More inspiration

Over the past few weeks I've been talking and thinking with different people about sustainability, and 'greening up' my life a bit. Not because I'm being swept up by the hype, or because I want to be the next environmental hippie. But because it makes sense to use a little less energy if I don't need it, to eat vegetables which aren't sprayed with pesticides or flown half way across the world if we can grow them here, to use the stairs a bit more often.

So I was very curious to see cheruchan's stories about her No Impact Experiment.

It coincided with my trial subscription to a 'vegetable basket' - a weekly bag full of fresh vegetables, from local (or sometimes not-so-local) farms. Apart from it being healthy, it's also forcing me to expand my culinary comfort zone. I've cooked with parsnips, red beets, misome - for the first time ever during the past week. Challenging - but fun, at the same time.

This week, of course, I started my own No Impact Week - so far so good. Even if I haven't been able to completely dismiss trash out of my life.

Today I came home to a very surprising package in my mailbox: A Life Stripped Bare. It seems that No Impact Man wasn't the only one with the idea to live Impact-free for a while... Looking forward to this read!

Afghanistan stories

I recently stumbled onto a travel blog of a Dutch woman who is walking from Amsterdam to Tibet. Yes, you read that correctly, she's walking.

I found the blog at the time that she was walking through Tadjikistan - I just read her latest posts which are of crossing the border into Afghanistan. Although the stories and pictures are fascinating I can't stop thinking that you have to be crazy to be doing a trip like this....

Travel stories seem to fascinate me at the moment, especially those going through Central Asia. I just finished Colin Thubron's Shadow of the Silk Road which I loved. I especially liked that he doesn't only describe what he sees, but he really ties together the long history of the area and talks a lot about the people he meets. Now waiting is also 'On the Road to Kandahar' - a report by a military journalist (I think) of travelling Afghanistan and Iraq.

Fascinating stuff. And good for dreaming up new destinations (although I won't be bothering my boss for tickets to Kabul any time soon I think - but Kyrgystan or there abouts would be good.... but then I need a different job).

(ps, the blog is slow as I have very irregular connectivity at the moment. Oh, and no inspiration)

'The unvoiced question'

A hundred reasons clamour for your going. You go to touch on human identities, to people an empty map. You have a notion that this is the world's heart. You go to encounter the protean shapes of faith. You go because you are still young and crave excitement, the crunch of your boots in the dust; you go because you are old and need to understand something before it's too late. You go to see what will happen.

The above is from the introduction of Colin Thubron's Shadow of the Silk Road. Possibly pretentious but I do recognize a lot in it - why do I travel?



The book started off in Xian, and the first 80 pages detailed the 2,5 weeks that I travelled two years ago to Dunhuang in Gansu province in China. But he continues on, and at the moment he has just arrived in Kyrgyzstan....

I wonder when I will be able to continue that journey out of Dunhuang. I would love to know what is beyond those dunes.

Guidebooks

I guess you could say I'm a little bit addicted to guidebooks. Although I try to keep it simple - so when I'm just in a new city for a day or two I won't bother. And I try to borrow books from others if I'm really really broke.

But anyway - I bought a guide book to Kuala Lumpur on Saturday, because well - even if I'm there for work, I'm still there for six days which in my mind warrants the book (not that I've actually looked at it yet of course).

Except that I'm not actually in KL for six days.... out of the preliminary five day working schedule, I think I'm only spending 1,5 days in the city itself. Very excited, although to be fair I think meetings in the city for an extra day would be more useful workwise. I've been a good girl and suggested that to my colleagues as well. We'll see what happens.
But still - I really should've bought the full-on Malaysia guide apparently.

Caved in

I promised myself a few months ago that I needed to stop buying books for a while because of the ever-increasing stack of unread books on my shelf. Plus all the books that I borrow from friends.

It had been going pretty well, slowly moving through that stack, and keeping away from bookshops. Until last week.

I am now the proud owner of Colin Thubron's Shadow of the Silk Road, which had been on my wishlist for a while, and De Russische Kater by Laura Starink - after having seen her speak in a very interesting debate on contemporary Russian politics a few weeks ago.

