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Art

Under Siege

Wednesday, November 22, 2017 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

It’s show time again, literally. I have two performances this week I’m attending. The first one was Under Siege by the Yang LiPing Contemporary Dance Company. It is part of the Explore Festival, wherein seven theaters in the Netherlands band together to program a few foreign shows for a small tour. The idea is to pick things form outside western society and to give us a glimpse of the (modern) art that is made there. And then specifically not in a way to exoticise it, but to break stereotypes and let us open our minds to other ways of thinking and seeing. And in that realising that within, were not that different.

On the whole I have two words for it: fucking magnificent.

The performance transcends just dance, it becomes dance theatre. Telling a coherent story in an uninterrupted hour and forty minutes adding in live music and narration. The dancers in the company come from all kinds of dance backgrounds. Some from the very traditional Beijing Opera, some from more martial arts inspired forms, some form classical ballet and some from modern contemporary dance. All these forms are used throughout the performance.

The story is that of war and conquest where one dynasty is about to be superseded by another in China two thousand years ago. There’s a group of dancers playing soldiers, two emperors, the chief advisor to one of them and the concubine of the other. Plus two musicians, the narrator and the paper cutting lady.

This lady sits at the edge of the stage during the entire show cutting things out of paper. Sometimes Chinese characters to serve as marker or narration, sometimes shapes. The narrator actually speaks. He tells us the story, in Chinese. Luckily there’s two screens to the sides that give basic translations of what he’s saying.

The flow of the story takes us from the beginnings of war all the way to end with the last man standing. We see meetings between the one emperor and his advisor, between the other emperor and the advisor, between the first emperor and his dark side. These are all striking duo dance performances, very physical towards each other.

Then there’s mass dances when battles are performed. These incorporate Kung Fu moves with a lot of jumps and kicks.

The concubine gets to do a solo piece. Taking their cue from the Beijng Operatic tradition, she is played by a man. The solo follows her from entering near naked through being dressed until fully dressed and dancing. This is a more stilted piece, but as such it has a commanding presence.

After the main battles and confrontations it is time for the climax. The stage is covered in red feathers to signify the final battlefield. A mass battle is ‘fought’ resulting in basically mass slaughter for the army of the one emperor. Knowing there is no way they’ll get out of it alive, he meets with his concubine one last time. In a moving, and haunting, performance, they say goodbye and then she kills herself. Grief stricken the emperor holds her before leaving to face his final battle.

And in that final battle, he succumbs to the other emperor, who then gets killed by his advisor. Leaving him the sole survivor and new emperor of a new dynasty.

In between all these dance pieces the narrator appears to inform us of what is going on in a flowing Chinese that varies from talking to shouting to a certain sing song quality.

The stage design was elaborate without being overbearing. On the ceiling were four large blocks holding thousands of (fake) scissors. These would move about during the show, and sometimes come down to stage level. Other than this, the background was basic. The soldiers and narrator were likewise basic. The emperors wore intricately decorated garments, but with a basic shape. The only other points of extravagance were the head pieces worn by the advisor and the other emperor, and the outfit of the other emperor during his solo.

I spent the entirety of the performance on the edge of my seat, wholly captivated by what I was seeing. I’ve been taken in by a performance before, but never in such a manner. In China, Yang LiPing is a celebrity with several theaters. This show there is done with a multitude of performers more. Maybe one day I’ll be able to see it like that.

Before the show I attended the introduction which told us a bit more about Yang LiPing and the company, about the story and about how the show came to be. Especially since they had to make a special travel version of it to be able to take it on tour.

Afterwards there was a small interview with two of the dancers. That being the concubine and her emperor. It was tricky as they only spoke Chinese, the interpreter spoke decent english but heavily accented so sometimes hard to follow, and the lady doing the interview wasn’t much better in english either. So I didn’t really get a lot out of it, but it was clear to see that the guy playing the emperor was really passionate about dance and the show.

I didn’t catch their names, but I understand both of them are award winning dancers in China. That I believe right away. The performances of all four main characters were fantastic, but the losing Emperor especially stood out. His control over his body is amazing.

In the picture below, the black person in the middle is dark side of the winning emperor. On his left the advisor, the losing emperor, the concubine, the winning emperor and the narrator.

