Welcome to my Blog!
I hope to share here my irrepressible thoughts on news, music, books, arts, history, cultural events 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

Not even I understand everything I am ¬Aurelius Augustinus of Hippo

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.) back in the day.
The books can be ordered directly from the Blurb.com or Amazon.
www.blurb.com/user/ruudleeuw

CURRENT BLOG

In Deon Meyer's 7th book, the reader gets to see another special case by police officer Bennie Griesel.
And not just any case, but one that could cost him his entire career!
Bennie Griesel and his partner, Vaughn Cupido, were involved in the arrest of a gang of bank robbers. Due to all kinds of misunderstandings and the hectic pace of the fight, procedures were ignored under their leadership. Before a police tribunal they get demoted to a rank lower plus sentenced to the outback. But this is changed to Stellenbosch, a police detachment fitting as a reward.. Bennie suspects foul play in this: are they set up to fail?

Bennie and Cupido get assigned to the missing person case of Callie de Bruin, a brilliant student with an extraordinary interest in computers, who inexplicably disappeared. They discover bizarre investments by the poor student, bribery and misuse of financial resources.
At some point this investigation also leads them to the attractive real estate agent Sandra Steenberg, who is up to her neck in debt and has all her cards on selling property owned by the super rich Jasper Boonstra. He chooses Sandra to sell his huge estate Donkerdrif for a mega price, Sandra would make millions out of this deal but she has to make sure that it doesn't leak out that the fraudulent Boonstra is the seller.
Since Boonstra knows about Sandra's financial predicament, he tries to blackmail her into sex with him. And Sandra cannot trust her boss, Charlie Benson, who is trying to cut her out of her deal.

Deon Meyer knows how to pack corrruption and greed brilliantly again. The success partly due to the humane characters, such as protagonist Bennie Griesel; he's not a super agent in any way. His physical condition is bad, he still fights his drinking problem and this demotion hits him hard. It is precisely these human traits that make Bennie good and plausible.
Other protagonists that gets described well are Vaughn Cupido and Sandra Steenberg, plus the narrative is fast paced. A book hard to put down!

www.coolesuggesties.nl/donkerdrif-deon-meyer (NL)
en.wikipedia.org:_Deon_Meyer

'Curious Moments'(subtitled Archive of the Century | DAS FOTOARCHIV) provides a public stage for privat individuals from the 1st half of the 20th century over 720 pages.
It's about ideas & inventions, desires & fantasies, fears & prejudices, visions & delusions of earlier generations.

'Curious Moments' (by Hendrik Neubauer; 2006 Tandem Verlag GmbH, of which Könemann is a trademark) is a veritable treasure trove of facts & foils, expectations in life as well as failures, of people in their period of time.
The pictures all come from the Stockholm agency 'Text och Bilder', which was taken over by Swedish television in the late 1960s.
The photographic collection provides a cornucopia of history as reflected in the press photographer's camera lens in the period 1900 - 1967.

I enjoyed the photos as well as the explanatory texts of the decade in question plus the captions with the photographs. A treasure chest from SVT Bild has been opened up and I loved the history.

openlibrary.org/ - / - /CURIOUS_MOMENTS

Whenever some fresh instance of blatant corruption or rank depravity comes to light in Italy (illegal toxic waste disposals, political scandal in Lombardia, a proposal to build an ugly skyscraper in Mestre), Commissario Guido Brunetti, the principled protagonist of Donna Leon’s Venetian crime mysteries, looks to his family and to the wise philosophers of ancient Rome to restore his faith in humanity.
And Leon tends to console herself by writing a new book.

BY ITS COVER (2014) finds the author in a fury over vandalism and theft in national libraries, museums and churches, and appears to have been inspired by the looting of Naples’s Girolamini Library by its director, a systematic sacking of thousands of rare books that came to light in 2012.
“It would make a stone weep,” according to one of Brunetti’s colleagues.

But how was the damage done when the only patrons of this obscure library are innocuous scholars such as Joseph Nickerson, an American academic researching maritime and Mediterranean trade history, and an ex-priest affectionately known as 'Tertullian' for his obsessive study of the writings of the Church Fathers?
Then the ex-priest is found savagely murdered...

