tue 27 jan 2009 01:57:47 — witte de withstraat
green and gray = may
my friend pani told me sunday night, before she took off for ireland, that she still really liked the green and light gray (of my web site), together those were still some of her favorite colors. i think when i first decided to make my web site gray and green, it was may in amsterdam, with overcast skies and elm trees blossoms. but then ... i did get the idea from her didn't i.
i went to tong ah again tonight, soon laat tong and then kung pao kai. they are really trying hard. the man who met and greeted me seemed almost like the son of the guy who runs the place, they looked related. the guy who runs the place, let's assume he's the owner of the biz, told me happy chinese new year, being that chinese new year was yesterday. so i was like oh yeah uh ... "gong hey fat choy" ... which made me feel good that i could remember how to say something in cantonese.
next time i need to try something other than the kung pao kai. always the same thing.
then i went to eijlders. i've been trying for some time to make an afsprak to meet my old friend hg, and finally we were able to get a couple hours together there. his sweetheart helena was busy studying her nederlands, at which she is supposedly making remarkable progress (pani will be happy to hear) ...
talked a bit to the current owner of eijlders, whose name is patrick. he has a copy of that book i want about john eijlders himself, which i'm thinking of sending a researcher to go find for me in an antiquariaat somewhere. but i need to choose the right researcher. i think the ideal person would be someone who likes gray with green. anyway i asked patrick how does he feel being the owner of something so historically significant, and he said "it feels good". but he also pointed out that he has now been involved with that cafe for longer than john eijlders ever was, so he was risking sounding arrogant and didn't want to sound arrogant.
there's a photo of johan eijlders and his wife cor, hanging up in the corner. i think it was taken during the early 1960s, possibly a time when everyone was wearing eyeglasses with black rims. the reason i say that is cuz at first i mistook him for mijnheer vreeswijk from alcazar, who wore the same glasses when he was interviewed for de jong's docu series "de bezetting" ca 1961. i was silly enough to think it was just a vreeswijk style. it may be a early-sixties-in-netherlands style.
incidentally i also met a teacher of english from uva there, named thomas. he recently came back from a trip to new england, and had visited several places where i used to live. he kept saying 'along the east küst" with a sort of umlaut. nice guy anyway. he says he sometimes goes to eijlders on monday evenings.
my brother bill and his wife joanne will, in late june of this year, celebrate their 40th trouwdag. for that occasion we wanna bring them on a trip to amsterdam. cuz they like amsterdam. they came in 2000 with me and ajw, and then once again in 2003, before i really had any friends here. if i live long enough, i would like to see them come here again in late june of 2009 and have a nice time. maybe i can introduce them to some of the people i have met in the ensuing 6 years.
which reminds me ... i wonder how my nephew dylan is doing!
pretty soon i need to make an appointment to meet a guy named ted munter. he is in amsterdam, but orig bostonian, and wrote in from the cloud saying let's collide sometime.