Posted in: General, Photos Tagged: Art, Culture, Dance, Groningen, Language, Music, Oosterpoort, Photos, Review

Amoras

Friday, May 20, 2016 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

Busy day, today! I’ve been reading a new comic book series the last year called Amoras. It’s a six book series that tells a Suske & Wiske story in a dystopian future. There’s time travel, crime, death, blood and a fair amount of cursing and swearing. Suffice to say, it’s definitely not meant for kids. I really like the storyline and how it looks. A while ago I saw on Facebook that the Stripmuseum (comic museum) in Groningen would show an exhibition of Amoras pieces.

Since I am now the proud owner of a museum card, I decided it was time to go see. I asked Gert if he wanted to come as well, but he declined. So, this morning I made my way to Groningen. I arrived around lunch time and felt a wee bit peckish. The Stripmuseum is located above the McDonalds. So rather than go look for a place, I just hit the Mac for a quick and easy lunch.

After, I got my ticket for the museum and started looking around. I began with the regular collection that was divided into themes. First there was a section on comic art used in music and theater posters, other promotional imagery and album covers. Then it led me chronologically through the development of comics in the Netherlands and Belgium.

Once through all that, you end up on the top floor where there’s space for the changing exhibition. Which in this case was the Amoras one. It was interesting to see the process. There were many storyboards, sketches, and line-art pieces from all six of the books. The only thing I thought was a shame was the order of display. They went mostly by sort of art, and then chronologically. So, storyboards book one, storyboards book two and so on, then sketches book one, sketches book two, rinse and repeat. I would have liked to see the order from idea to end product. So the storyboard for a page, then its sketch, the line-art, and then the coloured page. So you can really see how it changes before getting to its final point.

When I got out, I made my way to the centre of the city to meet up with Gert and see X-Men: Apocalypse. I’d heard some bad stuff about it, but I liked it. The build-up wasn’t always strong enough. I didn’t notice, for instance, that the end battle was the end battle until it was a good bit underway. And I would have liked to see a bit more detail on the origin of Apocalypse.

Then it was time for some dinner. We decided to go to the Frietwinkel. This is a fairly new place that does fries. It’s all about the organic and the fresh. They literally cut fries from fresh potatoes right there instead of using frozen pre-cut fries. And they serve fries with pulled chicken. Which is fucking delicious. The place also looks rustic nice with old stools, crates on the walls and such.

Right after that we went back to the Pathé. This time to see the Angry Birds movie. It’s not very good. The only thing I found quite funny was this one scene, a homage to the slow-down-time-in-the kitchen scene in the previous X-Men movie. And they also did a sort of homage to that scene in X-Men: Apocalypse. So that was a fun coincidence. Other than that, it’s a generic animated kids movie.

Posted in: General, Photos Tagged: Art, Books, Culture, Eating Out, Friends, Frietwinkel, Gert, McDonalds, Movies, Museum, Pathé, Review, Stripmuseum

Van Gogh: Almond Blossom

Monday, February 29, 2016 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

From this weekend’s trip to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. You’re not allowed to take pictures, but I snuck a few in with my phone anyway. One of those shots was this one of the painting Almond Blossom. It’s my favourite painting of his, even more so than classics like Starry Night. Too bad the museum chose to cover many paintings with a glass plate. It makes for ugly reflections.

Posted in: General, Photos Tagged: Art, Museum, Painting, Photos, Van Gogh Museum

Van Gogh, Books and a Pink Waffle

Sunday, February 28, 2016 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

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After buying another cheap day ticket for the train last month, I suggested to Gert we should go to Amsterdam again. He immediately mentioned he’d never been to the Van Gogh museum. And just like that, we had plans. And yesterday was the day to execute said plans.

We left Grunn early so we would be in Amsterdam somewhat early as well. We arrived at the central station around 10:30 and, priorities, went to Starbucks for a drink. We then got on a tram to the museum square where the Van Gogh Museum is.

When we got out, the sun was shining, the weather was nice (albeit cold) and across the field we could see the museum. As we crossed we saw a lot of people outside the museum. When we got close enough, we saw it was the queue.

