Zondagochtendrondje. 11.00 – 13.30. Volop zon. Oktoberochtendkilte – wel lekker. In de middag gewandeld van Gaasperplas naar Abcoude.

Marcusstraat – Weespertrekvaart – Diemen – Gaasp – De Horn – Googpad – Vreeland – Lambertskade – Kortenhoef – Spanderswoud – De Meent – Weesp – Muiden – Diemerpark – Ringdijk – Marcusstraat

http://ffffound.com/. Still in private beta, apparently.

Flusser Studies
http://www.flusserstudies.net/.

Sean Cubitt’s blog
http://seancubitt.blogspot.com/.

Zulk schitterend oktoberweer dat ik niet binnen kon blijven. Te warm om met beenstukken te rijden, volop zon, een harde zuidwestenwind – dat wel – maar nog warmer dan van het weekend.

Een ritje op het gemak, om te genieten. Vandaar de rare lusjes (bij de Bosdijk en de Boterwal). Bij Oukoop nou eens gaan kijken waar de nieuw geasfalteerde wegen bij de snelweg naartoe leiden: nergens heen. (Terwijl je zou zeggen dat je ergens aan de Angstel zou moeten kunnen uitkomen).

Marcusstraat – Amstel – Ouderkerk – Ronde Hoep West – Veldweg – Waverveen – Vinkeveen – ri Nieuwer ter Aar – Boskijk – Boterwal – Oukoop – Loenersloot – Abcoude – Ouderkerk – Amstel – Marcusstraat

Another night with beautiful music, yesterday at DNK – packed again, an audience of 70 listening first to the 4-tet of Seamus Cater, Nate Wooley, Audrey Chen and Robert van Heumen, then to the trio-version of the N-Collective (Koen Nutters, Carlos Galvez and Enric Monfort Barbera, playing resp. bass, bass-clarinet and percussion). Quiet music, on the edge of control.

Weeks ago I heard the new set of Moha! again there, followed by the exhilirating hardcore-punk-licks of Yoke & Yohs (drums and baritone-saxophone).

Coming up in the next weeks a.o. Telcosystems, Mattin, Ultralyd, a programme of “contemporary concrete music spatialized on surround soundsystem” and much more: http://www.dnk-amsterdam.com/.

Pretty interesting symposium in Paris on programmed art: http://creca.univ-paris1.fr/?p=35#more-35.

Two years ago F. and me visited New York and Long Island for the wedding of F.’s brother M. We stayed a few days in Queens, I travelled up to Bard College on the train through the beautiful Hudson valley in early autumn, I paid a visit to Bitforms for Sonic Acts, and for the wedding we were in the Hamptons. I enjoyed it, but – possible partly due to the horrible travel (F. wasn’t allowed to fly to NYC on account of a supposedly non-valid passport, had to fly to Dublin first, arrange a new passport and fly back), I decided that was enough of ‘Merika for me. NYC is exciting, but Amsterdam is enough of a city for my taste.

So when I was presented with another visit to the States, this time to Boston, for the wedding of F.’s brother R. I wasn’t too enthusiastic. I’d rather spent my holiday in Europe, somewhere in the mountains…

We decided to stay for 3 nights in Boston, and then go for 4 days to nearby Cape Ann. Short visit, minimize the hassle. Have a holiday too.

Actually, the choice for Cape Ann was made rather late. We would’ve liked to go up to the mountains, but that turned out to be much travel without a car. Plus: camp sites were already closed during the week, and accomodation not easy to find. (Later we learned that accomodations in the White Mountains are booked-out a year in advance for the October-period). The choice for Cape Ann was basically made in account of three factors: 1. coast (F. loves the sea). 2. easy to reach by Commuter Rail. 3. Gloucester, on Cape Ann, is the town of Charles Olson.

