What isn't art?

Wall poems

Leiden is home to 99 wall poems.  It was supposed to be 100, but that's a long story.   Here's a favorite of mine by the Nieuwe Rijn.  

Cultural observation:   The gilded cage  

The arts are heavily subsidized in the Netherlands.  This leads to a few perverse results.  

First,  lots of young people pursue the arts to the exclusion of other career options despite a, .... oh how shall I put this delicately?... , TOTAL LACK OF TALENT!   

Second, truly talented artists find it difficult to rise above the noise floor.  

Third, the government owns lots and lots of art that it keeps warehoused.   

Now, it's nice that artists who would otherwise have to get jobs, go on the welfare, or just starve, are paid by the government to make art that the government then buys. But, does it do the artist any good beyond the direct value of the subsidy?  After all, my grad students like their monthly stipend, but they get upset when I take forever to edit a joint manuscript.  Why?  Because they do what they do to have the results disseminated and also to build a reputation and a career.  

Anyway,  sometimes sensible people in the government agencies that own the art manage to get some of it on display or directly commission a work for public installment and we get things like the quirky tube of toothpaste in Leiden Castle.   So on the whole, I think it's good for the public, but I don't think it's as good a deal for the artists as one might think.  

In defense of art 

So you might surmise that I am generally hostile to public funding of the arts or to the arts generally. I am not at all. Here, one comes across funny little art projects very frequently and many are not ``professional." I think that art should be part of our lives every day. Great artists, in my opinion, don't create works that we can only admire from afar, rather they break new ground that we can all find fertile. Whether it is a choice of room wall colors, or a flower arrangement, or the doodles on a notebook cover we can and should create little bits of art everyday. This does not require professionalization. All the choices we make, all the projects we undertake, if we bring some aesthetic sense to these things, they become art projects. In the end, what isn't art?

Word of the day

schoonheid beauty. Schoonheid is waarheid, waarheid is schoonheid.

All along the watchtower

The hidden castle 

 This past Sunday we found Leiden Castle.  It dates from the 13th century and it's basically just an open roofed cylinder on top of a man-made hill.   At the confluence of the Oude Rijn and the Nieuwe Rijn.  

The thing is completely hidden from the street.  The ``modern'' buildings around it, many also hundreds of years old,  completely hide it.  So you come up on it through a little back alley.  It's really quite charming.  

Cultural observation

The Dutch are wonderfully weird

In the middle of the castle sits this sort of benchlike sculpture.  I had to get within a few meters before I realized that it's a wooden tube of toothpaste.  The paste coming out the end is marble.   They put a sculpture of a half used tube of toothpaste in the middle of an 800-year-old castle.  Cause, y'know, it's cool.  You know the drug laws here are very liberal.  And it gets better...

A few meters away is more marble:

Yep, that's right. Very liberal drug laws.  Whatever hard edges the Dutch national personality may have, stuff like this more than makes up for it.  Did I mention the camel in Amsterdam I saw in January? 

A positive derivative

My second lecture in my short series on inverse problems was better attended than the first.  We're up from eight to ten.  It seems to be going ok.  I got through a review of the construction of pseudoinverses and then blasted a little too fast through inversion the Radon transform again. 

Word of the day:

roodverschuiving: red-shift.  Het model Hubbel verbindt roodverschuiving met galactische afstanden. The Hubbel model connects redshift and galactic distances.

A Yankee in William of Orange's court

Bike of the day

We got Ethan a new bike.  The landlord had left a kid's bike, but it was abit too big.  Ethan could and did manage it, but the awkwardness of it took the fun out of it.  So for 40 euros we got a whole lot of little-boy happiness in the form the The Fox, our new/used bike.  He's been making good use of it.  

Gratuitous bike pics

While we're posting bike pics, here are some gratuitous pics of mine from last week on the ride to Delft.

 

A construction zone too far

The ride to Amsterdam last friday was meant to be 39km according to Google maps.  There is much construction along the way and it wound up at 60 km.  On the way back, I figured out my mistakes, but still came in at 45 km.  I don't think it can be made shorter.  This makes it really time consuming to do regularly.  With all the stops for little towns and construction, I can only average about 24 or 25 kph, so it's almost two hours each way.  I can go by train, including the travel at each end by bike and foot, in about 45 or 50 minutes.  The ride to Delft in contrast doesn;t cost me any more time than the train.   It's a straight shot down clear path and I can manage 27 kph with little trouble and actually punched out  a 30 kph ride, fully loaded, the other night when I was needed at home. 