20160227_113222And not just a queue to get in the museum, no, the queue to get a ticket. Every minute or so, yellow-jacketed hosts would let another handful of people through to the queue at the door where they could go in to buy their tickets.

We had talked about pre-ordering tickets online but forgot to do so. But it gave us an idea. We checked with a host, and indeed, it would work. So, on Gert’s phone we ordered tickets online. He immediately got them in his mailbox and we could skip the queue and go straight to the entrance 😀

20160227_122441Disappointingly it was not allowed to take pictures in the museum. Not even just flash-less pics, no, not at all. This did not stop us from sneaking in a few phone pictures anyway.

The building has several floors that thematically lead you through Van Gogh’s life. Starting with an Eye to Eye section with nothing but self portraits to his final works before committing suicide. There were sections for his early work after he had decided he wanted to be an artist, leading up to the Potato Eaters, his moving to France where he got in contact with impressionism and such making his work lighter and brighter. Also his Japanese inspired works, his period in the institution, and the brief period after he got out and before he killed himself.

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Our second plan for the day was to hit the book shops. When in Amsterdam we also tend to go to the American Book Center. This time around we decided to add The Book Exchange to the mix. This is a large second-hand bookstore with nothing but English works. Since this shop would close earlier, it became our first stop after we finished in the museum. We got on the tram again, but accidentally picked the one going the wrong way. So we got off again two stops further. Reassessing our priorities, we hit another Starbucks for a drink, and for Gert to charge his phone.

20160228_103309After a well deserved break, we got back on the tram, the right one this time, and headed for the city center. From there it was just a few minutes to get to The Book Exchange. We dove straight into the basement where they keep the scifi and fantasy books. I picked out some Star Trek books and then went around the room alphabetically. I found several books that had been on my list, or are sequels to works I have. I found Elizabeth Bear’s first books (the Jenny Casey trilogy) that I’ve been wanting. I found the follow-up to C.F. Bentley’s Harmony and also the sequels to Robert Sawyer’s Hominids. I’ve been looking for these last two for ages! They also had a fun Stargate book, and two Kim Harrison books that I still needed. And, in a surprise, twist, part four in that trilogy I got at the local thrift store on Wednesday…

20160227_163709A quiet hour later, we both had our arms full of books and decided to call it quits for now. With packed bags we stood outside and quickly agreed to skip the American Book Center for today. We walked back towards the city center. Gert bought himself a pink waffle with sprinkles. (I tasted, it’s ridiculously sweet)
In the morning we had sort of decided to eat Asian for dinner. But after what we spent on books, we decided on cheap food. KFC was our first choice but it was insanely crowded so we skedaddled. McDonalds was close by so we tried that. The first one we found was out of Maestro Burgers so we picked another one just a few hundred yards further. This one did have the Maestro’s, which are glorious.

After eating, we headed back to the station to go home. It was a good day 🙂

Posted in: General, Photos Tagged: American Book Center, Amsterdam, Art, Books, Eating Out, Food, Friends, Gert, McDonalds, Museum, Painting, Photos, Shopping, Starbucks, The Book Exchange, Van Gogh Museum

Happy New Year!

Friday, January 1, 2016 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

20151227_150522May 2016 be good to you all 🙂

I’ve been colouring my new Cat colouring book, it has really fun pictures.

I also received  one of the Kickstarter rewards that I was waiting on. It’s a book called Dry Season Only, about a trip to Botswana. A group of artists went on a two week trip there with the express purpose to get inspired and make art. The kickstarter was to raise funds for the trip and the printing of the book. The book is absolutely beautiful. Filled with travel journals from all of them with text, drawings, paintings, photographs and tutorials how some of the bigger art pieces were made. A very fine showcase of the beauty that is Africa’s wild nature.

20151228_222317Yesterday was a fun day, in so far as national-blow-shit-up day can be fun. I worked during the day so that was business as usual. In the evening we watched TV, ate tasty shit and even played a board game. At Nienke’s suggestion.

So I pulled out a game I got a while ago but had’t gotten around to playing yet. It’s a game based on Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth. The game has three characters that move around the board. That board is divided in three parts.