Crimes against the elderly always distress the compassionate Brunetti, but in this extraordinary case even a murderer touches his heart. What angers him beyond endurance are the corrupt public officials, his own superiors in the police department among them, who aid and abet the crooks who make their fortunes by sacrificing their country’s cultural heritage.

en.wikipedia.org:_Donna_Leon
www.nytimes.com/2014/ - /donna-leon_by-its-cover

The symmetrical Dutch Baroque building was designed by Jacob Roman and Johan van Swieten and was built between 1684 and 1686 for stadtholder-king William III and his consort Princess Mary. The garden was designed by Claude Desgotz.

After the elder House of Orange-Nassau had become extinct with the death of William III of England in 1702.
Most of the older properties, though not including Het Loo, were taken over by the Hohenzollerns, who never lived there. Johan Willem Friso's son, William IV, Prince of Orange, finally took over Het Loo Palace, Soestdijk Palace, as well as Huis ten Bosch Palace near The Hague.

The palace then remained a summer-residence of the House of Orange-Nassau until the death of Queen Wilhelmina in 1962.
Her daughter, Queen Juliana, never lived there, but her younger daughter, Princess Margriet, lived in the right wing until 1975.

The building was renovated between 1976 and 1982. Since 1984, the palace is a state museum open for the general public, showing interiors with original furniture.
It also houses a library devoted to the House of Orange-Nassau and the Museum van de Kanselarij der Nederlandse Orden (Museum of the Netherlands Orders of Knighthood's Chancellery) with books and other material concerning decorations and medals.
The building is a rijksmonument and is among the Top 100 Dutch heritage sites.

The palace nowadays follows two routes: 1/ about Queen Wilhelmina and 2/ William & Mary.
[¬Wikipedia]

Yesterday afternoon I had my first visit for the 'world famous' (in this region) Halfvasten parade in Angerlo . 'The Mother of All Parades!'
Inspite of the fine drizzle we went: if they can have fun in these conditions, I can shoot my photos!
And I bear witness to the fact these people sure can make fun!

History:
In the year 1999, three enthusiastic carnivalists Ton Derksen, Jan Hendriks and his daughter Chantal suggested the plan to organize a Semi-Lent parade in the village of Angerlo.
For the province of Gelderland, it meant an unknown event that originated in the town of Zeeland (North Brabant).

By consulting with the Half-Fasting Organization from Zeeland and making use of the knowledge and experience there, the first Half-Lent Parade 2000 could start.
Today, Sunday 12Mar23, the parade will started for the 21st time, and another colourful procession of carnival floats and creations will passed through Angerlo again.
A fast amount (thousands?) of visitors enjoyed this spectacular parade again.

A bit more background:
Half-fasting is the 4th Sunday in Lent, a period of reflection in Christianity in preparation for Easter.
On this Sunday it is celebrated that Lent is halfway through..

hva.halfvasten-angerlo.nl
More on my Flickr.com
See also Angerlo 2024 on MyBlog2024Q1

John le Carré was a working writer, producing a book every couple of years, and it would have been a surprise if he’d died leaving a clear desk. While diagnosed with cancer, during a walk on Hampstead Heath, David John Moore Cornwell asked his son Nick Cornwell to finish 'Silverview' if he couldn't...

Frankly I thought that merely the publication of 'Silverview' was after Le Carré's passing, but in the afterword, by Nick Cornwell, this was explained and found the reason why I felt somewhere in the book the proze had ever so slightly changed a little bit. Conversations a bit more direct maybe, a touch less posh by some of the main characters, but a creeping feeling rather than a sudden change or break.

