Well, waddaya know? The daily writing prompt is “Recharge“, just as I was getting ready to write about refueling as an immigrant. Another term I learned recently, from Akhtar’s book Immigration and Identity.
What do you do to refuel (or recharge) as an immigrant–to get your home fix, as it were? Continue reading
Posted in Books, Emigration / Immigration, Food, Holland, Music
Tagged Andre Hazes, Doe Maar, Drukwerk, Dutch pop music, emigration, homesickness, immigration, recharging, refueling, stroopwafels
Every year, on the first Saturday in December, John Aeilli–host of the KUTX program Eclecticos–and a few other public radio people lead the Christmas caroling on the steps of the Texas Capitol and my family and I always join in. Yes, I know, no separation between church and state, but I pick and choose which principles I stand for as much as the next person. So sue me. Continue reading
Posted in Austin, Music, Religion
Tagged caroling, Christmas, Christmas carols, humor, John Aeilli, KUTX, music, Opinion, religion, traditions, War on Christmas
You can’t walk around New Orleans’ French Quarter or the Marigny without coming across street musicians.
They’re all amazing. Continue reading
This Ruthless World is one of my favorite blogs. And her newest post is hilarious. A Tea Party guy reinvents Jesus to fit his personal ideas of what a man should be. And the blogger responds so thoroughly that there is nothing left to add.
Except to ask:
What would Jesus do according to this guy? Well, on Sabbath evening he would probably be whooping hippies’ asses and raising hell!
Tagged bible revision, history, humor, jesus, opinie, Opinion, politics, Ray Wylie Hubbard, rwh, Tea Party, Up Against the Wall, what would jesus do, wwjd
image from politicaljack.com
Of course I had to end with Willie Nelson, or just Willie, as we call him in Austin. He didn’t make it in Nashville, so he moved to Austin in the early seventies. Austin quickly adopted him as their own. Just recently, 2nd Street was renamed Willie Nelson Boulevard, and a statue was unveiled before the W hotel. He turned 80 in April of this year. Continue reading
One of the many art guitars scattered around Austin, this is one of the first you see when you fly in, because it’s right there in the airport.
image from covershut.com
image from flickriver.com
Guy Forsyth is one of Austin’s great musicians. T and I have seen him perform several times. He’s awesome! And he’ll be in Europe for eleven concerts in eleven days, including three in the Netherlands! You are so lucky!
Tagged Americana music, Austin, austin musicians, GuyForsyth, music, September 2013, Tegelen, Wageningen, Zeist
Image from http://www.fanpop.com
Evolution of X just had a post about her memories of 1978. She invited readers to do the same.
So, let’s see. Not in chronological order: Continue reading
Posted in Books, Emigration / Immigration, High School, History, Holland, Lists, Movies, Music, Society, Writing
Tagged 1970s, emigration, Gerrie Knetemann, high school history, immigration, memories, movies, music, Peace Treaty, World CUp Soccer 1978, Writing
(Image from Wikipedia)
So in my last post I wrote the story of how I got this tape of Russian music, that I thought was called Lenin’s Favourites. I have looked high and low for a CD of the music, in all the music shops, on Amazon, etc. It’s not to be found and no one has even heard of it. Continue reading
Posted in Music
Tagged Civil Code, copyright, copyright law, Lenin's Favorite Songs, Lenin's Favourite Songs, music, Russia, Russian, Soviet Union
(Image from biography.com)
I will have a question in my next post.
But first the story.
In the summer of 1989, two years before I met my husband, my girl friend H and I went backpacking in the Cairngorms in Scotland. We took the ferry from Rotterdam to Hull, hitchhiked to the Cairngorms, Continue reading
Two of the great things about living in Austin are the wildlife and the music. One of my favorite Austin bands is The Austin Lounge Lizards, and one of my favorite Austin Lounge Lizard songs is “Arnold”. I feel like I’ve posted this before, but I can’t find it. And if you’ve listened to it before, I know you will love to listen to it again. Continue reading
Posted in Austin, Music, Nature
Tagged "Arnold", armadillos, Austin Lounge Lizards, Hill country wildlife, humor, music
Just a quick link to some fun photos of Amsterdam by Fig and the Wasp. Also check out these posts by same: this one and this one.
And if you want to enjoy the photos with an iconic song about Amsterdam, click here, or listen while watching the video, because it’s worthwhile, too.
Posted in Holland, Music, Photography
Tagged Amsterdam, Drukwerk, he Amsterdam, photography, songs about Amsterdam
Okay, this is neither here nor there. Or it’s both. It has nothing to do with being an immigrant, though. Just with being a 51-year-old user of modern technology. Every now and then there’s this technology moment that blows my mind. The younger you are, the less you will understand this, but my contemporaries will. Continue reading
Posted in Music, Neither Here Nor There, Technology
Tagged BDA Deventer, De Steile Trap, Linton Kwesi Johnson, music, smartphones, technology
Austin never ceases to surprise me. One day last spring, on a walk with R along Town Lake, I suddenly saw a piano at our favorite break spot. A few days later it was gone again.
Last night we went to a fundraising concert for our school. This year is its tenth anniversary! Bob Schneider was great by himself, better than the time we saw him with his band on the big stage at the Nutty Brown Cafe–less generic sounding. I had never seen Alejandro Escovedo, even though I’ve heard his performances announced on the local radio for years. He and his band were phenomenal. He has a violinist and a cellist along with a regular rock group and it gives it a wonderfully deep sound. Loved it.
