Tried to take a picture, but it's Shanghai all over again. My Canon Ixus refused to show the taken pics there and it does again over here. I think I've got a serious xenofobic camera with me, because it works perfectly well in Amsterdam.. So no pic of my beautiful walk to the library, with the snow capped mountain on the horizon. Just imagine the view, is perhaps even better. Beautiful weather here today. Really fresh air, sunny, a bit chilly in the shadow, but nice on the sunny side of the street. Spend the morning reading in 'the 200 most famous people of the century'. We're talking about the 20th century then, of course.. We always think that the years before the sixties were even less exciting then the early part of the sixties. Not true. Between the war and the sixties, there were anarchists, existentialists, feminists like Simone de Beauvoir, beat-generation poets, rebels like Marlon Brando and James Dean, the whole start of the Rock and Roll scene, the Cobra art movement and even Dutch writer Gerard Reve wrote his book on estrangement and boredom: de Avonden. So I could just go even further back in history to find examples that fit the theory of timeframe cycles. But I won't. I'll write a book on the times I myself have lived through. You have to start somewhere. So I read about Cassius Clay, later Mohammad Ali. Thomas Hauser wrote his biography: “he reflected and shaped the social and political currents of the age in which he reigned.” The Ali of the sixties “stood for the proposition that principles mattered, that equality among people was just and proper...” Alcohol, women and swearing were unthinkable for the early sixties hero, he wanted to be a "clean and sparkling hero". Yep, that's our early sixties. When he renamed himself in 1967 (yes, change was in the air for everyone) and on his new found faith refused to go to Vietnam, his image sank. But being a fighter, of course he forced his way back in the public's heart. A few years in the seventies, even the people in the countryside could take a little bit more from their heroes.
A few people have asked me how I've been, this month. How is Vancouver. How am I? Did I meet people? Am I enjoying myself?
Will think about it overnight. Tomorrow I will be here for exactly 4 weeks. See what I can think of..