It might be the best John le Carré novel I've read, some of them I did not like much at all.
The hero is one Julian Lawndsley, a young man in flight from a City career, taking over a bookshop in an East Anglian seaside town despite having a blank canvas where a literary hinterland should be – he has never heard of Sebald or Chomsky.
He has an early encounter with Edward Avon, a somewhat extraordinary person who tells Julian he's known his father.
During one of his chats with Julian he proposes they establish a 'Republic of Literature' in the vacant basement of Julian's store and establish a litterary circle with readings and meetings.
Edward, the pivot on which this spy novel swivels, is married to Deborah, a noted Arabist and one-time big wheel in the British intelligence service. She lies dying in the manor house, Silverview.
Edward establishes a computer in Julian's shop, with its own e-mail adress, to search for quality books and later also, Julian's been told, to dispense of his wife's pottery collection.
But this PC is used for obscure purposes and unknowingly Julian is also used as a courier between Edward and a 'contact', told to be an ex/ lover.
Edward or Edvard or Teddy's murky circumstances in which it ended, come to light as the service’s head of domestic security, Stewart Proctor – 'Proctor the Doctor' – starts to pick away at his past while investigating a leak of classified information.

The narrative has 'roadside attractions' including glimpses of the lost children and junked marriages of service life, alongside moments of pure le Carré, such as the indignant administrator’s refusal to believe that Proctor is investigating a technical” breach: “I mean a breach is people. It’s not fucking fibre optics. It’s not tunnels. It’s chaps, surely?”
Lovely.

David John Moore Cornwell (b.19Oct1931 – d.12Dec2020), better known by his pen name John le Carré, was a British and Irish author, best known for his espionage novels, many of which were successfully adapted for film or television.
"A sophisticated, morally ambiguous writer", he is considered one of the greatest novelists of the postwar era.
During the 1950s and 1960s he worked for both the Security Service (MI5) and the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6).

www.theguardian.com/ - /silverview-by-john-le-carré
en.wikipedia.org:_John_le_Carré

Hendrik Pieter Pander was born in 1937 in Haarlem, The Netherlands, the first of ten children of the artist Jacob (Jaap) Pander and Hendrica Smedes Pander.
Henk joined his father on drawing and watercolor painting expeditions to the Haarlem dunes, and by the time he enrolled in Amsterdam’s Rijksacademie in 1956, he was accomplished in drawing and painting. His training provided him with skills that related to Dutch art extending back to the 17th century as well as to 20th-century movements such as Expressionism and Surrealism.

In 1964, Pander met Marcia Lynch, an art student from Oregon. They were married in Amsterdam and, with their infant son Jacob, moved to Portland.
The move was not intended to be permanent, and Pander considered himself a Dutch artist temporarily in the United States. The Panders traveled to Amsterdam for the birth of their second son, Arnold, but soon returned to Oregon.
When they separated a short time later, Pander determined to remain in Portland to be near his sons. Though he has lived in the United States for nearly half a century, he describes himself as a 'reluctant immigrant'.

Pander depicts subjects ranging from the death of friends to erotic fantasies (obviously controversial in puritan USA), from the wreck of the New Carissa to the ruins of Ground Zero, and from the skylines of Portland and Amsterdam to abandoned airplanes and automobiles in the American West.

Oregon is one of my favourite US States to travel through and this little book is a jubilant celebration for me, covering ghost towns and abandoned airplanes and vehicles.

This is the first book by Yrsa Sigurdardottir in the Freyja & Huldar series I've read, and evidently also the first in the the Children’s House series by Yrsa Sigurdardottir.

It was meant to be a quiet family fishing trip, a chance for mother and daughter to talk. But it changes the course of their lives forever.
They catch nothing except a broken doll that gets tangled in the net. After years in the ocean, the doll a terrifying sight and the mother’s first instinct is to throw it back, but she relents when her daughter pleads to keep it.
This simple act of kindness proves fatal. That evening, the mother posts a picture of the doll on social media. By the morning, she is dead and the doll has disappeared.

Several years later and Detective Huldar is in his least favourite place – on a boat in rough waters, searching for possible human remains. However, identifying the skeleton they find on the seabed proves harder than initially thought, and Huldar must draw on psychologist Freyja’s experience to help him.
As the mystery of the unidentified body deepens, Huldar is also drawn into an investigation of a homeless drug addict’s murder, and Freyja investigates a suspected case of child abuse at a foster care home.

I did not like it at all...
The author has a (too) detailed way of writing, many of the details not one iota relevant to the narrative.