I vaguely remember claiming that my Russia-fascination would be done with after my last trip to Russia exactly a year ago. I guess that hasn't happened huh. Oh well. Am now off to Amsterdam to see a documentary on Anna Politkovskaya to keep up the theme.

Review: Persepolis

I just finished watching the new movie Persepolis. I have wanted to see it since it premiered on the Rotterdam Filmfestival in January, but knowing that it would come out in the cinema's I didn't bother seeing it then.

It's an animated movie after the graphic novel with the same title of author Marjane Satrapi. It recounts her life growing up in Iran after the 1979 revolution, and coming to Europe for highschool. Great insight to a major historic event from a personal point of view.

While I enjoyed the movie I think the very simplistic drawing did harm the presentation of the story as a movie. Although I haven't read the book (but a friend of mine apparently has it) I imagine it to be much more powerful on paper. Even though less is sometimes more, I feel that on screen you need more visual power to convince the viewer - and this is one of those cases.

Especially the beginning of the movie felt too much like a documentary and too slow-going to really catch my attention. Maybe this is also because the beginning describes a period in Satrapi's life when she's still very young, and things seem to be moving faster as she gets older. And I started to enjoy it more as the story continues as well.

It is a very interesting part of history though, and I love the way that this story shows a little bit of that. And it has made me interested to know more about the actual happenings and history of this part of the world. Nevertheless, I do think I'll like the book better.

On books and such

Reading this review, on the recently discovered blog Neojaponisme, about the new winner of this year's Akutagawa prize in Japan made me realize that I still have a shelf of Japanese books to read.

The book reviewed, Chichi to ran ( Breasts and Eggs), sounds very interesting. It reminds me a little of a previous Akutagawa-winner, the book Snakes and Earrings by Hitomi Kanehara. The way the new winner appears to be written, and the topic it is on, seems to be pretty refreshing - which Kanehara did a few years ago, but completely differently.

I haven't read any of these books in the picture for over two years. I should really start getting back into it, if I want to be able to maintain my Japanese (reading) skills. The last two years have just been too hectic to be able to focus on books like this. Today felt different. I've been cleaning out my house, getting rid of a lot of things, and it feels as if the restlessness is well and truly gone. Who knows, I might be able to sit down for one of the books from that shelf again. Or maybe really start thinking about a project? Plenty of ideas... which is very good.

New discoveries

It's a Monday night and I'm slowly trying to catch up after an action packed weekend. This has been such a good one, really full but luckily only with good stuff, lots of different people, gorgeous weather - what more do I want?

On top of that, I spoiled myself with a fabulous new cookbook!

Not just on Russian food, but also on food from Georgia, Armenia, Ukraine and... Azerbaidjan.

I'm SO excited. Can't wait to try it out. But, in case that doesn't happen (fairly likely actually), at least it will look good on my shelf of other cookbooks with food from various places of the world. Yay!

Murakami

I was just reading this article in Time about Haruki Murakami. One of my favourite writers but as I was reading I realized I haven't read any of his latest books. Mostly my own fault actually. I have this hang-up about wanting to read books in their original language if at all possible. Which in Japanese still is possible except that it's just becoming too tiresome so I don't bother anymore.

Bad Machi. I have a whole shelf of Japanese books, half of which still need to be read, including this very cool sounding book by the other Murakami: Ryu.

The Time-magazine hints that Murakami's next title would be about Japanese nationalism... could be very interesting. I'd love to read his take on it.

I should really let go of that rule huh...

Wizardry

I tend to start buying stuff if I'm delayed travelling. Not good.

So, today, stuck at the airport/station for a bit I innocently wandered into the bookshop. And am now immersed in Harry Potter Part 7. Wheee!

(I'm truly not that addicted to the series, but yes, I do wanna know how it finishes before all the spoilers start appearing!)