Cultural observation

There are helpful, courteous, outgoing Dutch people.  Lots of them. 

Living in a city, one can easily be left with the impression that the Dutch are a people with the anatomically surprising ability to actually turn their eyes to look completely and only into themselves.  They tend to ignore others in clear distress. They will push their way past a slow moving oma in a line without seeming to even notice. They generally give the impression that they cannot cope with the notion that the other objects moving in the world around them are actually people like themselves.   They are, in a word, inward-looking.   This, I am convinced is entirely a city thing. 

Thomas commented to me how nice it is when in the US to be standing on the street trying to decipher a map and have a total stranger offer to help unsolicited.  He also noted with some chagrin that this doesn't happen in Holland.   He's wrong.

Three times on my ride Friday people offered help to me completely unsolicited.  Once, a jogger on the path offered help while I looked at a map.  Again, while looking at the map, a small pack of older ladies offered help and patiently worked through my broken Dutch to confirm that , yes, I was on the right path, no I should not cross the A4 at the next opportunity, but wait till Nieuwe Wetering.  And finally, two very friendly construction workers, again in a patois of my broken Dutch and their broken English, were very helpful at a construction impasse.   

These were all clearly country folk.  I had been warned prior to my visit that the Dutch country people might be a bit insular, but aside from the lack of English, which is no bad thing in my view, the country Dutch have been much more pleasant to deal with than the supposedly cosmopolitan city Dutch.  They smile, offer aid, and seem happy to interact with other people.  I really really like the rural Dutch.  

Perhaps I am just a multicultural hayseed.  

The Taxi service

Turning the mother-in-law loose in Amsterdam

After the Delf excursion we realized that with the five of us going anywhere the probability approaches one that someone will get sick, overtired, overhungry, or hurt.  So friday Marilee came to Amsterdam with me.  

The trickiest part of the trip is getting from our house to the train staion, Leiden Centraal.  It's about 2.5 km and it's anomalously cold here.  We've gone twice by taxi with varying results and expense.  So Marilee was going to bike, but her broken arm was sore, so I put the kid's seat on the rack of my bike (the landlord's bike actually, not my good bike, I wouldn't leave that at the train station).  Unfortunately, this is the best picture we got.  The bike is the Dutch step-through type and a fairly cheap one at that, so it starts of whippy as a wet noodle.  Put my mother-in-law over the rear axel and with great will power applied, it will almost go around corners.  Nonetheless, we were passing several other two-uppers with skinny little teenaged girls on the back and big young strapping guys up front trying to get it up the slope approaching the station. 

Tears

Once in Amsterdam, we went to the Anne Frank house.  What can you do but cry?  

There is a new exhibit since last I was there.  It's an interactive bit on the limits of freedom.  E.g. should it be allowed that the NeoNazis march in front of a synagogue or that the Irish protestants march through Catholic neighborhoods to celebrate the victory of William of Orange?  I'm generally libertarian on these sorts of things, but I know that US law strikes what I think is a good balance.    Your free-speech rights end when you are obviously trying to incite violence either by encouraging others to commit violence on your behalf or by picking a fight directly.  The law even defines ``fighting words." Seems like the aforementioned marches are pretty blatant attempts to pick a fight by choice of location.  Anyway, you get to vote on the answers and see how other visitors have voted.  

We had lunch and I left Marilee on her own to wander.  She managed to make it to VU on her own later in the day by tram and we caught the intercity back to Leiden for dinner.  

I am not South African

A worker at the Anne Frank House thought my Dutch was good enough that I might be South African.  I'm not sure what to make of that.   It's a bit like being told your English sounds like you might be from the American South.   

Einstein Cafe

Albert Einstein was on the faculty at Leiden fora couple of years and his time here is still celebrated.  Today Ethan and I went to the Einstein Cafe.  I had the Einstein hamburger:  sliced boiled egg, chease and mayo sauce on a burger that's made like meatloaf with bread and spices.

 

More taxi service

I got to be taxi service for my wife tonight when we went out for a little date with out the kids.  She probably would have been better-off on her own bike as she just got cold sitting on the back of mine.  We had an American-sized meal at a chinese place and then stopped off for a beer and Irish coffe at an English Pub.  There's a smoking ban in Holland now, but some of the pubs in smaller towns a re flaunting it.  This one had out a jar to collect for the fines.

