Low-Land Leftovers

I was skimming through my Nederland photos today, writing my final report for the lovely and generous Samuel H. Kress Foundation (may it continue to forever fund poor and hopeful conservation grad students).

And I found this gem!  Liang, this is the last one I took for you!  If you didn't know they were bongs, you'd think they were just another nice piece of non-functional but beautiful glass.

Kids These Days...

Today after our respective works, Louise and I sat in the courtyard for a few hours, just reveling in our fabulous Amsterdam digs.  Then some rowdy boys ran in and started making loads of noise - seriously, I hate 10-year old boys, they are so loud!  UGH.  Everyone in the building poked their heads out the windows, frowning.  

I would have yelled at those boys, excepting that they probably only knew Dutch.  And I don't like to waste my time like that.  I'd rather write on this blog, discussing important things like carbonated iced tea and mysterious unidentified berries.  You know, vital information.

Ton (one of the neighbors, he always drops off any mail for us) bumbled out to scold them.  Ton is so funny... he's nice, but in a very distracted, totally Dutch way.  His glasses magnify his eyes a bit and he's always concerned about silly things.  He always is sitting outside his apartment reading newspapers: I'm not entirely sure if he has a job.  

However, Ton isn't very threatening.  The 10-year olds were clearly aware of this.  Ton's scolding was mocked, and he decided to call out the heavy: Henk.  If you are a 10-year old boy, Henk is terrifying.  

(Louise and I think he's nice because he has a little boy who is like four years old, and the little boy likes to carry on long conversations with us whenever he sees us.  Naturally, the conversations are all in Dutch, but the little guy doesn't seem to care if we respond appropriately or not.)

Anyway, Henk is tall and wears t-shirts without sleeves and has long blond hair and a wallet chain and that 'don't mess with me' attitude.  We watched Ton go over and scold the boys: shortly after the came back and walked over to  Henk's door, muttering.  Henk shortly came out and walked over and glowered at the boys, all of whom promptly scattered.

Ten minutes after Henk went back in his apartment, the boys were back, banging the door of the courtyard.  The nice lady who gave me the band-aid when I cut my finger came out and positioned herself next to the gate with the garden hose.  Her plan was to blast them with water, but the boys must have guessed her sinister intents, they didn't come back in the courtyard.

One other time there were a bunch of middle school/early high school boys hanging out in the archway.  I don't know what they were doing, but you could tell they knew they weren't supposed to be doing it.  Maybe drinking or something, I have no idea.  Presumably all of these things are legal here, I mean, it is Amsterdam.  Anyway, I gave them a mean look.  Ton was there again that day, grumbling.  I said, "Why don't you just call the police if they're disturbing the peace, which they are?"  He looked at me like I was crazy.

I think Ton needed some time to this this crazy American notion over.  Because later (Lou and I were still in the courtyard) some police did come, and they were talking to Ton and Henk and Band-aid Lady and some other neighbors.

All-in-all, I don't care if kids come in the courtyard, but if they are loud, I'm gonna smack them down, American-style.  But it was really funny to see Ton get mad and go get Henk to be his heavy.

And on a totally non-related note: 

It's a bookworm!  And so well-dressed, just look at that hat.

(Taken a few weeks ago in Delft, which is yet another reason why Delft is so charming).

Red Berries

The past few weeks Louise and I have noticed an abundance of these mysterious red berries for sale at the grocery stores and the markets in Holland.  At the markets the berries are not labeled, but at the Albert Heijn/Kaiser Wilhelm/Albrecht Durer they are simply given the mysterious moniker of Red Berries.

They look like Berries that You Shouldn't Eat, also known as Berries that Birds Eat.

Because the theme of this summer is I AMSTERDAM, I bought a small package of Red Berries this evening at the grocery.  Louise and I each ate two of them this evening.  They tasted like a) pomegranates and b) a slightly sour raspberry.  But mostly they tasted like Berries You Shouldn't Eat.  We're planning on comparing any side effects that we may experience sometime tomorrow.

Shopping

I don't know what they are selling, but I know that it's not pants.

(A shop window in Delft.)

This. Is. Nederland.

This commercial was for Albert Heijn (the grocery store alternately named Kaiser Wilhelm or Albrecht Durer): it was always on during Euro Cup season.

Congratulations, you've pretty much experienced the Netherlands.  It's got everything that makes this place what it is, excepting all of the dairy products.  Get a big piece of cheese and a glass of milk and watch it again.  

Welcome to Nederland.