I like Thursdays

Or at least, I liked my last Thursday:


Lots of fun, great show - almost 2,5 hours of loads of favourite songs. I'm getting all excited about going to many more concerts again. There's this for example, which is becoming increasingly tempting....

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More fun stuff yesterday: I had lunch at my old place of employment. Such a good ego boost! Have to do that some time soon again ;-)

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I'm also loving the book that I'm reading at the moment: In search of Kazakhstan, the country that disappeared. A travelogue-type book describing life in Kazakhstan, with a combination of current affairs and history (oh, and no mention of Borat). Very interesting, but the places he describes are so different from what I've seen. I think he also goes to Baikonur so that should be a good test to find out how to really judge the book.

A book post

• am waiting excitedly for the sequel of the exchange which resulted in this book a little over a year ago. My book is waiting to be sent out (not telling what it is yet, in case the recipient is reading) but apparently some books have already arrived at their destinations.... very excited!
• my boss gave me his copy of De Joodse Messias yesterday (literally translated as The Jewish Messiah). I've read some of the books by the author, Arnon Grunberg, but this is quite a controversial book. My boss is now describing Grunberg as 'sick and perverted'. Very curious ...
  
• amongst the stack of books waiting to be read are books on Ruanda, Kazakhstan, Europe and the world in general. I think it'll be non-fiction for a while....
  

Buildings - books on and photography of

Last week I visited the Netherlands Architecture Institute in Rotterdam again to see their latest exhibition: Spectacular City.

This is one of my favourite museums in the country and I love the things they do with architecture and (usually) urban spaces. This exhibition shows photographs of cityscapes - photographing the future, in the words of the curators.

And that is really what it is too. There were only a few shots of 'old style' cities. Most impressive were indeed the cities of the future - the huge metropoles in Asia, Latin America and so on. There were quite a few aerial shots which made you realize the immenseness of it all - quite scary, in a way. Especially because of the lack of people in many shots it all felt quite spooky and very distant.


One of the cool things about the museum is its book shop. I'm not an architecture freak but I do love discovering great buildings (old & new) and I have wanted a book on Japanese architecture for some time. So, this shop finally had one. Very very happy.










One of the buildings described in the book is Tod's in Harajuku - I've walked past there plenty of times and it is indeed a pretty cool building. More recent in Tokyo (and one that I haven't seen myself) is the Mikimoto Ginza 2 store, clearly by the same architect Toyo Ito.















But, there isn't only good architecture in Japan. On the Pechakucha night a few weeks ago one of the presentations was on the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision. I didn't know the building but it's stunning. Great shots of it are here. Would love to see it in real life once.

[PS, I was curious why another one of the cool Harajuku buildings wasn't in the book, but I just discovered that the Prada building was apparently designed by Jacques Herzog & Pierre de Meuron so that explains it. Article and pictures (at the bottom) here & here]

Russia

When I travel, I try to get a book from that particular place (country/city) as I am usually so fascinated by what I see around me that I am desperate to know more about it. (Usually I also decide that I have to live there for some time to really grasp the place. So far that hasn't actually happened for many places!).

Back to the books.

When I was in Moscow in June I came across a book by Andrew Meier, Black Earth (weirdly enough, currently en route between Frankfurt and Washington DC) which describes his journey to the far extremes of the country. He travels to all directions - south to Chechnya, east to Sakhalin, north to Siberia (Norilsk), west to St. Petersburg and of course to his homebase Moscow. It's been a fascinating read as he combines a historical background with political developments, amongst others through descriptions of the Russians and others he meets on the road and of the places he visits.

Russia has been moving to the front of international politics more and more over the last few years - reclaiming its previous position of power - and amongst all the news coming from the Kremlin this book has made me quite fascinated by this huge country.

So, besides following the plot around Litvinenko (but also Scaramella, Loegovoj, Kovtoen, etc etc) I've also started reading the book of late Russian journalist Anna Politskovskaya, Putin's Russia, which should be quite interesting. I'm very curious to see how critical she really is of Putin and his policies.

