thu 30 jun 2011 00:41:04 — witte de withstraat
dinner w n fly et al
we had two oppressively warm days, temp hovering around 30, which is about where my mind starts to shut down. rained a lot last night and today it was cooler, so back to amsterdam.
this evening i went to tong ah for a dinner date with n fly, first time i've seen him since his mom died. vincent and marjolein and djox and joana joined us. was nice. chef ving made my kung po ha good and spicy this time.
today there was another mini transit strike: workers protesting the imposed sale of public transport companies in the cities, and the budget cuts desired by the VVDers in power. so far they've been making their strikes very polite: by 15.00 the busses and trams were running again, so i had no trouble getting to leidseplein.
also, maxime verhagen of the CDA said dutch people are right to be afraid of foreigners and foreign influence -- prompting one dutch friend of mine to write 'dit is mijn land niet meer' (this is my country no more). and she wasn't the only one. a lot of my dutch friends are thoroughly disgusted by the current govt, more than even they expected to be. i wonder how much worse it can get before it gets better.
also no good news on the hamza front. govt listed their demands for sponsoring, the outlook is gloomy.
but there is one good news. yesterday morning i discovered that jay atkinson, my high school friend who aspired to be a writer, is a writer. now i want to try and get some of his books. the discovery happened accidentally because i've been thinking a lot about methuen lately.
making progress on the 'alu-frog' film, hope to finish a draft by sometime friday.