work. How would I ever find the right words to translate something like: Het doet ‘m niks, al hange de meiers an se kont? I would need a book of equal size for the footnotes alone.
But I was quick to recognize that there was plenty of quality stuff I could use to annoy my Dutch friends. I figured it would fun to start speaking using only Amsterdam clichés that have been badly translated into English. “Hey sorry goser for being such a lazy dry armpit for not helping you move house the other day, but I woke up with a bad case of Heineken sickness.” Ah yes: the international language of obnoxiousness – a sweet lingo indeed…
But it’s really too easy to be a smartass. Like it says in another of the books collected insights: In de gracht pisse is geen kunst. Probeer de overkant ‘ te hale ( “There’s no art in pissing into a canal. Try reaching the other side.”)
And really, the long arc involved in translating this book may very well be worth it. For one tiny tome, it does a remarkable job of reflecting some ingrained characteristics of the typical Amsterdammer. Even the quickest of perusals of its 200-odd sayings reinforced several valuable lessons taught to me long ago.
Lesson #1: Amsterdammers are Snobs The saying, “Over het IJ en onder Diemen wone enkel boere” essentially says that outside Amsterdam there are only farmers. Yep, we Amsterdammers are the only civilized folks in these parts. This reminded me of the time when a hardcore Amsterdammer friend explained to me when I first moved here that in Amsterdam it is fact worse to call someone a boer, a farmer, than a boerenlul, a farmer’s dick. Figure that one out…
Another saying that reflects a certain disdain for the outsider translates literally as “I figure that guy is from Utrecht” but in fact means – according to the ever handy glossary in the back of the book – that you are assuming that this guy is gay. For some reason I thought that was really funny. Now don’t take get me wrong. I am not some batty Buju Banton type. Some of my best friends are from Utrecht, and yet others are “from Utrecht”. (Though I do feel somewhat un-PC for not having a friend who is a combination of both. Perhaps it’s time to join Friendster afterall…)
Lesson #2: Amsterdammers are Ever-Relativizing Pragmatists Yep it’s a cliché that Amsterdammers are down-to-earth straightalkers who are forever ready to compromise as long as business gets done. And this book certainly pumps this image with many examples along the lines of “a big ass needs big pants”, “roasted doves don’t fly” and “never leave a pretty lady alone because the fastfuckers will soon be waiting in the hall”.
Lesson #3: Amsterdammers are Softie Romantics. Not. As one leafs through this book, one gets the impression that the courtship rituals in this city have indeed been somewhat tainted by pragmatism. Surely there must be a more charming way of asking someone to dance than Zal ik je lijf effe door de saal sleuren? (“Shall I drag your body about the room?”). And I truly question if the pick-up line, auspiciously found on page 69, Sal ik je gang ’s witte? (“Shall I whiten your hall?) has actually ever worked on anyone. If I wasn’t so pragmatic, I’d be shocked.
Lesson #4: Amsterdammers are Born Surrealists There’s certainly nothing like a juicy image for an aphorism to be permanently burnt into one’s mind’s eye. I’d certainly shut up if someone yelled Krijg een wielklem om je kake! (“Put a wheel clamp on your jaw!”). I’d certainly be speechless if I entered a FEBO and was asked Motte je een kattekroket of een hondehap? (“Do you want deepfried cat product or a bite of dog?”). Actually I’d be doubly speechless since I in fact do always have a problem choosing between a nasischijf and bamibal. Both are after all so lovely when served with a pungent French mustard.
But anyway, it’s these more visually oriented examples that will prove the most challenging when it comes to translating them into an English that could be understood by all. A literal approach will not get all the nuance of, for example, Die kaneelduiker is so stom as ’t paard van kristus (Literally: “That cinnamon diver is as dumb as Christ’s horse”); Is se uit de poppekast gevalle of bij ’t visbakke uite de pan gespronge? (Literally: “Did she fall out of a dollhouse or jump out of the fish basket?”); or Je ken een ei in se reet gaarkoke (“You can boil an egg in his ass”).
But I should not be scared of attaining the ability of hard boiling eggs in my butt. I should rise to the challenges of this noble task: there are wise lessons in this book that should be heard by all and not just Amsterdammers. I began leafing through the book once again in search of some pithy saying extolling the virtues of a work ethic since I knew that, at least in the past, Amsterdam was famous for having one. I hoped it would inspire me to new and more proactive heights. And indeed bingo: Je komt er wel as je het glas laat staan en je jongeheer laat hange (“You’ll get there if you leave the glass alone and keep your young man hanging”).
These were excellent words to the wise. Too many glasses of alcohol can indeed be a danger to one’s productivity. But who is this “young man”?
