sat 01 oct 2011 20:24:05 — witte de withstraat
disappointing 'neighbors'
the restaurant andalous, which got firebombed one night last may, wants to re-open soon. i thought that restaurant was a positive development for the neighborhood and was very sad to see it get attacked. now some of the neighbors are trying to stop him from re-opening -- partly because they're afraid he'll be a target again, and partly because they just don't want any horecazaak there, and they accused him of causing overlast.
the other day i went to a meeting down the street about this. i was one of only three people present (all from my building and all foreign-born) who thought it was unfair to stop him from opening, and to be trying to look for excuses to investigate him or make him look suspect of criminality. the meeting pissed me off so much i wrote a two page letter in dutch to the lady from the stadsdeel who was running it. i ended by saying that such a collection of heroes are 'geen buren van mij', no neighbors of mine. the stadsdeel lady was impressed with my attempt at writing an angry letter in dutch.
the breaking up and re-doing of our street (pavement, bike paths, tram tracks) is well underway and has now just about reached our house. something tells me they're a bit behind schedule. there's lots of machine noise every work day and sometimes at night too. i thought it was over with the big new flat block from ymere, but now there's this.
the last few days it's been unseasonally warm and sunny, as if the summer everybody missed during the summer decided to show up in early autumn. it seems strange that i was wearing my scarf in the house in august and now i'm feeling too warm in a t shirt.
i have to make at least two films in the next two weeks for MBC. i should really try to get three of them done, because two of them kinda go together. after that there's a pile of stuff to edit before RSNA at the end of november.
in general i guess everything is going okay. i still feel lucky to have a roof over my head and some work to do for the time being.
i heard from ranjit again, i guess he's okay too.