Ousted at Royal Delft

The Royal Delft factory was founded in 1653 and is still making really beautiful and expensive porcelain.  It is also open for tours: you get to watch some artists painting the ceramics, see historical Delftware, and tour the factory.  You also get to see the life-size blue-painted tile copy of Rembrandt's the Night Watch.  High quality kitsch at its best.

The visitors' entrance to the factory.

A few small rain clouds and one torrential downpour caught Louise and I on our way to the factory, so we arrived later than intended.  We missed the last tour of the day, but the lady at the reception desk must have taken pity on our sad, damp faces and she gave us free tickets and told us to walk around any way.

The ceramics are slip-cast.  Each type of piece has a mould and slip (a watery clay) is poured in to make the form.  After it is dry, the mould is opened and the object removed.  It is very fragile.  But the mould-marks must be sanded off before the first firing.

These may be greenware (unfired pottery) waiting for the first firing.

These might be waiting for the second firing, maybe a second greenware firing.  I think the decoration has to be fired to turn blue and become permanent.  Probably a change in oxidation state of the coloring metals, reduction of cobalt oxides perhaps, I'm not sure.  Just a guess.  

These vases are crazy and really common in the World of Delftware.  They are a hold-over from the days of when a single tulip bulb could cost more than your entire palatial canal house.  These vases kept each blossom separate, so that they could be admired individually.  Obviously, the more tulips, the more wealthy you were.  This one isn't decorated yet.

Carefully wrapped.

Some of the kilns.  This photograph is for Dad, I know how you like kilns and pictures of control panels.  Production is actually fairly small.  (Hence part of the reason for the high price, I suppose).

The store room, which visitors could peep into.

Delftware cow, in the middle of the factory.  Dutch people are crazy about cows.  But then, Dutch people drink loads of milk and eat butter and cheese all the time.

After the factory tour, mini-museum, and painters-in-action, you are ushered into the showroom.  To Louise and I, it really was a showroom.  We just looked.  Teacups were like 80 euros.  Egg cups about 50 euros.  There was one small, friendly corner in the showroom, where you could sit down and make up your registry.  I can't even imagine registering for ceramics that are as expensive as these were.  Though I think if I were, it would actually be Wedgewood I'd want.

After viewing Things We Couldn't Afford, we went to the little cafe in the visitor's section of the factory.  We got teas, and the waitress said everything would be closing soon, but that we were welcome to sit on the patio and have the teas.  No problem.  Until fifteen minutes later when some sort of higher-up came out and saw us.  "What are you doing here, we're closed!"  We shrugged and finished the tea, then went to leave.  We said goodbye to the waitress counting the day's earnings the realized the front door was locked and all the lights were off.  So we wandered around until we found a door, and exited through what was obviously the actual workers' entrance.  Whoops!

No Smoking, Astublieft.  Friendly reminder sitting on the table.

Darth Vader Probably Doesn't Get Colds

Turns out that I have a head cold.  I went to the pharmacy on Monday to get a Dutch equivalent of Advil Cold & Sinus.  It went something like this...

Pharmacist:  Here is this!  It is like Advil! (hands me a bright shiny copper-colored box, all words in Dutch)

Me:  What does this do?

Pharmacist:  It is a pain killer!

Me:  Is this for colds?  Is this for runny noses or stuffy noses?

Pharmacist:  No.  We use the nose spray for colds.

Me:  No nose sprays.  Pills for colds? (if I can't breath because I have a cold, how will a nose spray be effective?  besides, I just don't do nose sprays)

Pharmacist:  We don't sell those in the Netherlands.  You can only get those in Great Britain and America.

Me:  Oh.  Then I don't want any thing.

Seriously, you can't buy cold medicine in Holland?  What am I going to do with it, make drugs from it?  I'm in Amsterdam, for heaven's sake.  If I want I can walk down to a store and buy hard drugs over the counter, I don't need to synthesize them from cold pills.  So my cold is unmedicated.  And me and my head (which feels like it is in a tin can) just want to nap all the time.  

So I'm sorry, nothing really exciting or earth-shattering to share today.

A few weeks ago I saw Darth Vader hanging out in the Dam Square.  He was all alone, either waiting for his friends or having been just stood up by his date.  Probably the later.  He was also shorter than I thought he would be - he's probably not Dutch.

House-Museum-Palooza

One would think that after spending years at Winterthur, I would be sick of historic house museums.  Nope!  I love them!  And Sunday and Monday turned into a celebration, a'palooza' or 'fest' if you will, of the house museum.  Unlike college 'fests' such as UD's famed Chapelfest, there is no resultant hangover for House-Museum-Fest, only sore and tired feet.