Friday

Flight from Schiphol tot Boston. Survived by reading 200+ pages and the essays in the recently published ‘Scroll-version’ of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road – which made me all enthusiastic again for the ‘spontaneous prose’ and the energy of Kerouac, while noting this time, how well-written this book is, and also how sad actually, it celebrates the speed and the travel and ‘life’ and energy, but the heart is sad for the emptiness of it all – so I was reading that while listening to almost the complete set of the Impulse Studio Recordings of the Classic Coltrane Quartet during the 7 hour flight to Boston. Arriving, going through customs and catching the subway to South End, where we walked through a late summer evening to our room, found through http://www.hosthomesofboston.com/, an architect’s house on Dwight Street. Simple, but with may shelves filled with books. To my amazement amongst them the complete works of Tobias Smollett, the complete set of The Spectator and Johnson’s English Dictionary. What?

Saturday

We got up, and immediately found our way to the best breakfast place, with the best coffee in Boston, the South End Buttery: http://www.southendbuttery.com/. We would have breakfast there every morning, and returned a few times more. South End is a richer part of Boston, yet not as rich yet as Back Bay. Quiet. Streets lined with trees. Real nice for a holiday. Boston is a walking city. Everything is in walking distance, and all the districts are small. (The touristy bit is also really small and easy to pass by). The weather was great – it was summer, and it stayed like that for the next week. We visited the public library (with murals by Puvis de Chavannes), walked through the Commons and had of course to hook up with the family that was staying in a hotel in the bussiness district. In the evening we had dinner with them in a very good and far too busy Italian restaurant. Sublime gnocchi but stressy atmosphere. We ended up in the hotelroom of R. and S. – who were to be married the next day. And there we heard that the friend of R. who was supposed to say something at the ceremony had backed-out. F. then said that I wasn’t afraid to speak in public. Which is true. So wouldn’t I say a ‘blessing’? Why not?

Sunday

So the next morning, after a real American breakfast-experience (waffles and apples at the same place in South End), found me browsing the bookshelves for inspiration and quotes on love, marriage, faith. Now all those books in the bed-and-breakfast came in real handy. I didn’t find anything that suited the occasion. All those literary authors seemed to espouse a rather cynical view on the subject. In the end I settled for a bit of Shakespeare that I found in Johnson’s English Dictionary, plus my own words. Shakespeare will always do the job, though afterwards you’ll wonder if he didn’t mean exactly the reverse as what you as a reader just made of it.

Marriage took place in a house in Dedham. Beautiful summer-weather.

We were transported back to the centre of Boston in a bus, that was to drop is off at a Sinatra bar on A-street. The bus was full of (half-) drunken Irish and Americans. The busdriver lost his way in the centre. Having a map on me, I had a fairly good idea of where we were and where we had to go. When everybody was shouting, yeah, we’re real close now!! I could say: “uh-uh, we’re way too far, we should’ve taken a right about a mile back.” Which put me again in the strange and awkward position of the European telling the locals the way to the place they’re heading.

(This happened too on my first visit to the States: when, the driver – a Brooklyn-man – wasn’t sure where to go on Long Island, I said, just flown in from Schiphol and picked up at Kennedy Airport, ‘keep on heading in the direction of Montauk, the place we’re going to is about 10 miles before Montauk’, ‘Whoa, you never bin here and you tellin’ me where to go. Whass this?’ I had done nothing else than look up where we were going on Google-maps.)

Now, as a regular visitor of the monday-night concerts of DNK, the first thing I should’ve done in Boston is to check out when Jorrit Dijkstra (the Dutch free-improv-saxophonist who moved to Boston years ago) was playing. There is a lively avant-garde improv-scene in Boston, and it would’ve been good if I’d played the ambassador of DNK in Boston for a night. But time was too short, too many other things to do. So I am sitting in the Sinatra-bar on A-street behind my second pint of Guinness. The bar is filled with wedding-guests and some sort of jazz-trio playing live, as the door swings open and four guys step in, one of them carrying a saxophone-case: Jorrit Dijkstra. Turned out they had been playing around the corner that very night. (I went up to them, introduced myself to a surprised and somewhat bedazzled Jorrit Dijkstra, but of course at such a moment – I am celebrating, it’s a wedding – there’s not so much to say).