Politkovskaya was shot in October 2006. The murder of Litvinenko happened after he allegedly started his own research into the Politkovskaya assassination. In Meier's book, the chapter on St. Petersburg is in large part dedicated to a description of events surrounding the death of journalist Galina Starovoitova. The Politkovskaya death seems to have a lot of similarities.

The more I read about the whole polonium-210 plot, the more Russia is starting to sound like a proper maffia state.... Freaky stuff, but all the more interesting because of it!

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For the Dutchies, these are some of the sites with some interesting stuff on Litvinenko, Politkovskaya, Polonium-210 etc.:
NRC article - chronology of events
Moscow blog
and another Moscow blog
plus an hour-long Tegenlicht documentary on Putin's re-election in 2004

Desert fortresses

Jiayuguan Fortress
Originally uploaded by macchi.

Since my book discovery post I of course already have a long list of books that I can't wait to get to. Some of them are waiting for me in my hotel room and apartment. Others are in the shop. Such as a new translation of what is apparently an Italian classic: Il deserto dei Tartari by Dino Buzzati.

I'm not sure exactly why I want to read it but the review that I read yesterday (in an old issue of Vrij Nederland, for those of you who are curious) sounds great. It sounds like a story of isolation and desperation, and in a very surreal setting. Possibly that doesn't sound like the best descriptioni. Nevertheless, I've become curious. After looking the book up at my local bookseller, the text starts with the question: Is a person courageous enough to determine his own life? Hmm, it might just be the right book at the right time...

It was also made into a film, directed by Valerio Zurlini. That made me even more interested. One of his movies which I saw months ago was great. Beautifully shot in black and white, great sense of humour and a very nice change from the usual Hollywood-hits.

(The picture is added because the story is set at an army outpost in the desert - which made me think of the fortress in Jiayuguan)

A book review: Not Before Sundown

I love discovering new books, and I try to read as much as I can. Unfortunately not fast enough to keep up with my ever increasing To Be Read-stack though. The second round in Baikonur is proving to be more productive when it comes to books than back in May at least.

My most recently read book is one of those new discoveries. Not before Sundown is an English translation of an award-winning Finnish novel, published in 2000 (translation in 2003) by Johanna Sinisalo. It was sent to me about half a year ago as part of an international book barter and I had finally gotten round to reading/finishing it yesterday.

The story is about a young man who finds a troll cub abandoned on the street and he decides to take it home. This clearly affects his life in all aspects but I won't give away too much about the plot (there's more information on the Amazon-link I'm sure). Besides the originality of the story what mostly struck me was the creativitiy of the story format. Not settling on just one narrator, the author has chosen five different ones. Although this might seem confusing she only gives each narrator one or two pages. Sometimes even only two lines. In between are excerpts from 'sources' on trolls and folklore, giving some distance and context to the story. As the plot moves chronologically, you view some events almost simultaneously through different eyes making it very dynamic.

Needless to say, this was a very good read and a surprising discovery - the ones that I like best of course. Looking forward to the next one!

Growing up

Obviously everyone has their moments of realizing that you're getting older. By looking at friends who are having babies or buying houses, or by starting to pay off your student loans.

Recently I came across two more things that made me wonder where time has gone - in a good way too, because pretty much everyone around me is doing really well. Although in an adult way ;-)

In any case, these two things. When I was at university, I would always turn first to the back page of the weekly university paper to read the column and laugh at the comic.
And - in my mind - almost at the same time both those columnists (two universities, two university papers so two columnists!) are making it 'big'. I've always really enjoyed their writing, but to me it seemed a relatively small thing and very much part of the university period. It is quite funny to see how they are also moving away from that period - and moving on to better things!

For one, Christiaan Weijts has just published his first novel: Art. 285b. And it's getting unbelievable reviews almost everywhere, such as here at the Volkskrant for example. This is definitely going on my book buying list!

The second columnist is now writing for what I consider to be the best Dutch newspaper and it's recent spin-off paper. A recent column for NRC.next caught my attention as Aaf describes the dance event that I went to on the weekend. Judging by this though it seems as if her columns have become even more airy, as she is describing it quite stereotypically.

