alfwyn

hey hey!!

maybe you've already noticed, but I like doodling. This is one of those doodles that just seem to come out of nowhere, it was made on the back of a leaflet. It's called "one of the Cat children". Sounds like something to be used in a fantasy story, don't you think?

thanks for reading this. Rock on.

hey hey!!

How are you? I hope you're doing okay!! Here's a poem that tries to capture the atmosphere of Flevo, or any other music festival :-) I know it's already a week ago, but it actually took me that long to write something that manages (to a  very small extent) to give a impression what a festival is like.. writing poetry at a festival is extremely simple, but summarizing something that's like a whole month jammed into two days is so hard. As a friend of mine put it "is there anything poetry can capture?" I think a collection of stories by visitors would give you a better impression, but here's the poem anyway. I hope you like it...rock on.

Festival

No, I will never leave this place

I will never sleep again either

cuz here I find

star light bulbs hung above the path

songs sung from the stage to us only

hands touching to make a sign only we know

this world isn’t broken like yours

all of this isn’t yours, but ours

every word said by our heroes is mine

every band wrist band worn is around my wrist as well

all of us will meet up

in the middle of the night

to walk to the edge of the world

and all of us will

dance and sing and run and

dance and sing and

run and…

…. And sleep…

but in the sickening morning

you come to pick me up, dad,

me and your tent.

hey hey..
here are just some thoughts on fitting in, being yourself etc.

Do you ever wonder "what will people think if I do/wear/say that?" I know I do. I was bullied in high school, and often I still think people think I'm weird, annoying or just simply stupid. The fact that I'm the only person of my university group of people who wears band tees, makes me wonder if liking band tees makes me not immature, childish and weird. But you know, the thing is: I think we shouldn't worry so much. In general, people are more relaxed about what you do/wear/say then we ourselves are.In general, people are very likely to accept you just the way you are. I had this one teacher, who told a lot of jokes in class, wore very brightly colored clothes and almost everyone just loved her. I've been told that when reading out poetry, you talk extremely slowly, not move too much and not make a theatre thing out of your poem: Bradley Hathaway behaves like a rockstar when performing his poetry, and guess what? that looks really cool, it really adds something to his poems and it makes you admire him. you're allowed to be unique.

don't let music magazines tell you what's good music to listen to and what isn't. If you like both Coldplay and My Dying Bride: that just rocks. don't let MTV tell you what's cool and what isn't. You're cool because you are YOU. so if you like reading, don't hide that. if you don't like discos, don't pretend you do. If you aren't really good at hanging out with a large group, just say so. Just be honest. Be honest, because it's only when you're honest with yourself and with others that you can have good, healthy relationships. Just find out what you like, what you're good at and relax...

rock on.
and apologies for this sermon :)I guess it's a genetic thing, my dad's a pastor.

p.s. and if you want to look like Robert Smith, that's cool too!!

Current Mood: happy

hey hey you all!!

How are you doing? I hope you're okay!! I've returned from Sweden and after only one night sleep in my own bed I had to pack my bag again, because I was going to this pretty big, christian music festival called Flevo. Those two days really rocked.. Flevo always has this really nice warm atmosphere (in spite of the rain :-)) - just imagine standing in the rain trying to put your contacts into your eyes, and then this girl comes up to you and holds her umbrella above your head- everyone is really nice and there are lots of cool alternative and indie bands, especially from this label called Sally Forth Records. So I've talked with a lot of nice people and got to see a number of great bands, like:

the hilariously funny Zundapp, an dutch electropunk band, unfortunately they decided to quit:

Winderbirds, the solo project of Remco, one of persons from the dutch indie scene.

White Stone Assembly, one of Rene de Vries' projects, - Rene is the keyboard dude from The Spirit That Guides Us and a great producer-:, this project sounds pretty jazzy and laidback:

Campsite, a Danish band making lovely nu-wave, The Cure-ish songs even guys can dance to ;-) (this is a pun on Franz Ferdinand's "music for girls to dance to)

and this really cool American band formerly known as the Rock'n'roll worship circus but now known as The Listening:

(actually I'm really proud of the following picture. Why? you see, the camera I use isn't that good, and using flash makes the photo look lifeless, atmosphere-less, grainy and totally ugly and you loose the wonderful effects of spotlight and smoke, but not using flash gives you an extremely blurred one. That's a huge dilemma for me as amateur rock photographer. But the cool thing is, when I took this photo, my finger was in front of the flash totally by accident, and the photo turned out wonderful (according to my unprofessional standards). That's the fascinating thing about art: it just happens. Picasso: "I don't look for something, I find it".

