STRAVINSKY FOUNTAIN - PARIS

Left: L’Amour (les lèvres)

Right : L’Oiseau de Feu

I will be going on a trip to Paris again pretty soon. I have organized an excursion to my favourite European capital. Going there with about 40 people.

I simply love this city. Especially enjoy the great variety of architecture!

Among my favourite locations is the Centre Pompidou. Right next to this magnificent building is "La Fontaine Stravinsky". Another masterpiece!

The Stravinsky Fountain is a charming work of art among the numerous traditional fountains in Paris. It was created in 1982-1983 by Catharine Marie-Agnès Fal de Saint Phalle (better known as Niki Saint Phalle) (1930-2002) and Jean Tinguely (1925-1991) in homage to Igor Stravinsky's ballet "Le Sacre du Printemps."

This magical ensemble of 16 mobile gargoyle is on the Place Stravinsky next to the famous Centre Pompidou. Inspired by the composer's music, its quirky, kinetic, and colourful sculptures playfully squirt water in various directions.

Dimensions : 1650 cm x 35 cm x 3600 cm

Material : Aluminum, Steel, Engine, Reinforced with fiberglass polyester

GREAT WEEKEND!

Had an absolutely great weekend.

Friday two friends from Leeuwarden (both members of the Pasveerkorps) were visiting and would stay overnight. They had spent the afternoon shopping in downtown, then came over for dinner (made Chinese/Indonesian) and joined me at the Jubal rehearsal. After rehearsal we all had a few drinks (mineral water for me...) at the Jubal bar and went to town aftrewards with a group of about ten I think.

MIRO is always packed on a good Friday night. They stayed open longer than usual. We were some of thelast ones to leave the bar.

Had another few drinks at home, this time I couldn't resist the liquor, and while talking the clock kept ticking away,.. and the sun started rising we never realized how fast time went by. Hahaha... It had been a while since I last went to bed in broad daylight. Was close to 7AM when we hit the sack!

We all had a great time though!

But I had to pay the bill the following morning,.. which in fact was only an hour and a half later...

Every Saturday I have rehearsal with Jubal, and last Saturday was no exception!

Rehearsal started at 9:30AM. Think I was only 5 minutes late or so. No headache thank God!

Had made a quick breakfast and set the breakfast table for the ladies, then quickly ran off to the field and let them sleep in a bit.

Rehearsal was fine. The day seemed to take forever though!

Saturday night I didn't do much. Made some preparations for the "party" I had at my place Sunday afternoon. More a get-together with some colleagues and my folks and brother. More about that later.

Enjoy,

HK

BUSY WEEK OVER

Done with the fourth year's students!

They're done too... with their regular weekly timetable that is... No more lessons for them this schoolyear.

They all did their oral exams last week. My colleague Jurrie and I spent all week listening to some very interesting conversations from some of them and to utter crap from others.

As usual quite a few had not completed their Reading File. Out of the 75 students I teach, 28 had not done their job right. Some of them hadn't even read a single book!

It is only now they realize what this might mean. If they don't complete their assignments we won't let them take their final exams.

With lots of complaining they came to school yesterday to do some extra work... Well it's not even extra work...

Not teaching them the next few weeks until their final exams start means that 12 lessons will drop from my weekly teaching schedule. NICE!

I will give some Workshops on different stuff in the first year "Natuurlijk Leren" groups those hours.

Did all my correction as well for the graduates, so I'm more than ready!

Enjoy,

HK

FRENCH TONGUE TWISTER

Vélo volé - Centre Pompidou, Paris - juin 2005

Tongue twister:
C'est l'évadé du Nevada qui dévalait dans la vallée,
dans la vallée du Nevada, qu'il dévalait pour s'évader,
sur un vilain vélo volé, qu'il a volé dans une villa,
et le valet qui fut volé vit l'évadé du Nevada qui dévalait dans la vallée,
dans la vallée du Nevada,
qu'il dévalait pour s'évader sur un vilain vélo volé.

I live in a country where a bike is a must-have! One of the most popular means of transportation. One of the curious facts of the Netherlands is that nearly 90 percent of the population own at least one bicycle, and we all use it regularly.

Bicycles are a very familiar part of everyday life in the Netherlands. In fact, the 16 million Dutch people own about 14.5 million bicycles; that's nearly as many bicycles as people, and twice as many bikes as cars!

Bikes are a great and easy way of getting around here because the country is so flat. Dutch people don't just use their bikes for fun - cycling is an important way of travelling, from doing the daily shopping to going to work or school.

Enjoy,

HK

ORAL EXAMS

This week all of our 4th year's students are doing their oral exams for both English and Dutch.

That means I am being treated on new "entertainment" every twenty minutes. And entertainment it surely is. Some kids are doing quite a good job,... others show they haven't learnt much these last four years at our school.

Then there's a number that toatally ignores our assignments and appear completely unprepared, some of them haven't even read any of their books (four for the last two years), so risk being excluded from their final exams. Abslolutely unbelievable!

This first day we heard a few fun remarks already!

Might publish a little list here later this week and share some of it with you.