It was an interesting read as she touches on a discussion that I and my friend had on Saturday as well. We went to Sensation White ; a night where about 30.000 people are dancing inside the Amsterdam Arena (the Amsterdam football stadium), all dressed in - you guessed it - white. And almost all of them had paid lots of money to be there.

And that's exactly what amazed us, and what amazed Aaf: paying a lot of money to be forced to wear only one particular colour (we had to go shopping as white is pretty much non-existent in my wardrobe) and to be lining up for ages everywhere. The press conference of the event put it down to 'the ultimate experience'. Right, ultimate, with 30.000 instant friends. Also, 'feeling safe'. Hmm, maybe. I suppose people feel safe when they feel as if they belong to a group?

In any case that was also sort of the conclusion of our discussion - people like to belong. To a group, to a subculture and they don't mind paying for it, even if it does take away a bit of freedom (in dress, in movement, etc.).

Anyway, I had a good night. Pretty cool to see the whole stadium full of white people, music was okay-ish although had hoped for better. But, I hope to be making up for very good music in two weeks during a much smaller and much more comfortable event: 5DaysOff. Can't wait!

January Man

I've raved before about David Mitchell and the signed book I got of Black Swan Green. Have almost finished that, and I have to say it's quite different from his other books. Quite good, but can't quite make up my mind about it yet so am anxious to finish it.

In any case, the first chapter seems to be an expansion of a short story Mitchell published in Granta a few years (2003, I think?) ago. It's quite cool to read and see how the chapter in the book has expanded and improved from the story.

Packing (1); or, May reading list

[update at 11 june]
So, out of the below list, I read Irving's book which I really enjoyed. I was disappointed with The History of Love though. So that's two books down... Did start in Cosmopolitanism, and have started in the Finnish book which so far looks really interesting, a very cool story-'frame'.

But, I came home with a new book in German, which I will try to tackle sometime soon. And as mentioned I found the new Mitchell. I also bought a book on Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union which I started reading in the plane. So far it's very good.... But I don't think I've made much progress on eliminating the big stack of unread books, huh?

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[original at 10 may]
This time next week I'll be sound asleep in Moscow.

At the moment, though, I still have a very packed few days ahead. I have also not giving thought to any packing yet (suitcase vs. backpack, office wear vs. casual wear, well, you get what I mean).
However, I have made a pretty cool selection out of my bookshelfs of unread books to bring! Here's what's coming along in any case:

Not before sundown by Johanna Sinisalo - the result of an international book exchange.
A History of Love by Nicole Krauss - a friend highly recommended this as I was telling her how I'm currently very impressed with Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Close.
The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving

and out of professional habit, so to speak, Kimono by Liza Dalby.

and for when I have had enough of engineering talk, Cosmopolitanism by Kwame Anthony Appiah and Orientalism by Edward Said. Hmm, should actually be an interesting combination to read.

Oh, and maybe a new Terry Pratchett for some light entertainment in between?

What say you? Four weeks in the middle of nowhere, will this list suffice? ;-)

[@14/05]And additionally, a new book for my bookcase and my suitcase, The Quiet Violence of Dreams by K. Sello Duiker.

Another new book!

I just got back from one of my favourite shops - all shelfs are stacked with travel books, how can you not love a shop like that? - to start a bit of research about my upcoming weekend in Moscow! Yay :-D

Contrary to habit, I ended up buying a different guide than the standard Lonely Planet. I mean, the Rough Guide has a lot more pages, is cheaper, seems to have much more information on the city etc etc. Only drawback appears to be that it's a year older, but I'm sure I can survive my few days in the city on 2005-information.

Btw, the picture above is off the hotel (Metropol) I will most likely spending my first night in... From what I've read about it it seems to be one of the most beautiful hotels in town, so I'm not complaining at all about corporate travel so far!

P.S. Yes, I'm slightly overexcited about this upcoming trip. But hey, I haven't been on an airplane since, oh, January. It's about time again.