tue 07 apr 2009 17:33:13 — witte de withstraat
saw some ballet
on sunday m dumonceau took me to the nationale ballet in the muziektheater, that was the first time i've been in there in a couple years. that was kinda fun. later walking up to eijlders we ran into nieke and alain, they were at the waterhole two doors over.
it appears the gemeente are chopping down most of the trees in rembrandtplein. i'm like huh? i don't remember even hearing of the plan to do this. i just looked up one night and the tops of the trees had all been cut off. somebody at nw said now they are re-doing rembrandtplein, they want to make it seem more like a square. so the trees have to go. huh?
also, m told me something that sounds entirely bizarre: that many people in amsterdam complain about the trees because they diminish the sunlight coming in their windows. i found that really hard to wrap my head around. i mean, if you don't like the amount of sunlight in amsterdam, shouldn't you be moving to dubai or something? it's whacked.
m said it's just standard practice in this town, that every x years every neighborhood must get "freshened up" whether it needs it or not. even if everything is just fine, you have to change the appearance of the place just because you can. so for example they recently decided the bike paths on bilderdijkstraat needed to be wider, so the first thing they did was chop down all the trees.
some people have sent me some stuff for the "mental shoes" thing, i'm still hoping for more. i am also working on two little movie projects now which both need to be finished by the end of april.
there was a bad earthquake yesterday in central italy. several hundred people got killed.
and the strangest thing happened this afternoon: i found myself nodding my head to something rita verdonk said in the tweede kamer. she was yelling at the health minister, telling him to stop this bullshit with the smoking ban, let people decide for themselves, and turn more attention to real public health matters like improving healthcare itself. go rita. ok that's weird.
also read in the news: due to the worldwide financial crisis, fewer tourists are travelling to the south pole.