So I thought I’d do a post listing a few of my favorite musicians that are based in and around Austin. Here goes. Continue reading
A blog that I visit a lot is A Flamingo in Utrecht, which has wonderful photos of Utrecht, the Netherlands: streetscapes, vistas, and photos of everyday life. It inspired me to post regular photos of Austin. It doesn’t have much to do with being a Dutch immigrant here, but oh well. I love Austin and all its quirkiness, so let’s just say it’s a counterweight to all my griping. Continue reading
Posted in Austin photos, Music
Tagged Art, Austin, Austin live music, Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, guitar art, Janis Joplin, music, transportation
Another strange link in music: I was about fifteen, I think, in Holland, in high school at the Werkplaats in Bilthoven, when Gerard Cox had a hit. “‘T Is Weer Voorbij, Die Mooie Zomer“. Roughly translated it’s “Summer’s Over.” Continue reading
Living in America, the music I used to listen to in Holland as a teenager and college student now has a whole new dimension. Take ZZ Top. I was in the second year of library school in Deventer, around 1980. My boyfriend and I had broken up but we still lived in the same student house and he would play his music really loud when he got back from the bar at 1 a.m. He drove me nuts, pretty much literally. And definitely consciously. A friend of mine who was in a biker phase at the time introduced me to ZZ Top and it was the perfect music for being mad. Continue reading
Posted in Music
Tagged anger outlets, emigration, ex-boyfriends, immigration, music, ZZ Top, ZZ Top in Deventer, ZZ Top in Texas
When I was in school, it seemed that only private religious schools made the kids learn the Dutch national anthem. The rest of us never learned, and so we didn’t get much further than the first two lines, and nobody cared.
In the late 60s Richard Proenneke built his own cabin in the Alaskan wilderness with only a few simple tools. He spent most of the rest of his life there. Sam Keith fleshed out Proenneke's diary of his first 16 months, when he was making his home by a lake. I love these kinds of books!
An old Oji-Cree healer and her nephew canoe down a river in Canada, away from the world of white people. They both have to come to terms with their past. The woman has lost most of her tribe and the young man is traumatized from his recent experience in the Belgian trenches of World War One. My second book by Boyden. Can't say enough about him.
An incredibly comprehensive history of everything related to slavery in the Southern United States, from the beginning of the colonies to the end of the Civil War. Over 700 pages and I took over 30 pages of notes. I will be sharing over many posts to come!
Hamid's debut novel. I love this author. A young man in Lahore, Pakistan, is the victim of love, drugs, obsession, the class system and his complete lack of self-awareness.
A golem, created in Poland and brought to life on a ship to America, and a jinni who was trapped in a flask a thousand years ago and released in New York -- the most unusual immigrants you'll ever meet.
The only part of her life a Korean woman can control is her body, so she withdraws into it. Harrowing.
Autobiography lightly disguised as a novel about the son of Southern migrants growing up on the streets of Harlem, New York City, in the 1940s and 50s. Written like you're hearing the whole story in a bar. Quite a feat.
The story of a man struggling to make a living in Morocco. No plot, no clearly defined characters, but fascinating in its authenticity.
Pakistani man tells an American about his experience as a college student and employee of an assessment firm in America years ago. Smart, nuanced and pretty darn honest considering the unreliable narrator.
Wow! The answer to the inane platitudes about how all parents love their children and how children should always respect their parents. The protagonist must come to terms with his deeply flawed immigrant parents in order to change himself.
Seven short stories about life during the Kim Il-sung regime, by a writer who still lives and works in North Korea, were smuggled out of the country and translated. Mind-boggling stuff.
A 15-year-old autistic narrator wants to know who killed a neighbor's dog, and ends up much further out of his comfort zone than he planned. Wonderful read!
In politics, education, religion, agriculture, business--it turns out that dumbing down has been here from the start.
Fifty years of Istanbul seen through the eyes of a street vendor who migrates to the city as a young boy. It's also a window into the complicated dance between men and women in Turkey.
Hey, don't laugh, at least I'm trying.
A Norwegian immigrant is cooped up with six other people on a tiny island off the coast of Maine all winter in 1873. A woman in the present researching the Norwegian immigrant is cooped up with three other people on a tiny sailboat. What could possibly go wrong?
A man stuck between two worlds in more ways than one. Fascinating!
Historical novel about early contacts between first nations and the French in Canada. Beautifully written story that doesn't pull any punches. I bought his other two novels right away.
Beautifully written. By my children's favorite English and Creative Writing teacher! It's got rave reviews and we're all very proud of her.
Suki Kim is a Korean-American journalist. She poses as an evangelical Christian posing as an English teacher at a school for the sons of North Korea's elite. Her experience and the information she manages to get via writing assignments are incredible. Definitely a lot more eye-opening that any CNN special.
This. Explains. Everything!!!
Why has Islam not undergone a reformation like Christianity? Why is it so easy for Islamic extremist groups like IS to recruit young muslims? What would it take for Islam in fundamentalist Islamic countries to enter modernity? Does the West have a role to play?
Amazing! A man wanders endlessly through a dreamscape, becoming other people, himself in the past, everything is fluid. Kafkaesque disconnect between people and their different needs.
A multi-layered novel about the history of Libya. A fast read, but one you can repeat and find something new each time.
Twelve Americans go missing in Burma/Myanmar during a tour. Touching and hilarious, but mostly hilarious.
The most unusual murder mystery I've ever read. Incredible writing. It haunted me for days.
The quote on the front mentions that these stories are exhilerating. I couldn't disagree more. They are almost unbearably painful to read, and yet I couldn't put them down. Very well done, apart from the third story, which is written in the second tense. Please let me know if you know of ONE story that works in second tense.
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