Enjoy,

HK

VIVE LA FRANCE

Photo: Bas van Dijk

Went on a very short - half a day - trip to France the other day. We had a gig (parade) in Roubaix, near Lille.


Would have been nicer I think if we had been invited to appear today, when the cycling event Paris-Roubaix finishes there.


Yestarday the town held its annual carnaval parade. An easy gig, with a parade of "only" two hours. Many stops along the route.
Unfortunately I wasn't able to play myself due to numerous fever blisters on my lips.


The weather was absolutely gorgeous. A bit too warm at times, but fortunately the parade route led trhough a lot of streets with plenty of shade.


A concert on the City Hall square concluded the performance. Luckily we led the parade, so we were on first also on the square.


This was another one of those typical northern france parades. Not too many people on the pavement to witness the colourful bunch of chars and bands pass by.


Everything very well coordinated (NOT !!!!!!!!)


Oh well,.. arrived back inDordrecht at 8:30PM already so nice and early to go to a joint-birthday party that five friends of mine held that evening. Together they turned 220 years old (3x40 & 2x50). Neat party!!! "Blast Big Band" played two sets on stage.

Enjoy,

HK

GO TO HELL !

There are only very very few people I'd like to say this to....

But then,.... I've been there myself,... HELL,… and believe me,… it’s not bad at all. It’s a helluva place!

Don’t get the wrong idea now. Hell,… Grand Cayman (Cayman Islands) that is… a very small town surrounded by jagged black rock made up of spiky, porous dolomite and limestone worn away by millions of small tropical algae. Hell's intriguing weathered rock formation is over 1.5 million years old and resembles the charred remains of a hell fire. An abundance of satanic memorabilia at the gift shop was tempting.

Hell's own post office was opened in 1962 for tourists who wanted to send postcards from Hell. And that’s exactly all I did in Hell,.. take a couple pictures of the rocks and send a few funny postcards home postmarked “Hell, Grand Cayman”.

Not many people can literally say “I’ve been to HELL, and back!”
If you get a chance to visit the Cayman Islands,.. I’d say: GO TO HELL !!

Enjoy,

HK

SLOPPY

Seem to be getting kinda sloppy in updating this weblog. Started the year promising with posts pretty much every day, but it has again been a week since my last post...

Had a very busy (Easter) weekend.

Left for Someren (near Eindhoven) on Friday for a 4-day camp with the corps. Pretty intense!

We had already learnt the drill to opener and the ballad, but had yet to put everything together and coordinate the pieces with marching and music.

Friday night we had ensemble with brass & pit. Saturday and Sunday were all-day rehearsals on the field. The weather was a bit disappointing on Saturday, but Sunday more than made up for this. Lots of members were complaining about sunburn!

Saturday we learnt Part II of the show,... with quite an interesting drill. Field rehearsals ran from 9AM to 6PM, followed by an indoor ensemble rehearsal staring at 7PM. Not enough time for a well-deserved dinner!

Saturday night is the traditional TALENT NIGHT. Every section (line) presents itself to the rest of the corps members, some with serious presentations, others with absolutely hilarious acts. Lots of fancy dress again this time!

I ran the cocktailbar, with drinks at €1 only, so quite a few finished the evening liquored-up.

Sunday we learnt the closer. Again a very intense piece, both musically as well as in movement.

Sunday night the staff presented what this year's show is all about. Presentation took a bit too long, but hey,... where would we go?

Unfortunately all four beer barrels we had for the weekend had pretty much been emptied the night before, so I took out the cocktail bar utensils and made a few more "other" drinks. Piña Coladas and Screwdrivers this time.

Monday was our last day there and we put everything together. Right after lunch a large number of former members (alumni), parents and friends (and the ex,... sigh!) came to witness what we had been working on. We concluded the afternoon at 3PM with a full runthrough of the entire show.

Camp has been successful! Never before had we learnt the full show this early in the season. Now it's time to start cleaning the act! And we have a looooooooooong way to go!

First gig is next weekend already. Concert and parade only though.

Then the week after that will be "Koninginnedag" (our Queen's birthday)...

On my way home from Someren I made a quick stop in Breda for the Jazz event I mentioned last week. Saw my friends of Jazz Connection perform again. Brought the CDs with all the photos I took at the Breda Big Jazz Night for them. They will appear on their website pretty soon I think.

Enjoy,

HK

OOPS !

Haven't posted anything here for the last week... Oops!

No excuses though... just too busy doing other stuff.

Mainly school work on weekday nights... Jubal on Friday night.

Rehearsal all day Saturday,.. then two parties on Saturday night.

Played an unrehearsed fun gig with my buddy Ed at our corps president's 25th anniversary (& 50th birthday...). Caused a couple of good laughs! Maybe we should really put this into a serious production!
We dug up our absolutely bad-style purple band uniforms with the worst imaginable shakos and white plumes.

At about 1 AM I ended up at AMIGOS with a couple of friends from the band again: 70s/80s party!

Yesterday I went to Dordrecht Museum for a special exhibit. And then on to a bar in town where DD Hot 5 (old style jazz) performed their last Spring concert. Ran into a few other friends on the terrasse outside and spent some time enjoying the absolutely gorgeous sunshine there.

Enjoy,

HK