Both Huldar and Freyja are 'vanilla types', colourless, they lack any edge or depth: Huldar is a rather shallow person, has feelings for Freyja but don't want to rush things and amonts to nothing. Freyja is single and babysits her niece which adds nothing to the narrative or the person; she also is on a sabbatical concerning sex, so what?
I think I deserve some praise to have read the book until the final conclusion (everything is unravelled in the last 15-20 pages during a converstaion between Huldar and Freyja).

Rather liked Yrsa's protagonist Thora Gudmundsdottir much better, those series provided some humour while this book lacked humour in all respects. Doom & gloom is the only ingredient.

jenmedsbookreviews.com/ - /the-doll_yrsa-sigurdardottir
en.wikipedia.org:_Yrsa_Sigurðardóttir

Stately, enigmatic, elegant and the world at a distance, Carel Willink (1900-1983) is the cool grandmaster of neorealism. From the age of thirty, his reputation grew as an incomparable painter of monumental, architectural sets and ominous aerial landscapes.
The exhibition in Ruurlo Castle shows the development of a searching artist, who later develops into the never-equalled painter of a technically perfect, elegant and enigmatic oeuvre.
The collection in the castle is rotating, but there are always masterpieces by the master painter on display.

Thorougly enjoyed the fabulous paintings by Carel Willink !
Albert Carel Willink (b.07Mar1900 – d.19Oct1983) was a Dutch painter, his style was called Magic realism ('imaginary realism'). He was brilliant in painting warmth and details in clothing (a.o.).
The walls inside the Castle Ruurlo are clad with silk and has a motive to bring out the paintings.
Also eEnjoyed the intricate wood panelling on the floors in the castle.
Much to be enjoyed here!

Huis te Ruurlo is a Dutch castle in Ruurlo, Gelderland, the Netherlands. It was mentioned in 1326 and has been in the hands of the Dutch noble Van Heeckeren family since the 15th century.
From 2013, both castle and landscape park were thoroughly renovated. A new bridge was laid over the water to the entrance of the castle. The wooden floors of the rooms reflect the ceiling paintings.
The current owner, Hans Melchers, realized his plans in 2017 to establish a Carel Willink museum with paintings by Carel Willink in the castle. This is the 2nd location of Museum MORE (the other one is in Gorssel).
Ruurlo Castle has been open to the public since 27 June 2017.

en.wikipedia.org:_Carel_Willink
NL.wikipedia.org:_Kasteel_Ruurlo
www.museummore-kasteelruurlo.NL/tentoonstelling_carel-willink

Eric Watt’s photos capture Glasgow in all its shades, a document of Glasgow reinventing itself during 1960s to 1990s.

Typically, amateur photographer, Eric Watt was not one for the limelight. A quiet man, for most of his working life, he taught science at Woodfarm High School in Thornliebank on Glasgow's south side and lived in the family flat in Pollokshields.
He never married or had a family of his own. All his free time was spent taking photographs around the city.
From 1958 onwards, he was an active member of Queens Park Camera Club, one of many such clubs around Scotland. Well-known on the amateur photography circuit, he gave around 1000 talks on his archive to camera clubs and historical societies before he died at the age of 71 in 2005.

A treasured historic photo document in my photobook collection.

www.heraldscotland.com/ - -eric-watts-photos-capture-glasgow
Queens Park Camera Club

LFI wrote: "There is only one word to describe his work and approach: Zimbelism. This is the title of the 2016 documentary produced by film makers Jean François Gratton and Matt Zimbel – the photographer's eldest son – looking back over Zimbel senior's decades-long career in photojournalism. He was a storyteller, using his camera to photograph celebrities, presidents, film divas, but also people he met by chance during his photographic forays on the streets of New York and later Montreal."

George S. Zimbel (b.15Jul1929 – d.09Jan2023) was an American-Canadian documentary photographer.
He worked professionally from the late 1940s, mainly as a freelancer. He was part of the Photo League and was one of its last surviving members.
Born in Massachusetts, he settled in Canada about 1971.
His works have been shown with increasing frequency since 2000, and examples of his work are part of several permanent collections including the Museum of Modern Art and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
He was described as a humanist.
Zimbel published several books of his photographs, and in 2016 was the subject of a documentary retrospective film co-directed by his son Matt Zimbel and distributed by the National Film Board of Canada.

lfi-online.de/ceemes/ - /George-S-Zimbel-has-passed-away
GeorgeZimbel.com

NL: 'Dagboek van een Invasie' - Andrej Koerkov (2022)

Kurkov’s on-the-ground account is packed with surprising details about the human effects of the Russian assault. Not just the highlights we learn from the media on the telly or from newspapers in our respective countries, but also minor (however important) issues people in Ukraine encounter in daily disrupted routines. Plenty of sorrow but this books also has upbeat moments, a wry smile may even occur to read about the resolve and ingenuity of the Ukranian people!

