Welcome to my Blog!
I hope to share here my irrepressible thoughts on news, music, books, arts and such like. In general these will be items, events and issues which I feel have no place on my website (which focusses on aviation history and my travel photography).

The item immediately below this would be the latest posting.

Anybody, providing he knows how to be amusing, has the right to talk about himself. - Charles Baudelaire
Esse est percipi (To be is to be perceived) - Bishop George Berkeley

In 2013 I started a series of photo albums on Blurb.com, named '36Exp' (a subject adressed in 36 exposures, a reference to the exposures on most common rolls of 35 mm film: 12, 24 & 36.). The books can be ordered directly from the Blurb.com website.
http://www.blurb.com/user/ruudleeuw

CURRENT BLOG

'De Volkskrant' has published for the Netherlands a large-size (30x42cm) box showing 20 brochures of 'great photographers'.
The photographers present are:

Robert Capa
Anton Corbijn
Raymond Rutting
Stephan van Fleteren
Joost van den Broek
Koos Breukel
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Guus Dubbelman
Carl de Keyzer
Hans Heus
Robert Doisneau
Rob Hornstra
Gerard Fieret
Sebastiao Salgado
Ed van der Elsken
Man Ray
Hellen van Meene
Peter Lindbergh
Rineke Dijkstra|
Helmut Newton

Bellow hit the bestseller list in 1964 with his novel Herzog.
He was surprised at the commercial success of this cerebral novel about a middle-aged and troubled college professor who writes letters to friends, scholars and the dead, but never sends them.

I found it difficult to keep track of Moses Elkanah Herzog, the rambling American Jewish professor who leads a restless helter-skelter life in relations and moves between various locations. In the process of his journeys, he is moving through his own mental chaos, sorting out memories of his past failures, trying to get a grip on his destiny.

At the end of the book when his brother suggested a restful period in a psychiatric institution, I could not have agreed more! Herzog's third(?) wife has left him for another man and he feels betrayed by his ex wife and his friend Valentine Gersbach. Meanwhile he has great difficulty in committing to another relation. And while not exactly a pauper, he has had to borrow money from relatives and seems incapable of properly looking after himself.

Look elswhere if you want to identify with a sympathetic main character, but this is a book you will like if you enjoy great writing, appreciate how sentences are masterfully crafted!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Bellow

This weekend received my AVIATION MUSEUMS AND COLLECTIONS OF NORTH AMERICA, compiled by Bob Ogden, published by Air-Britain (Historians) Ltd.
A brand-new 2011 copy replacing my 2007 edition.
Hundreds of aviation museums, privat collections and now also aviation monuments included. Thousands and thousands of aeroplanes listed.
Huge, huge amount of work involved here. Magnificent dedication by Bob Ogden- my first copy dates from 1979, published Airline Publications & Sales Ltd, distributed by Macdonald and Janes, at the time.

Last year I purchased this double dvd edition and recently havE been playing it again. So much to enjoy there: the music, information about his 'tools' (e.g. Old Black and Hank Williams guitar), how songs came about; the recordings were made with an audience, but have a great intimacy.

In the fall of 2005, Neil Young returned to the sound and style of his iconic 1972 album Harvest with Prairie Wind, a set of ten songs which look to America's past and future accompanied by sweet but rough-hewn country-rock.
The album was written and recorded after Young was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm, and shortly before he went into the hospital for surgery (he enjoyed a full recovery) for this, Young played a pair of special concerts at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium, the original home of the Grand Ole Opry, where he performed the Prairie Wind album in full.
A selection of old favorites were played too.
Filmmaker Jonathan Demme was on hand to film the shows, and Neil Young: Heart of Gold was culled from the best moments of those two concerts, as well as interviews in which Young talks about his life and music.
Emmylou Harris appears as a guest vocalist, and Young's band includes long time accompanists Ben Keith on pedal steel, pianist Spooner Oldham, Grant Boatwright (acoustic guitar, electric guitar: Old Black!), and Pegi Young (Neil's wife) on acoustic guitar and backing vocals.
(Source)

Neil Young's Heart of Gold on Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Recently I bought this book: 'Banksy - Wall and Piece' (Random House, 2006) and became convinced that art can be found in grafitti. Humor too. Deep messages made obvious. That's Banksy for you.

'The people who truly deface our neighbourhoods are the companies that scawl giant slogans across buildings and buses trying to make us feel inadequate unless we buy their stuff.
They expect to be able to shout their message in your face from every available surface but you're never allowed to answer back.
Well, they started the fight and the wall is the weapon of choice to hit them back.'

Visit www.banksy.co.uk for his art and wit. Enjoy!

Read this morning about Gunther Sachs' suicide (7 May), by a gunwound to the head @home in Gstaad; he'd written "no hope illness A" (some have speculated to be Alzheimer's).
I remember him as a talented photographer and picked up my copy of "Licht' Bilder", a book I bought decades ago.
RIP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunter_Sachs

Included is work by Broomberg & Chanarin, Mauro Andrizzi, Jonathan Cavender, Robbie Wright, Shane McDonald, Hito Steyerl, Ariella Azoulay, Paul Lowe, Goran Galic & Gian-Reto Gredig, Laura Kurgan, Renzo Martens, Kadir van Lohuizen, Allan Sekula, Phil Collins, Walid Raad/The Atlas Group, Paul Fusco, Gilles Peress and Susan Meiselas. Compilations by Sohrab Mohebbi, Eyal Weizman, with Yazan Khalili and Tony Chakar.