but here comes the very best thing I saw at Flevo: a beat poet called Bradley Hathaway (www.thebradley.net). Someone should have said, before Bradley entered the tent where his performance was going to be, this line that William Carlos Williams wrote about Allen Ginsberg's Howl: "Hold back the edges of your gowns, ladies, we are going through hell". Simply because hearing this fascinatingly hyperactive, widely gesturing, wide-eyed guy in a hoodie literally yell his emo poetry into the microphone was as powerful as hearing Ginsberg perform "Howl" for the very first time. When you think of poetry, you usually think of this timid old person with a sheet of paper in his/her hand reading out a very complicated poem very very slowly. Well, this wasn't a poetry reading, this was a gig! At one point he held the microphone by its standard above the audience and had them yell "I am a manly man" into it. During the entire event, I was just staring with my mouth wide open, cuz the directness and the emotional impact of his lyrics just blew me away. He did some funny poems, like one about a fat lady on the beach and one about a hardcore guy, some very open and very vulnerable poems like "I am a manly man" :"Like David I want to be a man after God's own heart/ I'm not there yet but past the start" and some spiritual poems as well, like one in which he tells about his wish that Jesus would give him a hug. This is the kind of poetry I've been looking for (I've actually written two short stories about this dream ): poetry dealing with the whole of life, with direct, even blunt lyrics, with a poet who's a part of a music scene (he's toured with mewithoutyou!! how cool is that??) and gig-like performances.  and now I've found it. Go check him out.

Here's one last photo. Don't you think a Mucha-like style is really cool?

lots of grace, love and rock to you all.

hey hey!!
As you've probably will have noticed, I really like writing fantasy poems. This one came to me yesterday, and it is set in the best known fantasy realm: King Arthur's realm, though I guess that the setting of this poem is Camelot ages after Arthur and his Knights died. I do not know who the Lady is. The title is of course a nod to Tennyson's wonderful long poem "The Lady of Shalott". I hope you like it. By the way, I'm not the same person as the speaker of the poem; the speaker is a troubadour-like person. The Alan Lee painting somehow suits the poem perfectly. Cuz I'm going to Sweden, I won't be blogging for two weeks...I'll miss my little corner on the web. rock on.

The Lady Of Camelot

The rain came down on Camelot

Falling through the ruins and the walls

But in the one unbroken room the Lady of Camelot sits

Her flower dress still flowing

But on her head a crown of white hair

She let me,

This world-weary traveller with bleeding fingers,

Stay for a night

When all cottages shut me out

And when I woke

I found her sitting in that chair still

“What are you waiting for” I asked

She replied “His return…

Arthur will come back”

hey hey...
somehow I really like writing poems for and about girls..simply because their beauty always is very inspiring and a wonderful thing to grasp in a poem. I think Leonard Cohen is one of the few artists who's really good at describing lovely girls, check out "Susanne" and "The Sisters Of Mercy". Anyway, here's a poem I wrote for a friend of mine; I crashed at her place after a Further Seems Forever gig and when I woke up she was still sleeping and I wrote this poem for her. An aubade is, according to Abrams' "A Glossary Of Literary Terms", "an early-morning song whose usual motif is an urgent request to a beloved to wake up". It's a pretty old-fashioned genre, so the style of the poem is rather archaic too..hope you like it!
Rock on.

Aubade

All these little things in your room,
my sweet lady,
speak to me of you:
the rose petals on the floor
the mirror on your wall
the birthday garlands on the wall
as foreign a language
as the sunlight pouring through the window
but as I've been listening for some time now
sitting on the floor, hugging my knees
I do get enough courage
to turn around
and look at you sleeping.

Hey hey..

just a quick update to share some photos I took two weeks ago. (is it already two weeks ago? wow. Time flies by when you're enjoying your holiday) It took a weekend at my grandma's to undo the effect of two stadium shows and one Paradiso gig, ;-) but it was definitely worth it. By the way, did you know that Coldplay can ROCK? I didn't expect them to, but they actually did in Gelredome in Arnhem.

The week after that, I saw mr. Emo himself, a.k.a. Conor Oberst, a.k.a. Bright Eyes play in Paradiso, Amsterdam; it was a pretty impressive show. Somehow Conor always looks very vulnerable and lost on that stage; you just want to give him a big hug.

and the day after that, one of my biggest dreams came true: I saw U2 play. Seeing/hearing/experiencing U2 play is like being caught up in an electric storm or a hurricane of music. Their music is probably the most powerful, the most moving, the most spiritual music ever. Unfortunately, the batteries of my camera broke down the moment they started to play; that was so annoying. But here's a cool photo I took of their support act, The Killers, and a two cool U2-pictures I found online:

By the way, I know now when I'll consider myself a real movie director: when I've made a music video for U2. That's what I want to do. :-)

rock on.

hey hey...

