September 12, 2011

Zone 5300: Fool’s Gold special

Filed under: Comics by Branko Collin @ 8:23 am

Woot! Fool’s Gold gets six pages in the autumn edition of Zone 5300, instead of its usual two. Like.

Frits Jonker and Milan Hulsing are assisted this time by Erik van der Heijden who waxes lyrically (and analytically) about his collection of golden age advertising key fobs. The golden age of advertising key fobs, that is, i.e. the late sixties.

There’s also a long interview with the comics intendant of the Fonds BKVB (the state sponsored Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture), Gert-Jan Pos, who got to give a lot of cash to comics makers in the Netherlands in the past two and a half years, and whose office is about to end.

Until September 21 the foundation is organising an exhibition of up and coming comics artists, among which Artez Zwolle graduate Jasper Rietman (illustration) who hopes to be published abroad in the near future.

Marcel RuijtersThere are a bunch of long(ish) stories by Marcel Ruijters (illustration, about the chess games of Teresa of Avila), Rob van Barneveld (invisible guinea pigs), and Maaike Hartjes (weddings in Hong Kong).

Another long comic is a story from Pieter van Oudheusden and Jeroen Janssen’s upcoming album (as yet nameless) loosely based on the all too short life of “perhaps the Brian Wilson of the nineteenth century” (as Van Oudheusden puts it), Franz Schubert. The short story Der Tod und das Mädchen (illustration) focuses on how Schubert got syphilis.

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September 11, 2011

Bettie Serveert reunites with drummer for band’s twentieth birthday

Filed under: Music by Branko Collin @ 3:21 pm

Twenty years ago Bettie Serveert was the sort of indie rock band that made producers everywhere pay attention, but they never managed to surpass the success of their debut album Palomine.

Yesterday the band reunited with former drummer Berend Dubbe for a special birthday gig on which they played the entire Palomine album at Paradiso in Amsterdam. According to 24 Oranges reader Jeroen Mirck, who was there, “Bettie Serveert played songs like Tomboy, Balentine, Kid’s Allright and Brain-Tag with as much urgency and as dynamically as in the early nineties, as if the songs had been written yesterday.”

The name “Bettie Serveert” means “Betty to serve” and is a reference to Betty Stöve, a Dutch player who managed to reach the Wimbledon tennis finals in 1977.

Listen to title track Palomine here.

(Photo: bettieserveert.com)

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September 10, 2011

Laura Dekker in Australia

Filed under: General,Sports by Branko Collin @ 11:23 am

Two weeks ago ‘sailor girl’ Laura Dekker reached the shores of the Northern Territory of Australia, and not a moment too soon.

Her boat Guppy was in desperate need of repairs as both the genoa and the rudder had broken down. In Darwin she re-united with her father who had flown in to celebrate her sixteenth birthday (September 20). From that day on she has about a year and week to complete her global circumnavigation if she wants to become the unofficial record holder of being the youngest person solo sailing around the world.

In the past months Dekker sailed past the country of her birth, New Zealand (she has dual citizenship), even though she professed a desire to visit. Says stuff.co.nz:

Her manager, Australian Lyall Mercer, [said] today Dekker did not take her New Zealand nationality lightly and had especially embraced it since starting to feel “disconnected” from The Netherlands after courts there stopped her from embarking on her trip when she was 13.

“Yet she has failed to find any support from New Zealand, unable even to source a New Zealand flag that she wants to fly from her boat ‘Guppy’ for the duration of her trip,” Mercer said.

I wonder if there is not more to that story. In August 2009, Elsevier reported that the New Zealand authorities had threatened to seize Laura’s boat for reckless behaviour if she ever entered one of the country’s ports while sailing alone.

The best place to follow Dekker’s exploits is still her blog, which she keeps in both English and Dutch. Dekker spends her days playing the guitar, writing her book, and reading. Still no word on if she has ever touched her homework.

See also: more stories about Laura Dekker.

(Photo of an entirely unrelated boat by the US Navy)

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September 5, 2011

Apache Junction, Western comic strip album by Peter Nuyten

Filed under: Comics by Branko Collin @ 9:23 am

During my student days I helped publish a comics fanzine called Iris, and our ‘thing’ was that we enjoyed making mainstream European comics.

That is why it is doubly satisfying to be holding Peter Nuyten’s Western comic Apache Junction in my hands. Peter was a contributor to Iris back in the day, and Apache Junction is as traditionally European as it gets.

The Western takes place around 1875 and follows a US Army messenger, at a time when Apache tribes refuse to be locked up in reservations and engage the federal government in guerilla war fare. The messenger gets wounded in a knife fight and needs to seek refuge at a lonely farm.

Holly Moors has this to say about Apache Junction: “Nuyten seems to want to combine the exciting stories of Jean Giraud and the engaged, critical attitude of Hans Kresse. He is a bit too wordy in the first part of the album, and could use a good, tight script writer. That way he can focus on the art, where he doesn’t quite yet reach Giraud’s level, though he is getting there. […] Still, I have finished the album in one go, and will certainly read the second part, because this is definitely an artist to keep an eye on.”

Me, I felt the story got progressively better, and I cannot wait for the second part.

Apache Junction (part 1, 2011) is published by Silvester and cost 16,95 euro in hard cover format. More reviews (in Dutch) after the link.

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September 4, 2011

Fleeing from Nazis in a Chevy-powered boat

Filed under: History by Branko Collin @ 12:30 pm

During World War II about 1,900 people fled Dutch territory to unoccupied lands, sometimes to be safe, sometimes to help the allies fight the Nazis. These people were called Engelandvaarders (England-goers), regardless of whether they actually went to England.