In the first part all characters move separately without being tied to a player. That means that every player can move whichever character they want. The goal of the first part is to collect items. When the first character reaches the lake, the second part starts.

Now, all characters get on the raft and try to cross the lake. Again, each player can move the raft and the goal for the players is to collect items. When they get to the other side, the end is in sight. All they need to do is go up the lava stream and reach the exit. The players take turns and pay for the moves with the items they’ve collected. When the characters have reached the exit, the points of the remaining items are tallied. Player with the most points wins.

I got lucky with my item finds and won the game.

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Today was a work day. At work we had divided the three holidays between the six of us. I chose today. There wasn’t a lot of work to actually do so it was a nice and quiet day of working at home. Followed by a nice and quiet day of relaxing at home 😀

Posted in: General, Photos Tagged: Art, Board Games, Books, Colouring, Games, Holidays, Kickstarter, Photos

Nerd Block: November

Saturday, November 21, 2015 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

Time for a new Nerd Block! Theme for this month is ‘Tis the Season. I didn’t really see the theme in the items, except for the shirt and the shot glass.

The first item that I saw when opening the box was a Titan vinyl figure of Sherlock. This is from the same brand as the Tenth Doctor and Spike figures from earlier boxes. I’m becoming a fan of these vinyls as the faces are a bit more detailed and each figure comes with a prop. In Sherlock’s case, a magnifying glass. Or maybe a slide for under a microscope.

Aother fantastic item is a Serenity ornament. A metallic painted model of the ship from Firefly, which is one of my favourite scifi shows.

Continuing with scifi, the next item is a Star Wars desktop calendar. I have no use for this and since 2016 is getting nearer, I don’t know if I can find someone to give this to in time.

Then, the shot glass. This is a plastic item and comes from The National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. I’ve never seen that movie, nor do I want to. The shot glass is funny, though, so I’ll keep it for now. Maybe I can use it for laughs at my next birthday.

The shirt is a mash-up of Back to the Future and The Nightmare Before Christmas. I like the shirt, the graphic is pretty, the colour is nice. I’m not a big Back to the Future fan, but I do love The Nightmare Before Christmas.

On the bottom of the box I found an art print of Bill Murray and I love it. I’m a big fan of Murray and this is a very fine addition to my slowly growing collection of art prints.

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Posted in: General, Photos Tagged: Art, Geeky Stuff, Movies, Nerd Block, Photos, Review, Scifi, Subscription Boxes, TV

Nerd Block: September

Wednesday, September 23, 2015 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

This month’s theme was Hyperspace. There were only five items in the box as opposed to the six or seven in previous months which was a little bit disappointing.

I love the little springy USS Enterprise, even if it feels somewhat cheap. The plushie BB-8 looks fantastic. I like it’s feel and design, but I don’t know yet if I’ll keep it. I’m not a huge Star Wars fan, I’ve seen the older movies once, a long time ago. I will be seeing the new movie once it’s out, so I’m keeping the plushie at least until then. Depending on what I think of the movie, and BB-8’s part in it, I’ll keep it or put it in the gift bin.

The Jurassic Galaxy art print is fantastic! It mashes Guardians of the Galaxy with Jurassic World with cameo appearances of Terminator and Star Wars. Beyond this print and the Doctor Who one from a previous box I’ve acquired some more art print or small poster stuff that I want to display. I haven’t quite figured out how I want to do that, though. but I am really excited about it.

The shirt this month is a Battlestar Galactica one combining the two versions of Cylons in a mash-up resembling a Daft Punk album cover. The last item was a Funko mystery box with a random Supernatural mini. I got Castiel, which I absolutely love! I am a bit puzzled though how Supernatural fits the theme.

Overall, I’m impressed with the individual items, but it did feel less as a whole with only five items of which only four fit the theme.

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Posted in: General, Photos Tagged: Art, Funko, Geeky Stuff, Nerd Block, Photos, Review, Scifi, Star Trek, Subscription Boxes, Supernatural, TV

Nerd Block: June

Thursday, June 18, 2015 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

Nerd Block BoxI’ve been interested in subscription boxes lately. A subscription box is a system where you subscribe to receive a mystery box of stuff. There are many different boxes, many different themes. There are ones where you get a bag of make-up and related products every month, boxes with stuff for your dog or cat, an assortment of craft supplies and so on. There’s also a couple boxes that are geared toward geeks.