First was the Theater Museum.  The Theater Museum aspires to teach the visitor about what goes on behind a theatrical production.  The permanent collection was small but fun; the best part being a small curtain chamber that the visitor goes into, where he/she can press buttons to have different lighting/sounds happen.  (This is to illustrate the influence of light/sound on the production).  A whole new dimension of fun is added when the labels of the buttons are in Dutch!  The museum itself is located in two beautiful adjoining canal houses, one built in 1638 and the other in 1617.

One room had some amazing flocked wallpaper.  If you've never encountered flocked wallpaper, I'm sorry for you.  It's fabulously ridiculous.  

Adhesive is applied in the shape of the desired design and then bits of fluff/fuzz/lint are wafted towards it so that it sticks on the adhesive, creating a velvety wallpaper!  I learned that in graduate school.  Let's hear it for advanced degrees!

The central staircase in the Theater Museum.

One of my favorite parts about the canal house museums, apart from being able to peer into other peoples' houses, is that they have private gardens attached.

I think this was my favorite: Museum van Loon.  The original van Loon was a co-founder of the Dutch East India Company.  I also like saying van Loon. 

The van Loon Museum had a nice video playing of the current van Loon patriarch, an ancient and extremely tall and thin gentleman.  In the video he walks around to the various rooms and tells what the room was like when his grandparents lived in it, and stories from his childhood.

This is the garden of the Museum Geelvinck Hinlopen Huis, built in 1687.  The garden was the best part of the house.  The guide I spoke with said it was the most beautiful garden ever.  I was like... right...  I said, "Oh yes, absolutely lovely,"  but in my head was thinking, "Those du Ponts sure knew a good garden though..."

Public Library Possibilities, alternately titled, Twenty-Four Euros, Please

I took a greater part of Sunday afternoon to journey back to the Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam, the awesome library with the apple tarts, in order to more fully explore its awesomeness.  Everyone else in Amsterdam must recognize the awesomeness of the library, as it is packed with patrons!  Jam-packed!

Main entrance.  As you can see, it was quite windy.

I was thinking that it would be awesome to get a library card, check books (in English) out and take them home and read them.  Maybe a movie or a CD, who knows?  Well... I did a little research online to find out how you get a library card.

The steps to get a library card:

1). Identity document - no problem, I have a passport.

2). Proof of address - easy, I can mail myself a letter from work.

3). Membership fee - what?  A fee?

A 24 euro fee!  That's like $35!

And I read further - there are lending costs!  Books and (oddly enough) sheet music are free.  CDs and DVDs are 1-2 euros.  Good grief!  Patrons are charged a membership fee and then must pay to borrow certain items?  How is this possible?  I can't afford to pay these paltry fees.  I have never heard of such fees - only late fines.  Oh, how I miss you, Free Public Library, Proud American Institution! 

So, I thought, scope out the English section.  Visiting, reading, tart eating, could make a really great afternoon/evening.  Minus a registration fee or lending cost.  I felt like a genius.

Looking down into the children's and young adult section.  Alas, all in Dutch.  Observe the molecular-model shaped lighting: I think I see a pentane!

Escalators take you from floor to floor, and there are hundreds of iMacs available for people to use.  It almost seems as if Apple had designed the library, as the aesthetics are similar.

I'm off to the engels section. 

Alas, the engles section was disappointing.  Some books, like Pride and Prejudice and The Great Gatsby, were there.  You know, works not just for an age, but for all time.  But the complete works of both Austen and Fitzgerald were not present.  There was a significant amount of crap.  Like the books you can pick up for $2.25 at a WalMart, or worse, Big Lots.  So I'm glad I didn't get a library card.

I like books.  And these fun chairs.  And reading a book, looking out onto a view of Amsterdam.

I'm pictured with a copy of The Secret Garden  I was very much looking forward to it.  Then I quickly realized that it was The Abridged for Idiots Version of The Secret Garden.  "Mary was a little girl who was born in India.  Her father was in the army.  Her mother liked to go to parties.  Mary had a nanny who looked after her."  Who makes a shortened version of a children's book?  Boo.  I ended up reading The Nanny Diaries, which was okay.  I think most future visits to the library will involve only eating apple tarts, at least until their English-Language librarian decides to get some good books on the shelves.