New methods of reporting the news, new imaginations of what the news might be, have challenged the hegemonic figure of the photojournalist at its core and given birth to the most interesting ideas. This critical approach is called, following Allan Sekula, 'antiphotojournalism'. It has a multiplicity of forms, such as film, video, slides, web-based presentations and many more."
Antiphotojournalism | 01 April - 08 June 2011

FOAM Gallery

Somewhat confusing: the winners and runners up of the World Press Photo 2010 will now be touring as World Press Photo Exhibition 2011.
The kick off took place in the majestic Oude Kerk (Old Church) in Amsterdam (Netherlands). The church is quite marvellous too, increase the respect to the human suffering often portraited in these pictures.
I've tried to capture that during my visit 04May11.

www.worldpressphoto.org

A while ago I visited a photography exhibition in FOAM Gallery (Amsterdam,NL) dedicated to the work by W. Eugene Smith. The exhibition absolutely thrilled me.
As a result I ordered a book which showcases his work and although I had to make do with a copy in Spanish (the English editions no longer available and these days an expensive, much-sought-after collector's item), I am very glad to be able to browse in this book every now and then and enjoy the fine social documentary by this decicated photographer.

Here is a LINK to some more photos and photos taken during the exhibition.

William Eugene Smith (December 20, 1918, Wichita, Kansas – October 15, 1978, Tucson, Arizona) was an American photojournalist known for his refusal to compromise professional standards and his brutally vivid World War II photographs.
Smith graduated from Wichita North High School in 1936. He began his career by taking pictures for two local newspapers, The Wichita Eagle (morning circulation) and the Beacon (evening circulation). He moved to New York City and began work for Newsweek and became known for his incessant perfectionism and thorny personality. Smith was fired from Newsweek for refusing to use medium format cameras and joined Life Magazine in 1939. He soon resigned from Life, too. In 1942 he was wounded while photographing battle conditions in the Pacific theater of World War Two.
As a correspondent for Ziff-Davis Publishing and then Life again, Smith entered World War II on the front lines of the island-hopping American offensive against Japan.
In 1950, he was sent to the United Kingdom to cover the General Election, in which the Labour Party, under Clement Attlee, was narrowly victorious. Life had taken an editorial stance against the Labour government. In the end, a limited number of Smith's photographs of working-class Britain were published, including three shots of the South Wales valleys.
Smith severed his ties with Life over the way in which the magazine used his photographs of Albert Schweitzer. Upon leaving Life, Smith joined the Magnum photo agency in 1955.
In January 1972, Smith was attacked by Chisso employees near Tokyo, in an attempt to stop him from further publicizing the Minamata disease to the world.
Complications from his longterm consumption of drugs, notably amphetamine (taken to enable his workaholic tendencies), and alcohol led to a massive stroke, from which Smith died in 1978.
[Wikipedia, more..]

Only last year I learned about this fantastic crime writer, having picked up an interest in Scandinavian novelists in recent years. Recently I read the last of the Detective Erlendur series (the translated titles) published sofar and now forced to wait in patience until a new one is published.

The following is from Wikipedia:
Arnaldur Indriðason (born 28 January 1961) is an Icelandic writer of crime fiction. He has repeatedly proved to be the most popular writer in Iceland in recent years. In the year 2004 his books were seven of the ten most popular titles borrowed in Reykjavík City Library
Arnaldur was born in Reykjavík, the son of writer Indriði G. Þorsteinsson. He graduated with a degree in history from the University of Iceland in 1996. He worked as journalist for the newspaper Morgunblaðið in 1981-1982, and later freelanced. From 1986 to 2001, he was a film critic for Morgunblaðið.
He published his first book, Sons of Dust (Synir duftsins) in 1997, the first in the series of Detective Erlendur. The series includes eleven novels as of 2010.
Arnaldur's books have been published in twenty-six countries.

Detective Erlendur series
Synir duftsins (Sons of Dust, 1997)
Dauðarósir (Silent Kill, 1998)
Mýrin (Tainted Blood, also known as Jar City, 2000)
Grafarþögn (Silence of the Grave, 2001)
Röddin (Voices, 2003)
Kleifarvatn (The Draining Lake, 2004)
Vetrarborgin (Arctic Chill, 2005)
Harðskafi (Hypothermia, 2007)
Myrká (Outrage, 2008)
Svörtuloft (2009)
Furðustrandir (2010)

Last december I bought a new desktop computer.
It is one by HP (HP5245NL) and I don't much care for the rubbish they put on it, but in time I'll remove most of it or perhaps make a clean reinstallation of Windows.
The keyboard was unfamiliar, maybe US, getting used to it was no option because it would still be too different from my laptop and pc's at work; so I bought a wireless keyboard & -mouse from Logitech.

Now the biggest problem is this Windows 7...
It doesn't look like Microsoft has much learned from bloddy Vista, it is the same security paranoia crap all over again!!!
I get all kind of refusal pop ups, asking I should be 'authorised' to copy or open files...? Now I found that having worked a database on my laptop and copied the files to my W7 PC the files have the new date+time indication but upon opening don't show the revised data! It is still the old file!

I paid for this monstrosity, am the only user on this PC and still cannot accept to do what I want it to do!

I wish the designers jerks at Microsoft every possible mental depression and an ever decreasing marketshare for Microsoft.

(Learned today a collegue bought the same HP PC last weekend, but found after installation of the software the screen would go black after a few minutes: back to the shop!)