The diaries begin 29Dec2021, two months before the war did, and include items that might not seem pertinent: power cuts, Pushkin, Covid, drink-driving, hipster bookshops, school meals and whether Ukrainian is a sexier language than Russian.
But underneath is a constant fear of imminent conflict.

Kurkov’s line on the war, as "ageing Putin’s last chance to fulfil his dream of recreating the USSR", is familiar. So is his riposte to the allegation that Ukraine is anti-Russian and antisemitic: if it were, why would a Russian-speaking Jew be elected as its president with 73% of the vote?

What the book offers that international reportage can’t is surprising detail: Ukrainian farmers sowing seed – rape, buckwheat and rye – despite the risk from Russian shelling and landmines; an 85-year-old woman taking her rooster with her when she’s evacuated and the rooster waking her exhausted fellow evacuees at 4am; thousands of people buying tickets to a zoo they can’t visit because they want the animals to be fed; passages on dentistry, petrol scams, dolphins and "little graves days", when people tend to their loved ones’ resting places.
War is an ugly tumour, with countless civilian and military deaths every day. But it also provides opportunities: "You can learn to bake paskas [sweet bread] in a damaged stove. You can get a tattoo for the first time in your life at the age of 80. You can start learning Hungarian or Polish".

Kurkov writes in a fluent style, easy to read, though the subject is heartbreaking and strengthens the resolve that Russia can't be allowed to win this war.

Andrey Yuryevich Kurkov (b.23Apr1961-, Leningrad,USSR) is a Ukrainian author and public intellectual who writes in Russian and Ukranian.
He is the author of 19 novels, including the bestselling 'Death and the Penguin', 9 books for children, and about 20 documentary, fiction and TV movie scripts.
His work is currently translated into 37 languages, including English, Spanish, Japanese, French, German, Italian, Chinese, Swedish, Persian and Hebrew and published in 65 countries.
Kurkov, who has long been a respected commentator on Ukraine for the international media, notably in Europe and the United States, has written assorted articles for various publications worldwide.
His books are full of black humour, post-Soviet reality and elements of surrealism.

His first novel was published two weeks before the fall of the Soviet Union.
Having graduated in 1983 from the Kyiv Foreign Languages Institute, and as a trained Japanese translator Kurkov was assigned military service assisting the KGB.
However, he managed to get his papers changed to service with the military police. This offered him a greater degree of freedom during and after his service period. He was assigned a prison guard position in Odessa.
His books are full of black humour, post-Soviet reality and elements of surrealism.

www.theguardian.com/ - /diary-of-an-invasion-by-andrey-kurkov
en.wikipedia.org:_Andrey_Kurkov

Originally published by 'Aperture in the Masters of Photography'-series in 1988, reprinted by Könemann in 1997 with text by R.H. Craven (english, german and french). Contains 44 photographs and a brief chronology.
Excellent biography; we learn about his lack of fidelity to women who nevertheless sponsored his career to a large extend, his obsession with going his own way in his photography, his fascination with shape and form and the poverty during his life.

Edward Henry Weston (b.24Mar1886 – d.01Jan1958).
He has been called "one of the most innovative and influential American photographers..." and "one of the masters of 20th century photography."
Over the course of his 40-year career Weston photographed an increasingly expansive set of subjects, including landscapes, still-lifes, nudes, portraits, genre scenes and even whimsical parodies.

en.wikipedia.org:_Edward_Weston

In 1213, Sint Geertruidenberg (EN: "Saint Gertrude's Mountain") received city rights from Count William I of Holland.
The fortified city became a trade center, where counts and other nobility gathered for negotiations.
The Hook and Cod wars in 1420 and the Saint Elizabeth's flood in 1421 ended the prosperity of the city.

