Fifty-one-year-old Dutchman Marko Bak from Nieuw-Lekkerland, South Holland, who has Rembrandt’s The Night Watch tattooed on his back, and his tattoo artist Richard van Meerkerk both finally saw the artwork at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam for the very first time.
Bak said that he wasn’t a museum kind of guy, and that the tattoo was done as a bit of a joke, but then grew into a real art project. When Bak met Van Meerkerk, he told him “If ever you have nothing to do you, you can tattoo The Night Wacht on my back.” And that’s what happened.
The tattoo is not an exact copy, as some of the faces were replaced by ones from Bak’s friends and family. I can imagine that it’s not every day that someone shows up with The Night Wacht (aka Militia Company of District II under the Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq) on their back, making this quirky news.
Filed under: Food & Drink by Branko Collin @ 11:20 am
Quick, what is the world’s foremost potato exporting country? Yes, it’s the Netherlands, a country that exports almost twice the amount of potatoes it grows, leading France by just a few fries (which are Belgian anyway).
Between 26 September and 11 October, 25 tons of potatoes will parade through Amsterdam on big farm trucks. […] The pop-up will offer a wide and colourful variety of potatoes. “At first we were planning to have 30 types, but then some breeds got sick. So, it’s going to be 20 types,” says Felicia Alberding, a freelance journalist who is teaming up with potato farmers in organizing this event.
To make the pop-up more potato-y, there will naturally be an array of potato-related activities. The theatre team Superhallo will perform ‘Knol d’Amour’ which, they say, is both an ode to the potato and a delicious love story. The theatre makers will also host a fry potato party that lets people choose, peel and fry their own potatoes while they are playing music.
There will also be a tattoo artist who uses potato-based ink and both vodka and carrot-and-spinach tea are served, according to the store’s Facebook page.
The boutique was the idea of farmer Krispijn van den Dries from the Noordoostpolder area who wants to breed a better understanding between farmers and consumers. Felicia Alberding: “In most countries, farmers have become invisible over the past years. That anonymity is one of the reasons many people don’t value food and how it’s made any more.”
Filed under: Art,Health by Branko Collin @ 12:55 pm
A tattoo artist from Amsterdam is offering a service of preserving your tattoos after you die, Mirror reports:
Tattoo shop owner Peter van der Helm says around 30 clients have already agreed to donate their skin to his company, the “Walls and Skin” tattoo parlour, after they die and have each paid a few hundred euro to have their inked designs made immortal.
After their deaths, a pathologist will remove the tattoo to freeze or package in it formaldehyde – ideally within 48 hours – before it is sent to a lab for a procedure to extract water and replace it with silicone.
Van der Helm told Parool that he got the idea because of Johnny Depp who is supposed to have said that his body should go to a museum after his death. The tattoo artist says “I am so going to get into trouble with this. I’ve practically talked to everybody these past months, the Netherlands Forensic Institute, lawyers, the health department, but nobody gave me a straight answer [about the legality of preserving tattoos].”
To take your order the Walls and Skin parlour requires a hand written letter in which you state you want your tattoo to be preserved by them and displayed in future expositions.
A musical instrument shop in Groningen, a city some call the real rock city of the Netherlands (surely a bone of contention with the people of Eindhoven), is looking for someone, male or female, to sell guitars.
They proudly tell us in their advert that their main clientele are rockers, you know, the kind of people who wear black concert shirts, have piercings and tattoos, and favour loud rock music. The shop called Tonika Music wants the ideal candidate to really look like they enjoy selling guitars, have the right qualifications, be convincing, and all the stuff you would expect from a good salesperson, but not have anything in common with the average rocker. They also mention no beards and mustaches, which potential female candidates read as not really wanting women either, but are too daft to say out loud for fear of discriminating!