F. and me again traversed Boston on foot that night, half an hour from A-street to Dwight Street.

Monday – Friday

On monday we said goodbye to the family and in the afternoon travelled on the Commuter Rail to Rockport – an hour on the train from South Station, for less than 8 dollars, and a beautiful ride as well. Why Rockport? It seems like a tourist trap (“an artist colony”), but it’s on the sea, it’s easy to reach from Boston, and yes, the coast line is great. Moreover, October is more or less off-season – many of the inns still fully booked, there is no endless line of cars cueing up from Gloucester to see Bear’s Neck. It turned out te be pretty ideal for a short holiday.

We stayed three nights at the Seven South Street Inn, which provides a true American breakfast of four courses (like: fruit salad, a big muffin, a smoothie, and pie or quiche – all freshly cooked/prepared). A good place: http://www.sevensouthstreetinn.com/. Just five minutes from Old Garden Beach – every morning that was the first thing: go down to the beach before breakfast.

The weather was formidable. We had fish for dinner every day. We had lobster at Roy Moore’s (at Bear’s Neck, just a fish shop where you can eat the fish at the back, sitting on old crates. We tasted the best smoked mackerel ever, there).

The B&B came with bikes – ‘cheapo’s’, but good enough for going around there. On tuesday we walked to Whale’s Cove and back, and in the afternoon cycled to Halibut’s Point, a small nature park, with a stunning coastline and view.

On wednesday we walked through Dogtown Commons to Gloucester, and subsequently visited Gloucester. It is funny that when you announce you’re going to walk through Dogtown Commons, people will warn you it’s dangerous. We were asked to call in as soon as we’d be in Gloucester, as people got lost in Dogtown all the time. We’d bought a map at the nice bookstore in Rockport (http://www.toadhallbooks.org/, very nice bookstore). Walking through Dogtown seemed quite straightforward. Of course it turned out to be pretty clear. Yet it is true that at the Rockport side we almost lost the trail, and everything began to look the same. So it was easy to imagine that you could become lost. Trails are said to be marked, but often are not. The closer you get to Gloucester, the wider the trails are, and also around there they are marked. Looking back we spent a much longer time in Dogtown Commons, than one woudl expect from a 8 kilometer-walk that seperates Rockport from Gloucester. I think we went in at ten in the morning and came out at three in the afternoon. We spent time looking at the Babson boulders, F. made pictures, we looked around, paused at Whale’s Jaw, searched for the remains of Dogtown, still it seems too many hours for such a small distance.

In Gloucester we paid a visit to the Public Library, looked quickly into the historical museum, had a coffee, spent time in the second hand bookshop where I bought some books and talked about Olson with the owner. (Of course). And passed the Harborside cycling shop when it was closing. Changing my mind I turned around to have a look through the window. “Technically I’m closed, but you’re welcome to have a look if you want” one of the guys said. We did. Great shop: http://www.harborsidecycle.com/. Has great rental bikes too, so if you’re planning to go to Cape Ann and want to do some good riding, go there.

And then I must’ve said the right thing – I think I made a remark about the single speed cyclo-cross bike in the shop – because we (well, that’s the owner Coley Bryan and me, with F. looking around) spent about half an hour chatting there. Chatting about cyclo-cross, Gloucester hosts the most important cyclo-cross race in the States, he was racing himself, they had their own team: Harborside cycles. If you check out http://www.cyclingnews.com and search for cyclo-cross races in New England, you’ll find their names in the results. He’d visited Gent and Amsterdam last year – for the cyclo-cross. We talked about cycling holidays – his brother had just come all the way from Oregon to Gloucester, he’d done the last six stages with him, coming over the Catskill Mountains. We talked about Jonathan Page and the future for American cyclo-cross. Just a nice, energetic chat between cycling-afficionados. So now I ride around Amsterdam wearing a Harborside Cycles cap (“Gloucester, in cod we trust”). I’m thinking about getting the team shirt…

Thursday was supposed to be the warmest day (in fact friday turned out to be even warmer). We had to move from the Seven South Street Inn (fully booked) to Sally Webster’s – equally good just a bit more expensive – for the last night. But we could still use the bikes, so we cycled on the cheapo’s to Long Beach and spent the whole day on the beach. No sun-cream – I thought, well, it’s October, so no real need to worry – and we both got sunburned. Just a day on the beach. We’d had to wait until October for it. So we felt lucky.