During the Eighty Years War the city was captured in a surprise attack by an English, French Huguenot and Fleming force in 1573 . In 1589 however the city was betrayed to Parma by its English garrison.
It was finally recaptured by an Anglo-Dutch force under the command of Maurice of Nassau in the summer of 1593.

Today, Geertruidenberg is part of the province of North Brabant, but it was once part of the county of Holland.
Geertruidenberg is the 2nd oldest city of Holland as it was the first to receive city rights. It is a common misconception that Geertruidenberg is the oldest city of the Netherlands, because the names Holland and the Netherlands are used interchangeably by some.

en.wikipedia.org:_Geertruidenberg

At its height Renaissance Florence was a centre of enormous wealth, power and influence.
A republican city-state funded by trade and banking, its often bloody political scene was dominated by rich mercantile families, the most famous of which were the Medici.
This enthralling book charts the family’s huge influence on the political, economic and cultural history of Florence.

Hibbert's writing is enormously dense and compact in terms of names, locations, positions of power, relations, battles, lifestyles, trade, art & artists, enemies & allies, war & peace, papal intrigues, et cetera.
It is quite a book to devour, to comprehend it fully, it may take at least a 2nd and 3rd rereading!

Beginning in the early 1430s with the rise of the dynasty under the near-legendary Cosimo de Medici, it moves through their golden era as patrons of some of the most remarkable artists and architects of the Renaissance, to the era of the Medici Popes and Grand Dukes, Florence’s slide into decay, decadence and bankruptcy. And finally, the end in 1737 of the Medici line.

Christopher Hibbert, MC, FRSL, FRGS (b.05Mar1924 - d.21Dec2008) was an English writer, historian and biographer.
He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the author of many books, including Disraeli, Edward VII, George IV, The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici, and Cavaliers and Roundheads.
I also enjoyed his book on Rome, Biography of a City.

From Wikipedia:
'Arthur Raymond Hibbert was born in Enderby, Leicestershire in 1924, the son of Canon H. V. Hibbert (died 1980) and his wife Maude.
He was the 2nd of 3 children, and christened Arthur Raymond.
He was educated at Radley College in Oxfordshire before he went up to Oriel College at the University of Oxford. He was awarded the degrees of BA and later MA.
He left Oriel College to join the Army, where a sergeant major referred to Hibbert as "Christopher Robin" (of Winnie the Pooh books) based upon his youthful looks.
The name "Christopher" subsequently stuck!
During World War II, Hibbert served as an infantry officer in the London Irish Rifles regiment in Italy, reaching the rank of captain. He was wounded twice and awarded the Military Cross in 1945.
From 1945 to 1959, he was a partner in a firm of land agents and auctioneers, and began his writing career in 1957.
Hibbert was awarded the Heinemann Award for Literature in 1962 for The Destruction of Lord Raglan.

www.goodreads.com/ - / --the-rise-and-fall-of-the-house-of-medici
en.wikipedia.org:_Christopher_Hibbert

Jacob Olie (b.1834 – d.1905) was a Dutch photographer from Amsterdam.
He was known for his scenes of everyday life there.

Olie was born in Amsterdam and was trained as a carpenter and draughtsman. He became a teacher at the local school for craftsmen known as the 'Ambachtsschool', converting it to be the first ever vocational school of the Netherlands for boys.
He took up photography as a hobby.
Today he is known for his unusually sharp depictions of various parts of Amsterdam that no longer exist. His son, by the same name, also became a photographer.

The windcornmill 'De Hoop' in Giesbeek (Gelderland province) is a round stone scaffolding mill.
The mill was built in 1888 as a belt mill. A belt mill, or mountain (hill) mill, is a windmill that stands on a natural or artificially raised hill, the mill belt, which takes over the function of the scaffolding at a scaffolding mill.
In 1927, the roof and the blade cross of the mill were removed and a major restoration was necessary. During WW2, 'De Hoop' was severely damaged.
It was not until 1956 that the mill was restored, using parts from the Mill 'De Dankbaarheid' in Kreijel.