Blatantly discriminating against people, which goes against Dutch law, the shop will refuse candidates with piercings, visible tattoos, ‘wild hair’ or a predilection for the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle. You shouldn’t be a smoker, which they consider as being ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ in a negative way and ideally you should still play in a band and understand musicians. I am sure there are people that fit this description and want to work there, but I’m more worried about the drop in sales that is soon to follow.
A keyboard player on Facebook said it best: “The dumbest sales tactic there is, is valuing your opinion more than you value your clients’ opinion. Luckily, clients are able to discriminate and take their business elsewhere.” The company, currently being trashed on Facebook, has removed their advert, which pretty much proves how stupid they’ve been. People have offered to help them with their PR and give them social media classes. Insulting your clientele has to be the dumbest crisis move ever.
Tattoos that should help first responders and physicians realize that a person does not wish to be resuscitated seem to be getting popular with the 80-something set. In September last year an 81-year-old from Norfolk in England had ‘Do not resuscitate’ tattooed to her chest, and now an 88-year-old from the Netherlands followed suit.
According to today’s Volkskrant, which has a photo of the tattoo, the woman opted to have the text “niet reanimeren” put on her chest because she was dissatisfied with the other ways to convey her wish. She fears that the codicil in her wallet may be overlooked, and she dislikes carrying a ‘do not resuscitate’ coin around her neck.
According to the paper, the idea started ‘just for laughs’, but then became more serious.
Opinions on the legal status of the tattoo differ. “You cannot be much clearer”, professor in medical law Johan Legemaate of the University of Amsterdam said.
Martijn Maas of the Nederlandse Reanimatie Raad (Dutch Resuscitation Council) points out that on the other hand a codicil needs to be signed and dated, and that this tattoo is not.
Filed under: Art,Film,Weird by Orangemaster @ 6:12 pm
Some 18 film fans are going to get a permanent film ticket tattooed on their bodies just so they can get free entrance to films for a year. A movie theatre that operates in the towns of Almelo, Kampen and Zevenaar came up with this to accompany the latest blockbuster, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.
I think one year of free movies isn’t enough for something as difficult to remove or permanent as a tattoo. And it’s probably not a super deluxe tattoo, it’s a film ticket. The tattoo artist who was hired to do the job is the one doing good business. If anyone has a pic of their work, let us know.
A Dutch girl has had her 152 FB friends tattoed on her arm:
The ‘social tattoo’ was done by Tattoo Dex, Rotterdam and took two weeks. The comments on the Internet are mostly negative, which doesn’t surprise me, but then I know absolutely nothing about tattoos.
– “Officer, officer! You have to arrest my neighbour, Mr De Vries.”
– “What has he done wrong this time, Mrs Jansen?”
– “He’s whistling dirty songs!”
The following news made me think of this old Max Tailleur (Dutch) joke:
A man in Groningen was arrested last week for wearing an insulting tattoo, according to Dagblad van het Noorden (Dutch). Written on the man’s neck were the letters ACAB, and the police assumed this abbreviation stood for All Cops Are Bastards. Some mothers do ‘ave ’em, eh? The man first stated that he had his neck tattooed after spending some time in jail, and later added that the abbreviation meant “acht cola, acht bier” (eight colas, eight beers).
Insulting a civil servant, including police officers, is a crime in the Netherlands (article 267 of the criminal code).
Photo: montage.
Update: another man got convicted in February for wearing a jacket with the text A.C.A.B. The court had a rather curious opinion (Dutch), in which it held that the number of Google hits that linked to page in which ACAB was used as All Cops Are Bastards was evidence of the popularity of the term.
Quick, what is the world’s foremost potato exporting country? Yes, it’s the Netherlands, a country that exports almost twice the amount of potatoes it grows, leading France by just a few fries (which are Belgian anyway).
A tattoo artist from Amsterdam is offering a service of preserving your tattoos after you die, 
A musical instrument shop in Groningen, a city some call the real rock city of the Netherlands (surely a bone of contention with the people of Eindhoven), is looking for someone, male or female, to sell guitars.
– “Officer, officer! You have to arrest my neighbour, Mr De Vries.”