Sheep

Elements of the Dutch landscape - 7

Recently I started noticing sheep. My wife likes sheep. She thinks they're cute and she likes the feeling of nature they bring to the city.

Hitland - Capelle aan den IJssel

I never noticed sheep. I only noticed cows. Cows belong to the Dutch landscape. Sheep belong in Australia.

I was wrong. Sheep have been here since the neolithic. There exist Dutch indigenous sheep species (the Dutch Texel) that were bred in the 1890's.

Zoetermeer

Recently sheep have been grazing in the city parks. It's an experiment in natural grass management because  sheep are much better than lawnmowers. And more interesting to observe.

They seem to eat everything, but it's interesting to see which plants they prefer. They don't seem to like nettles and sorrel (rumex) but they eat them anyway. I heard they like the poisonous giant hogweed because it's rich in protein.

Rotterdam

The sheep is a powerful Christian symbol. I should have a lot to say about it, but it never resonated with me strongly. I prefer: the cross, the all-seeing-eye, the dove the halo, water, wine and the mustard plant. Not sheep. Lions maybe. Or cats, but cats are not mentioned anywhere in the Bible.

Christ was a farmer. He knew a lot about sheep.

Dordrecht

I would never have thought that sheep could be interesting. Then I read "A Wild Sheep Chase" by Haruki Murakami:

Most of the afternoons I would pass looking out at the pasture. I soon began seeing things. A figure emerging from the birch woods and running straight in my direction. Usually it was the Sheep Man, but sometimes it was the Rat, sometimes my girlfriend. Other times it was the sheep with the star on it's back.

Lopik

And the most disgusting literary sheep-quote is probably from Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon. You will never eat mutton with a clear conscience after reading this:

Thus bickering they pass into the Dining-Room. After the Cape custom, the Dutchman has lock'd his front door for the evening meal, which he now regards, smoldering, less predictable than an Italian Volcano.
...
Another volcanickal Emission, whilst he grimly attacks his slice of the evening's mutton in Tail-fat. Over the course of its late owner's life, the Tail has grown not merely larger and more fatty, but also, having absorbed years of ovine Flatulence ever blowing by, to exhibit a distinct Taste, perhaps priz'd by cognoscenti somewhere, though where cannot readily be imagin'd.

Sources:
Sheep and goats in the Netherlands - more interesting than you would expect!
Low Countries time line
List of Murakami quotes
Mason & Dixon text online - don't know it it's legit

What dust will rise?

For me the most impressive artwork of the Documenta in Kassel 2012 was What dust will rise? by Michael Rakowitz. The sad litany of culture destruction and erasure.

It is said that artists are like canaries in the mine, predicting the future. Is this what awaits us? A cultural apocalypse?

Or is this just a slightly enlarged example of what Marx called the gnawing criticism of mice ? The standard fate of most cultural artifacts?

Stone fragment dropped by the Royal Air Force over Essen, Germany, 1942. British bombers released the rubble of English buildings destroyed by the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain on German cities as a prelude to actual bombs.

For us it is a matter of special pride to destroy the Talmudic Library which has been known as the greatest in Poland...we threw out of the building the great Talmudic Library and carted it to market. There we set fire to the books. The fire lasted for twenty hours. The Jews of Lublin were assembled around and cried bitterly. The cries almost silenced us. Then we summoned a military band, and joyful shouts of the soldiers silenced the sounds of Jewish cries. - Frankfurter Zeitung, March 28 ,1941

Shrapnel from ammunition rounds used to destroy the Bamiyan Buddhas, Afghanistan, March, 2001.

Samples of clay fragments with paint from outer layers of the western Buddha of Bamyian. Traces of red and blue - made from pulverized lapis lazuli - suggest the sangesti or c eremonial robes of the Buddha were colored.

Books damaged by fire and deemed too unimportant to restore after the bombing of the Fridericianum, 1941.

The Tironian notes contain the oldest lexicon of classical and early medieval abbreviations, a shorthand used to record the great speeches of antiquity. It was developed by Marcus Tullius Tiro, a Roman who lived in the first century B.C., and written down in Carolingian miniature in France around 800 A.D. It
survived the air raid on Kassel in the Fridericianum's vault, but the tremendous heat scorched its leather binding, charred its woorden cover, and liquified the fat in its parchments pages, gluing them together.

Great War battlefield at nightfall

In August 2012 we visited several World War One battlefields and monuments in Northern France. We did not go ghost hunting, we just wanted to see as much as we could cram into each day. So some sites were visited at nightfall.

These sites can be overpowering at nightfall. The nature looks peaceful but you are always aware of the horrific suffering that took place here. So there is silence, but also tension. Strange and unexpected sounds can be very startling.

Especially at this site, the Bois Brûlé, where Jacques Péricard shouted: "Rise you dead!" (Debout les morts!) The same person who said: "He who hasn't fought at Verdun does not know what misery is."

The voices on the video say:
A: Oh fuck!
B: What's the matter?
A: Don't you hear it?