On friday, our last day, we went to Whale’s Cove again, found a spot on the rocks in the shade to protect our skins, and read. (Two older American ladies were there too. They saw me carrying two books, and asked: “What are you reading? We are librarians, so we’re curious”. “The biography of Charles Olson and the original scroll version of On the Road.” “Oh! You’ll be fine!”). In the afternoon back on the train to Boston, and then back to Schiphol.

I enjoyed this visit to the States. I think I enjoy New England much more than New York City.

Like cleaning your desk: make a list of recently read books. (Including some that you’re currently reading, or will read in the near future).

It is cleaning the desk. Having made the list, I may put the books on the shelves, and this list will be the remainder/reminder.

William Gibson, Spook Country
I’d just embarked on reading Gibson’s latest when Omar sent me the warning: “this is Gibson’s worst book”. Well, it didn’t make a difference as having read everything by Gibson, I simply wanted to read this one too. Having finished it, I now wonder why I put in those hours of reading time. The novel never seems to start off. Gibson’s style is bland, and the words did not conjur up images. It is interesting to see that Gibson speculates on locative media, but the concepts he comes up with are not very imaginative (I have heard better ideas in workshops), and the connection he makes with the themes of privacy and surveillance are not very convincing. One is left with the ‘vintage-Gibson-plot’: here’s an elaborate plot ‘plotted’, which, a the end, turns out to be a cover up for something else. Almost everything is a mystery, as none of the characters has any idea about what is happening and why. Neither has the reader. And to be honest, I did not really care about it. Of course there are a few nice scenes and in the first few pages I did become interested in the character of the journalist. But it’s not enough. I’ll wait for the next one.

Jonathan Raban, Surveillance
Actually, I’m reading this one now and haven’t progressed further than page 84. It is a contemporary, conventional novel in the DeLillo-vein, half White Noise, half Mao II, updated for post-9/11. I read the first chapter immediately after finishing Spook Country and it became painfully clear how much Gibson’s novel was lacking in simply making the reader imagine a world through words. Surveillance may be a conventional novel, and you almost see how Raban positions his puppets, and how approaches the themes (security, surveillance), but he does it skilfully and it makes the novel an enjoyable read and an enticing analysis of contemporary western life.

Harm Nijboer, De fatsoenering van het bestaan
I did a little write-up for Harm’s PhD-thesis earlier. See below.

Franco Moretti, Graphs, Maps, Trees
I reviewed Moretti’s An Atlas of the European Novel years ago for Mediamatic, not really knowing who Moretti was (yeah, an Italian literary theorists, with a leftist background, I knew that). I enjoyed the use he made of maps and diagrams for the analysis of novels, and his style of mixing his own text with diagrams, maps and quotations. Graphs, Maps and Trees, subtitled Abstract Models for Literary History, takes all this one step further and proposes the use of graphs, maps and trees as methods for doing literary history. The book is short, convincing and very clear, and it makes one long for many more of the sort of studies that Moretti undertakes. It might be more sociology than hermeneutics, but I love this sort of sociology. The only aspect that I am a bit worried about is Moretti’s frequent referencing of biological models and evolutionary theory (Mayr, Stephen Jay Gould and D’Arcy Thompson are mentioned a few times). My worry mostly derives from the fact that it’s a bit too easy to suppose that form works exactly the same way in literature as it works in the biological realm. (That doubt being uttered here, I can immediately add that it does fit quite neatly. Yet I hope Moretti will not exchange all of his Marxian inclinations for evolutionary biology).