Once I decided I wanted to try out a box, I figured a geeky box would suit me best. Two of the more well-known ones in that genre are LootCrate and Nerd Block. After comparing previous boxes I went with Nerd Block. Nerd Block costs $19,99 which, with shipping, ends up to be about €30, which I think is a reasonable price for a box that always includes a t-shirt and several other pieces of merchandise.

Today, I received my first box. The theme was Britain, so I was hoping for some Doctor Who. I was not disappointed 😀 Besides a Doctor Who Vinyl figure there was also an very pretty art print.

The Mr. Bean bendable figure was okay. I used to watch Mr. Bean a lot as a kid but I’m not that interested in the show beyond that. The Bean Teddy Bear, though, is very cute.

Monty Python’s magnetic words are hilarious, they’ll be fun to play with on the fridge. And the Sherlock shirt was the icing on the cake!

Nerd Block Doctor Ten Nerd Block Art Print

Nerd Block Bean Nerd Block Bean Teddy

Nerd Block Fridge Poetry Nerd Block Shirt

Posted in: General, Photos Tagged: Art, Geeky Stuff, Nerd Block, Photos, Poetry, Review, Scifi, Subscription Boxes, TV

Michiel de Ruyter

Monday, February 23, 2015 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment
Bol,_Michiel_de_Ruyter

Ferdinand Bol. Michiel de Ruyter. 1667

Okay, so I went to see Michiel de Ruyter tonight. It’s a Dutch movie about one of our best known admirals, back in the 17th century. As a lover of history, I had been intrigued about the movie ever since I saw trailers, so Gert and I decided we had to go see.

I didn’t remember a lot about Michiel de Ruyter himself from my history classes. I recognised some names of characters, and I remembered the brothers De Witt as I’d seen a painting of them last year at the Rijksmuseum.

The movie starts with a sea battle in which fleet admiral Maarten Tromp dies, witnessed by Michiel de Ruyter. After, when Michiel comes home he has been on the road out on the oceans for the better part of the last fifteen years with only occasional breaks and he’s tired of it. As Michiel gets used to home life again with Anna, his wife, and his three remaining children (an older boy and two young girls) we cut to politics. And from here on out, there be many spoilers. Be forewarned!

Johan de Witt is named the Grand Pensionary of the States of Holland, and as a consequence of that, due to the power of Holland, the de facto leader of the whole of the United Provinces. At this time, the Anglo-Dutch War is going on, and Johan realises they need a strong man to lead their navy. Unfortunately, with the admiral of the fleet dead, he needs a new one.

Cue Michiel de Ruyter. Michiel doesn’t want to, he wants to retire. But Johan is his friend, and Michiel is dedicated to his fatherland so he relents and accepts the commission. We then get shown, in quick succession, a number of sea battles Michiel leads, winning most of them. Taking pointers from The Matrix, every time a cannon ball hits a ship we see sailors and crewmen flying around the decks in slow-motion, accompanied by a blast of sawdust and splinters.

While well-shot battle scenes, using replicas of period ships for the main action and filling it in with CGI for background, this sequence got tiresome as it was very repetitive, and besides on screen titles naming the battles, there were no dates to indicate flow of time.

Peter van de Velde. The Dutch burn down the English fleet before Chatham, June 20, 1667.  ca. 1670

Peter van de Velde. The Dutch burn down the English fleet before Chatham, June 20, 1667. ca. 1670

During one of these battles his second in command Cornelis Tromp snaps and disobeys an order. As the son of the previous admiral, who was a hero to his men, he fully expected to take over the job. He doesn’t like Michiel and doesn’t trust his strategies. So he breaks formation to pursue two straggler ships and as a consequence, the battle is lost. Michiel is furious and fires him on the spot.

On the whole, though, the Dutch are decimating the English, culminating in a sneak attack on the Medway near London where they burn part of the English fleet anchored there, and steal the flagship. This is also the founding of the Dutch Marine Corps. The English are then somewhat willing to sign a peace treaty. Charles II of England (very well played by Charles Dance, aka Tywin Lannister) is pissed of at this, though, and conspires with the French.