The Sweet Ride, alternately titled, Jessica the Occasional Menace to Society

One of the great things about working at the Atelier is that there is a Studio Bicycle!  Yes!  Easy mode of transportation about Amsterdam!

This beaut is currently My Sweet Ride.

It may appear to be the color of a John Deere, but it is actually a  green apple color.  It also has a little bell on the handlebar, to ring when you are about to flatten an unwary pedestrian.

The bike had two locks: a huge steel chain (shown encapsulated in a red cloth) and a more subtle pin-lock that prevents the back tired from moving.  These are necessary to prevent bike theft, which the guidebooks refer to as Holland's number one sport.  Two locks are good, and it really is best to wrap the chain all around the bike, through the frame, around some immovable object such as a house, and back through the spokes of the wheel.  

A mentioned previously, Dutch people are extraordinarily tall.  (The other day on my way home from work, I saw a man jogging, and he was taller than the bus on the other side of the street!  I kid you not!) 

The tendency to be eight bazillion feet tall can make life trickier for the shorter people attempting to exist in Holland.  I have no problems reaching the pedals of the Dutch bicycle.  I just can't touch the earth with any part of my feet while sitting on the seat.  It is as though the whole apparatus is higher up than an American bike.  A bike designed by and for the enormously tall.  And yes, the seat is the whole way down, as low as it can get.  This is fine when riding around.  It took a little getting used to at first, sitting higher up than I am tall.  

It is a little hard to get on the seat.  I have to step on a pedal and then launch myself onto the seat.

Attempting to stop is always a harrowing experience.  Sure, I can stop, but I can't put a foot down in order to prevent myself from crashing to the ground.  I've tried many techniques.  The best is to move close to a curb, using the height of the curb to make up for my lack of leg length.  

When getting off the bicycle, everyday is a new adventure.  Yesterday I slid, rather jarringly, off the seat to the side.  Just this morning, I somehow slide off the back of the bike, still desparately clutching the handlebars.  It was like I slid off the back of a still-moving pony.  Yee-haw!

I took the bicycle out for a spin after work today, for two reasons:

1). To practice stopping, and to stop freaking out about being on a tall bike

2). It was a lovely day, and it seemed like a good idea to see more of the Jordaan neighborhood

All very well.  I was doing very good.  Riding with no problems, enjoying the pretty neighborhood, feeling confident, then...  an oncoming car approached!  There was no danger of an accident, the car was going slow, room on the street.  But my brain goes, "Ahhh!  Car!  Loose all sense of balance and motor control!" and I careened around the road (luckily empty, so nobody could observe my inane bicycle antics) and somehow slid off the bike and ended up standing next to it, no doubt looking like a total wild-haired manic.  I got back on and wavered around and ended up standing next to the bike again.  Then the next try worked out, and I continued on my way - though I did quickly decide to go home.

Apparently I cannot fall off a bike, I just end up standing next to it.  Does this mean I'm not a squib, and I can go to Hogwarts now?  It seems awfully Neville Longbottom-ish.

Me and the bike, post harrowing after-work ride.

I therefore try to stop as little as possible.  I'm like a startled-girl-green-bicycle-avalanche.

I also don't really ring the bell, as I equate it with honking the car horn, which I think is very rude.  So I'm also a menace to society as well as an occasional danger to myself.

Since having received the bicycle, I have been closely observing Dutch people and their bicycles.  I was always taught that you should be able to touch the ground with the front part of your feet while sitting on the seat.  Apparently this precaution is unknown in Holland, as I have seen many many people riding bikes much too large for them.  Once I realized this, I began observing their methods of stopping.  I need to practice.

't Klompenhuisje

Klompen is the Dutch word for clogs.  Ergo the 't Klompenhuisje is the Klompen Store, or as I prefer, the House of Klompen.  I really enjoy saying the word 'klompen' and had already associated it, in my mind, with clogs, because it seems like an onomatoploeia.  

Louise and I did a little window shopping at t'Klompenhuisje.  As you may have expected, there was a wide selection of klompens, but also some more modern synthetic shoes.

Look!  A whole rack of paint-your-own klompens!  (They're actually usually not painted.  People still wear them doing farm work and gardening and stuff like that.)

We tried on some klompen at the Bloemenmarkt.  Because klompens are good to wear out in the garden, growing your tulips.  These are Louise's feet.