The Ends of the Earth, An Anthology of the Finest Writing on the Arctic/Antarctic
Two front sides: one for writing on the Arctic (ed. Elizabeth Kolbert), one for the Antarctic (ed. Francis Spufford). Spotted it in the nice bookshop in Rockport. Just a very nice collection of (literary) writing on the Poles. I sometimes read a chapter.

John J. Babson, History of the Town of Gloucester, Cape Ann, Including the Town of Rockport
This must be one of my craziest acquisitions: the 1972-reprint of Babson’s 1860 history of Gloucester, bought in Gloucester (where else?). I actually read about half of it until now. Naturally I bought it as an intertext for Olson’s Maximus Poems, that deal with the early settling of Gloucester, and Babson lists all the early inhabitants of Gloucester and relates their histories. Babson was the first to write the history of Gloucester, it was one of Olson’s favorites. Babson delved deep in the archives, and it seems there is not much he missed, except for the history of Cape Ann prior to 1623 (Samuel Camplain landed in Whale Cove in 1606, and many Basque and Portugese fishermen must have paid visits to Cape Ann between 1606 and 1623). It is fascinating reading – at least for someone who’s gotten interested in Gloucester through Olson. Local history, as the history of a place, how it is formed and formatted through various forces, has captured me.

Thomas Dresser, Dogtown, A Village Lost in Time
A booklet that is probably only for sale in and around Gloucester. It tells the story of Dogtown, the settlement near Gloucester that was abandoned during the 18th century – the last house was torn down in 1845. Now it is a wood – F. and me walked through it from Rockport to Gloucester – where the remains of the settlement are still visible. It’s strange place, that features in Olson’s Maximus Poems.

(And then there is the Babson Boulder Trail, a trail along boulders that have words carved into them, like an early 20th century idealistic/business/labour version of the Stages of the Cross: Ideas. Study. Be On Time. Courage. Intelligence. Use Your Head. Spiritual Power. Work.)

Good wikipedia-page about Dogtown with pictures: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogtown,_Massachusetts.
Babson boulders: http://www.thedacrons.com/eric/dogtown/babson_boulders_gloucester.html.
More Dogtown: http://myweb.northshore.edu/users/ccarlsen/poetry/gloucester/dogtownhistory.html.
(Ah well, you can do the surfing and browsing from here…)

Jack Kerouac, On the Road, The Original Scroll
I started reading Kerouac when I was 17. Stopped when I was 20. So this is a return after many, many years. And a happy return it is: it is a joy to read, it is much better (and sadder) than I remembered, and it is not a (re)discovery of the autobiographic Kerouac, nor of the mythic Kerouac, but of Kerouac the writer. Excellent essays too. Still 30 pages to go.

Tom Clark, Charles Olson, The Allegory of a Poet’s Life
I guess this biography is necessary reading for whomever would like to understand Olson. It gives an excellent overview of his life, and a very good insight in his troublesome psyche. And what a mess he made of his life. I think I am interested in Olson also because he is too bookish, too abstract, too didactic. Clark mainly writes about Olson as a character, and much much less on his poetry, or his (equally messy) theories and poetics. That is fine, but it makes it the biography of the character, not of the poetry. Anyway, I still ‘devoured’ it.

I went to Gloucester. I entered the public library. An excellent library – certainly if one takes into account how small Gloucester is. And there are shelves with all the books on Gloucester, and everything of Olson is there. And everything of Vincent Ferrini, the epic poem about Dogtown by Marsden Hartley, Babson’s guide to Cape Ann, and much more.

There’s a 2007 documentary on Charles Olson in Gloucester that is currently being shown in the US. It’s made by Henry Ferrini, entitled Polis is This, Charles Olson and the Persistance of Place. It’s about Olson, Gloucester and the importance of poetry in everyday life. (I haven’t seen it, but it won a first prize in the 2007 Berkeley Video and Film Festival, and John Malkovich is the narrator). Trailer at the website: http://www.polisisthis.com/Polis/Home.html.

Insightfull review here: http://olsonnow.blogspot.com/2007/08/michael-boughnreview-of-polis-is-this.html