At the same time, in the United Provinces, William III of Orange (nephew of Charles) is unhappy because he isn’t Stadtholder yet, and there are continuing clashes between republicans (anti-him) and orangists (pro-him). He is also a bit of a wet blanket. However, the peace treaty also comes with a demand by Charles for a better position for William so he ends up Stadtholder after all.

Jan de Baen. De lijken van de gebroeders De Witt. ca. 1672-1675

As time goes on, the unrest grows, the peace is broken, battles keep on happening. Political scheming also increases greatly. Meanwhile, the French are knocking at our doors in the south and Louis XIV‘s armies invade, secretly helped by Charles II. The orangists are getting really sick of Johan de Witt and his brother and conspire to have them killed. This is done in a rather gruesome way, matching the earlier mentioned, and shown here, painting.

Michiel is devastated, Johan was his best friend, but he remains first and foremost loyal to his country. Despite being a republican, William likes De Ruyter and wants to keep him on as Admiral. He reinstates Tromp and orders them to put on their big boy pants, suck it up and work together. Despite no love between them, they shake hands and seal the deal. As strategies are devised and battles planned, Tromp begins to see that Michiel is a really brilliant strategist with an excellent grasp of battle dynamics, and the role the ocean plays.

William is influenced by his power-hungry orangist retinue and starts to distrust Michiel. After a glorious victory, William announces it was thanks to Tromp’s achievements they won and Michiel realises he’s pretty fucked. He tries to retire again, so he and his wife and kids can live out their lives in (relative) peace. William has other ideas, however. After a wee shouting match in the hallways, they part. Only for William to stop him at the last minute. Michiel has declared his continuing loyalty to the land and has reaffirmed he will follow orders during the argument. So William sends him, severely outgunned, to the Mediterranean to fight.

There, Michiel and his men, knowing they will not survive, engage the enemy. When indeed he gets shot down and dies, the French they are fighting stop and give him a gun salute. Michiel is brought back home, and given a state funeral.

Overall I really enjoyed the movie. It is of an un-Dutch style and grandeur and evokes patriotism in an almost American way (think lots of flags flying and grand-standing speeches). I am personally rather allergic to patriotism, but even I could not escape it wholly while watching the film.  And I don’t think I would’ve wanted it any other way. Michiel de Ruyter is, after all, one of the heroes of our tiny country. There’s some ruckus about this now, because he also did things that we now see as bad (slavery, whaling) so some people are clamoring we shouldn’t see him as a hero.

But we must keep in mind that this is centuries ago, in a society, a world, with different morals, different laws, and frankly, a different reality. Within that context, Michiel gave everything for our country and worked tirelessly to keep us free, free to trade, free to live. Looking back on that now, we should realise that, as morality and ethics have changed over the years, so has our reality. We enacted new laws, stopped practices we now deem wrong. So yes, definitely acknowledge our history, good ánd bad, so we can learn from that, but stop overlaying (y)our current moral viewpoint on a time and place where it is not (fully) applicable.

The actors are good, with one or two exceptions, and I liked most of the characterisations. I especially enjoyed Frank Lammers (Michiel), Sanne Langelaar (Anna) and Barry Atsma (Johan de Witt). I found William III (Egbert Jan Weeber) and his boy-toy Hans William Bentinck (Jelle de Jong) to be played rather as if they were prissy weaklings, which annoyed me.

Other than that, the movie is rife with historical inaccuracies. The writer(s) played loose and fast with the timeline, both compressing it, and rearranging events as they liked it. Historically speaking, the movie covers a period of about 25 years. In the movie, it can’t be more than about three years. And even that is a stretch. There are never any dates shown, but his children at the beginning of the movie are played by the same actors as at the end, and none of them are aged in any way. Therefore, it can’t be more than just a few years.

Jurriaen Jacobsz. Michiel de Ruyter and his family. 1662.

Jurriaen Jacobsz. Michiel de Ruyter and his family. 1662. In the back: Engel (with falcon), Michiel, his wife Anna, her son from an earlier marriage Jan, Alida (with flowers) and on the right Cornelia and her husband Jan. In the front are the two daughters from Michiel and Anna playing with their cousin Cornelis (son of Cornelia and Jan).