I wrote this thing some time ago, and I know that almost everyone's semester is over now, but I just couldn't resist the temptation of sharing it. Hope you like it. Rock on.

Are you a .. University Rockstar?

(i.e. a student who’d rather be a rockstar)

-         are your books doodled all over with cool guitars, especially Stratocasters and Jazzmasters, band logos, posters for imaginary and real gigs, and CD artwork?

-         Have you been seen playing air guitar or air drums in class?

-         Can you tell the exact location of every venue and record store, but you can’t find the right class room?

-         Have you picked this school because the city it’s in has got the best venues?

-         Have you ever quoted lyrics or a band interview or discussed a band in a  paper?

-         Have you ever suddenly burst into laughter during the most boring class ever, because you imagined what that professor looked like when he was still a hippie?

-         Have you filled half of your note book with anti-school lyrics?

-         Do you wish that “Rock ‘n’ roll High School” or "School of Rock" was the name of your school?

-         Do you never bring the right books to class, because if you did, those new albums wouldn’t fit into your school bag?

-         Do you like the exam preparation period because cramming makes your mind so sensitive, you can finally hear every note of your favourite song?

-         Do you wish that one of the following people was one of your professors: Bono, Michael Stipe, Chris Martin, Cedric Bixler/Omar Rodriguez, etc. (insert name of your music hero here)

If you’ve answered YES!! to any of these questions: CONGRATS!! You’re a UNIVERSITY ROCKSTAR!  

hey hey..

today I've seen my old high school again after four years, cuz my sister had to hand in all her text books, and I helped her drag all those books to school. I've never felt so happy that I'm no longer in high school, cuz I once again realized this: in high school, these social groups and cliques are about the most important thing. Besides, everyone knows everyone, and you definitely should have one particular style of clothing, and one group of friends you hang out with. It's just a world of its own, a very close-knit world where everyone is keeping an eye on everyone else. It's in a sense a very extreme world. But on the other hand, I also realized that in those days my bullies were just like me, they were struggling with exactly the same things, they were also trying to be someone and trying to be belong...

anyway, I wrote a small poem about this whole thing. I'm not sure if it's a good poem, it definitely isn't coherent and it will probably be split up into a number of poems later on, but I'll post it anyway.

we lost something there

as simply as letting something fall out your pocket

but so much depended on every piece of clothing

and we were struggling with our skins

which were hairy and full of zits

but what we found instead was 

unifying failure

stuttering love

hey hey...

whenever my sister and I go rent a movie, we usually end up renting and watching two: a chick flick or teen movie, (my sister's fave kind of movie) and an arthouse movie (my favorite kind). So I've seen a pretty large number of teen chick flicks: The Princess Diaries 1 & 2, Freaky Friday, Confessions Of A Teenage Drama Queen, Mean Girls, Lizzie McGuire the Movie, What A Girl Wants, A Cinderella Story etc.. Actually, to be really honest, I think the only one that was good and worth watching was The Princess Diaries 1. 

It seems to me that a lot of teen chick flicks are full of cliches, (they always involve some sort of prom, a cute guy and a number of monster girls) with superficial, soap-like dialogue, the actresses just cannot act (No kidding, Hilary Duff can only play one character: herself.) and the cinematography is a little better than that found in soaps, but you can't call it impressive. Don't you think it's really unfair? There are all these guys' genres (action, thriller etc. ) producing a large number of great movies, but for girls there are only crappy romcoms. So these days I've been thinking about what a good teen chick flick should be like:

- first of all it should have a good story, with a fascinating plot (a plot is "a narrative of events with the focus on cause and effect", according to E.M. Forster)- so the movie shouldn't be about cute misunderstandings and coincidences.

- let's avoid the cliches: no prom-centric ending and no soap-like cinematography

- the characters should be credible, with credible dreams, hopes, fears. Wouldn't it be great to have a main character who doesn't dance or sing. :-)

- no unnecesary love stories and love interests; if there is love in it, it should be a neccesary part and  the logical result of the plot.

- yet, though you may think this is weird after reading all these really arthouse-like criteria, I think that a good chick flick should be a bit fairytale-like, there should be something magical and romantic about it. Happy endings, when they are original and well-done, are just terrific. I think a good teen chick flick is not only fun, but also encouraging, showing you the value of relationships, you yourself and life..

