After a short exchange with my family, unusual this early in the morning, I deflect my cat and try to snooze the schooltime noise from the street below. It's nearly 8:30 and I can't fob it off any longer. My bedroom looks out to the school, and the school looks back at me with a statue of the Virgin. Bakfiesten surround the stoep like an army belgrade.
Stoep. Sidewalk. But it emphasizes the threshold, not the passage.
They go inside, and I head to work.
Another message from my aunt. We think it'll be today or tomorrow.
It's been a month at the agency. It's in the former chapel of the former , a Catholic hospital run by Franciscan sisters. Familiar objects, familiar images. I sit near , the architect. She sits next to , the designer. A patron saint of iconography if there ever was one.
Are we rich or poor? Does it matter anymore. ....
We have lunch on the ground floor. of no longer holy water. I ask my colleagues about the building; the conversation detours to the ruins of a , where you can spend the night under stars.
Over my dead body would I .
Lunch ends, and I start on a new project; a bit of bug fixing for a search function. Satisfying work.
I go home to eat.
Put on . One of my aunt's old records. Why this one? I'm not sure. To Love Somebody, released the year she moved here, in 1969. It's a series of covers: Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen (a Montrealer, like my aunt), the Bee Gees. I start with the Byrds. . Pete Seeger really wrote that one. Actually, he stole it from King Solomon.
To everything turn, turn, turn.
The album art has arches like portals, or an apse, or the agency's stained glass windows.
I put on the , wondering what they'll play at the services.
", we horen slechts zich herhalende motieven."
the space1/2
It's in the former chapel of the former Mariastichting, a Catholic hospital run by Franciscan sisters...
Flowers floating in a font of no longer holy water...
The Mariastichting, Haarlem — a Catholic hospital founded by Franciscan sisters, later repurposed as office space. The ground floor retains its stone baptismal font.
heatwave
Are we rich or poor? Does it matter anymore. Heatwave...
"Heatwave" — The Blue Nile, from the album Hats (Linn Records, 1989). Recorded at Castlesound Studios, Edinburgh. The band — Paul Buchanan, Robert Bell, Paul Joseph Moore — spent over two years on the album's ten songs.
evening music
I go home to eat.
Put on Nina Simone. One of my aunt's old records...
To Love Somebody, released the year she moved here, in 1969...
To Love Somebody, RCA Victor, 1969. Nina Simone's 17th studio album. Side A, Track 4: "Turn! Turn! Turn!" — the Byrds (1965), written by Pete Seeger (1959), adapted from Ecclesiastes 3:1–8, attributed to King Solomon, c. 935 BCE. The chain of authorship spans roughly 2,960 years. Leonard Cohen: born Westmount, Montréal, 1934. The Bee Gees wrote the title track originally for Otis Redding, who died before recording it.
sacred echoes
The album art has arched frames like portals or an apse...
Bach's Actus tragicus, before I go upstairs...
Er is geen thema, we horen slechts zich herhalende motieven
BWV 106, Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit. Composed c. 1707, Mühlhausen. Bach was 22. Likely written for the funeral of his uncle Tobias Lämmerhirt. Scored for 2 recorders, 2 violas da gamba, and continuo — no violins. Eduard van Hengel: "There is no theme; we hear only repeating motifs. In the rocking eighth notes of the gambas one may imagine heavenly eternity, above which the two flutes represent earthly suffering, with sighing descending intervals and grinding dissonances resulting from an unusual voice leading. The two flutes mostly play in unison, but produce their passing harsh sonorities by taking turns making brief excursions to a neighboring second."
de Broerenkerk
The conversation detours to the ruins of a Friesian church...
Over my dead body would I sleep in a church.
The Broerenkerk is a ruined medieval church in Jorwert, Friesland — its open nave was fitted with a glass roof as part of a 1990s preservation effort, creating a space that is both ruin and shelter. In the Netherlands, over 1,600 churches have been repurposed since 1970 — as apartments, bookshops, climbing gyms, restaurants, and design studios. Geert Mak wrote about Jorwert's decline in Hoe God verdween uit Jorwerd (1996).
the saints
I sit near Saint Barbara, the architect...
...next to Saint Helena, the designer, patron of iconography.
Familiar objects and images in the former Catholic hospital.
the chapel
glass dome
After a short exchange with my family, unusual this early in the morning, I deflect my cat and try to snooze the schooltime noise from the street below. It's nearly 8:30 and I can't fob it off any longer. My bedroom looks out to the school, and the school looks back at me with a statue of the Virgin. Bakfiesten surround the stoep like an army belgrade.
Stoep. Sidewalk. But it emphasizes the threshold, not the passage.
They go inside, and I head to work.
Another message from my aunt. We think it'll be today or tomorrow.
It's been a month at the agency. It's in the former chapel of the former , a Catholic hospital run by Franciscan sisters. Familiar objects, familiar images. I sit near , the architect. She sits next to , the designer. A patron saint of iconography if there ever was one.
Are we rich or poor? Does it matter anymore. ....
We have lunch on the ground floor. of no longer holy water. I ask my colleagues about the building; the conversation detours to the ruins of a , where you can spend the night under stars.
Over my dead body would I .
Lunch ends, and I start on a new project; a bit of bug fixing for a search function. Satisfying work.
I go home to eat.
Put on . One of my aunt's old records. Why this one? I'm not sure. To Love Somebody, released the year she moved here, in 1969. It's a series of covers: Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen (a Montrealer, like my aunt), the Bee Gees. I start with the Byrds. . Pete Seeger really wrote that one. Actually, he stole it from King Solomon.
To everything turn, turn, turn.
The album art has arches like portals, or an apse, or the agency's stained glass windows.
I put on the , wondering what they'll play at the services.
", we horen slechts zich herhalende motieven."