And speaking of his children, as an example of things changed in the movie, Michiel de Ruyter married and then lost that wife, as well as the child, in childbirth. He then later married again and, with that wife, had a son named Adriaen, a daughter named Cornelia (Neeltje), a child that died a few days old, another daughter named Alida (Aaltje), and another son named Engel. His wife then died about a year later, and two years after that, in 1652, he marries Anna. This is the wife he has in the movie.

Anna was a widow at that time, with a son and a daughter from a previous marriage. Together, they have two more daughters, Margaretha in 1652 and Anna in 1655. Also in 1655, his oldest son Adriaen dies, leaving them with six or seven living children between them (I couldn’t find if the daughter is still alive at this point).

In the movie, Anna is pregnant at the beginning. She gives birth and loses that baby. Beyond that, they have a son, Engel, and two daughters, Neeltje and Greetje. So, the number of kids is wrong, the order of the kids is wrong, and the names of the kids are wrong. And none of these kids have aged in any way at the end of the movie… This while Engel in actuality also went out to sea, fought alongside his father and separately, rising to a rank of vice-admiral two years after his father’s death.

Having said that, I recommend you watch the movie, and then spent an hour or two reading up on Actual History. The Wikipedia articles I linked are an excellent starting point. If you read Dutch, though, I recommend the nl varieties of he Wikipedia links, they are more in depth.

Posted in: General Tagged: Art, Education, Friends, Gert, History, Link Dump, Movies, Pathé, Photos, Review

Around the Internet VI

Friday, August 8, 2014 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

Interesting read

“Each edition of the paper contained dozens of these announcements, every one more mundane and unimportant than the last. It seemed to me that these were nothing more than Facebook updates. The only purpose they served was to keep a community of people — in this case whoever had access to the newspaper — updated about what was going on in someone else’s life. We often talk about social media as some sort of new invention of the technological age, but here was the evidence that it has existed for much longer.”

http://airshipdaily.com/blog/08072014-ancient-social-media

 

Portion of Andromeda Galaxy (M31)

“The largest NASA Hubble Space Telescope image ever assembled, this sweeping bird’s-eye view of a portion of the Andromeda galaxy (M31) is the sharpest large composite image ever taken of our galactic next-door neighbor. Though the galaxy is over 2 million light-years away, The Hubble Space Telescope is powerful enough to resolve individual stars in a 61,000-light-year-long stretch of the galaxy’s pancake-shaped disk. It’s like photographing a beach and resolving individual grains of sand. And there are lots of stars in this sweeping view — over 100 million, with some of them in thousands of star clusters seen embedded in the disk.”

“Because the galaxy is only 2.5 million light-years from Earth, it is a much bigger target in the sky than the myriad galaxies Hubble routinely photographs that are billions of light-years away. This means that the Hubble survey is assembled together into a mosaic image using 7,398 exposures taken over 411 individual pointings.”

“The panorama is the product of the Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury (PHAT) program. Images were obtained from viewing the galaxy in near-ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared wavelengths, using the Advanced Camera for Surveys and the Wide Field Camera 3 aboard Hubble. This cropped view shows a 48,000-light-year-long stretch of the galaxy in its natural visible-light color, as photographed with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys in red and blue filters.”

So, the image above isn’t even all of it 😀 See the full article here, and see the video below for a fly-through of the panorama.

 

Hokusai_Tea_house_at_Koishikawa._The_morning_after_a_snowfall-catzilla-w

Katsushika Hokusai, Tea house at Koishikawa. The morning after a snowfall. Catzilla attacks. From 36 views of Mount Fuji, no 11

 

 

And, finally, over at FatCatArt, Zarathustra the Cat gets inserted into well known art pieces.

“Indeed, it is not very trustworthy that humans are gazing just at birds, they are not cats to be entertained by flying creatures! But humans love to watch cats doing most weird things endlessly.

So Our version is true one.

Thus speaks Zarathustra the Cat”

 

 

Posted in: General, Photos Tagged: Art, Internet, Link Dump, Science, Sociology, Space, Videos, Webfun
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