Rock on.   

hey hey!!

here are some more photos of one of the buildings of my university, this one is called the Oudemanhuispoort, which means "old men's home gate", it's about four hundred years old I've been told. a lot of exams are in this building, because it has these really huge class rooms.

This is the actual gate to the building:

This is (a part of) the building itself .

and this is this statue of Athena that's inside.. it's a cool statue, but it's sorta funny that she's there, because Athena is the godess of wisdom, and I don't think wisdom is something that can be taught :-)

rock on.

hey hey!!

you people just should know this!! The website of this BBC radio show called Across The Line (it's Northern-Irish) has reviewed a gig of my really nice friends in Sixstarhotel (www.sixstarhotel.co.uk).  Three cheers for the BBC for knowing what bands really rock!! so if you've got a few seconds to read a review, go here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/atl/reviews/16062005sixstar.shtml

just to show you what a fascinating band Six Star Hotel is: these guys used to live in Belfast, but decided to leave everything behind and move to Glasgow, only because Glasgow has a better scene!! How cool is that?

rock on.

hey hey..

probably the best thing  about Amsterdam, (apart from its record stores)is that there are so many faces, so many stories in that place, which really makes you write poetry. I've always thought that beat poetry is a very urban kind of poetry, so this is a beat poem about Amsterdam. I hope you think it's any good. By the way, "Mokum" is the Yiddish name of Amsterdam and it's a really cool word. Rock on.

Beat Poem

Mokum, unholy Jerusalem, is calling

it’s calling from the shop girl swishing back her hair

to the fashion dude on the university stair

from riddles to rhymes

if you just walk here

- among the tourists and less shy pigeons-

and ignore all the noisy signs and thudding sales

you can hear it

calling from the model who’s

still assuming model position

when waiting for the train

to

- hovering over the green shades

of spui square

and right through the canteen-

the street musicians with dreads

and my classmate telling me that

she had to wade her way home

can you hear it?

can you hear it

radiating from the blue backpack

of the incarnated angel

and from the hair, falling forward,

of the shy outcast girl

walking towards you?

just hear it!

just hear it!

maybe we can hear it tonight

the sound of one heart, one soul

but the city keeps calling

keeps calling me. 

hey hey!!

My exams are over and right now I'm reading H.G. Well's The War Of The World  (cuz I want to have read the book before I go and watch the movie) while listening to this singer-songwriter called Sam Ashworth, (www.samashworth.com) His song "Look Back" really reminds me of seeing the sea walking on the beach in early Spring, and that made me think of something a friend of mine and I talked about a few days ago: how music can create a sense of space and location, and how a certain location can evoke a sense of music. Especially Northern-Ireland is really musical, in a sense. When I was there, this group of people I was in, visited this castle called Dundrum Castle:

and you could just hear the medieval type of folk that used to be played there. And in the early morning, when looking out over those green hills, I could just hear Nick Drake's "Clothes Of Sand". Mike Scott from the Waterboys also wrote something about this link between music and space: "The conviction that music can evoke landscape and the elements, inspiring a sense of place" (Mike Scott, the liner notes of the special edition of "This Is The Sea")..this seems true: some places evoke songs, some songs evoke places...

rock on.  

hey hey..

a few days ago, I saw one of the most brilliant movies ever: Jeunet's "Un long dimanche de fiançailles" a.k.a. "A very long engagement". (right now I'm quite convinced that Audrey Tautou is the most beautiful woman on the planet.) One of the things that makes it such a powerful movie, is its ending. Don't read on if you haven't seen the film yet, cuz I really don't want to spoil anything for you!! Go watch the movie!!

okay, the movie is about this girl, Mathilde, who doesn't believe that her boyfriend has died in the trenches, and she does everything she can to find him. In the end she finds him, but he's got amnesia, so he doesn't remember her, but when she walks towards him, he says exactly the same thing as when they first met, and she sits down and just looks at him, and keeps looking at him.

And it was this end that made me think about happy endings and unhappy ones, open ones and closed ones. I think that as a screenwriter/story writer you face a problem when you have to finish your story.

On the one hand, you know that you don't want to disappoint you audience, because during the course of the story they've begun to relate to the character and they want something good to happen to him/her, they want him/her to succeed in his/her quest. The whole movie was about succeeding in the quest or reaching the goal they want Mathilde to find Malech, they want Frodo to destroy the ring etc. if that doesn't happen, your audience will be really disappointed and annoyed in nine out of ten cases, they'll be like "why did I even bother going to that movie?"

on the other hand, you want to be creative and original; most happy endings are so predictable that you already know after the first twenty minutes of the movie what goal the main character has, so a happy ending would be to reach that goal. After twenty minutes you can already tell how the movie/story will end. So a happy ending tends to be pretty cliche.