In 1964, the entire interior was broken out and the belt was excavated. In 1979, the municipality of Angerlo bought the mill to restore it in 1981.
The former belt mill definitively became a scaffolding mill. Part of the scaffolding is formed by the roof
of the supermarket built next to the mill.
It's open for visit on saturdays 9:00 - 13:00.

Historic windmilld Flickr.com
NL.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Hoop_(Giesbeek) (NL)

Ten photographers from the 'Deventer Fotokring' documented the river De IJssel, each in their own way.
The exhibition I visited was not in Deventer, but in Apeldoorn, the CODA Dok Zuid to be exact.
In various ways the landscape was photographed, some stayed stationary and on various time & date
shot at different angles, there was an interesting theme translated in close ups, I also very much liked the graffiti and the time exposures turning the river and sky in a blur.
It was very inspiring to see so many different views displayed, all taken along the river IJssel.

www.deventerfotokring.nl

CODA Dok Zuid also has a library.

Luigia 'Gina' Lollobrigida (b.04July1927 – d.16Jan2023) was an Italian actress, photojournalist, and politician.
She was one of the highest-profile European actresses of the 1950s and early 1960s, a period in which she was an international sex symbol. At the time of her death, she was among the last high-profile international actors from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema.
As her film career slowed, Lollobrigida established a second career as a photojournalist.
In the 1970s she achieved a scoop by gaining access to Fidel Castro for an exclusive interview.

By the end of the 1970s, Lollobrigida had embarked on what she developed into a successful 2nd career as a photographic journalist.
She photographed, a.o., Paul Newman, Salvador Dalí, Henry Kissinger, David Cassidy, Audrey Hepburn, Ella Fitzgerald and the Germany national football team.
Between 1972 - 1994 she published 6 collections of her photographs, including the 1973 title Italia Mia.

en.wikipedia.org:_Gina_Lollobrigida

Val McDermid’s take on the year 1979 begins with the birth of a baby on a snowbound train between Edinburgh and Glasgow. It’s an exclusive for young reporter Allie Burns, who happens to be on board. She is the protagonist of '1979'.

Burns is determined to make a serious journo career and to be taken seriously at 'the Clarion'. She's clever and with plenty of moxy, she has read Tom Wolfe and Joan Didion, and she soon finds herself working with fellow reporter Danny Sullivan on a tax fraud scandal involving some of Scotland’s seediest businessmen.
Danny s an investigative reporter but needs Allie's writing skills to shape the story.
Her next big scoop takes her to the SNP, portrayed as an earnest fringe pressure group arguing about what it really wants in the approach to the 1979 referendum. Burns, however, unearths a trio of hotheads who have ambitions to spice up the independence debate with a spot of violence.
Danny infiltrates the group by offering sponsorship for guns and semtex.

McDermid’s 35th book is the first in a series of 5 tracking Burns through 5 decades of journalism.
In the first instalment, she draws on her own experience as a young reporter in Glasgow in the late 1970s, a world of of clattering typewriters and cigarette smoke, not to mention rampant sexism, racism and homophobia.

Not a bad book as crime writing goes, the 2nd crime fiction I've read by Val McDermid, but she is very descriptive of scenes, moods, thoughts, locations and relations. There is not much edginess in the narrative (though it has good plots and turns), which I so much like in Ian Rankin's books and authors from Iceland and Scandinavia.

McDermid comes from a working-class family in Fife. She studied English at St Hilda's College, Oxford,where she was the first student to be admitted from a Scottish state school.
After graduation she became a journalist and began her literary career as a dramatist.
Her first success as a novelist, Report for Murder: The First Lindsay Gordon Mystery occurred in 1987. McDermid was inducted into the prestigious Detection Club in 2000, and won the CWA Diamond Dagger for her lifetime contribution to crime writing in the English language in 2010.
She is co-founder of the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival and the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, part of the Harrogate International Festivals.
In 2017, McDermid was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh,as well as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

www.scotsman.com/ - 1979_by_ValMcDermid
en.wikipedia.org:_Val_McDermid

Celebrating Magnum's photographic excellence in this captivating tome of a book, readers will travel around the globe with the world's finest photographers through 365 images.
Featuring new and iconic images, this follow-up to Prestel's highly successful A Year in Photography: Magnum Archive includes some of the most striking photography ever collected in one volume.