Cultural observation 2

Most Europeans do not smile and acknowledge strangers.  This is a very American thing to do.  If I smile and nod to someone I pass on the sidewalk leaving my house ( they're neighbors after all ) I automatically get a ``Hello" in English instead of a ``goedemorgen."   They know.  The Dutch, at least, think we are overly polite and sweet.  The French think we're grinning idiots.

One week in

Excuses

OK, so the pace has fallen off a bit.  First I suffered unusually badly from the jet lag (my ever greater age?).  Then, we were having too much fun to stop and write the blog.  

Touristy stuff

We've done a few touristy things.  We went to the museum of the big old windmill in Leiden,  Molen van Valk. I went to Delft to work and the family came along. They went to a tile factory and Ethan painted his own tile. I'll post a pic when we get it back from firing. Delft china really is pretty.

The return from Delft was a bit ugly.  Deborah started coming down with something involving a fever and sore throat.  We then had a walk that was too far for an already-tired 5-year-old.  So I wound up carrying him for a km or two.  Then we missed the train and had to catch the next.  Then when we got back we decided to try the bus system and wound up waiting a long time for a bus.  My Dutch is getting better though and I managed to navigate the system talking to busdrivers in the local tongue.  I don't think anyone else found this comforting.  We still had to walk half a km or so after the bus and poor Ethan was about to bust a bladder.  He made it with me carrying again and running.  The one-hour trip had taken almost three.  All in all, a good work-out and a fun day.  Deborah has sworn off the busses and will only bike to the city center for the train now.  

A cultural observation

I managed to get a bank account.  Americans may not appreciate that this is a real accomplishment here.  They need proof of residency here and back in the us, passport, a letter from the host institution,  and various and sundry other bits of bureaucratic detritus.  

Anyway, some fellow Americans I met had not had such good luck and after a little conversation I think I know why.  They expected it to work and were a little upset (though I expect still perfectly nice) that it is not a simple matter of walking in and opening an account.    I expected failure and only showed mild disappointment when I was told that it would take a few days to process.  My disappointment elicited a respond of eager helpfulness and concern and got the application expidited.  

The Dutch are at once dogmatically egalitarian and still somehow caste-aware.  I let it be known that I was a university professor ( a fairly high-status position here ), but only by way of giving my card with all my address information.  I never said "Oh, I'm a professor and I need this done promptly." I took the attitude that I was just a little guy caught up in a confusing system and I was completely appreciative of anything my friend the clerk could do.  If he couldn't help me further, that was ok, I was sure he had done his best to help me since we're just in this together.  Generally, this is the right attitude in Holland.  I like it like that.  I am just a little guy trying to get by in the world and I do feel that we are just in this all together. 

The system here has a negative compressibility.  Start to demand things be done and they will get swallowed in the vestigal remains of the Dutch empire, the bureaucracy.   Appear the pleasant and innocent victim of the same bureaucracy and people jump to help.    

Science 

I have checked in and gotten offices at both Vrije Universitieit (VU) and TU Delft.  I have met a lot of interesting people, but so far the high-light is Hans Blok.  I haven't really done much myself yet other than chit-chat.  That should change this coming week with some real work.

The Family

The family seems to be settling well and adjusting to the Dutch life.  Deborah loves the relative simplicity of the lifestyle here.  I agree.  No bloody car and biking is easy because everybody bikes and the bikes rule the road.  Marilee is doing really well, especially considering she's never before been outside the US and she's got a broken arm.  I don't think she's learning any Dutch, but she gets out there and isn't intimidated.  

Ethan started school today.  He is learning a little Dutch, but I would not by any stretch say he speaks it.  He had a great time.  His teacher looked a little amazed at the end of the day and told us that he just watched what was going on and followed along.  He got on well with the other kids and built with blocks and played tag.  It helps that the Dutch have muchlower expectations for their kids at this age than we do in the states.  They are just learning their letters while Ethan and his classmates in Illinois were reading simple books.  Anyway, he's the greatest boy ever and continues to amaze.  

Leif is finally getting on schedule and is happy to always be on the go.  It's his favorite phrase now actually: "Go, go."  The Dutch word lief is pronounced the same way as Leif and means "sweet."

Pics

Ethan at the playground by his new school.

People skating on the canal.

Deborah with Leif in the bakfiets.

The boys help me make use of the jet lag insomnia and build the bike and tagalong.

Leif: toolmaster.