The sound recordings have not been staged. They are authentic and have been made at this memorable spot.  

A ship adrift - erasure poetry

A ship adrift
I'm a fan and admirer of the internet artwork "A ship adrift" made by James Bridle. I return to its webpages regularly. I immerse myself in its aimless voyage and the ghostly chattering of its language bots.

The virtual ship is connected to a London weather station and it drifts around the world randomly. It travels the (lost) imperial periphery, being blown by wind from the (now powerless) governing center. But a much better description by the artist can be found here and here.

During its drift it collects random snippets of local data, ghost whispers of the internet. With its robot intelligence it tries to tell a story of the places it visits. It fails, but it's a very poetic failure. You can read its dream-like texts here.

Erasure poetry
Today I discovered the concept of "erasure poetry" on another blog I follow. This is how the concept is described by the writer Justin Taylor:

Erasure is a method of delving into the depths of a text to see what can be found there. But the eraser is liberated—as well as made anxious—by the knowledge that said findings are not discoveries but creations. The erasure-text is not a salvage: it has no reality independent of the search for it, the searching is in fact what made it real.

Combination
Somehow I started without consciously thinking. I copied a few "ship adrift" logfiles into notepad and started deleting. To my surprise something coherent started to appear. There was some vague shape. I deleted more and more text. I left the order and spelling intact. I added some punctuation. This is what was left at 00:17 AM. The text is culled from the logs of 27 July to 15 July 2012.

A ship adrift - erased

1)
I released my grip and a spiritless ship in the shade of years should fail me.
I behaved with beautiful earth, flowed something Buddha.

I had light myself, belonging of a minute.
I day the sword and stared a man, ship of the names.
I held up foot, stamped here like the air.

Tell me, pray, tell me, and, indistinct, like a pair of shadow.
Do you know.
Some to endure, even beyond.

2)
Villa Total in the rocky Monteresting.
Devil was the hammock, groans, blankets, horrors.
But into the path, with wooden loads, for meaning by expanding.
And the same upkeep with the pointinuous night.

Annoying I stave coming for him once.
He wastepec Maravines, miles farm and festive.
I felt gone people, August, sixty profound of them.
To kill something sides, nobody had end you.

Their loads inclosed three world to each others.
In Chiapas, chap with body of eyes.
Beforesting sunlight the men would get into.
Catching habited in the big river.
Wrecked over we came upkeep, is coming you, sir?
And in the interesting, at last bit of course.

3)
Only too old, your unbuttoned uniform, catching that is to hear, he.
I came upon the paths, perhaps on the los.
Retrieved August, I know that you projected devil was.
Through burnt grass near, why did it in the cabin?

A steady glimmer of dange narcotic effectly.
Payton Bomb that brace you, white change narcotic, an effect of water.
Pineapples.
I'm ready and the shielo name to explain bring over.
Very well, I am guilty.
Thou art my hiding over, I woke up each this.
But this become my communication:
"We arent and rise black, flat, over place The Funny Teens."

If you to smuggle your place and throom.
Monotonous frenzy, imperceptible order, so as me?
Speak Marijuana Drama! Amp a go water.
I'm real enough to give straight in fantation room.
God dare for kids!
I believed good offered, word in the fitfully droning.
Dance and really wanna say, some best to a nothing place.

4)
I'm feelinger the ivory; but the hill dads kill me now.
In love with End, original fastened us in favor.
The black to easier forgot this, of many means even.
God Is Faithful, and had he came today.
And rise blackorean boring white.
Altamirano, he was haste to, and in beacon glimpse: Equator.
Some, perfectly here, yet.
Exploring perfectly ... well, we won't.

Night sounds and morning birds - Berlin

In June I visited a congress in Berlin. When visiting a large metropolis I try to make a night sound recording from my hotel widow. It's interesting to analyse the daily and nightly patterns of the city. I especially like the most silent period, usually somewhere between 02:00 and 04:00. This is the Berlin night in Audacity:

The spikes are cars driving below the hotel windows at the Anhalterstrasse. The solid dark area is the background hum of the city. Like William Gibson writes in Zero History:

“Good night,” Milgrim said ... He ... climbed into bed in his underwear, and pulled the covers to his chin. He turned out the light. Lay there running his tongue over the backs of his teeth. ... And listened to, or at any rate sensed, the background frequency that was London. A different white noise.

To filter out that background noise I edited the most silent part of the recording. I cut away all the car sounds leaving only the silent background. And then I cut away all the parts where "nothing" can be heard. This is the result:

It was a wonderful experience to listen to the recording and work with these sounds. I did it in my inexperienced way, but it deserves a better recording and better editing. I was surprised by two things:

1. How early the birds start singing. Almost in the middle of the night.
2. How the birdsong echoes through urban space. How wide and mysterious this space sounds.

The emptiness of urban space at night is breathtaking. I'm a bourgeois individual who goes to sleep at 23:00 so I never experience the spaces of deep night. But I'm tempted to try the very early morning.