The New York Times blog has a story about five of them, students, who fled the country in a DIY motor boat after the Nazis required all students to sign a loyalty oath.

Their engine, commonly known at the time of its manufacture as the cast-iron wonder, was introduced in 1929, giving Chevy customers “a six for the price of a four,” as the advertising slogan said. Displacing 194 cubic inches, it produced 46 horsepower at 2,600 r.p.m. Fuel consumption was 19 m.p.g.

The men bought the engine from a marina operator in western Holland, paying 700 Dutch guilders. Fitting it to their seven-meter launch required numerous modifications, including an underwater exhaust outlet to suppress noise. The driveline and propeller were clandestinely built.

The five made it to England safely—in the end they were picked up by the British navy.

One of the most famous Engelandvaarders was Leiden University student Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema who was portrayed by Rutger Hauer in the Paul Verhoeven film Soldier of Orange, after Hazelhoff Roelfzema’s autobiography.

(Source photo: a still from a video by Captain A.J. Hardy, now in the public domain)

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September 3, 2011

Pixelated red on a mug means blood

Filed under: Art,Design,Photography by Branko Collin @ 7:34 pm

If you thought the story about the asylum seeker game show was bad, you may not wish to read on.

The mugs that photographer Raoul de Lange makes may seem rather pedestrian—a couple of cheerfully coloured pixels being the only adornment—but the pixels are based on photos of people that were shot down during the Arab Spring, and that did not even get to enjoy some privacy from prying photographers.

These mugs were De Lange’s senior project (called Mug Shots) at the Royal Academy of Art. He was the only photographer of his year who did not use his own photos, Bright reports.

De Lange writes: “In [this project] I try to make the dead and wounded of the Arab Spring a part of our daily lives in an acceptable manner.”

(Source photo: Raouldelange.nl. Warning: bloody photos behind the link.)

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September 2, 2011

Ironic game show mocks failed asylum policy

Filed under: Shows by Branko Collin @ 4:32 pm

Yesterday broadcaster VPRO aired a show called Weg van Nederland (which can mean either Away from the Netherlands, or Crazy about the Netherlands).

Writes The Guardian:

Contestants on the one-off game show from the public broadcaster VPRO, part of an annual week of experimental programmes, comprise five asylum seekers who have exhausted legal avenues to stay in the Netherlands and await imminent deportation to their country of origin.

They compete in a quiz about Dutch culture, history and language, with the winner awarded €4,000 (£3,500) to help cushion them when they are expelled. Consolation prizes include a bulletproof vest.

Excellent write-up, though I am not sure about the description of the “mini-skirted pastiche of air cabin crew uniforms”. To me those outfits look like sexed-up customs uniforms.

The paper quotes VPRO head Frank Wiering: “These days many asylum seekers who are being expelled have children who have lived in the Netherlands for eight years or more. They have had a good education, speak perfect Dutch and have only seen their country of birth on television. We believe it’s time to stop and think about this.”

See also “TV quiz for asylum seekers courts controversy” (Radio Netherlands).

Source trailer: Youtube / VPRO. Tip of the hat to Marijn.

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August 30, 2011

24 Oranges: switching from a Facebook Group to a Facebook Page

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 7:50 pm

We will be abandoning our Facebook Group and continue with a Facebook Page instead. You can find the page at http://www.facebook.com/24oranges?sk=wall.

If you were a member of our group, follow us on Facebook by ‘liking’ our Page, as the group will be deleted.

We use Facebook for all kinds of things. We connect with our readers through it, and our page wall has its own content, although sometimes we post a link to a blog posting if the article is especially apt for our Facebook friends.

As for the difference between Facebook’s ‘pages’ and ‘groups’, they continue to mystify us and everybody else including, I gather, Facebook themselves. It would seem that the philosophy behind a page fits us better. From what I understand, Facebook initially intended groups to be a way for friends and family to connect, whereas pages are intended for larger groups of people.

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August 29, 2011

Parrot helps catch its thief

Filed under: Animals by Branko Collin @ 8:43 am

Last Wednesday the Barneveld police arrested a thief after the parrot he had stolen responded to its owner’s call.

The African Grey was one of 70 birds that had been stolen from a nearby location. The owner had received a tip that two of his birds had been spotted at the animal market of Barneveld. When he called the bird’s name, it came to him. The police then verified the owner’s claim by checking the ring numbers. A second bird from the theft was also retrieved.

Two other birds were discovered in the home of the thief, a 30-year-old man from Hilversum.

(Photo of an unrelated African Grey parrot by Wikipedia user Jonathan G Wang who released it into the public domain)

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August 28, 2011

Weather prediction for the next ten years—rain, rain, rain

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 12:09 pm

It’s been raining a lot here this summer—I thought I’d share the pain (and the view from my window) a bit.

Meanwhile, Noordhoff publishers and the Dutch weather office, KNMI, presented a climate atlas last week. Some interesting tidbits:

* Worldwide the temperature has risen 0.7 degrees Celsius over the past 50 years, in the Netherlands that was 1.4.

* The temperature in Amsterdam averages 11 degrees Celsius over the past thirty years, which is the same average as Lyon (in the South of France) had thirty years ago.

* The rainiest places in the country are the Veluwe (the nature reserve in the middle of the country) and the North of Amsterdam.

* The skies released 850 litres water per square metre on average; 100 years ago that average was 700 litres.

Since we’re in the middle of a period of global warming, it is expected that these trends will continue (though KNMI is hedging its bets).

Update August 31, 2011: Dutch News: It’s official: this is the wettest summer since 1906.

(Links: Parool.nl, Vereniging voor Weerkunde en Klimatologie)

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