aan de amsterdamse grachten

After a week like the last one, H and I needed to redeem a gift and spend the weekend in Amsterdam.
Even if the rhetoric were to cool down and the candidate were to conduct himself in a more becoming manner, for the partisans in the US that elevated the forty-fifth presumptive to high-office, that pot has already been stirred. Even if genuinely capable of healing the polar divide of the American people and its broader mission that validates nationalistic leanings, those who put him in office are not wanting to see a conciliatory, contrite candidate who might retract some of the more outrageous hyperbole. There will be consequences for each campaign promise not lived up to—and sooner rather than later.  Maybe the city’s reputation as Pinocchio’s Island of the Donkey Boys is not undeserved as it’s always prepared and equipped for a good time—and not necessarily one tinged with regret and near-misses, and I wonder if it’s not some apt metonym for the hard repelling to the right.
It’s a living community obviously but limned with the extremes of revelry and reflection—in the history, the museums whose curation is an ancient one, and its once pinnacled past as the richest spot on Earth due to mercantilism and a service economy, whose tulip-based stock exchange is a cautionary-tale. I wonder what it’s like for the denizens to cope in that sort of environment. I’d imagine that it would be pretty fun to switch—if it weren’t for the crush of tourists and vested interest to make the Amsterdam the backdrop of their expectations, and I’m sure that individuals with a certain threshold gravitate to such places on a more permanent basis as well. Amsterdam is no political surrogate so no matter and it was a treat exploring the alleyways and canals and watching the juxtaposition and wondering how those forces of Nature that drove different proclivities had the wind knocked out of their sails just here at that moment—just short of cancelling on another out.
The XXX that’s featured prominently all over the city—on its banners and emblems, is not the origin of an explicit rating or highly potent liquor though that might seem appropriate but three crosses (saltires) of Andrew the Apostle—patron of fishermen who was crucified, tortuously tethered on the more common x-shaped construction—but according to legend represents the triple threat to the city of fire, flood and pestilence and are probably of a mutable character, given the drift of the times.

famous blue raincoat

I’m sure on any number of counts that 2016 has been told it seriously needs to ease off and it has seemed particularly harsh on musicians.
While ignorant of poet and performer Leonard Cohen until I was introduced to him in college (choice words and work courtesy of Nag on the Lake) and often conflating his lyrics and repertoire with the likes of Nick Cave and others whose acquaintance I just met, I did cherish the fact that hidden away somewhere was a resonant truth—to be confronted sparingly, but more out of neglect and distraction rather than fancying one secure from sophomoric matters of the heart or out of prescience that what’s genuine is cheapened by its loitering presence. As with David Bowie, Cohen had just completed a new album before passing and just a week previously, I had heard an excellent interview with the artist that got me nostalgic and excited to get to know him again—but importantly, just as grateful to count him as an influence, one of those strains that ought to be revisited at different stages of life in the hopes that with age comes wisdom and nuance.

alt-right or barrel of deplorables

Here’s a brief biographical look of some of the freshly be(k)nighted members of European Alt-Right, coming soon to an election near you—you know, so you can avoid awkward encounters at parties. Thankfully, most have a day-job to fall back on—since idle hands... With the exception of the do-over election in Austria, this dossier only introduces those without some tenuous claim to authority.

Frauke Petry, chemist and chairwoman for Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, founded 4 July 2015.





Lutz Bachmann, advertising executive from Dresden and founder of the PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident) October 2014.



Marine Le Pen, attorney and French politician and president of Front National, October 1972.

Albert Rösti, political consultant and national chairman of the Swiss People’s Party, founded September 1971.





Geert Wilders, Dutch founder and leader of the Party for Freedom, February 2006.











Matteo Salvini, Italian journalist and leader of separatist movement Lega Nord, founded in January 1991.








Norbert Hofer, contested president of Austria and member of the Freedom Party (FPÖ), founded April 1956.

oh, inverted world

With everything seeming so unreal and draining—including the stages of disbelief that we or they as the cognizetti had to confront as assumptions collapsed—I was hoping to awake from this bad dream and find ourselves in a place where all the progress towards social justice as imperfect as it is and as far as we have to go was not refudiated and undone by the victory of chauvinism and exceptionalism.
America’s relevance that so many are clutching after is diminished both domestically and abroad, and as tragic as it is to valid the insecurities of groups whose support comes at the disenfran- chisement of others—no protection for the minority, the greater threats come in the form of contagion in this nativism, emboldening tyrants and charismatics globally, and in laxer attitudes—verging towards ignorance—regarding climate change and responsible stewardship for the environment. Not that we’re custodians of the Earth, but rather having the passion and curiosity to make the pursuits of the sciences accountable and transform our world safely. It’s bad enough that those holding power are loath indulge that sometimes uncomfortable and inconvenient self-critique that one’s presumptions may be wrong and sustain the intellectual and emotional wherewithal to wonder why others might see the same things differently, but it’s not just as if we’ve given some mustachioed caricature of a villain enough rope to hang himself but also an arsenal of nuclear weapons and a surveillance system without parallel at his disposal. With such toys, why aspire to anything higher?

chirality

Some weeks ago BBC Radio 4 featured the story of a lovelorn snail called Jeremy who because of a rare, one-in-a-million genetic mutation is coiled anti-clockwise and could never find a mate, being that the general population is right-handed.
The question of compatibility, however, does not come down to a matter of handedness and dominance we see in human dexterity—though this match-making is a tool for studying aspects of it, and is more akin (if parallels are appropriate) to the exceeding rare but viable mutation where some people have their hearts on their right sides: Jeremy’s sexual organs have the wrong orientation and would only work with another like him. This rare state however does not require extensive anatomical examination and is easily recognised by an attentive eye by the way the spiral of the shell radiates, clockwise or counter. The radio appeal, despite the odds, netted two potential suitors or sires for Jeremy (all snails being hermaphroditic and beyond gendered labels) one found by a snail-fancier (a conchologist) not far from the Nottingham labs where Jeremy was kept called Lefty, who’ve had their initial date. Jeremy’s other potential partner—yet unnamed and seemingly held in reserve, was rescued from the frying pan by a keen-eyed sous-chef in Mallorca and given that your garden variety snail is rather polyamorous, and they are scheduled to meet up at a later date.