But when I talked about this with my son, who is living a student life with occasional partying, he told me he had noticed the early birds and the echoes many times.

I don't know how far the birds were from my hotel window. Maybe they were quite near in the trees. But in the recording they sound very far away. And what kind of birds were they? I did some research on German websites and it could be this:

• The earliest night singing bird is the nightingale. But the song of the earliest birds is much too simple to be nightingales.
• Another early bird is the Robin. But the song of the early birds does not sound like that. It sound much simpler.
• The earliest bird might also be the "Hausrotschwanz" the "Black Redstart". This is the most likely candidate, but I still think the sound on the recording is simpler than the song examples in the Internet.
• The blackbirds are early singers but they start much later. And they are very easy to recognize. In the recording you can hear the first blackbird at 3:13.

Sources:
Berlin recording - Freesound
German early birds
Robin song sample
Black redstart song sample
Early birdsong - podcast in Swiss language, with song samples
Distribution of "Black Redstart" in the Netherlands

Anhalter Bahnhof - Tris Vonna Michel

A performance by Tris Vona-Michell has charged the area around the Anhalter Bahnhof with spy novel suspense. While in Berlin I explored the area and was transported into a pseudo-historical space by the mysterious ruins. I put a few quotes below, but to get the whole atmosphere you have to listen to the performance yourselves.

My father says: Tris, I've got this wonderful story. In Berlin 1945 imagine, the Anhalter Bahnhof, the biggest station in history. Huge. The idea was, in the 19th century, this tunnel could go to the Noth Pole, the South Pole. And in 1945 Hitler arrived and he said: "Lets make this idea a reality!"

It was bombed, and again and again. In 1945 the Russians entered the tunnels. And they called it "the expansive", "the never ending." And my father said: Tris, go there  and look for Ronald Hahn. And I said: Who is Ronald Hahn? Ronald Hahn was one of these four men probably. The Russians go into the tunnels and ... whoosh ... don't return.

Warfare ... nuclear, no ... biological. And the Russians, Americans said: we don't understand. And basically they say ... stop. No more lives. No more humans going through the tunnels and never returning.

They said to the Germans ... tell me ... or to what was left of Germany in 1945 ... why did you build these tunnels? And the Germans said: I'm sorry, that's a part of our history ... a legacy we have no access to. What do you mean? I'm sorry, this is actually biological warfare experimentation. I mean this is very deadly, do not go through these tunnels. Our only recommendation is to board off the tunnels, and place men with guns and masks at the entrance who say: Zurückbleiben bitte! And Ronald Hanh runs through and he dies. Depleted uranium. End of history. Over.

Now first listen to the performance by Tris Vonna-Michell. Then go to the site with the ruin at sunset with Les barricades mysterieuses by Francois Couperin playing on your iPhone. You will get an explosive mix of mystery, melancholy and melodrama that might be just as deadly as the mysterious tunnels.

Spiritual power stations - China Mieville

Each city has buildings that radiate power, a special aura. Take away the building and something dies, some lifeform disappears forever. Some of the building are inconspicuous, hidden in sidestreets behind curtains of trees. But others are beacons of energy. If they fail the city fails.

Rotterdam

China Mieville has made this tangible, in his book Looking for Jake, in the opening story with the same title:

I saw a guard, as alone as all the others. What's happened? I asked him. He was confused, shaking his head. He would not look at me. Something's happened, he said. Something there was a collapse ... nothing works properly ... there's been a a breakdown ... He was being very inexact. That wasn't his fault. It was a very inexact apocalypse.

Between the time I had dosed my eyes on the train and the time I had opened them again, some organising principle had failed. 

I've always imagined the occurrence in very literal terms. I have always envisaged a vast impossible building, a spiritual power station with an unstable core shitting out the world's energy and connectivity. I've always envisaged the cogs and wheels of that unthinkable machinery overheating, some critical mass being reached ... the mechanisms faltering and seizing up as the core explodes soundlessly and spews its poisonous fuel across the city and beyond. ...

Dordrecht

Since I read this story I've become sensitized to these buildings and I see them regularly. Some were built in the 1920's as constructivist art-deco. Others are modern. It's good we're building such spiritual power-stations again ... but is it really good? Is the energy really positive?

Berlin

The Gaumont State is a beacon, a lighthouse, a warning we missed. It jags impassive into the clouds as the city founders on rocks. ... The Gaumont State exerts its own gravity over the changed city. I suspect all compasses point to it now. I suspect that in the magnificent entrance, framed by those wide stairs, something is waiting. The Gaumont State is the generator of the dirty entropy that has taken London. I suspect there are many fascinating things inside. I'm going to let it reel me in.

References:
Looking for Jake and other stories, China Miéville, 2005 - wikipedia article - I have bought the book and I can recommend it. Other books by China Mieville are relevant too, especially Kraken and The City & the City. They change the way you see the city.