I'm sure the sound made by a pair of klompens is fantastic, but they have little arch support and (oddly enough) aren't very flexible.  Also, if like me, you are afflicted with rather high arches, it can make finding a pair of ready-made klompens difficult.  The klompen I'm wearing in this picture are a few sizes too big for me, because I couldn't fit my tall (but short) feet in the klompen of the appropriate size.  You can actually see the spaces between my feet and the side of the klompen.  You can't really force your high-arched feet into too-short klompens; not unless you don't mind fracturing a few foot-bones.  I guess if I wanted a pair of klompen I'd have to get some custom-made.

Woe is me.

Rembrandt House, and Other Things

These are the flowers I bought at the Bloemenmarkt on Saturday.

 

On Sunday Louise and I set out on more grand adventures in Amsterdam.  The goal was to visit Rembrandt's House (the Rembrandthuis).

The Rembrandt House is part of the same consortium of historic canal house museums, which is fabulous, because it means the we can use our ICOM cards to get in for free!  Woo!  ICOM is the International Council of Museums.

The Rembrandt House is one of the former homes of Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606 -1669), one of the greatest painters and printmakers of the Dutch Golden Age.  He lived in it for almost twenty years, and had to leave after it turned out that he could not repay the 13,000 or whatever guilder bank loan he had used to purchase the house.

The Rembrandt House is home to several works by Rembrandt, as well as "the School of Rembrandt," and his teachers/friends/admirers.  The "School of Rembrandt" refers to the fact that he had a large studio of painters and apprentices working for him, all churning out pieces in his name, not necessarily by his hand.  This was the same sort of situation that many other painters had, like Peter Paul Reubens (1577 - 1640).  This can cause some difficulties in the Art Historical world, and questionable paintings more back and forth between the artist and the artist's school with some frequency.

One really fun thing about the Rembrandt House is that they demonstrate making an etching in the same room Rembrandt used as his printmaking studio.  Here I've snuck an image of some demonstration plates, inks, and prints.  It took me right back to those miserable days working in the studio, pulling print after print.  Like all those times I cut my fingers on rough spots on the plates, and then got ink in the cuts, and then was afraid I had given myself inadvertent (and very ugly) fingertip tattoos.

After the Rembrandt House we went to the ship museum, which had a large replica of a sailing ship used by the Dutch East India Company.  Sorry no photos of the ship; it was so windy it almost blew the shoes right off my feet.  We clambered all over, and sat down in the bottom of the ship, watching a Dutch documentary (subtitled in English) about the Dutch East India Company.  It was very educational, and we stayed down there for maybe half an hour, until the creaking of the ship started to freak us out.

Some memorable dialogue from the documentary:

"And the Dutch had such a great system set up, it was strange how nobody else tried to copy it."

"They forced each family to grow three nutmeg trees, and to give the harvest to the company.  They then cut down all the other spice trees.  It worked really well."

"Some villages rebelled: in these cases all of the people were killed, and Dutch people and slaves were brought in to harvest the spices."

"The Japanese traded exclusively with the Chinese and the Dutch until the 19th century, when open trade was forced by the American navy, who threatened to blow up Japanese cities if they refused to trade with them."

Some things never change.

After that, we headed to the Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam.  This is the most awesome library ever.  A full report will have to follow in the future, as its awesomeness demands an individual posting.  Suffice it to say that you can come in, watch a movie, listen to music, read a book, and then go up to the top floor and have a cup of tea and a piece of apple tart.  Sweet.

This is a view from the balcony of the library cafe.

I am all tired out today - I was "conservering" all day long, and a part of the expected work by Major Artists arrived today!  Yes!

Hup Holland Hup!

Hup Holland Hup!, which apparently translates to Go Holland Go!, is the slogan used to cheer on Holland's football (soccer) team.  As you may or may not know, the Netherlands is part of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA).  The UEFA is currently in the midst of a huge summer tournament.  All the member's national teams are invited, and this year the matches are being held in Austria and Switzerland.

People weren't expecting much out of Holland, but the team really generated a buzz when they smashed Italy in one of the opening qualifying matches.

The team is fondly called the Oranje; their uniforms are bright orange.  (Little brother, be prepared to get a bright orange Holland soccer something upon my return.)

Louise and I wanted to go to a match, and Holland's next was Saturday night.  They were playing in the quarter finals against Russia.  The bar around the block seemed to be a nice place where we could watch the game.  However, it was so crowded, we couldn't even get in to door to buy a beer.  Advice was asked of the nearest Dutchman, he said to go to the bar across the street and buy a drink.  As long as the glasses were returned, they didn't mind where you took them.