Dilemma, dilemma.

Strangely enough, "A Very Long Engagement" does seem to handle this problem pretty well; on the one hand she finds him, and so the ending seems to be happy; on the other hand this happens in a way we could never have predicted. So it's all about the way the ending is handled. And I found something Tolkien had written on this subject when he wrote this essay called "on fairy-stories" , and I thought it was really good and that it can be applied to any traditional narrative:

 "Far more imporant is the Consolation of the Happy Ending...since we do not appear to possess a word that exoresses the opposite (of Tragedy)- I will call it Eucastrophe....the consolation of fairy-stories, the joy of the happy ending; or more correctly of the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous "turn" (for there is no true end to any fairy-tale)...In its fairy-tale or otherworld setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace; never to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is neccesary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and is in so far evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world. poignant as grief. It is the mark of a good fairy-story, of the higher and more complete kind, that however wild its events, however fantastic or terrible the adventures, it can give to child or man that hears it, when the "turn" comes, a catch of the breath, a beat and a lifting of the heart, near to (or indeed accompanied by) tears, as keen as that given to any form of literary art, and having a peculiar quality. Even modern fairy stories can produce this effect sometimes. It is not an easy thing to do; it depends on the whole story which is the setting of the turn, and yet it reflects a glory backwards....in such stories when the sudden "turn" comes, we get a piercing glimpse of joy, and heart's desire, that for a moment passes outside the frame, rends indeed the very web of story, and lets a gleam come through"   (Tolkien, 68, 69)

I hope you enjoyed reading this. Have a great week!

quoted source: Tolkien, J.R.R."On Fairy Stories" The Tolkien Reader.  New York: Ballantine Books, 1966.

Current Music: Waterboys - A Rock In The Weary Land

hey hey .. I just thought you might want to know what my university looks like. Well, these are two of the buildings of the University of Amsterdam, and because almost all Dutch universities don't have such a thing as a campus, these buildings are right in the centre of Amsterdam, which is really cool of course. So these are two snapshots of Amsterdam on a very sunny day. rock on.

This building is called the Bungehuis (the Bunge - house, don't ask me what the "Bunge" bit means); most English classes are given here.

This building is called the PC Hoofthuis, The P.C. Hooft House. P.C. Hooft was this dutch historical dude. I took some classes here as well. Don't you just love that bird in the corner? I didn't even know it was in the picture.  

hey hey...

I thought this poem I wrote today might make a nice short story or screenplay, but it's a total rip-off, unfortunately, cuz both the title, the idea and some of the images are also found in one of the most brilliant best novels/children's book ever written, C.S. Lewis' The Voyage of the Dawn Treader . anyway, here's the poem. I've decided to write neo-romantic, neo-realist fantasy poetry that describes moments of beauty, cuz there already is way too much ugliness in the world; the world needs poetry that brings a smile to your face. Rock on and have a great day.

The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader

now that i bend over my textbook

this window is opening itself

so that the wind makes a hand-out fly

and turns it into a seagull

- just hear her call! -

and i turn my head

just in time

to see my wall become forest-covered mountains

the floor rough sand and shells

my window sill the sea

and oh! a dragon ship sailing towards the shore….

hey hey :-) the roses in our garden are really beautiful now, (just have a look at the photo I took) so I couldn't help being reminded of this really cool poem by Robert Burns, which he wrote in 1794.

A Red, Red Rose.

O MY luve is like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June,
O my Luve is like the melodie,
That's sweetly played in tune.

As fair art thou , my bonny lass,
So deep in luve am I,
And I will love thee still, my Dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my Dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun!
And I will love thee still my Dear,
While the sands o` life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only Luve,
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again , my Luve,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile.

hey hey, I just wanted to tell you, that if you need to cram for an exam, don't keep any pencils/felt-tipped pens in your room.. otherwise you'll find yourself doodling, just like me...and sociolinguistics is so boring...anyway, here's the doodle I made today. rock on.

Summertime....and the living is easy.

Hey hey, wherever you are, I hope that the weather is fine and that you feel loved (U2)... I just realized that summer may be the season that's the hardest to describe in poetry; this dutch writer once said about summer that "you just can't hear her" , but I wrote this little poem anyway  rock on and have a great week.

Summertime/>

Today the sun belongs to

Twelve-year-old girls

In flowery dresses

Visiting the big city

Today the sky belongs is owned

By skater boys

Who take off their band shirts

Skateboarding with naked feet

“ that’s just childish crap” you say

But I couldn’t care less

Because today is one day

And –though you may not agree-

The sun is mine

But yours as well.