As readers flip the pages they will find themselves traveling from west to east across the globe. Each country is represented in 3 or 4 images captured by a single photographer. While renowned figures such as Robert Capa, Bruce Davidson, and Martin Parr are included, readers will also find younger photographers such as Olivia Arthur, Alessandra Sanguinetti, and Mikhael Subotzky, all of whom present dazzling new views of our changing world.
It was nice to see work by Ara Güler included here!

Shining a light on the human condition in every corner of the globe, this compilation exemplifies Magnum founder Henry Cartier-Bresson's vision of -a community of thought, a shared human quality, a curiosity about what is going on in the world, a respect for what is going on and a desire to transcribe it visually.
It was hard, impossible in fact, to make a selection and I wanted to depict images from most continents.

Absolutely recommended to acquire this fine photobook for your collection or to become inspired!

www.goodreads.com/book/ - / -Magnum_Atlas
en.artbooksonline.eu

The title of Dorrestijn's new book already reveals that the author is omnipresent in this new work. But he also speaks on behalf of all those contemporaries who do not feel at home in this century, who cannot and do not want to keep up with developments..
Those who no longer receive a letter but e-mails. Not getting the doctor on the line but a voiced menu with options. Those who see no salvation in artificial grass, although they love poems and paintings.

Those who have nothing to do with toxic dangers on land and in the sea, referring to 'windmills'. In the past, a windmill was a beautiful and purely natural thing..
In this book Dorrestijn also does not avoid the real Big Modern problems. For example, those semi and certified meteorologists who call themselves weathermen or women still announce beautiful weather
(35 ° Celsius) adding "wonderful terrace weather".

'Nobody holds his heart as much as I do' (a Dutch expression, to be in fear) is full of brand new stories, poems, thoughts and songs, such as 'The Language of Annoyance', 'Babysitting with optimism', 'Animal Humor-Silence Bomb', various Cat Bubbles, , Vicious Circles and Cheerful Roundels.

Hans Dorrestijn (b. 16Jun1940- ) is a Dutch comedian and writer. His look on life, objects, customs, traditions, nature, environment, people young & old, et cetera is often wry bordering to 'noir' plus his verses styled not the way one may be used to.

en.wikipedia.org:_Hans_Dorrestijn

During this Dutch Ice Sculpture Festival one makes a magical journey along dozens of life-size snow and ice sculptures.
The theme this year (W2022/2023): "WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD".
A joyful event very welcome in this day and age.

Be amazed by the beautiful things in life; LOVE, ART, ARCHITECTURE, FLORA & FAUNA and BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE.
Fantastic!

Much more on www.flickr.com/photos

From Aleppo to Turin
(Prometheus, 2023)

In "Dreamland Italy"( subtitled 'From Aleppo to Turin') Dutch author and Rome resident, travels through Italy and sees how the situation of immigrants is hardening, but also how resistance is rising from the churches, among others.
Steenbeek returns to Lampedusa, where she stayed in 2016 and 2017, aiding the migrants. Lampedusa had changed since her earlier visits, onlookers are no longer welcome and arrivals of migrants are screened from the public. She visits a.o. Bolzano and Triëst.
She stays in the heart of Venice in a B&B of the Waldensians, the once heavily persecuted Protestant minority, who donate their proceeds entirely to the refugees.
She (re)visits people who came to Italy through a humanitarian corridor, such as the women from Aleppo with whom she spent the night in a Lebanese refugee camp, and who are now building a life in Turin.
In the deep south of Calabria, she sees how migrants are exploited as slaves and are targets of aggression. But also how people are committed to changing these abuses.

Increasingly, it seems, criminal actions against refugees are becoming legal and acts of solidarity criminal. Has Europe sold its soul to the devil?
Rosita Steenbeek documents her meetings with empathy but what she paints is a bleak picture, with little improvement on the horizon.

Rosita Steenbeek (b.25May1957- ) is a Dutch writer and occasional actress. After spending her childhood in Amersfoort, she now lives in the Italian capital Rome.

www.rositasteenbeek.com
www.hebban.nl/ - /droomland-italie_rosita-steenbeek