So here we are, out in the street, trying to look at the tv screen over the heads of the really tall Dutch people.  And Dutch people are really tall.

That was frustrating, so we returned our glasses and set off for another local place.  This one was much smaller, but we could actually go inside and share a stool!

This was definitely the best place to be for the match.  The woman in charge of the bar kept up chants of the keeper's name (van der Sar) and the striker (van der Vaart).  We also got to eat spicy bar-peanuts, and the cook came out from the back during the half-time break with a big plate of fried things.  They looked like hush puppies, and you dipped them in spicy mustard.  Inside though, they were kind of gooey and had chicken pieces? maybe?  Who knows, but they were good!  Sure all the talk in the bar and commentary was in Dutch, but soccer is soccer, and thanks to all those games I went to back in the day watching little Little Brother play, I pretty much knew what was going on in the match.

Holland just scored a goal, and this brought the match to 1:1, so it was really exciting.  Everyone in the entire nation was cheering (last match we could hear the revelers yelling even though the nearest bar is a few blocks away).  Appropriately, the image turned out really orange-colored.

Unfortunately though, Russia made two more goals in the end of the match, so Holland lost and is out of the tournament.  I'm really glad we did make it to this match, in that case.

On a strange side note, there is apparently one type of beer in Holland.  We ordered a Heineken, and the bar tender said, "You want a beer?"  And the bars all had only two taps - both for Heineken.  So, in Holland, I guess beer=Heineken.

I go to the Library, alternately titled, I Don't Think They Use the Library of Congress Cataloguing System Here

Clara is teaching a two-day workshop to some paper conservators today, about techniques for storing and displaying photographs.  In Dutch.  So, she suggested that I take the two days to do some research on the artists' whose work will be arriving this Friday (very excited!  Big name artists, to be revealed in the future!).  No problem.  Actually a great plan, as I have laundry I need to do, and research and laundry go together like two peas in a pod.

So I'm placidly researching, the laundry has finished, when I stumble across a reference to a book which may contain the information for which I am looking!  I quickly consult the WorldCat - the worldwide research library catalogue.  A copy would be held in the University of Delaware Library - how perfectly perverse.  

Then I realize that I need to switch my 'central location' on the search engine.  Make it more of a centraal location, if you will.  New search results arrive: the book is in Amsterdam.  In two locations in Amsterdam.  I figure out the addresses, decide which one is closer, and I'm on my way!

I went to the Bibliotheek Universiteit Van Amsterdam.  I believe it is the University of Amsterdam Library... either way I am excited to learn the word bibliotheek, though I cannot pronounce it.

Hello Dutch Card Catalogue!  Please tell me that you also come in English?

I have the title, author, call number, and what section it is in (the kunstgeschiedenis/culturele studies section) all written down in my notebook.  

I head back out to look at the sign delineating where the different sections are.  No sign of a kunstgeschiedenis or culturele studies section.  I have a feeling these sections are in a branch library, the Kunsthistorisch Instituut.  

The muziekwetenschap section might be interesting, and the mysterious wijsbegeerte section could be fascinating, but I really need to keep on with my search.

I walked up to what I assumed to be the main circulation desk and said, "I think I need to go to the Art History Institute, the Kuns... well, it's written here."  The librarian says yes, that's where I need to go, and gives me directions.  It's not very far away, and I'm off once again.

I found the Kunsthistorisch Instituut, waltzed in, and began to scan the shelves.  It was at this moment that I looked at the call number, looked at the spines of the books in front of me, and though, "Oh... I'm sure this isn't the Library of Congress cataloguing systems... This is some new and unknown Dutch method..."

A librarian glanced at the call number, lead me up several twisting staircases into a larger area of books (which I never would have found without help), and directed me right to the very shelf on which the book sat.  And next to it were three other books on the same subject!  Excellent!

I spent about three hours in the library, sitting by this bright canal-view window, reading the books.  

Unfortunately, it turns out that all of the books were duds.  I was (and still am) searching for technical information, and these were all very esoteric and art historical, using many words but imparting little actual information.

On the plus side, I did get to look at many images of the artists' works, and to read some of their 'manifestos' and many older interview transcripts.

It's okay that the book didn't contain the information I wanted.  That's how research goes.  I really enjoyed going to the libraries, pretending to be a Dutch university student.  I didn't have to show any student ID or anything: I think if you look like a college student, waltz in like you belong, with a schlumpy sort of college attitude, you blend right in, whether or not you actually belong to that particular university.

And also, the Kunsthistorisch Instituut was in a really cool building.